Tuesday, June 8, 2010

The blogging is here to stay. My Facebook account is deactivated.

I should have put up a blog post in May but, failed to do so.  I really have no excuse.   Life has been getting in the way.  This is a good thing.  We've had company and completed a prolonged Grade 12 graduation process with everything going well.

I started this blog in November 2009 and I have decided that the blogging will continue.  That's sounds kind of funny doesn't it?  The blogging will continue until moral improves.  That sentence has nothing to do with anything.  It just popped into my head and out my fingers onto the keyboard.  Ahem!  I was initially concerned about privacy but, I'm way less concerned about the privacy of this blog than my privacy on Facebook.  The solution was easy.  I left Facebook.  I enjoyed my time on Facebook and I may go back but, the idea of advertisers having or gaining access to my Facebook profile did not appeal to me.  I realize that there are something like 400 million Facebook users and my departure will only have my friends wondering what I'm up to.  The fact is Facebook users should be concerned about their profile data.  I mean seriously concerned.

Facebook appeared (and still appears) to me to have more problems or issues than they have solutions.  Facebook also has issues here in Canada with the Canadian government due to privacy concerns.  I chose to deactivate my account.  I miss the friends and family that I was connecting with on Facebook.  I may go back but, not right now.  The downside of leaving Facebook means that I am no longer connected to family members that I was just getting to know.  It turns out I have dozens of cousins that I've never met.  My father had 13 brothers and sisters!  My dad was child #12 and there are only 4 of his siblings including my dad that are left.

I also decided that I have a lot of other things that need my attention.  Like this blog for example.  I started this blog by writing about my family.  By that I mean my entire family!  Genealogically speaking I just found 12 more ancestors on my mother's side of my family today.  That was two fun finds.  I chose to look at two of my ancestors differently and searched based on the new paradigm. 12 more people showed up in search results and have now been added to my family tree.  The Internet has made genealogical searches easier and genealogical web sites make locating and organizing data easier as well.

I may move away from the genealogical interests occasionally to other topics of interest.  Summer is almost here and that means I'm going to go fly fishing and such.  Fun will be had and I will attempt to capture some of that here.  Pictures may appear as well.  Geotagged ones even!  This time last year when I was visiting my family on Vancouver Island I found the Sony GPS logger that matched my Sony DSC-H50B.  I now geotag my images whenever it is reason for me to do so.  Through the magic of the black box my camera somehow lets the GPS logger know that a picture has been taken and data is created.  I don't know how it works.  I didn't have to link the GPS logger and camera manually.  They appear to talk to each other wirelessly automatically.  This process is supposed to work with the Sony DCR-SR47 camcorder we have also.  I have not used the GPS logger with the video camera yet.

Yes, I know.  Ask me what time it is and I'll tell you how to build a clock.  More on that later.  I'm off to enjoy June 2010.  I'm off Facebook but, I'm still on Twitter.  If you use Twitter look me up.  VY1CA is my username.