I went on a blogging binge this past week. On Monday I decided that throughout the week I’d comment more on other people’s blogs… that I’d write and publish more posts on my blog… that I’d tweet more on twitter… that I’d be a SOCIAL MEDIA BUTTERFLY.
I started out strong– connecting, linking, making myself visible to the world, but by Friday afternoon my blogging mojo was waning. Still I pressed on thinking that I’d write just one more post about some of the absurdity in my week.
*bad idea*
And that’s when the absurdity of all absurdities happened. For reasons I cannot explain, but suspect that I caused (somehow), WordPress published my post before I’d finished writing it. Then WP, for reasons unbeknownst to me, would not let me edit/finish writing my post.
So I deleted my post, thinking that I had a back-up copy in my files. But I didn’t have a copy… and it was late Friday afternoon… so I GAVE UP on writing anything and wandered away from the blogosphere.
*sigh*
Little did I know that my half-finished, now deleted, post was winging its way to all of you who receive this blog via email. And that part of the post was showing up on RSS feeds everywhere.
And that many of my gentle readers (new and old) would become concerned that something was wrong with my blog and would take it upon themselves to contact me to tell me that there was something wrong with my blog. That a post was missing. And to make it come back because THEY WANTED TO READ IT. Right now.
*oh dear*
Having said all the foregoing (in a rather wordy fashion), here is what I’ve concluded:
- I was successful in generating some interest in this blog… and then managed to make a mess of things while everyone was looking. NATCH.
- I have a new rule: NO BLOGGING ON FRIDAY AFTERNOONS.
- I have the best readers in the world who care about what’s up with me… and this blog. THANK YOU.
THE SPECTACLED BEAN 
So, what was up with the 50 cent toll?
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Yes, right… the real reason I started to write a post yesterday.
I sent the Florida Turnpike a check for 50¢. That is the amount of money we owe them for driving from Celebration FL entry ramp to the Orlando International Airport. We were all quartered out by the time we came to this last entry ramp– AND THE TURNPIKE MACHINES WILL NOT TAKE BILLS– so we were required to take an pre-addressed, not stamped, envelope from a display at the entry station.
The instructions on the envelope told us to mail our toll (50¢) within 10 days of going through the station. We were to use only a check or a money order as payment. We were to put our car license plate number, the date, and the time we went through the station.
Of course, we had a rental car in FL so I have no idea what the plate number was. I know the date, but can only guess at the time. So I put down what info I knew and wrote a stupid “No Dollars & 50/100____DOLLARS” check to the Florida Turnpike.
After I put the check in the envelope, sealed it shut, added my 45¢ stamp, I read on the envelope, in the weasel words, that if the Florida Turnpike doesn’t receive the toll within 10 days of when you drove through the station, a ticket will be automatically generated using the info on the surveillance camera at the entry station.
Swell. This means that if the stupid check doesn’t get there by Monday, we will eventually get a ticket… which you just know is going to cost us more than the 95¢ we have spent so far… all for the opportunity of driving a bit faster to the airport.
Great.
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That’s what I want to know!
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I really couldn’t of come up with a better teaser for a post if I had tried. 😉
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Just realized that I forgot to put the quotation marks around some of the words in the title of this post. So I added them.
This post is just not going well, is it?
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Ah the mysteries of WordPress. It catches all of us at one time or another. ( we will not discuss the frustration…). Cute post
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Frustration is a given with all blogging I suppose. Usually WP and I get along just fine, but not yesterday.
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I wanted to know about that toll too! I could only see that part of the post on my reader. 🙂 We were terrified when we were driving around back east; we don’t have toll roads in our state, so we carried around about $50 change with us everywhere. What a pain!!
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We don’t have toll roads around here either. However, we were not as smart as you, so we were always scrambling for change at the last second. Next time I go to FL I’m taking a baggie full of change with us.
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Look at it this way, you still attracted readers to your blog because people wanted to know what happened, so no worries!
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Cheri, good take on this situation. Fortunately, I am an expert at screwing up things… and then fixing that which I screwed up, so this is pretty much more of the same for me. It’s just that my screw ups are usually less public than this one.
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I wonder if they will even bother trying to chase down a rental car. I would so rather have been able to leave them a dollar bill than mess with mailing a 50 cent check. Glad to hear… the rest of the story.
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We would of GLADLY given them a dollar bill, but that wasn’t even an option.
As for chasing down a rental, we have a friend who found himself in a similar situation in a rental car. Many months after his driving violation [he accidentally used the carpool lane by himself while driving in a big, unfamiliar city] he received a ticket that cost around $100. It is because of his prob, I am so concerned about our little 50¢ toll.
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I don’t do the RSS thing, so I was confused when a friend was able to read my blog post before it had been posted. That happened because I accidentally posted it, then went back and scheduled it. Somehow it was out there. Weird. But at least I was able to get back in and edit!
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J, your situation sounds like something that I’d do. I really don’t know exactly how the post got published mid-writing, but it did. And I agree that it’s really weird that I couldn’t get back into the post to edit it. Something went very wonky with the system. On a Friday afternoon, when I’m at my least focused, of course.
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LOL! I think it is safe to blog on Friday afternoons if a cocktail is involved 😉
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Good idea. Might make me more focused. Or, at least, make me indifferent to when things go wrong.
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So glad you cleared that all up because that 50 cent teaser had me quite curious!
I know that Celebration turnpike because we’ve stayed several times in Celebration. The first time we visited, we sat there at the gate and scrounged around in our car looking for two quarters. Fortunately we had them. I hope your check gets to FL by Monday!
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I really didn’t mean to send out such a good teaser. But as Cheri said, I did get some attention with it, so “no worries.”
I hope that the check gets there, too. Stupid, stupid mess.
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