life update – Steven D

Life update and 2013 Annual report

Hey guys,
Steve here.

Believe it or not, but this happens to be the last post I will ever make in 2013. It certainly has been a great year… and I have the annual report to prove it.

As a start, I changed up, and began new things on this blog since January 1st of last year. They are as follows:

On February 19, 2013, I quit the “how my day went” entries, as I felt they were getting a bit repetitive
On March 3, I released Stranded part 1, the beginning of my action choose-your-own-story type book trilogy
On March 31, I did my first ever storm recording
on April 21, this blog turned 2 years old
on April 30, this blog reached 5000 views
on May 12, I began the Steven D Podcast
on June 18, I released Stranded part 2
On July 22, I switched my site’s files over to drop box
August 25 was one year after I purchased stevend.net
on September 22, I released the swamp campaign maker
on December 5, I got up to 100 followers
On December 9, I began the Monday’s musings entries

–I don’t remember dates for these things–

I changed several pages (deleting audio, recreation, jenga, bouncy balls, animal, cat, and weather, but keeping natural events, my audio game reviews and demonstrations, and weather radio forecasts
My writing and post quality increased this year (oh yeah it did)

As for stats, wordpress has created this report for my blog, and here it is

Here’s what you guys achieved:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,900 times in 2013. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Not only that, but you and I helped this blog achieve other awesome stats, and they are as below:
-In 2013, I published 115 posts (this being the 115th), growing the total number of posts to 722!
-In addition, I uploaded 20 pictures (7 mb worth), averaging out to about 2 pictures per month.
-Aparently, you really liked these posts and/or pages:
the podcasts page This was number 1, so I guess it was most viewed. I’m glad you enjoyed my podcast!
The close second, another seemingly popular page, was the gamebooks page, so I guess you loved my gamebooks.
Coming up at #3, although no longer existing, was the audio page.
In fourth place, *holds out a fourth place ribbon*, was the audio game reviews and demonstrations page. So I assume you thought my reviews and playthroughs were good?
And finally, bottoming out at #5 but still pretty awesome, was the no longer existing recreation page.
-All the traffic I got had to have come from some source(s), so here are the top 5 sources that people found my blog from:
In first place, *holds out a gold metal*, was the great website http://forum.audiogames.net. This is the audiogames.net forum, a place where I frequently post, and I have the link to my website at the bottom of my post signature.
Our runner up, *holds out a silver metal*, was http://stevendaughertysblog.wordpress.com. I plan to take this site down–it used to be the address of this website, now all that is on it is a post called “changed blog address” with a link to this site.
Not far behind our runner up, dmweb.usa.cc came in at 3rd place. *holds out a bronze metal* This is the website of the game Death Match that my friend Danny is making.
Coming in fourth place, *holds out a fourth place ribbon*, is http://users.smartgb.com. This happens to be where the guest book on the chat with steve page is hosted.
And finally, in last place but still bringing that good traffic, *holds out a fifth place ribbon* is mail.google.com. This means that people clicked on the link to my website directly from emails I sent them.
-As a final method of searching people used to find this site, you guys searched using a search engine. the 4 most common tags you used to find my blog were:
1. stevend.net
2. funny stories about eggs
3. where can you create a free blog
4. last time that hail in 75181.

Obviously, I am the new Mr. World Wide. Because in this year alone, people from 62 different countries viewed this site. Although the United States was the country where the most visitors came from, Germany and Canada were not too far behind.
On a last note, there were a few of you who gave a lot of feedback. As a start, Monday’s Musings 2: to be like my cat for a day… do I really want that, published on December 16, was the most commented on post of the year. The top 5 commenters are as follows:

1. Rebecca Dunn-she wrote 8 comments for this blog.
2. MRS. Moten, who wrote 7 comments.
3. DeWayne Handy wrote 6 comments.
4. Dadams8105 wrote 4 commentss. Visit her site at dawnadams.org.
5. Sharon wrote 4 comments.

And that about concludes the annual report for 2013, keep helping me produce these awesome stats!

