The blogs are starting to add up. Now serving #300.
I'm delighted to get to such a high number. When I first starting writing these in September 2010 under the blogger.com domain, I wasn't sure how long I'd be writing these for. Other attempts at maintaining blogs failed miserably. For the life of me, I can't remember the blog site that I wrote a couple dozen postings on during my college years, and I probably deleted most/all of the posts as I became more aware of the permanence of all things Internets. Then, Myspace entered the picture and I was able to share with everyone my emotion at the time of writing the blog as well as a song to go with it. I finally got around to deactivating my Myspace about a year ago.
I'm not even sure what got me writing again. I guess it was the easiest way for me to express my sports thoughts. It may have been out of boredom, not really sure. -My first blog set the tone somewhat for what was to come with this setting: a blog about sports, gambling, and uhhh, sports. From there, there was a fair share of immature, pointless blogs (kinda like this one). The blog after that was titled, "Florida: America's Wang." Classy, I know.
But I believe it has become a tad more mature and a lot more well-rounded. I've tackled some issues that have bothered me. I've had fun at my dad's expense, although I'm not sure where the picture for this blog went. I've tried to predict the past three seasons (including this season) of baseball, basketball and football, at a very low success rate. I believe the only prediction that's come close to being right was predicting Miami over OKC last year in the NBA Finals - didn't really take a brain surgeon for that.
I've also gotten political lately, starting with last year's SOPA madness that resulted in me writing a few letters to my local senators, even getting a nice response back from Mark Kirk. I won't bother linking the Dick Durbin one since, well...yeah. I also threw my support behind a president for the first time in my life. The last time I voted before 2012 was for John Kerry (as reluctantly as one could vote for someone), so these writings about Gary Johnson were refreshing to transcribe, as his beliefs align with my own about government's role in our lives and our society.
But what really took my blog into a new readership was the introduction into my online dating life. Based on the enormous views that I got from those blogs (three of my top 10 viewed blogs came from that seven-chapter series), there's nothing y'all like more than the juicy tidbits of single people's love lives. One of these top-viewed blogs comes from my date with the lovely and beautiful Jen, who I am still with to this day. One thing that came out of this blog series, outside of people being really curious with my love life, was the realization that my blogs about personal stuff (not the "what I ate for dinner" crap but more the "here's a fun new thing I'm trying out or a realization I've come to") were well-received and well-read. That doesn't mean I've abandoned my bread-and-butter which is sports, but I've kept that in mind while trying to balance the sports stuff with the fun, random life observations.
There's plenty of other things I could link up that I'm proud of writing, like my series on fans of out-of-town teams (I am looking to expand on that for next season - goal is to get at least 6-8 more fan bases represented). It was fun to get people to interact with me and make their stories come to life a little bit.
I originally titled this blog Hawaii 3-0-0, thinking I might end up writing about my pending Hawaii trip. As I've been known to do, I went off on a little tangent and ended up writing exactly one paragraph about it. Which reminds me, I created an urban dictionary word five years ago when hanging out with my cousin Frank. I found it as I was looking for the old blogging page that I used in 2004/2005. Here's the word, in case you are interested in looking at it: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tangentation.
Anywho, I hope you all continue to read my blogs, no matter the subject. I hope to come up with some new ideas for blogs in the near future, including some potential new series of blogs.
Thanks for reading. Hope you continue to read for another 300 more and beyond.
Showing posts with label blogs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogs. Show all posts
4/14/2012
A Model Citizen (Blog 200)
For my 200th blog, I am very proud to make it as self-centered as I possibly can.
What do I talk about....my bowling abilities? Nah - nothing to write home about lately.
My amazing gambling wins of the past couple months? This has been better than my bowling, especially with March Madness, but still, not the topic I care to discuss.
Rather, it's something that I can't talk about off the top of my head...wait, actually, I can.
This 5'9", 215 pound mutt will be (drumroll please)......a hair model. That's right, yours truly will be showing off his amazing haircut in front of the employees and bosses of Red 7 Salon, the place where my beautiful girlfriend works.
From my understanding, I get to walk like I am on a runway, showing off the haircut that Jen's co-worker Lindsey (who is completing her initial 15-month program) recently gave me. I must say, it's a sharp haircut that I've gotten quite the compliments. Luckily, nothing that the girlfriend has to beat any women up for (at least at this point).
I will be one of seven different hairstyles on display at Lindsey's show - and the only male participant. As if I needed more of an ego boost.
