To the Future

4 years ago I started to write this personal blog and I have to say it has served me well - it's seen a lot of water under the bridge (or flowing over the weir as the case might be in the photo below - I just didn't have anything more appropriate) however now seems like a good time to think about a change to look to the future.

 As well as sounding like something fun to do, I also had 3 main reasons for blogging.

The 1st was to use it as a means of sharing life experiences - particularly the positive - a sort of non-social networking (I'm not a huge fan) social outlet.

The 2nd was that I was already keeping a diary of sorts and I appreciated the therapeutic side of writing down frustrations - a personal blog was as good a way as any.

The 3rd reason was that I read a lot of blogs and I looked forward to trying to add something worthwhile to the mix - to communicate and share ideas that might spark ideas and our imaginations.

To add to this, before I get further into why I'm posting this slightly random and perhaps out of the blue introspection, here are some relevant stats about my blogging over the last 4 years:

At the highest level - 82% of posts were related to life experiences. The remaining 18% were opinion posts.

To be more specific, the content could be categorised as follows:
36% General life experiences (home life, day to day stuff, misc entertainment)
18% Local Tourism (Northern Ireland, day trips, local sights, museums etc) of which 74% was about Belfast,  26% the rest of Northern Ireland.
18% Holidays (Travel and tourism abroad) of which 65% was about the USA and 35% Europe.
18% Opinion (Politics, news, other events etc)
10% Sports (Irish League football, Crusaders, Leeds United, Ice Hockey and Olympics)

Keeping all that in mind, I've also discovered that although I originally started off posting a lot more about life experiences this has slowly changed. This blog has now become dominated by posts about travel and holidays. So on the plus side my blogging here is still largely dominated by sharing experiences that are important to me - which is what I set out to do - however... only the detail of those experiences are really unique. Thinking about it with some perspective, sites like Tripadvisor for my travel posts or football forums for my sports posts are perhaps better places for my thoughts if I really feel the need to share in such detail.

Another site that I'm already using for another part of my publishing on the web is Twitter. Indeed I can see from the stats I put together that when I joined Twitter is when the more opinionated posts I used to make fell away. I didn't really know what to make of Twitter at first but it has soon become the place I voice an opinion 'as and when' those opinions come to mind rather than dwelling on them until I can find time to sit down to type a post here. This might be for better or for worse as it's not about carefully thought through arguments, it's often just a means to empty your head... but still it fills that niche.

So with the 2nd reason I began to blog now largely removed and the 1st being whittled down to something that might be more suitably placed elsewhere, what about the 3rd? - adding to the mix and sharing ideas? - the social side of blogging?

I think I can reasonably state that over the last few years I've added to the mix at least a little bit.
In regards to positive feedback, since I started blogging here I've had a dozens of posts linked to on other (non-blog) sites including the Belfast Telegraph. I even had one of my photographs published as a book cover last year. Some very kind bloggers also linked to my posts with a positive feeling - and that I have to say has always brought about a warming feeling of inclusion. Overall I'm happy I've been able to take part and in terms of personal well-being and development I think I've got as much out of blogging as I put in - if not more. My spelling has improved a tiny bit if nothing else. The positives have however diminished in recent times - I'm not finding the motivation to blog so much and when I do it's often late into the night when I should really be getting more sleep.

So that leads me to the next point - a point more in-line with the question posed 'what about the social side of blogging?'

Something I know for sure is that my blog is really only read regularly by other bloggers or people who know me - and in terms of bloggers, specifically other Blogger users at that. The majority of the rest of my page views tends to be one time visits from people (largely by chance) finding my posts and photos through search engines. In regards to viewing figures, I'm not sure if it's just my blog but over the last few months - although I've posted regularly - page views have plummeted and SEO isn't a major part of it.
As my content isn't niche enough to target a specific audience and retain many repeat visits from those just finding me by chance in terms of the subjects I blog about... and given the fact I haven't changed those subjects all that much over the course of the last year, there has to be something else that is adding to this trend of declining casual activity. Indeed it doesn't look like I'm alone in sensing this or something similar. Many bloggers I followed have wound up their blogs over the last year, several of those who continue have slowed down in regards to the regularity in which they post.

I've tried to find some new bloggers to follow to keep my own blogosphere fresh - as I said I would try to in my 2013 list, but alas, there just aren't many left or searchable (especially local bloggers)... well at least those who remain free of ridiculously narcissistic tendencies and/or are being led by purely financial motivations anyway.

