Paul’s Blogging

 

Thank you for all of your comments. I really appreciate reading them. And I hope to reply to them all ASAP.

Mom said I ought to add this in, Ha!

What’s up with the Eeyore? Well, just read on. Haha…

Well, as I usually say, “I’ve been pretty busy.”

Sadly, I haven’t found much time for blogging. I’m (as you’ve probably noticed) pretty bad at blogging actually. We’ll (my family) go off and do something fun and I’ll take a million pictures planning to blog them and when I get home, I don’t. I’m not sure why. Sorta a bummer though. I guess it’s the time that it takes to load all the pictures and sit down to write an entry. I can rarely think of what to say and the whole production runs ten times slower on this blasted machine. Yes, I need a new computer.

I’m not so sure having a new PC would really fix my blogging or the the lack thereof.

You all are pretty good, faithful bloggers. You stick with it pretty consistently. Not me…

I like writing but blog entries don’t just “come to me” like they seem to do with Eric Novak or the Dixons or whomever, hahahhaha. It’s not that my life is so boring that I just don’t have any content. I’ve got plenty to write about. Just, no way of getting around to it. Simply scan through my last few entries. Ha, I always forget about uploading the videos that I promise or sticking through with a post that I was planning to do. Like, remember the “Tribute to my Dad” contest? I was supposed to write one and never got around to it. I actually PLAN on doing that soon. I know it’s REALLY late. Ha, but I still “owe” it.

Blogging is fun… sorta… but has just never really been “my thing”. Which, I guess, is too bad. I have a lot of web work and I keep getting burnt out and stressed over it too easily. The longer I’m offline, the further I get behind, but when I get online to work I just get further frustrated. I know, it’s really lame. So, all that to say, I don’t really see myself blogging too much more. I’ll keep you all updated on the fam and post the occasional blog every few weeks (like I already am) but until I get another computer, I don’t see myself spending much time on the blogs. One of the sites I’ve been working on for so long has been such a huge problem. It has been making me absolutely crazy. It’s really lame I know, but I get so frustrated so easily. Haha, you have no idea (Mom tells me that when I was really little, I would cry because I could not tie my own shoes). I’m going to give up on it and set it aside for some time. I’ve got some other sites and projects I’d like to start anyhow. Who knows how those will turn out though. I’m not sure why but almost everything I try to do just about fails. I dump a lot of time and work and money into something and it goes nowhere. I guess this is just “how it is” when starting your own business. I’m just about out of money too. I was actually thinking I’d be better off working at Starbucks or something but now I’m not so sure. Maybe God wants me to put more effort into it and stop whining. Ha, I’m not really sure. I guess BlogStatter.com was sorta a success (so far). I never did write the official “BlogStatter.com is now up!” entry. I guess I forgot. Well, here it is, BlogStatter.com is up and running. Go over there and sign up if you haven’t already. If there’s anything different you’d like to see added to BlogStatter.com, just let me know. I hope to draw some form of income off of it soon. I (at least) am making some money from HSB. But even doing HSB tech has been tough and it wasn’t when I first started. It’s so weird ‘cause I used to really love doing it and I still do. It’s actually a lot of fun but I’m falling behind on it and it’s forcing Eric (my co-worker for HSB Tech) to pick it up and do more than his share. He’s never said a word about it and he’s such a great friend to do it but I do feel bad and I need to start working on it more. I need to set priorities I guess. I need to take out the frustrating, work-intensive, unproductive, stuff from my schedule. Like get a new computer, put aside the frustrating site, and focus on the jobs that I’m actually getting paid to do. You’re probably wondering what this “frustrating site” is that I’m talking about. Ha, well I might as well tell you:

OnlineGeekStore.com!

