Puddles is 200- posts that is, quite young by web standards. A babe!
When I realized that the 200th post loomed near, I wondered how best to usher in the terrible two’s. A retrospective? Ugh, lame, that’s what archives are for. An introspective account of the usefulness of blogs as self-therapy? Gag. Cake? Candles? No, I’m going to let this one slip quietly by. Let this post be merely a milestone.
Happy 200th PIP.
It has always seemed as though there was an answer waiting when I knew the right question to ask. I remember being in grade school and wondering about a certain topic, perhaps even the meaning of a word. I remember hearing the word ennui, which sounded French to me and therefore vaguely dirty. Weeks later, I’d marvel when Life supplies the needed answer, as if Life KNEW I was in need of that answer. By chance, a concept would be explained or a word would be defined or contextualized. As I grew older, I began to realize that answers tended to materialize best when the questions were simpler. The meaning of life? I still haven’t heard anything on that question yet.
I wonder if answers seemed to surface only because I had acknowledged that there was a question to be answered in the first place. In other words, I found my answer because I was attuned to the question. It was just on my radar. So when you’re paying attention, you learn things- kind of obvious, right? I find this is comforting and yet- not. What questions haven’t I been asking? Am I limiting myself by not asking more questions? Better questions? Different kinds of questions? I can’t always know what to ask. I don’t have enough exposure to certain subject areas to even fathom what to ask. Theoretical physics? No. Perhaps I know something about a subject but not enough to embark on deeper understanding. Taoism? I might be able to tell you facts (wow that Eastern religions class was a loooong time ago) but that’s a pretty shallow understanding of a complex religious belief. I need to start asking more questions.
A resolution: a new question, every day, about anything at all- bonus points if it’s a question about a topic that I either know nothing about or that I was previously completely uninterested in. Could be fun. I may even try to blog a few here because I really need to get back into the habit of writing regularly again- just maybe not EVERY day.
I’ve been doing a lot of work in WordPress lately. Unfortunately (or fortunately!) for you, fair reader, all of said work has been on the back end. Now that I’ve wrestled back control of the Oliver Crumb blog, I’ve been able to upgrade it and give it some love (again, all on the back end- it looks pretty much the same on the surface). I also have control of the email accounts at the Oliver Crumb domain again. We’re now using Google Apps for Gmail, Google Calendar, GoogleDocs, etc., on all of Russell’s theatre domains. I’m very happy with it. Thus far we haven’t used Google Apps to it’s full potential but as the company grows, I imagine collaborative workspace will be more and more important.
On the life front, this week got WAY more interesting than originally slated. I’m doing my usual movie night thing tonight. Tomorrow night we are celebrating Father’s Day with Ann and David at Upland. I’m looking forward to seeing the parentals! Thursday night Russell decided that we needed to see the Fantasticks at his alma mater so we’ll be leaving right when he gets home from work to see the show in Terre Haute. Then I have to be at work at 6 in the morning because I will be leaving at noon to head to Normal, Illinois, where Tim and I will hit our first drum corps show of the season. I’ll be seeing my Cavies and the Crown (and many other most excellent corps) at DCI Central Illinois. Pysched! We’ll get back in town sometime Saturday afternoon and then I will FINALLY see Duck Soup Saturday night with the Russell-Mama. If you’ve friended me on Facebook, you may have seen the Duck Soup photos by Chris Eller. Exciting! I’ll be winding up the weekend with a Sunday afternoon shift at Avers. Had I known my week would be this full, I would have requested off the whole damn weekend. Oh well. I hope to have pictures (where permitted, of course) from some of these happenings. I’ve been shamefully bad about using my camera lately.
My blogs have been an epic ‘crickets chirping, tumbleweeds blowing’ kind of quiet lately but I’ve been posting away to Twitter and Google Reader.
Currently reading: Nothing. Oh, sorry, I’ve been reading Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters via DailyLit on my iPod, usually while I’m on the bus. Other than that, nope, nothing.
Currently listening: “Anodyne,” Down and Above
I finally decided to give imeem a shot. It’s a social networking site, much like Facebook, for the extreme media lover. It allows you to upload, share and discover music, video, and photos, with the expected arsenal of social networking tools (friending, groups, embedding, etc.). A free imeem account allows you to upload your own content (within certain limits) for you to be able to access from anywhere, though you might want to make sure you legally own the content that you upload or have a copyright or CC statement if it is content you have created. imeem also gives the option to create artist or production company accounts.
imeem Mobile allows users to access their content from their mobile phone. Just last week imeem announced the release of imeem Mobile for iPhone and iPod Touch. The app is free but I haven’t tested it yet. The reviews are mixed and one drawback for me is that there is no way to access your playlists. However, if you’ve uploaded your own music, you can access those files.
imeem seems to play nice with other networking sites. You may embed or share media from imeem on your Myspace, Facebook or blog (WordPress, LJ, Blogger, and others). There is also an easy way to Tweet a song or playlist. twt.fm also allows you to link to imeem songs for easy sharing on Twitter.
