Several years ago, I took a blogging journey through the American Civil War. Each day, I posted material from the corresponding day in a specific year of the war. I started with the fall of 1860, the last several months before the war started
At first, the material was from news articles, including images, from both sides, with a semi-regular entry from the diary of a Washington, D.C. clerk. Over time, a couple of more diarists were added with fewer and fewer news articles.
On of the things I was trying to do was to – like so many others – “make money online.” While I was making virtually nothing from the civil war chronicles, I was making a couple of hundred dollars a month on another website.
With another year until the diarists would reach the end of their war, I made the decision to abandon the civil war chronicles and concentrate on trying to capitalize on the success of the other site.
Two years later, that site is still earning money – a couple of hundred dollars a month.
I keep getting distracting off into other things that interest me more.
That being the case, I’m taking a step back to the beginning – a new civil war based blog.
It’s called Diaries of the Civil War, though it will also include letters and other narratives. Most posts will be for the corresponding day 150 years earlier.
The blog is organized as though there is a community of authors. Each diary, letter, and journal writer will appear in the blog as a contributing author.
And, yes, it is already live.
The main events don’t begin until later in 1860. Until then, I will be populating the blog with material, for the most part, that occurred before the current date in 1860.
It is at http://dotcw.com. Please come visit.
It’s pretty plain right now. I will be adding graphics later and links later on. Yes, there will be advertizing, but the ads will not intrude into the content.
I’m already learning new stuff – and, it’s hardly even started.
I’ve started work on a blog project which will use the WordPress scheduling feature.
I’m returning to working with material written at the time of the Civil War. Next year, 2011, will be the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the war.
I will be publishing material day by day associated with the same day 150 years earlier. The material is coming from a number of sources – all from the time of the civil war or written by people who lived during that time.
So far, I have 127 posts scheduled.
Right now, the earliest post is for December 17, 1860 – which will be published December 17, 2010. (Tensions are escalating between the North and the South. South Carolina is on the verge of seceding from the Union. )
The latest post, so far, is for May 19, 1861, and will be published one year from today, May 19, 2011. (The nation is split asunder. Five weeks ago, South Carolina forces under Confederate General Beauregard opened fire on United States troops in Charleston Harbor’s Fort Sumter, reducing it to rubble in the 34 hour bombardment. Miraculously, there were no Union soldiers killed during the battle. A Confederate soldier bled to death from wounds resulting from a misfired cannon.)
Since I’ve never been nominated for one of these, it’s no big deal to me that the 2009 Weblog awards have been canceled.
What is interesting, though, is the reason that they’ve been canceled.
It seems that voting is just too resource intensive – and expensive.
For more on the story see 2009.weblogawards.org.
While I’m moving on – or back – to other things, climate issues will continue to be an interest. With 5 of my last 6 posts being on the subject, it’s time to look at other things. I’ll try to figure out a way to continue to share some of what I learn, though, without this becoming a climate change blog.
I’m still happy with Windows 7. My computer at work uses XP, though, and moving back and forth between Windows 7 and XP makes getting used to Windows 7 a little harder, I think.
Yes, I am still working. A contract extension has been approved and, assuming the VP signs the funding paperwork, I will be there until about the middle of March. After that, I plan not to work for at least the rest of 2010.
Regular visitors to Exit 78 may recognize that my theme has changed once again. I have moved to the Thesis theme, which allows a lot more control over the appearance. I’ve got the basic structure down pretty good now, but I’ll be tweaking on it, so there may be subtle changes day to day.
I still have a little bit of material to post from our September trip, photo galleries to develop and publish and images from the great depression to share.
Moving on.
Ten days ago, I had finally had it.
I had been created a photo gallery from the images of our first day in Rocky Mountain National Park. Unfortunately, I was having more difficulties than normal in getting the gallery uploaded to the server.
I had also been having more and more little problems with my computer — nothing serious that kept me from using it, just a bunch of little things that I either found a work-around on or just gave up on.
