The author is sleeping. He worked his you-know-what off all week so far (and it’s only Wednesday) and had to go to bed. He’ll be back at it tomorrow.
Sometimes you just have to pass out.
SSShhhhhhh…
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Monthly Archives: July 2007
One for Vermont…The Simpson’s in Springfield
Who would have guessed? Out of over 50 towns throughout the old US of A named “Springfield”, who would have even thought that the Springfield of the Green Mountain state would be chosen to host the premier of the new Simpson’s Movie?
Well YAY for us!
Now, along with fall foliage, maple syrup, beautiful scenery, quaint life style, hiking, hunting, skiing, snowmobiling and the smell of cow manure, Vermont will be known as hosting World Premier Movies too. This is where it all started they’ll say…That Oscar winning Simpson’s movie premiered right here in little old Springfield VT. Tour buses will roll through town pointing out the theater where lines of folks nearly a half mile long waited anxiously to have their turn to watch this amazing display of theatrical art.
Okay, okay…I’m not really being as cynical as I sound about this. I think it’s pretty neat that out of the whole US, Vermont won the honors. I may have to go see it myself sometime.
It’s just that I should never attempt a post in the morning before work. I’m just not at my best let’s say but I just couldn’t resist. Now to pack my lunch and go make a paycheck.
Technorati Tags: Springfield, Vermont, The Simpson’s, movie premier
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A New Keyboard, an Upcoming Phone Call and ABW
Such things be happening here in my small corner of the Blogosphere these last couple of days not the least of which is a finally buying myself a new keyboard.
One of the most frustrating things for me about this art of blogging is the typing end of things…meaning I’m not one…a typist that is. I’m one of those 2 to 3 fingered keyboard pokers that has to look at the keyboard in order to see what he’s typing. If I look at the screen like most touch typists are able to do then things stant turining pio likew ythis.
Anyway, to further enhance my frustration I was experiencing other than my lack of typing ability was that I was starting to get the idea that I should be using a higher quality keyboard then the old original HP beater that came with my computer three years ago. And as an old(er) computer tech and with all my experience in working with computers, data entry, writing tech manuals and then just writing alone, I knew how frustrating it can be if you weren’t using a good keyboard to get your work done. That became readily apparent as my blog here gained somewhat in it’s notoriety and I found that I simply could not put it off any longer. But what do I know about buying a quality, good for writing, keyboard. In a word…nothing.
Oh, honey!
Yes, I called upon the one I love the most to help me out with this little problem of mine. My 55 WPM (on a bad day), fingers a blur on the keyboard baby to accompany me to Staples to help me pick out a “keyboard of quality”. and what a difference it made indeed! Buying a wrist rest which I hadn’t been using previously also helped out quite a bit—strange as that might seem. Just think of the work I can accomplish now!
I still have to look at the keyboard though.
An upcoming interview(?):
Sometime this coming weekend, if all goes right, I’ll be receiving a phone call from one of the more wise and wonderful blogger’s out there who is going to pick my brain (such as it is) and hopefully we’ll spend awhile talking about all sorts of silly things and general nonsense that abounds in and around the subject of blogging and the world in general. This is not an “interview” as the strict definition goes where one party asks a second party a bunch of questions questions and the second party answers said questions–more like a real time comment session I think would be a more accurate description.
I’m going to be a rotten guy and not tell you this person’s name yet since you never know what’s going to happen in a week’s time these days, but I promise to let you know how it went after the whole thing is over.
Absolute Beginners WordPress (ABW):
Things are back on track with Absolute Beginners WordPress after getting derailed when my health went south for so long. But now that the VA has finally found something that works and with that new keyboard of mine I not only have one new chapter underway but two of them! Chapters’s 4 and 5 of the ABW series should be fit for publishing in the next two days or so. Then it’s maybe one or two additional chapters (I’m not sure how many more yet), some work on the “Welcome” type page and the basic series will be ready for the unsuspecting public and all the feedback they are willing to give me. It’s the feedback that’s going to round out the overall series into something more polished and complete. But the basic “draft” version will have all the information that is needed for the new WordPress “do-it-yourself-er” to get their new blog up and running successfully and which is the whole point of the series in the first place.