This would worry me a lot more if blogging for me was about trying to do something like 'getting known', making money or indulging in narcissistic tendencies. Thankfully it's not at all! All I worry about is the practicality of if it's worth continuing. So although a lack of an audience isn't an issue in itself, a decline in the audience is a trend that I'd have to be fool to ignore in terms of that practicality.

The main issues I consider with blogging are just the time I have to put into it and the resulting benefits for both me and those who view what I publish.

The real joy of Blogger when I started to use it was the connectivity. I could write a blog and reach an audience with little effort (and time). With the likes of Google Friend Connect and Google Reader all the tools were there that made Blogger a sort of very personalised Facebook page, with better scope for search engine optimisation, for the type of blog I write.

The first of these tools is now all but suspended, the second is planned to be dropped later in the year and with them the connectivity of blogger has very much been diminished. A blog like mine is just a collection of words, images, videos, thoughts and ideas aggregated into one accessible place. It is basically a personalised Facebook or Google+ page with more room for creative expression and control over what is presented and published.

Sadly, Facebook and other social networking/media storage sites have captured the vast majority of the audience, Google with Google+ also compete in that area and with the withdrawal of the services that made Blogger click, it seems Blogger (in the way I use it) is currently becoming just a form of web hosting for me.
As such, with the retiring of services that helped provide an audience, the connectivity of Blogger has been relocated to Google+.

This is where I personally get caught out twice, largely because with a truly personal blog I wanted to remain quasi-anonymous. Because of this scenario, in order to offset the connectivity blogger previously offered, I would need to throw myself into Google+ or other social network sites to provide a similar result.
The issue being, I don't have the time to duplicate my social networking activities (as well as blog) in order to maintain an active or new readership whilst remaining somewhat anonymous.

The other logical problem is that if I'm asking people already using one application and network, then surely it stands to reason that I might as well just post my content directly onto that social network in the 1st place since I'm not trying to drive traffic for money or any other such activity.

So to summarise this rambling:

I still enjoy blogging and I still really like Blogger as a publishing platform - the freedom and control in presentation it offers whilst making it so simple to do are second to none.
The problem is that it makes no sense to continue writing a personal blog in the way I currently do. I can't justify the time it would take to build and maintain a community around this blog to fight the tide and keep an audience. I also don't have time to duplicate what I publish around the web in more than one place and with some of the reasons I started blogging having evolved to other parts of the internet, my focus in using Blogger has to change to make it practical and timely.

So...

I intend to take what I've learnt from my blogging experience these past 4 years and put it to good use in a different way. If I don't, I predict that in the not so distant future I'll probably find myself better off (time wise) just going back to writing a diary in a notepad.

In regards to the future of this blog, I won't be getting rid of it. On the off chance I need a place to publish something random or vague it's a handy spot to keep available. However, apart from the odd update now and again, I won't be making any regular posts in the near future.

'A Lifeform in Northern Ireland' (as my means of regularly publishing content online) is on an indefinite hiatus.

As disappointing as it is to break a routine and bring to an end something I've put a lot of effort into over the last few year, a change is as good as a rest and the chance to focus on something else brings about some fun possibilities and opportunities.

My blog posts here were becoming more and more photo heavy anyway and I often don't have time to use Flickr and its community aspect as much as I might like to, so in terms of my use of Blogger I intend to start a project that is photo orientated.

Though I haven't worked out the ins and outs yet, I intend to start a photo blog project of some kind.
Something that will allow me to combine two things I would do anyway but cut out the hours spent typing.
I realise my pictures aren't worth a thousand words at the moment but perhaps, with practice, one day they might be... and if not, at least I'll have tried to improve.

With the new blog being something far less contentious, it could also allow me to use my real name and Facebook and Google+ presence as well as other sites. It might also allow me to use Flickr and Twitter more effectively.

Hopefully this will save me a lot of time and allow me improve a skill whilst also enabling me to enjoy the social side of blogging much more. Not to mention it gives me an excuse to finally invest in more than just a standard compact camera.

I also hope it might allow me achieve more of my 2013 list (one goal being to take more photos and another to not procrastinate as much!).

On the off chance anyone was thinking along the same lines (especially a photography blog – maybe based around Belfast) and has an idea for a joint project or bloggorific extravaganza - do let me know! I've always liked the idea of a team blog but I’ve just never found a team… let alone a subject.

I'll be sure to update here whatever I end up doing. All being well it'll be a lot less self indulgent and a little more focused on really sharing an aspect of life in Northern Ireland.

