Blogging 101: Love Your Theme

Today’s assignment: try out at least three other themes — even if you’re happy with the one you first chose. Try one you’re drawn to, and one you would never use.

I changed my theme to Misty Lake.  It has previously been the default Twenty Ten from when I initially created my blog (but never used it until this course).

I reviewed a lot of the WordPress information about themes, widgets, and customization, and explored many different themes. I found the “Get Personality” guide very helpful to understand the features involved with theme selection.   This offered me a nice balanced blend of the main features that I wanted for my blog.  It was simple, yet elegant.  I like the subdued colors, typography, and layout.

Also as I was exploring themes, I realized my current one was not responsive to different mobile devices and it looked horrible on an iPad or iPhone (with lots of scrolling).  My apologies to readers who have had to deal with this until I made this change.  Nobody complained in comments about it, or maybe it was only used so far on Mac or PC computers.

Although the default header was nice, I thought it would be better to substitute a custom header with a real photo of a view of Lake Travis at sunset from our deck at home near Austin, Texas.  Perhaps, I will look at randomizing these after I gather and upload more local photos that I might want to include in the rotation.

Also, I added a text widget for this Blogging 101 course from WordPress Blogging University.  However, it was necessary to remove the height and width from the HTML so that it would look right; when they were included the image was squished sideways and didn’t look right at all, but now it looks like it’s should.

Blogging 101: Dream Reader

This assignment was to “publish a post for your dream reader, and include a new-to-you element in it”.

I don’t have a specific person that I would consider my “dream reader” for whom I would write this post.  However, I think in my case, I will include several examples of topics that I would like to share that I hope you will enjoy or appreciate as well.  Since we are supposed to include new elements in this post, I will embed some music, photos, and links.  And I would also like to cover some topics such as travel, nature, recipes, books, etc.

As I started to gather what I would like to share here, I realized that it might not be so good to combine a lot of different topics in a single post, since it would probably be too much anyway. Most likely, it would be better to have posts with a more specific focus.  So I have decided to use this as an introduction to what I plan to publish on a regular basis.

Anyway, I hope that you are my “dream reader”, and I would be thrilled to find that you share common interests with me.  I don’t know who you are yet, but I hope this works out and we make a connection, and that you will want to follow my blog and anticipate each new post.  I guess this experiment will determine if that’s the case or not.

Music

I love music!  And I hope you do too.  I enjoy a wide variety of styes, genres, and artists.  I thought that I should share some of my current favorites that can be listened to via the Spotify music service from my WordPress blog.  Perhaps I will introduce a new song, artist, or album that will inspire or move you in some way.  I hope you enjoy the music that I will share with you.

I’m thinking that it might be best generally to keep similar music in a post, rather than mixing it up too much, since some readers might prefer one type of music but not another.  This would allow you to choose which posts that you might want to listen to, and you can simply ignore the others that you don’t care about.  For example, someone might love solo piano, but not country (or vice versa), or maybe even both.

Another thought was to sometimes have a post with about 5 (or 10) songs included so you might selectively listened to what you want.  Other times I might share an album or playlist.  Or maybe I should just post a single song every day, and do a longer list (or album) weekly, then something like a playlist monthly, with special music during the Christmas holiday.  Or maybe a different type of music each day so that you might know what you might expect each day of the week.

In the initial post of the music series, I have included solo piano selections with an album by Kevin Kern, as well as songs from Michael Hoppe, Joe Bongiorno, and Brian Crain.  Also there is a guitar song from Will Ackerman and a choral piece from Conspirare in Austin.  I will mix it up with other styles, artists, and genres in subsequent posts.  In other posts, I will include photos, travel, recipes, books, etc.

Of course, I would love to get any feedback about whether this sounds like a good idea or not.  If you have any comments or suggestions, that would be very helpful.  It will give me some confirmation that I’m on the right track.  Let me know what you think.

Until next time …  Enjoy!

Blogging 101: Say “Hi!” to the Neighbors

This assignment was to “follow five new topics in the Reader and five new blogs”.

This actually took some time browsing and searching topics and blogs in the Reader, but I found the “Recommended Blogs” section helpful in narrowing down the list of possibilities to try.  I was fun looking at all the blogs available, but it took a while to identify five to try.  It might be easier to selectively try these gradually one at a time until I find those I want to really keep.

I had trouble trying to work with the Tags section to select topics to follow.  As mentioned on some of the WordPress posts about this assignment, it was recommended to avoid broad categories like music, travel, recipes, etc.  However, I wasn’t sure what specific tags to try and sometimes they didn’t match anything.  So at this point, I have the following tags selected: Blogging, Books, Culture, Dallas Stars, and Music.  But this selects may too much so I’m inclined not to use this feature until I have a better idea of how to make them more narrower and meaningful.

Right now, it’s not that easy to follow blogs and topics in the WordPress Reader, and I’m thinking that perhaps it would be a better more manageable experience to use my Reeder 2 apps on OS X and iOS to read blogs that I want to follow.

