A Blog Primer

It has come to our attention that we have quite a few readers that are not familiar with online blogs. As we intend to use this space to keep everyone updated with information and pictures both when we receive our referral of our daughter and when we are in China, we want everyone to know how this blog works so there's no confusion later. Here goes:

The word blog is a shorthand version of Web Log, which is sort of an online diary. The first online diaries were written in the mid-90's, by a few intrepid, extroverted, and might we say exhibitionist souls who poured their secrets onto the internet for the world to read. Now there are "billions and billions" of blogs (in my best Carl Sagan voice).

Our blog is viewable by anyone in the entire world using the internet. The URL* address (the http:// etc. thingy at the top) is not published anywhere per se, but anyone could come across it were they to randomly type in URL addresses (which will happen right after the monkeys finish writing Shakespeare), and the address can be forwarded on to others by those of you we have given the address to. For that reason, you won't see us mention our last name, or our specific location. We are a little widgy about internet freaks, as there are darn plenty of them, but not so widgy that we refuse to use this effective medium to keep everyone updated about our adoption. (* URL stands for Universal Resource Locator, for those of you who were wondering.)

No one will get an e-mail when this blog is updated*. You just have to check back now and then to see if there is anything new. When big things happen, like when we get the first picture of our daughter, we'll probably send out an e-mail or otherwise notify our friends and family to look here RIGHT AWAY because the picture is here. And, when we are in China, we are going to try to post on this blog every day. Until then, we'll post on here when we get a wild hair. And since all of you have seen either a picture of me or have seen me in person, you know I have wild hair most of the time. (*There may be a way for you to choose to be updated by e-mail when this blog is updated. I am checking into that. Will let you know if I figure it out.)

You may notice at the bottom of each post is a link that says "Comments". Some of them say "0 Comments" (*sob*). By clicking on this link, you will be redirected to a page where you can leave a comment on our blog. You can type your comment in the box provided, and choose one of the "Choose an Identity" options ("anonymous" is fine if you want to use that, "other" works well also), then click the "Publish your Comment" button. Your comment will then be viewable by both Paul and I and anyone else that reads our blog. I want to emphasize that - anyone else. I know someone who thought about posting a comment here, but when realizing that everyone would be able to read it, decided not to post it, because she thought everyone would think she was a weirdo. OK, it was my sister. We'll call her "Matilda" since she's widgy about having information about her on the internet. "Matilda" was writing a tongue-in-cheek comment asking why we hadn't mentioned her on our blog since everything is about "her, her, her" in her own words. So here you go: Matilda, Matilda, Matilda. It's all about you, dahling! (She was joking.)

We don't know if someone in particular has visited our blog. We do know how many times our blog has been visited, by way of the "Hit Counter" on the right side of the page (but I fully admit that about 65% of those hits are me checking to see if there are any new comments. *sob*). But I can't tell if "Matilda" has visited, or if the grandparents have visited, or if the internet freaks have visited. So don't worry if you're stalking our blog, we don't know it's you! Stalk away!

If there are any other questions about how this blog thing-a-ma-jig works, please don't hesitate to ask us, either by e-mail, or by using the Comment feature.