Footprints on the Moon

I think there a couple different kinds of bloggers…. there are the bloggers that are open books. They share anything and everything about their lives, good or bad. There are the bloggers that share only the good things, sweeping everything else under the kitchen rugs and pretending like they are okay. And then there are the people who are somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.

I think I’m in the middle somewhere, closer to the under the rug end. Sometimes this is because the bad things in my life aren’t my stories to tell… sometimes it’s because I just don’t want to put them out there in the universe for everyone. I do go back and read through older blog entries sometimes, and I don’t necessarily want to hash through all the negatives again. There have been times that I’ve mentioned in posts that I was going through something I didn’t want to talk about, but I can’t always remember what it was when I go back and read through it later. Maybe that’s a good thing. I don’t know.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this. I’ve just seen quite a few people out there lately talking about how they just want to be honest about everything they are going through. I don’t really think keeping some things close to the vest is being dishonest, but I do wonder why I do it sometimes… “in real life” I’m pretty much an open book most of the time.

Oh my goodness, I have been such a blogging slacker lately. I’ve even taken pictures for the last two Self Portrait Sundays, but do you see them here on the blog? I’ve got a pass for the 17th because I had no computer, but this week I have no excuse other than pure laziness. I even finally got the pictures onto my laptop (along with others I fully intended to blog about) but I never got them uploaded to Flickr. I blame Facebook, and FarmTown specifically. I’m addicted. It’s sad, actually.

In any case, I’ve thought several times over the last couple weeks that I needed to come over here and write something, but then I’d act like someone was asking me to discuss the merits of Mesothelioma lawyers or pull my fingernails out one by one. Whichever would be most painful. Sometimes I really enjoy blogging, and other times it really feels like a chore. Guess where I’m at right now?

Mostly that is because there really hasn’t been a lot going on lately. At least nothing that I’ve wanted to blog about. It feels a lot like the same old, same old, work, eat, sleep, repeat. There’s only so many times you can hop on the blog to say “I have nothing to say.” Don’t feel bad, the rest of my blogs are equally as neglected!

I am about to need to buy term insurance for my sanity… (no comments from the peanut gallery on that one lol) Why, why, why…. WHY are so many people switching from a full RSS feed for their blog to a partial feed? I’m really getting frustrated because more and more of the blogs I subscribe to in Google Reader are suddenly showing up with just partial feeds. I know a lot of people do it to get more people to click over onto their blogs and inflate their stats, but that doesn’t work with me. It’s unlikely that what you’ve posted in the two and half sentences that show in my feed reader are enough for me to want to click over and read the whole thing. I’ll probably skim right past your post, and eventually I’ll take the time to go into my subscriptions and delete it entirely since I’m not reading it anyways. I don’t subscribe to partial feeds, so I find it really frustrating when a blog I was previously enjoying suddenly switches to one. I promise, if I like your post, I *will* click out of reader to come visit your site and read the comments and maybe leave one of my own. You don’t have to try and “trick” me into doing it.

I got that question shortly after I announced my newest blog. “How many blogs do you have now anyways?” The short answer to that question is 3. The longer answer is at least 9… See, I don’t have an electronics blog, but I do have quite a few others, and I’ve spent many years accumulating them.

There was the one on the teen website that I wrote on for a very long time, back when it was still called a “journal” and not a blog. I have a LiveJournal, then a blogspot blog, and I finally bought my own domain. When I did that, the others fell by the wayside. Along the way, I’ve tried to start blogs in a variety of more focused topics. (You know, more specific than “I spent another weekend in my apartment avoiding housework, here’s a picture!”) Most of them didn’t capture my interest. Now I’m down to just this blog, and two focused ones: Jenn Cooks and Financially Foolish.

My poor laptop is completely dead now. You’ve heard me talking about how it’s been slowing down and just generally been irritating… Well… now it has officially bitten the dust. I brought it to my boss to look at, and he said there was nothing he could do, I need to replace my hard drive. Which, if you’ve been following my financial woes, you know I have no money to do, at least until after Christmas and even then I *shouldn’t*. So you’ll probably see less of me for awhile… I can still access my blogs from work, but I won’t be able to post my Self Portrait Sunday on the weekends. I might have to load my camera software on my work computer cause it would be a shame if I never got to show you the funny car covers I saw yesterday. Actually I didn’t get a picture yesterday, so I may have already lost that opportunity. But I’m crossing my fingers that they’ll still be there when I get home today.

