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Archives for January 2011
I Did It For The Children
Prior to becoming a parent you might have had some ideas about what it would be like when you crossed over the threshold of parenthood. You might have had some inkling that you would love them dearly. You might have had some concept of the concern you would feel if they were ill or their safety was at risk. But chances are that you hadn’t any clue how your understanding of those things would change.
The capacity for love and the fear of something happening to your children are enormous. It is hard to properly express these things and in my mind virtually impossible for those who aren’t parents to understand. But that is neither here nor there. The point and purpose of this post isn’t to engage in a lot of self congratulatory blather about how cool parents are.
No this is a post that is for me first and then my children. I don’t want them to read or see this for quite some time. This is one of those posts that they can read in 20 years. This is what they read when they want to know what their father did when times were rough. And right now they are indeed that…rough. I am sailing through stormy seas and wondering if I will find a calm harbor to drop my anchor in,
A few weeks ago I described my situation with the following words:
I cannot win. There is a minuscule chance that things will go my way, but I am not real hopeful. This experience has been dreadful. It has been damaging, harmful and hurtful in ways that are still yet to be felt.
I intentionally did not publish them. I wanted to think about these words. I wanted to let them marinate and see how I felt later. I wanted to mull them over and figure out if that was just how I felt at the time or if it was indicative of my true feelings. The point wasn’t to react but to act. When I say that I won’t wear a sweater because someone else is cold it is because I mean it. I don’t jump just because someone says to.
Words have power and they have meaning. I look at these words and ask whether I understand them in the same way as when I wrote them. All of life is not a game or a contest, though sometimes we might wish it to be. Is it right or correct to talk about winning. Is this even a scenario in which winning can be discussed? Hell, I am not quite sure.
What I do know is that it is 1:30 AM and I am awake…wide awake. I have been spending too many days jacked up on 1,098,932 ounces of coffee. I work seven days a week and rarely relax. The mind is always whirring, clicking and clacking away. There are moments where I turn it off. Out on the court I usually forget about everything except for the game and inside the gym while I am lifting weights. Exercise is good for that.
The endorphin release and the rush of adrenalin from the competition helps. Hell, it doesn’t just help, I love it.
But that is not the point of this either. The point of this post is to give myself a mental ass kicking. If I say that I love my children it is time for me to stop pretending that I am 25 again. It is not smart for me to try and keep up this pace. Sooner or later it will catch up to me and I am unwilling to pay the piper. I am tired of cutting corners.
It is time to make some changes.
It is kind of funny to think about how upset I was when I wrote the words in the blockquotes versus how I feel now. Everything I wrote there is true, but I am calm now. I think it is because I have made some choices about how I want to proceed. Made some choices about the future. I don’t like having things hang over me. I am not afraid of confrontation but I don’t like waiting for it.
So the time has come to go meet destiny head on. Stay tuned to your bat channel and one of these days you just might get the details about this little romp through Jack’s mind.
Old Words V New Words
These images have been generated by using Wordle. I find them to be interesting, but there isn’t much meaning to be found…yet.
Whiny Bloggers Quit Because It Was Work
It is probably unfair of me to paint the bloggers in this article with such a broad brush. Yet, I can’t help but roll my eyes because what I read is so very silly. Take a look at the excerpt below.
“There are about 31 million blogs in the United States, a number expected to swell to 34 million by the end of this year. But Mr. Harbison is part of a small but growing trend of blog quitters. Last year, the number of blogging teens and adults ages 18 to 33 declined, in the first reported drop in blogging, according to Pew Research Center data.
Some have simply switched to another blog-like medium, say, Twitter or Facebook. Others have faced unpleasant facts about blogging. It’s cheap to do but usually doesn’t pay. Having a platform may be fun at first, but building a following takes much more work than simply typing and posting.
And millions of them go virtually unnoticed, despite the occasional breakout sensation like the humorous “Stuff White People Like†and the Julia Child-inspired “The Julie/Julia Project.â€
When “people see these, they say, ‘I can do that—it will be easy,’ “ says Raanan Bar-Cohen, vice-president of media services at San Francisco-based WordPress, which hosts 16.5 million blogs. “If you’re looking for fame and fortune, blogging has as good a chance as any medium,†he adds.
But new bloggers misunderstand what the venture is really all about. “The best bloggers are good at highlighting, snipping and curating,†Mr. Bar-Cohen says. All that draws “the feedback that is as or more important than the actual posts.â€
The effort involved in building a following caused Ray Silverstein to give up. Mr. Silverstein, 73, is principal at Pro Presidents Resource Organization, a Chicago-based small-business consultancy. Four years ago, he began blogging about small-business issues in order to draw traffic to his firm’s website.
