Blogging

I missed it … again

For the second year in a row I’ve missed my ‘blogaversary’ or anniversary of blogging. I used to mark the 3rd of November each year with a blog post but with the busyness of life, especially at this time of year, the day has slipped past unnoticed.

I’ve now been blogging for over eight years.

The first time I ever heard of blogging I thought, “What a stupid idea. Why would you want to share all your most personal thoughts with a bunch of complete strangers?”

Since that time a couple of things have happened. Firstly, I realised that I only had to share what I decided I wanted to share, and secondly, a lot of those ‘complete strangers’ have become good friends, even though I’ve never met many of them face to face.

I’ve really enjoyed the ups and downs of blogging and what you see now is rather different than the original post back on the 3rd of November 2003. I hope you enjoy what you read here and that you’ll stay with me as I enter my ninth year of blogging.

If you’re looking to help me celebrate my eight years of blogging there are a few things you might like to do.

I would really appreciate it if you linked to my blog or to any of my posts that you enjoy.
If you’re a StumbleUpon user you might like to Stumble a post or two. (Of course you’re welcome to do that at anytime.)
You can use the sharing buttons at the bottom of any of my posts. You can share my posts on your Facebook wall, via Twitter, email or any other way you choose.
You may also choose to support my upcoming ride to raise funds for Compassion by clicking this link.

When I have remembered my blogaversary over the last several years I’ve opened the blog up for questions. I reckon it’s time to give it another go.

Most days of the week my job involves asking a number of different people to tell me more about themselves. I normally sit behind a microphone and ask others to tell me all sorts of things. It’s very safe being the one asking the questions. It’s not always quite so easy being the one on the other end of the questions.

So, are there any questions you want to ask me? Is there something you’ve been wondering about? Is there a particular subject you’d like me to post about? It can be about blogging, radio, cycling or whatever else you choose to ask about.

What do you want to know? Just leave a question or post topic in the comments below and I’ll see what I can do to respond. No promises but I’ll give it a shot.

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John Finkelde’s Makeover

Jan 11th, 2011

by Rodney Olsen.

2 comments

John Finkelde’s had a makeover. Well maybe not John himself, but his blog.

John Finkelde’s blog is often an eclectic mix of topics and posts that always provide something of interest. Sometimes it’s a good laugh, at other times it’s something that will get you thinking through life’s big picture issues. I love that variety.

Today is launch day for his renewed blog. This isn’t just a template change or a few tweaks; the whole blog has been revolutionised.

John’s the pastor of C3 Church Hepburn Heights. Here’s a little bit more about John, taken from his bio page at the church website.

Perth born and bred, John grew up with a love for all things water – swimming, surfing, snorkelling, fishing, prawning and crabbing.

Now living in a beach side suburb John still loves the water but prefers to eat fish rather than catch it these days.

Currently completing a Masters in leadership, John leads a vibrant, contemporary C3 church in Perth’s northern suburbs.

He has authored two books, Created for Partnership & Raising Great Kids and is currently writing a third, working title Pain Relief.

Married for over 30 years, he & Dianne have two grown children both married but no grandkids … yet!

He loves big skies, vanilla slices, Coldplay, AFL, laughing, redemption, home made muesli, C3 & coffee. His current obsession is DLSR photography and he would be happier if he owned multiple Canon L lenses.

Why not drop in to his blog and say g’day?

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From Mouths of Babes

Dec 23rd, 2010

by Rodney Olsen.

2 comments

Sometimes you just trip over great blogs. Other times you have to travel thousands of kilometres to find them.

As well as the many great stories that I’ll be sharing about my trip to Papua New Guinea, I want to share a blog I’ve just discovered. It’s called From Mouths of Babes and it’s written by Katrina Roe who was a member of the media team that travelled to PNG. Katrina’s the morning announcer on Hope 103.2 in Sydney.

So what’s her blog about? Here’s part of the story in her own words.

