One. Year. Later.

Sure, I don't update as often as I used to (time is one of those fickle beasts, is it not?), but my original objectives for this blog included maintaining some semblance of momentum with posting, while learning first-hand a little more about technology. Oh, and - of course - I needed yet another outlet for a steady stream of meandering - if not completely random and haphazard - mindless thoughts. One year later, I feel I have managed to meet these goals with 168 posts and 4,683 views from points across the globe.

Along the way, I've picked up some regular readers in unexpected places and have even scored some swag. It has even helped me remember some of the funny things with which I've crossed paths over the past year. Most importantly, it has helped give me some ideas for an academic future.

Having almost done away with any need for HTML coding, Blogger is a lot easier to use than it was when I first started. And new innovations seem to be coming along on a daily basis. One year. Wasn't so sure I'd be able to keep up the blog this long. Time to pull the plug?

Vertically-Challenged Stories.

I found this morsel of academic humour elsewhere in the blogosphere this morning and it made me chuckle, particularly considering how much brevity really can be the key to successful writing. In a twist of contradictions, while I generally consider myself to be a more than competent writer, I can also tend toward being a wordy bastard. As evidenced -- repeatedly -- throughout this blog. Sigh, windbag, crafting my own noose out of additional letters.

Of more import, however, it also reminded me of the 55 word fiction contest, produced out of California for nearly 20 years (I'm not sure if it's still running -- the web site hasn't been updated in a while). The first book they produced is one of my favourite reads of all time. Brief. Each story, 55 words or fewer, brief. Yet wildly entertaining and brimming with talent in appetizer-like proportions. The essence of a story distilled to its essential elements. Concentrated, like the writer, putting pen to paper.

The blogosphere being what it is, I see someone has picked up the torch and begun a blog to compile like minded, (really) short stories, here. The only rules: for it to be considered a story, you must have a setting, a character or characters, conflict and a resolution. Whittle your pencils because, in a breath, 55 words will have escaped into thin air.

A couple examples of mine:

to have nine lives (55 words)

"The jaguar pounced, seemingly taking feline flight as I hit the speed bump and the bottle. The engine purred its throaty growl as the fender gnashed at the tarmac. The cat spun on its haunches, its tires pawing and eyes glowering toward the supple cries emitting from what I had thought was a speed bump."
2003.08.05

an everlasting hunger (55 words)

"Maria circled her arm under his neck, running her fingers through his hair. She loved him, longed for him and awaited his tender kiss. She had never seen him this way and thought wistfully of the past and their love's growth throughout the years.

And she lowered the lid and her veil with a tear."
2002.08.25

Morbid, perhaps. But only briefly.

Bringing out the Nerd in Me.

I've been away from this whole blog thingamajig of late, but not away from the computer. No, keys tapping in fists of flurry, I've instead been busy reacquainting myself with my inner-geek --not to mention discovering how compulsive I can sometimes be. Maybe I knew all along, but just didn't want to face it. Something about colour-coding my shirts and alphabetizing my CD collection might have been the grand tip-off.

See, a little more than a week ago, I was finally able to break down and order a new laptop and I have since spent far too much time transferring all of my data from the old computer. As it turns out, I have many large music and photo files. Many. And it took quite a bit of time to welcome them to their new home. After a year spent plotting the purchase of a new laptop, I spent the 25 hours from order to delivery driving everyone around me nuts, constantly refreshing the online order tracking form for progress. Like I was an expectant father, fingers tapping with a parched caffeine drip hanging languidly from my vein. "Order received. Packed. Shipped. En route." Of course, everyone else needed to be updated throughout. "Dilated, 120km". Yeah, you could say I was giddy. Or something.

Most exhausting, however, was the sheer number of hours I spent meticulously re-tagging music files so that they would all follow the same format. Before changing my mind as to how they should look. Then -- inevitably -- finding an easier way to do it. And changing them again. All albums are now tucked into appropriate folders and have been conveniently clad in their respective album covers. Pretty, but at what cost? Have I gone mad? Am I alone in such neuroses? I sigh with relief under the assumption I am likely not (either mad, or alone). Really, much like cleaning a new house, it helps to start with an attempt at being organized because you know the clutter is going to come. In a deluge.

