Tag Archives: blogging

January 21, 2011 · 11:28 pm

BOOBS

Ring, ring

WP: Hello, WordPress technical support, this is Julie, how can I help you today?

ME: Thank you for taking my call, I am terribly concerned, I think I might be developing BOOBS.

Click

Ring, ring

WP: Hello, WordPress technical support, this is Julie, how can I help you today?

ME: Hi, I just called a second ago, I think we got disconnected.

WP: Okay sir, how can I help you today?

ME: I think I’m developing BOOBS.

WP: This isn’t funny sir… is there something I can help you with?

ME: Have you seen my blog, Brown Road Chronicles?

WP: I am sorry sir, no I haven’t. WordPress has over 300,000 blogs, I can’t read all of them.

ME: It’s a great blog… about country living and other funny stuff.

WP: I am sure it is… Is there something I can assist you with today… besides your BOOBS?

ME: I think my blog is broken.

WP: You think your blog is broken?

ME: Yes, it doesn’t appear to be working properly… and I think I am developing BOOBS.

WP: Sir, please stop that or I will hang up! Can you give me some details about what doesn’t seem to be working properly.

ME: Well, it’s not tracking visitors like it should be.

WP: You mean on your stats page?

ME: Yes, yes, exactly, on the stats page. It’s not tracking visitors correctly.

WP: What makes you think it is not tracking visitors correctly?

ME: Well, I’ve checked my stats page 846 times today and it’s only showing 11 hits. I’ve been getting 60-90 hits per day.

WP: Well sir, some days are better than others, maybe it’s just a slow day.

ME: No, it can’t be a slow day, I wrote a story about Macaroni and Cheese yesterday. It was funny and I thought it would generate lots of hits today.

WP: Well sir, some days your subscribers just get busy and they don’t have the time that day to visit and read your blog… and maybe it just wasn’t as funny as you thought.

ME: No, no that’s not it… my subscribers all visited, I don’t have very many of those but it looks like they’ve all been hanging around because they’ve left comments. But I’m not getting all those extra hits that I usually get. You know, from the people that don’t leave comments.

WP: Well, sir, have you written anything new today?

ME: Can you excuse me just a second, the light on my phone is blinking. I may have some comments to read.

WP: Uh… okay?

A few minutes later

ME: Hi, I am back, sorry it was just some spam about one of those… you know… male enhancement medicines. Have you read my post about Cialis?

WP: No, I haven’t.  Now where… where were we? Oh yes, have you written anything new today?

ME: No, not yet.

WP: Well, maybe you need to write something new and post it today. One of the five ways of increasing blog readership is to write and post valuable content frequently.

ME: But I don’t have anything interesting or valuable to write today. I’ve only been at this for a month and I’m already running out of good ideas.

WP: Okay, well that happens sometimes. Have you read anyone else’s blog and left comments on their pages.

ME: No, I haven’t had time to do that today. I’ve been too busy checking my stats page.

WP: Well, maybe you just need to take a few days off and not write anything and don’t worry about your stats. I think it’s tracking properly though, I think today’s just a slow day and I am sorry that you’ve only had 11 visitors.

ME: No, I think it must be broken. My stories are really good!

WP: Yes, I am sure they are. Most bloggers think their stories are really good. Most bloggers have this delusion that they are going to be famous authors someday, when in reality the majority will just disappear eventually. I am sorry that you only have 11 hits today but I am confident that your site is not broken.

ME: But I’ve been getting 60-90 hits a day, I even got 95 one day when I wrote about my guitar and I got 91 one day when I wrote about getting Freshly Pressed.

WP: Yes, I understand, sir, but I still don’t think anything is wrong with your site.

ME: Well… can you log onto the site and see if anything looks out of place.

WP: Sir… I am sure nothing is out of place but I will take a look.

5 minutes later

WP: Hello, are you still there?

ME: Yes, I am still here. I checked my stats page 27 times while you had me on hold and I still only have 11 visitors. And I think I might be developing BOOBS.

