webdevmatt

So I’m writing an old friend telling him about my blog and I’ve decided to put into written words my true feelings about “BLOGGING”. First the definition from our good friends at Wikipedia.com:

A blog is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order.

Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of most early blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual although some focus on photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), or audio (podcasting), and are part of a wider network of social media.

The term “blog” is a portmanteau, or, in other words, a blend of the words web and log (Web log). “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

In November 2006, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 57 million blogs.

This is a nice definition and it discusses the “blogs” that bastardize the term blog for the public’s consumption. I’m talking about the “personally” directed “diaries” which is where most of the millions of blogs that are out there come from. These Journals or Diaries ruin it for someone who wants to provoke thought, feeling, or even action from the words he/she publishes to the public. Before I go onto my rant, I would like to say that I don’t expect anyone to care about my thoughts on any topic that I “blog“, but please notice I’m not talking about my cats, or what I had for dinner unless it pertains to something that might be relevant to a topic in which I’m trying to represent. HERE WE GO.

When wearing my “why the hell is that guy writing a public blog” hat, I will profess; a blog to be a single person’s expression, idea, feeling, or thought at specific time, on a topic that extends beyond that single person’s inner circle. This being said, “my cat Muffy ate a mouse last night, it was gross” is a diary entry not a blog post. The person who wrote that and the people who know both the cat and the person who wrote it might care about Muffy eating a mouse, and even be moved emotionally by it, and provoke action like “I’ll never step foot in that house it has mice”. But if I’m doing research about the primal instinct found in domestic cats eating mice, I hope not to find anything about Muffy ever, and this post has just polluted one of my main sources of research.

Yes, it frustrates me that there’s enough crap out there, a lot of which is personal blogging tar (to be defined if there is interest). Your daughter loves horses and there are a hell of a lot of people who can’t spell or may mistype, so your daughter is getting slutty pictures of someone’s ex-girlfriend naked because spell checker put in horse instead of whores :|. The funny thing is, and I hope there are some challengers out there cause I can’t write enough to describe the extent of this issue, but the infamous WHORE post would be a legit blog post, in my definition, and potentially damaging to the young lady, if in fact it had all pertinent information about the person’s ex-girlfriend. All of a sudden, a diary of a disgruntled significant other, now provides a single person’s account of another person, providing it’s readers reasons why they may not want to engage in the ex-girlfriends company, which probably wasn’t its intent. It’s intent hopefully was just to account for the incident so he/she doesn’t forget it, move on with life and hopefully not damage the ex-girlfriend’s character, and probably no one will read it :). COMMENTS.

To end cause I don’t know if most people will read this far:

BLOG: A single persons account of anything that may or may not interest anyone besides themselves, but there is at least a perceived interest from a third or fourth party. Hopefully this account or musing will provoke thought, feeling, or ideas from those who are interested in the blogged topic. Thankfully, the journaling feature of the blog stamps a time frame for continual readers or just interested parties to measure or track the thoughts on the topic by the single poster.

IT WAS A SUCCESS :)! Air drying my clothes, while it’s the green alternative, for me it appears to be the convenient option. While I spent about 5 - 7 extra minutes up front hanging the clothes they were dry the next morning and, they were already hung up :|, saving that same 5 - 7 minutes and or the procrastination of a week or two of hanging them up after they come from dryer. In addition, I didn’t have to go up and down the stairs to restart the dryer, which usually happens sometime between 1 minute - 1 day after the dryer goes through its first cycle.

I have read some articles about speeding the process of air drying, but for now I will stick with the hang and wait. If my lifestyle changes sometime in the near future or someone wants to see how fast one can air dry clothes I’ll give it a go. Until next time “Stay Green USA”.

Another week, another green act. The clothes dryer is the #1 consumer of fuel in your home, when used. So today I start air drying my clothes. One small step to a greener earth you ask we’ll see. I’m curious of the effectiveness of this technique, especially when done indoors.

