bored of education

Sorry Blogger

2005-02-18T13:28:00.000-08:00

I just set up a new weblog at typepad.com.

I wanted a weblog that allows for multiple authors that is password protected for my math department. Although it costs a little bit (13 something a month), I think it's worth the money considering the big plans I have.

I will probably keep this weblog up but will make most of my posts at typepad.

Landmark Legislation S. 254

2005-02-09T16:24:00.000-08:00

I was again exploring GovTrack.us and found this essential legislation.

If passed it will "direct the Secretary of the Interior to convey certain land to Lander County...and...to Eureka County, Nevada, for continued use as cemeteries.

Apparently, the original pioneers created the cemeteries without regard for the Federal Government's need to control 87 percent of the land in Nevada.

This bill seems to fit the category of a "no-brainer." I don't think any politician would want to be known as the one who forced Lander and Eureka counties to move all of the graves in order to build a Walmart.

What's surprising is that they had to bring the matter before the Senate. Couldn't the Dept of the Interior have done this without Congressional action?

EnviroSpin Watch

2005-02-07T17:11:00.000-08:00

Okay, I've already posted one blog entry today. (I just started blogging and I already need therapy).

Anyway, I just found an interesting blog called EnviroSpin Watch. Since I'm interested in blogging about energy and environmental issues, EnvironSpin Watch is a blog I should monitor.

I don't have time to read it right now, but I wanted to post a link to it so I can come back to it later...

GovTrack.us: Track Federal Legislation

2005-02-07T16:10:00.000-08:00

I just found a really cool website that tracks legislative activity. You can sign up and set up your account to monitor any legislator's speeches, etc. I set up my account to monitor Senators Feinstein, Boxer, Hatch and Bennett. (I live in California and I'm from Utah.)

You can also monitor legislation in different areas. (There appears to be hundreds of keywords available.) My account now monitors any legislative activity regarding energy policy (which I find interesting...and neglected.)

I'm not sure whether or not I'm sent emails with updates or whether I have to go to the site to check.

Anyway, I'm going back to see if there are any new updates in the last 15 minutes....

First Blogroll

2005-02-06T13:53:00.000-08:00

This week I went to http://www.blogrolling.com/ and set up an account to create the list of links on the sidebar. It was almost as easy as Biz Stone says it is in his book. Now my only problem is to get the format to match the archive links created by blogger.

That will be next week's project. (After school of course... I would never blog during class...)

Bad Karma

2005-01-26T15:33:00.000-08:00

Maybe there is such a thing as bad karma. Last week I posted a this blog comparing the sunny weather here in California with the blizzard conditions in New England.

And today it rained... It is NOT supposed to rain in southern California. I didn't watch the weather but it probably only got up to 65 degrees. ~~It makes me want to move to New England~~.

Anyway, I should go home before the wet roads freeze and become covered in black ice...

Besides, I'm not helping my Karma situation.

Blog Promotion

2005-01-24T16:09:00.000-08:00

I was looking through blogger's help pages and discovered this article about promoting your blog. (It's not what I was looking for but it looked interesting so I was, naturally, sidetracked.)

The author, Biz Stone, suggests three types of promotion. I've mostly done the steps suggested in "Blogger Application Settings." They involve chosing certain settings to allow people to email my posts to others, setting my blog to ping weblogs.com, etc.

The other ideas were new to me. "Blogging Technique Suggestions" include making regular updates and writing quality content. (Damn, you mean I have to work at this?)

The best ideas were in "Marketing Action Items." There are nine different ways to promote your blog. Some are as easy as adding your blog address to your email signature. Others use terms that are totally new to me like "meme games," which sounds kind of naughty. The only difficult one sounds like adding a blogroll which they say you can do here. (If you can't tell, I've recently learned how to do hyperlinks. Since it's the only thing I know....)

Well, I should probably get back to teaching! Anyway, it's probably being presumptuous to think people would be interested in what I have to say--but you never know.

UPDATE: Here is another article about increasing traffic by Biz Stone. I posted it here so that I don't have to go looking for it again when I'm actually interested in increasing my traffic.

70 Degrees

2005-01-23T17:12:00.000-08:00

Here are some excerpts from a news item posted on weather.com.

