When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap. —Cynthia Heimel
Quick post tonight, but those of you who are bloggers, runners, and Facebook users might find this fun. The Complete Running Network has a group and a page that you can join on Facebook. I think it’s fun to see one another in a different context sometimes, and this is one more way to support our CRN family.
And if you happen to be an Ozark Mountain Ridge Runner, I created a group for us, too!
1 comment February 10th, 2008
Well, I’ve found three more blogs to add to my regular reading. All three are members of the Running Blog Family (as am I), and it’s through that feed that I found them. I’m not horribly picky when it comes to regularly reading a runner’s blog—pretty much they need to talk about running on occasion, talk about the rest of their lives, and have a quirky writing style that keeps me reading. These three have made the list:
I’m also adding these blogs to my Technorati favorites (you’ll find all my favorite blogs listed there).
2 comments January 31st, 2008
It’s no secret that I’m addicted to gReader because I love to read and stay up-to-date on what’s going on in the world and my friends’ lives. I regularly “share” items through gReader, but those shared items are sort of random, and if you don’t know me, they may not make sense. For this reason, I’m introducing a new feature on my blog: For-the-Love-of-Links Fridays. I’ll review the items I shared from the week, and pick a handful to explain and share with you all. (And if you want to know what I’m sharing all week long, you can subscribe to my shared items straight from the source.)
Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend
When I started running and committed to some longer distances, I discovered the Goofy Challenge (runners run both the half-marathon and full marathon) as part of the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend, and ever since I’ve wanted to tackle the challenge. The WDWMW was last weekend, and many of the bloggers in the Running Blog Family were in Orlando for the fun. Check out these reports from the runaudreyrun, cdnrunnergal, and eatdrinkrunwoman blogs.
Blogging Tips
I’m relatively knew to the blogosphere, and I’m overly competitive with myself about how many people subscribe and read A Fool of Myself, so blogging tips that come across gReader are especially valuable to me. For those who are new to blogging and need a blogging primer, you’ll find this post over at TeamCrossWorld helpful. And if you’re a blogging veteran and want to take your blog to the next level, this post over at NorthxEast lists 31 Ways to Become a Better Blogger.
Punctuation News
I’m a writer by trade and a lover of grammar, mechanics, and style, so the news that Panic at the Disco dropped the exclamation mark in their name fascinated me this week. This article from MTV News will fill you in on the latest punctuation drama.
Juno Movie Review
The hubby and I watched Juno last weekend with a bunch of teenagers at our local theater. If you haven’t seen it yet, what are you waiting for? Need more convincing than my expert advice? Just reading Relevant Magazine’s coverage of the movie makes me want to watch it again (not that I need much encouragement).
Someone Else Who Loves Mr. P as Much as I Do
My office is full of Mr. Potato Head paraphernalia, so when I read about this octopus who won’t let his spud go, I totally understood how he felt.
Stay tuned for more link lovin’ next Friday!
1 comment January 18th, 2008
My little blog is still in infancy even though I’ve been blogging for more than a year, but as A Fool of Myself continues to grow and crawl and walk, I need to be a good blogger and nurture its growth. I monitor its site traffic with Google Analytics and its RSS subscribers with Feedburner, and I’ll probably blog on these two tools in the future, but this week, I stood up like a good blogger and claimed A Fool of Myself on Technorati.com, and that’s what I want to help you with today.
What Does Technorati Do?
I’ve seen the flare and heard the references to Technorati for quite some time now, but only in the last few weeks have I come to understand the importance of Technorati for my itty bitty blog. Technorati is to blogging as the Library of Congress is to books. When you publish a new post, your blog (provided the settings are turned on*) sends a notification to Technorati that your blog has been updated. This is called a ping, and it updates your blog’s page on Technorati. And as far as I can tell, regardless of whether you have a Technorati account, every blog in the whole world (that is set to ping its updates) has a Technorati page.
This page tells the whole world about your blog. It has a list of your latest posts, reactions to your blog (which are more or less mentions or comments about your blog on other blogs), your blog’s top tags, and your blog’s fans. Technorati also calculates your authority and page rank in the blogosphere. Those last two are numbers, and if you’re anal retentive and fiercely competitive, those numbers will be important to you because they indicate the Who’s Who of the Blogosphere.
