Christmas Town

he Creation Museum's annual Christmas event has nearly begun. My blog buffer wasn't as full as it should have been, and vacation posting may suffer. I'll try to get things back on track, but I make no promises.


~Matt

-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2012 iWolff Ltd.

Blog Progress

I haven't blogged about blogging in a while, but I thought it might make sense to take a break from writing a blog about Mount Rushmore to do so.  Today is the last day of November and counting this post I'll have made 37 posts this month.  Blogging isn't all about volume, but it can't hurt.  I know that it is far more interesting to go back and re-read my own blog during times where I blogged frequently.

Most of my recent posts are about vacations past, but I think these are still quite valuable.  I view them as virtual scrapbooking and a way to preserve my pictures, videos, and memories in a way I can review at a later date. I don't know if any way to preserve videos in physical scrapbooks, and printing out pictures is far too expensive anyway.  I really enjoy the vacation blogging anyway, besides the posterity angle.  I really enjoy the way that Picasa Web Albums tie into Blogger, making it very easy to integrate photos into my blog posts.  And additionally earlier this year I discovered that if I upload pictures via Google+ they don't count towards my web albums storage limit!

My goal is to blog more about daily life, the "additional" posts that I've been occasionally making alongside my vacation blogging.  I'm definitely going to upload a picture of the baby once we have an ultrasound, and hopefully once the baby is born I'll also include plenty of pictures.  I enjoy Facebook and like interacting there and uploading pictures--but I don't want to have everything tied into that infrastructure.  Timeline is nice--but what if Facebook changes things up again, goes away, or becomes irrelevant?  All of my data is trapped there, whereas this blog is likely to linger so long as Google is solvent.

Okay, this was a little bit rambling, and likely of little interest to anyone beyond me.  But I think it is still worth preserving, if only to see if I keep up with blogging about things other than vacations, especially when I run out of vacation material to post about at the end of the year.  If I'm not delayed in posting any more blogs I currently calculate that I have enough vacation material to blog until December 29 or 30.  Beyond that I'm going to have to generate more material on my own (since no trips are planned between now and then).  Or I'll dig into my archives and post something even older.  I do have notes from my 2008 trip to Chicago that I could post...

~Matt

Mobile Version

I know I haven't blogged much lately, but I just added an interesting feature. Blogger rolled out a mobile version for smartphones and I decided to turn it on. It isn't bad, even for my antiquated and modified template. This might inspire me to edit the format of this blog... ;-)


~Matt

-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2011 iWolff Ltd.

Location:Highland Ave,Fort Mitchell,United States

Back on-line!

Well apparently Blogger is back on-line! I don't know exactly how many hours my access was gone, but it was over half a day (starting last night sometime).

I have a longer post I want to type up (Tolkien lovers will appreciate it), but I don't have time right now because of a few work related things I need to finish. Look for it soon... I hope.

~Matt

Unavailable?

[Update: I just found this in my drafts. Im still not sure what happened to Blogger, ot was down for over a day.]

I was going to type up a post on my computer, but that doesn't appear to be possible at present.


~Matt

-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2010 iWolff Ltd.

Another Milestone

My blog is approaching 230 posts for the year!  As I've mentioned before I don't just blog to increase my post count, but it is cool to watch the numbers nonetheless.  I had 23 in 2004 (I started in December), 147 in 2005, 270 in 2006 (that was a good year).  Then I trailed off after I started at the Creation Museum in 2007 (145) and 2008 was dismal with 9. 2009 saw a recovery late in the year with at least one per day for a total of 215 and I'm now at 230 for this year only five months in 2010.


It is pretty boring to go back to a year like 2008 and try to remember what I was doing.  With no blog posts to remind me my memory is notoriously unreliable.  Even if nobody reads my blog I'll keep writing it, even if only for the reason that I'll be able to go back and read it in the years to come.


~Matt

The End of the Swamp is Nigh

I will post more swamp pictures on Sunday.  The later part of this week has been very busy.  I had an overnight to run on Thursday and Friday and have spent many hours at the museum over the past three days.  I'm off Sunday, so I'll use some of the time to relax and catch up on blogging (which I have sadly allowed to lag).

~Matt

Typos

I learned to type on a typewriter, and my typing used to be relatively free of errors.  You cannot correct errors on a typewriter as you can with a computer and word processing program.  As I have migrated to the computer, instant messaging, e-mail, multiple word processing programs, and other forms of input the number of typos I produce has increased.  I set Microsoft Word to auto-correct some of the most frequent, so often I don't even know I've made the mistake until I'm typing in a program that doesn't auto-correct.  Other times I've trained my fingers to quickly backspace and correct the error (as I just did when typing the word "correct").

