Blog

A fellow dad blogger asked me about how I deal with uninvited guests on my blogs. He told me he would like to be more honest and open with his writing and that he can’t because there are family members that read his blog as well as a few trolls.

We’ll skip past the part where we suggest not telling family and friends about your blog unless you don’t care if they read along or are willing to censor yourself.

Once the barn door is open the horses are off and running so unless you close up shop and start over anonymously there are no good solutions.

I suppose you could ask them to stop reading but that might raise questions. People are funny, tell them you don’t want them to do something and they’ll try harder to do it.

What About Trolls?

In the old days I was foolish and willing to engage with trolls. I used be quite willing to jump in the mood and splash around there but I stopped doing that because I didn’t see the upside.

Instead I just ignored them or blocked their IP address.

The problem with blocking IP addresses is that every now and then you end up blocking readers who are good people whose sole crime is to live or work within the same IP range as your troll(s).

Once in a great while I received an email from someone I blocked asking why I did it. I almost never responded.

An IP block doesn’t mean the troll can’t find their way back. There are lots of ways around that but most of the time it takes too much effort and they go away.

Really Aggressive Trolls

If a troll becomes really aggressive I label their IP address and watch for useful information. You might be surprised how much information you can find in your stats.

There are lots of bread crumbs you can use to identify someone. During my tenure I have posted the IP addresses of trolls here on the blog and a note that explained I would take screenshots that showed how much time they were spending here and send them to their employer.

Oh, did I forget to mention that if you come from work it is not unusual for the statcounter to show it. Years ago one nasty troll crossed the line and I sent him the note saying I would call Bob Boorke LLC (I made that name up) and ask them to figure out who was harassing me.

That ended the harassment.

There Are No Perfect Solutions

If you spend enough time writing online you’ll find your own troll(s) and you’ll wonder why someone can be enraged by your writing about potty training but trust me, they are out there. About seven years ago I received nasty emails and comments from someone who said it was wrong to teach boys to pee standing up.

They didn’t think it was funny when I suggested they try to pee while sitting in a urinal either.

Anyhoo, it is worth mentioning that sometimes when you change your webhost you have to go deny IPs again because the old blocks aren’t enforced.

One of the reasons I am not using CommentLuv at the moment is I was getting besieged with spam from China and Bangalore. Livefyre does a pretty good job of filtering that out and since I am not offering the same link juice some of that nonsense has slowed down.

Suppose I ought to go through the list anyway to make sure some of the knuckleheads of the past stay locked up in their igloos, caves and shacks.

The guy with the sign cracks me up, fits my sense of humor. However at the moment I am looking for my sense of humor because there are some issues here that are making me crazier than I am normally am.

If you are one of the lucky few that heard The Three Things Podcast or listened to The Broken Blog Podcast you’d know we are working through a few issues here.

And you’d appreciate why I wish I could punch the computer in the mouth and kick the blog in the ass.

Technology and I are at odds and nothing is working. I have spoken nicely to it, told it how very smart and handsome it is but to no avail.

When flattery didn’t work I tried coercion and that didn’t work either. So now I am prostrate upon the floor begging the tech gods to take mercy upon me.

I Like Learning By Doing

This is not the first time the blog has been broken or I have had some sort of tech issue and I am certain it won’t be the last. Most of the time I am able to figure out a solution via Google.

I enjoy that. I like learning by doing but this time around it has been more challenging for a host of reasons not the least of which is I don’t have time for this.

And now I am going to go ask the Magic 8 ball for its help because surely a powerful object such as that can help me.

What about you? How do you fix a broken blog?

5 Songs:

Tougher Than The Rest- Bruce Springsteen
Good Vibrations- The Beach Boys
My Way- Frank Sinatra
All I Ask Of You- Phantom Of The Opera
Tunnel Of Love- Bruce Springsteen

“it ought to be easy ought to be simple enough
Man meets woman and they fall in love
But the house is haunted and the ride gets rough
And you’ve got to learn to live with what you can’t rise above
if you want to ride on down in through this tunnel of love”
Tunnel of Love– Bruce Springsteen

It is not nice to refer to the upstairs neighbor as Fat Boy but I am sleep deprived and fed up with listening to his footsteps at all hours of the night which is probably why my banana plan is beginning to sound like a good idea.

The kid isn’t fat but he needs a nickname and Stampy is already taken as are several other good ones but pretty soon he is going to be Gimpy George the recently disabled dude from Texas.

It might not be how Walter White would handle things but he is far too human for me to pretend that he is a Walker which limits the things I can get away with doing.

Since this is Texas I am tempted to don my black hat, knock on the door and explain to him that this town isn’t big enough for the both of us but even here the law frowns on that.

Breaking The Blog–Again

Telephone rings and my son and I get involved in a long talk about life. He wants to know if he has ever seen me really lose my temper and how many fist fights I have had.

I tell him if he wants to see me lose it he has to come watch me do battle with the blog and then he’ll see a side of dad he barely recognizes. But I also tell him he’ll get more than a glimpse of how dear old dad will fight to the death because he doesn’t give up…ever.