In the meantime, how about a survey about me? Cause I’m at work, I haven’t the internet at home for 3 days (usually I’d post this crap as a bulletin on MySpace) and I’m bored. Enjoy!

1. Who was the last person of the opposite sex you lay in a bed with?
Is it wrong to skip the very first question? If I wasn’t too lazy to renumber the rest, I’d take it out. This one qualifies as classified information.

2. Where was the last place you went out to eat?
Chipotle… and I’m thinking that just might be dinner tonight too.

3. What was the last alcoholic beverage you consumed?
A wine cooler.

4. Which do you prefer – eyes or lips?
Eyes.

5. Medicine, fine arts, or law?
Fine arts.

6. Best kind of pizza?
Pizza hut stuffed crust with extra cheese.

7. Is your bedroom window open?
Nope, I don’t open my bedroom window.

8. What is in store for your future?
Exciting things I hope!

9. Who was the last band you saw live?
Does the ND marching band count?

10. Do you take care of your friends while they are sick?
If I’m needed!

11. What is your favorite soda?
Sierra Mist Free.

12. How many songs are on your iTunes?
This computer has 961. My home computer *did* have a LOT more than that. *sniff*

13. When was the last time you purchased something over 100 dollars?
When I bought the Wii in a fit of stupidity in July.

14. Where is the last place you drove to?
To work this morning.

15. Are you experienced?
That depends on what we’re talking about.

16. Any historical figures that you envy?
Nobody comes to mind.

17. What brand of digital camera do you own?
Canon… will upgrade to a better Canon some day.

18. When was the last time you got a good workout?
Can I plead the 5th on this one? Too long ago…

19. If you need a new pair of jeans, which store do you go to first?
Walmart cause I’m broke. And cheap.

20. Where did your last kiss take place?
Front door of my apartment.

21. What were you doing at 11:59 PM on Monday night?
Sleeping.

22. Are you a quitter?
I try not to be.

23. Who was the last person you had in your house?
Sarah.

24. Can you speak another language?
Used to speak German… now you’re hard pressed to get more than Guten Tag out of me!

25. How about you put your legs behind your head?
HA! I have BOOBS, y’all. Those legs would never fit with them in the way. And let’s not talk about the fat rolls lol

26. When was the last time you went dancing while under the influence?
Vegas last November.

27. Nickname?
Jenn, Jeffiner

28. Describe what you are wearing in detail.
white bra, orange undies, white “wife beater” tank top, white uniform shirt, badge and nametag, black pants, black socks, black shoes.

29. What do you think about people who party a lot?
To each his own, but it’s not my idea of a good time.

30. Does talking about sex make you uncomfortable?
Not usually but it depends on who I’m talking to.

31. Are you one of those people who obsesses over Hollister?
Uh, no. I don’t think I’ve ever been in there.

32. What was the last CD you purchased?
I have no idea, it’s been so long.

33. What are two bands or singers that you will always love?
Shoot, I don’t know.

34. Which of the seven deadly sins are you guilty of?
Probably most of them at one point or another.

35. Did you just have to Google the seven deadly sins to see what they were?
No

36. Where is your favorite place to get coffee?
I don’t drink coffee.

37. Have you ever been offered a job?
Well I’ve been working here for about 3 years, so that would be about the last time.

38. Have you ever stolen anything off a road?
Don’t think so.

39. When was the last time you dyed your hair?
Probably 5-6 years ago.

40. Whom was the last person you rode in a car with?
Sarah

41. Have you kissed somebody in the last 2 weeks?
In the last 2 weeks? No.

42. Miss someone?
Yes

43. How is your last ex doing?
I have no idea… haven’t gotten an update in awhile. So I’ll say I know he’s alive and that’s about all I know.

44. Is there someone you want to fight?
no.

45. Where would you rather be?
In bed! Or on the beach… somewhere where it is still warm.

You probably recall me coming home from work a week and a half ago, and discovering that instead of fixing my shower, the maintenance guys merely put up a piece of plastic with some duct tape and promised to come back at some unknown point in the future. If you haven’t, you can read the story here. Well, a week and a half later, I still have plastic and duct tape in my shower, and haven’t even heard a whisper as to when they plan on coming back to fix it. So I decided to make it into a contest for all of you.

The first person to pick the correct date that they will come begin the actual work on my shower will win a $25 gift card for Bath and Body Works.