I hope a video or some pictures of this surfaces sooner rather than later and I can show everyone how terrific of a hair model I am. Hopefully, it will be a better modeling job than George Costanza's hand modeling career on Seinfeld.
The real question now becomes - is there any way I can put this into my resume....especially without looking like a complete tool? I doubt it, but I can only imagine what kind of conversations would come from potential future employers about the brief modeling career.
Wish me luck as I grace the stage of Red 7 Salon and show off my amazing catwalk skills.
Also, thanks for everyone inspiring me to keep writing the past 200 blogs. I hope to keep going with this into the future years in some form.
What do I talk about....my bowling abilities? Nah - nothing to write home about lately.
My amazing gambling wins of the past couple months? This has been better than my bowling, especially with March Madness, but still, not the topic I care to discuss.
Rather, it's something that I can't talk about off the top of my head...wait, actually, I can.
This 5'9", 215 pound mutt will be (drumroll please)......a hair model. That's right, yours truly will be showing off his amazing haircut in front of the employees and bosses of Red 7 Salon, the place where my beautiful girlfriend works.
From my understanding, I get to walk like I am on a runway, showing off the haircut that Jen's co-worker Lindsey (who is completing her initial 15-month program) recently gave me. I must say, it's a sharp haircut that I've gotten quite the compliments. Luckily, nothing that the girlfriend has to beat any women up for (at least at this point).
I will be one of seven different hairstyles on display at Lindsey's show - and the only male participant. As if I needed more of an ego boost.
I hope a video or some pictures of this surfaces sooner rather than later and I can show everyone how terrific of a hair model I am. Hopefully, it will be a better modeling job than George Costanza's hand modeling career on Seinfeld.
The real question now becomes - is there any way I can put this into my resume....especially without looking like a complete tool? I doubt it, but I can only imagine what kind of conversations would come from potential future employers about the brief modeling career.
Wish me luck as I grace the stage of Red 7 Salon and show off my amazing catwalk skills.
Also, thanks for everyone inspiring me to keep writing the past 200 blogs. I hope to keep going with this into the future years in some form.
1/04/2012
Goals vs. Resolutions
Four days into the new year - how's your New Year's Resolution looking?
Did you set a concrete goal - like losing 20 pounds this year as opposed to abstractly saying "lose a lot of weight"?
Did you set a reasonable goal? This goes a long way in how hard you decide to go forth with a resolution.
I think a lot of times, New Year's Resolutions are people setting goals that they have no intention on meeting. It is procrastination at its finest.
Why are people compelled to make goals at the beginning of the year moreso than any other time of the year? Do they feel the need to change with the change of the year?
As with any change in life, you have to want to do it, not force yourself to do it because the calendar year changes.
Saying you are going to change something in your life on June 21st is just as good as saying it on January 1st. There's no reason to delay these major changes for the beginning of years.
If you want to run a marathon, you don't expect to just run one without some training. You have to build up to that goal over a set of monthly goals. Likewise, with other goals, you need to pace yourself with accomplishing some things.
I've learned that if I set unreasonable goals or goals I'm not really committed to, much of this short-term work to accomplish it will go to waste.
Just because you don't accomplish a goal doesn't make it a failure either. If you set out to lose a certain amount of weight and you lose 5 less than that in say a 6 month period, that's not to say you can't keep at it and try readjusting goals.
My Own Goals
Not all of them are important or life-changing goals.
I hope you're able to achieve your New Year's Resolutions, but make sure you're constantly making reasonable goals throughout the year, not just saving it for January 1, 2013.
Good night to you all.
Blog about NFL General Managers/Coaches and Playoff picks to come either tomorrow or Friday.
Did you set a concrete goal - like losing 20 pounds this year as opposed to abstractly saying "lose a lot of weight"?
Did you set a reasonable goal? This goes a long way in how hard you decide to go forth with a resolution.
I think a lot of times, New Year's Resolutions are people setting goals that they have no intention on meeting. It is procrastination at its finest.
Why are people compelled to make goals at the beginning of the year moreso than any other time of the year? Do they feel the need to change with the change of the year?
As with any change in life, you have to want to do it, not force yourself to do it because the calendar year changes.
Saying you are going to change something in your life on June 21st is just as good as saying it on January 1st. There's no reason to delay these major changes for the beginning of years.
