Virginia Breeze

At one point all the birds took off and flew overhead. And there were hundreds of them. Perhaps thousands. They just flew in a wide circle up and down the river before settling back down. Fortunately for me int was during the time the sunrise was creating a colorful tableau in the sky that could be used as a backdrop.

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We see a little seismic activity in January as Virginia Breeze celebrates its first six months of existence. Most of it was about the Microsoft Vista post and the truly unpredictable nature of StumbleUpon. It was fun while it lasted but now it’s back down to earth and life after the big blow. Thankfully I had just moved from Hostican to Hostgator and they processed this event without a burb or a hiccup.

I’m going to have to get over my terror of gators if they continue to do such a great job. I still can’t figure out what the deal was with Hostican. They were giving me 90 second timeouts for 300 visitors Per DAY!

But that is all behind us now. And the future looks good as long as SU continues to ride. I don’t feel let down now that things have settled down. It’s really not a big deal. And it really is better to look at stats from week to week or month to month. In fact 60 day totals are probably even better.

Keeping day to day totals can wear you out and they mean very little.

This is probably the best compromise because it is so simple. Go to the Dashboard in Wordpress and click on Month above the graph. It’s very simple. And it gives a reassuring picture without all the ups and downs. So we can get back to more important things.

Like Creating Content so the Blogging Wise Men will have something to manage.

Would you like to start a blog? It is a very relaxing hobby and it will keep you out of trouble. What kind of trouble? I don’t know. What kind of trouble do you usually get into?

Here is my guide for starting a blog. What kind of blog would you like to have? Would you like to have a blog about blogging? Or politics? Great idea but I can’t help you. Besides there are already lots of those blogs. Why don’t you start a blog that let’s you discover the creative side of your psyche? You may discover something that is new and different. Because we are all different aren’t we? It’s just a matter of figuring out how to showcase who you really are beneath that worn exterior. At least that’s what I tell myself. And hopefully someday it will happen for me. And for you if you want it to.

Here are a few suggestions if you would like to try it.

One. Go to Wordpress.com and start a blog. But don’t get too attached to it. Because you are going to deep six it after a few short months. You want to have your own blog when you start to understand what is going on in Blog Land.

Two. Find yourself a really nice camera. You want one that will actually take pictures. You want one that will show the world something besides a hazy image of something that we don’t care about. What do we care about? Just about anything as far as I can tell. But we do want to be able to see the color of its eyes. I realize you can’t see the color of this bird’s eye. But he was going fifty miles an hour and he was way up in the sky so I think we should cut him some slack.

You can see his feathers pretty well.

Three. Then download Picasa2 and start editing a few photos. Figure out how to use it. It’s free and pretty easy to use. While you are at it take the time to start an account in the Picasa Web program. With just a click or two you can now see your photos as large as your screen. And you can do a slide show too!

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Four. You haven’t spent much money yet except for the computer, camera and broadband connections if you didn’t already have those. So you might want to buy a book called Clear Blogging. It does a very good job of telling you what’s out here in Blog Land. Or you can just wander around and find it yourself as I did.

Five. Now we come to the crucial part of the program. You need to put something in your blog. I suggest you start out with a few of the photos you have recently taken. Just practice creating posts by uploading photos. You may not really know what you want to write about yet. That’s fine. And that’s what makes this particular guide so useful.

You have come to the source where this subject is concerned. Just put the photos in there and look at them for awhile. Relax your brain and don’t put pressure on yourself. Hopefully you will start to get some ideas at this point. Your subconscious mind will start to feed you things.

And then you will begin your creative journey. As you go along you will discover things about yourself. Use them in your blogging efforts. Go in the direction that makes you happy. When people stop by to see you let them know you enjoy their company.

And that’s about it. Let me know how it goes.

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I can remember when I was a small boy have a toy train. It was the coolest thing. It even smelled special. The transformer was a tiny box and it used to overheat from constant use thus creating all kinds of odd and interesting odors. And the train could go around the track forever as far as I was concerned. I was willing to stay there next to it at least until high school was over.

If I had seen this place with its huge layouts and large number of trains I would have been overjoyed. Even the transformer was big! But it didn’t give off any interesting smells. Darn!