Blog Tryouts Results Show

Blog Insider: An unsolicited and superfluous look inside the minutiae. 

I'm a big fan of blogroll (Don't know what blogroll click here to find out.) At present, I have 8 different blogrolls on my home page,  and we all know how painful that can be. The most recent one is called Blog Tryouts.  I just started it earlier this year.

Blog Tryouts is exactly what it sounds like. I chose 8 blogs that I was not currently linking anywhere else in my blog and placed them in their own section.  Some of these blogs like The Comics Curmudgeon and We Are That Family have been on my blogrolls before and I have decided to have another look at them.  Others like Chicken Spaghetti and Laws of Gravity are blogs I have recently discovered and placing them on a  blogroll for the first time. 

Since the beginning of the year, I have been enjoying going to these blogs on multiple occasions and have added 3 to some of my more permanent blogrolls.  

Laws of Gravity as I mentioned last month on my Januarying post is a blogger/substitute teacher and I have really enjoyed her tales from the front lines of education.  I have added her blog to my Education and Special Needs Blog blogroll.  Her most recent post is called Oblivious.

Rambling Ever on may well be my favorite of the blogs from blog tryouts. I feel like I have found kindred spirits in the group of writers who contribute to this blog.  They have a very good 5 part series called The Forgotten History of Christian Rock with 5 Spotify playlists to help you not forget.  I really enjoyed their recent post called I Love My Boring Church as our family has been on a church search for some time now and the post served as something of an oasis for me. I wasn't sure which blogroll to place Rambling Ever On, it could certainly go into my Bloggy Blogs category as they spray all to fields, but for now, anyway, I'm including them in the News, Faith, Opinion, and Insight Blogs section.

The Third Blog that earned a place on my blogroll team is Reflections On The Teche. I've seen this blog on several occasions through Poetry Friday.  This week's Poetry Friday is at  My Juicy Little Universe by the way.  Feel free to stop in. I really like the poetry at Reflections On The Teche. I've even signed up to take part in the kiddie-lit progressive poem she's spearheading in  April. One feature she does on her blog is This Photo Wants To Be a Poem. I particularly liked the submission called Sunrise Field. I have placed Reflections On The Teche in my Writing, Poetry, Publishing, and Book blogs section.  

I will keep all 8 blogs up in The Blog Tryouts section until the end of March.  In May I plan to link blogs that I discovered or rediscovered during April's A to Z challenge.  

I have 100 posts in draft status.

 Blog Insider: An unsolicited and superfluous look beyond the minutiae 

Today's Episode: Draft Status 

Back when I started blogging getting to your hundredth post was kind of a big deal.  People would celebrate the accomplishment in different ways.  When I got there I made a list of 100 people I knew who who influenced me.   At 500 I wrote a parody to I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles). Since I consolidated all my blogs here I have been in the process of consolidating all posts from all those blogs here as well.  Because of that I'm not quite sure what number post I'm at exactly but I am nearing 1,300 for the ones that have been written or transferred here.  

Earlier this week, I discovered a different century mark.  I noticed that I have 100 posts here in this blog that are in draft status.  That means they are not currently accessible to you. the reader. I was astounded that it was that many.  

When I consolidated the 2 other blogger blogs here it also brought over anything in draft status from those blogs.

The most recent of my posts in draft status was from May 26th.  Over the past 3 years I have had  35 more identical posts/  They have no title and no content whatsoever.  I don't think I was aware that i was leaving phantom drafts 

The oldest of my drafts is originally from my sports blog.   It is from January 10, 2012 (more than 10 years ago!) and entitled A thought on Harold Baines and the HOF.  It was written right after Baines was removed from the HOF ballot by failing to received more than 5% of the writer's vote.  Written is too strong of a word as the only thing written was the title of the post.  Baines was eventually voted into the HOF on the veteran's ballot in 2019.  So since the motivation for my post (expressing my opinion that Baines is HOF material) has been for all intents and purposes been achieved there is really no reason to keep it in draft status.  

The most recent of my posts in draft status was from May 26th.  Over the past 3 years I have had  35 more identical posts/  They have no title and no content whatsoever.  I don't think I was aware that i was leaving phantom drafts.  That's more than 1/3 of the 100 drafts and those will be easy to delete. There are other posts like the Harold Baines post that are title only with no content. 

