3am

I have now officially retired from WikiTravel.  I tried to go to sleep but WikiTravel loomed over head.  I have just finished and I am still only a little bit happier with my work.  I don't want to blame WikiTravel alone for my inability sleep due to the intense rain that is amplified by my house.  It really does sound awful outside right now and I hope that it will stop before I get to school.  I am also afraid that I may have left my sunroof vented and that rain is pouring into my car but I digress.  

Looking through my page I saw still a fair amount of mistakes.  Although I had thought that I had fixed the Buy section, all the words were jumbled together.  I can't begin to think how this happened but I put it on the back of my mind and entered the edit tab.  

I was forced to read very carefully through this section and pick out what stores were what.  As I did this, I realized that I was still missing some addresses and phone numbers.  I looked up each and every one that was missing this and wrote it on the page.  This mistake was in more than one place and I realized that it was a good thing that I had woken up and decided to keep trekking on my page.  

As one problem was fixed I realized another needed attention.  I discovered that some of my sentences I had changed were still very opinionated and this led me to realize that I had never actually posted the page.  In my state of pure exhaustion, I had hit preview instead of save page.  I closed my computer after this and lost the file.   Fortunately, my father has instilled the value of save early and often whenever using a computer.  This code ingrained in my DNA was a life-saver and I will be sure to thank my Dad tomorrow.  I had saved my page on a Word document in a couple of different files so I was set.  All I had to do was re-paste it and do the work I had done a little while ago again.  This at first seemed like a daunting task but proved to be simple as I had become much more familiar with WikiTravel.  I am now completely done with my work and I can finally get some sleep.  Goodnight! 

I should also note that although the post says 3am, I was not up until 3am.  This is simply the name of the song I was listening to by OAR while doing this post.  The actual time is 2:06 according to my watch.  

The Finishing Touches

After the peer review session I had a mixed feeling of nervousness and accomplishment.  I felt accomplished because of all the procrastinating I had done up until this point on the project.  I really did not think I would ever start the project but I did and I was proud for that simple fact.  Unfortunately, the feeling of nervousness overcame the accomplishment.  Although I had done some good work, I still had a lot to do.  I also realized that my Critical Literacy project, which I had neglected to start, was due on the same day.  I was not happy about this but went on with my day and returned home to begin the work.  Because the WikiTravel was fresh in my mind, I started working on that in a Word Document.  I cleaned up the organization and changed a lot of the wording I had used.  I also wrote an entire new section which was originally just a link to the North Kingstown page.  Exhausted, I passed out forgetting about all my other work.
I awoke today and immediately started my work.  I started with my Critical Literacy project and switched from that to WikiTravel.  When I got into a rhythm working on one project, I got an idea for the other project and switched over to add it in.  This is a new form of procrastination I have discovered.
As the night drew on, I was finally ready to post my Wiki page.  I copied and pasted it and then pressed preview.  To my surprise, half of the new text I had written was in a tiny font and surrounded by a broken-line border.  I was not happy about this.  I kept trying every method I knew to fix it but nothing seemed to work.  I decided that my options were to either throw my computer out a window or look up the problem on Google.  Although the computer option seemed like it was a long time coming and needed to happen, I chose the latter.  I looked up the problem online and found a solution.  When I did this I discovered that the solution was to save the file as an HTML file and then paste it.  I did this but there was zero change.  As my fists clenched, I left WikiTravel and started Critical Literacies again.  I finished this project and was forced to return to the dreaded WikiTravel.
I took my time and realized that I was going to have to do a lot of editing inside the page.  I started this and overcame my aggravation at each turn.  I still do not understand why the bullets from Word did not translate well on the Wiki page.  I decided to get rid of them and carefully made spaces between sentences.  This did not look nearly as good as it did but I could not get myself to do anymore.  I posted the page which looked much better than it did before but I was still not happy with it.  I realized that it was still a good final product even though it did not look like I had wanted it to.  

