Journaling

Anyone who follows me on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram may have seen my recent photo and post about my journaling. I have been keeping a journal since I was 8 years old, but only since I was 19 have I really kept it on a consistent basis. Recently, I saw a blog post from someone who had been journaling for about a year that offered some great tips for those who maybe aren't sure where to start, including a template to follow. I think the suggestions are great and if you do a web search, you can find all sorts of tips and suggestions for those interested. I thought, though, that I'd share some of my own experience, habits, and what works for me and why. It's not to show off, but hopefully to help anyone who is interested!

Background
My Derby grandparents (big into family history) got me my first journal for Christmas in 1990 when I was 8. It was the 6.5x8" size and had a royal blue cover with my name embossed on the bottom right. At that age I had no idea what to write in it, and I remember my mom telling me I should write what I felt about things. My entries in that first journal were quite sporadic. "What I felt" often was as simple as "I feel great", but I did mention what was doing. It carried me up until I was 19. The first entries of my mission were in that book too. I would occasionally put little mementos in it too. Some things I remember were a $2 bill and the ticket to General Conference the first year the Conference Center was open in 2000, and for awhile I had a 4-leaf clover I found in our yard.

Thinking about that first journal always makes me sad, though, because I lost it. Well, more I had it stolen. The very first night I was in Tucson at the beginning of my mission, most of my luggage was stolen, including the suitcase that had that journal in it. I shudder when I think of what happened to it since whoever stole my stuff (and all the other new missionaries' stuff) probably threw it away. I only had a few pages left in it too and had just started getting more consistent in my journal writing as my mission had started. That journal and the Christmas stocking that my Grandma Ridinger made for me when I was born were both lost and were the hardest things to lose for me since I'm a sentimental person. Every Christmas I'm reminded of that because my Grandma made me a new stocking after I got home in 2003.

Anyway, I got new journals and started writing every few days. Soon, though, I was watching a video about early Church History (Mountain of the Lord) that features Wilford Woodruff, 4th president of the Church. He was a prolific journal writer. In the video, a dramatic recreation of the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple in 1893, Woodruff makes a statement to a reporter who is writing about the temple dedication that he made sure not to retire each night until he made a record of the day. For whatever reason, that stuck with me and made an impression. I wanted to have a record of each day and what was going on in my life and what I was thinking, not only for me, but for any posterity. From then on, I almost always wrote every day. In the instances I couldn't write, I usually wrote the next night and wrote about both days.

That continued almost unabated until 2007, when I started getting sporadic, which corresponded with the beginning of a less than spectacular part of my life, but also the beginning of my blogging. I have dated pages but nothing else written, but have blog posts that fill in the gap somewhat. Eventually, journaling came to a grinding halt. Where most volumes of my journal cover a little less than a year each (200 or so pages), Volume 13 covers a period of 5 years and 2008 is completely absent. I wrote in December 2007 and the next entry is March 2009. I only made 2 entries in 2009 (one more in May) and then not again until May 2010. I tried to restart it in 2010 with very limited success. 2011 was similar. I went through a period of about 2 months where I was writing regularly again, but then it stopped again with a gap between March and December 2011. 2012 was when I finally restarted every day as a New Year's Resolution, starting right off with January 1. It's gone on pretty much non-stop since then.

Blogging
When I had stopped writing in my journal and started doing more blogging I did consider just doing all my journal writing on the computer. In the end, I decided not to because I liked being able to be away from the computer for a little bit and having something that was written with my actual handwriting as opposed to just typed. The downside is that it's hard to index since it's all handwritten.  At some point I would like to transcribe the entire thing onto the computer so it can be indexed and I can add pictures and footnotes as needed, not to mention have a another copy of it somewhere (I use a cloud service, so I wouldn't worry about losing it with the computer). Even so, I continue to write it by hand. It's also worth noting that my blogging decreased noticeably once I started writing in my journal more.