The remaining posts  are basically in the following categories. 

* You Tube videos.  

I post quite a few you tube vidoes straight to my blog.  Since I have had in the past more than one blogger blog at a time, when I put those videos onto my blog I get a screen shot like the one below.  

If I accidentally put the video in the wrong blog it usually gets trapped in draft staus in that blog without being immediately aware about it.

* Consolidation

When I moved my sports blog and vlog to this one, I also brought whatever blogs I had in draft status with me, like the aforementioned Harold Baines post.

* No longer relevant, No longer interested, could not do it justice

These are actually 3 very similar situations.  In each case I start a post and put it aside to finish.  By the time I get back to them they are not worth finishing for one (or more) of the above reasons.

* Work in progress

After I have finished this post, this should be the only category of posts in draft status that remain.  These are posts that I am either still working on or do not want to give up completely on.

* Ready to publish/overlooked.  

There are a few posts that are in draft status by mistake.  When I find those I go ahead and put them into the blog as was originally intended.

100 posts in draft status is not an achievement I ever anticipated achieving.  Now that I'm finished achieving it, I'm going to spend a few minutes behind the scenes and unachieve it.  

 

12 new to me movies for 2022

 This post has been adaoted from a January 2015 post.

At the end of each year I like to reflect on the year past and prepare for the coming year. I have been thinking quite a bit  about some of my goals and whether I have achieved them this year. One goal I  set each year and have so far failed to achieve is to watch 12 movies I have not seen before.  

I like movies and have worked at a movie theatre since 2019. Besides watching new movies at the theatre, I tend to watch my favorites over and over.   I also like  to watch movies that are new to me and discover new favorites.    On many occasions I have attempted  to watch 12 new to me movies in the course of the year.  I may have accomplished this goal in the past, but I have always failed to chronicle it.  Next year,I will try again to  write a post each month about the "new" movie I have seen.

Let me explain the parameters I have placed upon myself.  When I say new movies, I do not mean 12 2022 movies at the theater.  I mean 12 movies released prior to 2022. Also, I don't only want to              watch movies made in my lifetime, I want to explore through all the eras of cinema.  

Here is how I am doing it:  I was born in 1964 and have divided that time in 4 periods and then divided the time prior to my birth into 2 periods.  These periods are: 

2007 through 2021
1993 through 2006
1979 through 1993
1964 through 1978
1949 through 1963

Pre 1934 through 1948

I will attempt to watch 2 movies from each era, and report back here each month with a review.  I was recently subbing for some  high school English  classes saw an assignment for a movie review.  I am going to use that assignment as the template for my monthly reviews.

• I will rate each movie on a 1 (worst movie ever) to 5 (best movie I have seen) scale.
• I will provide a 2-3 sentence summary of the movie.
• I will share 1 theme from the movie.
• I will write one thing I liked about the movie and 1 thing I disliked about the movie.
• I will say who I think would make the best audience for this movie.  

The thing I like most about this type of review is that it is only supposed to be 1 paragraph.  I have failed many times in the past not to watch the movies but to chronicle them as I have had unrealistic expectations of the quality of such a review and the time it takes me to make a longer review. \

Last Thursday I finally watched The Matrix (1999) for the first time.  It was playing at my theatre in anticipation of Matrix Resurrection which opens soon.  When I told my wife that it was showing she noticed it was also on a streaming service we subscribe to so we watched it together after work.

Here is a  review of The Matrix following the template and giving me some practice for the task at hand next year.

In my opinion The Matrix deserves 4 of 5 stars for being a thrilling innovative and entertaining film that kept me on the edge of my seat. The Matrix appears to take place at the turn of the 20th century but the main character Neo discovers that all is not what it seems. His discovery leads him to another reality and to a choice of which reality he should follow.  Once Neo makes his choices he uses his new powers for the good of humanity.  One important theme of the movie is the concept of fate.  One thing I really liked about the movie was the fast paced frenetic action.  I disliked the intense violence of the movie, I was not aware that this series of movies are all R rated, I think the violence could be ratchetted  down a little for a PG13 rating instead.  This movie is best suited for sci-fi  fans who like post apocalyptic action films that are both dark and hopeful at the same time.  

