my life in 144 characters

I did say that I may blog more, but I’m living a boring life and nothing is happening. So here is my life in 144 character bits. More or less.

I can’t understand why twitter is such a big deal. Even the place I work has a twitter account. I don’t like the character limit, it seems to g

I’m not one to use word abbreviations like lol and l8r, so the character limit on twitter would really slow down my fluid writing style. It woul

So I decided to try my hand at this 144 character stuff. I was just wondering how coherent I could actually be. It seems to be a bit of work to

I am fairly certain that the character counts on all these little snippets is 144. And with that, my thoughts are getting cut off. I could cont

My youngest and I went to the Hut today and they had wings for 50 cents each. I liked the wings, but they didn’t like me, so I am up at 3:30 am.

Ok, this is getting a bit silly, even for me. I will say that I am under the influence of a late night wing attack, and a brain that doesn’t kn

Twitter asks the question: “What are you doing now?” To the logical soul I am the answer would always be the same. I’m writing drivel on twitte

Never give a blog to a slightly crazed brain after midnight. You will never know exactly what you will find there. Tonight I was on a twitter

I think that the wind is what really woke me up. We’ve had heavy winds for the past few days, but it seems to be gusting a bit more this evening

Good night all, or is that good morning. My life is boring, even 144 characters at a time. I think that is a good thing.




Going on midnight…

I was watching a movie, but I fell asleep sometime while it played. I can’t say when that was, since it was a movie I’ve seen before and I can ‘remember’ most of it. Anyway, I’m awake now and not quite ready for bed. (grumble, grumble).

On to the thoughts that are currently on my mind….

I’ve been thinking about privacy in the age of the internet. Back many, many moons ago when I was still young and reckless, the internet did not really exist. Oh there were a few things happening, but not the great connectivity of today. As with most young and reckless people, I did one or two foolish things (or more) that I really hoped would stay in the group I was with. Most did, I think the others were afraid of there foolish failings would get out there too. 😉

But now, it seems the foolish and reckless failings of people find there way onto the wonderful World Wide Web. Notice those first two words, World Wide. Doesn’t that mean most of the world can see your foolish acts on You Tube? We can read about them in your blog. And then there is always FaceBook…

I make a water slide off my roof and miss the landing pool — You Tube…

Want to share something off color with my friends, post it to face book and all 600 of my closest friends see it. Oh, I forgot about my privacy settings, everyone can see it.

I don’t like what someone did, I post that on facebook. Oops that someone sees it…

I blog about all sorts of things. Oh that is ok, I never use names, but others do.

Hard to hide in this wonderful webby world, but then again do you really want to? I’m not here to keep things hidden away, I am here to share them. I hope I don’t do anything to embarrass myself, but it may happen. It happens outside of the web, it can happen here.

Through the web, I’ve connected with new and old friends. I’ve shared thoughts and ideas with people who have shared similar experiences. I’ve learned from people who share my hobbies. As long as I remember that the internet isn’t my whole life, things are good. Just one more way for me to know others and them to know me. That is the human experience.




Just trying to add a little more info

If you notice on the right hand bar, there is a new widget.  I’m looking through all of my pictures to see if I can find animals that will represent various moods.  After I catalog those moods, I hope to find a way to easily switch them to my current frame of mind.

Maybe that will give you an indication of what was going on in my head during the latest posting.  I won’t guarantee that it will reflect past posts, just the most current.

IF, and that is a big if, I get this working to my satisfaction, maybe I will share…. Right now it is only a text widget. Not at all what I am working toward, but I like the pictures.




Been deep in thought

I often wonder if I will ever get lost in my thoughts and not be able to find the way out. I tend to think about some strange things when I should be getting some sleep. I have a feeling that this is the main cause of all my sleep problems. I just can’t turn my brain off long enough for sleep to come easily. I tend to stay away until I can no longer function.

Maybe my body clock doesn’t conform with the standard 24 hour day. Maybe I’m really a night person and should be working a 2nd or 3rd shift job. Maybe I just think too much. Hmmm I need to think on this.

