Not Swamp Thing. Something different.
The 20-year-old blog "Chasing the Wind" began as lighthearted stories and evolved to address politics, faith, and the author's personal experiences. With gratitude, the author acknowledges the impact of their faith, sharing learnings and teaching Bible study for 18 years. They express appreciation for the support of their readers.
Still here. 🙂
New host today, and I'm testing the interface to see if it connects to Facebook, Twitter, MySocialEgoIsHuge.net (that website is unregistered so you can claim it if you wish) , and so on. I had been using Blogs-About.com since April 2004. I setup the original Chasingthewind.net webpage as a place to share my faith in … Continue reading Moving to WordPress.com
Yeah, I know. Chasing the Wind has been sleepy for a while. My passion for pithy comments has waned somewhat, Facebook has replaced the blog as the social network, and I'm on hiatus from bible study teaching so there are no lessons to post. But hey, I still own this domain name. 🙂
This sentence contain the actual link to the incendiary post, with or without comment from this post's author. This is a quote from that link to illustrate agreement. This sentence contains a provocative statement that attracts the readers’ attention, but really only has very little to do with the topic of the blog post. This … Continue reading This is a Link to a Typical Incendiary Blog Post
I'm disabling Disqus today from my blog at http:\\chasingthewind.net . The idea was great - a more open community for comments to posts. The interface was nice, and I liked the fact that individuals "owned" their own comments and could edit them as necessary. But Disqus was barely used by the community. The only additional … Continue reading That's Enough of Disqus
Image by barloventomagico via FlickrDisqus. Pronounced "Discuss." It's a new feature I'm trying out, and I'd love your comments. Really. The whole idea is to encourage better comments. You can see replies to your comments, there's a discussion page, you can better see other people's comments. It even links to social sites like Twitter and … Continue reading Disqus
Cover via AmazonRemember when blogging was new? The word "blog" itself was new. The whole concept of people finding an outlet to express whatever was on their mind in a forum that reached globally was new. Now it's ordinary. People create blogs for their pets now. Or maybe the pets themselves do it, it's so … Continue reading Happy 5th Birthday
Hey, I got a report card - Dear Michael, Our editors recently reviewed your blog and have given it an 8.0 score out of (10) in the Society/Religion & Spirituality category of Blogged.com. This is quite an achievement! http://www.blogged.com/directory/society/religion-and-spirituality We evaluated your blog based on the following criteria: Frequency of Updates, Relevance of Content, Site … Continue reading Blogged.com
When I was kid, I was fascinated by the huge Encyclopedia Britannica books. Who were these amazing eggheads that wrote all the world's information down? How did they get so smart? Times change. The Encyclopedia Britannica still has the most vetted information, but is no longer the largest or easiest accessible. They've offered to bloggers, … Continue reading Encyclopedia Britannica Online
It seems they grow up so fast. 🙂 Chasing the Wind is now 4 years old. Happy Birthday! I find it amazing how fast things have changed in the last 4 years. Then, blogs were amazing new inventions. "You mean, *I* can write something on the web? Don't I need permission or something?" Today, sites … Continue reading Four Year Blogiversary
Where's the spam? I get around 1800 pieces of email spam a month; it's been that way for at least 3 years. But in the last month, I've only received 550 pieces of email spam. And in the last week, only about 20 pieces of spam. At this rate, I'll only get about 100 pieces … Continue reading Where's the Spam?
I've decided against continuing my weekly update of the Christian Carnival blogroll. If you were using it, I hope you enjoyed it. After 2 years of updating it, I think I'm going to rely on other automated sources. One source is at Blogcarnival; a widget for your blog is here. It looks like this: There … Continue reading Blogrolling Christian Carnival (Update)
After two years of updating the Blogroll for the Christian Carnival, I'm considering discontinuing this effort. If you run a blog that uses this blogroll, drop me a comment and I'll consider keeping it going.
... if I don't write anything. Sorry, been traveling and working, just like last year. It may be several weeks before I surface again. I have another book review coming up, but that's about it. On the other hand, *you* could post. There's not's of room below.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know I haven't posted much. Been really, really busy. I still owe Jennifer my answers to The Eight. I'll get to it, soon, I hope. I wanted to blog about how the Democrats are findng religion. Apparently it's ok with The Media if the Democrats talk about their faith, but if … Continue reading Silence!
Mingle2 - Online Dating Heh. Chasing the Wind is rated "PG" because the word "dead" shows up twice and "missionary" once. I guess they're not expecting Christian websites and they way we use those terms. 🙂 * Nod to Coffeeswirls for the link.
No blogging until June 4 at the earliest. Encourage "them" not to make any news in the meantime.