Photos, too, have been properly sorted by month and year; raw files playing across the school yard from edited versions. Cliques form within cliques as re-sized photos drift apart from those small enough for email, those deemed "Arty" and those bastard sons: the blog photos. Sweat on furrowed brow, I believe I finally have things at a manageable stage (though I there are still a few things I want to integrate). Breathing. A sigh of relief. The caffeine drip has worn off.

So, the details: the new arrival is a Sony Vaio VGN-N170G with a 120 GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM and an Intel Core Duo T2050 processor with a 1.60 GHZ processor speed. Not the biggest rocket in the computer world, but by far an upgrade over what I had been using previously. And most importantly, it fit into the budget. Particularly since work was picking up the tab. Mac users no doubt giggle and aficionados likely decry its presence on the computer landscape, but I'm nonetheless pretty geeked.

As a celebration of the new laptop, I decided to have a little fun with the idea of Transparent Screens (for more, and better iterations, visit this Flickr set). After all of the time I've spent on the computer lately, I didn't really want to devote much more to making the shot perfect, nor to using any tricks in Photoshop, so the first version above is from about ten minutes of playing. A couple of the shots lined up a little better than this one, but it was the action shot of Charlie, likely pouncing on a fruit fly (being the big hunter he is), which made it much funnier to me. I think, maybe, he was just as excited as I about the new Vaio. "Yeah UD, it means more pictures of me now. Um, where's my treat?" The second shot was actually my first attempt, but I whacked the box, throwing it all out of alignment. I guess I crackered under pressure.

Technorati.

Alright, I'll admit it: sometimes the inner-geek in me screams to get out. But in a manly voice. When it comes to this blog, I can try to justify it by saying that one of my initial reasons for having started it in the first place was to teach myself a bit more about blogging and other tools available on the Internet. Ah, media literacy. Oh, and to have another creative outlet. Not to mention an odd feeling of exhibitionism, paradoxically clad in a suit of letters.

Having been made aware of Technorati a while back, I started checking it out and decided I wanted to break the top million. Ooh, such a lofty goal. Why? A triviality for most normal people, but I also have a minor obsession with statistics. Nice round numbers. I've kept flirting with it, but then found myself dropping ten to twenty thousand spots in a day before rebounding. Like a really, really long yo-yo.

In the next step of my blogging self-apprenticeship, I actually created a Technorati account last night to be able to integrate some of the widgets into my blog. I look forward to soon adding the feature which lists recent posts from my favourite blogs, but a number of their pages have been down since last night. Which takes me to this:



I logged in to Technorati this morning and found myself listed as one of the featured bloggers (my icon is the last one in the first row). Sure, it's no big deal -- it just means that I've recently claimed my blog, but I still got an odd kick out of it. Yes, trivialities again.

Back on Track.

Yes, a week elapsed between posts as I decided to devote my computer time to taking that leap of technological faith by switching over to the new Blogger Beta. Oooh, sooo daring am I. The learning curve continues. While the beta seems to be much more user-friendly, particularly for luddites, I think I had actually become accustomed to having to manipulate the HTML. Who'd a thunk? Anyway, the transition has taken some time as I didn't really want to lose any bells and whistles I had integrated (such as they are) and it took me some time to figure out how to include them in the new version. At least Blogger gives you the option of returning to your previous template at any point (which I did, time and time again, until I was able to integrate all of the desired elements.)

As for new features, I believe the click-and-drag option will make things easier, particularly when trying to manipulate the template (which, previously, was HTML-only). The new drop-down menus for previous posts are also more user friendly, especially if you're looking for a particular post. The option that really made me switch, though, is the ability to tag posts and then surf according to said tags. Blogger had been a bit behind on that one, compared to other software. And for good measure, the photo in this post was my first attempt at publishing directly from Flickr.

Not sure what happened, but twenty per cent of my all-time blog hits came over the past two days (120 or so). Not sure why. But, all down the eastern seaboard of the Americas and western Europe lit up my little tracking map like a Christmas tree. Um, thanks? Danke. Merci.