Selections:

I selected the following blogs to follow, with a brief commentary about why they were chosen.

1. BookPeople’s Blog: http://bookpeopleblog.wordpress.com

This is a blog from Austin’s largest independent bookstore.  Since it’s local, I thought it might be a good one to follow to get ideas for books to read and see what’s happening at the store.

2. Writing Through the Fog: http://writingthroughthefog.com

This blog by Cheri Lucas Rowlands looked interesting because of its unique perspective and diverse subjects.

3. Looking at the West: http://lookingatthewest.com

I found this under the Nature section, but it also looks like a great photography blog about nature in the west.  I love this part of the country because it is so scenic and unique, and always makes me feel refreshed and inspired.

4. ProHockeyTalk: http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com

Since the National Hockey League (NHL) professional ice hockey season is about to begin in the US and Canada, this NBC Sports blog might be a good one to follow, especially related to my favorite team, Dallas Stars.  I have season tickets for the Texas Stars here in the Austin area, which their primary development affiliate in the American Hockey League (AHL) and many of those players are under contract and/or have moved up with Dallas after watching them over the past five years.

5. Catching Days: https://wordpress.com/read/blog/id/4727656

This looks like a blog that just might be fun to read on the topic of “How We Spend Our Days”.  It appears to be a series from a variety of different writers so it might offer another perspective for me to enjoy.  At least it’s worth a try, and I will see if I like it.  If not, I can always go search another blog to follow instead.  However, it’s nice to be able to explore areas outside my normal boundaries.

Future choices:

There were also other interesting candidates related to books and nature, which I have listed below.  I might want to add them later, or this might be helpful for my readers.  But I thought I would just try the five chosen for this assignment first.

6. Write Meg!: http://writemeg.com

Her blog seemed appealing since it covers topics that I might like such as books, music, etc.

7. Eleventh Stack: http://eleventhstack.wordpress.com

This looked liked a possibility too since it’s blog about books, movies, and music that is maintained by library works at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

8. Jim Caffrey Photo Blog: http://jimages.wordpress.com

I liked this because it focused on nature photography, and this might something I might want to follow as I add other blogs.

9. Photo Nature Blog: http://photonatureblog.com

This was another one that looked interesting with nature and outdoor photography by Jeffrey Foltice, who lives in Western Michigan.  Maybe this is something to consider in the future.

Blogging 101: Say Your Name

This assignment was to edit my title and tagline.  Although it’s 2 days late, I’m starting to catch up.

It was not easy coming up with a site title and tagline for my blog, especially when I’m still not quite sure what it’s really about or where it will lead.  Anyway, after reviewing my initial post about why I’m doing this, I have decided to go with the title “Doug Warren” with a tag line “Sharing life experiences and interests”.

This should cover any activities, thoughts, ideas, or feelings that I choose to write about as I explore life and learn more during my retirement years.  It  would also include the varied topics that I think I will address in my blog such as travel, photos, music, recipes, books, etc.

I realize that I can always change this at any time, so there is no reason to spend too much time worrying about it right now to get the perfect and final title and tag line.  But anything is better than the original default title “dpw67” from blog address with my name “Doug Warren” as the tag line.  I haven’t figured out a good title yet, but thought that my name might be appropriate for now until I come up with something better.

Blogging 101: Introduce Yourself

I’m participating in the “Blogging 101: From Zero to Hero” course. Its focus is to “get grounded in blogging basics” with a month of bite-size assignments to help you build up your blog. This offering started on September 15, 2014 in the Blogging University (“Blogging U.”) by The Daily Post at WordPress.com.

Today’s assignment: write and publish a “who I am and why I’m here” post.

[My apologies that this turned out much longer that I planned, but once I got started it was hard to wrap it up and just seemed to keep growing so it’s now over 1500 words!  Hopefully it will still be worthwhile reading, and others might find something of interest in my blog so they might offer me suggestions, feedback, or even follow me as I continue this effort. Thanks for your patience.]

Who am I?

My name is Doug Warren. I am 69 and married with two sons and three grandchildren.  They live close by so we find ourselves doing a lot of babysitting.

I retired in 2001 from IBM Global Services as a Senior Advisor after 34 years, including about 16 years as a Senior Consultant with the IBM National Technical Support Center in Dallas and 9 years earlier as a Advisory Systems Engineer supporting major oil, pharmaceutical, and automotive clients in the northern New Jersey area. Then I worked another 6 years as Enterprise Architect for Countrywide Financial (now Bank of America). In 2007, we moved to the Austin, Texas area from Dallas, where we had lived since 1980 after moving there from New Jersey.

Since 2001, I have been a very active Technical Proofreader, as well as technical reviewer, for Manning Publications. At one point, I even prepared a proposal to author a technical book myself; however, I realized that I had attempted to cover too much after receiving about nine critical reviews and decided not to follow through with it at that point. I have always enjoyed reading, learning, reviewing, and editing books, articles, and even software architecture specifications.