So it's that time again, time to get back to the future!

July has been a little huge bit crazy.

So yeah.... Hi!

As a follow up to my last post. I so far haven't managed to get the blogger app to post yet, the post I tried to send from the airport is stuck in 'publishing' status from my phone and it's messed up and I haven't been able to get anything to work with that app since. It's had ample broadband, WiFi and data connection time so I dunno what the craic is with it. Probably something like my phone crashed or the app isn't compatible or just a one off. I might try reinstalling it at some point.

Other than that, I've been busy and stressed a little more than usual. Our trip away was awesome but since we got back it's been all very hectic and work has increased my stress levels no end.

I've been quickly coming to terms with the fact I'm being taken for a ride at work - in a corporate, cold and collected buy it cheap and bleed it for all it's worth type style, I've become aware more than ever that I am but a commodity to the company I work for. I think that employees being human with rights is just an inconvenience to many employers in the private sector. So I'll stick it out for now and keep my eyes open for other jobs. I doubt the greed of shareholders will subside any time soon so all being well I'll be aiming for a new job next year (unless the balance is miraculously tipped one way or the other). Hopefully something not for profit, a social enterprise or just a public sector job (if they ever are allowed to remove their recruitment freezes) will appear.

Talking of that sort of issue. The no nonsense finance guru guy - Alvin Hall - has a new series on Radio 4 at the moment that has so far been a good listen. The series is called - Poorer Than Their Parents. So far the first episode was about Jobs and I didn't catch today's but will on catch up. Although it didn't really go into the scenarios and problems in the job market (besides the chicken and egg scenario of needing to have done a job before someone will give you a job doing it) that I've encountered (the focus was largely more on specific scenarios), the end comments by James (a guy doing an unpaid internship in London) rang very true to me when he mentioned the word 'vulnerable' - especially when his main issue was accommodation and his attempt to get employment putting him at risk with his living conditions. Alvin's solution to James was to basically become home help for a cheaper rent, which isn't a bad idea but really is a plaster over the problem rather than trying to sort the big issues. And people wonder why there is so much apathy from the younger generations and why they hope that they might just get lucky with something landing in their lap.

As I've said before, we only have a finite amount of resources in the world, for me, the elitist structure we've got set up isn't doing a very good job of managing it. I've only read what I could find online but I think Eric Hobsbawm talks a lot of sense on such subjects. In his 90s now, he still has a very sharp mind. For instance,  Hobsbawm, in an interview with the Guardian earlier this year said:

"the basic problems of the 21st century would require solutions that neither the pure market, nor pure liberal democracy can adequately deal with. And to that extent, a different combination, a different mix of public and private, of state action and control and freedom would have to be worked out.

What you will call that, I don't know. But it may well no longer be capitalism, certainly not in the sense in which we have known it in this country and the United States."

As I've said before, I personally think we're already in a period where we have corporate imperialism tempered with a liberal mindset. I'm not sure if stats back me up but from where I'm sitting it seems like the world isn't led by people and our quest to survive, grow and leave a better world for our future than we left. Rather it's individuals with the biggest wills banding together to secure the biggest wallets and dictating what happens to ensure they can pull the strings whilst those with the knowledge or foresight can only ask for them to think about what they're doing. What some of the motivation or intentions are for those with their stockpiles - well, beyond controlling or hording more, is beyond me. Is it just to feed their ego or make their life and their kids lives easy in the short term at the expense of everyone else? Is their a psychological reason or is it just ignorance or selective education? Who knows. However, such people who facilitate this don't seem to question their actions when faced with treating human beings as commodities. Looking through the history books, sadly, this has always been the case and those eager to keep the status quo will continue to say that we are where we are now because of the same old structure that operates to this day in just a continuously varying mix.

But why are we living for the past or the present which is always fleeting?

As I believe the Guardian interview quote from Eric Hobsbawm (refered to earlier) implies, Hobsbawm doesn't believe that the basic problems we face today can be addressed by the way we've being doing things to date and I agree. I feel humanity needs some major new ideas or adaptations to how we currently work and ones that can't be hijacked for obscene personal or ideological gain. But why do I get the feeling that like trying to get a job you're qualified for except for the experience, no one or no idea will be taken on board unless it has already been tried so no one with a new idea will be listened to. The only exceptions to this seems to be at extreme times because of necessity but lets hope it doesn't come to something so stupid as it's usually only the poorest who suffer at times of turmoil. Maybe I'm just impatient though as eventually there will be change as humanity, society and technology evolves, several generations all over the world might

I mean, if scientific reasoning is accurate on the subject. Whatever or where ever humanity is to go, it's not here and it's not now. Our planet has the ability to be a nice place to live and learn and create, but not for ever, eventually our genetic descendants will need to leave and if theory is correct, in the very far flung future, we're going to need to find a way to either control (unlikely) or to get out of our known universe. No offence but we're not looking too likely to achieve that given the world's current state and the fact that with the technology and abilities we have, we can't even look after ourselves on this dot in space let alone do something productive away from it.

