My first foray into the world of bloggery — the blogosphere? — was an attempt to create a searchable archive of my field journals courtesy of the original Blogger, which was conceptualized by a group of lovely young geeks who called themselves Pyra Labs. But when Google bought Blogger they messed me up by excluding the first 12 years worth of my journals. They established 1990 as the earliest date they would allow for backdating entries and held firm despite my hysterical protests. After a period of despair, I discovered WordPress, which would let me backdate to 1970, and I switched to them. I can’t say I’ve gotten very far in typing all my old journal records into my new blog, but at least I’ve started, and every once in a while I post a new block of entries ….
NATURALIST’S ALMANAC (Blogger Version)
Because a blog enables me to post my own entries, I’m slowly transferring the entire contents of my Naturalist’s Almanac Web site to my Naturalist’s Almanac blog. Although I’m using WordPress for most of my Web projects these days, I decided to use Blogger for this one because Blogger does a better job of printing individual posts than WordPress does. I’m old-fashioned enough to fantasize that teachers or librarians might want to print some of my posts and put them in a resource file or attractive notebook, or maybe hand them out to students or post them on bulletin boards, so Blogger is still in my life.
NATURALIST’S ALMANAC (WordPress Version)
I started a WordPress version of my Naturalist’s Almanac because WordPress lets me do something Blogger doesn’t: publish my posts in chronological order. That means my WordPress version can start with January 1 and end with December 31, which pleases me. I hadn’t been able to commit a lot of time to cutting and pasting all my posts just to get them in chronological order because I’d still have to go over to Blogger to print them, but recently I discovered a unique WordPress Theme that prints clean, clear, uncluttered versions of my posts. It’s called K-2 Lite, and I’ve now decided to move all my Blogger entries over to WordPress. Poor old Blogger may wind up an orphan yet.
Another of my Blogger blogs that I’ve decided to maintain in a static state is my first online commonplace book — a collection of 50 quotations that I didn’t want to lose because they struck me as important or interesting or thought provoking. Even after I transferred these quotations to WordPress and began to add more, I went back to the Blogger version every once in a while just to check the originals. I discovered two things: I like the way the old Blogger template looks and my first 50 entries still resonate.
MY COMMONPLACE (WordPress Version)
I’ve retained my original 50 quotations and added many more to the WordPress version of my online commonplace book — so many in fact, that I created a second commonplace for the quotations specific to my interest in the natural world….
This one is relatively new, and I still have a lot of posting to do.
This one is the most personal of my blogs. In an effort to figure out what my life is all about, I’ve declared all my hard work as well as my confusion and uncertainty about what I’m doing, exploring, considering, and wondering about “Homework for a Vision.” By thinking about my life that way, everything — even mistakes, false starts, discouragements, setbacks, and wasted time — seems meaningful. I began it on Blogger in 2003, but in 2009 I transferred it to WordPress and hope to become more attentive to my homework….
Of my Word Press blogs, the one that’s growing fastest of its own accord is called “Factoids.” I began it to keep track of bits and pieces of interesting information I didn’t want to lose in my files, but it soon became a repository for all kinds of things I felt like underlining when I was zapping through all the newspapers and magazines I read. I’m a little discouraged by the volume of information I’m accumulating and the increasing length of my posts, but I’ve decided to let this blog evolve to see where it might be taking me….
I am fascinated by Vermont’s weather, especially records, history, patterns, and significant events. Back in 2002 I created an ambitious Web site called the VERMONT ALMANAC, which offers historical, statistical, and weather related information for every day of the year. About the time I finished it, I realized that Vermont’s weather is still happening, so I launched this blog as a repository for the new information I chance upon.
This is my newest blog. My Web designer told me the new Web site she created for me should have a blog to help attract notice, so I launched this one for that purpose. I actually got a long and interesting comment on my eleventh post, which has encouraged to carry on.
