Maiden Voyage

tidbits

California Girl writes "Who is your audience? Is it yourself and
whoever knows about it? How do you decide what to include there? Does it mean that your entire psyche is like an open book. Or do you edit yourself and what you want to reveal."

Good questions. It is, starting out, a little lonely. And yes, I do censor myself and it isn't the free for all that might take place in my bound, private, hand held, analog journal. But for me I am thrilled to be writing again, about anything, toilets, tubs, toothaches and pig races. btw, this pix was taking by California Cousin Cary who could always best me at bubble blowing, jump-roping, roller-skating,( the antique kind with four wheels and a skate key), jacks and now photography... aren't they cute?

anyway, California Girl goes on to say "It also doesn't seem like a connecting activity unless, of course, you direct someone to it. Kind of like, if you are interested in me, read my blog." well yeah. That is the idea. But I guess when you are starting out and if you aren't a big muckety muck like Christopher Lydon or Dave Winer you have a small (teeny in my case) group of devoted (:-D in my case) readers and commentators. Hoping all the while to engender a conversation or dissent or even, at the highest levels, discourse about whatever strikes your fancy! The interactive function that is built into the software like Manila or Movable Type or Blogger do the work of setting it up for you so that you can ping people and alert them to your posts, they can post or comment, your posts are organized and archived automatically and so much more.

My excitement is mounting as the conference this weekend at Harvard, BloggerCon takes shape. I am afraid I am way out of my league here, but am particularly excited to see how others are using blogs in education and what we can implement at Simmons.

Hey California Girl! Do you know Dan Gilmor, from the San Jose Mercury News? He is presenting at the conference and has an eJournal. But even these professional bloggers have their detractors. From acomment on his blog by Jim Hill,

"Dan, I know you think we're in the middle of a sea change in the way the very fundament turns and perhaps we are -- but you're getting very close to turning the phrase "gets it" and its permutations into synonyms for "thinks like I do". Might I suggest retiring it, or at least giving it some bench time?

Time will tell whether the feverish linking to one another that the Valley's online scribes engage in turns out to be anything other than a self-congratulatory CB radio of the new millennium, doomed to fail when the audience realizes that reading the thoughts of a mutual admiration society isn't all that exciting after all. I suspect that it will if you keep pointing to each other while saying "Here's another one who gets it."

food for thought.
or for blogging.
speaking of...time for breakfast.

and oh, the score now,
tooth: 1 Zithromax: 1.
The pain is gone. Hallelujah.

fiddlin and fiddlin

no not the kind that sounds good and makes you want to kick up your heels and dance; trying to get things lined up good and proper and being such a code-challenged weenie, used to having Dreamweaver do it all, it takes me half an hour to just get the not-all-that-interesting post to look half-way decent.

anyway, three new picture galleries are up: some digital work (stuff created in Photoshop mostly, piecing together scanned in items and bits of photos), some digital photos of flowers, and a group of digital shots on solitude. (see sidebar, under Gallery)

I am off to Truro tomorrow for some glorious, mind numbing, body restoring time. Internet access is dial up and molasses, but I may be able to blog. Planning to finish Oryx and Crake, tackle some Dan Brown and luxuriate in Harry Potter, once Alex zips through it. The Globe reveiwed Clem and Ursie's in this week's Calendar section, so we will have to stand in line for our sushi but it will be worth it....

when I return

am off to the cape for some respite and restoration. My summer school class has ended and before I tackle the imaging of the lab, I need to do some serious chilling. and if there was/were anyone out there who was/is reading along, than this might be a useful piece of information. Since I don't know if I have internet access there. However, since I have been too chicken shit to send out an e-nouncement to friends far and near, I am mostly reminding myself that I will return. and that the chapter in O'Reilly's Essential Blogging book on advanced Movable Type awaits.

Why Blog?

After Susan checked out Maiden Voyage, she wanted to know why this blog, was different than any other regular old web site. Although I felt instinctively that blogs in general are a subset of web sites, with specific differences, I couldn't articulate to her why that was or what was specifically different about them. After all, we all know what a web site is, yeah? Code, words, and pictures, is what I always tell my students. That simple explanation, I owe to Jeff Veen and his wonderful book, The Art and Science of Web Design. Yet when I just went back to check on his web site, lo and behold!, it looks like a blog! http://www.veen.com/jeff/ So what is this all about? Rather than try to reinvent the wheel, I'll direct you to Dave Winer's thorough answer to the question
What Makes a Weblog a Weblog? Yet none of these helpful explanations get to the heart of why do I blog?

The simplest answer is because it's there. I hate being left out. I have always aspired to being a journal-er, deluded by the notion, that someday, someone might care about the mundane details of life in general in the early twenty-first centruy, of my life in particular. I always imaginged my life as an artist elucidated by my writings. However my hard bound journal sits on my desk and gathers dust. I loved the notion that someone else has done all the work of setting this up and linking my entries to an interactive calendar and sorting them in categories and allowing my friends to comment on my meanderings. Thank you Movable Type!

I naturally like to share.Contrary to what many of those closest to me seem to experience, I do like to share the boring, silly, unbelievable, absurd and frightenly common things that occur on a regular basis. This impulse conflicts, however, with a strong urge to retreat, and a tendency towards the reclusive. Blogging mediates between the two impulses, allowing me to lick my wounds in private and complain about how much they hurt to the world. In my fantasy life, this blog will allow me to create that proverbial "circle of friends" drawing those of you from far away and long ago into the humdrum of my daily dailies. Kinda like dropping by for tea! No need to call and book a date weeks in advance cause your Palm and my Visor are both maxed out. Just come on over and set a spell!

Blog for the Brain. Lastly, as I embark on my doctoral study of Visual Culture, I would love to use this as an opportunity to articulate my understandings of my readings, to test out my ideas, to ask questions, to post drafts of my work. I am hoping that my more knowledgeable friends and long time academicians can help to spark deeper understandings in this bon-bon eating, dilettante's pea-sized brain.

ee-hah!

we've got categories!
we've got archives!
we've got a working link to Flying Puppets for hours of interacitve entertainment!
we've got a blog!

technologically challenged

I don't even want to count the hours I have spent hacking away at this process. My meager understanding of all things tag related, especially MT tags, which I am just beginning to begin to decipher, has contributed to many more moments spent setting this thing up than I could have imagined. On the flip side, however, even tho I haven't figured out how to get it to display my agonized-over categories, it is working. thankful for small things...

ooh she sure is ugly...

Well I have a blog. At first it sure was an ugly ass blog. But I spent so much time just trying to get this thing configured that my eyes are bleary and my brain numb. So as much as I had visions of stecci headers, I am just going to borrow a style sheet from MT and begin blogging. Next week, maybe I'll think about design.

you go girl

After spending the past two weeks configuring Movable Type, I am high as kite and ready to see what an actual entry will look like. Can't wait to customize the page and make it my own, but first I need to understand a little bit better, what, exactly it is that I am doing...and we're off!