Journal size

All of my journals...currently in Volume 17. Volume 1 is missing. The blank 

one in front of 2 is a journal I got as a kid (after my first journal) that I never

used as I found it in my things only recently. There is no significance to the 

colors.  My Missionary Journal on the left has things written by others on 

my mission.

Earlier this year I switched from the 6.5x8" sized journals to the 8.5x11" size, purely by accident. LDS Church Distribution stopped producing the journals that I had been using for years, so I had to look elsewhere to find new ones. I found some at Deseret Book that I liked and ordered them, but nowhere did it say what size they were. Well, they were the 8.5x11" size and I got two. In the smaller journals, I always filled at least a page per day. I figured with these larger pages that wouldn't be the case, but it largely has been. Very few pages aren't full. Anyone who knows me isn't surprised ONE BIT!

Content
So what do I write about? I really don't have a template or pattern as far as content goes. Some days are very much logs of what happened, while others are much more focused on my thoughts and feelings at the time. That's why I write every day, so I have a snapshot of my life right then. Every day there is at least some mention of what I did, though. I've noticed when I have periods where the days are very similar (which happens in the summer when I'm usually not working), I do focus more on what I'm thinking, which makes sense since I have more time to think (or overthink...).  My Grandma Derby (who got me my first journal) also keeps a daily journal, though hers tends to be much more of a log and is far less detailed than mine. She does hers on the computer, but just to print it out and keep in a notebook.

The important things are first, to make it YOU. What do YOU want to remember? What do you want your eventual posterity to remember or read about you? I think about that whenever I write, almost like I'm writing it for someone else as much as I'm writing it for me. On that note, though, it's also very therapeutic and helps me process the events of the day to write about them, especially if I'm frustrated. Sometimes I need to vent frustrations that cannot be done here on this public blog or even on my private blog.

Next is to make it a habit. I write every day because I know that I probably won't be consistent otherwise, plus I'm a details person. Others may find it easier to write every few days depending on what they want to include in their entries. I keep my current journal right on my desk so I see it and I have the pens I use for it (see below about my pens...). Because I like to write before midnight (again, see below), it's also a habit that I automatically need to get the journal before midnight. That took some mental stamina at the beginning and making it a priority, similar to scripture study for many of us. Really, though, once you get through about 2 weeks of that, it will become a habit. Having everything right there as a reminder, though, is a huge help too.

Here are some of my preferences:

1. I use Pilot G2 gel pens to write. I prefer the blue and black "extra fine" (0.5mm) point, but also use the fine (0.7mm) point. I use that brand because I like how they look and are good for archival purposes. In other words, they won't fade. I use the size just because it looks cleaner when I write as opposed to the medium or bold points. If you choose to journal using a computer, this is obviously a moot point. 
2. I alternate blue or black ink by day, regardless of how many pages an entry may take. So, for instance, my entry for November 27 is in black ink and my entry for November 28 is blue. I do this just for the visual aspect: it's easier to tell the days apart. If I were using a computer, I might do something similar, either use a different color or a different font. 
3. When I was taking a Family History class in 2004 at BYU-Idaho, the professor suggested we put the day of the week along with the date for journal entries and I've done that ever since. It makes it easier to find things if I know what day of the week something was on. I usually put the day of the week in small letters after the date and I use the three-letter abbreviation for the day. Example: January 15th, 2014 WED 
4. I always include what time I start the entry. Not sure when I started doing that, but I used to include the time I finished the entry too, but ended up stopping since there were times I wouldn't finish before being too tired, so I'd have this end time several hours later... I include the start time because it's part of that snapshot of my life right then.
5. I typically write at night right before I go to bed or near that time, all part of that daily record. I usually try to write before midnight so the entry matches the date. In 2012 when I was getting back in the habit, there would be times I was too tired to write, so I'd take my journal to work and write during breaks or slow times. Some have suggested doing it in the morning, and really, it all depends on your schedule and when it can fit the best. It's more important to find A time as opposed to THE time. 
6. I've done a few different things when I'm writing after midnight in regards to the entry date and start time, but now I just date it for the date I'm writing about, but in the start time I put the time and that it's the next day (so, for instance, it will have "12:54 AM Jan 4" as the start time, but the date at the top will say "January 3rd, 2014 FRI").