Working on these two chapters today showed me how much more I can actually put into this series aside from the basics chapters themselves and still keep the overall site tailored specifically for the WordPress beginner. As I said when I first started out on this endeavor, there’s plenty of other more accomplished WordPress blogger’s out there who can cover the advanced end of things and that’s not an path I really wish to tread. I want to keep the series strictly for the those new to “hosting their own” but after all the ideas that popped into my head today whilst I was poking away at the keyboard I think it’s time to haul out pencil and pad and start jotting down these ideas for the future I think.
So that’s what’s been happening at Just Thinkin’ this weekend. Now I have to go reply to the comments I received today that I had to ignore while I was working on the series. Oh, for a winning lottery ticket so I could treat my honey to anything she wanted and to write all day long….in our new dome house we that we would have built…on the land she owns on the side of a hill…with the sounds of the forest all around…etc, etc, etc. 
Technorati tags: ABW, absolute beginner’s wordpress, wordpress beginner, wordpress
The Unfinished Community
I have been keeping a close eye on and participating in the discussion going on about the new “mass messaging” feature added to the MyBlogLog community site. I’ve found this pretty fascinating so far because as I first watched the idea of the personal computer take form all those years ago, through the idea of a graphic User Interface for the PC (Apple’s Lisa, Macintosh, OS2, Windows etc), through the advent of the World Wide Web and all that has come from it and my own discovery of blogging…now I’m find myself engrossed in watching and participating in the formation and continuing evolution of the blogging “community”. Still a very new thing and understandably going through the usual growing pains except this time the community itself is having a strong influence on the “do’s and don’ts” of it’s own community.
To me, the idea of the blogging community site such as MyBlogLog, Blog Catalog and Bumpzee for example is still too relatively new on the scene for anyone to have a really good idea about the beginning, middle and end of the actual process yet. In regards to what the actual purpose of these communities is for, in my observation, is still very much a work in progress with more learning ahead for everyone. It simply hasn’t had the time to evolve enough to have formed any sort of standard formula for success as yet. There’s still a lot of trial and error to be done and how can you know if something works or not if you don’t give it a try? You can believe me when I say that the community will give all the feedback that is needed to successfully round out a new feature or to dump it altogether.
This is something all bloggers should be looking at since the idea of community has always been one of people helping each other out and although we can’t exactly attend a some blogger’s barn raising or other such old fashioned community effort in this day and age, we certainly can have a seat at the “town meeting” in regards as to how our blogging community is laid out.
Technorati tags: Mybloglog, mass messaging, messaging, community messaging, email, spam
It’s Friday!
Ain’t it the truth though? Sometimes you just have to say it…
Thank God It’s Friday!
I even got up early so I’d be wide awake to express that very feeling. Sometimes you just have to take advantage of waking up in a good mood by telling everybody about it and what good is having a blog for if you can’t use it to wish a good day to everyone? I mean before I had a blog I attempted standing out in my front yard and yelling loudly about his very thing but after a couple times it became very apparent that wishing everyone a good morning in this manner annoyed the neighbors to the point of phoning the police. This of course, spoiled my fine mood and I really got tired of the judge snickering at me.
So now I have this great avenue called a blog to express these sentiments of mine without allowing all my “friends and neighbors” the ability to chuck various objects at me in an effort to shut me up (donuts are welcome though…even if you took a bite out of it). Not everyone wakes up in a good mood you know.
So here’s to a great weekend. May the police not ticket you, may the telemarketers forget your number, may the price of gas fall by a dollar and 14 cents (well…we won’t wish for too much) and may your world be just a bit brighter.
Note: Take advantage of the great mood I’m in. It doesn’t happen that often. 
MyBlogLog Community Messaging…Ripe for Spam?
One of the new functions recently introduced at MyBlogLog is the ability to send a message to your entire community in one single operation called Community Messaging. For those who haven’t found this yet it’s a new link added next to the links that reside to the right of the thumbnail of your blog. For the rest, read the post I linked to above.