The Peer Review

My page was peer reviewed and I did not receive the answers I had suspected.  There was a lot more work than had to be done than I had planned on.  At first I was in complete disagreement with my peer reviewers but then in seeing their pages I realized they were right.  Because I had posted my page and then immediately gone to class, I had not seen the final product and it was not pretty.
In the 20 minutes that I had posted the page, it had already been edited and deemed unfit for the internet by WikiTravel.  Now it did not come out and say it but there were two text boxes telling people that the site needed more information, template formatting etc.  Needless to say, I had my work cut out for me.
My peer reviewers had many things to say about my trashy looking page.  The most noticeable one was that the words were extremely close together and made it difficult for anyone to read.  They told me I should separate them to avoid confusion.  The next major problem I had was that I had written "link to North Kingstown page" in one of the sections.  I thought this would be a good plan because of the ridiculous amount of information that had to go into the section.  It was all the same information that would have been in the North Kingstown page and I thought it would save people some time.  I was obviously wrong because my reviews brought up the point that people may want to print out a copy of this so they can use it as a sort of brochure.  They also informed me that I had used opinion in some of the sections which is a WikiTravel no-no.  I was also informed that none of the places had addresses or phone numbers.  This provided readers with little to no idea where the places I described were in Wickford.  I knew that I had plenty of work to do.  Amongst all the mistakes on my page, my reviewers found a few good points.
One point was that I had included a good deal of information.  People would be able to learn a great deal about some of the things I had written about.  They also liked how I warned people about the lack of night life in Wickford.  I start out the drink section by informing people that there are no bars open at night in Wickford.  The latest any restaurant closes is 9pm.  I was also praised for highlighting the local activities which occur in Wickford.  I was also said to be honest in my posts when I described them.
The peer review session was very helpful for me, not just for the praises and criticisms but I was able to see what people had done differently on their pages.  I stole a few of these ideas and began incorporating them into my page.  I plan to use my suggestions wisely as I put the final touches on my page.  

Guess who's back, back again?

Back to Wickford.  This time I wrote out an agenda as the peer review session drew closer and closer by the day.  Notebook in hand, I set off on my journey this time accompanied by my roommates.  They only came because they decided I owed them pizza at the Place for forgetting to mention it on WikiTravel (see previous post).  We entered Wickford and nostalgia once again hit us with the great amount of high school classmates we ran into.  This is the reason I don't go to Wickford anymore but it was nice to catch up.
We walked into every store and looked around as I wrote down what I saw.  Once we made our way to The Place and sat down I finally felt a little sense of accomplishment.  I had written down all the stores, descriptions of what they sold, started a WikiTravel page and taken a bite into the delicious greasy food that was such a big part of my childhood.  
During this meal, we started to discuss Wickford and how lame it actually was.  All the shops close at 5pm and I started to ask myself why would anyone go to Wickford or even read a WikiTravel post about Wickford.  This actually gave me a sense of peace because I realized that my work, no matter the quality, would not be read or used by that many people.  We left Wickford and I immediately opened my Word document and started to write down the newly gathered information.  I was so proud of myself that I might actually be ready for the up and coming peer review.  All my feeling of accomplishment dissipated when I went to Sakai to read the syllabus about WikiTravel.
I noticed I had an unread message from my Film professor informing our class that the paper I thought was going to be due on Thursday was due Tuesday.  My heart sank at the lack of work I had done on this paper that was due in a mere set of hours.  Thankfully, I was just about finished with my WikiTravel page and I immediately watched Inglorious Basterds and started writing my paper about it.
As my long night came to a close,  I realized at about 2am that I had yet to post the information I had just written to WikiTravel.  With my attention faltering, I fell asleep setting my alarm for a couple of hours earlier than what I normally do to finish the page for the Peer Review.  I went to school earlier the next morning and found a quiet spot in the library.  I opened my lap top and started posting onto WikiTravel.  I successfully finished and headed to class to get peer reviewed.  

