Daily Grit by Wes Thorp

Re-examining the blogs I read on a regular basis

I have found that the number of blogs that I read on a consistent basis has been dwindling over the past year.  I can't explain it.  Of course, I'm loyal in reading the blogs of my family members, my son, my son-in-law and my daughter-in-law. 

But what about others?  In my Google Reader, I find myself going to the blog of our Wild Birds Unlimited store almost everyday.  And I follow some on the Wall Street Journal  subscription site.

Here locally there are few blogs about mid-Michigan news or Lansing City Hall news.  And the political blogs in our state reek of partisanship and I find most of them have a blah-blah-blah sort of quality.  Church blogs in our area seem non-existent and so that leaves me to look outside the area.

On the homepage of this blog, I have in the right margin a heading for blogs I read.  I'm redoing this and I'll be sliding candidates in and out.  I'll read them for a bit and make a decision on whether they're worth sharing with you.

What blogs do you read on a regular basis?  Do you have any you would like to share?

Do I have more to say after writing 2,000 posts on this blog?

From time-to-time, I've thought about pulling the plug on my blogging efforts.  I've done it for more than five years and I thought maybe that's enough.

This is my 2,000 post on this blog, The Daily Grit, which I use as a brain dump for whatever's on my mind.  As a member of the first class of baby-boomers, I've really wrestled with what to do next. 

I've come to the conclusion that I've got plenty to learn from others through the web and maybe they can learn a little from me.  The web is really positive tool for bringing people together and I'd like to help baby-boomers and other move the needle over to help make that happen.

I have more to say in a lot of areas, particularly poltics where I spent a good chunk of my life.  I'm no policy expert.  I'm just a plain citizen who happened to be at one time a political reporter, a legislative staffer and a political operative. 

I see the role that government's playing in my life and in the life of everybody.  Now's not the time to hide under a rock and I won't.  What else will I be writing about?  Count on it that I will write about my family.  Here's a pic-my grandson is in the stroller:

 

Trying to make a correction or edit using "BlogBooster" app

Actually, the name of the app I'm using to post with my iPad is "BlogBooster." I tried to correct the post, but I couldn't get it to save edits. This is actually an app made for the iPhone and which can be used on the iPad.

Using "Blog Boost" app to write post with iPad

In my quest to test the limits of usefulness for my iPad as a primary computing device, I downloaded the app BlogBoost from the app store.

My goal is to find a way to use this device to write blog posts with links, formatting and to be able to add pictures and other images.

This app allows me to post to several different blogging platforms, including Typepad and I notice that it allows me to use "boldface" and "italic" and a handful of other formatting.

I can also add images through the Picassa photo

album program. My test continues.

I didn't take any vitamins yesterday

It's 3:33 a.m., Saturday morning and I'm wide awake sitting in our living room using my iPad to write this post.

We are wide awake drinking Traverse City Cherry-flavored coffee. Perhaps, its because we went to bed at 9:30 p.m.

My primary computer-a MacBookAir-is in the shop for an overhaul and so I'm using this device as a fill-in.

To write this post on this blog, I'm using a Typepad app from the "app store." I'm really amazed by how little flexibility it gives me. I can't link and I can't use formatting tools that I can use ordinarily. And I can't easily use images.

Are there any other blogging apps that would allow me to do those different things?

About my headline and the vitamins, I have a notebook where I list the various eyedrops and vitamins I take during the day. It's a skinny Moleskine notebook that I can carry in my backpocket.

No vitamins yesterday. Could that be why I'm awake? Could it be an aging thing? Could I just have gone to bed too early?

AN INVITATION: Pastor David Maier of Our Savior Lutheran Church, Lansing (MI) blogs and Twitters

Pastor David Maier of Our Savior Lutheran Church on the southwest edge of the Lansing (MI) area blogs and Twitters.  He's trying to use these two social media tools to supplement is face-to-face interaction with his parish and to add extended church family through the web.

