Comments - and a Public Service Awareness Campaign

Hello readers.

I have a few new readers.  Since I like to visit and comment on the blogs of my readers ...  it is time once again to make a Public Service Announcement about Blogspot.com commenting pluses and minuses - the blogging platform you are visiting now that is used by me and many others.  

The Pluses and the minuses  There are 2 methods of Blogspot.com comments: Embedded Commenting and PopUp Commenting.  

PopUp Commenting seems to work consistently well for most readers - except that the blog owner cannot respond individually to each comment received.   I use PopUp Commenting.   

Embedded Commenting does not work well for some us.  Comments ‘appear' to be submitted to the blog you are visiting, but they never show up.  No error message is provided to alert you to this problem.  And when I have back-tracked with the blog owner through a private email - just to confirm they got the comment - they report they never saw it.  Very frustrating for the visitor. If it works, however, it lets the blog owner reply individually to each visitor comment.  Very satisfying for all.

What happened: 

A few years ago Blogspot made some adjustments to their blog platform.  It was at this time the commenting problem cropped up.  Embedded Commenting would only work if the blog I was visiting recognized me as “signed in” to Google.  I am always signed into Google, but the software just didn’t see it that way on some blogs.  I spent considerable time trying to get “signed in” in the eyes of some blogs.  I reported this issue to Blogger over a year ago and got no response - and, more importantly - no fix.  I gave up trying. 

While I understand that Embedded Commenting is the preferred method of accepting comments for most of us, it blocks some of the readers from leaving a comment.

My Fix: 

My own personal work-a-round with some Embedded Commenting blogs is to send my comment to the blog owner's personal email.  My comment doesn’t show up on the owner’s blog, but it lets the blog owner know I visited.  I comment less often with that approach.  Lately, however, I have found that some blogs don’t provide an email.  I still visit, but I am totally invisible to the blog owner, with the exception that I probably count in your Blog Visitor statistics.

Bottom Line:  Regardless of where you stand on how you receive comments on your blog, I just wanted to make readers aware of the problems some readers have with the Embedded Comments feature.  And I think twice about starting up with new blogs that use an Embedded Comments method. If I haven’t visited or commented on your blog, that may be the problem.

Thanks for reading/listening!  Happy Blogging everyone.

Tate - perfecting his cuteness!

 

I can’t wait to hold that little nugget on the ride home!  Three whole hours on the ride back.  He will know exactly who his grandmother is by the time we hit my daughter’s house!! 

A New Little Family Member

Meet my newest Grand Baby!!

Yes, my daughter has finally decided to take another little creature into her life.

My daughter has named him Tater Tot or Tate for short!

Tate is an English Bull Dog - about 3 weeks old in the first picture below 

and has recently opened his eyes.

It is his first “glamor” shot.  

Get used to it little buddy.

It is just the beginning of your life in pictures.

Tate, a week or so later in the second picture!

Eyes open wide and taking everything in.

We are very excited to welcome him into our family.

The plan now is to pick him up from the breeder mid-March when he is 8 weeks old.  The breeder is located in Virginia about 3 hours from my daughter’s condo so it will be a full day of driving to get him.  I am going with her.  Tate will need someone to hold him on the 3 hour trip back to his new home and I volunteered to do that.  

Hey! It’s a tough job, but somebody needs to do it!!  (no eye rolling, please!)  😂😂

Of course, more pictures will follow.  

There is nothing cuter than a round little bulldog puppy!

 

A Repeat Puzzle

 

This is my next puzzle - The James Younger Gang offered by SunsOut Puzzles.  This is the only puzzle I kept from my previous puzzle life decades ago. It has survived many multiple downsize purgings of my belongings.   I love the picture.  I tried to find this puzzle on Amazon and it doesn’t appear to be for sale anymore. 

The first step facing me is the pieces sorting.  I typically sort by color and edge pieces first.

I first noticed these pieces are non-traditional in shape.

And the sizes of the pieces vary greatly.

And I have a box full of those oddly shaped and oddly sized pieces.  

Not sure if this will be easy or hard.  

But the sorting step is completed now - and I am committed.  

After all, how hard can it be since I have assembled this puzzle before?  (famous last words)  

There are an awful lot of solid color pieces to this puzzle - so my normal brain process of checking the pieces against the picture for general location on the board won’t work for large sections of this puzzle.  

In fact, I have specifically avoided puzzles that are a single color because I prefer using the picture side for reference as opposed to looking for specific shapes. 

This puzzle will be completed, however, no matter how hard it is because I have plans for it.

Now that I have a dedicated puzzle space, I will glue this puzzle together, frame it and and hang it above my puzzle board.  

This puzzle also will probably be the only puzzle I ever repeat. A kind of a “first” and “last” rolled into one. 

This should be interesting!

It Deserves Its Own Photo Shoot

Seriously, 

this puzzle deserves its own photo shoot.  

I do like to take a picture of my finished puzzles and I like to enjoy them complete for a few days, but this puzzle was the hardest (and largest) puzzle I have done so far.  It was only 1000 pieces but it almost filled my large puzzle board.  I even considered at one point of abandoning it - boxing it up and giving it away.  Some elements of this puzzle just were not fun.  After all, who would know if I didn’t finish it.

Oh that’s right.  I would know!

So here I am in February showing it off (started it in December).

These individual houses and the people in the setting were great fun to do.

 

Ok, maybe the Christmas trees were a bit of a struggle.  

The houses were so beautiful.  If I had to pick one I would like to live in, I could not make up my mind.

But the sky!!!!  It was a head ache of massive proportions.  I had to finally focus on the shapes of the pieces rather than the images on the surface.

Anyway, it is done.  I’ll leave it together for a few days.  Run my hands over it with every visit.  Gloat that it didn’t get the best of me this time.   And then I will break it apart and give it away!