The Return to Wickford

I have successfully been to Wickford for this project!  I am too proud of this fact for what I accomplished there. I woke up one morning and decided that it was time to do it.  It was time for me to go to Wickford and begin what I have run away from for so many days.  I did my usual routine in the morning and finally reached the kitchen.  I made my coffee and ignored the call of Halo my Xbox screamed in my direction.  I called one of my friends who lives near Wickford and I went to his house.  From this point we walked into Wickford, reminiscing of the many walks we use to take from school.
We entered the village, notebook in hand, and I began to write each and every store I saw down.  Unfortunately, Wickford is known for closing most of the stores around 5 pm.  It was 5:30 and I was able to go into only two of the stores I was writing about.  The first one we entered was The Wickford Marketplace.  Here we grabbed cones of ice cream and spent 20 minutes talking to a girl who worked there we haven't seen since high school.  We left the marketplace, ice cream drying to our clothes and my notebook, and continued our walk.  I wrote down every store in sight and felt a good sense of accomplishment.
I then left Wickford and headed home.  After finishing my enormous work load of home work, I finally started writing about the stores.  I opened up a Word document and let the words flow through my hands.  I wrote down all I could and sat back.  My roommates, also Wickford natives, began looking at my work.  They started informing me of all the shops and eating places I was missing.  They also ragged on me for forgetting our favorite place to eat, The Place.  I was in a state of shock and awe that I could have forgotten about such a cornerstone of my childhood.  They told me they would help me with the descriptions and then they both left to watch television.  I clearly knew that they would not help me but I thought maybe just maybe I could pull a "Tom Sawyer" reverse psychology on them and get them to do my work for me.  This did not work in any way, shape or form.
I continued my writing and then realized that I had forgotten a few more places in Wickford as well as descriptions of the stores.  My heart sank as I realized a second trip to Wickford was indefinite.  I got just about as much done as I could and joined my roommates watching Sons of Anarchy.  The Wickford trip was to be left for another day.  

The Wickford Twilight Zone

So I have finally visited Wickford.  Although I did not do it intentionally, it still counts.  My whole family decided it would be a good idea to go to a local restaurant right near Wickford then walk into the village and get ice cream.  This is a task I have despised since I was in high school, but then it was out of fear of being seen with my family in the only hang out spot in our lovely town.  This time my fear came from the realization of how much I have procrastinated on this project.  As I looked at the village the shops suddenly turned from inviting locations to nervousness and angst about my project.  

Furthermore, it felt like the Twilight Zone episode where all the man wants to do is have quiet time to read his book.  I forget why he finds himself in a bank vault but he becomes trapped during a sort of nuclear Holocaust.  When he is finally free from it, he realizes he has gotten the peace and quiet he has desperately yearned for.  He feels a sense of  euphoria and then his glasses fall to the ground and break.  He is left alone in the world but is now without glasses so he cannot read his books.  My situation, although not nearly as desperate, made me feel like him.  I was now stuck in the place I have to do a project on but I am without a writing utensil or paper.  I saw that a little girl had left a piece of chalk on the sidewalk and I became dangerously close to picking up the chalk and writing my paper on the sidewalk.  I did not do this in fear of what people would think of the 20 year old writing about the different shops in Wickford on the ground.  Sadly, I ate my ice cream quietly with only one thought in my mind: "I have to stop procrastinating and do this (choice word) project."  

When we left Wickford, I came home and opened up the WikiTravel page.  I went to the non-existent Wickford page and clicked "create this page."  The blank file opened and as I began to pick a template and my roommate called me to play a game of Halo.  I decided that the latter was more important at the time and closed my computer.  I won that game of Halo but it was a cold win, with the feeling in the pit of my stomach that I still had to do something.  I ignored this feeling and went to bed.  Sadly, this is a true story.      

More Wiki

I am now understanding WikiTravel much better.  I understand how to post and edit the page.  I am now struggling with my location.  Because my hometown of North Kingstown had so much information in it, I decided that it would be counterproductive to edit the page.  I have now decided to make a new page of a small village in North Kingstown called Wickford.

It would be impossible to count the many times I have been to Wickford in my life.  Many of my friends live right in the village and the high school I attended is about 3 minutes away.  Me and my friends use to walk from school every day into Wickford and hang out there.  I also use to work at The Wickford Diner my junior year of high school.  I was a dishwasher and needless to say I hated my job more than anything else at that time.

Wickford is a very popular tourist location for North Kingstown.  They hold an Art Festival every year in early July.  This is a nationally renowned show and makes traffic in Wickford backed up for miles.  My family and I use to do this every year but as my brother and I got older, we stopped attending.  This was a great milestone in my life because I have not enjoyed going to the festival since I was about 7.  Wickford also has a Festival of Lights every year in December.  All the shops in Wickford decorate their windows with lights.  It is impossible to see the night sky due to the excessive lights. This is something I regularly attend with friends.  There is a lot of food, music and Christmas gift sales so it would be foolish not to attend.

I can't decide if I want to include these festivals in the travel page.  I don't think there is enough information to fill up a whole section with them so I may just mention them at the top of the page.  

