Blog Birthday and West, Texas

Posted on April 18, 2013 by MarkD60

Yesterday was this Blogs birthday. It’s been a long trip. I started on Blogger, then moved to WordPress, then got my own domain. I plan on keeping going as long as I can.

Big Explosion in West, Texas. That’s where Yellowdog Granny lives. She posted that she’s Ok. But I’m afraid we’ll find that some of her friends got hurt. She volunteered at the assisted living place near the blast. Plus it’s a very small town. Go read her post for today.

Do you remember there was a big train wreck in Japan about 10 years ago? I had a friend from Japan visiting. I took her to the airport to go back to Japan. It seems I just dropped her off and then I heard about the train wreck. I thought, “No way she’s even back in Japan yet, no chance she’s on that train”. Well, I took her to the airport, she flew to Japan, got off the plane, and got on the very train that crashed and she broke her ankle. Small world.

In almost every disaster since I’ve started this blog, I’ve had a blog friend near there. Every one.

Where I work, they want me to record an event for the radio station where I used to work. I am kind of torn about it, because I have a company that does that sort of thing. I don’t know whether to just do it real easy or if I should charge them.

Tomorrow’s FRIDAY!!! Can’t wait!

Wednesday Wamblings

Posted on April 10, 2013 by MarkD60

Here we are again, hump day. I didn’t sleep worth a dang last night, after practically sleeping 48 hours straight over the weekend, and from almost the time I got home Monday till going to work Tuesday, I guess I’m caught up on sleep for awhile.

I still have this cold, if that’s what it is, but I have the ending dry cough that I have had several times from several other colds. I just hope I don’t get sick again any time soon. I’m tired of this crap. I gotta say though, several people at work have been sick too and they are staying sick a lot longer than I have been.

I plan on making it to the beach for lunch. I can’t take it any more.

I’m going through one of my periods of mild disturbance about the content of this blog. None of my posts have been particularly pleasing to me in what seems like a long time.

Have to work on that.

Replacing Google Reader

Posted on March 22, 2013 by MarkD60

I guess almost everybody has heard Google will be shutting down it’s Reader July 1

Well, I’ve been looking for a replacement. and I think I found it. It’s called Bloglines

At first glance, I thought it was crap, but after you flip the switch circled above, iIt seems to be pretty good, . When you open it for the first time, default is this “Widget View” which shows all these boxes that are not what I want. But at the top of the page is a switch to flip for Reader View. Reader View is good.See picture above.

I exported my subscriptions from Google Reader, and got a ZIP file with a whole bunch of JSON files and one XML. On Bloglines, you’ll see an “Add Content” button. Below that is “Import OPML”. Steer that to your XML file and it will import all your subscriptions from G Reader. And you can add sites one by one. I’ll help, if you need help, comment or email.

I’ve looked a lot for a Google Reader replacement, I started When I got my own webpage. I started looking again when I got the notification G Reader’d be shutting down. This is the best I could find, and for me, I like it.

HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND!!!!!

Notice To My Readers

Posted on March 20, 2013 by MarkD60

I received a notification yesterday that I had a record number of followers for one day on my blog. Second Go.

I haven’t used that blog in months.

The blog you followed is: http://www.markd60.wordpress.com

This blog, (my only active blog) is www.markd60.com and is the only one to follow.

The reason for the confusion is that I use my wordpress account to comment on wordpress blogs and when you press the “follow” button, it follows the wordpress blog. I tried to add this blog to my wordpress profile, but have been unable.

(On my computer, I’m logged onto Google, which is blogger, and wordpress, which is oddly enough, wordpress. The approproate profile shows up on the comments you receive on your blogs from me.)

Sorry for any confusion. I want comments and readers on this blog.

Thursday

Posted on March 7, 2013 by MarkD60

It’s Thursday, less that 24 hours till The Wife goes to Costa Rica. I sure do wish I was going. I can’t get off work.

I think this weekend I’ll cut all the grass with the weed whacker, since someone stole the mower, I have no choice. I could buy a new one, but would rather wait till payday, for budgetary reasons. Or maybe I’ll just let it go to jungle-ish conditions.

