Addicted to Blogging

I knew once I started I just wouldn't stop. I now have 5 blogs and I'm posting like a madman in all of them. Strangely enough I am really enjoying it. It's actually a lot of fun to sort of revisit the parts of learning that I actually liked. I spent so much of my life cramming knowledge down my throat that I didn't stop to chew and realize I actually liked it when taken in reasonable portions. Now I'm re-discovering these joys all over again.

Stagnant

The other night I unplugged the filter in the fish tank in my room because it was making strange noises. Without the constantly flowing filtration, the water quickly grew stagnant. This morning as I walked by, it was actually starting to smell bad. I had to drop everything and change the water, then get the filter going again. It was a lot of work but I knew the fish would all die if I didn't do it.

It really reminded me how quickly life in general can go downhill if you don't constantly stay on top of it. I spent almost all weekend cleaning the house and taking care of little things that just needed to be done. I never realized how much work has to be done just to keep up with life. But if you fall behind, your whole life starts to stagnate and slip into a rut. I have to keep reminding myself of this each time I go to work out when I feel too tired to move. I know if I let myself slip, I won't ever have the energy to do anything. My work is draining enough as it is, so I have to do everything I can to keep the momentum.

Overwhelmed

Have you ever had just too much on your plate? It seems like in my life everything tends to gang up on me at once, until it just gets overwhelming. I can juggle so much at once, but sometimes it just takes one last thing to throw into the mix and it just becomes too much. I know everything will be ok and I'm not losing it. I'm just spent. I just don't have energy for anything else. I'm just shutting down for the day and shutting everyone and everything out. I'm rebooting, and tomorrow everything will be back to normal. I'll pick everything back up and keep going as if nothing ever happened.

Blog Hit Stats

About 10 days ago I installed some hit tracking applications on all my main blogs. These little apps can be seen at the bottom of the sidebar on every blog I own. They keep track of how many people visit my site, and how many pages they read each day. The totals have somewhat blown me away. These stats have been active almost exactly 10 days. Just 10 days. Here's the totals so far:

Ripples in the tide: Visits: 1171, Page Views: 1533

Aqua Marine Discovery: Visits: 597, Page Views: 857

Shards of Consciousness: Visits: 306, Page Views: 317

Naruto Anime Episodes: Visits: 324, Page Views: 365

The really exciting thing about all this is I haven't even started with optimizing these blogs. I haven't been actively promoting them online and didn't plan to until I got about 100 pages written for each. I can't wait to see what the next month holds.

Dents in a Car

Yesterday was a heck of a day. One of the things that just really set it off right was when I was pulling out of the office driveway to go to lunch. There were lots of guys doing construction next door and they all parked in our parking lot, until there was barely room for us. In all the congestion, the lawn maintenance guys backed their trailer right into my car. It left a dent a few inches long in the back door. It's not the worst in the world, but it's still there.

I was really surprised to see how honest the yard guy was. I was on my way out and would not have even looked at that side until it was too late. I wouldn't have even known there was a dent in my car or where it came from. But he waved me down and stopped me to tell me about it. When I looked at it, he offered me his business card and told me to call him about taking care of it. Now I just need to figure out what to do with it. I want to reward him for his honesty but I don't really like having a huge dent in my car. I also don't like the idea of paying for someone else's mistake. I guess I'll keep thinking about it and figure it out in time.