Sleeping... But Not Gone

Seems I was having this same debate about a year ago. Then, as it is now, it was over Blogger's less than feature-rich commenting system -- plus it seemed over the short life of this blog, I received feedback stating that the same system had munged their detailed remarks and forced them to re-type their comment more than once. Not good. I did manage to delay the argument by deploying a third-party system (JS-Kit's Echo system) last April, and that helped... some. But even with its nice social networking features, threading, and better editor, that too began to crack (and some like my friend Will couldn't even comment because older browsers had issues with Echo). Of late, whether it was Blogger's or JS-Kit's fault, it stopped working more than once... then Echo's support (did I mention it's a paid service?) stopped responding to this client's requests. It appears like I wasn't the only one unhappy with it.

While all of that was diverting enough, I began to feel that wasn't the only thing driving this. Then I remembered this scene from Silence of the Lambs:

Hannibal Lecter: First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature? What does he do, this man you seek?
Clarice Starling: He kills women...
Hannibal Lecter: No. That is incidental. What is the first and principal thing he does? What needs does he serve by killing?
Clarice Starling: Anger, um, social acceptance, and, huh, sexual frustrations, sir...
Hannibal Lecter: No! He covets. That is his nature. And how do we begin to covet, Clarice? Do we seek out things to covet? Make an effort to answer now.
Clarice Starling: No. We just...
Hannibal Lecter: No. We begin by coveting what we see every day...

I guess the gist of it has been the fact that I've wanted to change or improve things for a while. Don't get me me wrong. Blogger is not a bad blogging system. In fact, Google made it quite easy for me to join in on the sphere back in 2008. Ridiculously so. But again, after a while, there were things I began to notice that I craved. So when I opened a Wordpress.com account (also free like Blogger) early last year on a lark (or so I believed), I liked what I saw in its writing and publishing features. I'm not, nor do I ever expect to be, a blogger that produces extraordinary content or have a boatload of followers. However, I am one who likes to tinker with things. That's just me. And I'm not interested in getting into flame wars over platforms: Mac vs. PC, iPhone vs. Android, or Blogger vs. Wordpress (but there are loads of posts arguing one way or another on this one). But, I am making a switch... or sorts.

Since change seems to be in the air with some many of my blogging friends (Jen and Kaye have deployed her own custom domains [http://www.jensbookthoughts.com/ and http://www.meanderingsandmuses.com/, respectively], and author John Kenneth Muir and Sci-Fi Fanatic have updated their blogsite's design with nifty new templates), I'll begin posting new content exclusively over at my Wordpress blog site: It Rains... You Get Wet (points awarded to the first person who names the film this quote emanates from) starting this week. I contemplated moving my Blogger posts and comments over to the new blog with this change, but decided against it since I am not really abandoning this blog site or giving up my Blogger account. The only difference is what I've written about in the past (here) will just begin to land over there, instead. If someone leaves a comment on a blogpost (on either site), they'll still get a reply and thank you, regardless, since I'll monitor both to the best of my abilities. I don't do this lightly (hence my months long procrastination) because I realize getting people who are regular readers of Lazy Thoughts... to also make a change to a new site (and/or add another email subscription or RSS feed) is a big request.

I sincerely hope I don't alienate anyone with this, especially those who have read (or lurked), followed, and/or commented over the last few years. In many ways they are the best part of it all, but I do feel like it is for the best at this point in time. Lazy Thoughts (past) will be here, and there (those future posts that are coming). This in no way changes my commitments to friends -- I plan on contributing the promised posts to Kaye Barley and Edward Copeland on their wonderful blogs, and continuing the joint post project with the wordy one, Rachel over at Scientist Gone Wordy. I've learned, too, to never burn your bridges. So who knows, I might myself right back here sometime in the future. But for now, one leopard will be sleeping while another begins prowling. My heartfelt thanks to you all for your readership and understanding.

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That's 7 in Dog Years

Is it something with the weather that makes us so restless with our blog's appearance, or is it that first anniversary that makes us want to refresh our pages? ~ Corey Wilde

Funny how these things creep up on you. As as we hit gloomy June, I began to think about the blog and its imminent first anniversary. It was a year ago, on Father's Day (in golf lore that's the day of Tiger's U.S. Open fourth round at Torrey Pines, June 15, 2008), when I started this thing. And giving credit where it's due, I have Jen to thank for that (I only considered writing one because of my fellow Craisie). If I had a Stetson (like author Craig Johnson), I'd tip it your way, Jen. Plus, writing one of these weblog thingamajigs has its benefits.

Image by wavey davie via Flickr

Not only have I gotten the chance to write something (however meager and all without the benefit of a teacher correcting me with a virtual red pen), but my perspective and outlook has definitely expanded due to it. I've taken in the extraordinary content of some talented bloggers within the past year, and all credit to them. In no particular order, these include: Jen, Corey, Nordette, Gay, Livius, Steven, Dennis, Elyse, Joshua, Tom, David, Daniel, a handful of John's (in various spellings), and others. And if I've gotten to exchange some ideas or comments with any of them, it's all been good (maybe not for them--but those are the breaks for interacting with the likes of me ;-).

Although, truth be told, what I really get out of doing this blog (hopefully) is a chance to put some of me out there in the ether for the benefit of my children. I won't always be here (though I'm waiting on Corey to discover that cure he mentioned), but maybe, there is something I can leave/say to my kids when I'm not. You see, the hardest job I've ever loved, without question, is being a father. Hey, if I changed poopy diapers (on my own), then it means I really love them. No k-i-d-d-i-n-g. I came to this parent-thing from the inverse role model school (those breaks, again). I'm always asking myself, "what would my dad do here?" Then, I know to do the opposite. Plus, to do this job even half-way decently, one must remain in the father character constantly to have any chance of perfecting it.

You just keep running that play until you get it right. ~ Bill Cosby quoting his old football coach

Needless to say, following this parent-path (which began in the mid-90's) doesn't allow much insight for the kids regarding their paterfamilias. Yes, my kids are well aware of their old man's persona (as crusty as that is). But, my role in the family makes it difficult for them to gather much beyond that. Certainly, having my children learn to make the right decisions (for later in their lives) means I have to be a father now, not their friend. Later (if Google stays around, and they do a halfway sufficient job of archiving this ongoing scribe), they might find out what made their pop tick (or is it tick pop... whatever). Naturally, after they discover that their old man really didn't have anything deep to say about life and the popular arts, they can move on to puzzle out why mom married this guy. Remember kids: if you've grown up, got educated, have a successful enough career to afford the psychoanalysis, you can always blame all of your craziness on your father... ;-)

Image via CrunchBase

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For those interested in curmudgeon-tech, you'll notice today's change in the blog's appearance. Credit for this template change goes to e-friend Corey (without his template episode this month I wouldn't have gone on to explore template changes and fixes), Amanda Fazani @ Blogger Buster for writing her help narrative and A Cheats' Guide to Customizing Blogger Templates, and the authors at Digital Nature for their freely available Fusion template. Quick tutorial: clicking on the <> in the upper right hand corner will change the layout from a fixed column (always the same size) to a flexible one (aka stretched). Clicking the AA will enlarge or shrink the font size of the blog. You think I could come up on my own with a CSS template with 2 columns (right sidebar), and fixed or fluid width?

Dream on, kids.