With my dryer my clothes take quite a long time to dry in general, so I’m not sure this will effect my lifestyle to much. Especially since I typically need to add more time to the dryer during the process my clothes can take up to a day and a half to dry in the dryer. With this technique all I need to do is to, all together, “SET EM AND FORGET EM”.

While I have read techniques for speeding up the process, I’m starting with a baseline of, out of the washer, onto hangers, and starting the clock. I’ll keep you all up to date on this experiment, and if you have any tips, please, let me know. Better yet if you don’t have tips and currently use a dryer, try the air drying, what do you have to loose?

It’s that time of year again, when we meet at the pub and celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Everyone is Irish for a day and a good time is had by all. But there’s another day, a little over a week from St. Patties where we put ourselves aside and focus on trying to make it a better day, and life for Children with Cancer.

Since its inception in 2000, St. Baldrick’s has raised more than $20 million and grown into the world’s largest fundraising event for childhood cancer. Right here in Syracuse, at Kitty Hoynes Irish Pub, we are looking to break last years $200,000 mark :).

St. Baldrick’s research grants help fill crucial funding gaps at medical institutions where children are treated for cancer, ensuring the finest care for every child. In 2006, the St. Baldrick’s Foundation granted over $4 million to a network of 230 institutions who work together to develop the most advanced treatment techniques. The foundation also granted more than $1 million to other hospitals for research fellowships and projects to cure childhood cancer.

So, enough about the accolades of the foundation, enough about me shaving off my wavy locks that you all have grown to love, let’s give some money for the kids. March 17 is for us to celebrate what’s great in our lives, let’s make the 25th the day we give to improve the lives of the little ones with cancer.

Please make your tax deductible donation online at the following websites:
1. My Site :https://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/shavee_info.html?ShaveeID=5470 
2. Direct Link to Donate: Donate Online
3. Don’t Like Online Donation, Download a Form : Download a Donation Form
4. Finally if you don’t like the Form, give the phone a try : 888-889-BALD(2253)

See you all at Kitty Hoynes March, 25 to see me shave my head for Cancer.

So I’ve been driving a Prius for the past 4-6 months, and it has been a pleasure. Runs well in the snow, very reliable, might take a while to heat up on the bitter cold mornings, but, all and all quite a pleasant experience. So my next step is to purchase a green machine. I’m up in the air right now on which I will be getting, but my main concern will be getting the right one for the environment that will satisfy my need for an A - B machine with all the tech goodies. I’ll keep you posted on my decision, and the information I find on the competitors.

Front runners :
1. Nissan Altima
2. Toyota Camry
3. Toyota Prius

The mind is most importment in this statement, like your teeth, you must have it your whole life, but like all cliches this one to has a moral. If your body is how you make a living, I can under stand it being the more important, at least for the time being, but the moral of this saying, “Body and Mind” is one of misdirection. While some of us find that going out and running, or lifting, or playing ball makes us feel better, if that’s not your bag, just do something else.

As a subscriber of a Workaholics lifestyle, I find if it’s not one redirection to fuel the growth and nurturing of the mind it’s another. If your a gamer, game, if you like Sudoku (a great one especially for a mind breather mid day) do it.

The slight misdirection when applied at the appropriate time can increase your cerebral output by a crapload (crapload is a technical term used by only the most staunch Technologists). I find that 2 minutes on a Sudoku puzzle, applied at the appropriate time (knowing when that time is, is holy grail of your effectiveness) of say coding or doing research can widen the bandwidth of my brain to absorb more data, information, or knowledge and even promote sharper all around thought than if I pressed on one more minute more.

Ending/ beginning the day the new day with a 5 miler provides certain tranquility that can’t really be explained unless you have experienced how, what I will call, mind misdirection can do for your effective mind.

Redirect the mind when it’s tired or out of shape, the results will astound you.

I know some of you who don’t know me well are thinking this guy is a nut job, but over time I will win you over, just wait until, I start getting my write on ;).