What I like most is being able to create playlists of stuff people have uploaded and stream it while I’m at work. imeem may also prove handy for testing out albums or tracks I want to buy.
My imeem profile.
An alternative I bumped into is SoundCloud, which allows you to send and receive music. It’ll be interesting to see how long it is before they’re slapped with a lawsuit, as on the surface, they don’t seem as inclined to work with record companies and artists (imeem will reduce an album to 30 second clips at the request of an artist or label). On the other hand, I have NOT researched SoundCloud thoroughly. Maybe they do make provisions for rights holders.
Currently listening: Michael Giacchino’s score for Star Trek.
My final BEDA. I have to say I’m glad it’s over. I like the exercise of writing every day but I do not like the idea of having to PUBLISH these daily scribbles for the world to see. My writing this month has been crap. I’m not capable of being ‘on’ all of the time. I’m sure you can flip through posts and tell when I am writing passionately about a topic. I write better. It’s interesting. If I’m not interested in what I’m writing, there is no way in hell anyone else will be.
From a content standpoint, BEDA was a fail. Meh. However, I’ve gotten very good at banging out posts. It doesn’t take me nearly as long as it did before- it takes me about half of the time it used to take. The increased expediency in blogging has probably been the biggest gain for me. On the other hand, I know that this rush to get something- ANYTHING- blogged before midnight has bombed the quality of writing. I guess there’s a give and take there.
Another positive (or negative, if looked at another way) result from BEDA is that I’m reevaluating the focus of Puddles. Am I writing for me? My family? Friends? Colleagues? Complete strangers? I previously pondered whether or not I needed a professional blog for all of my library-related ramblings. On the other hand, a dedicated library blog probably won’t be updated as often. Besides, taking on a professional blog means providing content that is useful. Most of the time, I’m merely blathering on about a problem or something that’s bugging me. My library-focused posts are rarely researched in depth. Some aren’t even thought through very well- they may be rants. I think if I had the added pressure, I would end up avoiding posting to a Library blog altogether.
At any rate, I’m thankful for the BEDA experience. Writing a little everyday is something to strive for but I certainly won’t be publishing EVERYTHING, like I had to for BEDA. I also learned that yes, I can take 45 minutes out of every day to write. It’s not impossible like I previously thought. It just took a kick in the ass. Thanks Maureen!
I started a post this morning on the bus but my WordPress app ate it. Trying again. I will be back-dating this post for yesterday’s missed BEDA and then I will post my final BEDA tonight.
Wednesday was a hump day in more ways than one. I’ve been emotionally drained lately. I’ve been pulled in different directions by people I am very close to- and not in a major way. Just little things, here and there, all adding up. I had the opportunity to talk it out some yesterday and afterward I felt much better. However, I foresee this happening again so, here is my plan for avoiding this in the future.
Yes, I am not happy unless the people I care about are happy and are getting along together. Yes, it is unrealistic to think that everyone I care about will all be best friends and won’t ever compete for my time or attention. Yes, I need to know what I want and, sometimes, I need to put that first instead of trying to make everyone else happy. Yes, people cannot read my mind. Yes, I need to be open and honest with everyone. No, I’m not going to be bitchy about it. And no, I don’t expect everyone to take this honesty well all of the time. Sometimes you have to disappoint people.
I have no control over other people’s expectations of me. Some expectations may be explicit to others but completely unknown to me. Some expecatations I didn’t sign up for at all. I guess I need to anticapte this better somehow, to make sure these expectations are realistic. Communication is probably the only way to do this.
I didn’t leave enough time to blog today. I was busy dancing among TEI elements and figuring out how the XML editor, <oXygen />, works. Also: eating strawberries, cataloging one or two books, learning about dinosaurs (via cataloging) and doing more research on bird watching iPhone apps.
Things you may have been lucky enough to read, had I made time for it:
Maybe I’ll actually get around to blogging about one of these items before April is out. Today, is blog fail but you’re over it.
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Playing in Puddles by Jennifer McGee is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.
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