The computer was working and doing just about everything I needed, but it was 3 years old, and it was time for a change.
A drastic change.
No, I didn’t go out and buy a new computer, though that was a consideration.
Instead, I reset the computer back to the original software configuration. I’ve taken more drastic measures — such as reformatting the hard drive or buying a new one — to resolve problems with previous computers. This was bad enough, since I had to reload the programs I wanted and install all of the updates. That’s still not completely done.
I’ve also also figured out my problem with uploading material to the server. I’m in the process of downloading all of my material from the server and will be changing the way that I publish new stuff to the website. (The problem was in Microsoft FrontPage extensions, which I won’t be using any more.)
With working odd hours and dealing with all this, posting material from our September trip was interrupted. I will be posting more from the trip, hopefully in the next day or so.
I will be quite busy for the next few days so posting of material from our Colorado trip will be delayed.
Most of my posts have been delayed, partially as a result of not being in a location with wifi or, when we do have wifi, having difficulties with it. I will continue to post material from our trip to Colorado. The posts will be in sequence and will have a date appropriate for the activities and photos being described and/or used.
We used to use a portable satellite dish for internet access. It could be a real pain to set up, but, when it was up, it was only a little slower than our DSL at home.
When we went to a smaller recreational vehicle, our storage options became much more limited. On our first long trip, we took along the portable system, but I forgot the alignment instructions. We still had to deal with the dish when we moved stuff around and it took up a significant portion of our storage space. When we went on our trip in May, we left the dish at home and decided to rely on wireless whenever it was available.
Unfortunately, the wireless circuits in Karen’s computer stopped working. We’ve tried two different USB wireless adapters for her computer. The results have varied from campground to campground and wireless location to wireless location.
Some of the places we’ve stopped at have had a great wireless connection. The KOA in Ouray, Colorado, however, is terrible for wireless. It would run just fine and, then, it would seem to stop completely or just plain crawl very slowly. I guess it has some kind of limiter that limits traffic if too much bandwidth has been used. However, in today’s internet world, where most websites are going to have a combination of pictures and text, that is just NOT satisfactory.
It was certainly more enjoyable when we were in the National Parks or Corps of Engineers parks where there was NO wireless available at all.
I will be replying to most of the comments when I get a chance, especially those who have asked questions.
The bad part of this trip, though, was looking forward to going back to work at the end.
Note: While I will not be posting material from the Colorado trip for a few days, other pre-published material will be posted.
This post is being simultaneously published on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About.
This new notebook sure is small compared to her old one.
I started doing some of that this time, which is what enabled me to finish the trip with most of the images processed. I will pick back up with the travel journal blogs from September 5th.
What’s a blog?
November 14, 2009
About our blogs
I’ve been blogging for several years now and currently have 3 active blogs.
I post to Exit78 the most, sharing some of my photos, vintage images I’ve discovered, and — occasionally — commentary and thoughts from retired life.
Haw Creek Out ‘n About is images and information about places — where we are, where we’ve been, and where we’d like to go, while Haw Creek is intended to be primarily related to information on recreational vehicles.
I publish posts on our travels simultaneously on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About.
Karen’s blog, Quilts….etc., as the title implies, is mostly about her quilting, but she also chats about a lot of other things that interest her.
We both have regular readers, though I think Karen has more than I do, and we both read a number of other blogs.
There are several different, though similar, definitions of the word, “blog.”
The word “blog” is a contraction of the term “weblog” or “web log.”
The term actually originated from online diarists. Early web diaries (c. 1994) evolved into web journals, then web logs, and, today, blogs.
While many hobby bloggers enjoy blogging and stick with it, most blogs actually die quite quickly. Other blogs die a slow death, with irregular, hit-and-miss posting, and then… nothing. Last year, I took a look back at the blogs I had been reading a year earlier. Less than a quarter of them were still active.
For more information on blogs and blogging see Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere – 2009 or Wikipedia’s article, Blog.
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