You don't need to write a book, but I do recommend writing at least something every day or every other day. There is so much insight we can get from going back and reading past entries, not to mention remembering events and thoughts. Like I said, it is not uncommon for me to go back and read my journal entries to find out when something happened. Bottom line, though, is make it YOU. Make it something that is valuable to you now and will be of value to your own or someone else's posterity. 

Movements

For the few of you who follow this blog or are connected with me on Facebook, you may have noticed that some things have been moved around a bit. After a long time of thinking about it, I finally created a main page for my domain www.jonridinger.com, so I moved this blog to lfk.jonridinger.com. I thought about moving it to just "blog.jonridinger.com", but in the end decided to use the initials LFK (Life From Kent) as the identifier for this blog since I have two other blogs.

The big hold-up for me getting this main page created was finding a design program that could create something I actually liked and was easy to change as needed. I have very basic and limited knowledge in writing HTML, so I can't just create a website without some kind of design program. Google offers a website maker, but the designs are very limited to the point that no matter what I did, I couldn't create something I liked. I finally did find a website called IM Creator, at http://www.i-m.co. Not only is it free, but they have several templates to choose from, all of which can easily be altered, or you can just start blank with tons of options. Seeing as I just wanted to create a good looking entry page to connect all my blogs and other websites, I didn't need anything more than some creative leeway and detail control.

The site does have some subscription options, mostly if you want to use it for web hosting and domain name registration/parking. Since I already have Google for the blogs and the domain name is registered there as well, I didn't need any of the extras, though I certainly would recommend them based on my experience thus far. To get around not being able to use my own domain name for the website since I'm not a subscriber, I learned a little about and set up a domain forwarding, so my JonRidinger.com domain redirects to the page's actual address, but it's a "masked" forward so the browser just shows my domain name. The same is true for any of the web pages that are published with this IM Creator account. So far I have done a new "About Me" page with it and I plan to move my resume page to this as well rather than have it as a sub page of this blog. The "About" page linked at the top here has always been more about the blogs themselves than me, so I plan to fine-tune that page again and make specific ones for each blog, and then have a link to the "About Me" page too.

My thinking is that I use the "JonRidinger.com" address as a reference all the time, not only for my professional email address, but also as a link in my email signature and in general. Now, rather than come to the website and land right here on my blog and whatever topic is most recent, instead a visitor comes to a page where they can see who I am and can choose which aspect they'd like to check out. I think the way it was previously, this blog was the landing point for anyone looking for information on me and it really has no real focus other than a way for me to express myself and share experiences. Now, when I refer someone to my site, they can see more than just my latest opinion piece or fun event. It also puts this blog in proper perspective of being simply one of my creative outlets as opposed to the total definition of me.

All that said, be sure to update any bookmarks you have to my blog. Simply replace "www" with "lfk" and the link will work fine. If there is no "www" in the bookmark, just add the "lfk" before "jonridinger.com".  Also be sure to check out the new page at www.jonridinger.com and also click on the "About Me" box at the bottom (trust me, you can't miss it!).

Why Hello There April!

Hard to believe it's April already.  Seems like the year just started and here is is already a fourth of the way over.  I've also noticed that I haven't blogged here since early January.  Kind of like the last time I mentioned this ("Blogging Decline"), it's a combination of motivation and probably more importantly related to the fact that I have been writing in my journal a lot more these days.

