Five Years

Stealing the idea from Bacardi, here’s Five Years by David Bowie.


Printed on April 29, 2010 at 2:30 p.m.

Frankly, I’m surprised I made it here. Five years of blogging every day, at least once a day. I have to work REALLY hard NOT to blog MORE than once a day, but I was reasonably successful; only 367 blogposts in the last 365 days, and I’m sure one of those was a prominent death that JUST COULDN’T WAIT.

But the other reason I’m surprised I made it is that last summer, I got REALLY discouraged.

I’m not one of those people who care about having hundreds of hits a day. When my monthly numbers dropped from 4109 in May 2009 to 3041 in June, it didn’t bother me over much. But when it sank to 1575 in July, THAT was really bothersome. What did I do wrong? I started posting notices of my blog posts on Twitter and Facebook, which actually did help a little, but I am not great at doing that regularly.

BTW, #1: I signed up with some service on the web to automatically post my blog post links to Facebook and Twitter. Instead, it was posting annoying advertising stuff to my Twitter account. So I canceled it, as soon as I saw it on my blog sidebar. Sorry about that.

BTW, #2: two people asked me why I have two Facebook accounts within 30 minutes when I went to the comic book show in Albany last Sunday. It’s easy: I started one, using my work e-mail, then I couldn’t find it. so I started ANOTHER one with my home e-mail. Now I know what both of them are. If I had the time, I’d just cancel one, but since there are people on one who aren’t on the other…well, it’d be work. Someday. When I retire, maybe, or take a long vacation where I actually just play on the computer. That is to say, not any time soon.

Then I noticed something: this blog, which had been on the first page of Google, disappeared from Google. It didn’t just fall off the first page; it seems to have vanished altogether.

Now, I can be found on a Google search. My Twitter and my blog on the Times Union can be found in the top 10. One of my Facebook pages and even my seldom-used Library 2.0 account – check out the vintage of the picture – are in the top 30. Even comments, articles I’ve written for other blogs, and specific pieces from the TU blog show up. But not this one.

This has pretty much forced a momentous decision.

Facebook quizzes

Because it’s too damn hot for anything else. So hot, in fact, that we got our nearly annual bat last night. I was up, wife was in bed, not asleep, when this small creature flew into the living room. Ultimately, the wife batted it down with a broom in mid-air, stunning it long enough to catch and release.

Myers-Briggs Personality Test

INFP (Introversion, iNtuition, Feeling, Perception)
You are idealistic, loyal to your values and to people who are important to you. You want an external life that is congruent with your values. You are curious, quick to see possibilities, and can be a catalyst for implementing ideas. You seek to understand people and to help them fulfill their potential. You are adaptable, flexible, and accepting unless a value is threatened. Famous people with your same INFP personality include: Mary the Blessed Virgin, Helen Keller, William Shakespeare, John F. Kennedy Jr., Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Julia Roberts and Johnny Bacardi.

This is likely true.
***
Top five most famous people I’ve met
1. Former Chief Justice Earl Warren
2. Rod Serling
3. Nelson Rockefeller
4. Anita Baker
5. Alex Trebek
***
What color are you?
Red: You are both bold and romantic, just like the color Red! You aren’t afraid to take chances and live life to the fullest. Sometimes you go too far to get what you want, but you’re always up for love.

Obviously, I was hoping for a different color. Like green.
***
How Normal Are You?

Extremely Normal

You walked “downtown” growing up, know what a “Gondola” is and remember when Veterans’ Parkway was on the edge of town, and not the middle!

I am, of course, extremely insulted.
***
Full Personality Evaluation

You are a type 1C person
You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.

This is not entirely untrue. Certainly the change stuff is true. The introvert/extrovert thing is most DEFINITELY true.
***
And on another matter: Arthur at AmeriNZ writes about blogging. And, oh yeah, about me. BTW, as of today, I have 1829 posts started. 1749 have been published, and 2 are scheduled to be published (one tomorrow, one in September). 78 are in draft form. Some will eventually see the light of day, some won’t; it’s probably about 50/50.


ROG

Ask Roger Anything, Solstice Edition

Now that it’s summer (or winter, depending), it is time to Ask Roger Anything. Oh, but wait – I’m distracted by somebody who recently noted that if people from space came to Earth, they might conclude the South Pole is the top of the world and the North Pole is on the bottom; after all there is a large land mass. Or maybe they’d pick some point on the equator or the Tropic of Cancer. Is our sense of top and bottom somewhat arbitrary?

Usually I do this because I’m afraid I’ll run out of things to write about. This is not the case presently; I have three or four blogposts re my trip to North Carolina alone. I am, though, having trouble actually composing them, or even deciding if I should. Answering YOUR questions gives me opportunity to muse on them some more.

Anyway, I already have a question from SB: “So perhaps you’ve already written about this, but I’d be interested to hear how libraries continue to change and evolve with stuff like Twitter and Facebook. Do libraries have their own Facebook badges? Is that – gasp! – allowed?”

Our library has a Facebook page, which is fueled in part from our blog feed. We have a Twitter feed that keeps both our blog and our website fresh. Our Facebook badge is a variation on the SBDC logo.

I’ve seen over 1000 libraries on both Twitter and Facebook, and I’d guesstimate that there are tens of thousands of librarians who are on one or both of the sites; I am on those, LinkedIn and a couple others.

The Library of Congress has over 10,000 followers but is following, last I checked, no one. At least the Library Journal is following a couple hundred while it is followed by over 5,000. I – and apparently others – had contacted the LOC about this, and the folks responded, rather quickly, that were worried that there would be too much noise in the feed. I’m not sure I agree with their thought process.

So, any other questions, folks? Everything is on the table. Let your mind get creative.
ROG

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