Self-Criticism: How I Failed at Blogging

As a blogger, my major flaw is that I lack focus.

I am all over the place. Parenting. Money. Mid-life crisises. Romance. I have succeeded at failing at blogging.

I needed to do two things: 1. Find a niche. 2. Provide value, and or entertainment. Do these two things consistently.

Reading some successful (success in terms of traffic) blogs, I realize I don't do these things on a consistent basis. Sites like Hotel Room Nudes, Porn Clerk Confessions, Get Rich Slowly, ProBlogger... they all target a narrow subject and they provide value (with being entertaining being a form of value).

A 1:65 Chance of Downs

T minus ten days. It's hard to be coherent when baby 2 is coming. Or not. Ten days til the lab results come back. And there is a 1:65 chance of Downs Syndrome.

Yesterday was the CVS, where they stick a needle in the placenta. No picnic, let me tell you. I try to stay positive and not think too much.

Foot in Mouth #1

Co-worker to someone Acquaintance she hasn't seen in awhile.

Co-worker: Man, you lost a lot of weight. You look great. Really great. How did you do it?
Acquaintance: My boyfriend died.

Twin Peaks Contractor

Dreams lately. Weird. A midget contractor came to me in my dreams. Started out fine, til he started rapping and making me take notes. His name, he rapped was Montana.

Mid-Year Resolutions

1. Trying to sleep less. I read that most successful people make do with four hours' sleep a day. I wouldn't go that far, but I would like to get it down to seven or six. No success so far.

2. Side income. For Little E's college fund. Trying to be more active in making alternative income, rather than just saving. Tiny success. $40 at the last yard sale, $5 YTD on recycling.

3. Write every day. Missed one day out of five. It was a weekend, so I don't feel too bad.

Hong Kong Flashback #1

In my 30s, when I worked in Hong Kong, three friends and I won $10,000 each at the race track in one night. It was not completely unexpected, as we chased the big prize, week in, week out.

Ten thousand seemed like a lot money. Back then, it probably was.

Out of the four of us, I was the only one who quit my job. I spent the money on:
1. European tour for the girlfriend and I.
2. Loaned money to lil bro for his start-up.
3. Made a video short. (Rejected by every film festival I applied to.)
4. Wrote, directed and starred in a play. (Sold out all the dates, and had to add a few more).

Then I went back to work on freelance basis.

Knowing what I know now, I probably wouldn't have quit my job. Then again, I wouldn't ever gotten to do all the things on the list.

A Dream about Forest Whitaker

I had a dream about Forest Whitaker, the actor. He was shooting a commercial and several people were telling him how to act.

He says, "I get no pleasure from that [faking sincerity]. I get satisfaction from knowing I did it right."

What does it mean? Don't you just hate people who feel the need to tell you their dreams?

Final Resting Place of the General Lee?

Just a good ole boy
never meaning no harm...

A random shot I caught on the way home from work.

Is this the retirement home for all the General Lees? Or just a temporary pit stop on the way to the Dukes of Hazzard sequel?

Booknotes: The Road

First off, I love Cormac McCarthy. He's one of my favorite writers. I've read Border Trilogy, plus a few more. But his latest, The Road, is, o my god, Depressing.

It's sometime in the near post-apocolytic, post nuclear future. Father and son travel on the road, avoiding the Baddies, looking for food and shelter. That's it. Page after page. Of bad weather, hunger, corpses ... of depressing depression. And I couldn't stop reading.

Net worth, Halfway to a Million

There are two generally accepted ways to calculate net worth: include your real estate and don't include it. Some do both just to see what it looks like. I just did that and boy does it look ridiculous.


Without Real Estate
My net worth: -$840

With Real Estate
$1.07 million.

I'm sure I'm doing the math incorrectly, but for those playing at home, here are the numbers:

My debt: $420,000 in mortgages
My assets: $420,000 in savings (IRA, 401k, etc)
Real Estate: worth 1.07 million (according to Zillow).

Woo hoo. I'm a millionaire! Well, not really. Half of it is the Wife's.

So I'm halfway there, woo hoo, living on a prayer...

Write Every Day, Day One

This is my new project. To write every day. For a year. I'm not sure if I'm going to count the weekend or not. Wish I could remember whose advice it was. I just read it yesterday. Getting old. It was Asimov or someone like that.