I seem to have a bit of it. Funny how not having anyone at home gives me time to do other things. 😉 But where oh where is Jamaihsh (one of Tangents most frequent bloggers has been missing for a week). I know where one blogger is (no internet for Froggy). One may be taking a break (I really hope not, but that is his call). What about the Cabbages? Or Mare Mare? Hmm, is my extra blogging taking their space? 😉

On to different things. I had to get a new phone today. I’ve been thinking about getting rid of my land line for a long time. Recently I decided to keep it because I like being able to give people that number if I don’t feel like giving them my cell number. But my last phone decided it didn’t want to dial out anymore. I couldn’t read the messages on the answering machine either. And to top it all off, the wireless extension didn’t work either.
So I got a new phone. The answering machine is up and running again, but with a bit of a difference. I really like my cell phone greeting, so I put it on the home phone too. So Sorry Admin, but I like that greeting.

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…

Today I started something on this computer that would allow me to channel my thoughts in a more productive way. You see, with everything going on in my life I needed something to prevent me from going down a dark path. In any event, I decided to try using speech recognition on my computer. Instead of typing this post, I decided to dictate it.

This actually takes a great deal more concentration my usual typing. When I am typing, I am able to correct words as I type. With speech recognition, corrections are made after the sentence is finished.

The tutorial suggests that the speech recognition will learn my voice the more I speak to it. As far as I can tell, the best part about this is that spelling is usually perfect. (unless I mispronounce the word 😉 )

So thank you for letting me get a little negative energy out.

Unfortunately, I had to use wordpad to dictate my post.

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.

The Graduation and Wedding days are fast approaching. There was an award banquet, and during the weekend one of my daughter’s wedding showers. Since my oldest threw the shindig, I got to drive my youngest to the party. I was supposed to have a day playing laser tag, but that was canceled. Too bad.

I’ve been a bit tired the past couple of weeks. Sometimes I wonder why. Then I think again and I’m wondering how I can spend as many hours awake as I do. Maybe things will so down, or not.

I have been able to get some ‘down time’ in. I’ve seen a couple of movies and was able to see the current play at WCCT. I’ve been listening to some ball games. I spent some time with friends and family. That is all good.

I’ve read that taylhis will be taking a bit of a blogging break, I guess I’ve been doing the same thing. I do want to keep some of my readers up to date on the various events with my girls, so I have some things I will need to blog about. So maybe not a total break. Star Trek review coming up….

Well, I guess I haven’t really been that far away but it sometimes seems that way. I’ve done nothing as energetic as pulling carpet and painting. I haven’t tried out for any musicals (never will). I’ve just been dealing with daughters. Daughter getting married, daughter in her senior year, just being a dad.

I did take some time off to be with friends. A little help here (have truck will haul part 3 😉 ), a little help there (moral support during tryouts), and that was that.

I really didn’t have much to say or blog about. Except for two movies I was able to see. I may do some full write-ups later. Full of spoiler alerts.

First bridal shower for 3rd daughter seemed to go off without a hitch. I dropped off some food, and the youngest daughter, and then made my self scarce for a few hours. I was going to spend some time with my son-in-law, but since he had to work, I spent the afternoon with my father-in-law. S’s parents are good people, and they’ve kept me as part of their family. Another one of those ‘family we choose’ situations. Sometimes we get lucky.

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. 😉

Today marks one year of my blog. More on that in the next post… 😉

I was wondering how random my thoughts have really been in the past year. I’ve written about a lot of different topics that interest me, but I’ve seem to have posted most about the things in life that are most important to me.

Family and Friends.

Posts written in times of sadness revolved around family and friends no longer in my life. Posts written in better times revolved around family and friends I share my life with now. Theater posts revolve around plays and my dear friends that I’ve met through that theater. Even posts on space and science go back to family events I’ve kept in my mind through many a year.

Just how random?

Over three hundred posts and some posts fit into more than one category, but here is a rough break down.

160 Thoughts on Life (default category could contain anything)
100+ posts on Family
50 posts on Friends
48 on the theater
42 on movies or reviews
37 on Widows and Widowers
24 on Science and Technology
10 to 20 on the remaining categories.

If we add the posts for family, friends and widow/widowers together, that is over 1/2 my post total. Yep, kind of shows were my mind is most of the time. This place is a dumping ground to clear my mind and help get thoughts back in gear. I’ve always know what is important to me, and it is good to see that my thought ‘dumps’ confirm this.
😉

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?

Have you noticed, our polls are just like our comments.  So very few people access the polls, and very few comment on the posts.  I know I have some lurkers (they told me), and others that just visit.

Now I would like to get more readers, but our little corner of the internet does get a lot of action.  I realize our esteemed admin would like to get more bloggers,  so we have more internet traffic, but that seemed to get more spam like blogs.  What to do? What to do?   Me, I beg 😉   So this is another one of those posts begging for more response from the lurkers, but in this case all you need to do is fill out a poll.  How easy is that?  Or you can post comments on anything here that interests you.

I am lucky that I just post here for my own enjoyment.

[poll id = 5]