Room to Breathe

June???? That was the last time I posted? Wow! Life HAS been busy.

I promise to change that. Not for anyone else, but for myself. (Obviously! Any readers I DID have moved on).

Anyways….LOVE my job….and I am now being PAID to blog! . How’s that for a switch! My non-technical admin-ish job has me setting up/designing / supporting / creating websites for my program! So the fun part if that they finally acknowledge my skills and the girl who asked me if she could show me how to “google something” in the first 2 weeks….her skills (or lack of!) are now being reviewed. Heh.

I know I’ve been neglectful, and I’ve decided I am not going to make any excuses. Dammit it’s my blog. I haven’t forgotten, I just didn’t know “how to get back into it”. So I stopped. I’m notorious for avoidance.

As guilt ridden as I have become (wtf for?), I’ll just forget everything and continue on.

So once again, I’ll just say “screw it” and just start like there was no existence of a hiatus. I’ll just periodically say “back in 2005″ and that will be that.

Now on with the show….

Actually it’s been 2 weeks since I posted last. Why is it I feel so guilty about that?

I’ve learned to deal with all the guilt I feel in my daily life. I’ve learned just not to give a shit! To shrug my shoulders and say, “deal with it, and it’s not your fault.”.

Ok. I got a little side tracked there.

When I started this nearly 3 years ago, the intent was for me to write. Just write. Write about whatever the fuck I wanted, and not to care. No one read it, and I could have cared less. Since then, I’ve met so many great people in the “community” and changed my direction, only to deal with “critical” local lurkers.

Fuck it. Fuck them.

It took a lot for me to start writing again. I have to remind myself “this is for me”. So all the drafts I have sitting there that never got posted, are finally going to get finished. Maybe .

Due to an increase in comment spam, I’ve had to add a new plugin for my comments. Although I moderate all comments (your first comment must be approved), somehow I keep getting 5 or 6 spam comments in a row a couple times a day for the past week. And it’s stupid too. The comments include sentences that make no sense, except to say, “I think what you have to say is right” or “wow! great site. I’ll be back for sure.”, and then a link(s) to some other blog(s), and then “small ship set sail”. wtf?

The first morning I woke up and found 10 emails in my inbox indicating there were 10 new comments requesting moderation, I got a little excited. “Wow!” I thought. And then I got mad.

So I started last night trying to get this plugin, that creates a captcha image, to work (SecureImage). However I couldn’t get it to work no matter what I did. I tried every path for ImageMagick, but I still continued to get only the image background, and not the text. I’m not even sure if the problem was with ImageMagick, or if it was something else.

Below is a screen capture of the problem I was having. The top image is my site, and the lower image is what it is supposed to look like.

Whatever. I just gave up and decided to try a different one instead; Bot Check). This one uses GDlib & MCRYPT, and it was a cinch to install/setup/configure; if I had only read the instructions right the first time .

I’ll see how this works, and hope it isn’t too much of a pain for the non-spammers and regular commenters.

If you can read this, please comment and say, “YES”. (obviously if you can’t you won’t say anything until you can).

I moved to a different server last night, and imported, exported, backed-up, restored my entire site and MySQL databases.

Flawlessly.

Yeah me!

So I need to know if the DNS has propagated yet, so I can clear out the old server. The only thing I’m really concerned with is mail (oh, and comments could still be written the the old database.)

I’ve been actively using WordPress for nearly 2 weeks now (since my import from Blogger), and today is my first time upgrading with this security update released today. Wish me luck *crosses fingers*.

Edit: Omg I did it. 1.5.1.3!

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

I haven’t been posting consistently for about 2 months now. Just too much going on in my head, and I don’t care to put it all out there for the world to read; not just yet anyway.

So I thank you for the emails of concern. Yes, I’m still alive, and…once everything in my life washes out, I’ll get back into routines.

Until then…I’ll do my best, but I fear my desire has been lost.

You would think with my new computer (That’s right, I stepped into 2002 with a P4!), that I would use it more. The thing is, now I just want to play more games!

A new traffic exchange program for blogs has been added. This one is so new that you can’t even begin surfing yet! But you can get in early and get “setup”.

I’m not against trying new things, and I love finding new blogs to read!

OK. So that’s 3 I have now. When will it stop? I’m addicted to clicking!

I’m registering for a 12-step program. We meet Thursdays.

I, like many other bloggers, have flocked to BlogClicker. A similar service to BlogExplosion, but much simpler and there’s no wait to be approved.

There’s no countdown, so you’re more likely to stay longer and actually read, before noticing the image has appeared, allowing you to move on to the next blog. At least that’s what I’ve found, since I actually do read what people have written. It’s only polite after all.

Question: Why are there so many BlogExplosion banners on BlogClicker?

I joined BlogExplosion only 3 days ago, and I can’t stop clicking! There are so many good blogs out there that this service has helped me discover. They pay me in credits, or however it really works, but now I don’t even care anymore! It’s become a game, or at least an experiment. Suddenly my stats have tripled! I have had the same amount of traffic on only the 5th day, that I usually have by mid-month!

If you don’t believe me, just try it. I saw the ad in my google ads (which by the way often make you want to click them too, ’cause they are also intriguing).

I feel a sense of delight each time I log in and see that I’ve been voted for or blogmarked. It gives me a warm feeling to know that I’m not alone in my clicking addition .