Beginning on my mission, I started writing in my journal on a daily basis.  That continued through my 2-year mission and on for a few more years, finally running out in 2007.  From then I stopped writing and would sporadically write here and there, so I have these random entries for 2008-2011, sometimes just one day and other times I'd string a few days together.  Despite that I would carry my journal with me in my backpack with the intention of writing, but never did most times.  Well, during my Christmas break in Utah, I decided to try once again to get back in the habit of writing every day or at least close to that as a New Year's resolution.  So far so good.  I'm 4 months in (officially re-started on New Year's Eve) and have written pretty regularly.  The most days I've missed have been 3 in a row and then it's usually followed by a long entry summarizing what I've missed.  In March I finally bought my first new journals since 2007.  When I was writing regularly before, I would buy 2 new journals about once a year or so (when I write every day, the 204-page journal usually lasts about 2/3 of the year)

The downside of my journal writing is that it tends to suck my desire to do any other kind of writing for the day, so my blogs have largely gone neglected, mostly because I don't have much else to share or I just completely lack the desire to write.  Plus I have my history blog (which I updated recently) and my private blog (which I also updated recently).  My poor Kent Patch blog hasn't been updated in awhile too.  I have good intentions (I start blog posts and get pretty far with them), but I never seem to have the desire to finish them.  That said, I do have some plans for some new posts here, including a review of the book and movie The Blind Side that I recently saw and read (loved it!).  Downtown Kent continues to evolve as well, so I need to post some updated pictures.  I'm also hopeful to finally make this web address a central website and have the blog be its own separate page instead of the main page.

In the meantime, I'm still subbing in Kent and at Maplewood.  The school year is starting to wind down, so I am looking for work to replace subbing, and not just "summer" work either.  Of course full-time teaching is high on the list, but it is by no means exclusive.  I have applied at a few places locally and am still looking while I wait for formal replies.  I have posted my extended resume here on the site ("Resume" tab at top).  I'm looking forward to tryouts for This is Kirtland! coming up and getting started on that, plus I will be singing the National Anthem for the Cleveland Indians again on April 28 against the Angels.

Blogging decline

Anyone who knows me knows I'm a stats person.  It's part of my attention to detail, but I will definitely notice statistical measures, especially things like attendance at sporting events versus seating capacity and other numerical trends.  Well, I've noticed how much my blogging has declined over the past few years, going from 69 posts in 2008 (which included my posts on my old MySpace blog), to 44 in '09, to 37 last year, now to just 16 (this is #16) in 2011.  It's not like I have less time this year than last (it's probably about the same amount really), but for whatever reasons I just don't find the time or motivation to blog much the past year.  I've noticed my Wikipedia activity has also declined over the past year, though lately it seems to be increasing again.  Even so, it's nowhere near the peak I hit back in late 2010. 

Part of the decline with my blog here has been because I've been blogging on the Kent Patch website.  Originally the idea was that I would blog about once a month there, but that hasn't panned out either.  I have a blog in the works, but have found the current reading audience there really isn't all that interested in sports, so I'm far less motivated to write blog posts there since my topic is sports.  The only post that got any noticeable amount of comments was my post about the Kent-Ravenna football rivalry and how it's much older than it is credited for.  The comments, however, came not because of interest in the topic, but more because one specific commenter thought they were smarter than they were and basically called me out for using the name "Kernel" for the 1923 Roosevelt yearbook, assuming that I was just "sloppy" in using that term instead of "Colonel".  Well, unfortunately for that person, the 1923 Roosevelt yearbook was called "The Kernel" (The name The Colonel for the school publication seems to show up in the late 1930s/early 1940s, but it was never the name of the yearbook or "annal").  Most of the comments after were directed at that individual showing them how incorrect they were.  It was nice to see that people were reading it, but most of my other posts seem to go unnoticed.  Maybe people aren't commenting, but when I see other blogs getting regular comments, it's less motivating!  Keep an eye out, though, on kent.patch.com for my blog.  I just submitted a new post today, so it should be up in the next few days. 