Three years? I've been doing this for three years now? I should celebrate with some cake! Yup, Chasing the Wind is three years old today!
This will appeal only to the technophiles; I installed a WordPress plugin yesterday called Kramer (or at Kramer) and I like it so far - one of the features is automatically to show pingbacks from Technorati, even if the originator doesn't support pingbacks. For 99% of you reading that, it meant absolutely nothing, so here's … Continue reading Kramer Pingbacks
Ah. A lightbulb goes off. I read several posts this Easter weekend about the dangers of forming a theocracy. The Houston Chronicle linked to one at Feet to the Fire: The banwitdth devoted to the dangers of Church to State is enormous. Being righteous lefties that analysis comes easy to us. As a lefty who … Continue reading Blog Against Theophobes
I searched Chasing the Wind today for some relatively obscure words I occasionally use in conversation. Bloviate. Ameliorate. Pernicious. I received a "not found" message - I've never written a post with those words. There. Fixed *that* little problem. 🙂
Cleaning up the website to match the new template, I don't know where I should post the old Blogrolls I no longer use (but I still want to maintain the links. I'm posting them here for now, but there's no need for you to click this link to continue, there's nothing interesting there. Eventually as … Continue reading Blogrolls
I don't have the time lately to tweak html design, so I'm going to go with this off-the-shelf theme called Lorelei Bliss 2.0. I'll add back in some of the goodies like "recent comments" and stuff when I have more time. I'm teaching Sunday so the day is devoted to study.
Still not sure what's wrong - comments stopped working again yesterday. I'm reverting back to a plain vanilla WordPress installation without plugins or any special themes until I can figure out what happened. Maybe *then* Google will remember that this website exists.
Yup, just discovered that Comments are broken. First one to comment to this post wins an attaboy. Or attagirl, if preferred.
Still trying to track down this Google delisting. The frustrating thing is just by posting the question, that used to gather knowledge from others who find my post by Googling. Now I'm just speaking into the void. I learned this week how to generate a sitemap, and Google acknowledges I have 1500 links. They just … Continue reading Degooglized II
None of my posts are listed on Google anymore. Only 10 static pages can be found, but since those pages are there, Google knows that Chasing the Wind exists, but Google's not listing any of my posts. They *used* to, but they don't anymore. Moreover, they show exactly -0- sites linking to Chasing the Wind. … Continue reading Degooglized
Brain full. Stress level high. I find the need to decompress. Wordy prose the first to go. Blogging will be light to non-existent for the next 3 weeks. Guest bloggers (and you know who you are) may or may not step in, depending on softball schedules and such. I am oocupado (that means I'm busy, … Continue reading Hiatus
There were some glitches with hosting this week, but Christian Carnival 123 is now up for this week's best Christian blogging.
One year ago, Chasing the Wind was one year old. One year later, Chasing the Wind is one year older. Do the math. 🙂 Last year, 764 posts and 54,000 visitors since April 27, 2004 making 2,825 comments. This year, 1,237 posts and 5,077 comments, 162,279 visitors. Wheee doggy! I've enjoyed each and every one … Continue reading Two Year Blogiversary
I added some plugins to the WordPress today - 1 - On the sidebar, you can see who's logged in and who's visiting. You're not alone! Dozens of strangers are surfing with you. This is the WP-Useronline plugin from GaMerZ. 2 - Did you need a printer-friendly version of a post of mine? There's now … Continue reading Blog Tweaks
Christian Carnival #115 is up at The Secret Life of Gary. Full of this week's best Christian blogging.
J'ai été dans le Havre, France toute la semaine. Blogging régulier reprendra la semaine prochaine. And I don't speak French so I can't help you with that translation.
I'm going to try out a service called "Feedblitz" that let's you subscribe to Chasing the Wind via email. In the sidebar to the left is a little box for you to enter your email address, and then once a day you will get all the new posts neatly summarized in a single email. I … Continue reading Subscribe by Email
Uptown Girl was one of the first blogs I stumbled across over two years ago. Now she's hanging up her blogging activities in favor of getting married and moving overseas. Drop by and tell her goodbye, won't you?
More out of curiosity's sake, what do you think? Click on this Johari window and let me know. * Tip from Spinthemoon.
I've been playing with this idea for a while, and I'm giving it a shot today. If it turns out I don't like this idea, I can always delete it later. 😛 (I'm going to edit this post as necessary to clarify the intent, so don't be surprised when the wording changes.) I want to … Continue reading Where They Stand
This is for the webgeeks out there, not for the regular visitors. 🙂 Based on a suggestion by Podz, I've changed the way the Blogroll is displayed. Blogrolling by default gives you a long listing of all the blogs, but that's gotten way too cumbersome. I wanted some sort of collapsible, dropdown menu. There are … Continue reading Dropdown Blogroll List
Dang, y'all suddenly got quiet in the last week. Did everybody go on vacation? Or are you overworked? Overshopped? There are still 330+ visitors a day here, but you're not saying a word.