Blizzard warnings remain posted in parts of southern New England ....where winds have gusted as high as 75mph, driving the snow into huge drifts. Another 6-12 inches may fall on the cape today, bringing totals there close to 3 feet... Some snowfall totals as of midday Sunday: South Hamilton 29"; Boston 26", Providence, R.I., 23"; New Haven, Conn., 16"; New York City 14".

I just have to say that here in southern California it is 70 degrees. Although the sun just went down so it might get a little chilly later.

End of Semester

2005-01-21T16:34:00.000-08:00

Today was the last day of the semester--and I've been extremely busy.

The bad thing about the end of the semester is that there is a lot of grading, new planning, etc. to do. The good thing is that both teachers and students get to start over with a clean slate. For me it's a good time to change policies or procedures that aren't working. And students no longer have grade inertia pulling them down. They get to start over.

My schedule should, hopefully, stabilize in the next few weeks. This should give me more time to blog. I have several blog related projects I want to do. I just haven't had time to work on them.

In a previous entry I was worried about diffusing my content and losing focus. To prevent that I've decided to have different blogs for different topics. That way I can have a different blog for each one of my ~~vices~~ hobbies. I will use boredofeducation as a place to link to the others and to post things that don't really fit in the others.

Diana's Anti-Blog

2005-01-19T16:32:00.000-08:00

I found a cool blog (or should I say Anti-Blog) from an aspiring Math teacher. (She's probably crazy to want to be a math teacher... But then she's also studying psychology, so she's the expert.)

I don't have time to read it right now but I wanted to save the link so I can come back to it later.

Success!

2005-01-14T16:31:00.000-08:00

The link on my last post worked!!

While at the other blog I used the "blog this" link on the top bar. A new window opened up with the html code for the website's link. I then put comments about the link in front of the code and there it was on my site!

(Actually, I had to go back and re-edit my post a few times But next time it will be much easier.)

Sample blog

2005-01-14T16:23:00.000-08:00

Here is an example of someone's nice looking blog (sfjones.blogspot.com) that doesn't use any of the templates. It is authored by an aspiring writer and looks very interesting. Now I want to see if the link works.

Test Post

2005-01-14T16:13:00.000-08:00

For some reason the previous post had the wrong time on it. Right now it is 4:14 pm PST on January 14. We'll see if the posting time matches.

Okay, the time it posts is the time I started writing not the time I actually posted.

I'm glad I sorted that out. That might have bugged me for days... Just kidding, I'm not that obsessive.

Infinite and Growing

2005-01-14T15:44:00.000-08:00

Since I started my blog I've been looking at other peoples' blogs to see what they are doing. In the upper right corner I can click to see the "next blog." Since Tuesday I've probably looked at about a hundred blogs...

I feel a little overwhelmed by the size of the "blogosphere." There are so many options in terms of format, etc. Right now I'm using a template provided by www.blogger.com. After looking at several blogs I can now tell who uses these premade templates. (And I probably saw a dozen that use the same one I'm using.) After seeing it 3-4 times it begins to look boring. The problem is I don't know how to do it differently.

There is so much to learn. I want to learn how to put hyperlinks into my post. I want to learn how to have a list of links along the side. I want to learn how to categorize my posts so that readers can only look at the subjects that interest them. etc.

The other thing that overwhelms me is there are so many subjects on which I would like to blog. (One reason I dropped out of graduate school is I have many interests as well as a short attention span. I couldn't focus on one subject long enough--about a year and a half--to write a thesis on it.) To me the most interesting blogs are the one with a fairly narrow focus. If I write about all of the subjects I'm interested in I may lose readers. (Not that I have any to lose right now.)

One solution may be to have different blogs for different subject or interest.

Anyway, since my brain just stopped working I'm going to continue my thoughts on a future entry.

First Blog, First Entry

2005-01-11T16:36:00.000-08:00

I've been planning and daydreaming about my blog for several weeks now... And now that I've started, I have no idea what I want to say.

My main idea for this blog is to have a journal that I can use to sort out my ideas on various topics. I can also use it to refine my ideas by getting semi-anonymous feedback from other people. So... I'm leaving the comment section open for now.

I also like the idea of posting events in my life so that in 10 years I can look back and see what I was doing when the Tsunami struck... (Right now I don't remember since I hadn't started my blog.)

It took me awhile to think of a catchy name. Although I do teach high school math. I don't really intend to talk about teaching, schools, or anything work related. I see my blog as an outlet for when I need a break from school. So bored of education seemed appropriate.