Tag Archives: writing

Chaos Theory?

Posted on by

I can tell by the gently worded reminder from WordPress that it’s time to renew my domain mapping fee, that this little endeavor is slipping towards its one year anniversary. It’s been said that time flies when you’re having fun. Apparently it also flies when you spend most of you free time plotting ways to extract yourself from situations less than good. That’s not to say that it hasn’t been a good year overall. Me and mine all remain on the correct side of the dirt, so really, everything else is just gravy. Still, though, it doesn’t feel like a year since I started poking around at this thing. I’ve been toying around with the idea of a facelift for the site. Maybe revamping the tags, lists, and sidebars. I wish I had spent a little more time learning the controls before diving right into with a new host. There are alot of the layout that I’m not quite pleased with, but just haven’t taken the time to make right.

One of the biggest issues I’m currently having with blogging is what feels like a lack of focus. Sure, I’m writing whatever happens to be on my mind at the time, but aside from “work sucks, trying to change it” and “people suck, trying to avoid them” there isn’t much of a thread that unifies the whole. Categories and tags are haphazardly applied (when I remember to list them at all) and it feels a bit like every post is adding that much more chaos to the mix. Was that a long way of saying I’d like my place in the internet to be as well-ordered as my place in the real world? Probably. OCD clearly doesn’t make a distinction between the real world and the electronic one. In a perfect world, I’d have my message calendar all mapped out months in advance and know exactly when I wanted to write about which topics. Not a chance of that happening any time in the near future, so I’ll content myself with coming up with a way to make it all a little more coherent.

You may see some changes in the next couple of days/weeks or you might not. It mostly depends on whether the dust building up on every flat surface of the house or the disorganized musings of my curmudgeonly mind win the prize as most in need of a good going after. Of course it also depends on how much time Maggie gives me before trying to climb up on the desk… Like she’s doing now.

Red letters…

Posted on by

When I was teaching, I always had a red pen within arms reach. You never know when you’re going to have to decimate a book report or bleed all over an essay test. Once I left that life behind, the red pens mostly went into retirement… but they’re making a come back. My desk at the house is currently covered in red-inked post-it notes… red being the indication that it’s something that either needs to get worked into the blog or the book that I keep threatening to write. Most of them are just daily observations or one-off experiences that seemed noteworthy at the time. It’s not so much that I set out to watch people as it is that the quirks of office geography allow me the opportunity to see more than be seen. Add that to my natural tendency to observe the world around me and it’s almost impossible not to notice things as they happen. Most of these post its will probably never be more than red letters on yellow paper, but every now and then one of them pays off. In case you’re wondering, today isn’t one of those days.

Some people can sit down and write final copy off the top of their heads. I’m not one of those people, unfortunately. Generally my better posts start life as a few notes, then get a first draft, then get obliterated in the second draft, and then get a few additional tweaks before seeing the light of day. Sure, it’s been a four day weekend, and there has been plenty of theoretical time to draft up a bunch of these, but all that time was consumed by my new need to chase down Nazi riflemen through the streets of Berlin. Most of my hobbies tend towards the time consuming and I tend a little towards the obsessive… maybe that new game system wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had, but it sure is fun. Then again, it’s already paid for itself by generating its own post it notes dripping with red ink. Now if I could just find a way to quit sleeping, maybe I’d have the time to get everything written up and posted.

47

Posted on by

Usually the arrival of the holiday season leads to some of the better posts around here, but at the moment the creative juices are mostly blocked. It’s a function of distraction more than anything else. The creative juices should start flowing freely again as soon as the current untenable position gets resolved. Even in the event that no resolution is forthcoming, I’m cautiously optimistic that the sheer weight of human stupidity on display during the holidays will be enough to get me over this latest hump. Once that sweet, sweet day of resolution comes, though, I have a feeling that you’ll know it because you won’t be able to stop the flow of new posts.

For those keeping track at home, the statistics are currently: 47 resumes submitted, 15 flat rejections, 1 referral, and 0 interviews. I’m drawing in the law of large numbers and to paraphrase Grant, I intend to fight on this line if it takes all Winter.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics…

Posted on by

It feels like I’ve been blogging forever… It especially feels that way when I have to flail around looking for something new to write about. Looking at the data, though, I can see that I’ve been going at it at one place or another since 2005. I guess time files when you’re hostile and willing to share it with the world. In fairness, five years in internet time basically is forever, so I guess I should consider that some kind of milestone.