Another reason for the decline in blogging is, I think, trying to figure out which direction to take this blog.  Do I want it more personal?  Do I want it to be on certain topics I like?  Do I want it to be reviewing products or experiences I've had?  I already broke off the most personal aspects of the blog by creating a private blog.  But lately, with my interest in local history at an all-time high, perhaps I should consider making a history blog separate from this one.  My worry is that I have too many blogs to manage.  At this point I'm thinking of making this more of my opinion blog (since it's subtitled "The World According to Jon") and having that cover my political rants and other opinions, while separating off my history posts to a new blog and possibly expanding my personal blog or having two personal blogs (keeping the existing one for my most personal opinions while making another one to share pictures and stories.  Still much to think about!

Lastly, I think my interest in history has taken much of my motivation and time from blogging.  For the past few months I've really been active in the Facebook group "You Know you are from Kent if/when..."  I have posted several photos of local interest and have commented on many others that have been posted.  I've learned tons of new things about Kent history and shared my own insights too.  It's been a lot of fun and has been nice to be appreciated for what I have discovered about Kent history!  If you're from Kent and on Facebook, be sure to check it out (and it's more than just history too!).  It's a "closed" group, so a current group member has to add you, but it's easy to request.

Additional blog

I've decided to start a second blog that's private as a place to express more personal thoughts.  Since I'm still looking for a job, it's probably not a good idea to truly express what I think about certain things since that could be used against me, plus there are things that I don't want everyone or even just certain people to know.  I've already noticed a fair amount of traffic that comes to this blog by virtue of people searching on Google or another search engine for my name.  I hate to think I've been prevented from getting a job because I have opinions and I express them.  Never the less, I will keep this blog for sure and I'll keep it public.  It will still remain my primary blog, but just won't have some of deepest thoughts that I'd like to share, just not with the entire world.  If you'd like to be included in the new blog, post your e-mail in the comments here.  Since I have to approve all comments, I can get your e-mail and then not post the comment.  At this point the blog is called "Live From Kent...Unleashed" and is at http://jonridinger2.blogspot.com.  You'll also note I secured the domain name "jonridinger.com" for this blog.  Both the new address and the old blogspot address will get you here.

Follow up to last post

So I got a comment from an anonymous poster that the <center> and </center> tags are "depreciated," which basically means they don't work in all browsers (though they do obviously work in mine) and will eventually not work at all.  This commenter recommended I Google new "center" codes in CSS.  The one I found is only slightly different.  I placed it in the same place as the previous post.  At the front end of the code I placed <div align="center"> (instead of <center>) and at the back end I have </div> (instead of </center>).  It worked on my laptop (Windows Vista) in my Firefox browser, but my Internet Explorer 8 browser (which I rarely use) seems to be having some problems adding extra padding to the right side of the page.  When I edited it in the Blogger design program, the extra padding disappeared in the preview, but was still there even after applying the changes.  Of note, IE 8 also adds the extra padding when I open the blog on my desktop (Windows 7 but in 4:3 view) but it's not initially; it opens correctly, then adds the extra padding as it finishes loading.  Looks like I'm back to searching for some solutions here.  If you want to see the blog the way it's SUPPOSED to look, use something OTHER than Internet Explorer (which is what AOL uses for their browser too, by the way).  

Success!

If only this were job related, then I'd be REALLY happy!  But for now I'll take my small consolation prizes and small victories.  In relation to my previous blog post, I was finally successful last night in getting my blog header centered and getting the margins and spacing where I wanted it.  After all the countless hours reading blogs and help pages, I finally figured out on my own through trial and error how to center it.  Turns out it was far more difficult to find than I thought, but of course all it needed was the <center> and </center> tags around it and voila!  On my desktop, which uses a standard 4:3 monitor, nothing looks different because the header image is slightly wider than the blog's margins.  On my laptop, though, which has a 16:9 monitor, it is definitely centered now!