I still have yet to visit Wickford since starting this project so that is on my to-do list.  It really is hard to find the time to do this with classes in full swing at this point.  I am also procrastinating a little bit because of all the writing that comes with me visiting Wickford; there are a lot of shops and stores that I am going to have to write about.       

Nardi and O'Day

My original thought about ecology's were the obvious choice, science related.  When I started reading this chapter, I realized that information ecology's are a completely different animal.  An information ecology is described as a system of people, practices, values and technologies in a particular local environment.  When it is explained that way, an information ecology actually makes perfect sense.  An ecology is defined as the environment as it relates to living organisms.  The people are the living organisms and the environment is the society run on information that we live in today.  This type of ecology is not necessarily about technology but our activities that are served by technology.  Examples of these types of ecology’s are libraries, hospital intensive care units and copy shops.  These ecologies have many interrelationships which rely on each other.  These ecologies also have niches required to run them.  People work in them together at different aspects of them.  These niches are all connected so if one fails, it is felt throughout the entire system.  There is also diversity in these which is a necessary element.  This element allows the ecology to survive change.  Like normal ecology’s, co evolution also exists in information ecology’s.  New technology develops and is offered newer, faster and different repeatedly.  This causes the ecology to evolve as new ideas, tools, activities and expertise forms come to be in them.  Keystone species are species that are crucial to the survival of an ecology.  Information ecology’s keystone species are people who work in them and run the ecology.  Without them, the technology would not be used in an effective manner.  The final important aspect is locality.  This habitation dictates the location within a network of relationships.  WikiTravel is an example of an information ecology.

WikiTravel is a system used by people all over the world who are looking for information about places they may be traveling to.  People use technology to access this and that technology is given information by people who post on the website.  Human activity is the only way that information could be shared on this site.  Furthermore, people all over the world are able to add to the information on the site.  These people are working together, editing and in some cases making information posted more in depth and an overall better product for the audience.  New information constantly travels through this, as new ideas come into play.  The site is monitored so any information is backed by a reliable source. 

Another example of an information ecology is my place of work.  I work at a flooring center which is full of different aspects.  To run the store successfully, people are needed to install floors, clean floors, measure, order floors and run the store internally etc.  Each aspect of the store is needed for the others to survive.  My niche is running the store internally dealing with sales and scheduling.  Also, new things are always coming into the store such as new products which need to be dealt with and absorbed by the company.  Employees are always either coming or going so they need to be trained to run the ecology effectively.                  

Wiki Travel

I was intrigued in class when I heard that we were going to be making a wiki page.  I got all excited about making a brand new page about some really interesting subject that no one had ever thought to explore.  I began coming up with a list of ideas in my head and then a turn of events happened.  I was not listening closely but when I began to I learned that we were making WikiTravel pages and not wikipedia pages.  In grief of my lost ideas I read the assignment and decided that I would have a good time with it.
Initially, I wanted to write about my home town North Kingstown.  When I typed it into the WikiTravel page, to my own peril, I discovered that there was already a North Kingstown page, but I didn't let this get me down.  I was going to re-work all the different parts of this page until I discovered that for some unknown reason, the NK WikiTravel page looked to be just about the best Wiki page I have ever laid eyes on.  With sadness slowly over-taking me at the many topics I had lost in about an hour, I decided I would talk about Wickford village.  Although the NK page has a section on this, it is a small page and I believe that I will be able to add to it with a new page having grown up in Wickford.
In exploring WikiTravel, I found the site to be rather helpful.  It consists of 9 sections.  Each of these sections is geared toward useful information people would need if visiting an area.  The sections are as follows: Understand, Get In, Get Around, See, Do, Buy, Eat, Drink and Sleep.
The Understand section talks about the history of the place.  It gives a brief history and any historical elements etc. about the place.  The Get In section gives a list of places near the area that one would like to go to such as cities and airports.  The Get Around section gives a list of ways to get around the area i.e boat, train, bus, car.  The See section is an obvious one.  It lists and gives brief information about different things to see in the area that would be entertaining and informative.  The Do section talks about the different fun things to do.  The Buy section gives a list of the best shops around the area to buy souvenir etc.  The Eat, Drink and Sleep sections purposes are a given.
I am interested to write on this page because it requires a different style of writing.  Usually when talking about a place, I would use a sensational personality and make the place out to be close to El Dorado.  However, this assignment requires me to write as if I were writing to a friend, not sensationally but letting them in on the best things to do and the things for them not to waste their time with.  I am very excited to get started on writing this page.

