The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Updates, We Have Updates

Updates, we have updates for you though we cannot say if you will find them meaningful or important.

We’ll start with the continued question about what to do with this particular blog from a time and financial perspective.

Clearly this doesn’t get updated as often as it once did and the burning question has been is it because of lack of interest or a time perspective.

The answer there probably has more to with time as in I do not have as much as I once did. That is a good thing for on the whole but less good for building and maintaining a readership.

But let’s be honest there is so much content out there we have left the place where could just throw stuff up and expect readers to flock to you.

If you are established you might be able to keep some of the long time folks around by posting occasionally but you still need something meaningful for them to read.

That brings up the financial component because this place is self hosted and it costs more than a couple of bucks to keep running. It is not so costly that I can’t keep it going which is why you have seen it stay live, but I do wonder if I am paying more than I ought to given its current state.

So I go back and forth about whether I ought to move to something that costs less or is free. Been more than a decade since I wasn’t self hosted.


What Purpose Does It Serve?

I am not prepared to just shut it down but I am thinking about going to through the posts and culling the weaker material. How long will that take and what is involved is a reasonable question to ask.

I don’t have those answers yet.

I never tried to be an influencer or a brand ambassador but I did take paid opportunities when they presented themselves. Some of those were pretty good, but it has been years since any of that took place here and that is not the focus.

Can’t say that means I wouldn’t accept anything if it was presented but I am not sure that anyone would be real interested in that now.

So the purpose of this place seems to be somewhere I can write semi anonymously and that is worth something to me.

That is enough to keep this going in some form, just have to decide what that looks like.

Your Monthly Installment

So it seems this joint gets updated monthly which is quite different from several times a day as it once was.

And we are still debating whether to keep going or to roll this up into one of the other blogs out there which also seems to be part of a common theme.

Next week marks the official start of this blogging journey, 20 years of random thoughts and crazy stories.

Think I ought to work on putting something special together for that.

Midnight Barking

If you are truly lucky you’re awake when your dog starts barking at midnight. Awake so that you are not so far into sleep to wonder if it is a dream and if you should rouse yourself.

And when you do wander the house with him you can feel pretty good about what you find or don’t find lurking in the dark.

But there is still that sense from childhood when you remember the feeling that something might be out there just far enough away to hide itself from your furry friend but close enough to find a way inside.

So you thank him for his vigilance and tell him to keep watch while you try to sleep because morning will come too soon.

Time To Get Serious

I ate well over the holidays and had a feeling that I was getting myself into trouble but I ignored it.

It is my own fault. I had really turned things around and I felt like I was on a great track and then there was mix of my own cockiness and failure to remember I am not 25.

I could have gotten away with it then because I could make a few adjustments and turn it on at the gym and the body responded.

This body responds still, but not like it once did and not without accepting that we aren’t who we once were and can’t act like we still are.

So I did this to myself, not making excuses.

Am I being honest or am I being hard on myself?

The answer is yes to both and that is ok.
Turn It Around

I can still turn it around, we haven’t passed the land of no return but it is going to take some work. I am irritated with myself and having to be more concerned about some changes because of aging.

But it is a privilege, getting older that is and one that I need to treat better.

Starts today, guess we’ll see how it goes and go from there.

When Jack Came Back

The idea was for your host to go on a short walkabout and then come back in time to write a post wrapping up the year and then another talking about ’24 because that was going to launch something special.

The launch of something special happened outside of here and it came with several fits, starts, challenges and opportunities.

Color me surprised, sarcasm intended that things didn’t go as planned and that it has taken about five weeks for me to reappear.

Clearly, I haven’t figured out what to do with this place and how to do it. Is it dying or is it just going through an evolution.

The answer is forthcoming but I can’t tell you if that is something we’ll know in a week, month or year.

The Wheels Keep Turning

Figure at some point I’ll have another conversation with the Shmata Queen about this and get her thoughts.

The last time we saw each other in person there was too much going on to dig into it and it didn’t happen.

There have been six million conversations in between so there is truth in saying if it was important it could have been brought up already.

Not that it matters because the ultimate decision rests with me regardless so it is up to me to determine what I want to do and how to do it.

So call that lack of conversation a silly excuse for not taking time to figure it out.  The biggest question I need to answer is what kind of cadence do I wish to hold here.

Do I want to go back to writing daily or updating a couple of times a week. Do I want to try and build the traffic back up again or use this for as a writing sandbox to play in.

I am not sure yet and that is part of why I didn’t put question marks at the end of the previous two sentences.

Can’t really say they are questions any more than I can say they are comments. It is really me thinking out loud and I am ok with that.

Sometimes you don’t need an immediate answer because what is more important is taking time to consider your options, possible, likely and probable.

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