How I Blog: Russ Uphold

This is the 33rd post in our “How I Blog” series. To read the rest, visit the archives. Interested in participating? Drop us a note about ‘How I Blog’ along with a photo or yourself or your blogging space at tips [at] blogmedia [dot] biz.

Russ Uphold, Bald Fat Guy, Police Officer, Blogger.

Half of my blogs are composed during my lunch break at work. It’s kind of an Oprah/Carney Wilson diet fad attempt that I began years ago. The concept is relatively simple, if I am spending my break typing, I am burning some calories and not eating. So far, I think that I’ve gained forty-three pounds. I blame the weight gain on my lack of time spent in the gym because I end up sitting at home reading through hundreds of blogs created by other people while munching cold hot dogs and Oreo’€™s. No, I don’t mix them together. That would just be gross.

I am not able to type advanced entries for my personal site, They Call Me Dutch: Ramblings of a Bald Fat Guy. I’ve tried it for years and it simply doesn’t work for me. The process from beginning to end is unscientific and totally mundane; I live my life and then just start typing. I’m a full time police officer, father of adolescent daughters and the son of Jesus’ Little Sister. Hell, my everyday life is a situation comedy without the live studio audience. I don’t think about what I am typing until I have filled one page with text. I then read what I have written and glean what I think I can develop into a story. After I’ve found my topic for the day I save the rest of the stuff for the next day. The entire process has to take me less than an hour so that I can be done before my lunch break ends. Perhaps it is the lack of thinking that tends to help me compose entries easier? I think that there are a few folks who may be afraid if I ever truly gave thought to what I wanted to say.

A second blog that I maintain is located on Yahoo 360 Collapsablebaton and is more of a social environment for me, but I have recently begun to participate in writing challenges that loosely require criteria to be maintained. Initially, it was difficult to write on things that someone else was suggesting because I felt I had no insight to offer. I finally was able to fit what I know into what they require and it’s been a very fun activity to participate in.

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I make an effort to not stick to one category when I blog. I have my site set up into topics regarding my work, family, my twisted points of views, and commentary on the world at large. I don’€™t want it to be just a cop war story site or just stories about my kid’€™s site. While it is a personal web log, I purposefully avoid posting about how many loads of laundry I did on any given day or regurgitate the entire telephone conversation I had with Aunt Bert. Of course, Aunt Bert can be funny at times so the conversation might end up being the catalyst for a story somewhere down the road.

I used to edit myself a great deal insofar as expressing my opinion. The hardest thing to adjust to for me was when blogs started showing public comments as opposed to private emails. It was always nice to just click “delete” when someone was less than kind about something I had written. Leaving the comment up for someone to read who might come along later was very hard to do. I still twitch a bit when someone misses the point of a story but I’m getting better. I honestly think that the Oreo’€™s do have a calming effect.

Just as many others have stated, I don’t ever see my blogging becoming something of economic gain for me. I hate to think that I could make money writing a blog because how would I spend my lunch break? Writing police reports? Uh, Right. My entire system would be foiled and I’d be doomed to comfort food eating and getting even fatter. Hmm I wonder if Mike Myers needs a stunt double for an Austin Powers sequel?