With that out of the way, let me give you a brief life update. Since Thursday night, I have not done much. On Friday, the only productive thing I did was going to Walmart with my mom and getting craft supplies. On Saturday, I didn’t do much, besides playing lots of swamp and taking advantage of the oppertunity to relax. Sunday was pretty much the same, besides the morning church service. Yesterday and today were more or less the same–I just relaxed, and took advantage of the time to chill. I hope that I have more to talk about in the next life update.

I guess that about wraps up tonight’s post. I hope you enjoyed this post, and all other posts in 2013. Though this was the last post of the year, I hope you look forward to the posts that are published in 2014, and I also hope you have a great new year!

Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.

updates and some devastating news

Hey guys,
Steve here.

For the first time in… well I don’t know how long, I have some bad news. This isn’t just bad news that will affect me; it will affect a lot of you guys, and bring some great disappointment.
For some reason, my computer has broken. It’s not the average virus or blue screen; nope, my hard drive stopped spinning. It turns on, makes some weird noises, and then just stops all together. I’m thinking that the hard drive is stuck… and if that’s the case, and my dad has the time, knowledge, tools, and is willing to, he might be able to open up the computer and adjust the drive if that’s the issue. If not, I will have to use the netbook, another smaller and slower computer but one that I can use. Fortunately, that problem will be easy to fix for me.
You might not think this affects you, but it does. For one, I will definitely not be doing the podcast episode on Saturday. I am using my school computer, and this does not have the game I was going to do, and nor does it have administrative privileges for my account. In addition, I can’t download dropbox, so the file would not be uploaded. Fortunately, due to dropbox uploading everything you put in the folder, if my computer’s hard drive were to be beyond repair, the site files would still be safe and uploaded.
Also, due to my computer being broken, you and I can forget stranded for now anyway. It will definitely not be released in seven days, unless a miracle just so happened to occur. If my hard drive can’t be restored, the release of stranded will be pushed back way further because I’ll have to restart.
As for me, I cannot play swamp any longer… so that is also disappointing.

On a better note, today was the last full day of school before winter break. I’m not sure why, and definitely not complaining, but we have two early release days (tomorrow and Friday). In addition, I won’t have to go to all my classes each day either. Tomorrow I have to go to choir, math, social studies, and English, while on Friday I go to Spanish, orchestra, science, and then back to English. I don’t think we’ll be doing much work, so I guess I’d better charge up my book reader and download some nice interesting thrillers.
Even though the schedules are flipped around tomorrow and Friday, I really don’t care. I just want those two days of school to be done and out of the way–because once school is over with, the wait until Christmas will be a lot less agonizing.
On other news, my parents have started Christmas shopping. It’s not bad now… but once there are gifts under the tree that I bump into, it will be very tempting, I’m sure of it. On the bright side, that will only last a few days.
As a final note, I hope you all liked my Monday’s Musings post. I know that quite a few of you liked the part about the “messed up fur advisories.” That was something I added just to put some humor in that post.

Thanks for reading,
Type you later,
Steve.
P.S.
I’m glad I got the broken computer news out on this blog post, because even though it was important, it also helped with some of the frustration and anger that I had because the computer broke. And now don’t you see why I love writing so much?

intresting weather, and a life update

Hey guys,
Steve here.

There is a winter storm warning in affect for Texas?
Yeah, you read that right. Tomorrow into Monday afternoon, there is the potential for 1 to 2 inches of sleet and ice accumulations mainly along and west of the Interstate 35 corridor; I am shocked. The winter storm, as of now, could cause power outages, extremely hazardous if not impossible travel conditions, and hopefully no school, but we’ll have to see about that.
I will continue to update you guys on this situation, and maybe post some stuff on the weather forecast page