I'm hopping on the bandwagon a little late, but I want to endorse 2 blogs for the 2005 Weblog Awards. No, I didn't enter Chasing the Wind. Probably won't, either; not my cup o' tea. Voting takes place here for Best of the Top 6751 - 8750 Blogs; register your vote for BitterSweetLife. And voting … Continue reading 2005 Weblog Awards
I was in a meeting all day, 12 hours straight. Tomorrow, too. In fact, the rest of the week. Blogging will be a) late b) light, or c) nonexistent. There are some guest bloggers around here somewhere, but apparently they have jobs, too. 🙄
I've created a Christian Carnival Blogroll; you can see it in my sidebar. I'm setting this up to make it easier to find past Carnivals and always have the latest post available; there's also an RSS Feed so when a new Christian Carnival is up, you'll know it and where to find it. Some things … Continue reading Christian Carnival Blogroll and RSS Feed
Uptown Girl was one of the first blogs I stumbled across when I was trying to figure out how to get Chasing the Wind running. Of course, her website didn't look as girly-girl back then 😛 . Her blog just turned two today, so go over and wish her a Happy Blogiversary!
I haven't done this in a while - what brings people to Chasing the Wind? Here's a list of searches people use. By the way, this list is always up to date in my sidebar, down near the bottom where it says "Referral Links." Some days, that the most fun part of blogging. 😛 Democrats … Continue reading Why Are You Here?
I gave Askismet two weeks. Verdict: I love it. Let me give you a little background: There are hundreds of pieces of spam that spammers think ought to be displayed prominently on Chasing the Wind. From weight loss drugs to pornography to cheap mortgages, the spammers have setup software "robots" to spam thousands of blogs. … Continue reading Akismet Spam Catcher
Scott Adams, author of the comic strip Dilbert, has started a blog. And if you thought his comic strips were off-the-wall, his random daily brain wheezes will surely convince you. Today's entry, "Blogging Under the Influence: Today I am whacked out on pain killers because yesterday I had surgery to correct my deviated septum. I … Continue reading Dilbert Blog
I've been tagged by Vox. I wish pingbacks worked reliably because I only find out I've been tagged if I accidentally stumble across the post. 
1) Do you use an alarm clock to wake up in the morning? Good golly yes. No way I'd wake up that early if I didn't have to. I'd … Continue reading Blogcess 26
I think this is the first time I've ever used the word "meme." Miss Vox tagged me over a month ago to do this - and since I didn't get a pingback for some reason, I almost missed it. Then I wrote it on my todo list so I could reschedule it umpteen times. Total … Continue reading Music Meme
I've changed the default theme, the background graphics, to AlphaOmega (adapted from Stevish 2 almost as-is). If you prefer the older Blue Swirly theme (or you *still* see the Blue Swirly theme and want to see the AlphaOmega theme), there's a Theme Switcher box in the sidebar. Switch back and forth all you want. 🙂
Spammers are annoying. I know I've mentioned this before - behind the scenes here at Chasing the Wind I delete a lot of spam. If you're a first-time visitor, your comments are automatically moderated, meaning I have to approve it. Once I've approved one, the rest are automatically approved unless you use a naughty word. … Continue reading Bad Behavior
Normally, people come to Chasing the Wind to get information. Except while I'm in Germany, information is scarce. What's the damage like in Houston? Any flooding or wind damage? Anybody seen my wife?
