Tag Archives: blogging

Not a Blogger? Maybe You Should Be!

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If you read blogs, you can blog, too.

One of the hats I wear is the Webmaster hat for wickenburg-az.com. This is a Web site I started back in 1999 to provide information of interest to Wickenburg residents and visitors. A few years back, I converted it from straight HTML to a blog-based system utilizing WordPress. This makes it very easy to add new content, automatically archives old content by topic, and adds a great search feature.

wickenburg-az.com is a place for folks to share their own content. I have a number of regular contributors, as well as a few folks who just send new content for consideration when they have something to say.

Yesterday, I received two new submissions — a record for a single day. One was a piece by a woman — we’ll call her Jackie — who was deeply offended by something John McCain said in an Interview with Sarah Palin and Katie Couric. She wrote a short article that explained her views. I could tell by reading it that it was something she’d thought about, something that bothered her a lot. She wasn’t a Democrat latching onto yet another Republican faux pas to prove that Republicans weren’t fit to be in office. I got the feeling that she’d been a McCain supporter who felt betrayed by his recent behavior. This comment he’d made was the last straw.

I couldn’t put the article on wickenburg-az.com. Although the site does cover politics, it concentrates on politics at a much more local level. (Heaven knows that the politics in Wickenburg has enough scandal, cronyism, and blatant favoritism to keep us busy.) So I wrote to Jackie, told her that we couldn’t use it, and suggested that she submit it to the newspapers.

Jackie responded to say that she had and that no one seemed interested in printing it. She thanked me for my response — I may have been the only person to extend that simple courtesy.

That got me thinking…I’ve been blogging for nearly five full years now. (My first blog post was on October 15, 2003.) I’ve used my blog to share everything from boring stories from my life to opinions about politics and religion. If I have something to say, I say it here. I don’t try to submit it to newspapers or other Web sites. I have my own publishing outlet and you’re reading it: An Eclectic Mind.

So I wrote back to Jackie and suggested that she start her own blog.

Those of you who think there’s some kind of computer programming knowledge required to start and run a blog are seriously mistaken. If you have the equipment and skills to find and read a blog post on someone else’s blog, you have everything you need to start your own. Best of all, there are plenty of free blogging tools and services out there. My personal favorite is WordPress. Although I use the WordPress server installation, which does require an above average amount of computer know-how, WordPress.com is a free service that just about anyone can use.

Why haven’t I mentioned this before? Well, it’s mostly because I thought everyone already knew this. It wasn’t until I began this e-mail exchange with Jackie that I realized that there are people out there with something to say and no easy public outlet in which to say it. Blogging fills this purpose for me. Why can’t it fill this purpose for others?

Are you someone like Jackie? Someone with something to say to the world and no place to say it? Consider blogging.

Lynda.com WordPress CoverAnd at the risk of turning this into a commercial — which is not my intent — I invite you to check out the free sample lessons from the WordPress.com video I created for the folks at lynda.com. There’s enough there to introduce you to blogging so you can find out whether blogging is for you. There are also free lessons that cover the WordPreess.com setup process. That’ll get you started. WordPress isn’t difficult to use, so there’s a very good chance you won’t even need training material. (But if you do, I can’t say enough nice things about lynda.com materials.)

Blogging has become an important part of my life. It gives me an outlet to communicate what I’m doing and thinking to the world. So what if only a few hundred people read each blog post? I’m not writing for them as much as I’m writing for myself — to get what’s in my head out where it can be read by others.

Isn’t that what Jackie was trying to do when she submitted her article to wickenburg-az.com?

Quick Note to Blog Readers

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I may be off the grid for a few days.

Just want to let readers know that while I’m traveling for the next five or so days, I might not be able to check the site regularly. Since all comments must go through moderation, posted comments may not appear for a few days. Be patient; I will eventually get around to it.

I look forward to posting updates about my trip and reading your comments.

I’m Not MIA

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Just away on a business trip, working 14-hour days.

And no, I’m not complaining. They put me in a hotel on the harbor with about 1,000 boats right out my window. Today, I walked from my hotel room to the ocean, then had a fresh seafood dinner that I did not share with seagulls. On the way back to my room, I watched a great blue heron pluck a fish out of the water and swallow it.

Nope. No complaints here.

Anyway, I’m working on a WordPress-related project and, to do so, I had to find a bunch of sample WordPress blogs. One of them is just too funny not to share: Sir Satire’s Weblog. Don’t hesitate — go there right now and read it. It’s hilarious. Like another version of The Onion.

For example, today’s blog post is titled “Tax on human gas emissions gains support in Congress” begins:

A tax on human gas emissions has gained the support of at least one member of Congress, but critics are blasting the proposal and say that its proponents are just full of hot air.

Proponents of the “flatutax,” as it has been dubbed by critics, say that human emissions are often overlooked when discussing global warming issues. Human beings contribute greenhouse gases to the atmosphere during the digestive process, they say, and a tax would provide an incentive to curb those emissions.

Get the idea? Funny stuff!

Are you still here? You’re not going to read anything more interesting here, at least for a few days. Go on over and check out Sir Satire. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

A Few Random Things

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Or why I’m not blogging as regularly as I should.

I’m deep into preparations for my summer-long trip to Washington State and Page, AZ. And it seems that every other week, I’m traveling. And I have two video training courses to record for clients. And I caught a bit of a bug that had me out of action for about a day and a half.

W KeyAnd the W key on my MacBook Pro is not being very responsive.

I’ve also been reading, and when I read, I have less time to write.

Those are just some of the excuses I can offer as to why I’m blogging once or twice a week rather than once or twice a day.

But I’m working on a few blog posts now and hope to release them as they’re finished. Getting started is always the hardest part, so I thought I’d start a few of them at once and let them sit in ecto until I’m ready to finish and publish them.

Let’s see how I do.

Greetings, Blog Readers!

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I’ve been meeting blog readers…in person.

I’ve been blogging pretty regularly since 2003, writing about the things that go on in my life, the things I’m thinking, the flights I’ve been making. I’ve been sharing photos and videos and stories. All the time I do this, I don’t really think about the people who read what I write. They’re a nameless, faceless group, scattered all over the globe.

At least they were. Lately, some of their faces have been coming into full focus. How? I’m meeting them in person.

I met three of them up here in Alaska over the past two days: Keith, Deb, and Marcus. Keith didn’t say much about the blog, but Deb and I discussed some of the things I’ve written in a bit more detail than I’d expect. And Marcus laughed with me about misused apostrophes, including the one on a local restaurant’s take-out menu, which lists Pizza’s. (You may recall that I linked to Apostrophe Atrophy on March 15.)

This is odd. I’m over 2,500 miles from home and meeting people who already know me more than I expect. And they still want to talk to me, if you can believe that!

Anyway, I just wanted to take a moment to say hello to the blog readers I haven’t met yet in person. Maybe I’ll meet some of you one day, too.