–life–

My life has been good the past several days. I am now a level 13 on the game I’ve been playing, and would be a level 14 perhaps if I wouldn’t quit making such stupid decisions that get me killed. Some of those include fighting enemies that are one to two levels above me and stupidest of all fighting enemies when my hit points (health) are below fifty.
Besides the game, I have been working more on Stranded, but kind of taking it easy. I have created that avoid the Rpg board, but unfortunately there are still parts of it that need touching up, and the process of cleaning the thing up is very confusing (you would have to use the program I’m using to create it to get what I’m talking about).
On other news, I’m in a pretty good mood today. This is probably due to the fact that I just had coffee and got up so nothing has happened, and there’s at least a 50% chance we won’t go to school on Monday, and a 15 to 20% chance we won’t go on Tuesday either. The main reason however, is the fact that I have a weekend to look forward to, and a short school week that is going to be at most two days long, before a nice five day break, even if it is not the longest break you could get.
Finally, if you’re wanting more information about what has happened in the past two or three days, you have come to the right blog post. Thursday was a pretty normal day; after going to school, I was able to just relax and play my game, not worrying about homework or anything like that. Yesterday, after going to school and getting home in all that cold weather, I was presented with a nice surprise. My mom, being the good mom she is, made me hot coco and fresh baked chocolate chip cookies for a snack. Plus, I was able to come home to a warm and good smelling house.
The rest of yesterday consisted of playing hogwarts, crashing for a wile with my cat (he must’ve been feeling tired as well), and then taking a nice warm bath.
I can’t say much about today, because it just started. I know that me, my sister, and dad are going bowling around noon with the whole goal ball team, and after that it will more than likely become an afternoon of chillaxing. Tomorrow is expected to be extremely cold and stormy (mainly in the afternoon), and I’m looking forward to that. I will also continue to update the weather forecasts page (the one I gave a link to on the top of the post) with weather forecasts, that way you aren’t bugged by like 3 blog posts in 24 hours.
I guess that about wraps up today’s post. I suppose I’ll see you in a couple days.

Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.

A brief update on my past and future life

Hey guys,
Steve here.

I’ve already made it through over half the school week. I often wonder how such a stressful, strenuous-on-the-brain activity as school can go by so fast. But either way, as I lie hear, suffering from both the lazy bug and a severe case of “I don’t feel like doing anything idis,” I really don’t care about how quick school was today; the fact that I get to chill right now is what matters.
The last two days, I’ve continued to hold myself accountable for that goal I set on Stranded. I have yet to work on it tonight though. Also, speaking of projects and the like, I have a national history day project that I have to do by the 13th of next month. “and I present to you… the world’s worst procrastinator, *drum roll*… Steven D!” That being said because I haven’t started on it. Also to proove that I’m a procrastinator, I have 10 service hours for NJHS due by December 11, and only have 1 down.
Although I dread doing the history project as much as I dread the math STAAR test, I still have to do it anyway because it’s “mandatory” for all pre-AP students in my school district to do it.
Moving on, I had that NJHS thing I told you I would be attending this afternoon. I had to help two of my friends sweep, but it was fun because I knew a lot of people that stayed after school for that and got to talk to them. The only bad thing is that I didn’t get home until around 4:40. Also while on the subject of school (even though this isn’t necessarily about school itself), my sister and I won a poem/drawing contest for my dad’s work. In this contest, children of the people who work for his company would enter a drawing or poem or something like that into the contest to go on a fitness calender. Whoever won would receive a $50 visa gift card and a flash light. Both my sister and I won this contest, but I don’t have the poems we wrote to put on the blog. Sorry about that.
As far as future life goes, I can’t say anything concerning what will happen tomorrow, but hopefully the carpet upstairs will be put in on Friday. I’m ready for things to return to normal. On Saturday and Sunday, since I don’t have goal ball, I honestly have no clue what I will do. Next week will only bring two days of school; both expected to be very cold. We get out for Thanksgiving break Tuesday, with our first full day off Wednesday. The week after the break, I have an orchestra concert on December 3rd. My sister also has one the same time on the same day but at different schools, so we’ll have to work something out. If I am right, I think I have a choir concert the week after the orchestra concert, and my national history day project is due that same week. Also, Christmas break starts the next week (on December 20), and Christmas is the week after that. So, to make things short, I have something going on every week for the rest of 2013.
I guess that about sums up life, and this blog post for that matter.

Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.

