Why Do Good Bloggers Disappear?

        I spend time every week searching for blogs that I would like to follow. I like blogs where people post at least once a week. I have a wide variety of interests so I look for topics on  birds, wildlife, gardening, life experience, art, books, music and posts that provoke thought on  variety of topics. I find something that looks interesting and then follow it on my favorites for a while. If I think this would be an interesting blog then I follow it.


       My searches are some what scattered. Once I looked at some one's picture beside me and it turned out to be an awesome blog. Jenn ably covers a wide variety of topics on Cottage Country Reflections. She is an expert on grief as she spent time looking after her parents and so had first hand knowledge in the care and loss of loved ones. Jenn is a passionate advocate for fairness , justice and equality so when she gets on her podium on these topics she's got my undivided attention. So I found this blog by blind luck.


      Most of the time I comb through lists of followers or blogs people follow. I find many excellent well written blogs but find some of them to be limited to a specific area or topic that is not highly interesting to me. I also follow a number of political bloggers but I haven't put them on my blog list but keep them on my favorites list.


    Now what causes me some concern and curiosity is when some good bloggers suddenly disappear. There's a last post and  no more. There's no warning that the blog is about to cease. I had a second blog one time and I decided to give it up. I had started the blog when I didn't really understand how blogger worked so wanted to try something else. When I decided to call it quits I wrote a last post and told readers, if there were any, that this was the last post.


     Several blogs which have ceased , explained and gave notice that the blog would end. Peter Stewart, from Out of My Multiple Minds was up front with his readers and fully informed us that he was dying. Peter blogged until two days before his death and his daughter posted after his death. It was a most powerful blog and gave me a great deal to think about. Some bloggers have come to the point where they wish to slow down. Teacher Man told us he would see us later. From time to time he still posts.


     The people who just plain disappear leave a bit of a hole in my blog world . They've had excellent blogs and then disappear with out warning. I keep hoping that some day they will come back. As time goes on I begin to fear the worst and that the blogger has passed on. I understand that in the real world someone will have much more important things to do at the end of their life than to write a blog. Some people , I'm sure, become incapacitated and are not able to blog and they may not have friends who know about their blog. So these bloggers have just disappeared: Margaret's Ramblings, 70 Plus and Still Kicking, Truthteller and Wren's Nature Note book. I enjoyed reading your posts and miss you. 

     Bloggers often develop great friendships. The online world can become very meaningful and a rich source of    support in daily life. I appreciate the bloggers I follow and value their thoughts and comments made through their blogs.

Cell Phone Surprise!

     I had advertised two bikes for sale. One person had phoned me to make an appointment to come and buy one of the bikes. As this call was sooner than I had expected I went out to clean up the bike a bit and pump up the tires.

     When I was out the phone rang and my wife answered. No one replied when she answered. She could hear weird noises and thought that maybe ot was a prank call but there was a name and number on call display. She said hello several more times and then decided to leave the caller on line and hoped they would discover they couldn't use the phone if she didn't hang up. We were spooked a couple a days ago when we received a call that was very suspicious and fit the pattern of a well publicized scam. The caller had left a message that they were from a bank and had an urgent message for me and that I was to call back. This was 7:00PM so I decides to wait and call the bank the next morning. So my wife's apprehension was totally justified in this case.

     After 18 minutes some very surprised person discovered his cell phone was on and could not figure out why it had dialed our number. My wife gave him a rough time because by this time she was not only upset, she was livid. We discovered that it was the guy who was coming to buy the bike. When he got to my place he discovered that indeed the call was from his cell and he had discovered what had happened. He had a touch phone and had not turned it off so when he put it in his pocket the touch rang my number. So for 18 minutes we could hear noise, conversation in two languages and no one responding to us.

     Now the cell phone was in the guy's pocket and the sound was not good but I can well imagine that some discussions that could have taken place could have been pretty "interesting." This gentleman was certainly surprised as to what had happened and a little embarrassed. He apologized profusely. So sometimes cell phones are capable of causing a big surprise.

Is Dental Surgery Ever Nice?

        This week I had some minor dental surgery.  I had a small growth inside my lower lip. It was in a position where I would accidentally bite it about once a month . Of course , the pain and surprise were pretty intense. My dentist took it off in 2002 but it grew back right away.

       So when I went for my regular dental check up in March, I told the dentist about the little growth and asked him about it. He remembered taking it off and was surprised that it grew back and said that he would take it off again and do a "better job."

