My Blogging Adventures

2007-05-22T13:54:00.000-05:00

I'VE HAD A BLOGGING ADVENTURE!!

I haven't had one in a month nearly. It's been nearly a month since I posted on Swing Scene too.

Pour Out is going through a series on Which Which, which are superior sandwiches for real, having, and reviewing each sandwich they offer. I happened to win a contest in the comments. How sweet is that.

2007-04-27T17:05:00.000-05:00

So I realized something today, Swing Scene has nearly twice as many hits as my myspace. I have 83 friends! So I must be doing something right on Swing Scene.

2007-04-20T15:40:00.000-05:00

Yet another blogging adventure (3 in one day. 4Rest at Pet Peeving (the whore) has tagged me as a successful blogger (? - well I have had 3 adventures to talk about today, and this could make a 4th) with this simple secrets for success thing. Seems I'm supposed to fulfill some debt to the blogosphere by posting little habits I have that make me successful. I'll do that as soon I'm either a) successful or b) find habits I won't be embarrassed to publish.

2007-04-20T15:16:00.000-05:00

Oh, and another thing (which really makes no sense since this will post ahead of my previous entry, but oh well), the traffic on Swing Scene is really taking off. I'm up to nearly 1300 views now, there must be someone reading it because there are typically 3 or 4 view a day, and even a few times in the past month I've had into the 20's.

Now that is a blogging adventure.

2007-04-20T15:09:00.000-05:00

So My Blogging Adventures isn't much more than monthly at the moment.

I think I'm convinced that I like wordpress better than blogger, especially when using ScribeFire or the Flock blog editor with the technorati tag feature.

I seem to do much more commenting that actual posting to my blogs. I seem to have much more to say in response to others blogs than on my own, though I did start a new one about wine which I haven't written anything on yet because I haven't opened a bottle of wine since I started it... I have such great intentions.

Maybe I'll start a blog of nothing but comments to other sites, that might work quite nicely actually, it could be kind of fun. It'd give something that would grow every day too. Actually, that could become the primary feature of My Blogging Adventures.

2007-03-28T15:08:00.000-05:00

I still can't decide which I like better for bloggin, wordpress or blogger. I like the templates that wordpress has to offer more, but I like that blogger css is 100% customizable.

I like that wordpress provides some basic statistics.

I like the basic dashboard layout better at wordpress, but I like the easy of navigating between blogs in the blogger dashboard (though wordpress has improved theirs significantly)

I like that you can preset categories in wordpress and not have to remember all the labels you use.

Blogger seems easier to blog collaboratively with folks though, at least the whole invitation system for new contributors seems much more user friendly than wordpress.

I like that I can make Flock work well with wordpress (I haven't tried it with blogger since the recent updates).

I'm a man with torn loyalties

2007-03-03T13:33:00.000-06:00

It has been a while but I'm finally having some blogging adventures again. Things on Swing Scene are blowing up — views are just under 900 now, I've new things to talk about on the Music City Motion blog and of course all the commenting I have for blogs of my friends.

I'm involved in another dance event, and as part of the planning process we are using collaborative blogging to keep up with all the activities and conversations without huge email threads. So far it seems to be working quite well, not to mention the body of information we'll have already at our fingertips for the next event.

So stay tuned adventure lovers, there's a whole big blogging world I'm starting to explore again

2007-01-26T11:48:00.000-06:00

The problem with blogging for me is that I have too much to say. I need a topic about which I have a little bit to say every day, rather than an entire dissertation every 2 or 3 weeks like I do on Swing Scene.

2007-01-12T13:41:00.000-06:00

Be more patient Smitty

2007-01-05T15:53:00.000-06:00

Swing Scene's been picked up by another site! How sweet is that!

2007-01-05T15:39:00.000-06:00

Well here it is, the first Friday of 2007. It's been a while since I've been in here blogging fans, sorry about that.

Not much blogging action to report lately. Only Music City Motion has received any new posts. Swing Scene is currently quiet even though I was at an event and need to write about it.

I had a new blog idea while in the bathroom today (my best blog ideas always occur there). Maybe I could keep a blog about what I'm wearing that day. I could talk about how it makes me feel, any memories my clothes bring, why I'm wearing a particular item. In the least it would be a reason to post everyday. I'm not sold on it yet, but it could be interesting.

2006-12-08T16:21:00.000-06:00

I'm having to adjust my blogroll a little bit. One of my favorite blogs of all time, Pet Peeving has taken a permanent hiatus, and another friend's blog of original poetry has also gone without updates in a very long time. I can no longer link to them. But I do have two new ones to add, a new start up blog, Hampton, and the most recent blogging adventure by a buddy of mine, Pour Out.

I encourage you to check them out... they're each good reads.

