Follow the Leader

So, it's kind of funny because on one of the blogs I follow, Jess mentioned that her sister just became a follower of hers (I will explain more later). In her post, she asks if her sister knew about "following" and didn't do it on purpose, or if she had just found out about it. I had been thinking about doing a post about following a few days ago, so it was funny that she has some of the same questions as I do.

I always wonder if people are reading what I am writing. I assume not, and am okay with that. I mean, I just like to write, to get my memories and thoughts down before I forget them and to keep kind of a journal/log of my travels. Sometimes I have an opinion and rather than make everyone at work listen to me, I put it on here and you can read it if you are so inclined. But I still wonder -- are you inclined?

I really have no way of knowing who is reading...like I said, I assume not a lot are. Until I go to visit my best friend and her mom says, "So, how was San Diego?" and I think, "how in holy hell does SHE know I went to San Diego?" Well, I did post it and apparently she DID read it! And that makes me feel good. Even if I am not completely sure she or other people are reading, I sometimes get a little boost from time to time.

In case you are like Jess' scenario A and you just don't know what the possibilities are, I am going to tell you a few. You can go to http://www.reader.google.com/ and then enter in the sites you like. The reader will keep them all for you and tell you when a new post has been posted on your favorite sites. You can also link to your reader by just clicking "follow" -- on my site its on the left. See those 4 people there...oh and one of them is me; I don't know how that happened! Oops. I guess I felt sorry for myself.

Another option is if you look at the top of this page it says "follow" "share" "report abuse". You can click any of those. If you click follow, again, that too will take you to your Reader (no Mom, not "take me to your leader"). You don't have to use Reader, but I am hooked on google -- this blog is owned by them and it all just links together so well. All you have to do now is check your Reader from time to time and it will tell you who has posted new posts since your last visit.

You don't have to follow; you can also subscribe. This also uses Reader (for me -- you can use any other feed reader). Just click the link at the very bottom of this page. It says "subscribe to: posts (atom)".

You can also forgo all that and just leave nasty comments on the posts. At the bottom of each post is a link that says "0 Comments". If you click on that, you can tell me to shut up or leave me a note if I need to pick up bread from the store tonight.

So, you still don't have to read anything, follow anything or comment on anything, but now you if for some reason you wanted to, you know how.

PS This is my 200th post. Stats: Started in April (ish) 2006, 4 years, approx 50 a year, approx 1 a week. If you haven't read any of them, you have saved approximately 5 minutes a week of your time, or 1000 minutes in the last 4 years.

Image taken from: Boldt (found using google images -- see, it's like a cult)