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Bloggers'
thoughts from, about Perry County find worldwide audiences
By
KEVIN KOELLING
Managing Editor
PERRY COUNTY - Blogs are everywhere on the Internet, and Perry
and surrounding counties are no exception. A number of people
living here now or who have lived here are, to varying degrees,
active bloggers.
Short for Weblog, or World Wide Web-based logs, blogs are online
journals culminating from several social phenomena. Many people
like to describe in words the interests they pursue and the
events and feelings they experience. Much of that description
over the centuries has been recorded in diaries, very private,
one-way destinations.
As of recently, the Internet provides an avenue through which
written feelings can be shared with people all over the world.
Conversely, a desire to find other people's thoughts can be
satisfied by seeking out blogs.
Some blogs cater to specific interests, such as one maintained
by Lily Road resident J.R. Absher at
http://www.outdoorweblog. com. The address provides clues to
the content, which includes thoughts about and compilations of
news about outdoor sports.
An entry from Wednesday, for example, provides links to stories
about "noodling," such as one from the United Kingdom's Guardian
that explains, "First you strip to the waist and clamber into
the river. Next, you bend under water and rootle blindly along
the muddy riverbank with your bare hands. When you find a
promising hole, you waggle your fingers - or toes - so
alluringly that a large catfish locks its jaws around your arm
or leg. Then you simply wrestle the 100lbs (45kg) giant out of
the water and serve it fried with cayenne pepper."
Absher, a freelance outdoor writer, said Friday he has for some
time been going to a variety of online news sites to get ideas,
and decided several years ago the kinds of things he finds might
be helpful to others. He normally registers about 5,000 people
visiting his blog each week, but that number rocketed to 25,000
or 30,000 when he referred May 23 to reports of a 124-pound blue
catfish caught near the confluence of the Missouri and
Mississippi rivers.
He also maintains a Web site at
http://www.outdoorpressroom.com where he compiles links to
stories such as "Walla Walla golfers find moose at third hole"
and "Washington state woman fights coyotes to save her pet cat."
That site registers 30,000 to 40,000 visitors per week, he said.
While maintaining the Web site and blog won't make him rich,
Absher confessed, "I do make money from them in a convoluted
way. Editors for the magazines he writes for see issues
mentioned on his sites and ask him to provide articles about
them. A reader will occasionally feel compelled, he added, to
send him a contribution because they found information he
provided useful.
Regular updates are "vital to the life of the sites," Absher
said. "I update mine daily; that's why I can maintain that many
hits."
Some blogs aren't updated as frequently as others, but are
interesting nonetheless. Crawford County bicyclist and
water-color artist Kit Miracle maintains a Web site at
http://www.fromthebackofabike.com/index.html, where a link
takes Web surfers to her "online journal." Her last entry was in
October, but includes pictures and sketches of scenes that have
caught her attention on her rides, including one of the stone
lions guarding Tell City's City Hall Park.
Marc Rust, a systems engineer employed by the Tell City Electric
Department, updates a blog occasionally at
http://amr.blogspot.com. Among reflections on various
cultural issues, he offers observations about odd news items,
such as "This guy hates dimes," described in Rust's most recent
update May 20. It provides a link to a Web site produced by the
dime-hater, who hopes to rid society of the thin coins by asking
everyone to send theirs to him.
Amanda Bradley's online profile describes that blogger as a
24-year-old Nashville, Tenn., resident. She posted April 9 a
birthday message to her mother, Susan Lee Huber, born in
Cannelton 52 years ago. Huber now lives in Brentwood, Tenn., her
daughter wrote, but "made her theater debut in 'The Emperor's
New Clothes' at a community theater in nearby Tell City, IN,
later going on to perform in her high school's production of 'Lil
Abner.' " The birthday wish can be viewed at
http://divadomain. blogspot.com/2005/04/happy-birthday-momma-b.html.
Feelings within us aren't always so happy, as illustrated in the
blog of a high-school girl who posts messages at
http://www.livejournal.com/users/moon_light/64401.html.
While her posts include negative comments such as "This town has
a very bad crank problem, I'd say within a 4 block radius of my
house there's at least 5 meth labs," she does offer some amusing
observations. "Our roads start on 5th street going upward
through town, 1-4 are in the Ohio River," she points out, and
"When it rains and they open the flood dams the weirdest stuff
stays on our shore lines like couches, refrigerators, barrels."
While some Web sites charge fees, others - such as
tripod.lycos.com, blogger.com and theloop.com - offer free space
for people interested in creating their own blogs. |
