Category Archives: musings

Commentary, musings, nature, Photography

Blogging Insights – Stats and Readers

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Salted Caramel is asking further questions about our blogging habits. You can visit her blog here and browse answers to these and additional questions from a number of other bloggers.

1. How often, if at all, do you check your blog statistics?

2. What methods do you use to increase reader engagement, (provided you care about this)?

I think that checking blog statistics is something that we all probably do fairly frequently in the beginning, kind of like our first days and weeks of involvement in any new organisation when we’re wondering how we can get on and with whom.

I started blogging more than seven years ago and in the beginning, I checked a lot. It was pretty amazing to me that anyone was stopping by at all and of course, it was all very exciting. But over the years I’ve wondered why a rather mediocre blog will take off like a rocket and another doesn’t move much, even though the content is interesting and well presented.

I’ve thought about that a lot where my own posts are concerned as well. I’ll check the stats and be blown away by the number of visits on a piece that I was dubious about posting. The opposite happens, too. I’ll think I’ve done a good post, and poof! As my blog-friend Brian would say, sit and watch the tumbleweeds blow through.

So, after all this time, I don’t have any great insights into generally, what types of posts work and what ones don’t, even though I do check stats in an attempt to try to figure this out.

Increasing my readership is not something I’ve worried about. My blog is quite slow moving, probably because I’ve never bothered with that, and this has also been a blog that I’ve done for myself. It helps me to think, sort and organise, and it’s always been a de-stressor, a place to socialise and visit. I limit the number of blogs I follow because I want to read them, and I only have so much time. But when I do have the time, I travel all over the blogosphere and I will like lots of posts without necessarily following the blog. I want the blogger to have the like or likes, but I don’t expect a return visit.

How about you? How often do you check your stats? Do you do much (if anything) to increase your readership?

Commentary, musings, Photography

To Recline or not to Recline?

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I have done a lot of flying. As a pilot or passenger, I’ve spent loads of time in airplanes, both large and small. I am intimately acquainted with how cramped the environment is and getting into the pilot’s seat often feels a bit like I’m a puzzle piece squeezing into my slot.

I’ve banged my knees, whacked my head, knocked my elbows and thumped myself in innumerable other places getting in and out of pilot seats and airplanes. They are not built to be places of sprawling comfort. Anyone who has ever been on an airplane of any size knows that.

So, what about the argument around seats? That is, do you recline or don’t you?

I don’t recline. Neither does my 191 cm (6 ft 3 in) husband. And frankly, I get a little irritated when others do, especially if I’m trying to use my little table for whatever reason: working, eating, sleeping (yes, I sometimes sleep on the table). I don’t want a strange person in my lap, and I’m sure the people behind me don’t want me in their laps.

We’re all in this cramped space together, so let’s try to be as respectful and careful with each other as we can. That’s how I see it, anyway.

However, that’s often not how these things go.

Recently, a man aboard a commercial flight in the US began banging on the seat of the person ahead of him because she had reclined. Here’s the article:

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/airline-passenger-says-she-s-hurt-after-her-reclined-seat-repeatedly-punched-1.4816808

Part of the problem is that airlines have crammed people in, but I also understand about the narrow margins on which airlines operate. And to be fair, this has been a problem for many, many years. I remember my mother complaining about the “recliners” when I was a child.

What is your opinion? Should airlines remove the recline function on airplane seats? Should we avoid using the recline function out of respect for our flight mates?

musings, Photography

Campus House and Other Buildings

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On a recent visit to Toronto,

I strolled through the University of Toronto’s sprawling campus, which actually IS in the middle of downtown Toronto. The university grounds have lead to the preservation of a large swath of urban parkland as well as to the preservation of many of its original buildings. They are still going strong at an average age of about 130 years old, but have been re-purposed and refreshed with additions.

In this country, I still find it a little surprising to find excellently preserved old homes and other buildings living well in the centre of a big city, continuing to be useful and healthy. North America hasn’t been particularly good at this, but it’s getting better, I think.

Honouring age doesn’t just apply to buildings, it applies to people too, of course. The tendency to write people off because they’re “older” (whatever that means) is sad.

What do you think?