The End.

Hello all,

I believe its time to put this blog to rest. I'm going to pursue other writing projects. I appreciate all the feedback and banter and friends this blog has generated. I will be staying in touch with my "blog friends" despite halting posts on this web site.

I'm going to keep the site up, as at this point I can see folks are enjoying the archives and I still get comments from long-past posts that confirm this.

Enjoy,

Bp

[photo credit, Wiki Commons]

Apologies -- and a praying mantis eating a hummingbird

Sorry I've missed a couple posts here [in hindsight, I realized I only missed one post -- and this one is late]. We have house guests, in my computer room...

SO

Here is a radical story about a Praying Mantis eating a Hummingbird to keep you over until I get back. The pictures are a bit -- strong -- so I'm just providing the link and a g-rated wiki image.

Click at your own discretion.

Enjoy insects pulling off impressive carnivorous feats,

Bp

[article via Uncle Ted, mantis image via Wiki Commons]

Saturday Morning Awesome -- tour a Ninja House in Japan

It has come to my attention that my blog is being used by the last generation to understand this and the next generation. As a rubric for "the youth" if you will. Well, if you want to understand these young folks, you best understand Ninjas (and pirates too, that will come later). The kids are crazy about 'em.


Amazing Ninja House In Japan!! - Funny videos are here

Enjoy learning more about today's youngins,

Bp

The strange and unexpected connections made on the intarweb

I recently received one of those "out of the blue" emails that I occasionally get related to this blog. A nice lady from the American Association of Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine contacted me regarding my statement of "recovering electrician" in my Bio. She has electrician types in her family and wondered if there were interesting or hair raising stories associated with this phrase that I would be willing to relate.

It turns out that part of this lady's job is searching out any reference to oriental medicine or acupuncture on the web and checking out the content. My blog popped up in her search, and one thing led to another.

It is a trip to think that my few mentions of acupuncture in this blog tagged it in a way that it could possibly now be part of the national (or international) conversation about this subject. I'm sure you'd have to dig to find the blog, but this lady did, and did find me. The mind spins at how the intartubes are changing our societal discourse. I couldn't possibly imagine trying to catalog or quantify the amount of change and novelty that is being produced this way.

Here is part of my long-winded response to her query, for those of you who are interested:

So, the "recovering electrician" comment is a tongue-in-cheek statement, because I'm changing careers due to really not liking that job much.

However, there is more to the story, and since it seems you (look to be) a health care practitioner, I'll relate it.

When I still had awesome Union insurance, I went to a naturopath/acupuncturist here in Portland named Bernie Bayard. He's phenomenal. He used to joke that he was using me as a guinea pig for checking out the effects of multiple electrical shocks on the human system. Since I was primarily a service electrician, I almost always worked in inhabited houses -- doing repair and trouble shooting. That kind of work is almost always done hot, because it's less disruptive to the client and for troubleshooting, it's just way more informative. I got shocked as often as once a month. [for those of you concerned about this statement, know that it was almost always "small" and in my hand only, not big electrocutions going through my torso or anything]

Back in the day, in the 30's, electricians used to test circuits with their fingers. Even the national electrical code had instructions for how to do this. Many of these men ended their life with a severe palsey, because their nerves were literally fried. Since nerves are our electrical conductors in the body, I believe that's where the resistance is least and so when we get shocked they take the brunt of the force. That's my non-scientific opinion of course.

As for funny stories, I have so many that my wife wants me to write a book of short stories (named "Electrical Shorts" of course) about the bizarre, scary, and humorous events that happened during my career as a service electrician.

Enjoy the novel connections that seemingly harmless online activity can produce,

Bp


[image courtesy of wiki commons]

Nuking a blog: The 17 Gardens of the Outer Nethers

I really loved the name of that blog. It was Doc Ock's kid who walked around our property when he was 8 years old, and afterward announced that he had counted 17 whole gardens in our yard. I started to correct him and say "those are beds, like parts of gardens" but then stopped myself. "Yep, you are exactly right, there are 17 gardens here!"

Anyway, in the Summer of 2007, I was a young and impetuous blogger and thought that I would need a separate blog as an occasional place to post the tons and tons of garden photos I was planning to take. As it turns out, I needed to finish school, and work, and take care of the house, as WELL AS blog. So that blog is no longer needed. I'll post all the garden related posts here instead.

Below, pictures of the front yard, the front gate, and one of T's amazing bouquets -- all from The 17 Gardens of the Outer Nethers blog, 2007.





Enjoy realizing that even more of your interests can be accommodated by a single, personal blog,

Bp

My sphincter is no longer cramped

... that is all.

Bp

No Post Today

Posts will resume on Monday.

We're Gonna Have a Baby!!!

It's time to announce that we're pregnant -- we waited as best we could until the 2nd trimester. The Wife is 14 weeks along, and doing great. Our due date is March 31st - first week of April sometime.

The families are all very excited, because we hadn't told folks we were starting to second-guess our no-baby policy of the previous 10 years.

We aren't going to peek, so the sex of the baby is going to be a surprise. I do love hearing all the old wives' tales and superstitions about how folks can tell and whatnot. We shall see.