If you want to run a marathon, you don't expect to just run one without some training. You have to build up to that goal over a set of monthly goals. Likewise, with other goals, you need to pace yourself with accomplishing some things.
I've learned that if I set unreasonable goals or goals I'm not really committed to, much of this short-term work to accomplish it will go to waste.
Just because you don't accomplish a goal doesn't make it a failure either. If you set out to lose a certain amount of weight and you lose 5 less than that in say a 6 month period, that's not to say you can't keep at it and try readjusting goals.
My Own Goals
Not all of them are important or life-changing goals.
- 100+ blogs again - I'd like to keep my writing sharp and keep getting better at my craft. I'd like to write about variety of topics, although I'm sure I'll continue to weigh in more on sports topics.
- 3000 Tweets & Gain 50 Followers (Go over 100): I had 1022 Tweets in 7 months last year & got 58 followers, so the goal is 4022 total Tweets and 108 followers by the end of the year. The reason for these goals is to gain a larger following for my blogs and like the blog goal, to keep my mind fresh. (It's @BrianBolek, to keep pushing this)
- Get a Mac Computer & Become Solid at Final Cut Pro again: I want to get back into video editing. I already know of one editing project that I have to do - editing the pre-video of pictures/music for my brother's wedding. I'm hoping this leads me to get back into editing other videos and uploading some videos that get me some notice.
- Listen to all 4500+ songs on my I-Pod at some point this year: I have yet to accomplish this in the several years I've had my I-Pods. Usually what happens is I end up skipping songs. I'll see how long I can go without skipping songs. So far, through 22 of 4506. Currently listening to Lucky Boys Confusion "Mr. Wilmington".
- Learn to design a website: I need to market myself more. Even if it doesn't help with finding a job in video editing or whatever, it can't hurt to have some self-created content (a la these blogs, YouTube videos, etc). I'm not sure how easy it will be to do this, but I will put forth effort to learn at some point.
- Keep getting better/more knowledgeable about sports gambling: As much as I'd love to become a professional gambler, I know that I can't handle the ups and downs of it. To see whether this goal is going well, I suppose I'd look at profit - or perhaps this is one of those subjective goals that is more about gaining knowledge than actual profit. Over the past couple years, I've gotten better at staying disciplined as a gambler, knowing my limits & executing research before placing most of my bets.
I hope you're able to achieve your New Year's Resolutions, but make sure you're constantly making reasonable goals throughout the year, not just saving it for January 1, 2013.
Good night to you all.
Blog about NFL General Managers/Coaches and Playoff picks to come either tomorrow or Friday.
9/12/2011
Counting My Chickens (Chapter 4)
The past two weeks, I've received more response in person about my blogs than any other time in the past year that I've written a blog. I never would have guessed that people would this much of a crap about my dating life and where the online dating world takes me. The step-by-step stuff that I've shared seems to make the story more relate-able to everyone.
The fact that the 3 dating blogs have all reached top 5 blog status - including the last one which currently has 118 views (a record for this blog) - proves to me the level of interest that everyone has with it. It's been fun writing the blogs so far. Even more fun to have people come up to me and tell me how much they have loved the stories so far.
Another thing I didn't account for, however, is how vulnerable I make myself when I share my life with the hundreds of people I know on Facebook. Don't get me wrong - I love sharing some stories of my life with everyone. But this past week, I may have been jumping the gun with things when it comes to the dating thing.
"Bad News Never Had Good Timing"
So it turns out that there will not be a second date. An online discussion Sunday night with the girl of the first date had her opening up to me and saying that she'd just like to be friends - which isn't all that new of a phrase to me - and no, I'm not looking for sympathy, just being honest in that I've heard that a lot, especially lately.
And I have no ill-will towards anyone who says it, including this case. I just don't care for the people who say that and then never bother maintaining their end of "Let's Just Be Friends". It's easy to figure those out. Luckily, some of the people who I've heard say that have held up their end of the bargain.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed - because I am. Hell, it seemed to be the only thing I spoke about to people the past week. The people who asked me about my chances, I tried stressing that I am cautiously optimistic. That was no lie, because I knew there was no guarantees after the first date.
And please, no ill will towards Date-1.
"On to the Next One"
So after I've told dozens of people in person and 100s of readers about what was to come of my week this week with a second date that wasn't, I find myself with my pants around my ankles somewhat. I know that there was a chance of things not working out when starting this blog, but I felt (and still feel) compelled to share some of this stories. Especially since people seem to respond to it so well.