I’ve worked both 2nd and 3rd shift jobs, but I had the same problem with sleeping. I never seemed to get enough until the days I had off. Sleeping late wasn’t what I intended to do, but I slept late because that gave me my 8 or 9 hours of sleep.

I’ve been involved in a sleep study, but never one that would allow me to ‘set’ my body’s clock. I think that may be an interesting study. I don’t think I would mind finding that out. That could explain the times I feel like sleeping and those times that I don’t. I’ll have to keep that in mind if I ever see that sort of study in the area.

And of course I could think too much. The various ramblings on this blog and other places tend to show I have a lot on my mind. I could talk about all subjects, but there are a couple that I stay away from just because I really don’t want any conflict on this blog. Maybe I should start another blog or two under other assumed names for controversial subjects. Now that may be able to clear a thought or two from my mind to let me sleep.




Random thoughts for today

I was strolling around the internet (I don’t surf, that just goes too fast), and I found a few interesting things.

On this site, I found two t-shirts I liked. The first was with Bela Lugosi as Dracula holding the head of a more recent movie vampire (yes, just the head). The saying was “Dracula never sparkled.” Struck my sense of humor today. The other shirt on the same site was “Meat is Murder. Quick eat the evidence.” So today, I guess my humor is heading toward the violent stage. “Here’s Johnny.” 😈

Ok, I knew somebody had the list of what emoticons actually works here. Ok, I found them, thanks again Derek!! Why can’t all of the various chat area, blog sites, bulletin boards, social networks, ect. use the same symbols. Why do they work sometimes and not others. Even being a technical person by trade, I get sick of technology… 😡

Are we headed for a new form of the WWW? Kind of discussed this last night with a friend or few. Mostly about if Facebook would start charging for use. Currently that is just a malicious rumor floating around, but as was said in the conversation, Facebook and other sites like that need some cash to exist. Now this article is more about premium content, but I wonder what premium content is. I already pay for my web access, about as much as I would pay for Cable/Satellite TV, Cell Phone usage ect., so I wonder how much more this would eventually cost. Like most people in the middle class, my budget is strained from all angles. I don’t have pay TV for a number of reason, but one is I really don’t want to pay for TV.

If it ever comes to the point that I have to pay for TV, I’ll stop watching. I’ve said before there isn’t much I want to watch, so it doesn’t make any difference to me. I have internet access to keep up with friends, family, work and news of the day. I pay for that access to offset other areas I no longer use or pay for. If the outlets I use start charging me, on top of my access charge, I may stop using them. Unless I become independently wealthy. I can always go to the library to pick up newspapers and magazines. My taxes go to keep those organizations functioning, so I will use them. I can use other means to contact friends and family. But then as I said earlier, sometimes the technology bugs me….

In what may be a good use for Ebooks, I found this article. Textbooks that can be modified or commented on by the professors/teachers. Cool stuff. I remember in school carting around a lot of books. And then in college pay tons of money for lots of books. Of course the teachers would always comment or add to the material present in the book. This forced the student to carry even more. I like the idea of getting this all on an E-book level and allow the students to carry around less material. Save trees and backaches. Now if they would only come up with a way to make that stupid textbook cheaper.

One final note. I went to the oriental restaurant on Sunday with my daughter. My taste buds were so messed up, I left the fortune cookies in the truck. Since my taste returned today I ate the cookies. The first fortune I had was “Everything will now come your way.” The lucky numbers on this fortune just happened to be the birthdays (day of the month) of my four daughters, myself and my late wife. That is six numbers. The estimated jackpot for the Mega Millions jackpot is now 83 million for tonight’s drawing. I met my late wife in 1983… Is that a sign? I’m not sure I believe in stuff like that, but I bought the ticket anyway. I used my late wife’s birthday as the powerball and put the rest of the days in the regular numbers. One final little note: that combination of numbers never won the jackpot….




Blogging and Bloggers….

