Maggie's Farm

A fair while back I did a post on starting a private 'family blog', where only family members (and maybe close friends) can make posts and comment.  It can really bind a family together, especially when they're strung out across the continent.  And WordPress makes it so easy that anyone can make a post with pics and vids of the grandkids playing in the back yard — those little dickens.

Pic: Exhibit A

I've received a handful of complimentary comments and emails since then, but this one kind of stood out.  It's cutely done in something of an over-the-top manner, which I like.  It also reminds me of a friend of mine who claims to have the most dysfunctional family in the country.  Or did until this arrived.

Dude! You done saved my family's ass. There are four clans, located in Washington, Colorado, Kansas and Maine. Involved are seven uncles, eight aunts and seventeen cousins.

In short, cousins Gary and Susan dislike each other, Aunt Meredith dislikes Aunt Jinny, Aunt Jinny dislikes Uncle Bob, Uncle Bob dislikes his brother Charles, Uncle Charles can't stand any of the Kansas gang, and the Kansas gang doesn't particularly like the Washington clan. I should also mention that Aunt Sue and Aunt Margaret are always snipping at each other, Uncle Bob and Aunt Hilda are talking about a divorce, and Uncle Bob and Cousin Dave almost got into a fistfight at the last family reunion over who was in charge of the BBQ.

I would also be remiss if I didn't mention that Cousin Nancy will never, ever, forgive Cousin Jason for accidentally killing her pet bunny rabbit 20 years ago, Cousin Dave will never, ever, forgive Cousin Gary for wrecking his prize motorcycle 11 years ago, and Cousin Ron (me) had decided that I would never, ever, forgive Cousin Becky for voting for Obama -- twice, no less.

That's how things stood eight months ago.

My, how times do change. About 2,000 family blog posts later, with a few exceptions I'm not sure if any of the above is still true. Uncle Bob and Aunt Hilda went ahead with the divorce, which was probably best for everybody, and no clear resolution of the murdered bunny rabbit has been reached, but for the most part the remainder of the grudges and pet peeves have been resolved and we had a family reunion two weeks ago in Steamboat Springs, CO, that was the best one anybody can remember.

In most cases it was just a matter of talking things out, like the piled-up motorcycle. In the blog, Cousin Gary pointed out that he was only 17 when he wrecked it and it was because it had rained earlier and the roads were slippery and he just wasn't used to such conditions. Amazingly, Cousin Dave admitted that as a wise old 19-year-old at the time, he had to shoulder some of the blame for letting a beginner take it out in dangerous conditions, and that basically settled the whole score. The next thing ya know, they're pairing up as a doubles tennis team at the reunion and cleaning everybody's clock with superb game play and excellent teamwork.

Aunt Sue and Aunt Margaret, the two "snippers," formed the social committee for the week-long event and it was when they gave each other a great big warm hug when saying goodbye that I realized I owed you an email saying thanks. I had forwarded the original link to Cousin Becky who set up the site, and according to her everything went "smooth as silk," so thanks also for the great set-up guide. I even partially forgave her for voting for Obama -- twice, no less.

Best regards,
Cousin Ron

And you're mighty welcome, big guy.

And he's right about the value of communication amongst family members.  My middle brother and I went through about a decade of estrangement ages ago, but then we took a canoe out at a family reunion about ten years ago, spent the whole day talking and got it all hashed out.  I thought of that a few weeks ago when we had a great chat on the phone.  There's just something about getting family problems out in the open that's wonderfully cathartic.

My how-to site is here.  If you're going to give it a spin, it's important to do the five steps in order.  The link to the web hosting service I use pops up when you get to that part of the setup routine.  There's a specific page on setting up a family blog and a Quick Reference Guide for the newbies.

When it comes to getting a blog or web site going, nothing beats WordPress, although how much you get out of it depends on how involved with the settings, plugins and widgets you get, hence the value of an in-depth how-to site.  At 50,000 words spread over 81 pages, this monster is probably the biggest how-to WordPress site on the 'Net.  It takes twice as long to get through the setup routine as the next site, but you'll learn four times as much.

Any questions, give a holler in the comments.

I suppose there's an irony here somewhere:

The most puzzling airline disaster in history has the most befuddling answer in the history of airline disaster solutions.