       All the necessary weapons were laid out and the deed was done on Friday at 11:20 AM and I was home in time for lunch with four sturdy stitches to close the wound. As I was eating lunch I said, "I think these stitches are coming out." Sure enough two stitches had let go and disappeared while I ate lunch. A third stitch disappeared in the afternoon. Now what do I do at six PM on a Friday evening with only one stitch left? So I can phone this dentist after hours. He told me that he would see me in the office on Sat. at 10:00AM. He looked in my mouth and was surprised that the stitches were gone! So this time he put in seven stitches altogether and two different kinds. Guess what? As I was eating lunch I could feel that stitches had given away. By evening I had lost four stitches. So phone my friendly dentist again. This time he said, "It will heal without stitches so let's leave it." The position of the surgery was were there is much movement of lips and teeth. As I said the location is exactly where my teeth meet so the teeth would catch on the stitches ans soon loosen them.

     Now getting the growth cut out was not a problem but getting eleven stitches leaves your lip full of twenty-two little holes that HURT. So I learned a lesson and my dentist also learned a lesson about the challenge to put stitches in a lip.

Glasses Shopping Challenges

       Three months ago I had my annual eye check up at my optometrist. He told me that there was a change in my prescription and that I should get new lens. So okay, I'll look after that later.

       This week I finally had time to shop for lens and my trusty shopping advisor came with me or rather , closer to the truth, I went with my shopping advisor.

        We had very specific things we wanted in a lens and asked for a list of each specification. We wanted brand X , trifocals, plastic, UV coating and a specific brand of coating. The day was a challenge to say the least.

       The first place we went to did not deal in trifocals.

        The second place would only give a complete estimate and would not break anything down. When we pressed to be sure we were being quoted the specs we wanted he became somewhat rude and left us. He also answered two phone calls while talking to us.

       The third place really weaseled around the brand X lens and we finally pinned them down and they were quoting another brand.

       The fourth and fifth places were much more direct and broke their quotes down without any prompting.

       The sixth and seventh places danced around coatings and would not directly say what coating was being used.

     The last place would not quote brand X as they did not deal with the brand but wanted us to think what they had was equivalent.

    So after a day of shopping we were much less than satisfied. In coatings alone the quote was from $79.. to $179.00. One has to think that there was some fudging on what coatings were actually going to be used. We found that several places were claiming to give us brand X but what they were really doing is sending their lens out for the brand X coating.

    We were quite disgusted as all places were trying so hard to compete that they were making the whole process hard to understand. Some of them were just outright dishonest. I was left very disappointed to find that a very necessary product had become so complicated from a sales point of view that the poor little old consumer was left out of the equation.

     We picked the best of the bunch to buy from and went in on a Wednesday as they had a sale on. My shopping manager decided to ask if the change in my prescription really warranted a change of lens. The licensed optician was very direct and said , "No, this lens need not be changed." She said that a change that small if tested over at different times would probably move back and forth. So after a long frustrating day of shopping I found out that I really didn't need to change the lens. I was also left really wondering how honest the dealers were in the optical business.

Sometimes I Fall Like a Sack of...

       A few months ago I posted about falling in the snow while I was cross country skiing. I hoped the neighbors didn't see me as it was rather embarrassing getting myself out of the deep snow. One of my blog readers had a good comment as she said, "You just had to tell about it." Since that time two people told me that they saw me struggling awkwardly to get myself out of the snow. They were ready to come out and help me.

      At my age falling is a serious issue. As I just told you it can be hard getting back up. But mostly the risk of serious injury is quite high. Also falling can be caused easily because of poorer vision and less sense of balance. However, I do not let these issues deter me from being active. In other posts I have told of my participation in skating, cycling, running, gardening etc.

      It's cycling season now and you guessed it I fell off my bike!!! One of those slow awkward embarrassing falls. And again I hope nobody saw me but it's alright to write about it. I started on my ride and suddenly the pedal stuck and I couldn't move my right foot. I looked down and saw that my shoe lace had caught in the large sprocket and that the shoe lace had wound around the crank. So there was my foot tightly held against the pedal. I couldn't pedal anymore and so soon the bike was going to stop and I would have to think fast as to how to get myself out of the situation. I couldn't tip to the left as my right foot was caught and I would be hung up with nowhere to go. I couldn't tip to the right as my right foot was caught and I wouldn't be able to put my foot on the ground to balance the bike and remain upright. So I more or less did a semi controlled fall to my right. It worked. I then got my shoe lace unwound and got up with no harm done. One more surprise. The chain had come off the back sprocket and jambed so when I tried to pedal the cranks wouldn't turn.

      So I felt like I was a sack of something falling on the curb with a quiet plop! Hopefully that's the last fall I have this year.

How Time Flies

        Yesterday morning I noticed that my friend, Bob,  had wished his daughter a happy 45th birthday. He mumbled a couple of things about entering into the world of parenthood 45 years ago and that parenthood was still great to this day.