The overall reaction to this announcement has been fairly negative in that most MLB members see this as a open conduit for spam from those who are using MLB strictly for marketing purposes (see the comments of the above post I linked to). It’s easy to see where all this negativity comes from since each message received generates an email to the addressed member as well unless they have turned this feature off which is usually not the case. Okay, in that respect the negative reactions make sense.
I do have to wonder (in my humble opinion) about the rather extreme choice of certain members who immediately decided to remove themselves from any community where the member in question used this mass mailing feature at all. One of these folks is Andy Beard as is plain to see from his blog post on this very subject.
Now I have much respect for Andy. His experience and know how plus his willingness to help others has always made him a bit of a favorite of mine but I also made up my my mind long ago that I’m going to disagree with him on a few points now and then. His thoughts on this particular subject are absolutely valid and for the most part, I agree with them but I simply can’t agree about leaving the community of just anyone who uses the broadcast mailing feature. To me it simply depends on what that person used community messaging for. If it’s just to say thank you to the members of their community(s) or send out a general announcement to their community members then that would be fine by me, just don’t do it everyday…alright? So absolutely no offense to Andy, he just offered the best example of this type of reaction and I always try to supply the best example.
The next day Eric of MyBlogLog put up another post in regard to that fairly massive feedback by dividing up his response into 4 separate thoughts. I do have to admire Eric for what I thought was an excellent response overall. In a nutshell, everything will stay as is for a week or so for feedback purposes and then adjusted accordingly to said feedback but there is much more to it so reading his post is a must.
So what’s my opinion? Okay…I know you didn’t ask but I’ll give it to you anyway. I agree with Andy’s points except the one I mentioned above and I agree with Eric’s stand on things as well. Very smart decision on his part. For me, I believe community messaging will end up policing itself by it’s very nature and the nature of the MLB communities themselves. The response by the MLB community at large to anyone who tries to use this new feature to intentionally send out spam, in my opinion, will be rapid and permanent.
Unlike the Internet as a whole where one can set up temporary email addresses and mass email setups that are here today…gone today, any potential spammer at MyBlogLog is directly connected to their own blog and community, in other words…they are a member as well not some anonymous Hotmail or Yahoo webmail address where there is no option for retaliation. If anyone tries to use community messaging for spamming purposes they may soon find themselves with no community of their own at all and maybe a significant drop in visitors at their associated blog as well. And when pointed out to the “powers that be” at MyBlogLog, they might just find themselves ousted out on their fanny along with it. I really don’t think it would take that long to effectively bring MyBlogLog to a relatively spam-free status as far as community messaging is concerned.
I believe the best thing for MyBlogLog to do is give it’s members the tools they need to weed out these potential spammers from the rest of the community by…
- Adding the “reply, “report”, “spam” and “delete” links attached to each community message received instead of just “delete”.
- Give us the option of turning off the receiving of community “mass” messages with the possibility of an auto-reply to the sender stating such. It would be even better if the content of the auto-reply could be changed by the user.
- Any member caught using community messaging for spamming purposes will have their account suspended…period.
So that’s my opinion of this whole conundrum of MyBlogLog’s new mass messaging feature such as it is. You have your own of course and if you wish to sound off here about it, you’re always welcome to as usual.
Oh, and by the way…I used that community messaging feature just once yesterday to thank my community members of this blog for joining my community in the first place and for dropping by here once and awhile. Something I just didn’t have time to do on an individual basis.
This morning I lost one community member. Wonder who that could be?
Technorati tags: Mybloglog, mass messaging, messaging, community messaging, email, spam
Good News For Veterans
Here’s one for the record books. A substantial increase in financing for the Department of Veterans Affairs for the care of the folks returning from Iraq and Afghanistan which can only help existing older vets as well, especially in the VA claims department which although has slowly but surely improving, has always been understaffed and over worked.
It’s almost as if the federal government has decided to take care of it’s own (latest, that is) before it’s too late instead of after so I’ll give credit where credit is due. Here’s one for us people.