The trick was finding just where the command was in the script.  What made it difficult is that it was in the more detailed version, so I first had to click on "Expand Widget Templates" when I was in the "Edit HTML" part of the blog design (not to be confused with the "Edit HTML" tab above the area where you compose your posts).  Once I expanded the HTML to basically show everything, I was able to locate the section on the main header "widget".  There I found three "options" written into the code; the three you can choose if you upload an image to use as your blog header: behind title text, above the title text, or in place of the title text.  Since I was using the image in place of the title text, I found the small section that dealt with it.  It was under <!--Show the image only-->.  I placed the "center commands" (seen above) around this:

<img expr:alt="data:title" expr:height="data:height" expr:id="data:widget.instanceId + "_headerimg"" expr:src="data:sourceUrl" expr:width="data:width" style="display: block;" /> 

Of course that doesn't mean much to anyone, but it's basically telling the computer how to display the image when it's in place of the title text.  I figured I needed to find the specific command because everything else I was trying wasn't centering my image and I noticed the header itself was centered, just not the image in the header.  I was able to figure that out when I put a border around the header and the box itself was centered, but the image inside the box was still on the left.  Whew...

Blog design

I noticed recently that Blogger has added a much better template designer, so I've been trying it out in case you may not have noticed :).  I'm still toying with it.  I definitely like the expanded choices, but I also like to have my blog adjusted so that it automatically fits in whatever screen its being viewed on.  The way to do that is my editing the HTML script of the blog so that the space covered by the blog is determined by percentages rather than a fixed width.  Without it, when the blog is opened on a wider screen (which are becoming more and more common) you get these huge margins with the post in the middle or, if it's formatted for a wide screen, doesn't fit right on a standard screen without having to slide over.  I was able to figure THAT part out but still working on getting my header (the "Live from Kent..." picture at the top) centered.  SO, if you see a bunch of changes, you'll know I'm probably fiddling with it.

Blog Book and Birthdays

I mentioned a little while back about the blog book I was making; well it finally came on Friday, March 5. It contains all my blog posts from my first MySpace blog, so it ranges from June 2006-March 2008 when I stopped using MySpace to blog and started using Blogger full-time. I originally got the idea of a blog book from my friend Jessica Kay as she had done that some time ago to her blog as a way to archive it. I had tried putting one together several months ago using the service she had used, but at least then they didn't offer the option of using Blogger to publish a blog from; you had to have one of the other blogging sites. A solution I tried was opening a mirror to my blog on one of those sites, but it didn't transfer the pictures and it just became a headache, so I gave up until a few weeks ago. The biggest challenge from this was getting the MySpace blog posts into this one as well as the comments from those posts. If there was some kind of automatic way to transfer blog posts from MySpace to Blogger I certainly wasn't aware of it, so I did them manually, one at a time. Even that wasn't quite so simple as I had to go through the "Edit HTML" tab on Blogger to eliminate the MySpace text formatting and background. Once I figured out exactly what needed to be done (like copying text from the posts and the comments directly to the HTML instead of the Composition area), it got a little quicker, but still took some time given the amount of posts. I also made sure to tag them and place them in the original time they had been published on MySpace.

The next challenge was where the two blogs overlap in February and March 2008 as I was starting one and closing out the other. When putting a book together, you simply specify a date range of posts for the program to put in a given book. Because I wanted just the posts from MySpace in a book, I had to figure out a way to remove the 2 Blogger posts that are dated before my last MySpace post in 2008. I had hoped it was just as simple as just deleting the posts from the book itself before publishing, but it wasn't that simple. The book software essentially "takes a picture" as a representative told me, so you can't actually edit the book once it's been "captured" from the blog posts. That was annoying to me because it doesn't truly "take a picture", so there are instances where the pictures are in a different arrangement than they were on the blog itself and then the captions below get all weird (Blogger needs a picture caption feature). She suggested that I save the posts I didn't want in the book as drafts and then put the book together before republishing the posts again, essentially hiding them for a little bit. It worked, so thankfully I won't need to do it again as the book for my 2008 blog posts was already created before I added my MySpace posts.

