*Yawn*

I am tired. Most of my day was spent with Joey, helping him with several things. I did not expect to spend all that time with him. What was meant to be 2 hours max ended up being an all day excursion. He also helped me with some things, too. I am grateful for his help and more importantly, his faith. I did get about an hour of free time while with Joey, so I wasn't with him straight for 10 hours.

One thing I'll say about Joey. We're just a couple of friends. We have been spending a lot of time together these past 6 months, but he does have his own life and I have mine. And at the moment, we're going in different directions. But, I can say our friendship does have a song. Not every couple has a song, but our friendship does. When I gave him rides home last summer, back when I was on campus to work on my Senior Project and he was there for class and work, and we were just some officers for the same club, I didn't know him too well. And one thing I do with people I know, but don't know too well, is I let them choose the music on my iPod. Only natural to do that with him. Well, he browsed through my 2000+ song playlist and found a song he liked. It was "We Didn't Start the Fire." He hadn't heard it in a while and it was one of his favorite songs from his younger days. So, he played it. 6 months later, he still plays it. Nearly every time we're in the car together, he grabs my iPod and turns that song on. Even if I never see him again after I finally get a job and he graduates, I will never be able to listen to "We Didn't Start the Fire" without thinking of him.

Good news is I have a job interview in Atlanta on Monday. I'm scared about it. But, I owe it to myself to go. I owe it to those that have faith in me. The job may or may not be the one for me, but I will get something out of the interview.

I saw Lindsey, briefly, today. I told her about the job interview offer. She gave me 2 books to read: What's a Girl to Do?: While Waiting for Mr. Right and He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys. I started reading What's a Girl to Do? during my free time. I know it's a Christian-themed book, but I am enjoying what I've read so far. It's made me believe that how I live my life is the right way. I've got a purpose in life. And I will meet the right one.

And once I got home, I had a long conversation with my father. I needed to talk to him.

But the main point is I'm tired.

[♪ Listening to: "Be The Girl" - Aslyn]

The Thursday Threesome: Long Ago and Far Away

In the galaxy known as the Milky Way…

Onesome: Long ago-- I was sure I would become a _ _ _ _ _ _ when I grew up! Hmmm... I would be a wife living in Seattle. I was 8. Seattle was exotic for me at that age.

Twosome: and-- how did you end up where you are (currently) if that didn't happen? (Students, you can talk majors and changes and such!) Well, I'm in Savannah because this is where my father retired. I wasn't ready at age 18 to explore the wide open spaces. Just because you're 18 doesn't mean you're emotionally ready. It took me time to get where I am. Now, to find a job. I just got called a few minutes ago for one down in Richmond Hill to see if I would be fit for it. I probably sucked at that conversation. It was unexpected and off the top of my head. Also, I went to the Department of Labor to look today. I applied for 3 in Atlanta. I also got an e-mail about a job at at UPS in Roswell, but I wasn't qualified. And boy did I hear it about the e-mail reply I sent the recruiter about that UPS job!

As for the wife thing, well, still haven't the right guy. He'll come when he's ready. That's all I can say. I'm just glad I'm not this type of woman: Guardsman sues estranged wife over spent pay. Link from Fark.com. I saw stuff like this first hand living on Ft. Bragg during Desert Shield/Desert Storm in 1990-1991. Just one of the many reasons I didn't get involved in the military as an adult. I'm not that type of girl and honestly, hate that type of girl. This type of girl helps ruin it for girls like me.

Threesome: Far Away-- from any thoughts of the Super Bowl? Are you tuning in? No? Whatcha' doin' instead <g>? I'll be home watching it on Daddy's big TV.

[♪ Listening to: "Sonny Think Twice" - Chicago]

"You Try to be Strong but the Pain Keeps Holdin' On"

Last night, I did something that had a double-edge sword. No, it was nothing bad. It wasn't something totally out of character for me. In fact, it did do me some good last night. However, it was something I knew I really shouldn't have done. And it's something that when I tell my dad I did it, he's going to think I'm crazy. I think I have established the fact I'm crazy. We all are. But, at the same time, I think my dad will understand why I did it.

And last night, as well, I e-mailed a friend. And in that e-mail, I mentioned While You Where Sleeping I know it's just a romantic comedy. Real life is nothing like the movies. But, there's a scene in that movie that sticks out in my mind. Has ever since I first saw the film. Maybe because the emotion expressed in that scene was one I could identify with. In the scene that sticks out, Lucy's telling her boss about her wedding to Peter. She says "I know it's tomorrow Jerry, but you know what? I even wish it were yesterday. Because that would mean that today I would be on my honeymoon, that I would finally have a stamp in my passport, and that it would say Italy on it." Lucy's life is in a tailspin at that moment. She can't have what she wants and doesn't want what she has that moment. But, she talks about the stamp on her passport because it's one thing she always wanted in life. It seems to be to her that at that moment in life, the only thing she wants and has a chance to get is that passport stamp. Right now, I'm trying to get my passport stamp. I need my passport stamp. I wish I even knew what my passport stamp was.

I think I'll watch While You Where Sleeping and Legally Blonde today. They always seem to cheer me up.