One of the most frequent errors that I made is mistyping the word the.  I frequently (often multiple times in the same paragraph or even sentence) type it as "teh."  I'm not sure why my fingers have become trained in this pattern.  I wish that I knew an easy way to fix the problem.

~Matt

Upgrade

I just upgraded my Google account with more storage.  I know this may surprise some of you, but I tend to save things.  I especially like to save e-mails, and I have frequently searched through old e-mails.  This is one reason I love Gmail and Google--search is so easy.  Well I've been getting close to the limit on my Gmail account for a while.  It has happened before, but Google used to increase the amount of free storage they offered at a faster rate.  I knew that eventually I would max out my account and I'd have to buy storage--additionally the more pictures I upload to my blog and Picasa the less room I have there.  Some time ago I looked into the cost of additional space and was surprised by its affordability.  Google is great anyway for how much they offer for free, but the paid plans aren't bad either.  I just added 20 GB of storage across all of my Google services for only $5.00 a year.  Since I've had my Gmail account since 2004 I think that this is a very affordable plan, especially since the free storage (my purchased storage is added to the free amount) continues to incrementally increase.

K

I'd meant to mark this moment with a post, but I guess I'm a bit late.  I just noticed that I have a few over 1,000 posts on this blog.  Several of the posts I made from within and about Okefenokee contributed to this increase.  It is similar to my condition at work--there is always recovery after vacation.  I took care of many things before I left, and others took care of some things while I was gone, but there is always a period of adjustment as I get back into the swing of things.  Additionally the start of the week is always a busy time for me.

~Matt

PS I do have swamp pictures and I'm working on getting those up.  I'm aiming for no later than the end of the week...

Lost

I just lost an entire blog post. It apparently never actually posted… :-(

The gist of the entry was that I need to plan a spring camping trip with my nephews. Oh, and I found a cool picture of Africa's Victoria Falls:

~Matt

-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2010 iWolff Ltd.

Location:Highland Ave,Fort Mitchell,United States

Testing

My blogging app just added a Facebook integration feature. I decided it would be interesting to add that and turn on the Twitter feed. But I needed a blog post to test these features, hence this rambling entry. I'll spare you any more at this point... ;-)


~Matt

-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2010 iWolff Ltd.

Location:Highland Ave,Fort Mitchell,United States

Anniversary

It was five years ago today that I was first hired at the Cincinnati Museum Center.  I was diving through my blog archives a few days ago when I found this post from 2005.  I knew it was coming up on five years, but I hadn't realized that I got the information at the very end of February.  Of course I haven't been working full-time, so the Museum Center doesn't count me as having been there for five years--but I know it has been that long, ;-).

It is amazing to think that it was the small exhibit on Monkey King that got me my museum start that ended up leading to the Creation Museum.  I know the path that God directed me on started much earlier, but this was one of the very visibly related steps.

If I remember this fact I'll definitely look at the 28th of February a bit differently from now on.  I don't know if Monkey King is still traveling (I think its run was supposed to be over by now), but I did find a page that shows some of the exhibits.  I know that my blog had several posts featuring exhibit content, so if you're really interested you should search there as well.

~Matt

An Old Quote

Apparently I was more aware of the Creation Museum than I remember.  I just found this quote from an old blog post on March 30, 2005:

"Besides the usual "millions of years ago" nonsense (I can't wait for the Creation Museum by AiG to be finished) the Natural History museum was also fascinating..."

I do remember hearing Ken Ham speak while I was in college and he might have spoken about the Museum then, though I'm not sure.  I know that I did hear about it at church during construction as I remember picking up a pamphlet and then later seeing a call for volunteers.  I even applied for a position with the Advancement Department once.  It seems like each time I forgot about the place and didn't remember it again until later.  I certainly didn't have a clue that there were ever any "behind the scenes" tours going on.  I'd like to think that I would have at least checked the place out if I'd had a clue that it could be visited before opening...  But what is past is past, so I really don't know what could have happened (though thankfully God does know all of that...).

~Matt

Beyond a Tie

No, this post isn't about men's fashion, though I wish that widely acceptable formal attire could be found sans necktie...

My last post (from my iPhone a few minutes ago) was the 55th blog post that I have made in the month of February.  This actually ties February 2010 with October 2009 for the number of blog posts made.  October was the first (albeit incompletely) month during which I started my current trend of posting once a day if at all possible.  I do try not to post simply for the sake of increasing my post count.  Spam on a blog is still spam, though it may taste just a tad better.

