While the original purpose of this blog was to present my somewhat self indulgent views, it changed when I was ambushed by oral cancer a little over seven years ago.  This past November (2013) was the six anniversary of the beginnings of the treatments to rid me of that particular foul demon.  November is the month that marks the anniversary of the surgical intervention.  May is the month that marks the my return to work, and that I use as the beginning of ‘my new normal’.

I had tried to get back to discussing the goings on in the world with this blog, but haven’t been having much success…. probably more about interest and whether or not anyone actually cared, especially given the number of fabulous blogs and bloggers out there… but now I’ve been encouraged to resume….I need to build my ‘brand’ again, and develop it so much further because of my personal long range plans. 

When I developed the cancer my mantra was ‘I’M NOT DONE YET!”  This attitude carried me through the surgery and the treatments… it still carries me forward… I’m not done by a long shot.
And we also now have a new milestone that requires a ‘marker’.  In November of 2013 I was ambushed by a haemorrhagic stroke which was in part a result of the cancer surgeries and the radiation treatments. 
I’m also adopting a new bit of technology…so let’s see what we can do with this.  If it fails miserably from a technology/format point of view, I will invesitigate and potentially move to WordPress.
I’m also starting to dabble with Twitter.  And I need to find a more user friendly replacement for Google Drive that a small group of writer friends can use without fear…

And I probably should rename his blog, especially if I am going to move on building a new blog and a new brand.  Maybe I will break it out into three different blogs.  Maybe that will help give focus to my writing.  Got any suggestions for the name of these blogs?  Some of the thoughts I’ve had:

1. Not Done Yet; for the blog about my medical trials and tribulations
2. Dodging Bullets; also for the blog about my medical stuff.  I’ve had numerous people, including two doctors, use the phrase for how I’ve managed to survive that which should have/could have killed me.  there are a couple of blogs out there that use a variation on the name… I need to examine them more closely to see how I can differentiate mine from theirs.
3. My New Normal; or a variation on a the theme for discussions about the cancer, the stroke and how I live my life.  I kinda like this one…  the challenge is that so do a lot of blog writers.  We’ll have to stay away from it as it is becoming a bit of a clicne.
4. FOAMing.  this is based on the acronym Frustrated Older Adult Male…the inference is, of course, foaming at the mouth in a rabid sort of way.  This blog would be where I’d tuck away all my rants and complaints about politics, consumerization, and generally the things that that
5. I think the rest of the world should be paying attention to.  I need to work on the acronym, because I don’t want it to be completely negative in nature.  I want to be able to put up product, book, restaurant reviews and have them taken seriously.  How about; ‘From the Outlook of an Older Adult Male?  Needs work, doesnt’ it?  The frustrated old man angle has been used over and over, and for the most part not very well.  I don’t think we’ll be using this one…  😉  Gotta come up with a more positive way to present these topics and this view point.
6. backstories;  this will be my writing, editing blog that I will use to build my brand for my efforts at being a writer and editor.

Comments and suggestions welcome!!

Well, my move to change up this blog and to envigorate other existing blogs I started years ago in the Blogger universe have been reduced to a series of investigations and a planning exercise, rather than an effort at effecting significant change quickly.  I am now starting to question the platform to be used.  I have been seriously looking through the Blogger tool kits, and have been fascinated by the thought of monetizing my blogging efforts.  The challenge is that without a commitment from Google AdSense to place ads in these blogs there isn’t a lot of point in pursuing the redesign and content development on this platform, is there?.  If only they’d say ‘yes’…and then I would attack the redesign, content development and redeployment with hammer and tongs.  But in the meantime I find myself checking out competitive platforms such as WordPress and Tumblr, trying to determine where will I be happiest going forward.

To be fair, I should point out that I am not just spinning my wheels here waiting for Google AdSense to make up their minds.  I have developed a publishing plan for each of three blogs, and have taken a stab at trying to define a structure for a fourth.  Content dev comes next.