floodgate.blog

I’m glad to see this being reported, even if it’s buried in the CNN Political Ticker.

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive – AIG’s political donations « – Blogs from CNN.com.

I remember the days when I couldn’t get enough of Friendster.. then that gave way to MySpace, and that to Facebook.  I am now in the process of incorporating the following into the blog: twitter, flickr, last.fm, and my web links (reader + press this + delicious)… all of this probably going through friendfeed… I guess I am a social-networks whore… shame on me :-/

In case you just tuned in, you’ve no doubt noticed that there is as much posting on here as there is content that seems to be generated.  Perhaps some explanation is in order?

For the longest time I struggled to come to terms with my online identity.  What would I want people to know, read, etc, about me.  I started following blogs to see the various directions people took things in, and began deciding what I wanted to do.  I find that my style is very similar to Tim Lauer, a elementary school principal on the west coast.  Occasionally he writes about issues impacting his school, but more often than not it is a reblog of some other content: items from google reader, flickr, and recently posterous.  While I’m not doing exactly the same thing, it’s rather close.. I am not a principal, I am a teacher (might argue these are the same, but I’m glad to not have “front office” responsibility), I do post OFTEN through my google reader feed (see the “Shared Items” category), and I am in the process of integrating twitter and flickr into my blog (they are now in the sidebar, temporary until I decide what level of awesome each deserves).

My goals looking forward are to get more into “asides”, which might related closely to twitter (similar, in that they both are micro-formats), and having twitter and Wordpress image galleries be one and the same.  I know it can be done… it just remains to be seen if someone has done it, or if I have to on my own.  I favor the “I’m not hardcore php coding” way, although always look for excuses to jump back in.

I am a big fan of the integration I have with my google reader feed and with the lovely “Press This” functionality in Wordpress.  Soon Press This will give way to delicious and appear similar to google reader.. and finally both will become one and the same.  I like to share what I find and offer my thoughts.  It’s what I do.

I guess my response to this is “duh”… If people aren’t buying cars or aren’t getting the financing, they are stuck with older cars that, wait for it, actually break down from time to time.

U.S. car repair shops getting mileage out of thriftier times – CNN.com.

While I’m sure only a few people noticed, I seriously reduced my online existence.. a complete segregation of services, removing many personally identifyable items (in particular I went form 100’s of pictures to 8 on Facebook), and stopped volunteering anything about my life (removed the link between twitter and facebook, and I stopped posting).  I got to a place where I was very dissatisfied with my existence online.  I found myself picking faults in everything (both my own and others) and decided it was just easier if I did not participate (at least I wouldn’t piss anyone else off!)

So, this is the week after that.  Like my last post, I’m still “up in the air” with the “do I care who reads this” dilemma, but after installing a web analytics package, I noticed that I actually rank semi-highly for a few searches in google.  I then tried an experiment where after I wrote that whole “what does it all mean” post (same as the “do I care..” post), I posted a link to it in my status message on Facebook to see who cared, who didn’t know about it, and who was brave enough to step outside the confined world of a social network.  I got two comments.  I considered it a victory, as I had a friend leave a comment, and then someone who probably never knew I had a blog also left their mark.  I feel better about it, for now.. I’m now understanding the importance of tagging, well constructed topics, and proper writing (of course this post is none of those).

So, here’s “the week after” in bullet form..

• I upgraded my phone when I didn’t really need to.
• I found a happy middle ground where I can care and not care about my blog at the same time.
• The temps have been warm, so my spirits are lifting (makes me wonder if this was all due to a winter depression!)
• Finally made my appleTV be my bitch (it now does what I want it to).
• My car ran well for an entire week.  I also consider this monumental!

That’s all for now.. I refuse to tag this post as.. well, it’s pretty much a “42″ answer for the last week with no specific direction.  Enjoy your day!  I’m going to go open some windows and let this 56 degree air blow through!

I realized today was probably the highest posts-per-day for me in a while (I want to say ever, but that would require an effort to validate, and the energy just isn’t there).  As you can see by the plethora of links, I finally got back into google reader and started reading some stuff.  I also have begun analyzing the (minimal) traffic that this blog attracts.

I was surprised to see that I got a hit through google’s image search.  I have been in this kind of “restructuring” mode where I am considering moving my blog (and other “services”) to more appropriate (at least to me) homes.  I guess what it comes down to is “do I really care about people reading my blog?”

I’m not sure I have a legitimate or profound answer to this.  I mean, I do care.  It’s human nature.  I don’t know that I seek admiration, hordes of followers, or a level of prestige with my blog, but to know that someone other than myself (and my wife, although I don’t even know that she reads this!) is interested.

To bring this full circle, I know that it all starts right here; the guy at the keyboard spurting out random words into semi-coherent sentences.  I need to write about things that are relevant to me.  I also need to involve myself more in the blogosphere.  I don’t know that I’ve done that, nor that I know how.  With engines like technorati going stale (they would disagree), and with the disturbing accuracy of google, I don’t have a regular following (nor am I a regular follower, except for my google reader chaos).  I’ve found that the times I actually get comments are when I partake in the weekly “meme”s that float around aimlessly online.  I see reminants of one in my drafts folder right now that I never finished.. pity!

I need to do more.  Whether it’s dropping comments on blogs, or writing and submitting my own posts, I need to be more proactive in my invisible online existence.  I blog because I want to.  I have very little concern for whether people react positively, negatively, or otherwise, to what I write, but thorooughly enjoy that they react in the first place.  I blog when I have time, which is increasingly becoming late at night.  I blog about what I see, find, hear, read.  I try to avoid this, but I sometimes piss and moan on my blog about the bullshit that occurs every day (cough*stimulus.. i mean spending… shit*cough).

So, I guess the “give it the ole college try” is the motto of the hour.  Maybe it’ll work this time.  Probably worth the effort to see how many times I’ve come up to the same crossroads and written about it.. I’ll probably run out of fingers trying to keep count :-/

p.s.  If you actually read this all the way through, drop me a comment and let me know!

Readability – An Arc90 Lab Experiment.

Now this is a really great idea.  So simple.  I wish I could come up with ideas like this!!!!

How to Create a Professional Logo | Webdesigner Depot.

A good walk through explaining everything, and something I imagine I will investigate soon!

One of my projects that refuses to “get off the ground” is to have some sort of link aggregator (like “PressThis”, only not one at a time) that will post a group of links with comments either after x-number of links, or whenever I feel like it.  So, until that happens, here’s me doing it by hand (yes, I know there are ways to do it out there with delicious, etc, just not there yet!)

http://www.twhirl.org/ – Air desktop app for twitter, looks sweet.

10 Twitter Hacks: http://prblog.typepad.com/strategic_public_relation/2008/02/top-10-twitter.html

more later