Great Success

I just fixed my enthusiast blog!  I was having trouble putting hyperlinks and pictures into my blog and after a few hours of work I figured it out.  It was really easy once I did it because the buttons are all laid out for you but stupidly I did not look there.  I also worked on my posts.
With the new knowledge of blogger.com use, I was able to fix my posts.  I put hyperlinks in all of the posts so now my readers can listen to exactly what I am talking about.  The links go to YouTube and people are able to listen and watch a video of the songs I talked about.  I hope this will help more people read my blog, as my followers are seriously lacking at two, being my classmates.  I also added pictures to my blogs.  My blogs were very boring so now with pictures people won't get too fixated on the vast lines of text.  This also adds color to my grey and black boring blog.
I also ran into a problem when looking over my posts.  I realized that they were all in different fonts.  They were the same font "Courier" but different variations of it.  I was able to fix most of them by just editing the posts and changing the font there.  This worked for the most part, however, I did run into a couple of issues.  My most recent post about Led Zeppelin had the wrong font and when I went to edit it the page showed without the texts and had a loading sign.  I left it in this state for a few minutes and when I realized that nothing had changed, I copied the text and re-wrote it as a Word document.  I then copied that and put it into a new post.  I posted a couple sentence post letting my readers know that this post is the same as the one from September 30th.  I think that I did a good job in fixing my blog which now is very appealing.

Next Post

My newest enthusiast blog post is coming to fruition.  After I wasn't able to write anymore about experimental rock, I am starting on post-rock.  Like I stated in the previous post, I am writing about Explosions in the Sky.  This is my personal favorite post-rock band and I am having a very good time writing about them.
They fit my criteria of not being well known or being played on the radio.  The album I am writing about is very similar to most post-rock album in which it is entirely one track.  There are different songs on the album but they are all cohesive with each other.  Listening to the album is like listening to one song.  This is one of the coolest things about them, and post-rock, that I want my readers to understand.  This music is like nothing most people have ever heard but they most certainly need to know.  The name of the album I am writing about is The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place.  This album introduced me to post-rock so I think it is fair that it is the album that introduces my readers to the genre.
Learning from my mistake in the last genre, I now have come up with a few bands to write about ahead of time.  I will write about This Will Destroy You and Russian Circles.  I am also starting to think that I will write about another Explosions in the Sky album.  I think I will do this because each of their albums have a very distinct sound that does not sound like any of their other work.  Different albums and different bands will show my readers the many different faces and sounds of post-rock.  For example, Explosions in the Sky uses very melodic lines in their music, which makes the music cater to people who are use to hearing a vocalist in a song.  The melodic lines take the place of the vocals and the listener will hardly notice.  This Will Destroy You on the other hand uses ambient sounds and chords throughout their music. These ambient make for melodic lines but in a very different way.  Finally, Russian Circles is instrumental metal music.  It is like This Will Destroy You and Explosions in the Sky but with a lot more distortion and metal riffs.  All of this music will be very good for my readers to listen to as it is the type of music, I sincerely hope, that our grandchildren will be listening to when they are older.
 

Roadblock

While still figuring out the ins and outs of blogger.com, I feel that I have come to a road block in my enthusiast blog.  I was trying to write a blog, but I could not think of anything to write about.  I thought and thought but nothing came to me.  I feel that I may have tapped my experimental rock posting as there are no more bands which come to mind that I would like to write about.  I started writing about one band, The Mars Volta, but I decided that they were too popular.  My blog is supposed to be about bands and music that people have not heard of so if I were to write about a popular band like The Mars Volta, I would lose creditability in my blog.
This all started because I was doing my usual method of listening to an album that I would be writing about and then write the blog.  However, this did not work this time because a friend of mine walked into my room and starting talking about this band.  For a little background on my friend, she has never been someone who knows obscure music and happens to be a big fan of Justin Bieber and Kesha, two types of music that I loathe.  She likes only music on the radio played by 92.3.  If she knew who The Mars Volta were then chances are my readers would definitely know who they were thus ruining the post.        
At this point I am lost at what to write.  I think I might have to start a new genre of music to talk about.  I wanted to talk about experimental rock a little more in depth but at this point I do not think I can.  My next possible genre may be either psychedelic-rock or post-rock.  If I do psychedelic-rock I think I will write about Pink Floyd's early material like A Saucerful of Secrets, Meddle or Obscured by Clouds.  The other choice seems to be more appealing at this time, post-rock.
Post-rock is a new type of music I have become interested in in the last year.  It is all instrumental using melodic lines instead of vocals.  The best way to describe this type of music is classical music using rock instruments.  I have found that I am very passionate about this type of music and that I have also started playing guitar in a post-rock band.  The band I will most likely talk about is Explosions in the Sky but we will see.  