As Hobsbawn says in his book - Darkness:

"If humanity is to have a recognizable future, it cannot be by prolonging the past or the present."

Not to jump the gun too much but before Alvin's whole series is fully aired, I can tell you now, I already believe those who made the decisions have already sold our children's futures and that either we or the next few generations will have to stand up to the plate to give humanity some care and attention.

I think one of the core differences between a lot of people and the message we seem to get from 'The City' is that we seem to see 'wealth' in a different manner. Again, personally, I don't see wealth as numbers in a bank account that hold the promise of time, 'things' and services that gives you power, status and freedoms. My description of wealth would be the wealth of humanity: The ability to create a society and structure that can unlock the potential in each of us for a positive contribution to this place we call home all of our futures, not just one that eats up resources to maintain a human construct of nation states. The progress of ensuring the well being (and hopefully happiness) of everyone in the present. As well as a focus on a long term effort to progress knowledge and technology towards being able to answer the biggest unanswered questions of our existence so that we're not always just reactive creatures. The only alternative is suffering and ceasing to exist and since we already do exist, there is surely no harm in trying to make the most of our existence for the long haul.

On a side note... I have scheduled some posts today so there will be something to look at here again this week guaranteed :)

A Look at the New View Options on Blogger

Logging on to Blogger this morning, up popped a helpful mention of a new feature that might come in handy for readers and bloggers alike - so being curious after watching a video of up coming features on Blogger Buzz not so long back, it didn't take long for me to start playing to see if they were April Fools or not - it turns out they're real :)

The new features released so far are different ways for readers to select or view your blog posts. Per the Blogger Buzz page - Blogger Buzz: Fresh new perspectives for your blog - this new way to view public blogs (when you have full feeds enabled) makes for a quicker viewing experience and will make for faster ways to view and interact with posts.

After having a look over the views I'm a little sceptical as to how much use a few of them will be. The Mosaic and Flipcard views are pretty but I don't really understand the concept behind how this would improve the viewing experience unless you read blogs like a Magpie - i.e. chasing shiny pictures. The pages are a little busy but when you do click a link it does give a clean and fresh view of the post. Maybe good for a photo only blog but I don't know of many around as people who are just displaying photos would probably use one of many social networking photo hosting sites.

The Snapshot view I kinda like but yet there seems to be one big drawback. If like me you like to add lots of images to one post - you'll end up filling the snap shot view with many 'snapshots' all linking to the same post - therefore it's use seems limited as a view for those who like to give a lot of visuals. If they could add several smaller snapshots to show all the photos of more posts on one page I think this view would prove more useful.

The Timeslide view I like a lot. The ability to view a preview of all a blog's posts on one page with quite a bit of detail to tell you what the posts are about is kinda handy - having it all squeezed onto one page without the need to click - you can just scroll through the entire blog until you find something that is of interest - I can see it being a really handy view to get a feel of a blog for the first time and to see if you want to subscribe to it. If you use sites like BlogCatalog, 20SomethingBloggers or even the likes of Twitter, it could be a useful page to send people to if you are just mentioning what your blog is about.

My favourite of the 5 views so far has to be the Sidebar view. This simply gives a sidebar with a blogs page's picture, title and amount of comments. This bar can be scrolled to go through every last post on the blog. On the main frame of the page the post selected in the sidebar is shown in full. It's simple and sleek and I think I'll be using it a lot to view and comment.

A slight concern I have about these views though is the way they work at the moment means that all your customisation within the current template you have on your blog is lost - but only in the same way this occurs if people subscribe to your RSS feed and read in a reader rather than from your blog directly. So yeah, it will just be the bare content on display... personally I have no problem with that apart from the fact some of the posts I write are laid out with my template in mind. Its no big problem though, I think it will just be a slight swing towards thinking more often about how the post will look on a blank page.