[♪ Listening to: "When The Last Teardrop Falls" - Blaque]

A Blog Entry About Blogging

I figured I write an entry on blogging. It's inspired by BlogSavannah UnConference from Friday.

My kind of blogging is considered personal. I've been blogging since 2000, but have had a personal site since 1998. My first blogging service was Scribble.nu. It no longer exists, as far as a Google search is concern. I quit using it since it was so slow. At the time, I had a site on Geocities. I had a lot of static stuff on that site. I had some poems, pages devoted to our cats, and even a Richard Marx fan page But, when I found Scribble, I chose to use it. It was fun to have new content on my site. And back then, there was no such thing as a commenting system. When I quit using Scribble, I moved to Blogger. This was in 2001. By this time, I got my own domain. I could publish my entries to my own site via FTP. With Scribble, I was at the mercy of when its servers chose to work. However, Blogger had a drawback, too. If Blogger was down or hacked, I couldn't update my site.

Finally, in 2002, the latest blogging craze was Movable Type (MT). I jumped on that bandwagon. I could run MT from my own server. Still, if my server went down, so did my blog, but I had total control of it. Movable Type had just been launched a few months earlier and was in the earlier stages of the version 2.0. And as it developed, more goodies came out of the blogging world. Trackbacks! External blogging clients! You name it; I probably tried it. Some things were developed externally by users. Some were built into MT. Some things were built into other blogging systems.

I have tried the latest craze software, Wordpress. It is a great platform. However, I still use MT because at the time, I had better luck using an old blog gimmick with MT than I did with Wordpress. And what's that gimmick? Skins. Skins allow a reader to customize the look of a website. While at the moment, my default look is all peach in color, if anyone was sick of the peach look, they can make my site all plain and purple. Skins aren't as popular as they once were. In fact, it's been years since I made a new skin. But, I don't want to get rid of the ones I have because I like the variety.

And all the while, I still stayed a personal blogger. Most of my entries are about my life. Over time, I learned what I should and shouldn't blog about. If I'm angry at someone in real life, I learned to leave if off. Except with my siblings. I still rant about them. I know I shouldn't. Some days, I just can't help myself. But, mainly, I blog about the observation I make, the fun stuff in my life, and how important some people are been to me. I also talk about my depression. I am not ashamed of it. It is a part of me. Writing about it helps me get things off my chest. Also, I believe that my writings shows other people out there that they aren't alone. The same goes with the little writings I have on my sidebar. There are things in my life that I don't express on this blog. And if I do, it's in a cryptic way. The details are usually e-mailed to dear friends or written in a notebook, like my last entry remarks about.

I never thought I would be considered a top blog in Savannah. I still don't consider myself to be. However, I am probably one of the older blogs out there that still publishes.

And yes, my blog is simply titled ShawnAllison.com. But my last name is Latta. The reason my domain is what it is is that Allison is my middle name. I was 21 when I got this domain. I was very optimistic about getting married very soon. Well, it's been 7½ years now. I'm still not married, but I hope one day soon. Who, I don't know. I need to find a guy that loves me, soon. But, that's not the point. The point is the domain name allows me to adopt my husband's name and still be me. My last name may change, but I will always be Shawn Allison.

Now that I got that out of the way, I have many different tools and pieces of information besides this blog. I recommend the following things to help get your blog known and personalized:

• Last.fm - if you love music and want to share your tastes with the world. Last.fm is a great way of doing it. You download software that works with your media player. The software sends to Last.fm the names and artists of the tracks you listened to. Then, with a flash widget, Last.fm will display that information on a site. I don't have it on my site, but I do use it on my MySpace account.
• Feedburner - Most blogging clients publish a Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed for a site. The link for the feed is usually shown by a symbol. Feedburner is an application that takes the default feed and republishes the feed. You can also combine multiple feeds into one with Feedburner. My Feedburner feed is my site's RSS feed, plus my Flickr feed. Feedburner also keeps track of the number of people using your feed. It's hard to do that with the default feeds.
• Flickr - you don't even have to be a blogger to enjoy Flickr. You just need to love photography. Flickr allows you to blog directly to your blog photos you took, and in some cases, photos other people took. I love taking pictures. I don't blog all of them. However, the ones I do helps me tell a story.
• Google Reader - This is the newsreader I use to read feeds. Now, there are other web-based newsreaders like NewsGator and Bloglines. Newsreaders are use to read the RSS feeds sites distribute. Instead of going to 15 different websites, a newsreader gives you one page or application to open. And in that one page/application, you can catch up with the latest from all those sites at once. There are also application newsreaders you can download to your computer. However, I recommend the web-based ones since you aren't limited to your computer to read a feed. You can read your feeds anywhere

And for Georgia based blogs:

• The Georgia Blog Carnival - I have never participated in this, but they found me and added me to the list. It's a bi-weekly entry hosted on various blogs keeping up with various things in the Georgia Bloggisphere. It also has Blogroll of many blogs found in Georgia.

And that's my geeky bit about blogging. If you have any questions, e-mail and I'll try to answer them. Now, if I can find a job now! I am a college graduate. I just need employment. My heart at the moment wants to move to Atlanta. Savannah is home, but Atlanta offers me what my heart wants.

[♪ Listening to: "I Want You to Want Me (Live)" - Cheap Trick]