Category Archives: blogging

The number two thousand…

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The earliest post I’ve been able to track down showed up on June 1, 2006. There were some earlier efforts, I’m almost sure, but my own records only go back that far. If there are earlier posts out there somewhere, I’ve lost them to the electronic ether.

Nine years and 1,999 posts later we arrive at my 2,000th post. I’m not sure if that means I have too much to say, too much free time, or too much nascent desire for attention. A combination of the three is the most likely reason I’ve stuck with it this long. For whatever reasons, while other hobbies and interests have come and gone, the blog, in all its many forms has remained a consistent part of my life. At this point I’m not sure how I would self-identify without it.

It’s been tempting over the years to monetize the effort, to sell my services to other sites, or even to give it up completely, but obviously none of those ideas ever stuck. For these last 2,000 posts I’ve always been writing about whatever happened to be on my mind. It’s always been writing to sooth my own soul and to suit my own sensibilities.

Like it says up there in “About” at the top of the site:

Let’s get one thing straight from the beginning: I’m not a regular guy. I don’t spend all weekend watching sports and I think domestic beer, for the most part, sucks. I’m never going to discuss how much I can bench press or how big my engine is. What I will do is comment on those issues that strike my interest on any given day including but not limited to travel, politics, technology and life’s unavoidable interaction with stupid people. Some posts will be mundane others will be rants of a more epic variety. I strive to keep it entertaining, but in the end I’m writing for my own benefit, not for an audience. If you’re waiting for a big finish, there isn’t one. This is what it is.

Maybe that’ll change at some point in the future, but I suspect you’ll hear much the same thing in 2024 when we’re talking about the 4,000th post.

Thanks for nothing…

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Due to a particularly long, tiresome meeting today I had papers with margins filled with good ideas – blog topics for days. Once I wrote them down, I promptly forgot about them because, after all, I wrote them down and didn’t need to memorize them. That would be entirely true if I didn’t then chuck my folder with all those margin notes onto a back corner of my desk and then promptly grab my keys and run for the door at the end of the day.

So here I sit with plenty of good ideas locked 20 miles away and utterly incapable of dredging any but the fuzziest recollection from my fragile human memory. This is what happens when I can’t take notes on my phone like a normal person. Yet another reason we should embrace modernity and cast aside the forest of yellow legal pads inhabiting my desk.

So that’s it for tonight. It’s the blog that almost was, but can’t be, because I was fool enough to write my ideas down on a dead tree byproduct instead of recording it as electrons… and because I forgot to throw my folder in my backpack on the way out. But I’m blaming antiquated record keeping methodologies rather than my own, perhaps flawed, end of the day closeout procedures.

The only good to come from this is that it means I may not have to have a single original thought for all of next week.

Blank space…

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Usually by the time I get home at the end of the day I’ve got half a dozen post its or a few hastily scribbled margin notes to remind myself about whatever blogworthy ideas I had during the course of the day. Yeah, I’ve long since given up the illusion that I can remember something that happened at 8AM when I sit down to write ten hours later.

It didn’t happen today. Not one single note anywhere. Plenty happened, of course, just nothing that I would consider even marginally entertaining… and certainly not something I’d want to relive for 30 or 45 minutes this evening. What I’m saying is that tonight I’ve got nothing. Just wide open blank space where a blog ought to be.

I’m honestly surprised it doesn’t happen more often. Even surrounded by the best topics, some nights it just doesn’t happen. Missouri is burning again. A card carrying socialist is drawing 25,000 people to his political rallies. China devalued its currency. The EPA just dumped millions of gallons of toxic waste water into a clear mountain river. The state of Alabama is the subject of a Go Fund Me campaign. There’s plenty enough going on that seems worth commenting on.

Any one of those issues would chew up 300 words without looking back and yet even while I sit here, just naming the jackassery in the air today makes me exhausted. It’s not so much that I don’t care as that I’m too annoyed by what passes for civilization to even be bothered to comment. All I really want to do is shut down, pull a cork, and settle in with a good book. It’s not one of my finer or more engaged moments, but it’s the fact of the matter.

Maybe tomorrow it will matter, but for tonight I just can’t be bothered enough to give a damn.

1,001 misguided souls…

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From time to time WordPress tells me things. Last night for instance it told me that I’ve managed to gather 1,001 people who regularly get some kind of exposure to the blog. That number is pretty eavenly divided by people who follow me directly on WordPress and others who are friends on Facebook. Twitter doesn’t even break into triple digits. Still, 1,001 is, in my opinion, a surprisingly respectable number… especially considering there’s nothing here that could be considered a theme, consistency isn’t exactly my strong point, and the very best you can really expect to find here is the addled raving of a working schmuck who’s desperately trying to ignore the fact he’s careening through middle age to the beat of a drummer apparently only he can hear.

