No, it's not another month-long celebration or meet and greet. (I'm still recovering from August being so awesome.)
Spectacular September is a decision. A choice. A promise made to self, to be enacted by self, for the benefit of self. A conscious, willful frame of mind in which to exist. And it begins with vacation!
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| Make Your September Spectacular! |
Let me begin this ramble of words by again thanking everyone who contributed to
August is Awesome! That too was a choice, a decision to improve myself by showcasing the awesomeness of others. Lingering in the company of awesome people makes
us a little bit more awesome too, or so I think.
I saw people meet each other all month long. I saw them become followers of each others blogs and Twitter feeds. I watched them engage in meaningful dialog. And I too met new friends, found new blogs to follow and welcomed many new faces here.
It was truly awesome. That's what the series was all about. So again, thank you to everyone who made it an awesome month!
Other news:
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| Looking forward to much of THIS next week! |
Vacation has finally arrived! I have no plans to see my office until the eleventh of September. Instead, Myra and I have plans at Topsail Beach, NC next week. (Means more original NC coastal pictures for my
Sunday Surfing posts!) The house is supposed to have internet access, so barring problems I should be checking in on occasion.
I'll have a couple or three posts scheduled to publish during the week just in case. I will reply to comments--even if I'm unexpectedly without internet access until my return, so
mum's
not the word next week.
Twitter activity, however, will likely be minimal. I use TweetDeck at home. It's just about perfect for the way I use Twitter and I've not yet installed it on my laptop. Time not spent wading in the surf, bathing in the sun or otherwise occupied, I'll be devoting to catching up on some critiquing, reading, writing, and who knows, maybe even a little painting if there's room in the car for the materials.
Free Pictures:
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| This is one of the freebies (scaled down) |
Most everyone is aware of the recent news regarding the unauthorized use of copyrighted pictures on blogs. Although I am by no means a decent photographer, I have nevertheless uploaded a batch of photos that everyone is welcome to use. They're uploaded on
Flickr and have been added to the
WANA Commons pool as well. I can't vouch for their applicability, but I'm doing what little I can to help.
I'll likely add a few more rambling words to tomorrow's
Sunday Surfing post, so until then, make September spectacular!
Thank you so much, Jeff, for asking me to be part of your awesome August! I hope you have a great vacation - surely there's room for a brush and some watercolors, if nothing else!
ReplyDeleteWatercolors would be a better choice for painting on vacation. I usually prefer oil which takes like a millennium to dry and requires toting paint thinner to clean the brushes. If my talent matched the level of relaxation it brought I'd be a happy painter indeed.
DeleteThanks for the wish of a great vacation. I didn't realize until the past few days just how much I had been longing for one.
And thank you for accepting the invitation, Daisy. I loved your post!
Aloha Jeff,
ReplyDeleteYou did a *great* job in August, so go forth and relax-ify :)
You deserve it, mate :)
Thanks, Mark! I appreciate the retweets you did. There was more effort involved than I had anticipated, but it was so very worth it. And relax-ify I shall! :)
DeleteI should be the one thanking you for having me, and also for organising August is Awesome. I really enjoyed meeting all these fantastic bloggers. It was an honour to be on here with the like of the Ninja Captain.
ReplyDeleteI wish you a great holiday. Have a spectacular time away!
It was indeed a pleasure, Imogen. I had loads of fun and got a great deal of satisfaction from it. The honor was mine at being able to host so many awesome folks!
DeleteSpectacular sands, spectacular surf, spectacular September, here I come! :)
Thanks for the invitation to leave the dragon lair for a few and have my five minutes of popularity, hahahaha. It was certainly fun. Besides I've enjoyed meeting all this interesting people and I learned a lot from the posts.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your vacation, balance your Zen and be patient with watercolor. It's a little less forgiving than oil painting as no mistake can be corrected. But I remember it was so much fun back at school. Now I feel like painting something... I'll cut some dwarf beards for brushes.
I only regret I wasn't able to meet all the dwarves. Tell them they're more than welcome. I'll do my best to refrain from dwarf-tossing should they come. :)
DeleteDon't worry about it. They like to be tossed, hahahaha. I even had one of them take a caption of you learning how. ;) I sent it to your mail.
DeleteI saw that, but haven't replied yet. I think that may become my computer's wallpaper. You've got SO MUCH talent! And I didn't even notice the title until you mentioned it. LOVE IT! I am honored. Thank you!
DeleteAugust was really cool. Thanks for asking me to participate.
ReplyDeleteGo enjoy Topsail with your wife! It's been a while since I've visited but I recall it as a beautiful and quaint island.
You're most welcome, Alex. This will be our first visit to Topsail. Nags Head was our destination when the kids were smaller and still living at home. Recently, we've been going to Carolina Beach, but I waited too long to make our usual reservations. Then Myra decided she wants to bring along the Basset Hound. That too is a first.
DeleteIt was a great time. Hey, I'm going into my third week of Beginning Drawing. I enjoy it. Someday, I'll give painting a try. I guess that's the ultimate goal. Have a good, relaxing vacation.
