July 27, 2009

• Monday Morning Blues

  Last month I got my yearly email updating me that Homestead, the service which hosts my original personal website, needed to charge my credit card another $99.00 for the coming year. Since my credit card is out of date, they can’t automatically bill me, and they will shut down the site. I still link to some of these pages, and occasionally, I’ve posted some of the writing from some of them on this blog. However, most of the pages on the old site, with the exception of The Betty Boop Pages, are not visited that much anyway.

  It seems as the years pass, I’m having more financial woes than less. I will let the site close. Over the weekend, I went over some of the pages I want to save “as is” and transferred their content to my Dreamweaver program. These sections will be reposted on my own server. In another four or so months, my main hosting service will be wanting their money. I renegotiated the terms of my hosting agreement last year. It seems I was paying for a really old plan which charged me almost $50.00 a month. Under the new plan, I’m paying about $200.00 a year.

  On Friday, I got another overdraft notice in my email inbox. When I have to dip into the Wells Fargo credit card to cover my checks, which seems to happen a lot lately, I keep attempting to tighten my belt and spend less. Already, I’ve scaled down my DirecTV subscription, and I’m eating out much less. This morning I brought my lunch into work. I’m finding that my priorities are being shifted drastically. This isn’t just because I need to come up with $3000.00 for the hip revision operation I recently had. I miscalculated some expenses back when I moved, and what with the increased rental and mortgage fees, added to the $750.00 a month I pay for the “consolidation” credit card account I took out a few years ago, I’m still managing finances “negatively” where I make less than I’m paying out every month.

  I updated my “Facebook” page for the first time in while yesterday. I immediately got a few comments on the “status”. I notice I rarely get comments here at Xanga that much, but then I keep saying I’m not “active”. Weeks are just slipping by faster than I can manage. I posted about my “art project” last Monday, and then didn’t even touch the piece all week. I feel as if I should post something today, since it’s been a week, but I don’t have anything prepared. As stated above, I transcribed a couple of web pages from my old site to my Dreamweaver program, so I did use the home computer a bit over the weekend. I did visit some blogs. I might even have commented some. On the Facebook update, I mention that I hope to be blogging more regularly. All my posts from Xanga are automatically posted to Facebook, and I notice I now have over 80 “friends” on that service. I always feel strange when I use it, however. A lot of folks seem to want to give me “farm animals” and are probably upset that I haven’t given them “farm animals”. I don’t know what application I signed up for that keeps the farm animals coming, but I wish I could just shut it off. I rarely use social networking for “blogthings” anyway, so “Farm Town” doesn’t even interest me.

  I guess I’m getting less social as I grow older. Interestingly enough, on Saturday, I went to visit my boss, our 85 year old CEO at work, who suffered a stroke about a month or so before I went into the hospital for my surgery. This is the first time I’ve visited since he had the stroke. I spent about two hours visiting him. For his age, and recovering from a major stroke, Jack looks pretty good, and he’s even  moving his limbs on the side that was paralyzed. However, longtime readers might remember that my own mother suffered a stroke back in the early 70s, and my greatest regret of all time is that I turned my back on her when she was in the nursing home, because she was more like a vegetable than my mother. I had a lot of reservations about seeing Jack in a less than vigorous state of being, but he’s looking and acting as well as can be expected. He called me “hoppity” when he saw my cane. Stroke victims are fully cognizant, but the connections between the brain and motor functions doesn’t funciton correctly, and it takes a while for these connections to work.

  On Sunday, I visited our Park Pool for only the second time since I moved in. Last time I forgot sunblock and a cap, exposing my bald head to the sun, and I got a bad sunburn. This time I took plenty of sunblock, and wore a cap when in the hot tub. I even took a few laps around the pool, but made sure not to tire myself out. I spent a couple of hours poolside and met a few more denizens of our senior community, When hearing that I only got out of the hospital 7 weeks ago, most everyone seems surprised at my progress. I swear, if it weren’t for my doctor’s precautions, I feel as if I could toss the cane away right now and begin walking under my own power. I still have about three or four weeks before he’ll let me do that however.

  Work is picking up, and I’m writing this at work, prior to beginning my day. We’ve got quite a few projects going on, and I’ve let our Vice Presidents know that I’m not averse to taking customer calls if there is increased activity. Right now we can’t afford to lose any sale.

  I’m beginning to reassess my online presence and my website. I haven’t really updated the ten year old  AllThingsMike that much since I got this blog in 2004. Most of the updates are over here, and yet most visitors probably have never visited the main site itself. I sometimes believe I’m not being creative enough, but then lately I haven’t really felt that creative. I still get (a llittle) upset when I see how the “popular bloggers” can generate so much activity with entries I don’t believe are all that interesting anyway. But then I’m glad that there are blogsites which are popular. I always envision my blogs as being “popular” and sometimes I even get on the front pages, but that hasn’t happened for some time, and I have to realize that most folks just don’t care about the musings of an old bald man. I do give thanks for those online friendships I’ve cultivated over the years. It’s just that a lot of us are scaling back our blogging at the same time, after being active on Xanga for many years!

  I sometimes feel that online I’m slipping into a void. All the programs I use are so ancient, and I just can’t afford to update anything or get anything new. Heck, it’s far more important to fix the brakes on my car, which are squeaking up a storm lately. I haven’t been following a budget lately, preferring to believe, like Scarlett O’Hara, that “tomorrow is another day”, and I don’t have to concentrate on my troubles. Of course most bloggers don’t maintain mammoth personal websites. Most spend their time on Xanga.

  I haven’t done anything on YouTube lately. I haven’t written any poetry. The last poem I wrote was in the hospital (handprinted) and I haven’t even transcribed it to the puter, or posted an ElectricPoetry post in a while on the blog.

  I’ve really got to get to work now. People are beginning to come into the building. Here’s an email from our engineer, asking about the progress of a project which I haven’t had time to work on for a while. And this blog entry is just a rambling mess. I don’t have a point, and I’m only posting for the sake of posting.

  In conclusion, I do have lots to write about, but I rarely feel like doing so. Although I’m not “socializing” with my old friends on Xanga, and don’t care to send farm animals to those friends I have on Facebook, I am making more connections with people here in the park where I live. Money seems to always be a problem, but at work every time I ask for a raise, our controller tells me to sell some of my collectibles. Of course I hope I don’t have to ever stoop to selling my Betty Boop figurines and sericel art, or even the car and truck models, for that matter. These mean something to me, and are part of me.

  I might be in a bit of a funk, but that will pass, and I’ll be deliriously happy about something. I want to participate in the blogring topics again, and to reconnect with longtime bloggers who might have forgotten me because I haven’t visited them in a while. I want to generate some optimism and hope, and perhaps write some spiritually uplifiting words, but for now,  I’m going to sign off, and finish this drawing for a customer. It’s Monday again, and the week begins.

  • 10:09 am
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