P.s. I’m still addicted to Hogwarts Live. Tell me, is it a problem that I have jumped up 11 levels since I posted the last update?

Looking Ahead to a Busy Weekend

Hey guys,
Steve here.

I know it hasn’t been but two days since I last updated my blog, but I figured that since my only chance to write a real good thorough update wouldn’t be until Sunday, for I haven’t but a few hours today, and the latter portion of Saturday at which there is a highly promising chance I will be unmotivated to write a long and well-written post since that will be quite a busy day.
I am in a relatively great mood today. Though I am at school right now, the first 3 hours of the day I get to spend typing furiously on my keyboard and surfing the internet, two of my favorite hobbies. Today is an early release day at my school; and since the sighted folks of my school are taking a test that has not been accommodated for a blind individual, I get three hours to relax in a comfortable chair and have a good time on the computer. I haven’t the whole day to relax; all things must come to an end and unfortunately that test is one of them. At 11:15, which is no more than 50 minutes away, I must return to the real world, which is to say English class. I am not, of course, dreading this; because although we’re reading Shakespeare and doing work, I will be able to talk to friends. Not only that, but in an hours’ time after I go to English class, it will be time to go home, and I can eat lunch and get on my computer once again… and this time it will be my personal computer that has all my games on it.
Now on to what this post is mainly about, looking ahead, there are some quite busy days that lie ahead of me. Tomorrow, although I will be returning to the normal school routine, my dad will be picking me up at around 1:15. Speaking of which, I should probably email both my orchestra and science teachers to let them know I will not be attending their classes tomorrow. 6th and 7th periods will be the only ones I miss since they both happen to be scheduled after 1:15. Not that I’m mad that I’m getting picked up; for it gives me the excuse to miss out on two classes. What teenager, whether smart or not, would miss the chance to do that?
Now on to the reason I’m getting picked up. I have a goal ball tournament scheduled for Friday night, and we have to be ready and at the high school we’ll be playing at. It is nor mine or my sister Libby’s school, or the school of anyone we know. It is just a school that lets the goal ball coaches host the tournament, and also sports extravaganza which I will be attending on Saturday. I will talk more about that later on in this post though. Anyways, I have done this tournament many a time before, and can link to the posts that tell about my experiences from 2011 and 2012, and also a page with images and video about the tournament. Here they are:
post 1 although this is in audio post format, it will describe both the goal ball tournament and sports extravaganza in 2011.
post 2
This is for 2012
goal ball 2012, the page with images and video
So reading this post, you should get a general idea of what kind of posts and media this tournament will cause me to write. I will write that post on Sunday, so stay in tuned.
Now as I said a while ago, I will tell you about sports extravaganza, which I also said that I would be going to on Saturday. In sports extravaganza, blind individuals from all over Texas, and I think even people from out of state come to the high school we had our tournament the night before, and some organizations sponser an all-day track and field event for the blind. And though the event is mainly centered around outdoor events, there is also a goal ball demonstration after lunch, which they provide to you. I can honestly say that every time I’ve gone it’s been an awesome experience for not only me to enjoy, but the rest of my family as well.
The event usually ends around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and leaves me pretty tired do to all the fun activities I did. That is the reason I said I’d probably not be motivated to write a post as I am doing now Saturday afternoon.
Well, now that I have that out of the way, I should probably tell you podcast updates. As you know if you’ve been viewing the site for the past 3 days, the podcast has yet to be posted. I have come upon a decision on the game. It is called q9, and is an action packed game where you guide a small alien back to his space ship. It’s a relatively long game, and is filled with hazardous pits, annoying squeaky bats that make you really want to kill them, vicious creatures that want nothing more than to tare poor old Q9 to shreds and eat him all up. So, as q9, your goal is to run through the worlds and levels killing enemies and jumping pits. More will be described in the podcast episode.
I also have another podcast episode to do on Sunday, and the game for this will either be Death match, or adventure at C: another action game but that is slightly more difficult than q9.
More about these games will be on their respective podcasts.

Well, I must finally end this blog post… so see you Sunday.

Thanks for reading,
Type you later,
Steve.