The issue though will be if people start to use these a lot, there will be a lack of connections between blogs, what I mean by that is that links to pages and other sites such as twitter/facebook/other peoples blogs etc, won't be viewed as often. Currently that happens a lot anyway since people do use external readers to view posts but it might start to impact a little more. Perhaps though the Blogger team will eventually allow some form of customisation of the views or even merge the views with the design of the blog? For instance I'd love to have that Sidebar in my actual blog design.  Just the means of having a subscribe button would be a nice update, currently people who want to subscribe to your feed won't know from just viewing in these views what your site is unless you posted a link within every last blog post which is just unrealistic.

The ability to view the blog without having to click to a 2nd page is great but how this works in regards to stats is still a mystery. I presume it's like people viewing via an RSS feed, stats won't be tracked? I could be wrong though.

Overall, I like the innovative choice these views bring and I do see how some of the them bring something new (at least to Blogger) to the blog reading experience, however I do have some doubts over how useful some of the views are in their current form. As these views are seemingly just a means to view a blog which most of us have set ways of habits of doing already (either directly from the page or a reader), I'm not sure how much people will use these streamlined views and really if it adds enough to warrant being on a separate page?

On the other hand, I think if these new view features could be incorporated into the design element of Blogger then I reckon the people at Google will be on to another winner.

Norngirl has turned to the blog-side

It's true! I can happily point you in this direction Is it Friday yet?, a blog about: "The life and times of a 26 year old Belfast girl, living for the weekend when, well, she probably won't do very much to be honest, but when she does she'll write a bit about it".

Norngirl, as those of you who may follow my ramblings here will already know, is my amazing wife who has many talents, one of which is knowing exactly where I've left things I can't find - as mentioned in her post entitled Love and marriage (and crazy adventures)

"I suppose it's different for couples who haven't lived together for long (or at all) before they get hitched, because their first year is probably spent learning about each others' foibles. However I already know that the correct answer to the Yorkshireman's frequent cries of "Where did I leave that thingumyjig?!" is usually, "At your ass, darling!"

However on this occasion, it might be apt to mention her abilities in the use of English. Most of the time she is the very patient one who proof reads my posts (though not this one) to ensure that they are at least partially readable and in all honesty, that's no mean feat! She knows of punctuation I've never heard of and knows her way around Latin - That's enough in my book to be classed as an expert in such matters. Therefore the read will be, and is, a smooth one on her blog - even if at times it may smoothly reveal how much of a numpty her husband is *hangs head in shame*. I'm really glad she has decided to publicly blog though, the pitfalls of putting your head above the parapet aside, there is so much more you get back from simply thinking about and putting your thoughts in writing.

Norngirl is undoubtedly the best thing in my life so I can say with 100% certainty, if you can stomach my waffling then her more eloquent writing style will be a breath of fresh air for your reader should you fancy keeping up to speed from both sides of our ramblings and our shared lifes adventure :)

Jesus and Satan start their blogs. Twist on a classic.

Jesus and Satan bump into one another in the afterlife and get talking about current trends on Earth. After debating the pro's and cons of social media they stumble into an an argument as to who would make the better blogger.

This goes on for quite some time until they come to an agreement to hold a contest on Earth with God as judge. Eager to get started and with an plethora of posts to pre-scedule from an eternity of existence they buy two identical servers, two identical laptops, sign up to the same service provider and get to work.

Their work goes on for the best part of a month. The Devil prepares an incredible 666 posts a day but Jesus manages to keep pace typing just 2 text posts and 5 photo posts, somehow this made 5000 posts in total every 4 days!

God could see both were neck and neck in quantity and quality of content approaching the end of the month. The contest was almost at it's end and they were so close to clicking the publish button they could feel the souls swarming to subscribe... but then suddenly, with no warning, they both recieved the blue screen of death! It was so close to the end that in the very next moment God announced that the contest was over.

God being merciful decided to bring the unrepairable laptops back to life but had to reformat the hard drive to do so. He then asked Satan to show his work. Fuelled with 'Blue screen of death' rage, Satan tries to connect to the server to pull back his 20,000 posts but it won't ping. He wailed: “God, I have nothing, the puny server has been compromised, not even the guts of a post, it's all gone.”

“That is unfortunate,” says God and then he turns and asks ”do you have anything Jesus?".

Jesus knowing the server has gone to binary heaven plugs in a dongle, makes a few clicks and presses a few keys, the internet signal bar turns green, he connects to his remote backup service and the greatest blog post that the world has ever known springs into view.

Satan cannot believe what he is seeing. Ravaged with fury he demands to know what just happened. "I lost it all, Jesus should have lost it all too".