I went back on the site and messaged a few new possibilities. I'll go back to my strategy of messaging new people that I would like to meet and hope that I can get another date out of it.
Depending on results and stories, I may update this segment weekly or a couple times a week. I hope to have more success stories to share with you. Although there is a part of me that may not want to build these things up in such a public forum, but rather do it in private conversations with people.
But one thing this guy won't do is quit. I did meet a cool girl off of the site so far and wouldn't mind at this point if she lived up to her "Let's Be Friends" thing - so the site definitely is not a total loss.
Time to march on and meet the next girl.
The fact that the 3 dating blogs have all reached top 5 blog status - including the last one which currently has 118 views (a record for this blog) - proves to me the level of interest that everyone has with it. It's been fun writing the blogs so far. Even more fun to have people come up to me and tell me how much they have loved the stories so far.
Another thing I didn't account for, however, is how vulnerable I make myself when I share my life with the hundreds of people I know on Facebook. Don't get me wrong - I love sharing some stories of my life with everyone. But this past week, I may have been jumping the gun with things when it comes to the dating thing.
"Bad News Never Had Good Timing"
So it turns out that there will not be a second date. An online discussion Sunday night with the girl of the first date had her opening up to me and saying that she'd just like to be friends - which isn't all that new of a phrase to me - and no, I'm not looking for sympathy, just being honest in that I've heard that a lot, especially lately.
And I have no ill-will towards anyone who says it, including this case. I just don't care for the people who say that and then never bother maintaining their end of "Let's Just Be Friends". It's easy to figure those out. Luckily, some of the people who I've heard say that have held up their end of the bargain.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed - because I am. Hell, it seemed to be the only thing I spoke about to people the past week. The people who asked me about my chances, I tried stressing that I am cautiously optimistic. That was no lie, because I knew there was no guarantees after the first date.
And please, no ill will towards Date-1.
"On to the Next One"
So after I've told dozens of people in person and 100s of readers about what was to come of my week this week with a second date that wasn't, I find myself with my pants around my ankles somewhat. I know that there was a chance of things not working out when starting this blog, but I felt (and still feel) compelled to share some of this stories. Especially since people seem to respond to it so well.
I went back on the site and messaged a few new possibilities. I'll go back to my strategy of messaging new people that I would like to meet and hope that I can get another date out of it.
Depending on results and stories, I may update this segment weekly or a couple times a week. I hope to have more success stories to share with you. Although there is a part of me that may not want to build these things up in such a public forum, but rather do it in private conversations with people.
But one thing this guy won't do is quit. I did meet a cool girl off of the site so far and wouldn't mind at this point if she lived up to her "Let's Be Friends" thing - so the site definitely is not a total loss.
Time to march on and meet the next girl.
7/19/2011
99 blog postings but bitching ain't one
 |
| Blogs - But Bitching Ain't One (Ok, that may be false) |
Anyone who knows me knows that I am a numbers person. I have been since my youth, learning how to calculate batting averages at the age of 5. It's probably why I got so good at math and can do most basic math problems (within reason) in my head quickly. The bifocals were the perfect outfit for a math nerd like me, although I never did get into the pocket protector phase of my life (thank god).
Anyways, where was I? Oh yeah - numbers. As much as I like to write, my need of numbers in life (mainly just through sports statistics) is undeniable. The reaching of triple digit blogs within a 10 month timeframe was something I never set out to do. In fact, I thought I was gonna give up writing this blog around December (did for a while) and then again in February. Whether it be just to educate people on certain goings-ons in my life or just to write for my own release, I've found a lot of different subjects to write about.
At first I thought it might just end up being about sports and gambling (and it may go more towards that when football season starts). However, I've branched out into general topics that get more views than I expected. It seems most people have connected most with my personal pieces - my grandma poem (rest in peace Grandma) and short write-up on my dad's cataract surgery and picture accompanying it have been my most read pieces.
I never know who reads this thing, but I have an idea of the few people who read it a lot. I do like people coming up to me at social gatherings and telling me they read this because it gets me motivated to write more. As the blogs keep getting posted, please let me know your opinions about my opinions or my writing style or whatever it is that you wish to discuss. I enjoy getting feedback (both positive and negative) because it means that you're actually reading it and giving somewhat of a damn to what I'm saying or writing.
Thanks for the motivation to write, and hopefully I'll be able to keep at this to get up to 999 and beyond.
Peace.
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