PhoneBoy Says

It seems strange to spend all this time on a blog that, in the end, my dad thought was a waste of time. That said, I didn't have much of a relationship with my dad from about the time I was in college. The blog, which covers from about 2006 onward, has a number of different items in it from the personal to the political. Some of the interaction with my dad is in his blog, so it has personal meaning to me.

Of course, I should know from having moved content management systems several times for phoneboy.com that any "migration" between systems will never go without a hitch. Moving dad's blog from Vox to Posterous was no exception. In order to get the comments, I had to take a side trip through Wordpress, which introduced a whole mess of other issues into the import process.

Then there was the picture import into Flickr, which Vox provided a nice tool for. Pity it didn't give me an option to do only pictures and instead it tried to import all kinds of stuff it should not have.

Bottom line, I'm having to do a lot of "manual" crap to do it right and to make sure I've actually got all of dad's data off of his Vox blog. That said, I am getting to re-read a lot of the stuff he posted, so I don't entirely mind doing it.

I recently went through my dad's blog on Vox and copied it over to Posterous. He also took a number of pictures over the years. I've put a few of my favorites in this gallery. Some of these he took with a real camera, some he took as stills from his video camera. One I'm not sure where he got, but I don't think he took it.

Every once in a while, someone asks me why--as a man--I have such a childish nickname--PhoneBoy. It's a nickname a friend gave to me in the 1990s. Given the mild amounts of notoriety associated with it, it seems silly to change it now.

That said, it embodies a certain aspect of my personality I hope I never lose: child-like wonder. Man-made things like a bridge, a tall building, or a mobile phone. Things of nature like a mountain, trees, or the sky. Things that I'm sure I could understand, given enough time and energy. Things I simply look at and enjoy for what they are.

With this in mind, I've went through the various photos I've taken over the years and posted just a few of the things that captured my child-like wonder. Those of you who've known me may recognize a few of these pictures.

via twidroid

Word came out today that Six Apart's Vox blogging service is entering the deadpool--closing it's doors on 30 September. Not a huge shock since the service, which I originally liked quite a bit, failed to evolve in a meaningful way. I had imported my own Vox blog not too long ago and deleted my Vox account.

Meanwhile, my dad also had a blog on Vox as well. He passed away a couple of months back and I wanted to save his blog for posterity. Fortunately, Posterous' import process for Vox is simple enough that it doesn't even require a login to the site! I just pointed Posterous at the site, and it basically handled the rest.

Dad's new blog: TechZilla Said. I did a perfunctory "what this blog is" posting and created him a profile. Beyond that, I don't expect it to change. I don't even expect anyone to read it, but it's there in case anyone does.

The problem with having a blog is that you sometimes have to post something so people don't think it's moribund. The problem is: I don't always have a lot to say. Or at least a lot to say that I want to post for everyone to read. Even if I post something, who's to say anyone will read it or take the time to respond to it? Maybe I'm over-thinking this blogging thing.

From the New Digg (and yes, I have invites if you're interested)

It's Sweet 15 time at @Starbucks

via Osfoora