Knowing God would not cheat him but also knowing he would not lie to him, he puts the question to his creator.

"How did he do it?”

God LOLs loudly, “Don't you know… Jesus saves.”

And now you know why Jesus has more followers.

(Sorry, I couldn't help myself!)

The Big 100, Blog Life ain't so Bad!

Welcome to a bit of landmark for my blog, the 100th post! It has been 1 year, 8 months and 6 days since this all began so I'm going to take this post as time to reflect and recap on blogging and life in that time.

In that very first post I wrote about the occasion years earlier when I was leaning against the side of the plane and looking out of the window at the scenery below. Last Sunday on our way home from our weekend in Blackpool I finally had the after image from the before and after 'spot the difference' scenes. On that first flight I was heading to Northern Ireland for the first time and I was sat alone pondering life and love. This time, with Blackpool and the Fylde coast disappearing into the darkness below, the scene was different. My wife at my side and my sister-in-law and friends nearby laughing and joking, the risk I took that first flight was the biggest leap into the unknown of my life and for certain the one I would never change.

So although I blog and end up complaining about a lot about things in the local and wider world, in my own deeply personal and largely non-blogged world, the ride of life is firmly on the tracks, zooming along with the fervour of time.

That ride has been quite eventful in the period I've been blogging and blogging itself has now become a part of my ride which is slightly odd but odd in a good way. I hadn't anticipated that writing my blog would take up so much of my time. Due to its almost therapeutic release, for me it is a nice problem to have to balance but nevertheless I have found that blogging is a bit of a paradox. Blogging to me is all about recording and portraying experience but the more you do, the more experiences you have to blog about and the less time you have to blog so the less you get to blog and in turn to blog it all would impact on time used to type. With the quieter times, you get more time to blog about what has happened but the fewer experiences you have to blog about.

I have one regret with blogging so far and that is not having the time to give as much as I'd hoped. I have posts written but not typed about my wedding and honeymoon and several fun events slipped under the radar. One day in the not-so-distant future I still hope to catch up with at least the major things.

So that has become my main dilemma with blogging. The reasons I started to blog are the same as they were from that original post however throwing yourself into the mix brings a dedication of time I wasn't anticipating, but you know what, I think it's worth it.

In that 1 year, 8 months and 6 days, which translates to roughly 88 weeks, an awful lot has happened and due to blogging it, I have a half decent record of it. Not only that but through reading other blogs and researching my own point of view, I have learned a lot and reassessed a lot from creating my content.

The extra plus I have found (other than slowly learning to spell and structure a sentence!) is that there are some really great and genuine bloggers that I mightn't have come into contact with if it wasn't writing my own blog. I've been able to see life close to home and far away from a perspective different to my own but in ways I can relate to. A lot of bloggers go for page clicks and ads but some, such as these few examples (in no particular order) are a some of my favourite blogs and where I believe blogging is really at its best:

Stickleback

East Belfast Diary

San Fran ♥ Belfast

Mere Frivolity

Into Geek

London Town and Me

We Heart New York

Sadly, as well as the great personal and interest bloggers, in what can be a weird and wonderful blogosphere there are an awful lot of shallow and materialistic bloggers who will do anything for a page view, usually those who don't create all of their own content or don't reference their source which a little pet peeve of mine I'm afraid to say.  The culture I've come across in the world of blogging is slightly different to other online communities I've had the privilege to being a part of. It's maybe because everyone operates from a different page rather than all coming together on one but there seems a larger emphasis on being seen and getting your voice heard, especially when it comes to people who want to be authors or to sell their product. Finding people genuinely interested in what you are saying is a rare thing as there largely is no other connection and I find that kind of sad. Sad because although a blog can be even more personal and expressive than a lot of other online environments, the one-to-many nature of it seems to leave a gap of sincerity.

On the plus side though, blogging gives you freedoms of speech unparalleled and the ability to reach audiences to whom you wouldn't ordinarily even have contemplated passing on your views. I guess that can be a bad thing as well as a good thing. One instance I had of reaching someone I didn't expect came when my blog post about Toy Story 3D and the cinema in question out-ranked that organisation's Google search result at the time. I received a comment from the General Manager offering me tickets to another show and perhaps to blog about it. I turned down the offer as I am a not-for-profit sort of guy and so is my blog. What did surprise me though was the fact that my ramblings led to someone with the ability to influence our future experiences to go so far as to act on them in their own way gives an indication that blogging has the ability to give an individual a voice otherwise muted in the big giant ball of spam out there. Hrmm, if only the folks at Stormont would take so much notice and offer a second election (or more) until we get someone with common sense in a seat of power!

