New Bloggiest Month: September 2023

Well, I did it. I wasn't sure I could maintain the pace to do it but I did. I broke my record for bloggiest month. With a whopping 84 posts in September I hit an average of 2.8/day.

Five Things:

1. In terms of posts/month my 84 in September only ties my record of 84 posts in May 2023. But on a posts per day basis it wins, 2.8 vs. 2.71, because September's a shorter month.


2. As with last May, my storm of posts this month was driven by travel. That's always what drives my most prolific blogging. In September I went on two leisure trips and one business trip. A whopping 65 posts were about travel.


3. September was big for waterfalls. A whopping 35 of my posts were about waterfalls (tag link). A big part of that is because we chose to focus on visiting waterfalls on our West Virginia/North Carolina trip. At one point I suggested we hike a peak trail off the Blue Ridge Parkway and Hawk responded, "If there's no waterfall there I don't want to go. This trip is about waterfalls!"


4. Two keys to hitting a record-breaking 84 posts last month were managing to post 3/day through most of my trip and a gonzo 4/day the past six days. I managed both of these by writing lots of drafts on LiveJournal and saving them with future dates, then setting the dates to current as I completed them. I did this on LJ because DW still doesn't support saving posts to publish in the future.


5. Notes about tags: In Beauty I Walk got a lot of exercise this month, giving it to a commanding lead as my most-used tag. Planes Trains and Automobiles also got a bit of a workout and has now eclipsed Coronavirus for the #2 spot in my nearly 3 years of writing on Dreamwidth. Over on LiveJournal where I have almost 12 years of writing, Coronavirus has been in the #3 spot for a while but will soon drop to #4 when No Rest for the Wicked surpasses it. I am glad to see Coronavirus recede.

Fall Fell. Sneakily.

Fall has fallen on us. Frankly it snuck up on me. The official first day was over a week ago, on September 21. We were traveling so I didn't think much of it at the time. Back here at home for the past week, though, I see the signs around me.

I have a personal three-point definition for when Autumn starts: 1) It's cool enough that I turn the heat on in the house, 2) It's cool enough that I choose to wear long pants for purposes of comfort, and 3) It starts to rain occasionally. In the past week all 3 have checked true. I've switched on the heater, though it rarely runs right now; I've worn trousers twice; and it's sprinkled rain, briefly, once or twice.

Autumn is an oddly variable season in Northern California. Yesterday the temperature only reached 67° at home. Today it's back to a high of 75°, and later this week it's supposed to hit 87°. So wearing trousers and running the heater aren't everyday things yet... though when they do become everyday things, that'll be the sign winter is here.

A Week at Home: Working, Blogging, Coughing

I've been home for a week. It was last Sunday evening we arrived home from our Blue Ridge Mountains trip. Ordinarily I'd expect a week at home after traveling for 9 days to be a time for recuperation. This past week has, unfortunately, been fairly busy.

For starters, I was busy at work all week. There were a few deliverables I was responsible for, including one demo presentation and one recommendations document. It took several meetings and coordination with others to get those ready.

I was also sick with a cold for several days. I knew Sunday evening that I was getting sick. I took a rapid test at home Sunday evening and tested negative. Yay, it was just a normal cold. But how badly would it slow me down for the week? I went to bed Sunday happy it wasn't Covid but worried I might still wake up Monday feeling wrecked for a few days— something that would force me to ask for delays on my work deliverables.

Fortunately my symptoms were never really severe. And those I did have I kept somewhat under control by popping lots of pills. But still I felt fatigued in the afternoon most days. I had just enough time to cram in most of my work this week. I did let two low priority tasks slide.

Here are a few stats about wrestling with a cold this past week:

• Nights I went to bed earlier than normal because I was fatigued: 3


• Mornings my body woke up early because "Extra sleep? Ha, ha!": Also 3


• Pills I popped: Lost count somewhere around 20.


• Nights I ate in rather than dining out or buying take-out: 4


• Nights my dinner was a pair of Hot Pockets®: Also 4

One thing I kept apace this past week was my blogging. I came home from out WV/NC hiking trip with quite a backlog of journals. Since Sunday night I've maintained a pace of nearly 4/day. Four a day. "Was that at the expense of not doing work?" you might ask. No; it was how I spent my time when I was too fatigued to do anything else. It turns out blogging about travel is a low mental energy task that's also something of a Zen exercise. It lifts my spirits up when I'm sick.

Well, my week at home comes is nearly at an end. This evening I've packed my bag for 4 days of business travel. Tomorrow morning I'm headed out to Phoenix for a customer visit and then to Vegas to staff a trade show through Thursday.