This blog has evolved from just a writing exercise to become my “batshit crazy release mechanism” and it’s an absolute pleasure to share it five times a week with all of you 1,001 poor misguided souls. I really do appreciate having each and every one of you along on the road to whatever it is this becomes – even if it’s only ever one lone voice of sanity crying out in a world gone increasingly mad.

Zilch…

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Yeah, the world’s going to hell in a handbag, but that doesn’t mean I have to write about it every evening. Thats one of the perks of being a blog and not a news site. Even if it’ newsworthy, even if I have an opinion, I can dismiss the issue of the day without fear of blowback. That’s a degree of freedom that doesn’t suck.

Today is one of those days that presented me with a wealth of blog-able material, but I just cant muster enough interest in any of it to justify the 350 words. The challenge of living in interesting times is that now and then it all just feels so very uninteresting.

So there you have it. Not an excuse, but at least a passingly rational explanation for why I’m opting not to turn in my homework tonight.

Sometimes the give-a-shit indicator just doesn’t budge off zero.

Early delivery…

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Not long after I finished putting the finishing touches on What Annoys Jeff this Week, I realized that today is Wednesday. It feels vaguely like that may end up as the rare “4th thing” this week. With one written and reasonably well edited blog post in the barn for today, you can imagine my level of interest in ginning up another one on what is essentially no notice. Although it does happen from time to time subject to the demands of late breaking news, turning one around because I was too dense to count the days of the week doesn’t happen very often. In fact I wish it wasn’t happening right now, because then I’d be off tending to other things.

I could have gone ahead and made a one time only adjustment and run with what I had on Wednesday instead of Thursday, but after 2+ years it’s a rhythm I feel hard pressed to break now. Therefore, instead of something well reasoned, or dare I say even entertaining, you’re getting a fly-by-night fill in post in hopes that it will pass as good enough for Wednesday. It probably will. For all its vaunted status as the middle of the week, Wednesday still strikes me as the point where people are too worn down to pay all that much attention to anything that isn’t their deep, longing desire for Friday to be here already.

You know it’s interesting… There are a metric crapload of things going on in the world that are worth commenting on, even if it’s just in passing. The older I get, though, the more difficult I find it to make myself be interested in those things. Maybe it’s just advanced cynicism setting in or a decreasing level of tolerance for bullshit, but more and more often it feels like the world just being the world – messy, chaotic, and headed directly to hell in a hand basket.

Or I could just be busy enough tending my own garden to give a good damn about what new asshattery is lose in the world on any given day.

An off night…

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One of the problems with blogging that no one ever seems to mention is that sometimes after sitting in front of a monitor for eight hours the very last thing you want to do when you’re home and settling in for the evening is once again set yourself down in front of the computer. Tonight is one of those kinds of nights. I’ve sat at my desk now three times since around 6 o’clock hoping that something would pop into my head, but it’s feeling like a lost cause – the rain drumming against the skylights is one of those sounds that may have a propensity to make me very, very sleepy. That’s a good fact to know, but not in any way constructive for getting anything done between now and lights out…

Which, of course is how you end up with a blog post like this one; a few lines offered up to justify how and why I just don’t feel like trying all that hard tonight. After a couple thousand posts, I’m going to go ahead and say I’m entitled to have an off night here and there.

Posts on demand…

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Since this blog has taken on the feeling of a full time discussion of the trials and tribulations of home buying, I’m going to fall back on an a tried and true method of ginning up some new ideas for those periods when my brain is churning through some house related issue about which you likely have little to no actual interest.

That’s right! For a limited time only I’m opening the request line and offering up my take on the topic or topics of your choice.

I won’t make an “I’ll answer everything” promise as there are still a few bits of life I don’t think belong on the internet, but for the most part the field is wide open to your ideas – so go ahead and leave a comment, send me a message on Facebook, a direct message on Twitter, email, text, of whatever method you prefer. I always like these little exercise because they get me outside whatever is going on in my head at any given moment. Hopefully that keeps things a little more interested for everyone out there, too.

So yeah, go ahead and help me help you, ok?

Five…

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I don’t usually post on Fridays because they tend to be the black hole of blogging. No matter how interesting a post you have, no one is going to see it anyway so it’s generally better to hold it for the next week.

Today is one of those rare exceptions to the rule simply because this is the 5 year anniversary of my transition to WordPress and the introduction of jeffreytharp.com. Big milestone here. It’s the rare bird indeed that manages to hold my attention through 1,826 days, 37,628 views, and 500 comments.

Thanks to everyone who’s been around since the beginning. Welcome to those who are just joining us. I like to think I’m still getting warmed up and finding my stride in the digital world… so we’ll just have to see how thinks look in another five years.

Master of my domain…

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I just renewed my domain mapping agreement with WordPress… which really only means that your bookmark to http://www.jeffreytharp.com will continue to work for the next year and you’ll be able to avoid tracking me down using the half-mile long default address assigned by WordPress when you start a free blog. Nothing online is really permanent, but through next February I’ll continue to be the master of my domain.