electronicalifornia

Hello out there.  I hope you can read this.  My blog is gonna look a little funky the next couple of days.  I accidentally uploaded some changes that werent ready and didn’t realized I was working on the server and not locally.  Bear with with and we will have it readable very soon.

Yesterday, we took our youngest (cat) to the vet because he was having trouble going pee.  Turns out it was life threatening and we had to leave him there for an operation.  Funny how life just punches you in face when your smiling, huh? We got a call after the operation saying he did great and was actually in very good shape because my wife caught it early.  *Sigh of relief* That was until 3 a.m. when the doctor called me again.  I almost didn’t want to answer that phone call.  If the person on the other line said what I thought they were gonna say, let’s just say we wouldn’t being leaving for vacation for a very long time (we have had another tragic situation occur after returning from being out of town).  I did answer the phone and turns out his cathater wasn’t working and they needed my permission to put him under to check it out. I spoke with the docter an hour later and she thinks hes gonna be fine, but were still not out of it yet.  His chances of his urethra getting re-blocked up at 80-90%.

Why am I sharing this with you?  Not for your sympathy (though your prayers would be appreciated, as our animals are very important to us).  No I am sharing this simply to state how unbelievably stressful a newborn child must be.  A vulnerable living breathing being that you have no ground for communication is hard when its a pet, but a baby?

How do you do it?

So, if you haven’t noticed…There hasn’t been any posts here in a while, and I’m quite sure my readership has declined further over the last few months. I don’t take offense to this. It just means my little brother is busy and I stopped paying that jr. high kid a long time ago. Which leaves me and Bro #3 reading my blog. Well I seek to remedy this. What’s that you ask? Does this mean I will be posting more frequently? HA! Young fools…I will be abandoning this blog for a newer, funner one.

Actually, I’m not quiting this blog and you will see posts are frequent as they have been (maybe 3 one day and then not another for a week). I would love to keep this thing updated everyday, but my schedule at the moment doesn’t allow for the hour or more sometimes it takes to research and craft a good post.

I am however starting a new blog. It’s a different kind of blog. Much more “stream of conciousness”. It will include photos, videos, links, and short blurbs. Its me sharing the internet and my brain with you (which are coincidentally the same thing, my brain powers the internet…pretty cool huh?) in a short easy format. Check it out, and let me know what you think. I may switch to using it completely or we might decide we don’t like it and come back here full time.

http://shepherd.tumblr.com/

It was a wild year for me and here at electronicalifornia.  In 2006, I celebrated my first year of marriage, held 3 different jobs, re-entered and left college, made a movie, ate at least 10 pounds of gummy bears and grew a beard.

I have now started a new job as of Jan 2nd and I’m sure I’ll be sharing some of my work here, as my new job is very web related.

Now for some stats of last year.

January 2006 - 12 unique visitors (this counts a visitor only on the first time they visit and doesn’t count individual pages they view or clicks they make)

December 2006 - 1596 unique visitors

That growth feels significant to me and I’m glad to have some new people here with us.  I’m not quoting these stats to puff myself up, but I have to admit it does feel good that people are here, reading, thinking and listening.

My 2007 resolution is that electronicalifornia becomes more of a conversation, than a “site to check”.  I know some people are nervous to test the waters of commenting and for some that do comment it’s hard to move out of just saying good post (or bad post).  Commenting is your way of agreeing/arguing/sharing alternative points of view or suggesting your own topics. There are a select few that do participate here (and I appreciate that), but I’d love to see more.

There are several people who read here, who need to start their own blogs.  They are critical thinkers with creative minds and need to be exercising them (my little brother for one).

A blog doesn’t have to be like mine.  In fact blogs are better when they are focused.  Just a pick a topic you care deeply about and research it, read news stories about and talk about it.

The year 2007 is going to be a big year for me.  I am going to finish the graphic novel, read many books (I’ve already finished two), finish bigfoot (and Ocapogogo and The Planet Riparian), travel internationally, and launch several new websites.  Here’s to a another year.

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A heart at peace is full of life, but one full of envy with rot your bones.

I don’t know where I heard that quote and I am probably misquoting it. But it works for thanksgiving and it’s way cooler than “make love, not war”.