Other than that, another surprising but fun moment was receiving a few mentions on the Belfast Telegraph site thanks to Blogger and Columnist Geoff McGimpsey whose blog is Boballs (but slightly mothballed at the moment) and whose column is largely dedicated to the local bloggers here in Northern Ireland.

It's great that there are some people like Geoff and the Belfast Telegraph out there who are putting a lot into promoting the blogosphere and also great that this area of the world, with all it's issues and problems, has an active online presence led in voice largely through much more dedicated bloggers and blog sites such as Alan in Belfast and the tangled web of politics debated at Sluggerotoole.

So on this, my 100th post, I'd just like to say that blogging, like taking that first flight to N.I many years ago, has been very much a good thing for me up to this point at least. Blogging has intertwined itself as a part of my life, it's encouraged me to involve myself more in what's going on around me, to engage further my interest in photography and to savour the special moments in life that little bit more as typing it out again really does almost mean reliving it. It has very much been worth it so my advice would be: if you don't blog or have never blogged, why not give it a try?

Back in the Future and a lot of photos

Hi everyone and sorry for the bloggy absence. You might be happy to hear that I haven't had to be put on strong medication to get over the anti climax that was this years world cup but that does lead to the question of why this page has been bare.

To be honest I just haven't got around to it but after two summers of possible mutterings it does seem the summer months of are a bit of a blogging desert for me and July just fell off the calendar completely this time around. Maybe its because I'm a night owl and my brain doesn't wake up until its been dark outside for a few hours on an evening? I dunno, nor does it much matter... but I do know that there is no point dwelling on the past for too long... so I'll keep this a snappy before (all being well) normal ramblings will resume.

So here is quick summary of the last 2 months where every day (except one) was a work day. Because of that, we have been making the most of the weekends:

Once weekend we went on a trip to the Ulster folk and transport museums and very good they were too:

Above is a train in the Transport Museum

And here is the one of the 3 churches in the Folk Museum which is a village where you can walk around almost every building - including playing the piano in the silent movie theatre!

Another weekend we ambled our way with friends and family across the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge

The Rope Bridge and the views from the walk to the bridge and the island were quite a sight as always.

On the same day this was closely followed by a visit to the Giants Causeway

More recently, Crusaders pre season friendlies kept us busy, followed by the Irish Premier League restarting with the Crues back in action:

Other weeks saw plenty of housework done which included the weather finally sparing two dry days which allowed us to cut the lawn prior to the landlords house inspection. Normally cutting the grass has no rewards but on this occasion I got to see a young beetle that had some great colour:

And as well as other events such as Birthdays, the odd trip to the cinema and sticking up mirrors with command strips and various other random events of note, we have started to go on some weekend walks.

These have been quite random walks so far. One up the toe path from Giants park up to Hazelbank and back home (6.7 miles), the other from town, up through the harbour, and around the back of the airport to Ikea (5.8 miles). On the latter trip, we found the RSPB Belfast Lough harbour lagoon and the bird hides there which are open to the public:

Our walks have had a purpose too, we had a rude awakening as to how long you might be on your feet when making the most of a city stay with our day and a 1/2 in Paris in March 2009... so this time we're going prepared with our 'endurance practice for couch potatoes'. Our final walk before going on our holiday will involve visiting charity shops around Belfast and buying an item, this item will then be delivered to a special recipient - the aim is to get the most bemused reaction.

That is pretty much the highlights of the past couple of months but the next few months have plenty for me to get back in the blogging spirit with. I'll be sure to share them with you as the nights get shorter :)

What a twit!

Yesterday night, in a moment of weakness, I did what I would consider a very bad thing. I gave in to temptation in a shocking way. For in a moment of thinking it might be a good idea, yep, I did what I'd been holding back from doing since its viral release onto the net years ago:

I created a Twitter account. :-/

I blame the events of the last few weeks, from a couple of weeks ago and Leeds being promoted, yesterday's Championship play-off and the Radio One Big weekend, to Champions' League and Over the Rainbow finals, its all been ripe times for possible Facebook updates. However spamming people's recent updates in a place they're not expecting just doesn't seem right and it was all just getting too tempting. So damn you social media! You might have won this time but I held on for a good long while... I'll be a good sheep and join back in line with the flock for now, but not before I've gotten this off my chest... for if a blog wasn't enough by itself as a means of publishing too much personal information onto the web, now I've set myself up for doing even more of it in 140 character batches. In such a circumstance this post would have only made it as far as:

