Posted by Raul on October 14, 2010
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This one becomes the number 100 post! Crazy isn’t it? Time goes really fast when we are fully immersed in something we enjoy, like for me writing in this blog.
It’s been a crazy ride for the almost one year so far; with so many ups and downs, so many moments of high speed travel when all the elements seem to be in perfect synchronicity, and so many moments of breaking down by the side of the road, when no creativity, ideas or simply a road to keep going through and a sense of being lost takes home; so, digitally standing there, with both hands in the hips, looking around and thinking -now what!-
The momentum have been growing little by little and now, still a little confused yet with a better idea of the destination, Alien Ghost blog is revving up and increasing speed as the road becomes smoother by the better view offered by an almost year of crawling, walking and now almost running to, at some point, reach the planned destination.
If you got confused by the Alien Ghost logo in red when it should be green, the reason is as a way to reflect this sense of getting more enthusiastic and revved up for the next 100 posts!
Alien Ghost is getting hot! 
Among the many elements that have been part of this process I can happily count the Cherry On Top Award passed on to me by Patricia of Patricia’s Wisdom (thanks Patricia!), the many encouraging comments of several readers, together with their participation in contributing another perspective to many of the posts published so far.
So the seed did germinate and grow a little bit, surviving the elements to still remain and pass on to the group of blogs that didn’t end up in the sad count of abandoned to die after a while.
Now it is about to keep pushing with renewed patience while keep practicing the writing process and the blogging one, to retain and grow even more the momentum that embraces this blog.
“Patience and Practice…the opposite of Quick Reward, which has become the main element of modern society”
To all my readers…thank you for your support, participation and encouraging words. You are the fuel that keeps Alien Ghost moving forward.
See you again in the next 100!
Raul
Posted by Raul on October 4, 2010
It came as a nice surprise when checking the email I found that Patricia of Patricia’sWisdom chose my blog as one of her six to honor with the “Cherry on Top Award”
Thank you Patricia for the distinction and your encouraging words!
Now, there are rules to follow when becoming the recipient of this award and they are:
The Rules
01-Answer this question: If you had the chance to go back and change one thing in your life, would you and what would it be?
02-Thank the person who gave you this award.
03-Pick 6 people/blogs and give them this award.
04-You have to inform the person that they have received this award
01- The question…and the answer!
There are many things I would have done differently…when looking from the safety of the future; but if I had the chance to go back and change one…I wouldn’t.
Changing one thing would change many others by their interrelationship and that would be a problem of indirectly changing something I wouldn’t like to change, so I’ll prefer to bury the time machine and concentrate in how to make things better from now on.
Besides, everything has a positive and a negative side, so how much of the problem is the side we are looking at, rather than the reality of the situation? When changing the perspective, what seems to be a mistake could become an unknown advantage!
02- Thank you again Patricia for the distinction; it definitely means a lot that Alien Ghost became one of your selections. I’m glad my writing makes you think and see things from a different perspective; after all, that’s the goal of this blog and your mention becomes more fuel to keep going.
03-Although there are more than six blogs I really enjoy visiting to read (even if I’m not commenting lately due to a stubborn To Do list that doesn’t seem to disappear) the rules are the rules and I have to choose, so here they are:
-Sara of A Sharing Connection
Because her challenges keep forcing my brain like a physical trainer
(oooh my brain hurts!)
-Barbara of Blogging Without a Blog
Because of all the great advice she gives that makes her a “Blogging Leader”
(Go Commander Barbara!)
-Nacho of Zerebria
Because of his interesting posts that makes you think further from just what’s in front
(But what if…?)
-Tony and Cassy of Trotersville
Because of their artistic ways that I must admit not always can follow
(I’m not dumb, just “un-artistic”)
-Eric of Eden Journal
Because of his continuous search in his posts
(Let’s keep analyzing!)
-Marion of The Second Half Of My Life
Because of her honest writing with great advice
(The second part of our lives can be the best of all!)
So…ladies and gentlemen, who are your selected blogs that have that little something extra?
Raul
Posted by Raul on July 5, 2010
Reading several blogs I can see that many bloggers are in the long side posts; it is not uncommon to find writings with well over 1000 words. Even many “gurus” about blogging suggest going for no less than 600 words.
The problem for me is that I’m not really a “talking” person and that reflects in this blog; usually I have a hard time going over 500 words in a post and it is common for me to write in the average of 350 with only a few running to 600-700 words
Many of my posts trying to reflect something are very short (independent of if the intention was accomplished or not)
-Lonely Traffic Lights 142 words
-Perspective 412 words
-Inside a Picture 223 words
-The End Once Again 353 words
The other “problem” is that I have a thing for simplicity, the less words that can be used the better (in my opinion). For example: the most important things in life can be described with very few words, like:
-I love you
-I’m here for you
-Are you OK? (I love that one)
-Pass me the salt (a world of difference in the meal)
-I can’t see!
-She died yesterday
-I’m proud of you!