I got the site up and running, FINALLY! And it looks great (thanks to my good friend, Joe McLean) but that’s about it. I’m having a big problem getting it to accept credit-cards. Yes, I tried Paypal, and Authorize.Net was a mess. So, now I’m looking at Paypal again. We’ll see. But even when that’s set up, where am I going to get my products? I need something to sell; yet, I have nothing. So, if you have any geek related products for sale, let me know and I’ll put ‘em up on OnlineGeekStore.com. :D

So there you have it. One of the two sites I said I wouldn’t make publicly known ‘til it was all set up is the above-mentioned. But, like I said, I’m putting it to rest for a while. Another site that really isn’t going anywhere is ShatteringWindows.com. ShatteringWindows.com was my first site. Joe helped me a ton with that one. But unfortunately, even though it is my first site to start, I think it’s going to be the last I’ll finish. I don’t really know what to do with it anymore. Ha, which stinks. I need to make something that will actually return the money that I put into it. But isn’t that the goal for any business? I guess I have to stick with it. Building sites and businesses is probably this frustrating for everyone.

Anyhow, this entry is shaping up to be pretty pointless and even rather disturbing (?) so I think I’ll change the subject.

A number of days ago I went to the chiropractor so I could get my back tweaked. While I was sitting in the waiting room Mom emails my BlackBerry, forwarding an email from Spunky (Karen Braun). Mrs. Braun was telling Mom about this political gathering that was going to take place in Detroit (where she lives) in just a few days. She was trying to convince Mom to drive up there. “But we would have to leave tomorrow to get there in time!” Mom said. Well, a “Mom and Dad talk” and a few emails later we decided that we’d pack up that night and head up that way first thing in the morning. Now, we’re not extremely political but we thought it would be a good homeschool field trip, especially since Mitt Romney and McCain were going to be there. Fortunately the Dixons live right around the half way point. So Mom emailed the Dixons and said “So, what are you doing tomorrow night?” and Mrs Dixon replied, “Hopefully making dinner for you all???” Haha! That was a pretty funny response. So, without officially saying so, we all planned on staying overnight with the Dixons and then heading up to Michigan. The Dixons have already blogged about our stay but I’ll just give you my version.

So, like I said, we all loaded our suitcases and packed the trailer up and planned to leave at 4:00 AM the next morning. Then we all got up and left according to plan at 10:00 AM. Oh, did I say 4:00 AM? Well, Dad’s alarm clock thought we all needed a few more hours of sleep. ;)

Anyhow, we pulled out at 10:00 AM and got to the Dixons’ at, I think, 10:30 PM. Why did an 8 hour trip take us 12 and a half hours? Well, a smooth mixture of stopping off at every other Starbucks (Mom wanted me to check my BlackBerry GPS for all the Starbucks in every town, hahahaha), changing/feeding Susanna, and of course the regular gas fill-ups/meals/bathroom breaks. But 12 and a half hours into our road trip, we finally made it and got settled in. That night, Amanda asked me to fix something on her blog. She wanted to access something that got left behind when we transferred her blog over to her family server. Anyhow, in order to access the content, I had to make her current blog read a different address. I didn’t think this would be a problem (famous last words!). It would just make her blog unreadable for the time we were working on it and then I could switch it back to normal. Well, the site-software (WordPress) did something very evil and wicked to me. It locked the site to a different server (mine) and wouldn’t switch back. It demanded some ridiculous cookies which I knew were not necessary. Oh well, all it did was make SuperAngelsBlog.com default to ShatteringWindows.com. Hey, I could use the extra traffic.

Hahaha, well, that didn’t go so well with Amanda. LOL, she definitely wanted everything fixed… NOW! Ha, fortunately, she only had three entries on there; so when I told her we’d have to format the site, she responded with only life threatening words.

:D

I knew what we had to do but there was NO WAY we were going to be able to do it on their dial up. Ha, so I called up good ol’ Eric whom I could count on being up at that 5:00AM hour. And he deleted SuperAngelsBlog.com and reinstalled the site. By the time we were finished it was 6:30 AM and Dad had told me to get him up at 8:00 AM. So I wasn’t sure if I should stay up and help Amanda repost her pages ‘til 8:00,AM or just go to bed and take a one-hour power nap and then get Dad up. Levi and Jocelyn were watching some Batman show and it seemed like they were just going to stay up indefinitely. Although, Jocelyn looked pretty far gone. Not really sure if she made it or not. I figured, since I’d have to be somewhat awake for when we meet the Brauns, I’d better take that power nap. So I slept for an hour which felt like 5 minutes and then got Dad up so he could make breakfast (he makes REALLY yummy omelets). I then checked on Amanda’s progress. She had gotten just about everything up and back to normal (YAY!). BTW – I’m really sorry about that! It’s all WordPress’s fault! :P