Things I'd like to post more about.

 Blog Insider: A look behind the curtain at HSD

Tonight's Episode: Some things I'd like to post more about.

When I first started blogging I kept a notebook with all the blogging ideas I had and would cross them out when I wrote about them and add more as the ideas come to me.  This got to be a bit of a problem as I would often not have my notebook when I got an idea and often could not find my notebook when I was working on my blog.  Also, not all of my ideas were blog worthy.  Some were time sensitive and by the time I got to writing them down they were no longer relevant.  Some just worked better as an idea but did not make sense when they saw the light of screen.  

I have decided to make one of those lists as a blog post to give me a reference point I can't leave in my other coat and also to give the readers (if there are still any out there) an idea of what sort of things are interesting me these days.

• I would like to write more about my work as a substitute teacher.
• I would like to write more about my ADHD.
• I would like to write a little about the combination of my ADHD and my work as a substitute teacher,  
• I have began recompiling my list of my 100 favorite movies.  I would like to write more about the particular movies and my process in compiling the list.
• My wife and I have have lost over 100 pounds this year.  I'd like to write about my weight and my goal to stop yoyoing and get down to my weight in high school.
• I would like to share more poetry here.  Which means I'd like to write more poetry.  
• I would like to take more pictures and post more pictures.
• I would like to write more about my faith.

There are certainly other things I'd like to blog more about, but at this present moment these are the forms of content I'd like to delve into more in the future.  

I am also thinking of making some wholesale changes in my my blogging presence  at the beginning of the year.  I currently have 4 blogs active and am finding keeping those active more and more challenging.  I once commented to someone that as long as I am posting at least once a quarter on each blog I would be satisfied.  I have certainly been doing that but I'm noticing some redundancies and have spending a lot of thoughtspace on how to more efficiently scratch my blogging itch in the months and years to come.  

Things Fortnightly

Time once again for our biweekly thing festival. SO many things so little time. Let's get to them shall we.

Thing #1. Blog Insider - A look at the widgets, gadgets, and what nots of Home School Dad.

Tonight's Episode: Here but not here.

My family was visiting the Washington D.C. area last week. We had a wonderful time. I took plenty of pictures and even kept a trip journal. I will be sharing from both of these sources in the posts to come. While I let my face book friends know I was gone, I didn't want to announce on the blog my absence just to make sure that no unscrupulous types took advantage of our absence from our home. To that end, I used one of my favorite features of blogger and wrote and scheduled 4 posts that appeared the week I was gone.

If you click on the post options menu while writing your current post, you can schedule your posts in advance. This not only helps when you are warning to post date a post, it also helps if you start a post and save it and want to have a current date on it. If you save a post without changing the date and then come back and publish it later it will retain the original date and often get lost behind whatever you published in the interim. If you post date your work and save it, then you can change the date to the current date once you have made your revisions.

Thing #2 What's on my screen saver

Charlie is playing soccer for the first time in an organized league. He really enjoys it. His first game is Saturday. He is looking forward to it.

Thing # 3. Chock full of Chuck.

It wouldn't be Thursday if I weren't telling you about the awesomeness that is Chuck. As I have mentioned in the last few times here Chuck VS. the Beard was the Best Episode Ever. The 4 episodes that followed it and ended the current story arc all were very very good. I would have to say that Monday's episode Chuck vs. The Other Guy was the second best episode ever. No Spoiler alerts here, but many things transpired in this episode that would have been impossible to even fathom less than a season ago. But every plot point seemed to fall in place and seem very genuine and most of all immensely watchable. Chuck takes a 3 week hiatus until the end of April. This means that in the next things fortnightly, I'll have to fins something else to go on and on about.

Thing # 4, Something to count on.

Last year right around Thanksgiving time I applied for a temporary job with the Census Bureau. I worked with them in 1990 and was hoping to do so again this year. I got 98% on the test and was thinking I should have heard from them one way or another by now. They called and I got a job as an enumerator. I have 4 days of training in late April and then a number of weeks of collecting census data form the field. This is my first paying gig in 2 years and I am just excited that I'll get a W2 next year. Besides the training, I'll be able to work my schedule around the kids homeschooling. It is a real answer to prayer.

