Category Archives: Blogger

Happy Blog Birthday!

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17 April 2005 was my first post on this blog. You can see it here. I never intended to write a blog. i went to blogspot to learn what blogging was because i didn’t know. Then I created an account, because I thought I had to, then i posted a post, because i thought I had to. And here we are today.

the funny thing I remember is how hard it was to find other people’s blogs in the beginning. Not a problem anymore for me but I wonder if newbies today have that problem.

Happy Birthday! Have a good week!

Blog Poll

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Yesterday I got an email about my blog. This student at the University of Southern California. I’m not going to put his name here without permission, but he is studying how people present themselves on the web, and how machines can utilize the knowledge encoded in these presentations. Sounds a little scary, teaching machines how to dig deeper into our lives, but i took the survey, and enjoyed it.

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I’m wondering if any of my billions of daily readers recieved a similar email, and if they took the poll?

A New Day!

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I am excited about today. The weather is supposed to be nice and sunny during my lunchtime!

It’s one hour before sunrise. I’m on the back porch. The Crux is near the horizon in front of me and Leo is overhead, with Cancer just in front of that. The sky is just beginning to turn light.

Apparently, it rained last night. I sat down in a big  puddle of water that was in my chair. Had to go change my pants. Funny huh? The chairpuddle was an inch deep AFTER I sopped it up with my butt.

I heard there’s a problem leaving comments here. I’ll be looking into it today.

Have a great day, I plan on it!

Have a good day.

Ten Year Blogversary!

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Today marks 10 year anniversary of this blog. I didn’t even know what blogging was. I just wanted to find out and thought “Oh great, you have to make an account just to see one.”

This blog hasn’t much quality content, but it’s something I enjoy.

Here’s to another 10 years!

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Thank You Penelope Marzec!

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A few weeks ago, I won one of Penelope Marzec’s giveaways, a book and a tote bag! We have been blog buddies for  a long time. As I always  say: “Blogging is for finding new friends, Facebook is for finding old ones.”

I was very excited to receive her package yesterday! In the giveaway, Penelope said she would send the book of my choice (by her, of course) and I said I wanted her to choose for me. She chose the ‘The Pirates Wraith‘, about a modern day woman who gets strick by lightning and wakes up back in Pirate Days! It sounds like a book I am going to enjoy and an an exceptional beach read!

The bag is very nice too, and very heavy  duty material and a velcro closure. We use these bags in The Cayman Islands for groceries as the grocery store charges for each plastic bag. Even  though when my wife took the above photo and said the bag looked “Just my speed”, I’m going to give it to her. She likes using a bag like this to go to the beach, and this is by far the best one out of all we have!

Thank you  again Penelope!

Have a great Wednesday!

Blog Birthday and West, Texas

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blog bd8candlesYesterday 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!

Replacing Google Reader

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

google-reader-shutting-down-Well, I’ve been looking for a replacement. and I think I found it. It’s called Bloglines

bloglinesAt 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

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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.

I Have Had It With Word Verification

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vordverI 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.