Monday, March 28, 2011

Where I Was

People keep asking for an explanation for the absence of my Blue Jay Barrens blog over the winter and usually phrase their request in the form of the question “Where were you?” I was going to dig through my winter photos and use them as visuals to accompany my story, but with the Sunday morning snow yesterday, I decided I would just take some fresh photos. I hope the photos are of interest, because the story isn’t much.
While uploading photos in December, I received an error message saying that the destination file was not found. A quick check revealed that I, along with everyone else, had lost contact with the blog. The problem persisted the next day, so I submitted a request for assistance in becoming reconnected. Another day passed and still I had no connection. I have little patience with equipment that doesn’t work properly, so I shut the computer off and looked for something else to do.
I have no shortage of activities that I would like to pursue. Suddenly, the time I had devoted to the blog was taken up by other things. I figured I would give the experts time to fix the problem and then I would continue blogging. It apparently only took a few days to get the problem corrected, but it took three months before I turned the computer back on.
During the blog’s down time, I was doing pretty much what I always do. My days were filled with going to work, spending time with the family, taking pictures and working on the property. I was told that someone thought I had died and I’m sorry to be a cause for concern, but I don’t believe my last dieing act will be the dismantling of this blog.
The blog is back in my schedule and should continue until the next unforeseen circumstance. I’m often asked how I manage to post every day. Well, it was never my intent to post daily, but there are people who visit every day and it seems to me like there ought to be something new for them to see on each visit. I carry my camera with me whenever I’m outside, so I take a lot of pictures. If I’m just out walking, I average about 100 shots per hour. I have plenty of photos to post and I just try to vary the subjects enough to give a well rounded selection of what I’m looking at.
With the photos come the words. “The Words” is what I call the narrative in my blog. I’ll read through my text to correct typing errors, but I really don’t do any editing. I think some people have suspected that. What I type is pretty much what I would have said if we’d been standing out in the field together, so it’s not really a time consuming process. Now you know what happened and have had a little look behind the scenes of the production of the Blue Jay Barrens blog. I had better go look around for something interesting to use for tomorrow’s posting.

14 comments:

  1. I'm glad to know you were OK and it was just a technical issue with the blog. We had missed you, that's for sure! Just when you reappeared, I had again mentioned to my husband that you had disappeared off the face of blogland.

    Best,
    Lois

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  2. I certainly was concerned by your absence and am glad you were simply otherwise engaged!

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  3. Ditto to what the above posters said! Your sudden and unexplained absence generated some worry on my end. Glad to hear it was nothing but a bug in the system and that you really utilized that off time with some management of your property! I think we all need to take a step back from our computer time once in a while; whether it's on purpose or accident.

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  4. But doesn't it feel nice to be followed? And not in a creepy, stalkerish kind of way? :)

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  5. Thanks, Lois. When I do something, I like to make the best effort possible, so at least I did a good job of disappearing.

    Thanks, Karen. I'll try not to disappear again.

    Hi, Andrew. At work I'm not allowed to distance myself from the computer, but at home I can push it off to the side of the desk and let it collect dust.

    Hi, Renee. In the past I've attracted a couple of the nasty, bad intentioned, out to get you, stalker type followers through my work. I agree that it's nice to have my current batch of friendly followers.

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  6. Thanks for the behind-the-scenes look; you've given me some ideas! There is such a thing as too much computer time!

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  7. Hi, Anne. We should definitely limit our time sitting in front of the computer and you should most definitely not be sitting at your computer when it's a beautiful sunshine filled day outside.

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  8. I know you don't lack for things to do but you definitely have a gift for writing. When I was in high school, I envied a friend of mine who could always produce a theme paper with minimal re-writes. I have to edit and edit and edit some more before I'm satisfied with the product.

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  9. I was one who thought you must have been sick. Nice to know that it was just real life that sidetracked you.
    And then I got pre-occupied and didn't even notice you were back, three weeks ago!

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  10. Thanks, Mel. I always envied the people who got good grades on their theme papers.

    Hi, Susannah. It sounds like neither of us has to worry about running out of things to do.

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  11. Lord Steve I was afraid that the most educational enjoyable blog on the computer was gone!! When I need a break at work I check out about a month of your postings. I am glad your back mister! We missed you. I hope to see you soon.

    Pete

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  12. Hi, Pete. So you only need a break from work once a month? I always knew you had a dream job.

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  13. I had wondered what happened...it's nice to have you back.

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