Well that's all the things I have for today. If you have some things you'd like to share please click on Mr. Linky below.

Next Time: DC Trip Day #1

Giving September it's due and avoiding plagarism

Blog Insider - A look at the widgets, gadgets, and what nots of Home School Dad.

Tonight's Episode: 7 Word September

NEWSFLASH: September is the ninth month of the year. September is the ninth We're all cool with that, right? Well, if September is the ninth month, why does the prefix Sept mean seventh? November has the proper prefix for ninth and it's the eleventh month. What's with that?

Well, September would be the seventh month, if it weren't for the Cesarean section of the calendar. July and August are name for those great rulers of old, Julius and Augustus Caesar.

Imagine you're on the month naming committee. You have 10 perfectly good names for months already; the last 4 actually mean the seventh through tenth months, respectively. Then the Emperor's people come in and say, "Hey! Don't forget about Julie and Augie. We need months for them too you know!

So, what do you do? The only way to keep the numbered months in their correct place is to put July and August at the end of the year. That doesn't work with the Emperor's people. Who wants to have a July pool party when it's 40 degrees out and all the leaves are off the ground and in the pool?

September through December don't mean what they're supposed to mean and every body's okay with that?!? I for one don't plan to sit idly by while September gets shafted. Here's what I'm doing about it:

All this month I will have September embrace it's seveness by titling all my posts with exactly seven words. I got the idea from Cate at Show My Face dot com. Each Saturday she hosts SIX WORD SATURDAY, where people sum up their lives in six words and then write 3-400 more to explain their six.

I was a little concerned about running with this idea for fear of stepping on her toes. I talked to her about it and she says her toes don't mind. I even have a special 7 word September/ Six Word Saturday tie in planned. Tune in Saturdays to see what I have cooking.

If you're not into minutiae, skip ahead to the next paragraph. As you may have observed, I end all my posts with a blurb about what is coming in the next post. I usually just write the title of the upcoming article. For September I will just say the upcoming subject. That way, no one will know the seven word title until the actual post, That's me, Mr. Suspense Builder.

Welcome back non minutiae people. If anyone, minutiae likers or not, would like to give September it's due you can try ant of the following:

• Title all your blog posts with seven words
• Give $7.00 to each of your followers
• Give away a copy of 7 brides for 7 brothers
• Start a petition to have 7-up produce a September 7 pack.

Next Time: WFMW Themed Edition

But Dad, You're not a girl!

Blog Insider - A look at the widgets, gadgets, and what nots of Home School Dad.

Tonight's Episode: Library Thing

A blog is a beautiful thing. What I especially like about blogs are all the cool little gimmicks and features around the posts. Early on in my career as blogger/crime fighter I discovered a cool little thing called Library Thing.

I originally saw it at one of my favorite blogs A Place Beneath. (I am not just saying that because she watched my kids yesterday when I went to the home school convention, but thanks!)

Library Thing is essentially a way to catalog your books and they can run a sidebar on your blog that always shows five random books from your library. The basic service is free. For cataloging over 100 books there is a fee.

But what does this have to do with me not being a girl? Excellent Question. The best thing about Library Thing is they give away new books! Cool, huh! It is a program called Early Reviewers. Each month several copies of soon to be released books are made available to Library Thing Members. As long as the book is available in your country, you can register for it. Sometimes there are 1,000 people vying for 20 books. What you are supposed to do if you win a book is read it and then review it. You can post the review at Library Thing or post it at your blog and link it at Library Thing. I have been trying since the January Bonus Batch to snag a book. No book in January nor in February but in March after registering for about 25 books, I won one!

It was this one. This prompted my three year old to speak this post's title when she saw me reading it last week.

Let me live up to my end of the bargain. Kathy's book is actually a pretty good starting point for Busy Moms trying to simplify their lives. Much of her advice is practical, and fairly solid. Much of this advice is not new and there is very little that seems revolutionary in her approach.

The chapters each have the same format. She will spend the first half of a chapter talking about the topic (money matters, happiness, safety etc.) She then presents general problems that Busy Moms would have within the topic and her solutions. I found this question and answer format initially engaging. As the book continued the format began to grate on me.

