Computer problems

My modem is driving me crazy, it won't stay connected to the internet for more than a few minutes at a time.

Changes

As you can see there's been a few changes to the site.  Consider it a late spring cleaning.  I've got rid of a lot of the stuff on the sidebar, so hopefully it'll help load faster.  I'm still trimming, so I might lose a few more things before it's all said and done.  It's a brighter and cleaner look, hope you all like it.

I'm also considering some major changes in my life at the moment.  Hopefully for the better.  I'll know more in the next week or two and let everyone know.

And finally my computer has been acting up so much lately, that's it hard for me to be online very long.  I think it's  my modem but haven't had a chance to really check it out yet.  Hopefully I'll get that fixed and be online a little bit more than my vanishing self lately.

Back

Sorry to disappear all of a sudden.  My second hotel in Chattanooga didn't have internet access and I haven't had a chance to get to a computer since.  But I'm back and over the next day or so I'll be back posting.

Long Day

I used to make these type of posts a lot more, just about what was going on in my day, nothing earth shattering, but lately it seems that every post has to be about something.  I kind of like making these type of posts.  Today has been a long day, first I had to get three weeks of posts up for Voices to hear so they can drop every day that I'm traveling.  And than just get other things ready for the trip, tomorrow night I work late so I won't have time to get much ready.   Than tonight I went downtown New Orleans to see some great music, Amanda Shaw, Shannon McNally, Little Band of Gold and Theresa Andersson.  More of that on Voices to hear.  And now I"m back home typing still.  Need to go to bed sleep soon.

Traveling

Getting ready to hit the road this weekend.  I have to travel to two other stores, one near Nashville and the other in Chattanooga in the coming weeks and at the end I'm hoping to take the last week as a vacation and go see my Mom near Memphis.  It's strange that all my traveling is being done in Tennessee during these three weeks.  Honestly I got more than my share of traveling when I worked for Service Merchandise and spent a year and some change traveling to different stores and spending very little time in my own bed.  Some people like to travel, and it's not that I don't like to travel, but when I do so for work, it's not much more than work and a hotel room, so to me it's really not that much traveling.  But the whole point of this overly long preamble was to tell everyone that if I'm not on here for the next three weeks it's not because I've been kidnapped by aliens or anything else drastic, it's just that I'm on the road and can't find a place to connect the laptop to.  And a side note to all this:  for those who have been reading this blog for any length of time knows May has not been a good month for me in the last few years.  I seem to end up in the hospital for one reason or another.  I'm thinking that it has something to do with the building I work in, it doesn't want me there for May, so this year instead of sending me to the hospital it's sending me traveling.  At least that's what I'm telling myself, because I don't want to end up in the hospital while traveling.

So check on me now and than, I'm going to try to post when I can....

No News Is Not Always Good News

I've had a migraine all day today so I haven't updated any of the writings.  I even called in to work and anyone that knows me knows I almost never call in to work.  Last time I didn't go to work I went to the hospital.  I wanted to write about how great the Eric Clapton show was but didn't get to that either.  But for a great review, one that I agree with (except for wanting to hear "Wonderful Tonight") go check out Vinnie's review at the Couch.  As always spot on.  I'm actually feeling better now, after having spent most of the day in bed trying to not think too loud as pretty much everything caused my head to hurt.

Five Years

This Friday will mark the fifth year that I've been blogging on this site.  Wow....five years, I'll write more about it as that day comes.

Voices to hear

I've been so bad lastely about updating and visiting anyone's sites, but hopefully that will get better now. Between being sick and getting so far behind at work and so much more going on there it's been pretty hectic, but I've got my fingers crossed that things will slow down enough to enable me to start posting again. And visiting everyone.

And with saying that I have updated Voices to hear with some new interviews and songs. I have a Simply Six interview up with a woman from Tennessee named Jennings and the song of the week is from Maggie Brown, one of my favorites. Go check it out.

Facebook

Image via CrunchBase

I've thought of Facebook as another one of those many, many internet sites that seem to be popping up and everyone rushes to join and it's the buzz. I admit I joined a long time back, mainly because my niece dropped her myspace page and went to facebook. We seemed to keep up with each other better on myspace so I thought we could continue it on facebook. Except that I found Facebook ugly and confusing compared to myspace and hardly ever went on it. I found texting worked just as well to keep in touch with my niece.