In brief: In 2009, in one of the most modern airliners ever built, Air France 447 took off from Rio in Brazil and was safely on its way to Paris, last contacting land while partway over the Atlantic.

And then it disappeared.

A few months later, the PBS show 'Nova' put together a team of experts to figure out what most likely happened.  They had some serious heavyweights on board, like a guy who took part in the investigation of the tragic, final flight of the SST, and a guy who worked on what was considered the 'most puzzling crash in history' of its day, Flight 800 out of New York, which inexplicably blew up just off the coast, later traced to faulty wiring in a fuel tank.

But at least the Flight 800 team had little clues to work, like "where it went down".

As referred to, say, if it went down.

Because of the curvature of the earth, cross-Atlantic flights always go off radar at some point, and it was only hours later when it didn't show up on African radar that the alarm was even sounded.  If a small electronic monitor box hadn't automatically sent a quick 'update' to headquarters via satellite link somewhere between 1 and 15 minutes before the crash, they would have been totally clueless where it ended up, and even then they just had its last known location and were forced to consider where the wreckage could be spread over hundreds of square miles of open ocean.  And in 15,000 feet of water.

And they eventually did find it.

Black boxes, befuddlement, and all.

Well, rat farts.

Pardon my strong language.

After getting poked and prodded for six hours at the hospital a few weeks ago, they came up with squat.  For you new readers, I had an intestinal operation last summer to remove a growth before it became cancerous, then was healing quite nicely until around last November when I just kind of stalled out at around 80% better.  I was still in debt to the hospital, though, so it took a few months to get that cleared up enough that I could start a new 'tab' with them.  I had (what felt like) about a gallon of blood drained from me (I made a comment about 'bloodletting' and how "I feel better already!'), an EKG, some skin samples for the lab, and a "nonintrusive ultrasound test" where they tested the blood flow throughout my body.

Then it turned out my blood pressure is through the roof.  I've never paid much attention to it, and the previous time I was at the hospital for an operation follow-up, about three months ago, nobody said anything so I guess it was fine.

It was 165 over something when I was there the other day.  I think the nurse actually gasped when she read the meter.  Normal is 120 or below.  Since nothing else has changed in my life (diet, living quarters, lack of exercise, etc), I gather most of it is just stress, worrying about rent and food, and exacerbated by the fact that I never know how much work I'm going to get from the one main company I webmaster for. So, the wonderful discovery that I could stroke out any minute added another two hours to my visit.

I've had better days.

And, as noted, they came up with zip in the blood test.  Now I have to decide when or even IF I'll be able to afford to take the next round of tests and whether or not I should dump my (cough!) $120/mo Internet service.  After rent, that's my biggest expense.  If you didn't catch the story, I moved behind the local cellphone tower about a year ago which, as it turns out, are very directional and neither my Verizon Wireless nor a Sprint unit would work.  I finally found a company that specializes in rural hook-ups and sitting on top of my tower is a 4" x 6" box with a 3' antenna sitting on top of it.  It works fine, but it's nasty expensive.

Anyway, that's where things currently stand.  Or sit, in my case.  If you'd like to help with my get-well fund, it would be sorely appreciated.

Also, I mentioned this a few months ago, but if anyone has any viable (note key word) ideas on how to make money online, I'm all ears.  I've read a number of "5 Ways To Make Money On The Internet" articles and haven't seen anything viable yet.  I'd grab a regular 9-to-5 job in a minute if I could find one, but these are all tourist-geared villages down here and if you don't have any experience in the restaurant, motel or scuba diving biz, you needn't bother to apply.

One thing a couple of people mentioned last time was putting Amazon links in the posts, like Glenn does over at Istapundit.  The hitch here — besides being tacky — is that these things only work with big reader numbers.  You're basically waiting for that 1-in-3,000 person who's currently in the market for a new set of steak knives or band saw or the boxed set of all three 'Men In Black' movies.  And Maggie's just doesn't have those kinds of numbers.

My thought was to only link to Rolls Royce dealerships, realtors for large estates and high-quality diamond necklace merchants.  If it only makes one sale a year, I'll be set!

Anyways, just thought I'd toss out a quick update.  Got some interesting posts coming up this week, starting with...