16 Mar 08 Onwards & Upwards

Well it’s always been one of my mottos if you like. No use crying over spilt milk. Try and learn from your mistakes and move on. Take a little time to look at yourself however, when things don’t go quite right. It’s not always all the other person’s fault! Sometimes, even if it is, a little diplomatic shuffling can work wonders.

Having a partner or buddy, that you can vent to can work wonders too. Let it all out, and you’ll feel better afterwards, as long as you can talk to them in confidence of course.

Writing this, on an extremely pleasant Sunday afternoon, one is reminded there is a lot to be thankful for. The glass is half full not half empty.

I’m looking at the window at a beautiful sunny day, a deep blue sky, and the temperature is hovering around 70F.

I’m also indulging, in a superb local beer, Charleston’s very own Palmetto Pale Ale. I can smell the beef that is roasting in the oven, along with the potatoes.

Aah bliss.

Then, I look at the blog statistics here. More readers taking an RSS feed; more readers dropping by – over 2,500 a month now, which, while not in the top echelons of anything is certainly going in the right direction. Advertising revenues are up too. I know, it’s such a dirty word in some quarters, but it helps keep the whole shebang – not just my blog – reasonably free.  I feel this is important as I’ve been only long enough -  over twenty years now – to know how expensive it COULD be.

When I first got online in 1986, I had to make long distance dial-up calls to get a connection at 300bps, and I had to pay a penny a page for most information then, and some was 4 or 5 pennies. My phone bill alone was around $200 a month just for the net.  I am not exaggerating.

So you see, I really do appreciate that it’s way way cheaper now, even though, I join in the mutterings about how the USA is 24th in the league table for internet speed and reliability, and the service is expensive.

So, although it could, should, and surely will get much faster and more reliable,  in truth,  to use a few words from British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s 1957 speech,  “we’ve never had it so good”.

Tags: 5 pennies, advertising revenues, bliss, british prime minister, conservative, crying over spilt milk, deep blue sky, dirty word, echelons, economy, going in the right direction, harold macmillan, inflation, internet speed, little time, long distance dial, mottos, mutterings, pale ale, potatoes, quarters, sunday afternoon, sunny day, tory, twenty years, whole shebang