My plan was to spend all day at the office so I could get caught up from time lost during my whirlwind week of working in Maine. Alas, instead I spent almost the entire day stuck in bed sick. My guess is that lack of sleep has finally compromised my health, and I ended up vulnerable to a bad case of food poisoning around 3:00am.

The bad news is that I managed to get zero work done.

The good news is that I stumbled across my Tumblr that I never use and had a bunch of questions waiting for me! Here are some of them...

What's the scariest thing you've ever done? I'm tempted to answer "skydiving," but I get more scared in tall buildings than I ever did skydiving and parachuting. Being in the middle of earthquakes in both Seattle and Tokyo were pretty scary. Getting held up at gun-point was definitely scary... but that wasn't something I did, so I honestly don't know. Blind dates are terrifying to me, so let's go with that.

What was the best sex you've ever had? Any sex I'm lucky enough to have is the best... but, if forced to choose? Cologne, Germany, February 2008. Came out of nowhere. Took me completely by surprise. Was the amazing culmination of an incredible day.

How do I get these numbers off my television? I am not familiar with your television, but the "DISPLAY" button usually takes care of that.

What sites do you use for travel advice? Where can I get the best airfare and the cheapest hotels? For specifics, I like TripAdvisor quite a lot, but you have to take some of the absurd reviews you see with a grain of salt. For general travel advice, Nomadic Mike is about as good as it gets (he has great tips for cheap airfare as well). Cheap hotels depend completely on where you're willing to say and what class you're comfortable staying at. I use Priceline a lot. When there's a specific hotel I want to stay at, I've saved money with Trivago. Surprisingly, I sometimes find huge savings by using my AAA card (and, as a bonus, all AAA rates seem to let you cancel them, unlike Priceline and other bidding sites which are non-refundable). My general advice for saving money is BE FLEXIBLE! Some times are cheaper than others. Some destinations are cheaper than others. So long as you are flexible, you'll be best able to take advantage of deals you can find around the internet (signing up for fare alerts from FareCompare and Airfare Watchdog is a good start, but you should sign up for everything you can find!).

Where do you draw the line? I try very hard to draw the line when my actions will negatively impact others.

Where did you go to art school and what advice would you give sombody wanting to have a career in art? I didn't go to art school and an entirely self-taught. When it comes to advice, I honestly don't know what to offer. Now-a-days, getting started in a profitable art career seems more about who you know and what connections you have over anything else. That being said, crazy-talented people always seem to find a way to make a living at it. Problem is, most people who think they're crazy-talented (sadly) are not. This is not to say that you can't make a living doing what you love, it's just that in a day and age where clip-art makes everybody think they're an artist and there are sites offering $5 logos and such... well... it can be difficult. That being said... keep working at it. Get yourself out there. Let your work be seen. Don't be discouraged by negative feedback but instead use that feedback to better your craft.

Why are you still blogging? I have no idea. Except... a lot of "unique visitors" drop by every day which means people are still reading it, so there's that. My guess is that it's become habit. I just do it without really thinking about it. And then there's nostalgia. I've met a lot of amazing people through blogging, so ditching it isn't that easy.

   
And... time to try and get more sleep...

For those who took time to "Ask Me Anything" this week, here are your answers.

As an FYI, I only had to delete one question (because it was about another person and not directed to me). This was unexpected, as I thought going 100% anonymous would have invited a lot of hateful crap. As it were, I only got a few questions by people who thought they were asking hateful crap. Thanks for surprising me in a good way, internet!

1. What's a travel experience you would love to do, but probably won't ever do? That would have to be this.
2. What's your biggest regret? Letting fear keep me from taking a shot at something I really wanted.
3. How can you afford to travel so much? I work non-stop... and a big chunk of it is work-related.
4. Which meat do you miss most since becoming a vegetarian? NOT bacon. Probably pepperoni.
5. How many more tattoos do you think you'll get? Seven. But I'm secretly hoping a lot more than that. I love them.
6. Who do you want for president in 2015? Someone believing in personal freedoms like this guy or like this gal. Everything else is window dressing now-a-days.
7. If you won a 100 million dollar lottery, would you keep working? Unless it's for charity, fuck no.
8. What's the battery level on your phone? 47%
9. When are you going to accept the fact that you're into dudes? Maybe something will change one day to make this true, but right now that's not what I'm attracted to.
10. Are you as big as an asshole in person as you are online? If put into a situation where I need to be an asshole... absolutely yes, asshole.
11. Blogging is dying off how much longer will you go? I honestly don't know. Right now I have no plans to stop. Maybe tomorrow I'll feel otherwise and hang it up. Or twenty years from now.
12. What's the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you? I don't embarrass easily, so this is a tough one. I was pretty embarrassed when I discovered that the ass had been torn out of a pair of shorts I was wearing while drunk (and probably going commando) in the Bahamas.
13. What's something about you that you haven't told anybody before? I've been blogging for over a decade...I doubt there's much left that qualifies. If I think of anything interesting, I'll let you know.

Late last night while I was waiting for an email response, I thought that I'd go through the 37 abandoned blog posts in my "drafts" folder. The majority of them were unfinished, but a few were completed entries that I decided not to post for one reason or another (usually because they were angry rants that I thought I had better sit on for a few days). Surprisingly, a full half of the abandoned posts were either geeky or technical in nature, and I ended up ditching them because nobody except me would ever care to read them.

Then, just as I was ready to do a DELETE->ALL on my drafts folder, I had a change of heart. That was a lot of work I was about to trash, and I just couldn't bring myself to do it. This is what always happens, and I justify it by saying "well, I'll finish them up and post them someday"... secretly knowing that it will never happen. That's how I ended up with 37 drafts in the first place.

But just because I didn't want to post them here doesn't mean that I can't find another home for them. It was then that I got the bright idea to dust off my Tumblr account and re-brand it as a repository for all the crap that's left over from my blog. Blogography Bits was born...

I've temporarily slapped a DaveToon on a Tumblr template, but I'll eventually integrate it into my site when I find some free time.

So far I've posted...

• An "Ask Me Anything!" form. I already had one of these at Formspring, but thought it would be easier to manage here. If you've ever wanted to ask me something, here's your chance! You can even ask anonymously if you want. Replies then get posted back to Tumblr once I've had a chance to answer them. Rude, abusive, or offensive questions will be deleted, but I'll try to answer whatever else I can.
• A rant spelling out my frustrations with Gowalla. Here's a perfect example of something I wrote a while back and didn't publish because I didn't think anybody would care. But, if you're a Gowalla user, it might be worth a read, so off to Blogography Bits it goes.
• A transcript from a completely useless chat with Charter Cable. Just like always, I got the runaround followed by a long, drawn-out bag of crap that solved nothing. What's funny is that I Tweeted my frustrations and got immediate help from Charter's excellent customer service agents on Twitter. They fixed everything they could on their end, then gave me clear instructions on how to solve the problem on my end. Brilliant. THIS is customer service!
• A link to NASA's Big Blue Marble Shot on Flickr. And here's an example of something I tried to make into a blog post, but failed to make work (hey, it happens!). Usually I would hold these until Bullet Sunday and dump them there, but sometimes it will be easier to just dump them on Tumblr. If this really takes off for me, Bullet Sunday may eventually transition to be bullets with the "Best of Blogography Bits" or something.

With more to come.

Maybe nobody will bother reading my leftover crap, but that's okay. It's still a happier alternative to deleting stuff that doesn't work out for my blog!