Redesigning Blog

In looking at my blog during class, I found that the design of it was seriously lacking.  With just a black background, my blog did not pop out at all.  A reader looking at it would find it extremely boring.  To change this, I started searching through the many layers of background templates.
The only problem with this is that there are way too many backgrounds to choose from.  Every time I thought I found an interesting looking background, I would find another one that I liked better.  This continued for a longer time than I am willing to admit.  I finally settled on a background that is just a crazy design but really goes with the music theme really well.  Next was the color scheme.
After I searched and found a suitable background, I found that there were even more choices for colors of the background.  I decided that a neutral color would work well because I didn't want it to look too flashy with a lot of colors.  When I think of music, I think of a cold world without much color so the grey theme I chose works very well.
At the moment I am trying to add pictures but it is proving to be much harder than expected.  I think that with pictures of either album artwork or the band I am blogging about will add substance to the post.  If the reader can at least see or even hear the music I am writing about, the post will have much more substance and meaning.  I hope I will be able to figure out how to make my aesthetic design better because it will definitely help my blog exponentially.  

An Obvious Choice

Reeling from my last experience with blogging, my computer metaphorically eating the assignment, I knew I was going to save my work every second I could.  I sat down and started thinking about what next experimental music I should choose and I found that I had a few choices.  I was either going to write about The Mars Volta, Pink Floyd, The Velvet Underground or Dream Theater.  I then narrowed down the choices as I did not think Dream Theater classified enough as experimental rock.  Also, my Pink Floyd collection lacked, only having popular albums like The Wall, Animals, and The Dark Side of the Mood in my music library.  Although great albums, my purpose in the blog is to show readers music they have not heard.  When I do Pink Floyd, and I will write about them, I want to do a less popular album from their psychedelic-music days in the early 1960s.
My choices, now narrowed down to The Mars Volta and The Velvet Underground, did not appeal to me very much.  I listened to the albums De-Loused in the Comatorium by The Mars Volta and Loaded by The Velvet Underground and I still was not getting inspired to write a post which looked in depth at the music on the album.
In this frustration, I left my computer and walked into my living room where one of my roommates was watching Led Zeppelins The Song Remains the Same.  I sat down on the couch and began to stare as my favorite band ripped through song after song, exciting me so much that I ran and tripped in my room to get my computer.  As I got up I grabbed the computer and brought it in front of the TV screen and began to write about the film.  The only problem that came from this was I did not want to stop watching the movie.  My eyes were glued on the screen and I typed without paying any sort of attention to what I was producing on the computer.  When I had a minute to look it over, I realized how good the post was and I immediately published it.
I am now starting to get the hang of my blogging about music.  I am really starting to find it enjoyable and I find that I am learning lots of new things about some of my favorite music that I did not know before.  This is because I am trying to write posts which really describe the music in depth so that if anyone decides to read my blog, they will realize it is not just a school project but a passion of mine.

Zappa

My next post subject was not a challenge to come up with.  Since I had started talking about experimental rock, I thought I would use my next post to show one of the original artists of the genre.  This being non-other than Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention.  The 1960s were changed by this band as their first album, Freak Out!, was one of rock musics first concept albums.  I chose this album as the one to write about for my blog.
I first came about this album last year when I was cleaning out my grandfathers house.  I found a box of old records which belonged to my deceased uncle.  As I filed through many of the bands I had never heard of, I came about Freak Out!  When I lugged this overly heavy milk crate full of records to my parents house, I took out the album and put it onto my parents record player.  I immediately fell in love with the satirical phrases and music throughout.  Remembering this day, I found the post to be another easy conquerable feat.
I followed suit of my last successful post and played the album while I wrote.  In doing this, I listened closer and discovered new aspects to the music that I passed over before.  I kept writing until I realized the time was nearing my bedtime, where I saved the song as a Word document.  What happened next was not a complete surprise to me.
When falling out of bed in the morning, and rolling over to my computer in turning it on a sick feeling came into my stomach.  I new something was wrong and I was right; my computer had crashed and I lost the post.  In retrospect, I should have known my computer would do something like this as it has become a common occurrence in the past 3 years I have owned the piece of junk.
Instead of getting angry, I decided my shower was not important that day and put on the album again.  I began to write, not as well as the previous night, but still good enough to get my stamp of approval.  In finishing the post, which I saved just about every 3 seconds, I immediately posted it online and ran to my car to get to school.
What I learned from this experience was to save early and often, and to not trust my computer which has proven time and time again that it has a vendetta for me and my school life.