ReplyDeleteI'm almost tempted to agree to an "I'll show you one of mine if you show me one of yours" but I'm not sure I've reached that level of confidence yet. LOL My wife and I took a painting class together years ago. Loads of fun! Glad you're enjoying it! It can be so relaxing as long as you don't demand perfection of yourself--especially while learning.
DeleteI don't demand perfection of myself, but I'm amazed at what I've learned.
DeleteYeah I went through and changed my pics. Can't afford to be sued. Look forward to what's coming this month. Happy vacay!
ReplyDeleteMany thanks, Sheena! Perhaps I'll take a class (time permitting) on photography one day at the local community college. They have one of the best programs on the east coast from what I hear. I just love the fact that my son's camera forgives my often-shaky hands.
DeleteI'm a pretty avid photographer. Certain things about photography are counter intuitive, but once you grasp them, your photography grows by leaps and bounds.
DeleteAh, a new resource to pester for tips. :) I'll have my son's camera throughout our vacation, but not sure how long after that. My little camera is many years old, much lower resolution and has two settings: blurry and blurrier.
DeleteI hope you enjoy your vacation, Jeff! August was really awesome! I'm glad that I got to meet Angela Cothran (I commented on her blog because of you introduced me to her blog!). Thanks for introducing me to so many other AWESOME people and now I'll start visiting\commenting on their blogs! Thanks for putting the possibilities out there :)
ReplyDeleteThank you! I'm glad you got to meet Angela too. There were so many others I wanted to feature as well. Some wanted to participate, but had other obligations. I'll get 'em next year. :)
DeleteI would like to participate...but have no idea what I could write about plus I don't have my email address in my Blogger profile because it's REALLY dangerous online. Thanks again, Jeff!
DeleteI was hesitant about revealing my personal email as well, but chose to take the risk. My blog just isn't popular enough to generate a great deal of spam and such. But then pretty much anything we reveal online carries a degree of risk, be it email addies or vacation plans. (Here's to hoping I never get burned too badly.)
DeleteI will put my email address up when I think it is SAFE and SECURE enough to do so. The internet will never be secure enough but risking it is very high. I don't mind taking risks...I just don't want to receive spam, ads, etc.
DeleteI recently got a comment from someone (I won't say who) who said a nice comment on my blog but PROMOTED a company. I'm not going to deal with span and promo comments. I ignore and delete those comments. I ALWAYS moderate my comments and it's the best thing I've done for my blog.
I agree Jeff, I hope I don't get burned too badly. You just gotta be careful what you post -- ALWAYS.
I think comment moderation is a good compromise. I'd much rather my comment remain hidden until approved than have to deal with those captchas that seem to be getting more difficult to read by the day. I recently left a comment on a blog and made FOUR attempts to get past the thing. If the last attempt had failed, I would have given up.
DeleteRegarding spam, I have nine sitting in my spam comments folder now. Granted, those are the ones that Blogger intercepted and were never displayed. I think I've deleted maybe five or six. That's a decent ratio out of 1,592 comments. Other bloggers apparently get many more.
I turned off word verification a month or two ago. I used word verification for a few months because I was new to the Blogosphere and see who was my audience was: obviously, it was writers. After I learned my target audience, I felt better and didn't feel the need to have the ANNOYING word verification on.
DeleteI still feel the need to moderate comments because who knows what will happen if I don't moderate comments. If I didn't have comment moderation on, I would feel less safe and secure on Blogger. I want to have an excellent experience with Blogger and putting comment moderation on, made it better.
I haven't got any spam, surprisingly. Blogger tells me all the time to check my spam comments. I do that and apprently, my blog isn't that popular to gain spam. It surprised me that it only has happened once. Probably when I've been on Blogger longer, I'll get more spam.
I don't know how this conversation popped up but man, I'm having fun talking to you Jeff! :)
It is nice to see bloggers building relationships with each other!
ReplyDeleteHave a wonderful vacation. It looks like a lovely place!
Yes, the Carolina coast is gorgeous. There are no 12 foot waves, but lots of sunshine and great people. And most any place is lovely when you're with loved ones.
DeleteBuilding friendships is what life is all about, I think. Whether in person or connected by modems, we're communicating with real live people, each with their own unique awesomeness.
I can imagine you must be pretty exhausted now after that Awesome August. Take a well deserved break. Thanks again for allowing me to participate.
ReplyDeleteIn all honesty, the exhaustion came mostly from my wanting to time all the posts to publish at 12:01am. Scheduling worked fine, even on Facebook, but I never found the means to schedule via Google+. But scheduling on both prevented images from accompanying the blurbs since the post wasn't actually published yet. (Took me a few days to realize that was the reason.)
DeleteYou're quite welcome, Ken. I'm glad you were able to participate. Every single guest made August that much more awesome!
Thanks for the pictures and have a great vacation.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Martin! Not a lot of awesomeness in those pics I uploaded, but maybe something will suffice in a rush. ;-)
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