I have a technical problem with my blog. Apparently the anti spam software is not communicating with the master software somewhere else and as a result, I have to moderate the comments. Before it would just not post the spam, but now I have to moderate each one. I’ll look into it today if I get the chance.

That’s it for today, have a good day!! Tomorrow’s FRIDAY!!!

I Have Had It With Word Verification

Posted on February 18, 2013 by MarkD60

I just counted, I follow 67 blogs. And every time any one of them posts a post, I read it and usually I comment. I don’t feel like I get as many comments as I give. Maybe everybody else doesn’t feel the same way about comments as I do. I’ve come to the point that I don’t expect many comments.

One thing I cannot stand, is the word verification. I’ve posted about it before HERE. Blogger and WordPress and everybody has good spam protection. Word Verification is unnecessary and insulting. A person can turn it off and on at will. So someone can turn it off, and if they have problems they can turn it back on. Or, if someone does spam them they can simply “mark as spam” and the problem is solved. Don’t punish everybody for the actions of the extreme minority. Most of those with word verification on are those who post, expect (and sometimes get) a lot of comments, but never ever comment on anybody else’s blog. They’ve never experienced the frustration of word verification. Some people have word verification on AND comment moderation. They are the lowest of the low.

I’m not commenting on any more blogs that have word verification. Look at the above picture, can you read those? A lot of time I type more on the word verification than I do the comment. “Please prove you’re not a robot, type the words below.” That pisses me off right there. Neither is a word, one is a jumble of letters and the other is numbers. Those aren’t words.

I could go on and on.but I won’t. Maybe I will… Later.

Wednesday Picture Post

Posted on February 13, 2013 by MarkD60

It’s a Holiday here. I have the day off but the wife is working, unfortunately. Below are some random pictures from the past week or so.

Cruise ship from the air, taken when I was on my way to Cayman Brac for work last week.

Last months full moon, coming up over the neighbors house.Heron and snorkelers.

Wordless Wednesday

Posted on January 30, 2013 by MarkD60

For those of you who don’t know, when you don’t have anything to say, and it’s Wednesday, it’s legal to do a post called Wordless Wednesday, not to be confused with Silent Saturday. So since I have nothing to post about today, I’m just posting these pictures and I’m not saying a word.

Smith Cove at Lunchtime

Above and below are my attempts and over/under shots. You try to get the waterline exactly in the middle of the lens so that you can see both above and below the water. Dismal attempts.

Flashback Friday: Kindergarten Kite

Posted on January 25, 2013 by MarkD60

The year was 1965, the place was Brookhaven Elementary School, Rockville Maryland USA. I was in Kindergarten, 5 years old, first year of real school. Kindergarten was half day, either in the mornings or afternoons. I was in the morning class.

One day, my class and I made kites out of construction paper. Then we went out on the huge vast playground to fly them. In my memory, this playground was huge. Huge paved section, huge grassy section, with trees way far far away on the horizon.

I was running and trying to get my kite in the air, the kite was pretty small, so it didn’t fly too good, but I was really trying to get it up there. All of a sudden, I noticed that all the other kids on the playground were really big, and I looked and looked and didn’t see anybody from my class.

I started crying.

Eventually a teacher asked my why I was crying.

“I can’t find anybody with a kite like mine” I whined, and held up my kite for her to see.

Turns out, morning kindergarten was over, I was trying so hard to make my kite fly that I missed the bell that signaled the end of recess, missed the end of school, everybody in my class had gone home and I had stayed in school late. So I went home.

That’s my Flashback Friday for today. Have a good weekend.

I was thinking about an advantage of the Free Blogger or WordPress blog over the pay-for-your-own blog. When you die, the free blog will stay up, but with a pay-for-your-own, when the payment is due and you can’t pay (because you’re dead) the blog will come down. A free blog would theoretically remain up forever, a tribute to the bloggers life and history.

Annual Blog Report

Posted on January 3, 2013 by MarkD60

This came from wordpress.COM, about my old blog, Second Go!

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 7,800 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 13 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

Third Time!

Third Blogsite for my first (and only) blog

Category Archives: Blogging