 "Yesterday night, in a moment of weakness, I did what I would consider a very bad thing. I gave in to temptation. Yep, in a moment of thinkin" 

...and what sort of street talk is 'thinkin' and what sort of update is that? Waffling is therefore likely to be cut, except in extreme bursts. Explanations are to be omitted, except in follow up tweets.  So is that what my mind has sunk to - thinking in short sentences? Well yes and no. On occasions it gets distracted well before 140 characters, and sure, often I could probably express an opinion in 3 words or less, so 140 characters is probably a step up!

I'm not too sure on the benifits of Twitter except to reach out into the wider global consciousness of sharing random things but there is only one way to find out for sure. The one thing I do know it will bring is an opportunity to keep up with the rest of the worlds netaholics: those who prefer not to spend their time typing for an hour at a time. So fair do's, I've taken the leap. It might eat into my time a little but at least I'll be able to reply to what Stephen Fry is playing with and what Chris Moyles had for breakfast... why did I sign up again?

I'll be trying to tweet regularly and will be happy to follow my blog-readers or twitter-readers - is that what they're called? I'm a twitter n00b, can you tell?

So if you'd like to follow me, my Twitter page is: http://twitter.com/LifeformNamedSi 

As well as whatever I end up tweeting, I'll also be providing updates from there of when I have a new blog post up here. Also, to bring twitter to my blog (for those of you still fighting back the urge - if there is anyone left?) you might have already noticed that there is now a little feed on the sidebar here with a couple of the most recent updates. I apologise in advance for scaring or offending anyone; I'll try not to but you never know!

Happy Tweeting.

Bits of Belfast - Part 1

After a little reading it seems that a picture could be worth any number of words! Curious as to where the phrase "A picture is worth a Thousand words” has its origins rooted and also armed as ever with a Google search box, I set to the task. I came across this web page entitled: "The History of a Picture's Worth" and like the marketing phrase coined by Fred R. Barnard ('One Look is Worth a Thousand Words') suggests - I thought it might be a good time to see if this is true for a random photo of a bit of Belfast I took on July 29th 2009:

I have to admit I’m not finding it too descriptive. Given a subtitle, I would put forward - ‘Just another summers day’.

Replaced by words, it would probably go down the route of... The clouds were dancing unpredictably and providing us with rain, sun, overcast, rain, sun, and overcast again, Belfast City hall didn’t look too happy and had its slightly damp ‘not impressed’ look going on. The ‘Streets ahead’ project and other works currently going on along several areas in the city center have the pavement out of action on Donegall Place with oversized red and white barriers restricting anything that moves. Anything that is except the pigeons and workmen who inhabit the trenches that expose a myriad of pipes that keeps the place ticking.

The tree’s have their green coats on and people are going about their journeys with either; their coats on or sweating as they go, or ready for sun and about to get soaked. Whichever way the human variety of walker is dressed, I reckon they’re all being laughed at by the pigeons. The very same pigeons who are now so used to walking in our footsteps that they often try a game of dare. I have to admit, I lose when I take part in this game and end up being the one having to avoid walking into them. I wouldn’t mind so much if it was just that they had been in an accident or had their wings clipped but they take to the air quickly enough when a bus is close to contact. In a survival of the fittest between me and a streetwise pigeon, I’m afraid I would probably lose - ah well!

So as you may have already fathomed, not much is happening in my little world at the moment. I’m spending too much time wasting the time I do have on Facebook games and too little time with Norn Girl and blogging. That’s defiantly painted a picture that I hope to remedy. Though pictures aren't going to be able to replace words in my blog, with just a few more pictures to save just a few more words it's going to be a big help. I intend to use more blogging with photos as an incentive to discourage me from writing a small essay as often. I hope it’ll encourage me to blog a little more often. The aim being to kill two pigeons with one stone - 1. to distract me to something productive from the world of Facebook and 2. to save some time that can be better spent cuddled up to my fiancée.

So like this post, Bits of Belfast will hopefully fill in those voids between posts. The aim, to put my mind at ease instead of trying to remember what I had hoped to get around to blogging a small essay about (*ponders that Leeds United at the Oval/ Crusaders in Europe post that’s still in my head and in un-resized photos*).

A post a day is the dream, could it be possible? No matter, at least you'll get to see more of Belfast! I'll blog to that :)