Lists Of Lists

https://blog.feedspot.com/new_orleans_lifestyle_blogs/
The (personal) message that I got from Anjul, the founder of Feedspot himself, told me that it would be great if I were to "mention" the New Orleans Lifestyle blog, (where I have been holding steady at number 14) and then to include the exact link to it, as above.

I was able to do him one better by turning it into an actual, clickable link, using the underlined "Link" function from the toolbar.

When I had placed it in the "Blogs I Read" section, it was somehow truncated so that the user was brought to the home page of Feedspot instead of to the top 15 list.

Since I don't have time to go in and edit the XML in my blogs template, I'm doing it this way, for now.
I am considering adding the emblem,

Geez, would extra large be a bit pretentious? Maybe a smaller one, photoshopped to be stuck to the Lilly's house behind me in my black and white background photo...


Also, this would be the time, when I have the ear of the founder of one of the big "feed reader" services, Feedspot* to get in on the ground floor of the kratom movement, by taking up stewardship over a "top 15 kratom blogs" site.

I understand how the aggregation software provider might be thinking.

An aggregator like Feedspot is intended to allow a computer user to kind of create his own daily digital newspaper.

It is culling various content from the web and sticking it all in one place, basically.

Instead of visiting each of 36 different places that you go to online (and finding perhaps that half of them haven't been updated in the past 24 hours and that you wasted a few seconds clicking upon them) you go to one front page.

There, everything that has moved, in the area of your interests, you are made aware of.

But, let's say that you only have one site that you visit for news about the world of competitive surfing.

The aggregator would bring you the latest update from that world, say, once per week, where you might read about a competition that took place over the weekend.

But, if the sites that you go to for news, are aggregators themselves (say, "the top 15 surfing blogs," in the above example) then, in computer terms, you would have an array of arrays.

Now the 36 places that your Feedspot page audits would then themselves be listening for activity on 15 (of the best) blogs in that category, so that you could in effect be checking on 540 websites each morning, over coffee.

And, you may be able to see coverage of the meet through different outlets, each with, perhaps, different footage of guys on pieces of fiberglass, and might be able to read different opinions of their surfing, etc.

Yoga for surfers, one surfer's story (of having surfed away from the poverty stricken island where he grew up, on a board he started to whittle when he was 10, all the way to Australia at the age of 16, to start a new life), certainly plenty of commercial sites (infrared goggles for night surfing, now available, etc.).

Another idea I have is to visit the other 14 New Orleans Lifestyle blogs, contact them, and ask them if they would put a link to my blog on theirs, and maybe even offer to contribute to theirs.

It's something to think about.

But, putting together a site like "Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Kratom**" and then making that site an aggregator that goes out and fetches stuff, maybe even scours the web for the word "kratom," and then puts little thumbnails and links to it all, in one place, is an idea.

Kratom and music. How many musicians use kratom, and what do they say about it? There could be one little spot on my page that is monitoring all 87 of those musician's sites (plus the links to other sites on their sites) and that could be just one 20th of my page.

Kratom and the visual arts...

Medicinal uses...

It's mind boggling. My mind is boggled.
*

So, the spot that has this blog listed at number 14 in its New Orleans Lifestyle section, is itself listed at number 7 on a site that tracks blogs that track blogs. Hmm...

$41.51 On A One Dollar Night

Yup, Wednesday night, it was midnight before I got to the Lilly Pad.

I had found 40 dollars (two 20's folded together) laying in the street at the corner of St. Phillips and Royal Streets on my way there.

I played for a bit over an hour and only made a dollar.

I took a break and decided to walk, instead of cycle, the 350 yards to The Quartermaster for a cup of coffee that may or may not have made me want to play more.

The 41 bucks in my pocket seemed to signal that it might be a good night to go home early and work on a recording project.

Then, I realized, once at The Quartermaster that I had left an almost full pack of American Spirit cigarettes on the sidewalk where I play.

I hastened towards the spot, trying to resign myself to the fact that they would either be there or they wouldn't, and that worrying about them as I walked wasn't going to change that outcome.

The turquoise box was still there, having sat for about 10 minutes and been passed by, by who knows how many people.

Someone had placed a stick about as thick as a pencil and a foot long right next to the box. This told me that someone had found them, but had decided to leave them there, perhaps knowing that they were mine and that I would probably hasten back there for them.

Facing an uncertain future...

I stood the stick up, leaning it against Lilly's gate, as a way of saying that I had understood the stick and appreciated whomever it was leaving them there.
I think it might have been the older black guy who walks back and forth (and back and forth) almost all of any given night.

Back, And Forth

I see him about every night, just walking back and forth along a certain stretch of Bourbon Street, passing me every 20 minutes or so.

He will once and a while return my greeting but doesn't seem to say much to anyone.

He has some kind of job at a hospital, I heard him say once, when we were both in The Unique Grocery.

I had also heard the Egyptian cashier say "You get the exact same thing, every night, at exactly the same time!"

To which the guy, who seems to wear the exact same navy blue tee shirt with a collar and the exact same white cotton pants and brown loafers every night, replied something to the effect of, yeah, he had to have his box of Dots and his Diet Dr. Pepper every night before getting aboard the 1:25 AM street car for home.

I think he may have put the stick there, because he glanced at me a bit more intensely than usual when we passed as I was on my way back to see if they were still there.

The Findings Are In

Then, I found 51 cents in the street near The Unique Grocery, putting the total of found on the ground money at $40.51 for the night.

It's a sign that the economy around here might be healthy. But, so will the economy in Boston, where I might experience an exhilarating freedom from the feeling that I am subjecting people to my same few songs for the umpteenth time.

All of this made me think that I was being encouraged to embark upon my busking trip, headed towards New England, especially when I found a full tube of toothpaste (Aim brand) laying on the sidewalk across the street from where at least a dozen homeless people have their tents and stuff under a bridge.

Learning to eat while I'm away...

Something about toothpaste, albeit not in the "travel size" was saying: "Travel" to me.

I have fed Harold outside once (shown) and may do so again, perhaps so he will have a spot that he can monitor for food when he is outside and hungry while I am gone.

Maybe Wayne, my next door neighbor, will leave food for him there if he (Wayne) has to leave for a while. The only competition for it would be from the armadillo, or one of the two possums that have been spotted around the parking lot.

**but were afraid to ask.