When I fell pregnant for the first time, I couldn’t have been happier. We had been trying for a baby for a while and I knew I was ready for this next stage in my life. But so often my friends with kids had only negative things to say about becoming a parent. ”Enjoy your sleep while you can!” ”You don’t know what you’re in for!” Or sometimes just a smug smile that said, “You’ve got a big shock coming.” The thing is, my first year as a Mum was the best year of my life. I loved everything about it. That doesn’t mean the adjustments weren’t difficult, but just that the joy of knowing my child far outweighed the difficulties.

So I really want this site to be a celebration of parenting, a celebration of all the joy and love our kids bring us. Yes, we need to talk about the hard stuff too, but let’s talk about it in a way that encourages us to be better parents and better people.

I love that attitude. We had people telling us the same sort of negative stuff when our kids were very young but I can assure you that Emily (14) and James (12) have brought us untold pleasure over many years. Of course there are tough times but I wouldn’t swap parenting them for anything.

Katrina’s most recent post, A Brown River Christmas, tells part of the story of our trip to a couple of villages near Port Moresby. I hope you’ll enjoy reading her account of the trip and that you’ll stick around to read more of her posts.

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Beyond Belief

Sep 1st, 2010

by Rodney Olsen.

4 comments

I’d like to invite you to visit a brand new blog. Beyond Belief is my new faith blog.

What we believe is vitally important but belief alone isn’t enough. We must move beyond belief to a living faith. That’s what I’m hoping to explore at Beyond Belief in the coming weeks and months. I’ll look at belief and how that impacts our daily lives. I’ll write posts on a range of faith issues and hopefully, I’ll be able to share some of my own Christian faith journey in a deeper way.

Since November 2003 I’ve been writing posts here at RodneyOlsen.net that reflect a range of interests from my observations on life, to faith issues, family, cycling, my work in the media and much more. That won’t change.

I’m not a fan of segmenting our lives and putting areas of life into boxes and so I’ll still be talking about all those things, including my Christian faith here at my main blog. The reason I’ve decided to create Beyond Belief is that there are times I want to speak more deeply about Christian issues and I don’t think that RodneyOlsen.net is always the place to do that.

Some posts at Beyond Belief will also appear at RodneyOlsen.net, in fact I’ve exported dozens of posts to Beyond Belief which will remain at both sites. That means that even though Beyond Belief has just launched, there’s already almost 200 posts there in the archives that you can browse.

As well as the posts that this blog will share with Beyond Belief, my desire is to write many faith posts that will only be found there such as the post Creating Fake Christians which explores a recent article focussing on the faith journey of American teenagers.

I’m looking forward to developing Beyond Belief and hope that you’ll join me in the journey.

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Christian Carnival Here Next Week

Jun 24th, 2010

by Rodney Olsen.

Comments are off for this post

Would you like the opportunity to have your blog promoted? Have you published a post that you’d like read by a wider audience?

I’m having some friends drop in next week. They’ll be visiting from all over the world and you’re invited to join us. The next Christian Carnival is being hosted here at RodneyOlsen.net.

The weekly Christian Carnival is an opportunity for Christian blog writers to share their best posts from the previous week. The topic of the post doesn’t necessarily have to focus on Christianity but it must reflect a Christian worldview, and the writer must be Christian to qualify. You may wish to consider that the readership of the Christian Carnival will be more varied than your usual readership, and you might do better contributing a post with broad appeal.

I’ve already received a number of contributions and I’m looking forward to offering readers of this blog some great links when the carnival is published.

If you’re a Christian and you’ve never contributed before, or if it’s been a while since you have, how about having a look through your posts for this week and choosing something to contribute. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, just a post that outlines your point of view or is designed to get others thinking. Being part of the carnival could be a great way to gain a little extra traffic at your blog.

The easiest way to get involved is to submit your article through the Blog Carnival Submission Form. Otherwise, you can email the submission address.

The deadline for submissions is Tuesday evening at midnight, Eastern (US) Standard Time. That means it’s midday Wednesday here in Perth, Western Australia.

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