This blog entry is about blogging, but I try to keep these few and far between.  I definitely don't feel bad for making this post though.  Back in October I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep up a one-a-day posting schedule.  Little did I know that I'd do better than than overall and still be doing it come February.  I'm glad to see that I was able to stick to this resolution.

As I've said, I'm still enjoying it.  I hope there are a few people out there reading this also.  I did start to track site traffic with Google Analytics and I just have to say that I wish I had done this long ago.  It is fascinating to see how many people are visiting my blog, where they are coming from, and where they live.  The most interesting part will be to see the trends as time goes on.  One of the features I can utilize is to see what cities my readers are from.  Some of them are quite recognizable as family and friends...but others I'm not sure about.  One is even in Sydney Australia!

Well I'd better get going.  I have plenty to do today and not enough time to do it.  I actually fell asleep earlier than I meant to last night...

~Matt

Worldle

Have you ever made a Wordle?  They're fun to create.  Here is the description from the website:

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.

I've made a few in the past, mainly using blogs that I'm involved in via their URL.  You can also input a block of text and tell the program to use that.  There are many customizable features.  You can exclude common English words or even delete individual words once the Wordle is generated.  The font and text color are also customizable.  Head on over to the site and give them a try...I don't normally save mine to the site--I use the print feature and a free Print to PDF printer to save them to my hard drive.  Here is one I just made a few minutes ago from the contents of this blog:

~Matt

Neglecting

I feel like I'm neglecting my blog because I've had a couple of missed days lately. I'm going to try and schedule some posts. It is working quite well for the Creation Museum blog. There I have posts ready for the next week and a half!


~Matt

-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2010 iWolff Ltd.

Location:Highland Ave,Fort Mitchell,United States

Is there any news?

Yes, I know that I've been mainly photoblogging this week. This week was due to a trip through the Creation Museum Botanical gardens earlier this week. One day during lunch I strolled through the gardens and snapped a few pictures, which I immediately blogged from my iPhone. They weren't long on text, but it was an easy way to share several days worth of pictures without having to find a new one each morning. I don't expect to keep doing this, as I'd like to have a nice mix of pictures up here instead of just a batch of similar ones each week.

Today I'm sitting at home (though I've had a few calls and e-mails about work already, ;-)), and relaxing. It is a slightly rainy day, but with no blowing wind...so I'm in my living room with open windows enjoying the weather. I can hear cars driving by on the wet road and occasionally the sound of rain falling. I just wish that I had bigger windows and perhaps a fireplace (though for the second option cooler weather would be required).

I just started a new book last night that is turning out to be rather interesting. I found it at the library on the shelf that is part of their permanent book sale (they have several book sales a year, and then two shelves that always have cheap books on them). It is called Pirates of Pensacola and appears to be a humorous tale of modern-day pirates (not like the real pirates off Somalia or Indonesia--but a la the Pirates of the Caribbean romanticized version).

~Matt

Yeah for Blogging

Okay, does it count as a blog post to blog about blogging? ;-)

I just realized that I've kept a post a day for one week now (actually today is the eighth day). I've done that in the past, but it has been a long time. I'm really hoping that I'll remember to continue.

My blog stats are somewhat dismal over the past few years. I only posted nine times in all of 2008, and those were all between June and August. I'm sure a few people thought my blog was dead then, and it very nearly was.

I don't know what was great about 2006 (my best year so far with 270 posts), but it may have been because I was closer to the start--but I would hate to think that a plunge into obscurity is inevitable.

I do enjoy the fact that my blog posts port to Facebook now because people will comment in both places--some people see my Facebook posts that never see my blog. There are other people that will comment on some posts via Facebook, and some on Blogger. I never know where the next comment will come from.

I enjoy reading old blog posts and seeing the old pictures, but comments are one of the main reasons to blog. I enjoy interacting with the readers in the comments, or at least seeing what they think about what I've written. So to the few people out there reading, thanks for what you do, and please keep it up. Also try to keep me honest as I say that I'm hoping to keep posting every day.

~Matt

PS I did use quite a few "I"s in that post didn't I? But I guess that is allowed in something as self-reflective as this is, ;-), eh?

Convenience

I love the convenience of having my camera readily accessible. Several months ago I needed a patriotic picture of the Museum for a Museum blog post. So I grabbed my camera, walked out to the front of the building and snapped this shot and a couple of others.

Sometimes I will sort through others pictures or hunt on the server; but oftentimes I will just go take the shot that I know I'll need.

~Matt