As of 7:40 a.m., Wednesday, July 23, 2008, there are no plans to begin work on my shower. That means you can pick any date between today and however long you think it will take. You can only pick one day. Pick any day you like, but I only have one gift card, so if you’re not the first person to choose a day, I can’t promise a prize. If it turns out that my shower languishes in plastic wrap, and I move out before it gets fixed, I will award the gift card to the person who chose the date closest to my move-out date. Bonus points if they actually fix my bathtub drain (properly!) at the same time.

Contest begins now, and ends when the shower tiles are fixed or I move out, whichever comes first! Good luck!

If you tried to visit my blogs between about 9:30 pm on Thursday night and 11:45pm Friday night, you were greeted with a lovely “This account has been deactivated” notice. Bluehost deactivated my account, and sent me an email which I received at 6am on Friday.

It said:
“Your web hosting account for footprintsonthemoon.com has been deactivated (reason: call
customer support).
Although your web site has been disabled, your data may still be available for
up to 30 days, after which it will be deleted.

If you feel this deactivation is in error, please contact customer support as
soon as possible.”

Nice, right? I called customer service, and as far as I can tell from the mumbling, accented tech support guy I got on the phone, they found evidence of a hacker on the server. They deleted the files they could find but I needed to “update my scripts and delete everything else” before they’ll scan again and reactivate my account. Oh, and by the way, do I have access to my control panel. Uh, no, because YOU DEACTIVATED MY ACCOUNT. The tech support guy said he’d get me back into my control panel within 5-10 minutes, and put in a ticket when I’m done, kthanxbye.

Of course, by that time, I had to leave for work. I can access my control panel from work to update my installs, but I couldn’t access ftp to check for foreign files, so it had to wait until I got home. So I had no blogs whatsoever for more than 24 hours, and I’m obviously a little less than happy about it.

I think the part that frustrates me the most is that Bluehost has plenty of ways of contacting me and they did nothing to let me know what was going on before they did it. Instead they deactivated my account and then sent me an EMAIL which I didn’t get until 8 hours after my blogs were taken down. NOT HAPPY.

I got this email when they reinstated my account: “we have unsuspended the account, we will let you know if anything else needs to be corrected.” Gee, nice to know that you’re perfectly willing to let me know what the heck the problem was to begin with, and that you’re sorry for my inconvenience.

We had 205 comments over here, so to make it easy on myself, I dropped that number into random.org’s generator and let THEM pick the winner. Drumroll please!

52! So I found comment number 52, and that belongs to…

Congratulations Nicole! I’ll be contacting you shortly for a mailing address. If I don’t hear from Nicole within 48 hours, I’ll choose another winner.

I had so much fun giving away prizes during the last Bloggy Giveaways that when I discovered that the spring version had gone live, I knew I had to participate again.

What I’m giving Away

A brand-new copy of Disney’s Enchanted on DVD. I just watched this myself a week ago and really enjoyed it, so when I was thinking of something to giveaway, it was the first thing I thought of. I don’t know if this will be a Full Screen or Wide Screen version of the DVD, so if you absolutely must have one or the other, you’ll have to take your chances!

Who Can Win

It’s a Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only) DVD, so if you’ve got a DVD player that will play Region 1 DVDs, you’re good to go.

How To Enter

Leave a comment below! Easy peasy.

The Rest of the Details

Make sure the email address you provide is accurate… if I can’t contact you to get your information, you won’t be able to receive your prize.
All submissions must be in by 6 p.m. EST on Sunday April 27th. The winner will be announced on Monday 4/28. Any submissions received after 6pm Sunday, but before the comments are closed will not be valid.
Good luck!!

If you’ve never commented before, your comment will land in the moderation queue. Don’t worry, I’ll get them approved just as soon as I can!

I’ve been hesitating on updating Wordpress over here for awhile. The last time I upgraded this blog, it broke. And I cried. And wailed. And whined. And eventually figured out how to fix it. Yes, it worked out in the end, but not without a lot of stress and anxiety in the meantime. I upgraded Jenn Cooks awhile ago and lost my emailed comments– it’s how I keep track of your comments, and reply to them so that was simply unacceptable! I refused to change this blog until that little problem had been rectified.

Well, with the latest upgrade on Fantastico, I have my emailed comments back on Jenn Cooks. Which means I just lost my last excuse for not upgrading my copy of Wordpress over here. I’m nervous! If my blog breaks, you know what happened!