Boggled by Google. On a Blog.

Alright, so I am by no means completely technologically illiterate, but advancements in our world still never cease to amaze me. The whole purpose of this blog, after all, is to provide me with an opportunity to learn a bit more about blogging, not to mention actually see if I can somehow remain dedicated to maintaining one. Well, that and to have another creative outlet for writing and posting pictures. Plus, all the cool kids are doing it. And I aspire to be cool. Okay, not really.

It's with this in mind that I spent much of the evening exploring the planet on Google Maps. Google -- now parent company to my blog (well, Blogger anyway). And likely the Disney of the next generation. Big, slightly inbred and somewhat frightening. It's not as though I had never used Google Maps before, nor that I had never seen digital hybrid maps, but I was still somehow even more captivated tonight as I drilled down to an incredible level of detail in these maps. It almost felt dirty, the extent to which you can continue to zoom in. Good evening, Big Brother. It was additionally fascinating because I've always been interested in a sort of non-sexual form of voyeurism -- watching people and seeing their differences. Their quirks. Their nuances. Their subtleties. Writing is all about the subtleties, you know.

And here in Google Maps, I could pick any location in the world, take a road trip on the digital super highway and spy on a different corner of the world. Alas, digital jerky just isn't quite the same. Street map, satellite map, hybrid. All in all, an incredible amount of detail. It all stemmed from clicking on my blog visitor map (that's you, folks!) in the tracking mechanism (welcome back, Big Brother!) and seeing where you are all from. Or at least where the tower for your ISP is. Almost creepy, n'est-ce-pas?


Above: The Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This was the first major building (or set of buildings) I checked out and couldn't believe how clear the image was, right down to the shadows the towers cast over the downtown. A number of action movies have featured these towers, but somehow, staring at them from space has been more exciting to me.

Below: The Empire State Building, New York City, United States. I have a history with this building, and one that precluded my seeing very much of it. But the 86th floor is plainly visible in the Google Map (and doesn't necessitate my crossing paths with gunmen), as are people walking on the street below. That I can count the number of people crossing the street in front of the building from an image taken from space is boggling (and here, blog-gling). Especially when you consider this is what is publicly available. The NSA, my friends, can not doubt do this at a much closer level in real-time. Damn.

Below: We're just shy of the fifth anniversary of events at the World Trade Center and Pentagon on 9/11 that silenced a corner of our hearts forever. I have watched the planes fly into the towers over and over. I've watched countless documentaries about it. I've listened to the tapes. And it all still doesn't compute. When I saw the image below on Google Maps, I couldn't believe just how vast the devastation was. That's a pretty large chunk of Manhattan right there. Gone. Forever. And there were people all around that morning. Many people. Families. Fathers and mothers; brothers and sisters. Uncles and aunts; cousins and friends. A city scarred, but resolute.

I love the fusion of digital technology. From music to photography, I cannot believe how much the digital world continues to change. And shrink. There was a time, not too long ago, when people would never see another part of their country. Then came trains. And cars. But they still couldn't see other countries. Then came commercial aviation. Now, a couple of quick keystrokes and I can pull up a pretty good geographical layout of nearly anywhere in the world. And I almost feel dirty. But not quite. I think I'll just stick with amazed, waiting to see what innovations the future holds.

I've been RSSd.

Almost sounds dirty, doesn't it? Thanks, Blogger T. -- though your left-coast recruiting efforts seem to be hitting a fever pitch, I too, now feel loved.

Considering you introduced a luddite like me to the wonders (and frights! Egads!) of the whole techno-fication of the world, it would only make sense if I could figure out how to link my blog to yours. Increase your Technorati ratings and all, you know. Hmm. A lesson for another day.

My thoughts, on cyber demand -- I feel your pain.

Welcome back to blogging.

Well, this becomes shot number three at some semblance of maintaining a blog and being like all of the other hip-happening kids out there using this fun, fan-dangled techological marvel. I doubt somehow it will become a daily occurance...