2006-12-08T14:56:00.000-06:00

It seems that Swing Scene has grown enough to garner organic traffic of its own. Even though last night was the first post I've made in nearly a month, the traffic has continued steadily onward, through search engines, blog searches, and even the occasional link back from comments I leave else where.

2006-11-10T15:09:00.000-06:00

Swing Scene traffic is soaring lately. It took nearly 3 month to hit 200 views, in the 6 weeks since then there have been an additional 150! I sure hope this doesn't go to my head.

What has been most interesting is the growth in searches bringing eyeballs to Swing Scene. Pretty consistently there have been search engine referals now. Some of them are unrelated, but more of them are somehow related to Lindy Hop and the events I've been to.

I've been thinking about blogging lately. Why don't I seem able to post frequently and consistently is the question that has occupied most of these thoughts. I post about 2 things really, Swing Dancing, and my posts about swing dancing. Kind of a boring blogging life really.

The posts about dancing are so infrequent because I'm not dancing as much as I used to. And often my reaction to dancing is only so-so, and I don't want Swing Scene to become labored with rants about Nashville's Lindy Hop scene.

The blogging about theology I wanted to do on MySpace... well that has fallen apart because I've read nothing lately. Simply, I haven't felt like rehashing topics I've already settled in my mind and I've not done anything to challenge myself intellectually to create in me questions or realizations.

And so I'm stuck doing mediocre blogging because I don't take enough time to read the right books, and don't go dancing enough. But I do watch Heros and Friday Night Lights each week, maybe I should blog about those?

2006-10-27T15:40:00.000-05:00

Ah... Fridays. I originally intended to post a blogging adventure every Friday. Maybe that was foolish ambition or maybe that was an overly idealistic goal (I do not think those to be the same). Either way, for some reason I'm back this rather dreary Friday.

Dreary... this week has been dreary, but even with the gloom, the colors of the trees are fantastic. I've never seen Nashville leaves so adorned as this year.

So here's to more adventures in the blogospher. I'll get the hang of this someday, I keep telling myself. Until then...

2006-10-24T16:43:00.000-05:00

I have really petered out the last couple of weeks. When I have taken time to make an effort to blog, I can not seem to find a suitable topic on which I have anything to offer. Those moments in which I find myself with thoughts and ideas I deem worthy of imortality, I have not the time to blog, yet once I have returned to the blogging platform I can no longer remember what seemed so prominent not long ago.

What causes this phenomenon? Is it the creative process working itself out naturally or is that blogging is not for me?

2006-10-18T14:26:00.000-05:00

Smitty - This one's for you.

2006-10-06T10:54:00.000-05:00

Two posts in 24 hours! I'm rocking out!

You know who I envy? The owner of Voxacious.com. That dude has blogging down and it's going places too. Maybe I should use him as inspiration, but really I'm just a blogger wannabe.

2006-09-25T09:58:00.000-05:00

When I first began this blogging adventure I had the misimpression that if I turned on the option to be notified by email of each comment I receive I'd get flooded, what with all my friends who would suredly be devoted readers. Well at least I have one consistent commenter... so here's to you bro! Thanks for always letting me know that at least someone is out there in this world who cares... at least moderately.

2006-09-22T11:17:00.000-05:00

I'm not very good at this. Sorry!

2006-09-06T15:48:00.000-05:00

Traffic is soaring on Swing Scene. Somehow recent blog searches and web searches have been about topics I've written about. Nothing like watching the traffic on unboomed in my early days of blogging, but it's still pretty exciting.

I still like wordpress better than blogger, but we'll see once blogger's new format is rolled out past beta.

I'm wrestling with the idea of the personal responsibility blog... you'll know soon enough, but hopefully not before I do.

2006-08-30T18:17:00.000-05:00

I'm thinking about starting up a new blog about personal responsibilty. I am endlessly annoyed by the prevelence of victimhood in our society. So rarely do we find public examples of people taking responsibility for themselves, either proactively or even reactively when something goes wrong they could have prevented.

The only thing that holds me back is the time. Do I have time to post something along those natures every day or two? I can barely keep the blogs I keep "updated" updated. It would be a fun blog, and would probably even generate some traffic as it would be news driven. And no doubt I'd take some controversial stances on some things.

2006-08-30T18:14:00.000-05:00

I'm annoyed by blogger. The issue is my budding use of the Flock Browser. I really enjoy using this browser in large part because of the blogging functions built right in. Unfortunately I can't blog on blogger with it, I'm not allowed to connect to blogger to make or edit posts. So I checked extenstions in Firefox and found some that supposedly work in blogger, but I've yet to successfully accomplish an off blogger post. Grrr

2006-08-30T18:12:00.000-05:00

New font, Lucida Grande, hope it works out well on your computer. I have it available on my mac, but I haven't seen it on the pc I work on... enjoy!

