Doing this post turned out to be harder than I thought. I don't want to sway anyones opinion toward one blog at the expense of another. The idea I had is to remain fair and impartial which means in the coming weeks I will be posting blogs that I'm enthusiastic about and those that I'm less enthusiastic about. There will be blogs that I don't really care for and feel that I need to post here because I'm not trying to discriminate. I'm trying to simply list all new blogs that I find.

The other aspect of this is how to categorize them. I've decided to divide into 4 categories. They will be listed as Adult, Fiction, Teen and Other. Other will include our Anything, Random thoughts, Life and etc. blogs.

Other Blogs:

sunshine rider

Out Of This World

Something New Today

Major Danes

Adult Blogs

A Whole Lot Of Sh1t

Welcome To My World

 

Shortly after my Dad died his place of employment took out an advertisement in our local newspaper extolling his virtues as a valued employee of 48 years. It was beautifully written, it praised him to the hilt, and we hated them for doing it. Outsiders comment to me and other members of the family how delighted we must be by the amount of value his employer placed on him. They seem rather surprised that none of us are impressed. None of us waste time explaining our disgust because in my stepmothers words "Our Dad would kill us".

He loved his job. Truly, in a way that many people do not. He was blind to the faults of his employers, choosing to see only that which allowed him to turn himself inside out in an effort to make them money. He had a knack for being able to make other people money at the expense of his own family and in this case his own health and life. I grant that he probably lived as long as he did because he had a purpose, but at the same time that purpose contributed to his death. He had retired as General Manager at the appropriate age, and then went back to work part time in a number of different capacities.

Part of this particular business was called the Bargain Barn, and it was discovered that the manager of this division was cheating the company. He was fired, and the boss asked Dad to take over. Originally it was to be a part time position, he was after all, in his middle 70's then. Unfortunately, other employees hired weren't as reliable nor as honest as Dad so his part time became full time plus. In order to take up the slack he gave up much of his community involvement and focused on his place of employment. Help to lift and climb ladders was promised and seldom materialized so what transpired was pretty physically taxing. He had customers to care for, somebody had to load their vehicles, somebody had to climb the ladder and get down the squares of siding, or the boxes of flooring they had just paid money for. Since he was usually left alone in the Barn it usually was him.

A situation was created in which an 80 year old man was used in a manner that exceeded his actual physical capacity. Sure, he allowed it to happen, probably for his own ego, but they could see that he was becoming weaker. They worked him as much as he would work right up until he fell and broke his hip. Then it was suddenly, this happened because of his prior existing health conditions and they held no responsibility in the matter. He loved doing his job and feared making an issue over the lack of assistance because to do so might have cost him his job. Under the old management the Bargain Barn was losing money. In Dad's first year they listed profits from the place that were close to a quarter of a million dollars, yet he was afraid to ask for help.

He knew he wasn't going to get Workman's Comp, they hadn't paid for any employees injuries in years. He knew that not one single employee or boss would stop to see him or even call and inquire about his health. They never had for any other employee, so why should they start now? He knew he was no longer of use to them. It just took the rest of us a while to accept and understand this. I don't think any of us really has.

Knowing everything, the paid advertisement, and that is what it was; was a slap in the face because we knew that they hadn't even acknowledged my stepmothers grief when she returned the keys to them the day Dad died. They wouldn't even say to her face that they were sorry. The office receptionist was the only one that spoke to her and they knew all ready that he was dead when she got there. Obviously a breach in the confidentiality laws occured at the hospital. They couldn't wait to see the back of her, and pretty much bum rushed her out.

I suggested that she talk to the owner about whether they might be willing to help some with his remaining hospital bills. Her response? "Oh no, I can't do that, your Dad would come back to haunt me". Dad fell because they were working an 80 year old man beyond his capabilities in 90 plus degree weather, but we can't say so because "Dad will Kill us, or at least come back and haunt us.". I guess we are supposed to take comfort from the paid advertising extolling his virtues and thanking him for his 48 years of loyalty. I wonder how many customers that little bit of bull earned them?