Overall I like how it turned out. It certainly isn't perfect, but that's mostly my fault in missing little things from typing and then not catching them before publishing. Also, if you do use this service, make sure your pictures are in JPEG format because it won't recognize anything in PNG. As I said, my biggest problem was not being able to edit the layout of the pages in the book, but I did like being able to choose a cover picture, back cover picture, inside cover picture (all with captions if you want) and I could add pages in the book, which I did to include the Christmas newsletters from 2007 in full size. The cost is fair, though it certainly isn't cheap. This book was 57 pages long and cost about $38.00 for the hardcover. There are other options to make it cost less. The base cost of $24.95 for a hardcover includes up to 20 pages and shipping and then 35 cents per page after that, so if you blog as much as or more than I do, it can start to get pricey. Anyway, the company is SharedBook if you're interested. I would highly recommend it!

On a side note, I had a great 28th birthday! I appreciated all the birthday wishes via Facebook (it's such a great reminder!) and the cards I got. I think I most enjoy hearing from so many people on my birthday more than anything, some of whom I rarely hear from much any more. The day itself was relaxing (I didn't sub and we didn't have Akron After-School but I did have a callback at Weathervane for "The Wedding Singer" auditions) and I got some very cool presents like tickets to an Indians game in May and a $50 Amazon.com gift card (which I just used!) to get the two books I had wanted. I also got an interesting "History of the Simpsons" book and some new warm-up pants, not to mention some money :). Now I am looking forward to my upcoming trip to Utah in less than a month!!

You mean people READ this?

I got an e-mail from Blogged.com this week letting me know that their editors had reviewed my blog and gave me a "very good" rating (7.3 out of 10) based on a number of criteria like frequency of posts, site design, relevancy of content, and writing style. I had to look up just what Blogged.com was anyway and it turns out it's a blog directory site combined with a social networking site. They review thousands of blogs and add them to the directory. I placed the rating on the right side column of this blog below the list of all my friends' blogs.

Every time I get an e-mail or a comment from someone who reads my blog that I don't know I'm always surprised. I enjoy comments period, but when comments are made by people I don't know it's like "wow...I wonder who has actually seen this blog?!?" Of course my blog is public so anyone can read it, plus it shows up in search engines, but the Internet is enormous, so it is a small miracle to me any time someone not only finds my blog, but then actually reads it and comments on it. I've only had a few of those types of comments (or e-mails), but still, you never know who is reading what you write (well, unless you have a private blog...)! I certainly didn't start my blog with the intention of having it rated and evaluated, but it's nice to know at least someone who isn't already a friend or relative thinks my blog is decent! Mostly I started my blog as a means to communicate with friends and family as well as an outlet to express my opinion on things I think are important. The more people that read it (and comment) the better as far as I'm concerned. I make a point to not include things that are too personal (that's what personal journals are for). So, to all of you "regular" readers, thanks! I appreciate all the comments I get!

New Blog

Current mood: bummed

So, after a little bit of thought, I decided to move my blog from MySpace to Blogger. Basically, it boiled down to who could read my blog and comment on it. On MySpace, anyone can read my blog, but only MySpace members can post comments. I really enjoy comments, so on Blogger, I can set it up so anyone can comment whether they have a Blogger account or not. I can also comment on others blogs on Blogger who have theirs set to only allow other Blogger members to comment. SO, for those of you who have a supscription to my blog here (all three of you), fear not. You can subscribe to the RSS feed on my Blogger account, plus I'll try to post updates here when I make a post there. I posted new blogs there yesterday (2/29) and today (3/1). Of course I'll be leaving all my old blog posts here as well! My new blog, currently titled "Live from Kent..." can be found at http://jonridinger.blogspot.com.

OK so...

So I've noticed more and more of my friends have a blog on this site. I like to read their blogs and comment, but so many don't allow anonymous comments, so I have no way to comment. I do have my own blog on myspace, but only myspace people can leave comments. It's located at http://blog.myspace.com/jonridinger. For now, that's all I'll say. I'll probably eventually make this my permanent blog, but for now it'll be at myspace! Check it out...