First Posts a Doozy

In writing my first blog post, I became nervous because I still had no music to talk about in my blog, having been busy for the previous week.  I thought and thought but I was unable to come up with anything I really felt passionate about to write on.  At this point, I turned to the all-knowing all-seeing eye of my ITunes library.  This had given me my title for my blog in a time of great distress so I found it very appropriate to turn to it again.  My music was on shuffle and I immediately heard the distant chords starting my personal favorite John Frusciante song, "Before the Beginning."

Without hesitation, I opened a word document and began writing how I felt about the song which then turned into the entire album, The Empyrean.  I played the entire album, from start to finish, and wrote as it progressed.  I found this to be the best way to write a blog about music, as it gave me inspiration with every note.  I began incorporating writing about certain songs on the album, some of which I was not familiar with before writing the post.      

This post is a very suitable first post, letting my readers explore experimental rock.  The first post which made me nervous, turned out to be easy and surprisingly fun.  I really enjoyed expressing my opinion about this great artist, as his music really identifies with me.  I hope that all my following posts will go as smoothly as this one did.  

Blog Marley

In thinking about a blog about things I enjoy and would enjoy writing about, music was my first thought.  Because music has been such a big part of my life, this seemed like an obvious choice.  However, as I thought about it, I didn't think there would be a lot to write about.  This led me to decide between either different literature or movies, two things I thought would be very easy to write about.

For literature, I wanted to write about my personal favorite type of book, dystopia themed.  This includes books like 1984 and Animal Farm, both by George Orwell.  When looking more into this, I found that this would be too much of an uphill battle requiring me to do a lot of reading and analysis of books.  This would be fine if I were not in college and have school work every night to complete.  At this point, and the assumption that it would be extremely boring, I decided to throw out the idea of a book-themed blog.  My next idea failed as well.

Movies would have been an easy blog to complete.  My idea for this was to watch movies and talk about them and their significance.  This seemed like a very good idea to me because I am currently in a class where we watch movies and then discuss them.  I hadn't come up with a title yet when I stumbled upon an article online about this summers big hit Inception.  In reading this article, which bashed the movie, I realized how much I really loath movie critics.  They have no business dissecting movies like they do, making them out to be terrible.  Furthermore, I realized I did not want this to become me so I scratched that blog idea.

At this point, with little time before my blog was due, I settle on music.  I knew it would be easy to write about, I just didn't know what aspects to write about.  I settled on exploring music that most people haven't heard with obscure genres like experimental rock, black metal and post-rock.  With the idea fresh in my head, it was time to come up with a title for the blog.  I immediately started putting blog into different song names and artists i.e Trampled Under Blog, Don't Fear the Blog, Led Blog, Blog Zeppelin, Blog Floyd, This Blog Will Destroy You, Explosions in the Blog, Russian Blogs etc.  Then, like a light flashing out of nowhere, I came up with the perfect title, Blog Marley.  In all my excitement, I ran full speed to my computer and typed it in.  I waited to see if the perfect title had been taking and then I saw the red letters reading "This name is already taken."  I was so disappointed that the name had been taking but with little time left I had to move on.  Jesse's Music Blog became my unfortunate title until a last gasp of fresh air, my brain pulled out one more name.  My ITunes started the opening arpeggiated chords to the classic "Don't Fear the Reaper" by the Blue Oyster Cult.  As I began remembering the famous SNL skit involving Christopher Walken screaming "I've got a fever and the only cure is more cowbell!"  I started laughing hysterically and settled on a new and current name of Blue Oyster Blog.