I would like to start developing a habit writing more. Often I think I would like to write more, but have not done anything about it to really get it going yet. I think it will help me to organize my thoughts and maybe even identify and express my emotions and feelings, which I have never been very good at. Having this guided daily course along with a support community for guidance and feedback is a great combination and motivation to get this done.  It might help me to capture my experiences so that others might enjoy reading my blog and enable finding  common interests or information that benefits them too.

My mother is 94 now and has had Alzheimer’s disease for at least 8 years. She resides in a Memory Care unit at an assisted living facility nearby.  She’s actually doing fairly well right now, although she doesn’t remember anything at all, except she recognizes her children and knows that she loves us (and keeps telling us over and over). My father died last year at 93 from “failure to thrive due to advanced dementia” after being in a nursing home a year after a fall from which he never recovered. She does not even realize that he’s been gone all that time and we haven’t told her about his death either; it’s probably better that she doesn’t know since she would not be able to handle it and would forget anyway.

Since they both lived a long life but had dementia in later life, perhaps there might be some tendency that I might encounter similar circumstances as well. Also, I have now had type 2 diabetes since 2006 and now taking basal insulin at bedtime, as well as meal-time insulin at lunch and dinner. I understand that dementia risks are doubled for those with diabetes. Therefore, it might be a good idea to start recording my experiences, memories, thoughts, feelings, etc. while I still have orientation and awareness about my life.

I enjoy playing golf and tennis, and I exercise at the fitness center for about 45 minutes about 5 days a week. We have season tickets for ice hockey with the Texas Stars, who were 2013-14 Calder Cup champions for the American Hockey League. We would like to do some more traveling, but haven’t been able to get away much yet. Since retiring I have started exploring many other activities which I guess I never found time for earlier in my life.

Although I have always really enjoyed music, now I can listen more to online music services like Calm Radio, Whisperings, Rhapsody, Pandora, and Deezer. Also, Austin offers significant opportunities to attend concerts and live music events like South by Southwest every March. Lately, I’ve even started to re-learn how to play piano. Since it would be good for me to focus more on healthy meals that benefit my diabetes, I have been gathering recipes and plan to start cooking meals more often.  I have been taking more photos with my iPhone, started organizing them, and would like to share more as I expand a new interest in photography. And I have been starting to read and enjoy more blogs and social media recently, and this motivates me to become more engaged in such communities, especially as I might have more to share now.

Why I’m here?

I’ve been interested in developing my blog for some time so this seemed the right thing to do. The time is appropriate just to jump right in and do it now, rather than putting it off yet again. I would also like to learn more about WordPress as well as blogging in general. Even now, I’m already a few days late getting it started, but already I’m glad that I’m doing this. Today I will publish my first real post! Then I will really try to get in the habit of writing every day and make an effort not to get too far behind.

To help me get started, I thought it would be helpful to try answer the following questions suggested in the assignment. I found this process was quite effective to get me thinking about why I’m doing this. Also, I looked at many other blogger’s response to this same assignment, and that was very helpful too. I realized that many others are sharing this same experience, and it gave me some ideas about what I might want to include in mine. Also, I started to get more more excited about creating and sharing my blog and participating in this community.

Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?

I have been thinking about keeping a personal journal off and on for quite a long time now, but I never seemed to get it going. Also, I have been interested in creating one or more blogs at different times too. For example, I created this WordPress blog way back in 2011, but it still only had the initial “Hello World” entry (until today). I decided to delete that original “Welcome to WordPress” since it doesn’t belong now that I have started my blog.

What topics do you think you’ll write about?

So now I have decided that it’s time to finally make something happen, and I thought that taking the Blogging 101 course was a good way to get this started. Originally, I thought I would just create a private blog until I figured out what I was doing – so I wouldn’t embarrass myself, I guess. But now, I think it would be best just to make it a public blog, follow along with the suggestions, participate with others doing the same thing, and see what happens.

I’m not really sure what topics I will focus on yet, but I plan to make this be a personal blog that reflects my life experiences, thoughts, ideas, interests, etc. For example, I might share information about travel, photos, music, cooking, recipes, books, etc. Perhaps at some point, if things get rolling, I might consider splitting it into several blogs that have more specific focus. However, initially it might be better just to have a single personal blog and see how that evolves.

I would also like to create a technical blog that focuses on topics associated with software development experiences, but that doesn’t see appropriate to mix in with a more general personal blog. Although I guess I might experiment a little with this, but try to keep it separated somehow so those not interested in those topics can avoid information that they don’t want to see.

Who would you love to connect with via your blog?

It would be great if there were others who might find my blog interesting and want to follow it and/or interact with me based on this. Perhaps I would meet others who share similar interests.  Hopefully, I would offer something that others would like to read.

If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

I would feel quite satisfied if I can blog successfully throughout the next year.  Since it’s taken me so long to get started, that would be a major accomplishment.  Also, I hope that my audience might have gained something from reading my blog as well, and want me to continue it. In any case, it will be an interesting experience and I expect to gain a lot from just doing it finally.