Upon entering Gemmak’s Blogs you see a standard blogger template with a black background and white type but with an absolutely gorgeous photo of a little bird sitting on a frozen tree. I sat and stared at the photo for at least a full minute and found it immensely calming, almost hypnotic. I don’t know if she took the photo or not, but it does appear after every post as sort of the Gemmak ‘logo.’
When I read Gemmak’s profile, I quickly noticed “Location: Scottish borders.” I thought, Oooo, how neat is that? Someone who doesn’t even live in a city but on ‘borders.’ (Well, she does say that she left a big city to live in the middle of nowhere, so it all fits together nicely.) Also in her profile it says she likes ‘computers and gadgetry.’ It shows. When you hold your mouse over a photo or any of her sidebar links, these little, purple blinking lights go all around the photo or link, yet another nifty gadget-like thing you find on Gemmak’s Blogs.
However, Gemmak likes way too many gadgets. Her sidebar is filled with just about everything you can find on the Internet to put on your blog. Long, long link lists and blogrolls, one of those real-time chat things (I’m not sure what they are called but I see them a lot), a World Time clock with way too many time zones, hit counters, Guest Map, Guest Book, BritBlog logo, Scots Blogs logo, web ring links (at least 6 or 7 of these), the list goes on and on–just like the sidebar. I read someone’s blog once who said, “Just because you can put all these things on your blog, doesn’t mean you have to.” Here, here.
Her posts are pretty standard blogging posts, day-to-day happenings, work issues, oh, and the too-occasional photos of her cats. She has been blogging since early 2004 and has a good following of readers. After reading Bugs, bugs and more bugs, I am happy to note that where I live, flies do not crawl in your nose, nor do I have to vacuum them off the windowsill 3 times per day. Egad!
She has a link to Gemmak Gallery which I assume are photos she has taken of the Scottish borders and (big surprise here, folks) her cats. The photos of the Scottish borders are simply a wonder to see. This is the reason I think that blogging is one of the great unifying tools of our time. To be able to delve into someone’s life who lives halfway around the world in such an open and personal way is truly making a difference in how we see others.gemmak’s BLOGS