After packing things up and saying good-bye, it was time to leave. So we hit the road and got to Detroit at a somewhat good hour. I was pretty drained. I had two Starbucks drinks and a big energy drink and still was falling asleep just standing up! We got to our hotel, freshened up, and headed for the Brauns’ place. When we got there, Mrs. Braun was home but all the kids and Mr. Braun were at the ice rink. So we ate some yummy stew that she made and sat down to talk and wait for the rest of the family. While we were waiting, Mrs. Brawn asked me to start a fire in her fireplace. Well, we quickly found that the vent wasn’t open in the chimney. And after only a minute the whole house was just CLOWDED in a thick smoke. I opened the fireplace and poked at the vent but shortly after the vent fell shut again. Mom took the baby outside while the kids opened all the windows and doors. The house was really smoky now so Dad gave it a try. He took the poker and jammed it up on the vent and pushed it all the way open. Finally the smoke started to vent out. And after a while the house was pretty clear but everything smelt like smoke. In all of that, I wondered, why didn’t I hear a smoke alarm? I don’t think there’s a single smoke alarm in that whole house, ha! But at last, the house was clear and the rest of the family was home and sorta curious about the strange smell. Ha, wasn’t me. :D

They have two boys, Jason 17 and Josh 15. They’re pretty fun. We hung out ‘til I think, 11:30. Then, it was time to leave. By this time I was pretty beat! We got back and watched something on the History channel and before I knew it we were settling for bed around 1:30 AM. I’m sure you can imagine how tired I was. And to top it off, I had to get up at 8:00 AM and wake everyone up so we could get ready for the main event. After setting my alarm (on my sweet BlackBerry), I bunkered down and fell fast asleep, as they say, but only to hear my annoying alarm sounding off in what only seemed 5 minutes. Drat, it was already 8:00 AM and time to get showered and ready to go. We needed to be at the “rally” at 10:00 AM, which is where we met Spunky and the girls (there’s 4 of them – the boys couldn’t make it). It was pretty fun. I thought it was going to be rather boring but I enjoyed it. We got to hear a ton of “important” people.

 

These are the signs the organization told us to hold up because we (Spunky’s kids and us kids) were to be in all the press or media related background shots. There were about 700 people at this event. So we were posing for the photographers for part of that time. One reporter interviewed Mom as she snapped photos of SusannaBanana - the event’s youngest attendee. Boy did Sus look cute! And she behaved pretty well too! (Mom missed half of Stossel and half of McCain though)

 

 

 

Julia is in the red (right) with her friends. Kristin Braun (Spunky Jr.) is in the foreground here - far left. Levi is to the right of her in the camo sweater.

I’m in the back there, with Levi.

 

Mitt Romney. Luke got to shake his hand (twice). I too shook his hand. My dad put a copy of TOS Magazine in the hands of Mrs. Romney.

 

This is John Stossel (20/20). Remember that cool story he did on TV about homeschooling?

 

John McCain. No comment about his speech.

 

Susani likes to stare (and grin) at Mommy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After all the excitement we said goodbye to the Brauns and left for home. Man, was I tired!

We had to rush back home because we had a gentleman from out of the country coming overnight to our house the following weekday. The whole trip was very spontaneous and fun.

And, moving on to my 3rd and final subject for this post…

It was Eric Novak’s birthday two days ago (the 22nd)! Yay! Happy birthday, Man.

He’s the big “1” “7”! Ha, so we are the same age for exactly 2 months. Then, I turn 18 and he’s back to being a little kid. Haha! (Sorry, Dude)

:D

 

Aaaand…

Yesterday was Dad’s birthday! Happy birthday, Dad! You’re 50, which is kinda old but that’s ok ’cause we’re planning a surprise party for you!

 

Have a good night everyone!

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 24th, 2008 at 7:07 pm and is filed under Bummersville, Fun, I've Been Busy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.