Yeah, I know I should write something. My muse went on vacation for some reason, taking all the interesting topics. Karl Rove? John Roberts? Kids that breakdance? Why the Inquisition wasn't so bad? How many "Ten Commandments" are there? Which of our two dogs is getting on top of the kitchen table? So many topics. … Continue reading Brain Vacuum
Stuff I'm not likely to blog about this week: - The latest Harry Potter book. It sold a lot of copies apparently. - The Karl Rove kerfuffle. Like the Tom DeLay witch-hunt of last year, it's just partisan yelping trying to find something, anything, that'll burn the conservatives. I think "kerfuffle" is a silly word. … Continue reading Blogging Kerfuffle
I've added a tool for you to use when you find an interesting topic; you can now subscribe to comments and receive email notification. So if you find a topic among the hundreds of myriad topics here, from Dale Earnhardt, Jr.'s Girlfriend to Questioning Evolution to how my dog reacts when I pass gas, just … Continue reading Subscribe to Comments Via Email
According to Michelle Malkin, MSNBC had 10.3 million visitors the day of London's 7/7 terrorist attack. The most heavily trafficked blog is the very liberal Daily Kos with 212,000 visitors, or 2% of the traffic at MSNBC. The power of blogs pale next to mainstream media. Chasing the Wind is running about 212 visitors a … Continue reading The Power of Blogging
I'm checking out a new tool I found at CoffeeSwirls to take online polls. Looks like it's working fine, except I don't really have anything I want to poll about. Vote anyway. 😛
Been busy lately; posting has been slim. You know, what with that wedding thang and all. Today's not going to slow down enough to post anything; I want to tell you about the KSBJ Summerfest and the Newsboys and last night's ImagiNations dinner at the church hearing about African missionaries and listening to Christian African … Continue reading Posts are Coming, I Promise
I'm tweaking the blog tonight. ("So, what did you do last night? Nudge nudge, wink wink, knowhatImean?") Er... where was I? Oh yeah... I dropped the "Reciprocal Blogrolling" portion that listed 15 other blogs linking to me. There was something wrong with it though - of the 15 blogs, *I* was one of them, and … Continue reading Blog Tweaks
One year today, I started blogging. And I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to say or who I wanted to say it to. Today, as a mature blogger, fully one year old, I can fully say with confidence that I still don't have any idea. Not that it matters - I've discovered I … Continue reading One Year Blogiversary to "Chasing the Wind"
Apparently the news that Diane & I are engaged has been an inspiration. Not only did Miss Vox get engaged, but she done ran off to Nevada to get hitched, too. Now she's Mrs. SG. Drop by her site and wish her the best!
Best new WordPress feature: the Blacklist. I get a lot of comment spam, and none of it from very nice people. First it was a bunch of online poker sites, but then it escalated into a lot of porn. With WordPress 1.2, the spam got posted right away, and I'd have to delete it later. … Continue reading Best New WordPress 1.5 Feature
One of the banes of running a website is that you pay for the bandwidth used. The more people, the more bandwidth. And if you want to host a picture that lots of people look at, your bandwidth can go up radically. I stumbled across ImageShack today that may offer a solution. Free bandwidth, free … Continue reading Image Hosting
WordPress 1.5 which I installed just this week offers a few more choices on spam control that I really needed, including a "mass spam" and "mass delete" button. I try hard to keep most of the spam off the front page, but I'm probably getting 50 pieces of "comment spam" for various online poker websites … Continue reading Awaiting Moderation
I decided to play hooky; I'm only feeling 85-90% today. When my brain is foggy with antihistimines, I thought that was the best time to make major, technical upgrades. Voila, WordPress 1.5 is installed. The default "kubrick" theme is up for now; I'll convert the old templates one at a time. If you notice anything … Continue reading WordPress 1.5 "Strayhorn" Update
Non-techie warning: Chasing the Wind might be offline sporadically tomorrow as I upgrade some software. Techie warning: WordPress 1.5, "Strayhorn," was released this week. From your end, not much has changed, but the back end will give me much better tools to kill off spam. Believe you me, deleting 250 pieces of spam one at … Continue reading WordPress 1.5 "Strayhorn"
This post will be too long, so here's the end of the story first: I bought my brother this t-shirt (click for larger image): OK, now I'll back up to the beginning. A synopsis of random nonsense all munged together for your amusement. 🙂 I still get a lot of visitors here looking for Dale … Continue reading Dale Earnhardt and Chim Chim
Short & sweet: I'll be pruning the blogroll, the list of other blogs on the left side. If you're reading one of them and it suddenly disappears, I snipped it. When I link a site, it's usually because I read something interesting there and I intend to go back. Sometimes when I go back, I'm … Continue reading Unceremoniously Dropped From the Blogroll
Yuck. Comment Spam. You don't see very much of it on Chasing the Wind because I've put a few key phrases in a spam filter, but I think the only two words I need are "viagra" and "poker" in that file. If you attempt to comment using one of those words, it goes into a … Continue reading Comment Spam
Via Michelle Malkin, I read that Ambra Nykol has lost her job and that Michelle thinks the Mainstream Media should hire her for her fresh, interesting, and diverse point of view. Off I go to check her out. I find this very well written post about rapper Kanye West's song, "Jesus Walks." Nykol examines the … Continue reading Nikola.com Added to Blogroll
I added Sand in the Gears after a recommended by the venerable Miss Vox. Sand in the Gears doesn't write often, but his writing is superb. You can sign up to get his stuff by email so you don't have to check so often, or use an RSS reader like I do. I ought to … Continue reading Blogrolling Changes
Those that know me already know I'm a Large Mammal, though I've been losing weight. 10.5 lbs in the last month, in fact. I'm still a Large Mammal, though. Even when I'm back down to my fightin' weight of 190 lbs, I'll still be a large, muscle bound, hulking mammal. Rawr. Now Chasing the Wind … Continue reading A Large Mammal
Sean sent me a link to StoryCorps, dedicated to record an interviews with your favorite person. They take care of all the technical details, including helping with the questions you can ask. You get an hour long recording of the experience for only $10. Have you wanted to interview your grandmother? An uncle? A favorite … Continue reading StoryCorps
Courtesy of Wizbang, I've added a little box at the top this page to see the latest poll numbers for the Presidential Election. You can click the name of the poll to see how they came up with their figures.