His church and it's day school are situated in the heart of mid-Michigan, an area that's struggling to repurpose and re-vision itself with its faltering economy.  He knows personally the storms that come in life as a lymphoma survivor and as a dad of a teenage son who had brain cancer. 

As a babyboomer who was not weaned on a computer, he's trying to thread his way through the challenges of using social media as a way to share his obsession for the hope in the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

You are invited to visit him on the web.  His Twitter address:  bigskymaverick and his blog is Fighting Forward.

 

Seven things: I got memed

I've been tagged twice in a meme where you share seven things about yourself.  My son Justin tagged me and so did my friend Dave Porter.  Here goes:

1.  I HATE TO SING--When I was in the eighth grade my teacher made me sing a solo in front of the class. It was like being stripped naked in public.  I was totally embarrassed and since then I've sung mainly in my heart without the aid of voice.  I almost sang to my wife at our wedding in front of God, family, friends and whoever else, but I lost my nerve.  My wife loves to sing.  I love listening to her sing.

2.  MY FIRST NAME WAS ALMOST DURWARD--My parents were going to name me after my Uncle Durward, my father's brother.  My middle name was to be Dale with my initials then becoming D.D.T., like the infamous pesticide.  But . . .because I was born a few seconds after midnight on my Uncle Wes' birthday, I was named after him.  I was saved.

3. I'VE BEEN TO CUBA'S BAY OF PIGS--When President Jimmy Carter opened Cuba for American travel, a friend and I were among the first group of Americans to go there legally.  We spent more than a week traveling through the country, including the Bay of Pigs where the Americans started an ill-fated invasion against Castro.  Yes, we saw the crocodiles.

4.  MY SON AND I AUDITIONED FOR THE AMAZING RACE--Justin and I did it on a whim and because we really wanted to be part of the show.  We shot an audition tape and filled out a questionnaire where we answered tons of questions.  We were ready to do it, but they weren't ready to pick us.  I think we didn't have enough panache.

5.  I SPENT ALMOST TWO DECADES GOING IN AN OUT OF PRISON--I've spent more time than I like to think of going in and out of many of Michigan's prisons . . . as a volunteer.  I've been in institutions from the west end of the Upper Peninsula to the southern part of the state.  During this time I learned a lot about myself, life and about God.

6.  I TRIED TO GET MICHIGAN'S NICKNAME CHANGED--When I worked in the Michigan House and when Michigan State University humbled the University of Michigan at football, I worked for a legislator who had two degrees from MSU.  To celebrate the win and its supremacy at football, he put in a resolution to change the nickname from the Wolverine State to the Cow State.  U of M fans are known as Wolverines and  MSU is known as Moo-U because of its agriculture school.  It passed the House.

7.  I LOVE SITTING AROUND THE DINNER TABLE--I count it pure joy to sit around the dinner table with friends and family.  It's a great place for conversation.  Some of our best family times have been a two-and-a-half to three hour dinner table conversation about anything, including politics and religion and school and life and anything else.  Guests usually come prepared for a long sit.

Now, it's my responsibility to tag seven more bloggers.  My picks are:

1. Lauren Hager of "Lauren Hager listens and shares"
2. Jack Lumanog of "Jack's World"
3. Roy Olsen of "The Road Less Travelled"
4. Dave Maier of "Fighting Forward"
5. Jon Tilly of "Un Till"
6. Gladys Thorp of "Mrs. Thorp's Third Grade Blog"
7. Nate Klan of "Nate Klan.com"

Jakob Nielsen's on Top 10 Design Mistakes for Blogs

If you have a blog and you want it to be read, then you want it to be usable for your reader.

Dr. Jakob Nielson, a pioneer in making websites usable, takes on the 10 worst design mistakes for blogs.  It's worth a read.

Ladybugs in Lansing, MI

In his blog, Lansing Realtor Keith Barber talks about how to lick a persistent and pesky and annoying problem, Ladybugs, too many of them.