Claiming Your Blog
So your blog is already on Technorati. What are you going to do about it? To start, you need to claim it by creating a Technorati account. Once you set up your account, you can claim your blog by entering its URL and verifying that it belongs to you. Once it’s yours, add a description and tags that keyword your blog, then add a some flare of your own to your blog and announce to the world that your blog is no longer a stray and has been claimed by you, its rightful owner.
Strengthening Your Authority & Page Rank
Now what? Well, you can sit around and wait for your authority and page rank to grow, but those are like watching water boil, so it’s best if you find something else to do that will help those numbers grow, say, for instance, linking to and commenting on other blogs! When you link to other blogs, you not only help increase their numbers, but those bloggers might just link back to you in a post or a comment, and those links are like Flintstones vitamins for your blog: they make it stronger!
Playing Favorites
You can also use Technorati to keep track of and tag your favorite blogs. Everyone, even big-name bloggers, wants to know they are loved, so Technorati keeps track of how many fans your blog has. (In addition to adding my favorite blogs to my blogrolls, I’ll also be adding them to my Technorati favorites, too.)
So how does A Fool of Myself measure up? Well, my baby bunting blog needs some vitamins. Today my page rank is 871,449 and my authority is 9. It only has one fan (me), but it has 17 blog reactions. There’s definitely room for growth and humility. In the words of Mr. Rogers, “Won’t you be my fan?”
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*If you use Blogger and need to turn on pinging, go to Settings > Basic. In the pull-down menu next to “Let search engines find your blog?,” select Yes.
5 comments January 10th, 2008
OK…quick post today because I just realized I haven’t posted in a week.
I’ve sort of resolved to make my blog more interesting this year. I like writing about running, but I realize that the blogs that I find most interesting have content I can take with me and apply to my life. I want to be one of those bloggers, so I’ll continue to write about running, but I’m going to mix in my thoughts on blogging, writing, crocheting, and, well, anything else my little heart desires. Stay tuned…
1 comment January 9th, 2008
My pal Betsy introduced me to my favorite blog of 2007. Betsy is in marketing, so she has to think about copy just about every day, but I’ve only been copy writing since March. My professional writing program at Missouri State University didn’t really cover copy writing, and that’s why Copyblogger.com is so handy for me. I learn about copy writing and about blogging. Even if you’re not a professional writer, you will learn so much about writing more effective headlines and posts on your blog.
1 comment December 28th, 2007
It’s the end of the year, and it’s time for me to reveal my favorite online things of 2007. The competition was fierce and the nominations plenty, so I have narrowed my favorite online things to seven categories:
Now, some of my readers are fellow runners, some are my friends, and some, well, I have no idea why you read this blog, but the winners all relate in some way to my many interests (and hopefully yours, too): running, web development, politics, blogging. I’ll reveal the winner of each category over the next seven work days. Stay tuned!
1 comment December 21st, 2007
I added two new bloggers to my Blogroll of Buddies tonight. It occurred to me a while back that if you come to A Fool of Myself and aren’t me, then my three blogrolls mean pretty much nothing to you. So henceforth (I have a Master of Arts in Writing. I can use that word.) when I add bloggers to those blogrolls, I’ll introduce those bloggers to you. That said, tonight I introduce to you Techsophist and Skeptic Safari.
I know both of these bloggers personally: Techsophist was my Modern Rhetorical Theory professor and one of my thesis readers. She writes mostly about digital rhetorics, and she’s a Harry Potter fan, so no complaints here.
Safari Bob, as he’s known around these parts, is a fellow troublemaker from the Missouri State English Department TA office. He’s skeptical about pretty much everything and is a PhD student at Texas Tech. He also goes by the alias Pablo. Consider yourself warned.
More later…
2 comments December 19th, 2007
Exciting news! You can now go straight to A Fool of Myself at www.sarahjoaustin.com. I bought the domain name last January for a class, and since I still own the darn thing, I might as well use it. You still find me at afoolofmyself.blogspot.com, if that’s easier for you to remember, but if you know my name, you can find me online. How sweet is that?
Add comment September 14th, 2007
As an FYI, I moved my blog posts from LogYourRun.com to this blog. I always like to keep things in the same place. It keeps me sane. I’ve indicated those posts with an asterisk in the title.
Add comment August 31st, 2007
