So, I have been having some ongoing issues with hosting of my blog and some my fiancee’s and my other sites.  We are in the playing with migrating web hosts and I have move some sites to a new host already.  Suffice it to say, this weekend was an interesting weekend.  I learned that even with the great support that my original host claimed to have, they were not very impressive. I might write a real review later after we decide if we want to complete the migration or not.  I have 30 days to decide if I want to stay with the new host or not.

It just really bugged me that even though I got right through to a real person on the phone, there was nothing they could do to help me except tell me to email support.  I couldn’t get a direct contact information for one person to deal with, so there was never a time when one hand knew what the other was doing.  All a big mess really.

So, what does that mean?  Well, what would be really great is if some of my readers would take a couple minutes and poke around through the blog and tell me if they see anything not working right or if things are silly slow or anything.  Basically, I just need more eyes than my own to look at things and give feedback, it will help me to figure out if it is worth staying with the new host or if I should leave things as they were. Besides, you might find an old post that you like!

I appreciate the help!

So there is this really cool thing that I discovered thanks to Island Gal over at NYC Island Gal and that is a German organization that is working on neutralizing the carbon footprint of the blogsphere.  This is a pretty interesting concept, and the fact that it is free makes it even better.  Sure, many hosting services off the option to host your site on “green” servers, but usually you end up paying a premium for that service, and in the end, shouldn’t being green be something we just do and not have to pay for?

I can’t really tell you what else this company in Germany does on account of the fact that their entire website is in German.  I am not really sure how to even get to the english part of the site that talks about the project other than via the links that I have seen.  As soon as I started clicking around the site I was back in German.  I suppose then this would lead many to wonder if they are even legit in what they are doing.  I can’t speak to that, but as the program is FREE, then we, the end users, don’t have anything to lose other than one blog post.

So here is what these guys are doing:  First, you write a post about them (like this one), then you send them an email, and they will then plant a tree for your blog in a forest in California.  They also would like you to display a badge on your blog, which is fine with me.  Why does this work?  Well, according to them, the average blog produces around 8 pounds of carbon every year.  The average tree scrubs about 11 pounds of carbon each year from the atmosphere.  So by planting one tree for every participating blog, you actually neutralize more carbon than the blog produces.

Why do blogs produce carbon?  Well, you have to consider that no matter where your blog resides, be it on blogger or wordpress.com or on your own server or hosting account, that machine uses a lot of energy to host your blog.  Most of us are not on dedicated servers, even those of us who are self hosted are usually on a communal server in a server farm somewhere.  So, not only is the server itself using energy, but it takes a lot of energy to maintain the servers and keep them cool and functioning.  This all contributes to the carbon footprint of your blog.  I suppose you also have to consider the energy used by your own computer when you write posts as well!

If you want to read more and see the quoted research that all this information is based on, you can fid it here.  I didn’t think that I needed to take up too much space quoting them.  As I said before, they sound pretty legit about the whole program, and any little thing we can do to make an impact in helping out our home seems like a worthwhile cause to explore.  So, if you are interested in joining the cause or finding out more information, here is a link to the organization.

Just a few easy steps to make it green:

1. Write a blog post about the initiative + insert your favorite button
2. E-mail the link to your post to CO2-neutral@kaufda.de
3. They’ll plant a tree for your blog in Plumas’!

You know, for as much as blog awards are kind of the chain letters of the blogshpere, I don’t think it matters who you are, you probably still enjoy getting them.  I suppose it is partially the feeling that someone out there actually does read your blog and also that someone thinks enough of your blog to pass along the award.  So, this award comes from my friend, the lovely Wilmary of NYC Island Girl.  It is the “I ♥ Your Blog” award.  It doesn’t really need much in the form of introduction as you can tell by the name what it is pretty much all about!  It was certainly a nice thing to get to end this weekend (not that it was a bad weekend, just hectic).  I of course, have a few people in mind to pass this award along to, which I will do later on in the post.

Due to now having a second blog award I decided to make a couple little tweaks to my layout.  Odds are that most of my visitors will never notice since you probably just read my blog in your reader.  However, if you do visit my actual site you will notice that I added a little widget at the bottom of both sidebars.  One has awards and the other has sites that I am a proud member of.  I have shrunk the badges and linked them to the sites and the awards link back to the post of the person who gave them to me.  Maybe it is a little ego-centric, but I figured that it would be nice to display those things where people might actually notice them.

In other news, I spent the day yesterday running around in the rain in Vermont watching my mother run on the Covered Bridges Half Marathon.  Despite the rain it was kinda fun. I also got to play more with the puppies, who are a lot of fun, but they are little terrors sometimes.  After the race we headed over to Hanover, NH to have lunch with my siblings before heading down to Boston.  I got to see my brother’s new apartment in Boston when I dropped him off, and then I settled in at home to do some blogging and email and general catch up.