Ok the fight to the death doesn’t exactly apply to a battle between the blog and I but damn if I didn’t want to kill it. Every day I take a hard look at this sucker and try to figure out what sort of tweaking it might need to make it better.

“Dad, did you just call your blog ‘a real motherfucker?’

I pause and tell him that I must have been thinking out loud and he laughs. I tell him I am sure he must be out of earshot of mom because I know he wouldn’t speak that way in front of her and he laughs.

“You know sometimes I use colorful language but I know when to mix it up and how to use it for effect. Think about that for a bit. This blog and I have been battling each other because it is not working properly.”

Comments Evolved and Comments Lost

Got a few emails from folks who told me they couldn’t comment because of technical issues and decided I was fed up again with CommentLuv.

Sometimes I love it but the tech issues with people not being able to comment combined with a proliferation of questionable comments made me decide to turn on Comments Evolved.

My doppleganger tells me it is a good system and that it has helped expand his reach but that was only part of the reason I turned it on. The proliferation of questionable comments made me crazy again.

That refers to people who post comments on old posts but no where else. Allow me to offer more detail.

Someone places a comment on a old post about the joy of air travel. Their comment is reasonable and in concept adds to the conversation but I take issue with it because it links to a business that caters to people who need help with travel.

That appears to me to be someone trying to gain some free advertising so I nuke their link.

If they were a regular member of the community I might let it go but they aren’t and they never show up any where else. That won’t fly with me.

cpanel

Have to upgrade my PHP to make Comments Evolved work so I dive into cpanel and start messing around under the hood of the blog. Kind of enjoy it because it reminds me of working on my Camaro and my Dart.

Like getting my hands dirty and I like the combination of using my head and hands. Takes a bit of doing but I get things moving the way I want them to and now I get to sit back and see if I made things any better or if perhaps I might have made them worse.

Either way I feel good and if you saw the smile on my face you would know that I feel like good things are coming cuz I got those Good Vibrations running through me.

Don’t expect that headline to tell you what this post is going to be about or to be able to use it as a guide because it is not going to work this time.

Of course I could tell you about the time I beat up Santa Claus or how I once I had a fight with Tweedle Dee at Disneyland. You might read those tales and wonder if I am just a short tempered old cus or if I am just someone who enjoys to spin a good yarn.

But neither of them will give you anymore insight into this post than the following sentence.

Sometimes I write for the love of writing and nothing else. And because that love doesn’t require I connect headline and story I may choose to make like Mr. Toad and go for a wild ride.

Of Bad Bosses

The boys and I had a conversation about bad bosses during which we compiled the kind of list you don’t want to appear on. You don’t want to be known as the scatterbrained jerk who was afraid to admit he didn’t know what was going on.

Maybe it was insecurity and fear that prevented him from telling the staff he didn’t have a clue what was happening or maybe he was more oblivious than people realized. It really doesn’t matter because ultimately he made the list for having the gift of confusion.

More times than not you left a meeting more feeling more uncertain and confused about projects than when you started.

The screamer made the list too.

Yeah, he was the guy who had watched too many sitcoms or maybe had sat through too many episodes of The Godfather and consequently thought that the way to lead was to yell at people. I don’t know if there are offices in which this works, but the net result was high turnover and a lot of tuning out.

The third member of the team was manager whose idea of a good idea was limited to whatever he suggested. Anything you said or did was fair at best and there was a virtual guarantee he would insert himself into your work.

It was only supposed to help you, but it really was a manifestation of ego and insecurity. He never trusted anyone to be as smart as him which is why he had to help.

We wanted to thank him for showing us that one person could have an impact upon morale that was far more profound than any one could have ever guessed.

Holiday Week(end)

Those of who are located in the U.S are getting ready to celebrate Independence Day. It is a fun holiday filled with fireworks and food.

Got to confess, I am not a big fan of fireworks anymore. Used to love them as a kid but the noise grinds on me and it makes dogs go crazy so once I have had a chance to see the big show I am done with it.

Love the food on the holiday, great time for barbecue and beer, both of which I enjoy.

Did I mention that I decided that 44 is the year I am going to make the big push to get into better shape and that lack of sleep is considered to be a key reason why some people have trouble losing weight and why some gain it.

Well if I didn’t consider that your notice and warning that I am getting ready to wrap this up because I can’t keep living on three hours of sleep.

I suppose you can attribute some of that to my thinking I am still 25 and some of it to my needing more than a couple of hours to decompress after work.

A Four Day Vacation

Tomorrow is my Friday, yep, I am taking a four day vacation. Quite excited about it too, but instead of going somewhere I expect to stay close to home.

Got some movies to watch, a pool to lay out at and more blogging to do.

Don’t know about you, but I haven’t written enough lately and it is starting to grind on me. Writing is part of my sanity and when I don’t do enough of it I start to feel the edges fray a bit.

And you don’t want frayed Jack because that is when I would decide to eat The Easter Bunny, I bet he tastes like chicken. 😉

Are you celebrating the holiday? Are you going on vacation? If you are Canadian what did you do for Canda Day. you hosers? 😉 Where are Bob and Doug Mackenzie when you need them anyway.

The comments are yours, would love to hear from you about almost anything.