WP: Sir, I don’t know what you are talking about with your BOOBS. But I checked the site and nothing was amiss. But I am concerned that you might be developing OBD.

ME: OBD, what is that?

WP: OBD is Obsessive Blogging Disorder. It is characterized by excessive-compulsive blogging activities like writing articles when you don’t have anything interesting to write about and constantly checking your blog stats to see how many people visited your site.

ME: Oh my, that sounds frightening, do you think I am checking it too often? I just looked at it 12 times while you were talking. Do you think I have, uh, what did you call it OBD?

WP: Yes, it sounds like you may have the onset of OBD.

ME: You think I have the onset of OBD? I think I am developing BOOBS. What can I do about this?

WP: Sir, this is not funny, stop talking about your BOOBS.

ME: Oh, sorry… I am not talking about MY boobs. BOOBS is just an acronym I made up for Badly Obsessing Over Blog Statistics. I think I am developing BOOBS.

WP: You are not developing BOOBS sir, but you are at high risk for OBD.

ME: Is there something I can do about it?

WP: Well, at present there doesn’t seem to be any cure. We recommend you just keep blogging. In fact, here at WordPress, we’ve instituted a post-a-day competition to try to help people work through the OBD condition.

ME: Oh, well maybe I could do that.

WP: But sir, you just told me you didn’t have anything interesting to write about today.

ME: Well I don’t really.

WP: So how are you going to post something today?

ME: Well, I don’t know… maybe I could post something about Obsessive Blogging Disorder or about me developing BOOBS.

WP: Sir, seriously! Stop it with the BOOBS! I think that it would be a good idea for you to start writing something. If you start typing it might help you be less concerned about your stats. Is there anything else I can help you with?

ME: No, thank you so much! You have been a big help… but now I need to get started writing.  Have a good day.

WP: You too and thank you for calling WordPress. Goodbye.

Click

ME: Okay, how do I get started… let’s see… oh, I know…

Begin typing…

Ring, ring

WP: Hello, WordPress technical support, this is Julie how can I help you today…………

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January 10, 2011 · 9:10 am

“I Don’t Want to Go to School!”

“I don’t want to go to school tomorrow” my daughter said yesterday evening. Not so unusual words from a 13 year old kid. In fact not so unusual words from any kid on a Sunday night when “the blues” kick in. The Sunday night blues, that kind of sickish, crappy, depressed feeling you get when you know you have to start a new week, especially after a fun weekend. She spent Saturday with a close friend at a local women’s college basketball game. That same friend spent the night at our place and we took them with my son and I to a sledding event we hold every year with the cub scouts. Yes, no doubt a fun weekend and one that makes a Monday morning school day look, by far, less than appealing.

I also used to get the Sunday night blues occasionally as a kid… and lately I’ve been getting them again all too frequently. I keep wondering “don’t us responsible adults eventually grow out of that?”  I know it’s a function of not being terribly satisfied with work right now and realizing too that I have let pass some of the creative pursuits (music, art, writing, etc.) that showed their directional signs to me on the roads that I have traveled to get me to where I am now.  I was a cellist all through grade school.  I gave it up when I went away to college because I couldn’t find the drive to take it to the next level.  I used to sketch often but have not drawn anything in over two decades.  Of course, I love to write, which is what got me here to this blogging site.  The list goes on and on…

I’ve tried not to lose complete site of that part of me, but the day to day often gets in the way and free time is at a premium.  I envy the people that have been able to build that creativity into their working life… you know that part of your life that fills up MOST of your days!  Not that I necessarily could have made a lucrative career out of any of these activities, they call them “starving artists” for a reason!  But in hindsight, who knows?  There are so many decisions that we all make each and every day that alter the path that we will follow the next day.  More and more I find myself CRAVING the “creative life” and finding it harder and harder to compartmentalize the time spent each day working vs. “creating” vs. spending some quality time with my family, my anchors as they say. I guess I want it ALL, lumped conveniently into one nice package.