I switched last week to DSL and for the most part I like it. Admittedly sometimes it's a matter of getting frustrated faster rather than having faster internet service. However, I find that I can get complete downloads of pages rather than downloads that skip a few components to increase speed. I get to see all the pictures on a page rather than some pictures and some empty boxes with little red X's in the corner. All in all I would say that DSL has improved my online experience. However I have developed one problem.

When I first came online with DSL I could play videos, now all of a sudden videos are chopping up with pauses worse than they did on dialup. I don't know why. It seems to me that I started having that problem when I downloaded Mozilla Firefox, I'm also finding that Mozilla isn't everything it's cracked up to be, at least not on my computer. I think it's a matter of configuring something, but when I went in to my programs I discovered that I appear to have 3 separate programs for playing media. I haven't a clue about any of this. I found that I have Quicktime, Real Player and something called Viewpoint Media player. I'm also not sure that I actually have Real Player because in the column where it tells you how much space it takes up on your drive, there is no listed amount.

I am fairly certain that I had Real Player at one time. I remember opening the information on it once at least, but now when I go to Control Panel, it won't open. I also know I'm pretty good at zigging when I should have zagged, but nothing I did would have removed the program that I know about, anyway. I simply viewed the information and closed the program, so what happened to it? Is this why I can't suddenly play a video for a longer timeframe than 2 second intervals?

The good thing about having DSL is I can get around to sites that I find different things on much better than I could before. It allowed me to find the site that the new Chatboxes some of us are using came from. Instead of using mine here, I set up a blog called Sherry's Rainbow Room to keep and use it on. I have included instructions for how to change your name and how to use it a little. Of course, I'm not always over there even if I'm online, so if anyone decides they want to chat with me send me a comment or something off of it and I'll come on over. Just give me a few minutes in case I'm experiencing a slow internet or another one of those frustrating things I have no clue about.

Now if I could figure out how to get my computer to clean house, cook meals, do laundry and change the kitty litter box I'd have it made. Of course, all this is highly unlikely since I can't even figure out how to get it to play videos. Hey, I can dream...can't I?

I don't think in terms of my blog having enough traffic to mention new bloggers in any of my posts. However, I also don't think that there's any real effective method of finding new bloggers when they join Blogstream. The Recent list at the top of the page is only going to work if you happen to be looking at it, at or shortly after the time a new blogger posts. It's designed to place any blog with new activity on the list rather than just blogs with new posts.

If a new blog gets no attention, it's going to get replaced by a high traffic blog that gets many comments. A new blog isn't going to get the attention unless it has a very interesting name, and what each of us considers very interesting is different. In my case I tend not to look at the recent list as often as I should because I travel to blogs by my Blogs I Like List. That gets time consuming and then I miss the new blogs.

In the same way that not every blogger likes my blog, I'm not going to like every blog, new or otherwise. So sometimes personal preference enters in to the equation. Due to the nature of the situation we end up with a lot of new blogs that are worthwhile and yet they don't get attention and encouragement, which they should get.

How do we correct this problem? I find most new blogs when the owner comes and leaves a comment on my blog, or someone mentions to me a new blog. It occurs to me that if we could get the webmaster Pioneer to design a list that is specifically for new blogs we'd be better off. However, I'm not sure how one would go about that, or whether a few bloggers asking him would be enough to acheive the desired result.

In the meantime, starting this week, I'm going to be trying to find and link new blogs in maybe one post a week so that they will get looked at. I'm going to have to wait until after Monday night when Bella comes back to find out how to do the links.

The blog crawl will be shy a few members tonight but we are having it. Bella left instructions to open the post titled "the Link Page" that is listed in the sidebar on her page under Recent Posts, so everyone who was linked last week is available to us.If you're new and want to be linked for next week leave her a comment identifying yourself and she'll add you to the list. Hey, leave me a comment that you're a new blogger and I'll try to find a way to let people know you're here. There are enough fun and welcoming bloggers here that you should be able to find enough like minded individuals to make this place fun for you.

If any other bloggers know of new blogs that need a helping hand, maybe we should get together and choose one day a week where we can all list them in our posts. That way if someone likes a blog that I don't like they'll get some attention. Even if we can't do a link to it, we can tell others about it and maybe that will help.