And so many more…
Even my favorite car is about simplicity; no long, big or fancy stuff.
Why not to try and express an idea, a concept or a feeling in the least amount of words possible? I’m not saying that long posts are wrong, but just a matter of personal choice and what works better for everyone.
If I could write very long posts I would be a talkative person in physical life and then I wouldn’t be an Alien Ghost, silently moving among people without being seen so I can observe life around.
I’ve seen many people who simply cannot stop talking all the times and I imagine how long their posts would be if they had a blog.
Can you imagine? Using a simple concept to develop it into an entire book, then paying for printing to pretend being a published author…I just work on cars to annoy my family!
So, after writing for a while in this blog the concept and suggestions of long posts become discarded and the attempt of reflect a thought or a feeling in the least amount of words become the official task for me (I’ve been doing that all along anyway!)
What’s your preference?
Are you a talkative person in physical life?
Does the amount of words in your blog reflect how talkative you are?
Let me know.
Raul
WOW this one became a long one…442 words!
Posted by Raul on April 23, 2010
I’ve spent the past month working in a customer’s car that was a real lemon! First it was about finding the parts at a good price, then taking them to the machine shop for repairs, to finally putting all together to make it run again…new life for an old, battered engine.
No time to get in this blog to post something; no time to even think of an idea, concept or perception to write about. Now the car is gone and happily running the streets while I get back to the computer and check thinks around the blog.
So far about 70 spam comments in the spam folder and an absence of more than a month from my part (sorry!) Truly time is a runaway when we become busy on other stuff.
So (finally) the time has come to write again and post in this blog and let’s hope no more lemon cars in the area for some time.
Summer is coming! (So they say; it’s been raining for three days now) and with it the possibility of some running around with the Isetta and the opportunity to see more of the outside world and its strange shape and configuration (just kidding! I’ve spent way too much time indoors lately)
How about the movement of time inside a box? It really seems to go at a different rate compared with the outside time, although is just a personal perception and not a fact, still is a reality for everyone many times throughout life.
We spend a good deal of time in a room working in a project and then when we go outside it feels like we were sort of time travelers arriving to a strange location; the weather might be different (sunny or rainy), the time of the day has changed at a different proportion compared with what was expected and we feel tired and dizzy and somehow completely out of place.
Time seems to be moving at a different speed outside compared with inside and we have no control on the situation. Or do we?
How about moving on purpose at a different speed just for the fun of it? Like when we purposely over sleep and wake up knowing we didn’t move in time yet outside time kept running, so we can find ourselves a little bit in the future at once without the wait of walking the minutes.(I told you I’ve spent too much time indoors lately!)
Raul
Posted by Raul on February 8, 2010
It is amazing how “Dumb Person Friendly” is the version 2.9.1 of WP.
After upgrading I spent lots of time adding plugins like a madman (it is fun!). The ventilation fan in my laptop was screaming: “stop it you bastard!”
Since many plugins can be installed just clicking “Install” I tried several just to see what they can do; of course not all of them worked and some even fooled around with the pages moving things as they pleased, so I had to deactivate and delete the big majority of them.
Others had to be installed using Filezilla, so I kept uploading more to the plugging folder. At some point, when opening Filezilla for the “n” time I swear there was a message saying:
“You again?”
“C’mon be nice and upload this one for me, please?”
Still many had to be completed by adding html text in the header.php, sidebar.php, etc, so I spent lots of time with the “Copy and Paste”; update; checking the site to see what happened; going back to change the position of the added script; updating; back to see what happened again, etc.
Throughout this experimentation I learned some basics about the strange language of html ( <p>; </p>; </div>; <h2>; </h2> ), so now the need arises to investigate more about these curious coding systems (html, css, php, etc.)
Definitely Barbara’s idea (Blogging Without A Blog) of using a Test Site is a must. The first four days it was just trying things in this site so to learn how the whole system works, at least enough to know what to do, then on Friday came the time to implement everything in the real blog and it definitely went a lot smoother thanks to the previous experimentation.
So I changed the green color of the header with a picture; used the publicity space in the sidebars for pictures and text; added 400 pluggins (I already told you), etc, and all with a cost of zero dollars using a free Theme and plugins, half a bottle of Aleve for headaches and six gallons of coffee.
It is somehow funny that the Theme that best suited my preferences is called “Bible Scholar” considering that I use it for an “Alien Ghost” blog (Amen!)
Even though the process of updating is completed I still need to keep tinkering with a couple of things here and there, but now I could tell new bloggers:
“I remember the times when we had to upload plugins manually”
“Yes grandpa, you already told us”
So my hopes are that now this blog becomes less “hacker friendly” and more interactive, where people can be “seen” if they take the time to contribute a comment.
It is funny when you think that the mysteries of the universe (or at least the mysteries of computers) little by little and with lots of work can be slowly being deciphered and understood if you are willing to take the challenge and the work that implies to learn them, even if it is the basics.
“Not having enough money to outsource everything is a wonderful thing”
Raul
