Falling Behind for Good Reason

My blog schedule sometimes has the same effect on people.

As it relates to this blog and the schedule that I keep trying to make sure everything is up to date it has been an interesting year to say the least. While I maintain this space as a place for daily posts and schedule them accordingly, there have been instances when I have fallen behind and for good reason. But, in the end, I always make up for the lost time and posts in order to return continuity to the project.

In addition to a routine that has taken a radical left turn in the last few months, there have been a couple of events that have caused my disappearance from this blog. The first significant one was when my son was born. Days in the hospital, lack of sleep, and a complete shift in focus completely pulled me away from writing these posts and from just about anything else in the world that didn’t involve our son. It was well over a week before I was able to get things back on track.

The other large gap that I can recall was just over a week ago when I was hit by a sudden and nasty case of food poisoning. I try to get ahead and write a few things here and there that I can archive for a future date but that has not been happening as frequently as I would like and they are used too often due to a lack of available time and an ever changing schedule. Only now am I able to finally catch up and get things on track again. I guess we will just have to see how long this one lasts.

I am till in the process of finding a few guest bloggers on a variety of topics in order to alleviate a little of the scheduling demands but thus far it has been difficult to find people to make the commitment. In the meantime, I will just keep writing. Some of the post will be a bit of a ramble like this one while others will be a little more opinionated, interesting, and/or research based. As many of you have found out, you really don’t know what to expect on most days and to be honest there are a lot of days when I have no idea what is going to be posted either.

So, I guess if you want to be picky, this hasn’t really been a daily blog. It has been a nearly daily blog but there has been no hiding that fact as anyone who follows my posts has noticed that from time to time there are some days that go by without a new entry and, all of the sudden, I am caught up a few days later. Heck, if you are reading this post you will notice that it didn’t quite make it up in time for the day that it was scheduled.

Have You Been Enjoying My Box Of Chocolates?

200 days ago this blog didn’t exist. It was a time when I would rarely set aside the time to write. Sometimes I would be doing other worthwhile projects but many times I would simply be passing the time. There were many lost thoughts and forgotten recordings of my life that I would like to have back but know that is never going to be the case.

There have been days/nights when I have had a lot to say and there have been times, like tonight, when I just start writing and hope that I eventually stumble into something worth recording. That is how it goes when you post daily blogs… at least that is what happens to me. This is a medium that is reflective of life and sometimes it is interesting and exciting and sometimes not much is going on. This is accentuated by the fact that I am generally not a very interesting person and live a pretty simple life.

Of course, there have been times of opinion sharing and other posts have been about life and what experiences I have been fortunate enough to have during the whirlwind of days. In one post I could rant about presidential selfies and BS sign language translators while the next post could be about a nice little day trip into the mountains. I prefer keeping a blog using the Forrest Gump box of chocolates school of writing. Basically, if you don’t like what I have to say today just come back tomorrow and there will be something completely Monty Python.

All too often, and I have been guilt of this in the past, writers like to play the equivalent of the creative or literary knock out game. Some people have a perfect punch in their words and some of us get luck every once in a while but, most of the time, we are all taking big swings hoping that one piece connects with the audience. When it happens it’s a great feeling but it is also tiring. And I mean a George Forman kind of tired.

By writing daily, freely and openly, I have been happy to keep jabbing. Some hit hard, some clearly miss the mark but I keep throwing my first out there in a deliberate and constant way. Most of them make contact and keep me in shape. This is a matter of endurance and just like running a race at some point you are going to have to push through a wall, sometimes many walls. It the nature of the creative marathon and one that is both rewarding and addictive. 200 posts later and I am still running.

A Little Vocus Variety

I have been on Vocus for about a week now and I have received some interesting emails. To give you some idea of the variety that I am talking about, here are a few of the subject lines that have popped up in my email:  

• Interview Husband and Wife Team / Balancing Love, Marriage, and (Fictional) Bondage
• Newest DJH Hostel in Germany is also Ultra-Modern Sports and Conference Center for Top-notch Group Programs at Value Prices
• Art Basel week editorial request

See, I wasn’t lying, that is a very diverse sample. While the above emails didn’t pique my interest I still give the people sending them credit for reaching out to the blogging community to try and get coverage. I wish them the best and I am intrigued as to what they will send me next.

On the other side of things, there were two emails that registered a bit of interest. On titled “Adventure story teaches families about safe pet travel practices” was a bit off for what I usually write about but the publicists in this instance was sending out advanced copies and I am willing to give it a shot. What the heck, I at least might get some random jeopardy knowledge out of it.

The other email that actually had me eager to try the product came with the subject line “Photographers Track Valuable Cameras with GPS Locator Locca”. The tiny GPS tracking devise looked like something that I might use and that I am pretty sure would be of interest to some of you so I immediately sent an email to see if I could try it out. Well… that didn’t work as they aren’t sending them out at the moment which is a shame because I was excited to test it out. Oh well, I guess I won’t be writing about this product beyond this paragraph (that is still being debated).



Because it was the most interesting product pitched
I am posting a picture.

As you can see, so far there have been a few emails that really got me interested and a lot that have kept me entertained many of which have not been included because I just wanted to highlight a few. The one thing that these people have in common is there willingness to get the story out and pitch. And while, as of tonight, I doubt I will write about any of the current emails I am certain that at least a few are in the works and will be hitting my email shortly which will require a dedicated post.

Until then, they will keep pitching, and I will keep working on both sides of the mirror.