The blog is back!
I believe my most recent blog was back in February, just after the Daytona 500. With two straight weeks of no one reading my blog and not much more to say than I was still unemployed but my Mom and I were taking day trips, I decided it really wasn’t worth trying to come up with fancy new ways to say the same thing to an audience of no one.
I was kinda hoping that someone might have noticed that my blogging had ceased and said “Hey John, are you still blogging?” but as Mick Jagger once said “You can’t always get what you want!”
On Thursday, I decided to post on Facebook, asking people if they wanted me to bring my blog back. I gave myself (or would that be the people on Facebook?) a goal of 30 likes over 24 hours. I KNEW I should have made it 25 likes. I mean, I wouldn’t have met that goal either (I got 19 likes) but it would have been a little closer.
I need to give a special “Thank You” to everyone who gave my Facebook a like. It was great to know that people wanted me to get back to blogging. I hope it’s an indication that many of you have stopped by to read what I have to say. By the way, if anyone out there has a blog of their own, please drop me a line. I’d love to read what you have to say and I can help promote it to the …single digit number of people that will read my blog. (Okay, maybe that won’t be helpful.)
At the end of the day, I knew I would end up going back to blogging. I enjoy the writing part of it and sometimes it’s fun to go back and re-read what I was up to on such-and-such a week. It’s the same reason I go back and read my old installments of the Milner Mat Report or John Milner’s Track Talk. It’s something to read over lunch or supper. (I tend to like to read while I’m eating – and it’s better to read my old stuff than the sh!t that’s on social media these days.)
So after all that build-up, ironically, there really isn’t too much new to talk about. I am still in the job hunt and I applied for four jobs yesterday. I went through a stretch a couple of weeks ago where I wasn’t really seeing too much to apply to, which really frustrated me. I mean, it’s bad enough to not be getting any interviews but to not even have jobs to apply for? Well, it was definitely feeling like I was nowhere close to finding the next opportunity. However, by expanding my search a little, I have found a few things that might lead to something.
I’m meeting with a member of Oxford’s Community Employment Services on Tuesday. I had met with Stephanie from CES about 15 years ago and it really helped me to build my confidence as well as gave me some ideas to pursue. I hope that it will be the same this time around.
This next week will get off to a busy start for me. I will be heading out to the Shelf Life offices to pick up the newest issue and some new books to review. Weather-pending, my Mom and I may be heading to Glencoe afterwards. We’ve been fairly limited to making just essential trips to London and Ingersoll over the last few weeks.
If the weather holds, my Mom and I would not only like to make a day trip here and there. However, I think one of the biggest tasks we have ahead of ourselves over the coming weeks and months is getting some yard work done. My Mom, even as she approaches her 80th birthday, continues to work on her “home fix-em-up projects” (as she and my Dad used to call them).
I give her a hand where I can, of course. I think it was last week that we took advantage of some good weather to revamp our backyard bird feeder. We’ve already had visits from the local squirrel, morning dove, pigeon, chipmunk, and rabbit population. We also had a neighbourhood cat and dog show up.
Right now, she is remaking the couch covers. I can’t really help her too much with that, other than tell her that it’s a good idea and say “They look great, Mom!” (I’m not lying, by the way. Mom will do a great job!)
Above and beyond my job hunt, I’ve been keeping fairly busy. I’ve continued to work on editing the novel I wrote back in the late 90s, A Time of War. At over 350 pages, it’s taken me a while to read through but I’m getting close to finish. Then I just need to get up the courage to send it to a publisher. (I have one in mind.)
I investigated going the self-publishing route a while back. It ended up being way too expensive for what I can afford so I guess I have to hope a traditional publisher comes through for me.
I did end up attending a webinar on self-publishing however. One of the phrases that was used was one I had heard before: Perfect is the enemy of good. (I heard it a few years ago while I was at my last job, and thankfully it was also as part of a webinar because I started laughing my @$$ off.) I have some thoughts on that particular train of thought, which I am tempted to write a LinkedIn post about.
Oh yeah, in case you missed it, I’ve started posting on LinkedIn… well, I’ve posted once: an article about what people should learn from Dale Earnhardt. I won’t spoil it but you can read it here. I tried to keep it short but my first draft was 700 characters too long. I managed to shorten it down and got 272 impressions which (checks Google) apparently isn’t all that impressive. Oh well, it has inspired me to write a few more posts.
My Mom continue to watch Storage Wars and Cheers throughout the week although we opted to watch the Jays home opener last night. (They beat the Athletics 3-2 in case you missed it.) It wasn’t quite the volume of Mom’s reaction that the Canadian-U.S. Olympic hockey final received but Mom was yelling at the other team to miss the ball.
While I am going to be catching up on the Trades later tonight, I continue to watch NASCAR, as you probably expected. I’ve been writing a few articles for John Milner’s Track Talk here and there. I just realized my webpage needs to be updated but you can see my recent articles (as well as my pathetic attempt to predict the winners) on my Facebook page.
I hope everyone is doing well. Since most of you probably came here from the link on my Facebook page, I will continue to invite you to reach out on Facebook Messenger via text or voice message (whichever is easier). Alternately, you can also email me. Either way, feel free to check in and let me know what you think of the subjects I’ve covered on my blog, or just what you’re up to these days.
johnmilner.ca 