He posted about twice a week but failed to read other blogs, comment and connect. “You really have to work the blog more,†he notes.”
If you are in this with dreams of getting rich you better hope that you love it too. There is a reason why I keep repeating certain truths about blogging. There is an exceptionally low barrier to entry. Anyone with a computer and internet access can start a blog. There are a million different voices competing for the same readers as you and many of them have no business sense/intelligence whatsoever.
But let’s ignore all that and read the last line of the excerpt I provided.
“He posted about twice a week but failed to read other blogs, comment and connect. “You really have to work the blog more,†he notes.”
Blogging takes time, effort and work. They call it social media because it requires many of the same social skills you would use in the real world. In the real world you build relationships first and ask favors later. Why would it be different here. What makes people think that if they simply write a story millions will come knocking on their door. Sometimes luck is more important than talent. We see that here all the time.
Sorry, I just don’t feel badly about this. If you start a brick and mortar business it requires time and effort to make it work. It requires commitment. Blogging is no different. If you can’t deal with it or don’t feel like it works for you than you really should find something else. In the end if you don’t love blogging you are going to find it to be more trouble than it is worth.
The Most Popular Posts on the New Blog
I am just a few weeks into the era of a self hosted, WordPress blog so it is a bit premature to start reviewing metrics. However, I have a short window of time to fill. It is not enough to start a serious project and too little to just stand around doing nothing.
So here are the posts that are currently leading the pack as being the most popular here:
An Old Fashioned Post
Way back in the Jurassic period of my blogging career I used to write stream of consciousness posts. I’d bang them out with reckless abandon and without regard for quality or content. Back then I had no cares or concerns about anonymity, quality or community. They were just little snippets of the crazy carousing that caromed through the cavernous cave that once was occupied by a brain.
I have to go back to the dentist tomorrow. Yep, back into the chair of doom where instruments of torture will be used upon my mouth. You may recall that last October your hero decided to have two crowns and a root canal done during the same visit. I won’t say that it was a mistake, but I learned that day that childbirth is easy. Â I sat down in the chair at 10 and wasn’t set free until 2 PM.
Anyhoo, tomorrow I go back because it seems that some old fillings are leaking. It so happens that I had these two done when I was 22 so they are about twenty years old. Maybe they told me way back when that one day I might have to replace them but I can’t remember. At 22 I was probably focused on getting out as quickly as possible to go camping or to hit the gym. Â Who remembers those details. Maybe if I had a blog back then I would, but I didn’t. I didn’t have a computer, cellphone, voicemail, email or a spaceship.
Twenty years later most of that has changed, with the exception of the spaceship. I really want one of those because it would be all sorts of fun. Â Unless of course I had some sort of mechanical issue because it must be a bitch getting a tow truck to hitch a line to your ship and tow it back to earth. With the kind of luck I have had lately I’d probably end up landing in some war zone like Afghanistan, cleveland or detroit.
Rooster Cogburn is one my favorite movies. I grew up watching it and True Grit with my dad.
While I have no real desire to be an actor, Â I sometimes think about starring in a major motion picture. Mostly because I have this fantasy that someone will pay me to get back into shape. I suppose that some of you are shaking your head at that. You might wonder if I have the discipline to do it on my own and I wouldn’t blame you for that. But I ask you my friends, why wouldn’t I want to get paid to get back in shape. Why wouldn’t I want to have access to personal chefs and trainers.
It reminds me of some thoughts of a future that I sometimes think about. I am not a man who is driven by money or possessions but there are some things that money can provide. In my case I would like to have a house that includes a library in it. I want built in shelves and over stuffed chairs to read in. I’d like to be able to eat at fine restaurants and travel. Did I mention that I’d like to have a private jet to use for said travel.
There are other things, but for now that is enough. I don’t really expect to get all of that, but I think that some would be reasonable. It is again well past midnight so I must get some sleep, or at least try to. I stumbled across one of the great speeches in movies and I might have to stop and watch another clip. Anyway, before I go I’ll ask again for you to become a fan of the blog and to tell your friends/family about this place.
There is little to no benefit to you for doing so. I could lie and tell you that a fairy dies every time someone chooses not to become a fan, but that is as believable as saying that the cleveland browns will win a Superbowl before 2132. Sleep well my friends and I will see you in just a few hours.