Category Archives: Blogging

18

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I didn’t blog yesterday for the first time since August 26th. To be honest 18 straight days of posts blew away the expectations I had set in my personal challenge to post something every day when I rebooted this blog.

Posting every day is difficult. It’s hard to consistently unearth topics to write about and even more than that, it is very hard to find the time to do it. Often it’s not until the end of the day, well past the time I should be in bed, when I find myself with some time to sit down at the computer and compose something.

On the flip side, posting daily is a good exercise for my atrophied writing muscles. The self-imposed daily deadline also forces me to be constantly thinking about writing, and formulating posts, or parts-of-posts, in my head.

I don’t know what will happen moving forward. It’s pretty clear to me that I won’t be able to sustain daily posts consistently. There’s just not enough time. Hopefully what it means is that the posts I do make will be longer and more meaningful, than some of the more rushed ones. Also hopefully it doesn’t mean that I let the blog stagnate again as I did for years. Time will tell.

About Face

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Just a quick note to announce that I’ve followed through with last week’s post about ditching Facebook. I did wind up keeping the account active, just in case I ever need to “use Facebook to authenticate” as many sites are doing lately.

What I did do though was to go through and un-friend everyone, and remove most of my information.

What do you think of my new profile pic below?

No Facebook

Smell Ya Later Facebook*

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Smell ya laterOhai!

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you had no idea this blog existed, and simply clicked over from my Facebook page. Or if you did know, you probably did not know that I recently gave it a bit of a “reboot”.

Either way, welcome to Last Dan Standing.

A week ago I got back into ye-olde-web-log, after a long hiatus. I challenged myself to the ambitious goal of posting something, even something small, at least once a day. It’s been challenging, but so far so good. We’ll see how long it lasts.

Today is my birthday. I know lots of Facebookers will be looking at my feed and wishing me a happy one. That’s all fine and good, and I appreciate the gesture, but I’m sorry to say that I’m breaking up with you.

I mean, not breaking up with YOU, or YOU, or any one person obviously, but with the collective YOU that is Facebook. Sorry Facebook, but I’m over you, your ads, your viral nonsense, your algorithms, your political correctness, your political obtuseness, your compromised security, your Farmville-Mafia-Wars-Clash-Of-Clans-Candy-Crush-In-App-Purchase-Manipulative-Bullshit, and the rest of it.

I have to admit, you’re not all bad. For example, how else would I have been able to follow the I Hung Out at the DPC group without you? And of course you are handy at showing many of the marriages, pregnancies, births, birthdays, deaths, parties, jokes, memes, and cultural moments of our time.

Ultimately though, it’s just not worth it. Separating Facebook’s wheat from its chaff depresses the hell out of me.

So what does this mean for all my Facebook friends?

Well, it’s pretty straightforward. If you currently follow my shenanigans on Facebook, and want to keep doing so, here’s all the places online you can find them:

Long Posts:
www.lastdanstanding.com

Short posts, semi-profound thoughts, retweets, and Dad jokes:
@tinyviking on Twitter

Casual/social pictures and videos:
@lastdanstanding on Instagram

Semi-serious pictures, and/or those that don’t fit Instagram’s square form factor:
@lastdanstanding on Flickr

Semi-serious videos, or those that don’t fit Instagram’s 15-second limitation:
@lastdanstanding on Vimeo

Awesome stuff from the seedy underbelly of the Internet re-shared by me:
@lastdanstanding on Tumblr

Music streaming/sharing:
@lastdanstanding on Rdio

I realize this transition will be a pain for some people who live and die by Facebook, and I’m sure I will completely lose touch with a handful of people because of it. Apologies in advance if I’m describing you. Just remember, it’s not about you; it’s about Facebook.

Bye.

* Thanks to my Instagram friend @margaretocracy for her recent post which inspired the title of this one.

The Last Week of the Last Year, of the First Half of My Life

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For whatever reason, I seem to be inspired by big calendar dates and life events. I started this blog on my birthday in 2010, shortly after getting married, and deeply feeling my 36 years of age. Then very quickly I got bored, or distracted, or lazy, and stopped posting. About a year later I tried to get back on track on New Years Day 2012, but that fizzled.

Fast-forward four years: I am quickly approaching 40, and goddamn do I feel it!

We all know that 40 is the classic “mid-life crisis” age, and as I get ready to careen off that cliff I guess that lately I have become reflective of all-things-Dan. So much has happened in the recent days, weeks and months, but truly the whirlwind of the past four years has been due to the August 2012 arrival of my twin sons: Cormac and Ansel (aka Hulk and Thor). They are now two years old and just as wonderful and challenging as you might expect.

Monte Vista Hotel
The boys holding court at the Monte Vista Hotel in Flagstaff, AZ – June 2014

Yes, they’re delightful and adorable, but let’s be clear: two years of raising twins has been damn hard. Only recently have I had a chance to look around, take a breath, and consider re-booting. And that’s exactly how I’m treating it; this is a long overdue reboot of the blog.

As I mentioned above, I’ve done this before, and with miserable results, so my personal challenge this time is to blog at least something small, EVERY SINGLE DAY. I know I will fail at some point, but hopefully it will take a long time before that happens.

I still hope to use this space as an outlet for everything from my Bay Area transit fantasies, to random adventure chronicles, and whatever else comes up, and needless to say I hope lots of space will be devoted to the exciting adventures of my little superheroes.

That’s all I got for now. In the meantime, please catch up with my wonderful wife’s blog. She has done a bang-up job documenting the last two years with the boys.

-Dan

* Thanks to my friend and colleague from a former life, Tom Collins, for the inspiration for the title of this post