Virginia Breeze

I have found lately that some of the best communication I have with fellow bloggers is not coming through comments here but through the Stumble Toolbar.  And that’s great.   It’s a very convenient way to communicate and you can get more done there with thumbs up and reviews and so forth.

It’s quick and that’s important to someone like me who can hold a thought for about ten seconds.  And so I will try to remember to respond more quickly to the SU toolbar message deal.

I’m feeling better this morning.  And I have been thinking about making frames and displaying some of my favorite photos.  The old neglected woodshop could use some activity too.  Here is something I was reading this am that convinced me to try it.

http://www.knottyplans.com/index.php?page=200421

I have also been playing around at photo.net .   Posting a few photos and exploring the area.  They have some amazing photographers here.  The photos are stunning.  It makes me want to just become totally immersed in the art form.

Here are a few favorites I have collected in just a short while there.  The Osprey is just amazing, isn’t it?   I couldn’t take a photo like that in a million years of trying.  Perhaps I could take one of a girl taking a bath with a thirsty horse.  But I would have to find a girl willing to take a bath, a large container of water and a horse first of all.

Plus the lighting would have to be really nice and maybe a few other things that I haven’t even thought about.

Then there is this slide show deal that looks like it has possibilities.  The photos in general are not as great but they do an excellent job of allowing you to present your work. And while photo.net limits the size to 1500 pixels you can choose larger sizes with this setup.

So I’m focusing on the photos as we move forward and hoping to learn more about taking good ones. Better ones. Always hoping to move forward and someday take photos that will amaze the world.

We can all dream. That’s what we are doing in fact.

It’s just nicer when we have pleasant ones.

, originally uploaded by Davidlind.

When we were up in Washington I was impressed by the bridges we passed through on our way to the zoo. Some of them are quite grand. This one had a shiny orange/red interior.

I don’t know if this photo is any good or not. But I like it. So here it is.

Also. . .I wrote in a recent post HERE about a different strategy to increase readership involving increasing Page Rank by internal post linking.

Example:   Bernie has written some very encouraging things today here at VB.  You can see in the comments here that he feels this photo is alright.  I appreciate that very much because I really didn’t have a clue.  I just “thought” it looked interesting.

I’m going to add some NextGen stuff about bridges we saw as we drove along this route.  One of them I think is really cool.  Can you tell which one?

I went over to Bernie’s to see what he was doing and he also is fooling around with bridges!  What a coincidence!   So here is the Link to Bernie’s Bridge.  . .

http://sindianavisions.wordpress.com/2008/10/17/madison-indiana-sunset/

If we are going to be successful bloggers  (and I believe we are going to succeed) we need to try new things and find new ways to grow.

I guarantee you that this post will be gathering readers who will shoot over to Bernies Bridge long after a StumbleUpon link has fizzled out. I feel like we were seduced by SU in the early stages of our blogging experiences.   “It’s all about Plastic” as Mr. Robinson used to say.  (But Mrs Robinson had a different story).   Don’t get me wrong.  I like SU a lot.  But I understand now why it’s not really there to promote individual blogs.  It promotes cool posts.  Growing a blog requires a helping hand from Google.

Because links like these help to increase PR and Google is a LOT bigger than StumbleUpon.  See?

[Show as slideshow]

Thank you to everyone who took the time to read about our adventures in the hurricane zone last week and comment as well.  I really appreciate it very much.  And I was trying to think of something to do for you all.  So I decided to put a photo of Oprah’s home up here.

Why? That’s a very good question.  Well first of all it should attract some attention and then maybe some of that will go towards the work you are doing here in blog land.

Oprah is always promoting people who are  doing good work too.  So for a moment let’s all imagine we have been invited to this grand place in Nassau for a party.

Let’s celebrate our ability to communicate with the world every day with our blogging efforts.

And for those of you who just wandered by to take a look at Oprah’s place I recommend these bloggers.  They are interesting, creative and very supportive people.  They may visit your blog while you are on vacation too.

Anne Moss at webpreppro.com

Bernie Kasper at sindianavisions.wordpress.com

AngelBaby at yourcaringangel.com

Robin Easton at nakedineden.com

Ron Dubin at blog.rtd13.com

Evita at evolvingwellness.com

Todd Mulske at myspace.com/toddmulske

Everyone except Todd is on the Blogroll or you can paste the addresses into Google and visit some great folks.  Todd needs to start expanding beyond MySpace into Flickr or someplace where we can all see his great photos.  And a  few other people need to convince me they are not just one step above being spammers if they ever return and read this post.

Thanks again!

11-rapsodia-rhapsody

I hope my readers will forgive me but I need to change themes again this evening. I need a theme that is very SEO friendly AND simple.  The one I have been using today is not simple although it is good in the SEO department.  And I have enough challenges trying to discover why Google has gone away.

I don’t need to wrestle with a theme too. So here we are back with Sadish whom I trust and a very nice theme called Blixed.  You just take it out of the box and start it up!  A few photos may be a bit too wide but that’s about the extent of the problems, hopefully, I will face.

And it is only a two column theme. But I have been reading that a two column theme is more attractive, less cluttered and it is the one used by “most successful bloggers”.    Well hey!  We all want to be one of those although I’m finding the prospect of becoming one fading into the distance.

Maybe Google had a reason for waiting until my first anniversary to say good-bye.  Maybe they have different rules or more strick rules for the second year.

Who knows?  But I am trying to figure it out. One thing for sure is don’t take your popularity plugin and print the results in a post.  That’s about thirty links.  That’s no good I bet.  So all those are coming out. And I installed Robots Meta and Platinum SEO Pack (the ultimate SEO guide).

And, as I said, this theme is supposed to be very good SEO- wise.

We will see.  The important thing is to have friends.  Blogging buddies.  Google went down in importance in my book.  Just like I apparently went down in theirs.   And the silver lining is better understanding of why I do this every day.  When you lose there is always a silver lining.  And I have learned over the years that your failures contribute very much to your ultimate success if you learn from them.

So sorry about the theme.  I hope someone enjoys Andrea tonight.

Update/ Too many photos to fix.  I am not a photo editing machine.  Too bad.  It was a nice theme.