Well for some reason, I really don't know why I went on Facebook yesterday and decided to look around. You always hear about how people are connecting on Facebook and finding friends that they haven't been in touch with for years. I'm not sure how they find someone on there, most people won't let you click on their profile and if you have the same name as probably at least a dozen others, how do you know which one is the person you're looking for. Still I put in a few names of friends I've lost touch with over the years.

Bingo! I had a hit. And what's even weirder is that he has just really gotten into Facebook in the last few weeks. I found two old friends, Jason and Claire. They used to live in New Orleans and hardly a week would go by without a bunch of us getting together. They moved to just outside Atlanta and a group of us would still visit them every summer. Than we missed a summer and before you knew it we were missing more.

I really don't know where the time goes. One minute we're the best of friends, talking and visiting. The next it's years later and we haven't talked since. No ones fault, just one of those things. But I found Jason online and we chatted in im for awhile. Than today Claire called and we talked even more. They have two kids who I thought of as family when they were younger. Now one's just joined the Marines and is in boot camp right now and the other is playing in a band.

Hopefully this summer I'll make a trip up there to see them all and make up for some lost time. And I'll stop talking bad about Facebook now.

Happy Aniversary to Me!

On this date four years ago I first put fingers to the keyboard and started this blog. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. My main purpose was to try and kickstart my writing and to promote any writing I did do. Well I really haven't put the nose to the grindstone too well in that regards so there hasn't been that much of it to promote either.

You can tell by my first post I really didn't know what I was doing. I was pretty much lost about this whole blogging thing back then. But it didn't take me long to start blogging about some subjects that would become familiar around here. My third post featured the Wonder Dog Buffy herself. By the middle of the next month I was blogging about music. My first music post was about a concert by the Kings of Leon at the House of Blues. I predicted that they were poised for breakout stardom soon, well it's only four years later and they're selling out Madison Square Garden now, so better late than not. A couple posts after that was a review of the Wallflowers show I caught at the HOB. By April I was talking politics in a post. And before the end of April I was blogging about Jazz Fest in the first of countless posts over the years. That was the year I saw Wilco downtown at the State Palace and than a few days later got to see them again at Jazz Fest. Before the end of May I started my semi whenever posts trying to list all the musical acts I've seen.

The first year I ended up with a total of 368 posts. The next year I didn't quite make that same mark and ended the year with just 328 posts. But the following year was the year of the posts. I compiled 1751 posts for the year of 2007. Now this was the year when I was doing three daily posts of Word-A-Day, Rock n Roll Memories, and Book Fun. So that added up to an awful lot of posts right there.

2007 was also the year that my Dad died. If there are any posts that I'm most proud of writing, or perhaps care the most about, it's the posts I've written about my Dad, before and after his death. Ones like this one on his birthday, or this one on Veterans Day or this post about the one thing of my Dads I wanted after he passed or this post with one of my favorite pictures of me with my Dad.

2008 brought the amount of post back to normal, with 367. I just missed passing the first year's amount by two posts. For 2009 I'm up to 68 posts, not counting this one. So far this year I've been in a posting mood. Sometimes a month will come and I'll dry up with posting.

I'm not sure when I put the stat counter on my site, but I know it wasn't too long after I started. So far it shows 77, 361 hits. I know there are some blogs that is maybe a months worth, but I feel pretty good that I've had people want to visit my site and read my words that many times. Though I wish more would leave comments....but that's probably also because I'm terrible at answering any comments, which I hope to get better at this year. I'm trying to leave replies back to everyone as they leave a comment to any post this year. I haven't been perfect, but I'm getting better.

One of the side benefits of blogging is the friends that I've made over the years. You come to know people better than you expect in some instances on these blogs. I think some of us bloggers find it easier to confess our thoughts and worries on the computer screen than we do in person to real people. I've been amiss in keeping up with some of these electronic friends also. For some reason I've negelteced some and now find myself wishing I was still in touch.

I'm actually kind of surprised that I'm still blogging going on for over four years. And still enjoying it. In fact so much that I've created two other blogs that I don't spend enough time at, Voices to hear and Life in 4 colors.

Well, I hope in all these years that a few people have taken a little joy from these pages. I have found it very satsifying and hope to be back here in four more years with another anniversary post.

New Blog To Check Out: Diversity Ink

There's a new blog over here called Diversity Ink. I'll let the creator of the blog tell more about it:

One of the reasons the racial divide continues is that members of a particular ethnicity may talk amongst each other about race issues, but not to members outside their race. Also, because race is such a sensitive issue, people are reluctant to come out in the open with any of their views, questions, etc. My hope is that Diversity Ink might lead to the bridging of the divide and the breaking down of some of these walls.