Now of course there are the many tangents’ bloggers here and I really like to visit their sites, but I want to call my readers attention to a blog listed under Widows/Widowers. Check out SHR Images and Photography. The pictures are just stunning.

I will be the first to admit, I know very little about the art of photography. I enjoy taking pictures now and then, but it is now more for the technical side (thank goodness for Digital cameras) than any artistic drive. I take lots and lots of pictures, delete all the bad ones and keep a precious few. If I happen to take any with artistic appeal, it was all luck. I tend to see something I like and take pictures.

On the SHR site, I don’t think the pictures are taken in quite the same fashion. They touched me deeply. I thought I should share this with other readers of my blog. Enjoy




Another annoying late night

I’m not really sure why I’m up so late this evening, but I am..

I was skimming through some of my old posts because I noticed somebody was going back and looking at things. I think it was some sort of ‘bot looking into my blog, but I can’t tell for sure unless they reply.

Last year at this time I made a plea for some blog responses. I did get a few and that really made my day. I realize that not everyone sees something in blogs to respond to. I know that I visit a blog site or three and don’t respond. Not because I don’t like the blog, but because I really think that I have nothing to add.

I’ve just been thinking, maybe (just maybe) I should respond every once in a while with a simple “I like your blog.” response. That would take very little of my time, and would give the other blogger a small lift. I mean, it couldn’t hurt.

That may or may not show up on blogs I semi-regularly post responses to. You know who you are, and I really enjoy your blogs. Sometimes they say everything that needs to be said. My response would be redundant.

I’m going to try to get some sleep… Ha Ha…




4,934 vs 1,321

No, that isn’t the score of some sporting event. That is the count of my spam comments vs. my accepted comments (as of 11:17 pm on Jul 22 2009). A spam count of 5,284 would be 4x. I’m glad the new filter is in place, and I don’t have to delete all the spam by hand anymore.

For a while, I was wondering if I was actually blocking good comments with the vast number of spam messages that are received in a day. I did notice that I am getting a lot of ‘over seas’ visitors to my little blog. Some are actually visiting, some just go to the same posts over and over again. Kind of messes up with my keeping track of what is interesting to people.

Don’t worry about me, I’m just on a numbers kick this evening. This is the second time today I was having fun with numbers.




Happy Anniversary to me…

Thanks to advance posting (thank you taylhis for making me look for this), I am able to wish myself a happy blogging anniversary and not have to worry about getting it done that day.

I wasn’t sure what I was planning on doing when I started this blog. I thought I would get a few more space/science related blogs than I have, but that is neither here nor there. I did assume that I would write about my theater experience. That I did. I also wrote about my family, friends, life experiences and even some book and movie reviews.

I am always interested in who reads my blog, but it seems that most visitors are either computers (loads of spam visits) or very shy lurkers. For the most part I average around 25-30 visitors a day. Less if I don’t write anything new, more if I do. Are people telling their friends that I wrote something? I don’t know. My guess is that it is just the computers finding new stuff. I also noticed I get more visitors when I post on other sites with my blog as part of my signature. I hope they enjoy what they find here.

My regulars, well I just think they are the some of the best people I know. But of course I still wish more people would reply. I’m in theater, I enjoy the notice. 😉




More on Blogging….

Today I was inundated with spam comments today.  When I got home there were many waiting for me to throw in the spam trash bucket.  

I noticed a plugin that is supposed to head the spam off before it gets to me, but I’m wondering how well it will work.  I didn’t see a way to check to see what was being blocked, so I hope it doesn’t end up blocking friends from posting, so I will keep an eye or two peeled for that.  

I guess this means that my blog is getting attention from some quarters now.  I’m not sure I like that kind of attention, but it does come with the territory.   I can’t really say I’m surprised by the spam or the contents of it, but it does surprise me that it has become more frequent.   For the first few months of blogging, I got a small handful of spam replies.  I think I tripled that amount in the last 2 days.   It all looks like the same site or type of site generating the spam too.  Same type of message, same layout, same content.

Ok for you other bloggers, have you been recently plagued by more spam?