Tag Archives: blogging

Perfectly average…

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It was a perfectly average day. Nothing good, nothing bad, just minutes ticking by until it’s time to go to bed, wake up, and start the process over from the beginning again. I’m not saying that like it’s necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes you need those average days to smooth out the rough edges of days you spend chasing your own tail. Maybe it’s even more true when you’re brain is already checked out for a long-overdue vacation. And no, I’m not counting the three days I spent on the couch last week as a vacation. I might not be into backcountry skiing or skydiving, but laying on the couch, mouthbreathing, and watching old episodes of House on iTunes does not qualify as relaxing and restorative in my book.

The one obvious down side of being perfectly average is that it doesn’t lend itself to high interest blogging… which is when you get what we have here today, a blog post about blog posts. Sure, I could have probably forced some new topic out of my head and onto the page, but it feels artificial and generally turns out to be even worse schlock than going free form and letting whatever happens happen. I know everyone is use to being entertained 24/7 in the information age, but hey, we all need a day off now and then.

I’m sure tomorrow will be more interesting. It’s hard to fathom two days in a row where there is legitimately nothing significant to report.

Archival quality…

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It’s Sunday again and I know everyone has been eagerly awaiting their taste of what live was like way back in 2007. I’m happy to present for your perusal, five new (old) posts – the first five from September 2007. From what I can piece together there was alot of travel work work going on during the first half of the month – so interesting that apparently I forgot that September 11th was a thing. Fortunately the drudgery of business travel didn’t keep me from finding something wrong with the neighbors and being sure to tell the whole world about it. Overall, I think it’s a good cross section of the day-to-day mundane thoughts and the more epic ranting that you’ve all come to know and love over the last seven years of blogging.

Without further delay, enjoy your taste of September 2007.

Fooling myself…

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After a day of working in the yard, doing laundry, running errands, and making a passing effort at starting dinner, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that we’ve entered that time of year where some activities are going to have to get thrown over the side. I’ve talked before about some of the unique challenges of being a one man show, but the simple fact is if there isn’t enough time to get to everything, the stuff I don’t particularly like doing is going to be put off indefinitely – I’m looking at you here vacuuming, mopping, and dusting. Frankly, I never much liked you anyway and since you’re in head-to-head competition with working in the yard, you never really stood a chance.

It’s one of those times I wish I wasn’t quite so OCD about things being “just so,” but I’ve pretty much given up on ever letting things slide with being good enough. So what’s really going to happen for the next five months is a cycle of ignoring the interior dust and dirt until I get twitchy, launching an all-day cleaning binge about once a month, and repeating as necessary until the grass stops growing in the fall. Sure, I could hire it out… but then I have to deal with the awkwardness of having strange people wandering around in the house. I’m sure you can guess how anxious I am for that to happen. So in the spirit of spring, here I sit trying my best to ignore every rug that needs vacuumed, every stray bit of dust and dog hair, and don’t even get me started on the wood floors that need mopped.

OK, so I could have probably spot cleaned the kitchen in the time it took me to tap this out, but let’s face it, writing isn’t one of those things that I’m very likely to give up in favor of cleaning now is it?

Best of breed…

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I’ve been using the blog a lot lately to hock my own merchandise. I’m going to spare you from a round of that this evening in the understanding that as much as I wish it might be otherwise, you might be interested in hearing a voice other than mine from time to time. In that spirit, I wanted to take this opportunity to feature three blogs that I read and enjoy on a regular basis because they’re some combination of funny, inappropriate, or informative.
I’m listing these in no particular order other than the way my bookmark folder has them organized:

1. ChowderHead – Wildly funny and decidedly inappropriate. Do you need more reasons to click over and give it a read?

2. 25ToFly – Commentary on life, blogging, and the hilarity that ensues. She’s good stuff.

3. Break Room Stories – I did a four year hitch with McDonald’s, but I was always mercifully protected from the general public by two or three flat-top grills. This blog confirms what a good idea staying in the kitchen was.

One of the things about blogging is that you tend to do a lot of reading of other blogs in your travels around the internet. Some, obviously, are better than others. If you don’t have quite as much time to wander around the internet looking for the good bits as I do, these three blogs are some of the best of breed. Give them a read. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

Throwback Sundays…

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If there’s anything you can count on in this world, it’s that when Sunday morning rolls around, I’m going to welcome everyone into my way back machine and tell you stories about what it was like back in the olden days of blogging. In keeping with that tradition, I offer up a five selections from January 2007. I have to say that the January 14th post, Middle Class in Crisis, holds up remarkably well and, to me at least, is as on point now in 2012 as is was five years ago.

The world has changed… but clearly not that much.

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If the historical record is to be believed, September 2006 was every bit as full of political angst as is 2012. You’d think after six years I’d have it all sorted out by now, right? Apparently not. It seems the same intra-party squabbling that makes me crazy now was alive and well back then too. For the sake of consistency, I’m glad to see it was at least making me crazy then, too. So without further introduction, step into the way back machine and have a look at what was on my mind in mid-September 2006.

Begin rant…

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The problem with wanting to think of yourself as a writer, or a blogger for that matter, is that you actually at some point need to do some writing. You have to write when you don’t feel like it. You have to write when you have nothing particularly interesting to say. You know to write when you’re tired or have a dozen other things that need to get done. You have to write when it snows, when it rains, and when it’s sunny. You can’t be full of excuses about why you’ll get to it tomorrow or the next day or the next week. That might be why writing in its many forms is, is a hobby. There are nights when all I want to do is bash my fists against the keyboard because words just will not come out of the tips of my fingers no matter how many times they smack the keys. If it weren’t for then needing to replace the computer, there are days I’m sorely tempted to find out of this four year old laptop will blend. But I don’t. I walk away. I leave it sit. I stew about a problematic passage for a day or two and then I come back. All the how-to-be-a-writer books say write. Write every day. Write no matter what. You know what? Some days I just dont have it in me… not three hundred words or a dozen. They’re just not there. Sometimes they come out so fast that my modified version of typing just can’t keep up. That’s the way it goes. Well, it’s the way it goes for me at least. Maybe someone out there is having good luck with the write every day no matter what approach, but I can guaran-damn-tee that it’s not doing a thing for me. Some days, some week, some months are just going to have to be better than others. And if some fancy pants wrote-a-book-about-writing expert on the subject, well, he can just suck it.

/rant

Sunday in the Archives…

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Well, it’s Sunday again and everyone knows that means it’s time for another trip to the archives. This week we’re wrapping up the posts from July 2006. No epic rants this time around, but still an interesting glimpse into what was rattling around in my head six years ago. You’ll forgive me, I hope, if it doesn’t seem possible that it was that long ago.

Prep time…

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I don’t see any real in depth blog posts happening in the near future. I spent most of tonight dragging out old baby gates and trying to “slip-proof” as much of the kitchen as I could manage. I’m working on the assumption that Winston will go to surgery tomorrow afternoon after our morning consultation. Sure I’ll have all afternoon and evening tomorrow to do that, but I think I’m just trying to say busy. I hate the thought of my my boy needing to more than likely go under the knife, but that’s the tomorrow I’m trying to mentally prepare for… Plus, there’s a new iOS downloading on my iPad at the moment and I’m going to need to stop trying to write and go check that out in a minute.