Don't know how I'll incorporate this into the blog, but I can't see as how I'd avoid doing so. Time will tell.

Enjoy the surprises you find in this life,

Bp

Orblogs.com is closing, what a drag!

As I finished my last post, I went to my habitual spot at Orblogs.com to post that my blog was updated. I got the 'we are closed' screen. What a freaking drag!

I've met many excellent local folks by cruising Orblogs. I've also garnered a decent amount of steady readership from it as well.

Now I'm going to be forced to network outside that one convenient site. Bah, another learning curve.

Bp

You may be noticing a trend

You may or may not have noticed that for the past few days, I can ascribe most of the posts to friends and associates. That is because I'm working diligently to clean out my Gmail backlog, and in so doing posting all the cool stuff folks have sent me in the last few months. This trend will continue for quite some time, I have a lot of catching up to do.

Enjoy the support of friends,

BP

It's not you, it's me

It has now been determined by anecdotal evidence repeated daily, that it is not in fact the Macbook that doesn't like me. It seems to be any particular computer's connection to the wireless that doesn't like me. At all. I've only been staying connected for a few minutes at a time the last few days no matter which computer I'm using.

It doesn't happen to anyone else, I'm considering having my friends here take dictation.

Today is rehearsals with the actors and tonight the plays the kids have written will be performed, for those of you following that part of the story.

I'll attempt more posts later, things are looking unusually stable at the moment.

Bp

Reminder, I'm not actually here

Just a quick reminder, if you aren't getting responses to your comments, it's because I'm out of town until at least the 5th of July. I will respond to as many comments as I can muster when I get back.

So -- here's a picture of an elephant to remind you.

(you know... because they have such good memories)

Enjoy the intartubes and the connections they create,

Bp

Testing this auto-posting option with a Monica Bellucci Picture and a LoLCat

Testing Testing, if all goes well these pictures will post tomorrow at 6:30 in the AM -- we shall see:






And -- The Wife's computer wallpaper and favorite LoLCat:



Enjoy using your reading public for guinea pigs,

BP

Too Cool -- the blog is going to post for me

I had noticed a conversation over at Astoria Oregon Rust, one of my favorite blogs, in which the author had mentioned he was setting his posts to go up at a certain time in the morning. I didn't know this was an option.

So, with summer vacations coming up and lots of time out of town, I decided to explore the option to see if I could keep the blog rolling while I was gone. Sure enough, I can write ahead of time and tell blogger when I'd like that particular post to publish. Awesome.

Although I'll be gone til the first week of July, ya'll should have at least a post a day the whole time. The only downside is no comments from yours truly until I return. I'm sure that'll break your heart.

So read away, I've got a few more posts to write to "cover my shift" while I'm gone.

Enjoy online publishing, in all its amateurish glory,

Bp

So much to blog about!

Finals are over Thursday for me, and I expect a flood of posts at that time. My camera is backing up with photos to share, and the life is backing up with stories to tell.

I will be posting during study breaks.

Enjoy being flooded with coolness,

Bp

New post over at the Fur Shark blog

Check out the new post over at the Fur Shark Chronicles. That blog is the repository for all things Cat that I write or post. I didn't want to overwhelm the rigorous and scientific focus and cadence of this blog with such frivolous material.

Stay tuned for more 70's bad hair videos.

Bp

New record

Broke 200 readers today, according to the bravenet site meter (see link on bottom of sidebar).

I know all meters count different, and some folks checking multiple times are being counted twice if their internet security clears cookies.... but it's a milestone nonetheless.

Enjoy the growth of your hobbies into something interesting,

Bp

Shout out to the Mother in-law.

Nancy, congratulations on your new computer!

Now, if you click on "comments" tab below you should get a pop-up screen. On that screen are some options under "choose an identity." You can pick to use a google identity, anonymous, or "other."

Feel free to use anonymous if you don't have a google account. Anonymous works on my website right now because I don't have freaky trolls posting random rude comments on the blogs. So, for now, [knock on wood loudly] anonymous is an option.

Once you choose anonymous, you will then be set up to type in comments. If you have any other problems, call or email me.

I look forward to reading your comments soon.

Rock on,

Bp

Poll -- favorite style of post

Been a while since I posted a poll and checked in. If your favorite category is missing, vote for next best and then let me know in a comment if you would.

Thanks

Approaching 2,000 page views.

I'm not going to post at every single numerical landmark, but I just noticed this one and figured I'd mark it. Also got the idea for a new label, "Blog Landmarks." The first comment by someone I'm confident I don't know personally also spurred me to action (thanks for the kind words Janet).

I know there is a lot of argument about page view counters and how they decide who is a 'unique' page view etc. but I'm just pleased to see that folks are enjoying the blog. I am enjoying the hell out of writing it. It has limbered up the writing parts of my brain, and now I can at least trot, or maybe even canter without straining a neuron.

I still have to stretch a lot or I'll pull something I'm sure. But the exercise is going well.

Thanks for stopping by and making it that much more appealing to practice my writing.