Jamie Thingelstad

“Blogging is small-p political again, today. It’s come back round. It’s a statement to put your words in a place where they are not subject to someone else’s algorithm telling you what success looks like; when you blog, your words are not a vote for the values of someone else’s platform.” — Matt Webb, Interview for People and Blogs, as quoted by Simon Willison.

One of the ways that a blog can be a gift is to give others the option to go on journeys with you to locations far away. In 2023 our family took a trip to Switzerland & Italy, and we spent four wonderful days in Florence (day 14, 15, 16, and 17). It was a great (if not hot!) time.

Since we had been there just two years ago it piqued my interest when I saw fellow blogger Barry Hess was going there with his family to visit their daughter that is there for school. And what a gift Barry gave to himself and us with these wonderful daily recaps of their trip. It was fun to remember our own trip, and to see what they explored over a longer stay in Florence.

Here is each of his posts by day with great overviews and photos.

• Florence: Arrivo (Mar 27)
• Florence: Rimpinzati di Cibo (Mar 28)
• Florence: Arti e Musica (Mar 29)
• Florence: Arti II e Calcio (Mar 30)
• Florence: Giornata Libera (Mar 31)
• Florence: Davide, Le Chiese e i Dottori (Apr 1)
• Florence: Sonno e Regalità (Apr 2)
• Florence: A Cortona (Apr 3)
• Cortona: Riposo (Apr 4)
• Cortona: Esplorare (Apr 5)
• Cortona: A Florence (Apr 6)
• Florence: Finale (Apr 7)

Reading along made me want to go back. 🇮🇹

Lake Harriet. 📍

Finished 3.97 mile walk in 79.1 minutes (19.92 min/mile). Such a great evening to be outside. 🚶‍♂️

Dan Kelly’s Pub. 📍

First time ever trying pull tabs. All losers.

Finished 3.97 mile walk in 78.2 minutes (19.7 min/mile). Whole family took a lap around Lake Harriet. Ran into Darin from Urban Wing.🚶‍♂️

“the loss of the ability to contemplate — which, among other things, leads to the absolutization of vita activa — is also responsible for the hysteria and nervousness of modern society.”

Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society

I am trying a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) for the first time. I got a Stelo unit on a recommendation. I am very curious to learn how I react to various foods and activities. 🤓

A Baker’s Wife’s Pastry Shop 📍

A nice Sunday morning for some donuts from Baker’s Wife.

These days we mostly interact with maps in a singular, digital manner. However, if you want to have a guaranteed way to get a conversation going in a group put a map in front of everyone and shortly the stories will start coming. “I remember when we were here and this thing happened.” A long time ago I was in Canada at a remote location fishing. Every evening over dinner the entire group would hover over the map of the area and share stories of the day. “This is where we caught this huge Northern.” “Over here is where the Walleye are in the morning.” “We took the boat down this stream and it was too shallow for the prop.” Maps can be an incredible way to tell stories.

Telling stories with maps is one of the things that I wish blogs did better. My blog has posts that I created from all over the place, but you wouldn’t know it to read it. You can see my archive of thousands of posts, but you cannot easily see the posts I created in Iceland, or various times I visited a specific state. How about the blog posts on a road trip that connect together to tell the story of the whole trip?

This desire to tell stories through maps is why I got really excited to see Micro Social add support for locations. Micro.blog has supported location data for posts since the very beginning. However, it has always felt like an afterthought created to allow people to import Foursquare activity. I’ve wished for years that the Micro.blog app would attach my location to all my posts. I get not everyone would want this, but it would seem to be an easy add for those that do. Now at least I can use Micro Social to do this.

Ultimately I wish that my blogging platform would allow me to use location like I use time stamps. The time stamp of a post is the when. The location is the where. The archive page shows posts by the when. There should be a map page that shows posts by the where. The same way I can create collections of photos, I would like collections of posts and then show a map of those collections. I can edit the time stamp of a post, I would like to edit the location of a post.

Even social platforms that do collect this information do this poorly. I suspect they mostly use location as another surveillance tool to target advertising as opposed to creating a new way to share things.

Full support of location data for posts would create a whole new way to tell stories and connect the writing on your blog together. I’ll keep wishing, but I know that if I could add and edit location data to posts I’d be doing that during gardening, and it would create an incredibly rich and vibrant way to tell more stories.

Roundabout flight plan from MCO to MSP to avoid storms.

• Tammy and Mazie go for run around St. Augustine. Warm and humid morning. Jamie and Tyler hang out at Airbnb.
• Head to Blue Hen Cafe for breakfast.
• Chocolate tour at Whetstone Chocolates.
• Explore downtown St. Augustine and visit tons of shops.
• Explore Fort near downtown.
• Great dinner at Saint.
• Drive back to Airbnb.

Jump to day 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 or see collection.

Cool to see the Apple Sports app just got support for F1! 🏁 This app is how I connect to almost all sports I care about now.

This Airbnb in St. Augustine has a great vibe. The tiny pool is actually a “cool tub” with a chiller for the hot summers.

I remember 10-year-old me being envious of the cool Pinewood Derby cars my cousins Josh and Jarvis had made in Scouts. “It’s strange the stuff we remember” — indeed.

Engagement is the powerful drug of social platforms. Sometimes it is blatant and in your face, such as a notice that your post is trending. More often it is wrapped as a feature, such as analytics as addiction letting you know how many views, likes, and other such engagement your post receives. This feedback loop is a slot machine: random, addictive, and unpredictable.

Being a blogger removes all of that. As Manton Reece, the creator of micro.blog, recently shared no one cares (for now), and that is okay. This is writing on the web. First off it is almost always harder to write a blog post. This post has structure, sentences and paragraphs, not just a “blurb” spewed into the melee. Actual thoughts strung together with English grammar. The open web lacks engagement devices such as those views, likes, and “re-whatevers”. You may trigger an email. I got one of those this morning from Manu on a post I wrote yesterday. That’s rare. And no one else knows. No one sees that I received a “❤️ 1”.

So why do it? Why write post after post into the void with nobody engaging? Why bother with a more difficult approach?

I’ve been blogging for two decades. It isn’t all that different from journaling, but it is completely open and world readable. I would encourage bloggers to not think about the individual post. Instead, think about the collection of writing, over weeks and years, as a body of work. It is a body of work that you are constantly adding to. Growing and improving. The individual post is but one breath. It comes and goes. But over the course of time this adds up. It is the cumulative action that creates something truly great.

But who is your audience? Who is this for? You. Yourself. Your family. Your friends. Your friend’s friends. Your neighborhood. And they can have it whenever they want. As a gift. A gift from you to them. Not a gift to be measured in engagement, but instead as a body of work. A gift to the web, which is a gift to people.

• Up at 7:00 am.
• Leave Airbnb at 7:30 and drive to Turner’s donuts for breakfast
• Drive to Kennedy Space Center
• Listened to Nintendo Direct — Switch 2 on the drive.
• Experience Kennedy Space Center: Rocket Garden, Astronaut Hall of Fame, VIP behind the scenes bus tour, Saturn V building, Atlantis Building, Ice Cream at Milky Way, Modern building (unknown name)
• Left Kennedy Space Center right as they closed
• Got gas and visited a WaWa
• Ad-hoc dinner plans at Ferreri Pizza
• Finish drive to St. Augustine
• Check in to Airbnb in St. Augustine

Jump to day 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 or see collection.