       A week ago a blogging friend did a piece where part of it included a picture of her with her infant son, a son who left her and this world all too soon at the age of 40.

       I was fortunate enough to be 68 years old when my Dad died. I had told Dad that I wanted a Dad until I was 70.

       All of these examples are about the passage of time. With the passage of time there are losses. We lose our youth. We lose our children. We lose our parents. In some ways we lose the past as it dims and disappears.

       With my friend with the 45 year old daughter I couldn't help but comment that back when his daughter was born he was Mr. tall dark and handsome. His daughter got a big chuckle over my comment. I started to think of why she would think the comment humorous. When I first met her Dad he was in his late 20's with some gray hair on the temples. He was a lanky dude who was very active. His daughter obviously does not remember him in that way. By the time she would make memories of her Dad he would have changed physically.

       DJan, the blogger, often writes about her lost son. DJan looked at the picture and could vividly remember her lost son  and it brought back good memories of him. What she felt most about the picture was to look at herself and feel that she could hardly recognize herself. The photo was one that she had not seen before so to see it was a shock.

     As I was reaching rather ancient milestones and visiting my Dad I could see that the wheels were turning in his head. On one of his birthday cards I told him that on my next birthday I would be sixty-five. My step mother told me that he sort of shook his head and thought about it and then said, "You know Red's and old man!" My stepmother thought the comment hilarious and so did I. It must be hard for a man to watch his son grow to be old.

      All of these situations occur as time passes.  Our memory of the past dims and the situations we pass through modify our perception of our past. It's interesting to visit with my brother and compare the memories we have of the same things. We are less than a year apart so we were there for the same things. Sometimes we refresh each others memory of incidents we experienced.

       Alvin Toffler in Future Shock has an excellent section on time and how humans think about time. Toffler goes back and shows how we began measuring time which then posts landmarks in our lives. Toffler also dealt with our perception of time  and how it alters as we age.

      So these three situations just happened to come together and get me thinking about time. This coming from a guy who never wears a watch.

      How do you feel about the passage of time? Does it intrigue you? Does the passage of time make you feel happy or sad? I hope that everybody fully enjoys the passage of their life and the experiences they have.

Great Spring Bird Count

       Today was the day to count birds in our area. I have posted before that I have participated in winter and spring bird counts for a long time and enjoy them. Today was one of those "just right" days...clear , calm, and cool. Birds were not particularly active but there was enough to keep my interest. I saw 14 different species. One species I had never seen before but when I identified it I realized that I had heard this bird many times before. So today I officially saw a warbling vireo.

        The area that I patrol is a coulee that runs into the Red Deer river. It's old growth spruce and poplar. Unfortunately many invasive species are making their way into this coulee.The part I count in is from .5 km to 1 km wide.

      For the spring bird count we also count native plant species which are blooming. I'm not too hot on identifying plants so today I said I will take the cam,era and take pictures. This is because the count coordinator called me one time and said, "Did you really see the plant you named?" So I had to hoof it back to where I saw the plant and get more information. It was easy to identify once I was told what to look for. In that case I brought a specimen back.

     Since our spring is very late we do not have many native species in bloom.

The first bloom I saw was what I call buffalo bean Thermopsis rhombifolia. These are prairie flowers and grow well in disturbed areas .

     The next plant I found was the early blue violet violo adunca. These plants bloom very early and are very attractive. The ones I found were a patch of a bout the size of a house.

     The third blooming plant I found isn't hard to find as it's quite abundant. Saskatoon amelanchier alnifolia is again a common prairie plant found in coulees and forest edges. These plants have along history with the aboriginals and when my people came here they immediately took a liking to saskatoons. One summer my mother canned 96 quarts of saskatoons. These are known in other areas as juneberries or service berries.

 

           The fourth plant I had to cheat a little bit as it is only in bud This is the choke cherry prunus virginianna. Again these plants grow on stream banks and on the edges of forests or on the prairie "bluffs." Again the choke cherry has a great flavor and are used to make syrups and jellies. They have a pit and since they are small berries would be difficult to take the stone out and use the flesh . Raw choke cherries are fairly tart.

The fifth plant I found made me do lots of work to identify it. It's a plant that I should know. I think after this I will remember fairy bells(disporum trachycarpum). These plants bloom early before the trees fully leaf out. They grow in moist shady poplar or mixed woods and thickets.

     So my day was much more interesting when I took the camera to record sightings. Plants don't fly away like birds and you don't have to wait for plants as you would with birds. I a couple of weeks I will have to make another tour and show some more native species in bloom.