Virginia Breeze

Tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of my Wordpress blogging adventure. The earliest post I can find is here

Not much has changed since then. I am still trying to relax and you will still see photos here of subjects that are primarily attempting to help me (us?) do just that.

These early posts are part of a Wordpress.com blog that still finds a few readers each day. It is a nice little blog and has some interesting posts in it along with some pretty bad ones. It’s all part of learning to be a blogger I guess.

Now I have four or five blogs and three of them are very active. I am happy to have made it this far and appreciative of those who were around last summer and still hang around here sometimes.

Hopefully things will progress in the second year. But blogging is about having fun unless you are making a living doing it. Are any of us making buckets of money?

If the answer is no then we should be doing things we enjoy when we blog! Right? There are Template Tombstones littering the Internet and many of them in my estimation belong to bloggers who were not enjoying themselves. They were not happy with the “progress” they were making perhaps. They were trying to do what the experts said they should do instead of what their hearts hoped they would do.

And they were not making money either. I met some of them in the past year and thought they were pretty wonderful people. No doubt they still are. Wherever they are.

Let us have a moment of silence as we remember some of their most memorable posts.

Thank you. Amen. Have a great Monday.

Update:// I deleted Wordpress.com.   So the earliest post is from this blog now.  It’s the same photo but it’s in a different place and the date is different.

More Writing

My good friend Robin at Naked In Eden : Ancient Memories in the Australian Rainforest wrote this about Virginia Breeze and its disorganized captain:

VIRGINIA BREEZE: http://davidnotes.com David’s blog has some of the most beautiful and cherished poetry I’ve read in a long time. It has moved me to tears on more than one occasion. If you enjoy heartfelt honest sentiments that speak of the core issues of our lives then grab a cup of tea, slow down and read some of David’s poems. They are written by someone who feels deeply and has an open heart. You will go away feeling like you know him. They are easy to understand and are mated with beautiful photos. My post this month was inspired by David’s poetry. His writing sets me free and encourages me to be authentic. He also writes about a variety of topics I find interesting, warm, real (and sometimes funny).

You can’t ask for anything better than this in the way of endorsements or morale building moments can you?

Robin is a treasure. Every once in a long while you meet somebody who you feel close to immediately and Robin is one of those people. There is a long list of readers who have fallen under her spell and I am one of them. Her writing is irresistible and she is funny, entertaining and brave.

That last quality I find very admirable. This fine lady lived in a rain forest and wrote a book about her life. Doing those kind of things requires courage.

If we are all unique then Robin is not afraid to share that uniqueness with the world. Why write a personal blog if you are not going to share something that your reader will not be able to read anywhere else? That’s my opinion about blogging and I find that Robin is the perfect example of somebody who does this extremely well.

I hope and pray she will always have time to stop by here for a few moments because I have grown very attached to her in a very short time. She motivates me to continue trying to become a better writer.

I hope you will take time to get to know her too. You won’t be sorry. I promise.

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Have you met someone while blogging you made you feel this way?

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Everyone who has read this blog for awhile knows that I am a huge Jordin Sparks fan. I started blogging because of Jordin and have found some other interesting things to blog about but she was the first one. Some of you just shake your heads and wander off when I start writing about her. I’m sorry. But I have to do it !

I feel compelled to do it. We all have our dreams. One of mine is to have Jordin and her family over for dinner sometime when she is in the Virginia Beach area. Beth just shakes her head at that one.

Some people dream about being millionaires. Some dream about being major league baseball players. And some just dream. Well this is my dream and I have seen enough of them come true to realize that anything is possible.

And seen enough to also have an unconventional dream or two. My wife dreams about swimming with dolphins. It always pays to know what your wife dreams about and share her dreams. Then when you see the opportunity make them happen.

But right now we are focused on seeing that Jordin wins an award at the upcoming BET Awards Ceremony later this month.

You can vote for her as many times as you like and you can  vote here

I hope you like. . . . . .

I had a post in April about Jordin and her concert tour. Her grandmother wrote me a nice comment at the bottom of that one.

Earlier this week I had a nice comment from Jordin’s mother on my MySpace page.

I think that one of these days I am going to hear from Jordin herself! Don’t you think? Maybe if enough of you go to the MySpace page and vote/comment she will respond to ALL of US. Her mother keeps track of what I am doing on MySpace (and I can’t say I blame her).

So vote and vote often and let’s see this charming young lady receive an award.

I listen to her CD in my car and it really is very good.

Thank you for reading this far and I hope that sometime you will share you dreams with someone.  What do you dream about doing?  It really is nothing to be embarrassed about or repressed about in any way.  Sharing a dream is a good step towards making it happen.

Here is an interesting math exercise you can use to boost your blogging spirits. Go to Google Analytics and look up the average time readers spend on your blog(s). Then multiply it times the number of visitors you had in the last thirty days.

Now you have the total amount of time there were eyes on your blog. Sure they were lots of different eyes. But I find it encouraging to think that for 292 hours there was a brain connected to eyes that were connected to something I did here. That’s almost two weeks if my math is correct.

There are all different kinds of statistics associated with blogging. Sometimes you have to dig a little to find one that makes you happy.

Or I do at least. You may be happy all the time.

Do you think that Google Analytics gives an accurate picture of the stats of bloggers? Are there better stat programs out there?