Well I dont know about this.......

I've spent a few days learning about 'blogs' and 'blogging'. Of course I didnt realize there was so much to it when I started this blog. I have two blogs going, this one, which is more or less about things I find interesting - not really focused on any one subject; and "Struggles in the Ether" which is about the online business my wife & I run. I have since learned that blogging can be a business - (I now have an entrecard on this site) - but what I know is only the tip of the iceberg. I'm still a little confused about how everything works. For most of my life tho ('till I up and quit) I've had jobs that required very complicated problem solving skills - 15 years in IT, before that in the Army for example. So I know I can figure it out if I want to.

What I have found out is this: Blogging can be a business. You can make money at it, but it takes hours and hours and hours everyday. I already spend hours and hours and hours everyday on my online businesses, and that seems to be improving every month, so I don't really want to spend the time developing a blogging business. So, I'm not gonna.

But......it is interesting to see people coming to my site. I'd like to get more. Recently I received my first 'outside' comment - cool. I hope that a few of them click on the links I have to the online stores, but I doubt this will be a major source of revenue or business.

Now, my wife has a blog going in support of our online business, and she seems to have more of a knack for this stuff than I do - she'll probably do better. She was a business/analyst during her previous life, and I think takes a bigger picture approach to things than I do. I worked as systems engineer/information analyst/programmer analyst - always seemed to be involved in the minutae of programs and systems, and was rarely involved in 'the big picture', at least in any detailed way. (I lost that job after 15 years, back in 2001 - massive layoffs combined with much cheaper labor overseas; started working for TSA in 2002, quit that job in 2006, been doing online stuff ever since - that's another blog entry). Anyway, she'll probably be more successful than I will in driving business to our online stores thru blogs.

In my "useless thoughts" post below, I mused about how to get everybody to send a dollar to my PayPal account. Well, one way to get the ball rolling on that is by blogging. But its a LOT of work, and blogging as a business does not seem to be something that I'd enjoy. Who knows what will happen in the future, but for now, all I plan to do is maintain this semi-quirky little blog, pretty much free form, maintain "Struggles in the Ether", about my personal online selling issues, check in on a few blogs I like every day, and see what happens. I'm not going to worry too much about rankings, traffic, advertising or anything. Maybe nobody will care, but maybe eventually there will be a couple of regulars. Maybe we'll get some dog advice along the way. Past that, I'm not going to worry about it too much.