Without further ado, I suppose I shall now pass along this award.  I don’t know how many people it is supposed to go to, but here are a couple of the blogs that I think deserve some love:

• From the Stupidest Corner of My Mind by Ella Unread.  I love the way that she writes.  No matter what she is writing about, it is always a beautiful read.
• Tall Brunette: The Northwest Girl by Tall Brunette.  Probably one of the most eloquent bloggers that I read.
• There’s Beauty in the Breakdown by Penny Ann.  A relatively new blog that I just started to read after chatting with Penny on 20SB.

I am sure that there are more people I could give this award to.  Possibly almost everyone that read is a potential candidate.  I ♥ you all!

I am still so far from being caught up on all the blogs that I follow.  My reader has piled up a pretty sizable number of unread.  I am sure that I will get around to reading them this week, but it seems like one of those things that once you get out of the rhythm, it is hard to get back on.  So, for those of you who a I read, I will get to you eventually, I have not forgot about you.

This post is the 200th entry on my blog.  I have entries that date back to 2005 on here.  It is true that this domain and WordPress were not always the home of my blogging, but to me, it is all the same.  It is the collection of my thoughts, feelings and emotions.  I have blogged on a few other services over the years.  In fact, the other day I re-discovered probably my first ever blog (if that is what it was called at that point) over on Blurty.  The earliest post on that blog was in December of 2003, go figure.  I have been at this on-and-off for a while it seems.  What you find here did originate in a different place, but while I have had a few names and domains it is really all one collection.

I have been writing since at least the beginning of high school.  The first journal that I ever wrote in was given to me by may father.  it came with one condition: If I were to fill it up, he would get me another.  Well, I did fill it up along with a number of other books.  They all remain private and tucked away on my bookshelf.  To tell the truth, I don’t even remember the last time I opened them.  I am sure that there is stuff in there that would make me smile, laugh, be embarrassed and more today.  I should do that at some point, take a trip down memory lane, it might be fun.

I think now that I feel like I have a real permanent home as a blogger here on this domain I have become much more regular and active with my blogging.  This is also the home of the article that I wrote about photography for theatre.  I am building a recipe book here and hopefully people will send in some recipes.  I would be happy to try them out and maybe even feature them in the future.  Needless to say, this site is home to a lot of my words, musings, ponderings, rants and more.  It is a new adventure every day and I hope that all my readers are enjoying the ride!  Speaking of my readers, at the time of this writing I 15 listed followers (I bet there are more of you out there) which is pretty cool!

I blog for myself, just to put my thoughts down in writing, to have something to look back on in the future.  The fact that there are people out there who have found my corner of the internet and take some kind of interest in what I am posting here is kind of cool.  I would love to say that I do this for all of you (my followers), but you guys are really just the icing on the cake.  I am not sure what it was/is that makes me find it interesting to publicize  the thoughts that I post here, but I appreciate the support, feedback and community that my followers bring!

While I was working on my presence here on my blog I also discovered some great blogger friends through the 20SB blogging community.  I helped start up a blog-swap event with a bunch of people from there that we named Bloggerstock.  The kick off event was a great success and the second event is shaping up well with sign-ups underway.  So I think that I am finally being noticed on some part of the blogsphere, which, I suppose, no matter what anyone says, is an underlying ideal for all bloggers.

The journey to create a web-presence for myself has been fun.  I have learned a lot of things from coding to finding ways to write.  I have received many tips from many people including my brother.  It is great.  Getting to 200 posts is a pretty cool landmark, and it makes me feel like I am kinda “dug-in” here.  So, to my readers, thanks again for joining me on the journey.  Here is to the next 200!

As I understand it, blogging is a two way street.  While sure, I have to write something that other people might want to read, it helps if I read what other people have to say.  Frankly, reading other blogs is probably a lot more interesting than reading the newspaper every day. You can probably get the same amount of world news by reading the right blogs every day as well, you just get more biased viewpoints, which is probably not a bad thing.  I mean, the newspapers and media agencies all have their own slant, especially here in Salt Lake City!

There have been a few blogs that I have been following for a while but I wanted to figure out how I could expand who I was reading and then maybe expand who found me.  It really is a strange fascination that many of us have in wanting other people to read what we write.  I mean, sometimes I wonder if I really have something to say that anyone cares about.  It isn’t like anyone listens to me at work, I have been here for four years and sometimes I wonder who notices!

The three blogs that I have been reading regularly are: Photofocus by Scott Bourne, MonsteRawr by Stephanie Van Sandt, and Youngest Around by Jessica Watson.  Photofocus is a great read for photographers with lots of interesting and useful information.  MonsteRawr is just a firend of mine who I met through ControlBooth.com, and Youngest Around is Jessica’s blog documenting her solo circumnavigation sailing adventure.  Also I have recently started to read Jim on Light as we have started to have some interactions on Twitter.