Blogging About the Blog Book

For some bizarre reason either our computer or the blogger site has made it impossible to make posts. Sometimes the cursor just doesn't show up or images won't load and for a long time now all the text will do is be centered unless extreme measures are taken to block it and reformat after things are written. With that in mind I figured if something more happens we could lose ALL the years of adventures that we have blogged about. It would be be near impossible to try to even REMEMBER all the bizarre shit that has happened here but to recreate it? Not happening. I decided to publish a blog book. Blurb has a blog "slurp" book you can make and I tried that first and it just kept telling me it was too big. It told me I had too many photos and I just didn't want to sit and count photos to try to get to the limit they set and then have 4 or 5 volumes to get the thing printed. I waited for HOURS (due to their crappy software and slow internet connection) only to get a message that they couldn't download the blog. I stumbled upon www.blog2print and on a whim (not thinking it would work) I pressed the suck it/slurp it/make a book button and it got downloaded in a few minutes and I had a sample to look at.  Earlier, before trying out Blurb I had painstakingly gone through the blog for hours to try to catch spelling errors (when we started I didn't realize spell check was there) and to make headings consistent. I figured there would be errors in formatting and spelling and spacing but there always will be. I didn't spend time going through it AGAIN and figured it would be good enough! So here it is! 430 pages going from our arrival to the end of 2010!

I picked the "conserve space" option to cram it into as few pages as possible and I think it looks great! There are some errors, like I said, but they are minimal and not substantive. I think the quality and look of the thing is pleasing and am amazed I have written so much stuff. When I read it I realize that Jeff and I do quite a lot of things even though I don't think life is ever interesting enough. I know there is more to experience here but the frustration with experiencing it has made it become a "not worth the effort" thing just like diving became in Washington. When the time and frustration spent TRYING to do something outweighs actually doing something it is time to find something else to do. Here's a look at the middle of the volume-of-our-Puerto Rico-lives. I highly recommend making a blog book if you have bothered to blog...it makes a nice, official way to preserve those experiences!