Reflecting on the A to Z experience

English: Hurdle Suomi: Estejuoksija ja este
English: Hurdle Suomi: Estejuoksija ja este (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Blogging in a vacuum isn’t very much fun. The wave of activity I signed up for by participating in these posts is a like running a marathon, I suppose. {I’ve never run a marathon, but after running a mile once when I was kid, I bent over and threw up.} I’m not feeling nauseous, I’m feeling a little bit accomplished. This year I did complete the challenge. I did browse the other participants’ posts and started new conversations with new people and stirred up new conversations with old friends.

The blogs I follow and link to on the far right column of this blog are a mix of blogs I’m interested in, but also blogs of people I have started to really admire as writers.

These bursts of content, whether relevant or not, are the hurdles in the race. This year we had 1000+ people sign up to publish one post per day having something to do with a letter of the alphabet. A little trite, but as a club activity, it’s a lot like a team building activity. At work, I was once asked to teach someone to juggle three balls. I didn’t have any juggling experience, but I had to do it anyway. I learned to communicate and give directions even though I wasn’t sure of the subject matter. I had been given all the details and tricks I needed. With practice my partner started to get the hang of it.

This exercise is very much like that situation. As we all scrambled to come up with ideas, some people dropped balls, fell over the hurdles, or out right threw up all over the track. {What-ever, you get the picture.}

We were also asked to visit the people who commented on our posts and look around at the other runners while we ran. I did try to CONTROL CLICK on the names and blog links to open their posts in new tabs. My strategy was to open several tabs and hunt for new interesting blogs as I prepared my posts and responded to comments. I started focusing on the Educational blogs first. I follow a lot of homeschooling people on Google Plus, but found so many new exciting people running alongside of me.

If you participated with me on this journey, I hope you didn’t trip up over any of the flying balls or falling runners.

It’s all a game to me – Blogfest

Mouse Trap (board game)Image via Wikipedia
$10 dollars at the toy store (circa 1981)

My favorite games of all time:

1. Mousetrap – the boardgame. This is the game I remember loving as a kid because I had to save up and buy it myself when I was about 10 years old.

ShadowrunImage via Wikipedia

2. Shadowrun – a roll-playing game we played in the early nighties for a few weeks. We had used up our enthusiasm for Dungeons and Dragons. Shadowrun, in a few words, is Blade Runner meets Dungeons and Dragons. Very cool. Requires your full attention and creativity.

3. Crazy 8’s – the card game my mom taught me and my kids are learning. Best thing: No batteries.

READ Favorite Games in the “It’s All Fun & Games Blogfest”

My family chimes in:

Red1 – Howrse, Spore, and Sims 3

Red2 – Howrse, Zoo Tycoon, Spore Galactic Adverture

Mrs. SFDada – Solitaire, Gin Rummy, Sorry

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Blog Action Day 2010 Prep

Blog Action Day 2010  October 15th

I’m preparing an entry for Blog Action day. Have you heard about it? My kids try so hard to conserve water they rarely flush and have to be sent to the shower. Do we take our access to water for granted? In the US, we absolutely do. This year the Blog Action day theme is water. I bet we’ll learn a lot.

This week I learned that there are people in the United States that don’t have access to other basic services we take for granted.
A fire rescue team let a man’s house burn to the ground because he failed to pay his fire service fee. They had abundant water to available to wet down the perimeter to protect his neighbors from the flames. The neighbors were all paid up.


Blog Action Day 2010: Water from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.