The Weblog Review

“Cancer. It’s not just an astrological sign anymore.” If that ain’t the truth, I don’t know what is. This weblog, if it isn’t obvious from the title, is a personal weblog written by Amanda, who shares her experiences of being by her husband’s side as he battles his way through cancer. The most heart-wrenching part of this blog, for me, was the age group these two fall in – Amanda is 24 and her husband is 25.

In the immortal words of The Doors, “The time to hesitate is through.” Amanda and her husband are no longer hesitating on anything. They seem to be grabbing life by the reigns and going full speed ahead.

Since the inception of the blog back in April 2005, life appears to be non-stop for the couple. The day she starts blogging, she explains her disappointment in not being able to find any “real people” cancer blogs, which is why she created this one. Then, the next day, it’s time for her husband to start an extensive chemotherapy treatment. While each thing that happens would absolutely zap the energy and hope out of someone, Amanda rolls with the punches and keeps an amazingly positive attitude throughout the past several months.

Yes, cancer, the treatments, and the effects of the combination of the two play the major part in the posts for this site. However, there’s the rest of her life she has to deal with, too. The couple moves from Hawaii to Maryland shortly after the site began and, sadly, their kitten passes away. All the while, Amanda is taking time off work to be with her husband and blogging his process and treatments for the world to see.

The design on this site is really nice. That may sound trite, but it’s the first word I thought of upon loading the site. Amanda had recently submitted her site to several other review sites. The latest review she received made note of the light text on a dark background, so she immediately changed it to it’s current look – the nice one. It’s a very sleek look, easy to navigate, and everything is easy to read. I didn’t see the design before, but this one works very well.

I enjoyed reading this blog. It connected with my emotions and personal feelings enough to really pull me into the site.
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It didn’t take me any time at all to finish reading the archives of “Life As I Know It”. Here I sit a few hours after reading it all, though, and can’t really recall any of the information I read from the author’s posts.

The author is John. He’s a Christian bachelor living in the St. Louis area, according to his Blogger profile. Before I began reading, I thought I would be able to relate on a few levels – single and living in a metropolitan area. I’m also very familiar with the St. Louis area, hopefully giving me another avenue where I could connect with the writer. Unfortunately, I was zero for three in the “connection” field.

John does tech support for a local newspaper. He sometimes writes about his day at work. Church, his family, and music are other topics of interest that John focuses at in his posts.

The posts are very straightforward and there’s nothing really below the surface of his posts. They don’t require readers to think or formulate opinions or questions about what they’ve just read. They’re just vague. It almost seems as if John walks on egg shells to make sure he doesn’t go against what any of his readers would think.

The site’s hosted by Blogger, so it naturally has a Blogger template. Thankfully, it’s a simple one that’s very easy to navigate and keeps things simple. John lists a few of his favorite links on the sidebar, but that’s all of the customizing he’s bothered to do on the site.

Recommending the site to other readers is easy if they are just looking for a quick weblog read. What you see is what you get in this weblog – the straight facts, very little opinion, but very clear writing.
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I am always awed by members of an older generation embracing new media and technology, and wish I could do more to help those, like my grandparents, who literally fear computers and the internet. So when I first logged into “Watercolor, Pen, Photography & More” I was happy to find our author Jerry Dreesen is a 68 year old man from Indiana whose artistic skill must cause him some distress by the basic blogger template. On my screen width (1024 pixels) his beautiful images are too large for the table causing the right hand menu to obscure them.

Jerry’s website is just as the title states, an outlet for creative expression including some illustration, photography, haiku poetry and more. The artwork has a notably traditional Japanese feel, very minimalist and beautiful which I enjoy a lot. I’ll confess, I am a fan of this style. Some of the “photo-haiku” posts border on being a little sentimental but the shots are lovely and the poetry is easy to read.

The choice of black background is certainly intentional as it frames the artworks nicely, and true to the Japanese style the posts are single works of art and nothing more. No distracting monologue or waffly diatribe from young people confused and angry. On the contrary Jerry’s work is confident and peaceful. My only concern would be that the template design used for the site could be further reduced, header removed, distracting lines done away with. If the site design was as minimal as the work it displays, this unity would improve the overall feel tenfold.

An ancient practice
in a modern gallery
brings joy to us all.
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I liked the banner of this site when I saw it. It was nice. But after reading a couple of entries, I really could find much to say about it. It was just another personal blog.

As I’ve said, this was a personal blog recounting how our author’s day went. It just seemed… dry. Don’t take me wrong, journals are wonderful things to have but if you’re trying to get the public to bite, well, you need a little… more. More of everything. More controversy, more opinions, more ideas. Maybe the author just meant for this blog to be an online diary. I don’t know. If that’s what the author wanted, well, I’d have to say good job. It’s a good journal. Just like the rest of the other hundred thousand out there.

Something that did surprise me was the mix of languages in the entries. They were mostly written in English, but, here and there, there were Tagalog (Filipino) words to be found. I guess it was a coincidence that I reviewed this site since I also know how to speak that language. But it did bother me. I am not a big fan of combining languages. I mean, if I spoke English exclusively, or merely didn’t speak Tagalog, I would be confused. But as I’ve said, it could just be a personal journal for the author.

The layout was nice. I mea, it was something that I don’t really see often. The separate mini-window for the side section and the entries are pretty cool. Good job on that.

I have to say that it was kinda nice reading the entries because I was familiar not only with the language, but also the scenes he was talking about. It brought out a big of nostalgia. But other than that, there wasn’t much of anything to find there. Go visit it sometime, maybe it’ll be something you’ll find interesting.NULL

Little James Short may have one thing up on other kids his age. He’s got a dad that’s not only crazy about him, but also journaling his life. This probably acts as a tremendous release for James’ dad, Paul, but also a helpful tool with other parents coping with Autism and Pervasive developmental disorder.

The posts are well written and informative. Not only are they full of information that deals specifically with Autism or PDD, but they also let people, like the vast majority of readers that may stumble upon this site, know that kids like James are just as precocious, mischievous, and entertaining as the next kid.

My favorite post featured some pictures that were taken by James when his dad inadvertently left the digital camera in the backseat of the car, which happened to be just inside James’ reach. The result? Some really neat picture, for a kid his age! The self-portrait is my favorite.

The layout of the site is my biggest complaint. It’s one of Blogger’s infamous templates that gets used on a way-too-regular basis. The light text on the black background is a bit hard to read. Paul keeps the information on the sidebar to a minimum, which makes the site easy to navigate and seem more open, rather than cluttered.

I’m a sucker for kid stories, and kids in general, so I was able to easily relate to and enjoy the stories and information Paul shares in his writing. He doesn’t have time, as a single parent, to post on a very regular basis, but I think it’s safe to say his readers would rather have him spending time with his son, than posting on his weblog.

As I mentioned earlier, this site is undoubtedly going to appeal to people that have a direct tie in the world of autism or people just looking to learn what a real life is like when there’s a child like James involved.
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