He's assembled an outstanding crew of men and women to write about this subject and I'm proud to say that I'm one. Please check out this blog and leave your impressions. It's up with a first wonderful post about Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Reading Level

TV Reviews

I found this over at Bug's site. Check out what the reading level of your blog is.

New Look

I've changed the layout of this blog, as if you couldn't tell, and dropped a lot of what was on the sidebar. It may not seem like it, the sidebar is still pretty long, but I really did drop a lot. I can't decide what to put on my sidebar, one minute I want to put a lot of stuff for everyone to check out and than the next I realize that the sidebar is about a mile long. So I'm not sure, I might end up adding more to it or I might end up deleting some more. What do you all think? Long sidebar? Short sidebar? Or don't care?

I'm still having problems with a lot of the layouts taking to my blog, but this one worked and I actually kind of like it, so I'll stick with it for the foreseeable future. What does everyone think?

Out of Order

I apologize for the confusing layout of this blog, for some reason it's going crazy. I can't get my right sidebar to post no matter what layout I use. Everything goes to the bottom. It's driving what little sanity I have away. If anyone has any suggestions I'll be glad to listen to them. I'm quitting for the night, before my head explodes.

Current Obsessions A Little More Current

When I started this on my sidebar I had planned to update it every now and than, but it stayed the same for quite awhile, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lily Holbrook. Which it still could, they haven't fallen from being anything sort of an obsession with me, but I just figured it was time to give fair shift to a few other obsessions of mine. I've been talking enough about it lately and it's one of my favorite shows of all time so I put West Wing in place of Buffy. I've added a great singer/songwriter from down around my neck of the woods named Maggie Brown. Click on the link and go check her out. She is really really good and deserves a lot bigger audience. I've also added a great comic book series called The Walking Dead. It's a book set in the future where the earth is overrun with zombies. Now if you know me you know I hate zombie movies. I really do, but this comic book goes beyond its genesis and is more about the survivors than the zombies themselves. This is one of the best comic books being published today.

In My Absence

I know I haven't been very good with keeping up with posting on here lately. The last month at work has had me traveling out of town every at least a few times each week and when I'm in town things have been very busy. But it all ended this week, so hopefully things will get back to normal. I have some ideas for some long, thoughtful posts coming up...so until than I thought I'd just post this commercial that tickles me every time I see it.

A Question to Everyone Reading

If anyone has noticed this year I have not posted any of my daily regulars: Rock n Roll History, Book Fun or Word A Day. I planned to, I have the material ready to do so, but I thought I'd put the question out there to everyone. Did anyone read those daily posts? Does anyone want to read them again?

I liked doing them for nothing else that they made me blog daily and a lot of the time if I was going to do those posts I ended up doing others.

Ok, fill my box up with those answers now while I'll be out of town for the next few days.

Back Briefly

I'm in the middle of traveling for work right now, with an actual two days off before I have to head off for Alexandria (a four hour trip) Monday and start the madness over again next week. Five more stores to finish and than things will be as close to normal as they ever get around here.

Out of Town

I've been out of town for the past few days for work. Mainly working fifteen-sixteen hours overnight and getting a few hours sleep and than doing it all over again. I hope to be home Monday evening, only to back out Tuesday. But Wednesday I'm off and may spend the day sleeping. I'm typing this on my laptop, mainly to see if I can post from it. I really hate typing on it. I keep hiting the mouse pad and moving things all around. I haven't had time to visit anybody, so I hope everyone is doing good. When things get back to as normal as they ever do I'll be back visiting.

I Must Be Crazy

I've started another blog. Like I have time for more, but I went ahead and did it anyways. This one is called "Life in 4 colors" and is a comic book blog. I'll still talk about comics on this blog, but I don't want to go as in depth with some of the comic book related subjects here as I can on a blog just for that subject. Just like I still talk about music on this blog even though I have another blog that is just music related I'll continue to post the comic related post now and than. But I think the majority of the people that read this blog aren't that interested in all things comics, so that type of writing will be over there. This (the comic book one) isn't one that I'll be blogging in as often as this one, but I just wanted a place to write more about comic books when I feel like it. Plust it will allow me to clean this blog up a little bit, make it a little easier for people to load. If you're interested go check it out and let me know what you think.