Lately I’ve tried to instill this thought process into my kid’s heads.  For sure, we have some time before we send them off to college and they begin planning out the rest of their lives!  But I want it be be crystal clear to them that the world really is their canvas, that they should never settle on the easy path and certainly never give up on their dreams!  Yeah, probably a little heavy for a couple of kids that aren’t thinking about much other than school and sports and video games… and in my daughter’s case… maybe boys (uugh!).  But I guess I feel, in their case, it’s never too EARLY to start… and maybe, just maybe, in my case, with the support of my wonderful family behind me… it’s never too LATE to start over!

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January 7, 2011 · 12:01 pm

The Hangover…

Today is going to be a good day…

The reason today is going to be a good day? Yesterday (Thursday) I woke up with a nasty hangover, you know, the kind where you just want to die. I hauled myself out of bed, walked to the shower, walked back to the bed and laid back down for just a couple minutes.

“Get your ass up, you can’t go back to bed you know” said the little Devil conscience guy that was standing on my right shoulder.

“You know you shouldn’t have had so many glasses of wine” said the little angel conscience guy on my left shoulder.

“C’mon you sissy, just get in the shower, you’ll be fine” said the little devil guy.

“You know you shouldn’t have had that last drink… or five” said the little angel guy.

“Get up you nancy-boy, you have to drive the kids to school in 30 minutes” said the little devil guy.

“Don’t ever do that again” said the little angel guy.

Yeah, I know, I thought, I’ll never do that again! How many times have we all said that? Thankfully it doesn’t happen that much anymore. So, I hauled myself back out of bed, showered up, ate some breakfast, drank some coffee, got the kids in the car, drove them to school, and went to work and put in a full day. Not the most productive day by any stretch of the imagination, but a full day.

I don’t even have a good story to tell. I wasn’t at a bachelor party… c’mon, it was a Wednesday night! I wasn’t celebrating a birthday, anniversary, job promotion, salary raise, lottery win. None of that! I didn’t even have a partner in crime.

It was the great George Thorogood who sang:

I drink alone, yeah
With nobody else
I drink alone, yeah
With nobody else
You know when I drink alone
I prefer to be by myself

George of course was speaking of drinking much more manly stuff; Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, Johnnie Walker, Old Grandad. Not the girly-man red wine that I saw swilling down… out of a box no less… but hey, we’ve all got our vices.

So here’s the story. I get home Wednesday night from work. My wife had a soccer game that evening and a night out with the team.  A friend of mine had posted a status update on his Facebook page about eating spaghetti and having a glass of wine for dinner. Ahhh, spaghetti, the most basic and wonderful of comfort foods!  I thought, man that sounds good, so I cooked up a big batch of spaghetti for myself and the kids, and poured myself a nice glass of wine. Then I fired up my laptop, signed onto https://brownroadchronicles.wordpress.com and started blogging. Yes, blogging, my new favorite time waster productive hobby. But the words just weren’t flowing. I couldn’t come up with a compelling post, so instead of writing, I started reading… and reading… and refilling… and reading… and refilling… and reading… and reading… and refilling… and there were so many interesting and funny blogs and posts and I was having so much fun that… well, you know… I kind of lost track of how many refills I had refilled! This went on until about 11:30 at night (the kids had long gone to bed) when I finally, through a fuzzy red wine cloud of thought, concluded it might be a good idea to go to bed.

So, I’m here to blame the following bloggers:

husbands4hire http://husbands4hire.wordpress.com;

walkswithstress http://walkswithstress.wordpress.com;

Edmonton Tourist: http://ragrobyn.wordpress.com;

Shit My Cake Says http://shitmycakesays.wordpress.com;

Writers Block http://bymyink.wordpress.com;

Girl on the Contrary; http://girlonthecontrary.wordpress.com;

and several more that I can’t quite remember… for welcoming me and being my first blog-world friends, for hanging out with me on Wednesday night and for having such fabulous and interesting and inspirational and humorous blogs…

… and for getting me drunk!

Thanks!!

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