They're Back!

Hey, Blogspot is back! Who woulda thought I would miss being able to blog? But I did. I could view my blog, I could blog hop, I could read other blogs, but I couldn't post. It was frustrating, like trying to reach a good friend by phone and constantly getting a busy signal. My 20-something sons have had on-line journals for years. Sometimes they write copious amounts, laying out their lives, thoughts, doubts and pursuits. When the server crashed at their site, there went all their posts, pictures and personal history. We talked about it, Hollin said it felt like he'd lost a part of himself, two years worth of writing *gone*. I knew what that felt like having lost months of daily journalling due to a hard drive failure on my home computer. Five years ago, the idea of writing for the www to read struck me as really odd. I journalled for me, myself alone and that made it a safe haven to delve and explore the hard stuff, the darker side of my thought and feelings. I didn't want that read! But here I am, blogging. When I told Nathan, my oldest son that I had a blog he said he was set back. Mom has a blog?? He said he didn't know how he felt about that. And we talked about what the difference between a Blog and an on-line journal is. They are not mutually exclusive. A blog can be an on-line journal, but I don't see many on-line journals being used as blogs. He decided that Blogs are mostly topical. Yeah, mostly... So when a big part of Blogspot was inaccessible for two days PST, I thought about the way I'm creating my posts in their editor, uploading my photos to their site and not keeping copies. Today I'm writing in Word, saving locally, pasting to the editor and ftp-ing my photos. What if Blogspot's image server goes belly up? Think about all the blank Blogspots in the world that would create. I largely enjoy the blogs I read because of the wonderful photo illustrations that are included. It wouldn't be nearly as interesting to sit and read Patty in Texas as she rambles or Bonnie in South Carolina as she talks about her quilts. Every cloud has a silver lining. Down time on Blogspot has encouraged me to think about the way I post.