Tag Archives: blogging

Friday Notes (Sep 27, 2024)

Maybe it’s a hold-over from school days, or maybe it has to do with fall (my favorite season), but the year really does hinge on fall and spring for me. You’d think spring would be the logical year start, but I see September as the turnover point. Summer’s over, another (school) year begins.

In any event, it’s fall when I most often find myself thinking about, and planning, the year ahead. The last few years I’ve made a lot of progress but have slacked off the past year. For the coming year, I’ve decided to throw away a lot more stuff.

Including some piles of notes, but for now it’s time for Friday Notes

Continue reading


Friday Notes (Aug 30, 2024)

Between it being kind of a weird month (on several counts), my increasing activity on Substack, and some hobby project work, I haven’t posted much here this month. In fact, this is only the second post this month. Given the date, probably the last.

Which may be something of a harbinger. I do seem to be migrating towards Substack and, to some extent, leaving this blog behind. It feels like abandoning a friend, though, and I’m finding it hard to let go. And probably won’t, at least not entirely.

But who knows. Maybe it’s all Friday Notes from here on out…

Continue reading


Change Winds Blowing

I’ve been sitting on a fence for several months now, and it’s starting to get a bit uncomfortable. Back in March I opened branch office over in Substack land. Ever since I’ve been trying to figure out whether to shift operations there or remain here. (Or try to do both more or less equally.)

A complicating factor is that, despite both Substack and WordPress being blogging platforms, there is something of an apples and pumpkins comparison. They have, for me, contrasting pros and cons, mead and poison.

Change is hard, but it can also be invigorating, and it might just be time.

Continue reading


Lucky Thirteen

The Earth has completed yet another orbit from this particular spot, so here we are (or at least here I am) with another Blog Anniversary. Almost hard to believe the Earth has spun ’round the Sun thirteen times since I began this blog. My blog’s a teenager now!

Thirteen years, fourteen hundred posts (this is post #1400), lots of wyrds (1.8 million). Lots of Wyrd, for that matter. This has been a self-documenting project from day one.

Needless to say, I have lists, stats, and charts (oh, my).

Continue reading


2023: All the Charts

This post contains the post statistics charts I didn’t have room for in the 2023 wrap-up post. There are a lot of them, and I don’t imagine they’re of much interest to anyone but me. I post them mainly to document the blog. A set of milestones, if you will.

I confess to being fascinated — and utterly befuddled — by which posts receive attention and which little piggies get none. It’s particularly interesting to me when an old post — especially one that never got many views — suddenly gets noticed and sometimes even slightly popular.

Mostly the stats are similar to previous years, but 2023 did bring a few surprises.

Continue reading


2024: Looking Ahead

The other face of Janus looks forward to the Christmases yet to come. Or words to that effect. The last post looked back at some highlights from 2023; this one looks forward to the hopes, plans, and guesses for 2024.

Hopes and plans are easy enough, but when it comes to guesses, I’ve never thought much of futurists. I don’t have much truck with “could” and “might” when it comes to the actual world. Science fiction is my favorite fiction, but futurists claim to be prescient, and I very much doubt it.

Regardless (and heedless), some hopes, plans, and wild-ass guesses, for 2024.

Continue reading


2023: Looking Back

I thought this year’s Janus posts — one looking back, one looking forward — would be unusually late, but it turns out they’re only one day later than last year’s pair (assuming I post what I’ve just started writing today). Hosting my furry nephew Bentley over New Year’s accounts for the (thoroughly delightful!) delay this year and last.

As usual, this post looks back at the previous year, 2023, and tomorrow’s post (assuming I write it and post it) looks forward to what 2024 might hold in store (guesses and hopes).

And, of course, there are stats and charts.

Continue reading


Friday Notes (Sep 8, 2023)

Another (very) late edition and in the same week [see previous post]. In this case, it’s because I hadn’t planned a Friday Notes post for today, but I’ve gotten so indolent lately that I’m falling out of the habit of blogging. (Or, the eternal question, have I perhaps gotten weary of it?)

But, as polite people say, “Stuff happens.” And because it does, I have enough perishable notes that I may have to put out two Notes editions this month.

Assuming I can get back in the blogging habit.

Continue reading


The Dozen Year Charts

Last month when I published the Blog Anniversary post I lamented how yet another WordPress “update” had made it harder for me to copy the monthly post hit stats to my SelectedPosts database so I could make charts. The new table widget doesn’t allow selecting and copying [big frown].

Turns out my browser can be cajoled into making a screen grab that successfully interprets the image as a table with text, so it’s possible to capture the data, but looks to be a royal PITA, so it may be that the monthly hit stat ship has sailed.

But then I realized I had yearly hit stat data readily available.

Continue reading


Friday Notes (Jul 28, 2023)

It has been almost four weeks since my last blog post. I decided to take something of a vacation to celebrate various anniversaries (the blog, 12 years; retirement, 10 years; buying this condo, 20 years). And to celebrate finally getting some long-standing tasks off my TODO list (such as finally making a will).

Being retired puts a new spin on vacations, though. Being retired is vacation: your hard-earned, well-deserved permanent vacation. How does one take a vacation from a vacation?

Regardless, today is the last chance for a July edition of Friday Notes, so vacation-vacation is over, and it’s back to just being on vacation.

Continue reading