Another thing that grated on me was how she tries to pass herself off as a just like you mom when she constantly name drops through the entire book. Okay I appreciate how having a paper route taught you valuable life lessons. I had a paper route and it taught me the same. But not everybody gets insight from life at parties hosted by Erik Estrada with music provided by one of the Pointer Sisters.

Over all I did like this book. Since I am not a busy Mom I can't tell you how it's target audience feels about it. I am married to a busy Mom, who is going to provide her own review in a future post.

I also like Library Thing and would encourage anyone who has not yet joined to give it a try. I won a book in April as well (it can take 4-8 weeks to receive a book that you've won.) It is a book for single men. At least it's the right gender this time!

Next Time: A Centennial Celebration

Next Time

Blog Insider - A look at the widgets, gadgets, and what nots of Home School Dad.


Tonight's Episode: Next Time

On January 6, 2009, I started this here blog. Just a couple of pictures of our 3 children answering the titular question Why do we home school? Not exactly the stuff of legend. I did start a tradition on that post that I have maintained now for 56 subsequent posts. I always end each post telling the reader what is coming next. It is the journalist and talk show host in me. I like you, the bloggee, to know what's coming next.

If you page back to my first post, then page forward looking at all the next time tags, you will see that I am never wrong. If I say Next Time: Swimming Lessons, by golly the next post is about swimming lessons. Incredible.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret, I cheat. Often when I say what is coming next, I have not yet written that post. Sometimes all I have is an idea. Sometimes, I decide I'd rather post about something different than what I advertised. Well if this were a magazine, newspaper or weekly television program, I would just have to live with my mistake and make some disclaimer type announcement. Here at blog central, no such problem. I write my new post and then simply edit my old post and put in the new title. When my devoted readership comes back and I am writing about newts, they may be a little bewildered and say, "Hey, I thought he said he was going to write about hippos!" They will go back to my previous post, and there for all to see, it will say: "Next Time: Newts." Amazing!

Well, I don't use it very often. But I am glad it's there, obsessive as I am. I was going to write about this my last time out, but this week my two oldest children rode their bikes without training wheels for the first time. So, I wrote about that instead and just changed the next time information on my prior post. The only place where there are any discrepancies on my future issues, is on my face book page. I feed these posts directly to my face book page. I have the feed set up automatically. What you see there is the original next time message.

Next Time: Announcing the Quarter Winner. (Or will it?)

My Music A-Z

Blog Insider - A look at the widgets, gadgets and whatnots of Home School Dad

Tonight's Episode: My Music A-Z

I am by most accounts a disorganized person. Many people have tried to get me organized, and they have all failed. Sad, really. It's not that I don't have developed storage systems. It's just that none of those storage systems ever get properly utilized. My brother says my organization motto is: a place for everything and everything on the floor.

There is one area in my life that is impeccably organized: my music. My 8-track collection, which gave way to my record (aka LP) collection, which gave way to my cassette and cd collection were/are all catalogued alphabetically or by genre.

I also have in the past established elaborate systems by which cd or which track I would play. So, it should come as no surprise that the music blog is subject to the same blend of order and chaos that I subject all my other music collections.

My music is brought to you by playlist.com. They are awesome. Each Sunday I switch the songs on my blog, generally in accordance to some mad scheme. One week, I had two songs for each artist I chose. Another time, all songs I chose were performed by 2 artists. This week, I went wild, even by my standards, and have 26 artists all beginning with different letters of the alphabet. All of the artists or songs do have a special meaning to me. Until I got to the x's. X-sinner is not really my cup of tea, but it's not like I had a lot to choose from. The music represents a kind of musical history of mine. Amy's message board friends say I look like Donny Osmond, so that explains that. Some songs like Steve Forbert's, "Romeo's Tune" or Rupert Holme's, "Escape" I haven't heard for years. But they were songs I really liked in the late 70's- early 80's when I was an AT40 geek. I was keeping my feet on the ground but I was definitely reaching for the stars.

Amy was a little surprised that I would choose a song like Escape, since it is about a man stuck in a bad relationship, itching to get out. And, that is so not me. That's not how I see the song though. I see it like an O'Henry short story set to music, with a little twist at the end that changes the whole song.

I hope you enjoy the music as you look through my blog. Some time soon: Christmas in February or March, cause ANYONE can do Christmas in July.

Next Time: Blah Blah Blago