2006-08-29T12:41:00.000-05:00

Traveling is something I love to do, and have done a fair amount of. Fitting that a buddy of mine has recently started a travel website with traveler reviews. Well I've been published now a couple times, and I'm loving writing for Tuesdays Traveler. Maybe someday I can even qualify as a real travel writer...

2006-08-28T17:26:00.000-05:00

I totally forgot to update My Blogging Adventures on Friday! My apologies. It won't happen again.

The crazy thing is I have things to talk about too!

I've been using Blogger and Wordpress for different blogs with the purpose of comparing the two. After a few months now I still don't really have much to say. Maybe my role in life is not to a technology reviewer.

Here are my observations and a few judgments though:

Wordpress is much less intimidating to use than blogger
Blogger is much more customizable (unless you want to pay on Wordpress)
They both use the term dashboard
Wordpress provides some basic statistics, which is nice
Blogger lets you more easily leverage your blog, adding ads, scripts, etc.
Wordpress' pre-installed themes are better than Blogger, though blogger has more choices.

I don't have a particular preference though, I haven't tried using Wordpress with multiple blogs as I have Blogger, and I haven't really utilized BloggerCSS or templates yet, though I have played around extensively with the themes for Wordpress (though I'm not about the pay for the rights to customize the CSS in Wordpress). customizable

So I guess I'll have more on this subject later.

2006-08-18T10:43:00.000-05:00

My return to blogging this week was rough. I was embattled by writer's block, left the few posts I made mostly incomplete, and was unable to even get a handfull of others off the ground, some having nothing beyond titles and a thesis sentence.

I've been reading more blogs lately. I was struck by Pendrops today as Krista described her tussle with writer's block and her desire to be published. I'm not the only struggling blogger out there! Well that's obvious when you consider how many blogs succumb to ascetism by their authors within 90 days. I'm over that hump though, so shouldn't it be easier to continue writing? Maybe I'm spread to thin, and ought to just maintain one blog? Maybe I put to much pressure on myself to generate more words than necessary?

All I know right now is that blogging is not feeling much like an adventure at the moment, more like the third day home sick and I'm tired of everything that's on TV!

2006-08-15T17:44:00.000-05:00

I'm back in action after a short hiatus. A death in the family and a trip to Austin to help the in-laws move into new digs kept me out of the blogosphere for two weeks.

But I'm home now; and with an hour to kill on Tuesdays and Thursdays before my evenings start up at Starbucks I'll have plenty of time to continue on my journey through the blogging realm.

I'll have more to post about soon... until then, fare thee well wayfaring reader.

2006-07-28T08:59:00.000-05:00

I can't spell. I've never spelled well. Unfortunately blogging seems to exacerbate this problem. When writing emails, or documents using a writing or publishing application my spelling is checked automatically. Unfortunately none of these WYSIWYG editors spell check on the fly.

I suppose that actually indicates my other weakness... patience. I have very little. If I had more I'd remember to hit that little "ABC" button at the top of this entry field. But I'll forget, Smitty will comment on how poorly this post is spelled, I'll go back and edit it, but my shame will still exist.

The crazy thing is I can spell. I used to perform fabulously on spelling tests and quizes. But when it comes to writing and spelling in context... my spelling goes to crap. I go all phonetic, and sometimes I even miss that. Part of the problem is that my mind moves so much more quickly than my fingers do (heck, it moves much faster than my mouth does... speaking off the cuff about something for which I have ample fodder can be a nightmare for the poor souls trying to keep up with me). I'll skip entire parts of words, join words, create conjunctions that don't exist etc.

So please forgive if you find something recently posted that you can't read well, it probably isn't your fault. Just let me know and I'll go back and edit the kinks out. And maybe I'll start learning a little patience and find out I actually can spell well.

2006-07-21T17:25:00.000-05:00

Blogging is tough. For about five months I've written in 4 blogs, one on MySpace, one on Wordpress, and 2 here (one is a collaborative blog).

My first blog posts were mere drivel in the ebiz coffee break. That was directly related a very short lived marketing experiment. The second was an attempt to muse on deep spiritual issues on myspace. Also short lived. I had a bit of successess parading around on Unboomed, but since Rocketboom has returned I've just not found anything to talk about there. The longest running of my blogs is Swing Scene. That is exclusively focused on one of my passions, Swing Dancing (specifically Lindy Hop and Balboa). This blog is my 6th and while I set it up nearly 2 months ago intending to document my blogging as a whole, this is the first post.

I had grand ambitions of posting somewhere at least once a day. That lasted for a week. Basically I ran out of stuff to say. I have a handful of pending posts on Swing Scene, but most of those are very incomplete collections of partial thoughts.

This is hard, this daily blogging. I have a tremendous respect for those who are able to publish meaningful thoughts day in and day out.

The spelling errors have been fixed in this post 7/28/06