Veterans Report – House Approves Record VA Budget
The U.S. House of Representatives recently approved a record budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). H.R. 2642, the 2008 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Bill, would increase the VA budget $6.7 billion above 2007 levels. It would hire 1,100 more VA claims adjudicators and would provide $600 million for three “Centers of Excellence” in mental health care and five polytrauma centers to care for the needs of thousands of men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with serious mental and physical conditions.
How do you feel about this action? Let your public officials know how you feel!
All my best to those young folks (and not so young folks) coming back from those conflicts. My thoughts are with you.
Technorati tags: veterans, Iraq, VA budget, Veteran’s Administration, record budget
Reflections To A Time of Learning
A post by Liz Strauss at her blog Letting Me Be… triggered the most amazing response from me (amazing to me that is). I’m modifying my response to her post only a bit to work it into this post. It’s about one of the hardest things in life that you might go through and everyone might have to sooner or later. This is how it went for me…
There came a time in my life where everything became black and white and at best, shades of gray. I despised everything and everybody. I was at a cusp where the responsibilities (taking care of ailing parents) were horrendous and my life was at a major turning point. The kind of change that you survive…or don’t. Without getting into too personal details, I found out three things from the experience.
It doesn’t take drugs or alcohol to hit “rock bottom”. Not at all. It’s finding your life turned upside down and losing everything you ever knew so quickly that there is no time to adjust. Simple as that and it can happen just like that with little or no warning. So take nothing for granted.
The second thing I learned is that it’s not hitting rock bottom that drives one to consider ending one’s life…hitting rock bottom means you’re forced to look hard at the “dirty” side of your soul, that place you shove all the bad experiences away in where you can bury them…forget them. You have no choice now and it’s that looking that can drive one to end their life if they find the sight too much to bear. And the third thing I learned is…
I could never take the life that I was given. My life had been filled with all sorts of unusually unique experiences, both good and bad and all marvelous and to take away what had been built up over all those years would be unforgivable.
Funny about how Liz put it in her post, about how she made to the allusion of a place or a room where the bad things are because that’s how I saw it also. I forced open the door and walked in and saw the light streaming in from the cracks and seams of the boarded up windows. I took a deep breath and pried those boards off and the “sun” streamed in. I propped open the windows with the very boards I had pried off and turned around for a look. The room was full of dust and cobwebs and in the center of the room was a pile of trash. Some in bags, some loose…all the nasty experiences of my life were there. So I went over and sat down in front of the pile (it seemed not as big as I thought it would be) and started picking through it one piece at a time. Those pieces that obviously didn’t matter anymore I threw into a discard pile to be thrown out and when I was done, all that was left were those experiences that I had failed to learn from before. And one by one I picked them up, turned them over and took them apart…and I learned what I should have learned before.
When I had finished, I bagged up the discards, put them outside the door and swept the place out. I left the windows open and the last thing I did was remove the door and prop it against a wall inside the room. I shouldered my broom, picked up the trash bag of discards and made my way back to reality and my life.
It took a few years before reality’s sun started to shine for me and I began to see the world in color again but I found that climbing out of the well I fell in and reaching the top was only the beginning (as I lay on the grass catching my breath from the climb). Now I had to continue on for nothing had changed as far as reality was concerned…only my outlook.
It’s a different life now and it’s a continuation. I’ll never again regret anything that came before. Answers to those questions everyone asks about who, what, where and why they are or why “this” happened, have slowly come my way, always when I least expect it, something that never happened before that fall to the bottom of the well.
And life is good again.
All this took place almost 9 years ago. I’m still having those “questions” answered as I mentioned above and although my own health has had it’s ups and downs, life is still good and looking better everyday. Sometimes, when our lives are at it’s darkest point and there seems to be no hope…no end in sight, we just have to hold on for just one more day and every day we have to say the same thing…just one more day. Nothing ever remains the same and if we can make through the darkness we’ll eventually come out into the light. I’m certainly glad I did.