Boy, has it been a wild, up-and-down Year Five in the history of Da Blog. One year ago at this time, Da Blog had hit a low point, with me writing the annual blog-day post in similar conditions to when I wrote the first post in the history of Da Blog – the last time I will probably ever write a post in such conditions. I had just finished the least productive year in the history of Da Blog, one in which I failed to crack 100 posts, thanks in large part to a decision to scale back posting to focus on schoolwork.
That wasn’t entirely successful. The winter quarter was marred by the Bracket Ladder project, then the spring quarter was marred by Mom getting talked into something that proved to be bad for my schoolwork but fantastic for Da Blog: an internet connection for our home. That sequence of events convinced me that the best thing to do for Da Blog was to refocus on it and try to recover the posting frequency that characterized late Year Two and early Year Three.
However, things went back down again for Da Blog over the summer, as I only managed to get a fraction of what I intended done, thanks in large part to getting derailed by another project. Then the school year hit and I stupidly added new football projects (the SEFL and NFL Schedule), resulting in a miserable end of November and early December as my laptop stopped working and I struggled with a late blitz to actually pass both of my classes for once… a quest that ultimately proved successful. (And, of course, all that was wrapped around the move to a new house.)
Now, at the end of the year, I feel like Da Blog is very much on its way back up. On Tuesday I posted on the 100 Greatest Movies Project for the first time in a long time – and I tried to time it so that it went up shortly after the SNF Flex Schedule Watch post, trying to nab that traffic influx. I also raised a question there that could help accelerate getting it done one way or the other. I’ve also been working on trying to further other projects to supplement everything the site already has going on. MorganWick.com is not that different than it was when it launched back in 2009. I’m trying to break it out of that inertia.
More to the point, I feel like I’ve been pointed in a direction that promises to break me out of my inertia. A number of events have taken place in recent weeks and months that could do much to turn my life around. I feel like late 2011 may prove to be a turning point in my life, one that focuses me on the track that will take me to where I want to go, and 2012 will tell the story of how I get there. Da Blog had about 140 posts over the past year, but nearly 100 of them have come in the second half of the year. Passing my classes may provide me with needed money, which may resolve a problem that was fast approaching in June: my Hostmonster account expires then, and if I couldn’t come up with the money (over a hundred dollars) to renew it, I’d have to move the site to Freehostia or worse. I’m not out of the woods yet, but I feel like I have some breathing room.
I promised two site upheavals back in August, neither of which has happened. The web design course didn’t teach me anything that I felt I could apply to the site; as a beginner’s class, the stuff it taught was either stuff I already knew or that I didn’t feel was applicable to a personal site like mine. I gave the design of this site a lot of thought when I created it, so in retrospect there wasn’t much that I needed to improve on. The first one I intended to do, though, I intend to get done before the end of the year.
I feel good about Year Six on Da Blog. I’ve felt good about Da Blog before, but I have a really good feeling that this is going to be the year we turn the corner. And I intend to hit the ground running with it right after Christmas.
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(5-1)
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(0-5)
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(6-0)
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