Box Of Rocks: Duck Taped

It's Saturday night as I write this, late, very late, with my Jack Russell Brewing Company clear glass mug filled with White Zinfandel. Sorry for the horrifying conflict but that's my nature.

At this point I've backed up a good seven posts ahead of today with topics I can't wait to address. Nevertheless, I write them early at the risk of their freshness being spoiled by the next day's news. With a blog, if you're like me, you certainly begin to appreciate the pressure created with your miniscule attempts to keep your bit piece of the Blogosphere current, relevant and timely. But, yea, here's the rub that I expect you encounter along with me:

I actually have a job. I do my best to keep my blog timely. But with few exceptions I realize I'll likely not be breaking any major news upon my site. I simply do not possess the time, what with the realities of work, Life, my wife, my family, various obligations and the variables that I cannot ever remotely anticipate.

Some bloggers make multiple posts daily. God bless them; perhaps that's their only job. I myself am challenged to make a single post per day. At this point, I try to post my next day's entry no later than 7 or 8 pm the previous day. I work on Pacific Daylight Time, because I live high in Fornicalia's Sierra Nevada Mountains. Recognizing this, and accounting for the three-hour difference in coasts, and knowing that some of my readers start their day three hours AHEAD of me, it's tough to make my posts nationally relevant. It's like I'm perenially fighting the time differential Power Curve.

And so it is with national news. If I, a little winky blogger, am struggling with the factor of relevancy, then all the various applicable news agencies are stuck (but much worse) in the same predicament.

Do you find yourself challenged to make daily posts?

And further (or perhaps you've not considered this), do you vet your bloglinks as I do? I must admit, I am finding myself continuously challenged with the vetting of my Usual Suspects list. Some of the persons I've included in The Usual Suspects have turned out to be infrequent posters. Do I eliminate them because they do not adhere to the schedule I've held for myself? What do my readers want? Daily or frequent updates? This is indeed a dilemma. A number of blogs on the U.S. list publish infrequently -- or sometimes, now, once every couple of months. Can I afford this inactivity? Is it time to eradicate or clear my Usual Suspects list due to low posting? I am thinking so. With my hectic lifestyle I still manage to upload a daily post. Why should my intimate blogroll be any different?

I am thinking, these days: no. After three years of very slow development, a constant and steady pace, consistency, dependability, I am finally into the Marauding Marsupial and Large Mammal borders. I have guided and nurtured and attempted to portray to my readers that I am definitely in this game for the long run. Most creators, statistics show, abandon their blogs after no more than a month's presence on the internet. And this, I am proud to say, DESPITE the fact that I am a complete HTML idiot; that is to say, I adopted a Blogger template and, with a few exceptions (thanks to Bush and TF!) it remains relatively unchanged to this day.

In terms of blogs, I am a Throwback. I am primeval, a Cretaceous kind of blog.

There are SO many things I'd like to do with my blog. I'd like to have a different header every week -- a different photograph. I'd like to make my blog wider, so that it could accommodate more words per line, and photographs could likewise be wider and larger.

I'd like the portions to the left and to the right of the text of my blog be available for various blogrolls, ads, photos, information, etc.

I'd like my blog to, generally, look more professional and to be more fluctuous -- that is to say, subject to frequent updates, physical changes, new looks, etc.

But, because I am in fact the ORIGINAL HTML idiot, that will likely not occur this year. I, however, hope to rectify those problems next year. Whereas BlogWorldExpo occurred in Las Vegas this year, I hope to locate its destination next year and actually attend.

I'd like to update the general look of my blog. And I'd like to make available a podcast of the former week's news on my blog, narrated in stellar form by myself in my native dialect.

Ah yes. And I'd also like to win the lottery.

One thing I'd wish to point out: do all my readers realize that I live on a dial-up account? When various blogs post videos or podcasts or active GIFs, etc., do you realize that I cannot generally see your videos? I cannot generally even access your high-res posts?

Such is life in The High Mountains. On a good day my world = 54.6 kbps.

Bottom line: I am still literally amazed at the amount of readers I have for the primeval blog I portray to the world -- I have 3,053 hits on my profile. But if you wonder: "Why is it that this guy's blog is so visually boring?" -- well, at least, now you know.

Maybe next year.

Or not.

BZ