Some weeks and months have been better than others. My best ever single day = 58 unique views (this was the iPhone 4 release day incidentally). Best month ever (June 2010), 388 unique hits. The statistic that I’m most proud of isn’t a hit count per se. It’s simply the phase most often used in search engines that brings people to the blog: Teamwork Sucks. Given that October is the one year anniversary of that particular post, I take a perverse pride that it still has legs. Don’t believe me? Go ahead and Google “teamwork sucks” and you’ll find that I’m #7. It’s like I’ve really made a difference in the world. We’re going to disregard the fact that Google’s link doesn’t take you to the actual post… It’s the thought (and that fact that it gets you to the blog at all) that counts.

Since Get Off My Lawn seems to be something that is here to stay for the foreseeable future, there are a few changes that I’m hoping to get to in the near future. I want to get a little more focused in my writing… 21 categories and 131 tags is probably something that I can cut down with a little effort. Bringing a little structure and order to the back room of this operation strikes me as being a very good idea.

Good days have a price…

Posted on by

If you’re a wanna be writer whose best blogs come out of days that piss you off the most, the price of ending the day on a good note is that it severely restricts the available pool of material. Sure, the blood pressure is a few points lower, but I’m paying good money for meds to keep that in check so I don’t really need the help. Besides, I need the material, because let’s face it, sunshine and lollipops generally don’t equal great reading.

The good news, in this case, is that there are way more bad days than there use to be so good content should be in ready supply. Until the next big batch of stupid comes along, I’ll find something to keep writing about… But it’s not going to be sunshine and lollipops, I can guaran-damn-tee it.

Getting Googled…

Posted on by

One of the most interesting aspects of behind the scenes blogging is watching what random phrases make you turn up on some of our favorite search engines. Today is was a search via Google on “Citibank Visa Caribbean” that linked to my post “Citibank Visa (Sucks).”  Of course that’s really only interesting at all if you are interested in learning what people search for and want to try driving traffic to your site. Since I’m not selling anything, it’s mostly academic for me. Of course it’s also a bit of an ego rub when some topic garners enough e-interest to pop up on one of the aggregators. Like any good addict, though, you realize the first hit is free and then spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out the right combination of tags that will send you straight to the top. That’s probably easier of you stick to one major them or topic, but since the likelihood of me ever getting the focus more narrow than “things I’m interested in”  is ridiculously low, I’ll have to be satisfied with the occasional hit from the big boys.

For me, blogging is as much about the experience of writing as it is actually getting anyone to read the damned thing. I spend so much time writing in technicalities that it’s easy to forget that I use to do it for fun. And it’s here that I get to keep myself in touch with that idea. If I ever get the chance to writie The Definitive History of Whatever or Everyone is Stupid and Here’s Why, at least we can point here and say this is where is all started.

Otherwise occupied…

Posted on by

Writing is an act of self-revelation. Unfortunately, I’m at a bit of a point where I’m not positioned to reveal much of what’s going on behind the scenes just now. Perhaps someday it will come out in the special edition “unreleased blogs,” but for the time being mum’s the word. I don’t like being this quiet for this long, particularly on issues that are impacting everything else that I do… and I certainly don’t like how much it impacts my ability to find something to write about other than the issue that’s embargoed. For the time being, I’m going to try to be content with getting my thoughts together in other venues and preparing as best I can with as much information as I can get together. Suffice to say for the moment that other concerns are monopolizing my time. It will be a happy thing when this is no longer the case. I want swift resolution and to get the issue behind me as quickly as possible. In the interim, I’ll keep posting as the spirit moves me, but keep your expectations under control, as I don’t think there will be an epic rant posted any time in the near future. Here’s hoping January will be a better month than December has been.

Change of venue…

Posted on by

After some serious consideration I have decided that it was time to enlarge my horizons a bit and jump into a more serious mode of blogging. That’s not to say that my previous blog wasn’t serious, but rather as an adjunct of MySpace, blogging wasn’t what the system was built to do. I’m happily ensconced here at Blogger now, and hope that we will all find it a productive change of venue. I’ll get to strengthen my chops among the serious bloggers here and hopefully those who stumble onto my new home for ranting and raving will find a better product. Sometimes you just need to change your perspective and I’m hopeful that this will be a good one.

Contemplating a change…

Posted on by

So, for the last few weeks, I’ve contemplated moving the blog to a host that offers a few more utilities and options for posting my semi-regularly scheduled missives. To be frank, the only reason I keep the MySpace page updated these days is because of the blog. A dedicated blogging platform just seems easier to manage on a day-to-day basis than keeping a dying website around to just support a blog… Why not cut out the middle-man and focus on what I really enjoy doing… ranting about all that is stupid in the world. I wouldn’t be leaving MySpace, of course, but rather putting the page into kind of a suspended animation mode so I have a presence here, but not something that needs regular care and feeding. Hopefully I’ll make a final decision after I’ve had a chance to play around with some of the hosting sites and see if they’ll fill the bill. As always, your thoughts are welcome.