As I get ready to turn in for the night, I notice Chasing the Wind has had 19,911 Visitors since I started this on April 14th of this year. Most of those were Dale Earnhardt fans, I think. When I wake up, I'm expecting to break 20,000. I hope y'all have been as amused as … Continue reading 20,000 Visitors
At one point, I wanted to do a regular reporting of what people searched for on Google that led them here. For a while, it was fun; pastamancer, mispelled watermellon, Michael Moore's movie, etc. But for over a month it's been Dale Earnhardt Jr and his girlfriend or some variation thereof. Here's the search word … Continue reading Search Queries: Overwhelmed
I spent the first couple of hours tonight trying to get WordPress up so I could see if I like it. I started at Livejournal.com, switched to Blogger.com, and now I wonder why I need Anything.com. I should be able to bypass any 3rd party blog host and post directly on Chasing the Wind. Since … Continue reading Better Background, But Not By Much
My move is complete. I managed to integrate a web template so the blog integrates seamlessly. Or, ahem, will integrate seamlessly. My blog is now located at Chasing the Wind.
I reset the blog back to a standard template this morning, hoping it would be useable today. It's not - I have to figure out why there's a path missing, so in the meantime pictures don't show and you can't comment on the entries.If you see anything else wrong, please let me know, but do … Continue reading Reset the blog template this morning…
I'll try again tomorrow.
What I really wanted was a way to embed a blog *into* my site. Livejournal offers that for paid users, but for free users you have to use some sort of Frame html setup. I had been considering upgrading to a paid account. Except Blogger.com revamped their site today. One of the free features is … Continue reading I guess I'm Moving…
I'm trying out Blogger.com (owned by Google) for 2 reasons. 1, it let's me publish on my site free (unlike Livejournal which requires a fee) and 2) I'm trying to get listed on Google. :)I must have stumbled onto Blogger at the right time - it's all over the news that Blogger was revamped. It … Continue reading My First Blogger Entry….
Great weekend. "Babysat" my brother-in-law Saturday morning and took him out for "ice cream" later. (Euphemisms for "golf" and "a pitcher of Shiner Bock"). Sunday took Mom out for brunch and visited with my sister & niece & step-father. My son was nowhere around this time - he was playing D&D Friday, then I left … Continue reading Mom's Day Weekend Recap..
I was on one of those roller-coaster highs yesterday. Don't know why; might have been as simple as a good night's sleep. Whatever it was, yakked all day, told goofy jokes, sang that cow song that got stuck in my head, kept it up nonstop all day. Put a new MasterCard/Visa logo on my website. … Continue reading Thank you thank you, I'll be here till Tuesday. Try the veal.
Up late again. Same reason. This morning I'm driving to work, listening to a country music love song. I cried like a baby. I gotta listen to something else. Maybe go back to listening to talk radio. No, wait - politician talk about raising my taxes on talk radio. That makes me cry like a … Continue reading Ow^2
There's nothing on it at the moment except a lot of "blah blah blah". My brother who lives 300 miles away apparently picked up 2 viruses on his wife's machine. One of the features of the virus prevents him from going to Symantec's website and picking up virus updates. So I'm copying large sections of … Continue reading Now I know why I have a website
The more time I spend reading various blogs here on Livejournal, the more I feel like this is a different planet than the one I grew up on. I'm accepting of other people; it matters not on a social level what they do. But I don't think I'm going to be able to converse over … Continue reading Not my planet…
I know why I didn't want a journal. It's a much easier question to answer than why I *do* want a journal. I don't want a journal because I'm a listener (or on blogs, "voyuer" might be a better term). I'm a gatherer of information, just soak up knowledge, useful or not. Reading other people's … Continue reading Perhaps the term is "bloguer"
Notice that I have -0- entries. Doh. Now there's one.
Chasing the Wind 
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