this fledgling blog will turn 4 months by august 15th. and while it hasn’t been exactly a thrilling ride — there were days when i seriously thought about pulling the plug on this thing — i am fairly gratified to know that all those hours spent on trying to come up with something decent to say haven’t gone to waste.

i suppose you could say this is a progress of some sort. from a total online non-entity, the SignPost has inched its way up and finally garnered some attention from other online users — other than my friends who would dutifully peek in here every now and then (probably to spare me the humiliation of seeing my blog languish in obscurity) — including Google’s PR checker.

woot! woot! ok you’ve guessed it, i’m tooting my own horn heheheh.

frankly, i don’t know how this happened. whatever it is, i’m just glad something positive happened. i’ve had other blogs that rated well, too, but none mattered more to me than this one. i guess it’s different when it’s your own domain.

i expect pseudoshrink, blog-of-z, and eks are feeling good about their sites too (PR-wise, they have gained as well). we’re all happy campers, see.

in about 10 days’ time, the 2008 Beijing Olympics will officially open, and already the host country is fully preoccupied as it prepares for the oncoming deluge of athletes, journalists and tourists (both foreign and local).

the olympic village — 42 blocks of apartment to house 16,000 athletes and officials — has already been opened to the first batch of athletes (the local team, obviously), and the security is already tight in many Games venues.

another issue that’s expected to cast a pall on everyone is the smog that threatens to shroud the city, despite determined efforts by Chinese authorities to address this problem in these past few months.

this early, many anticipated “big” Olympic stories are playing on everyone’s minds:
1. Michael Phelps and his historic quest to win 8 gold medals
2. the projected pool match-up between US and Aussie swimmers (the US guys and Aussie gals are expected to score big)
3. the battle for the title of being the planet’s fastest man (100m): watch out for Tyson Gay (US) vs. Asafa Powell and Usain Bolt (both from Jamaica)
4. Dayron Robles (Cuba) vs. Liu Xiang (China) in the 110m hurdles
5. basketball (men) — will the US team regain its footing as the world’s basketball powerhouse?
6. gymnastics (women) — US vs. Chinese squads
7. among the thousands of expected visitors: George W. Bush and delegates from Taiwan.

boy, i can’t wait

hoping for the impossible:
– i wish i could file for a 2-week leave and just watch the games (fat chance!)
– i wish i had opted for a cable/internet package (too late)
– i wish i could be in beijing on aug. 8 to 24 (talk about wishing for the moon)

okay, time to wake up.

as you might have noticed, i’m using a new theme for the SignPost again.

actually i felt comfortable with the last one, but after a while i got tired at looking at the same ‘leathery’ motif. earth colors are fine, but for some reason i felt like there was this hard-to-define weighed-down quality to my page, so i decided to shift to a jaunty, less cluttery look.

when i looked at the screen shot of this theme, terms like whimsical and quicksilver began popping in my brain. but then again, i guess i’m just in the mood for something light these days.

there’s noticeably more space to write on — probably because of the smaller font used for this theme.

and if you look at my old posts, you can see how topsy-turvy things have become. all the pictures and text have been mixed up somehow — it’s like watching feisty microbes pushing against each other for their right to exist. i’ve been trying to fix things up, with uneven results. oh well.

still, i feel a whole lot better now.

while thumbing my cursor across some business headlines over at inq7, i got curious about this article on WordCamp Philippines 2008 so i clicked on the link.

apparently some enterprising bloggers from mindanao are spearheading this bootcamp for local Wordpress users (both bloggers and programmers).

WordCamp 2008 is daylong event which will be conducted on September 6, 2008 (a Saturday, fortunately) at St. Benilde’s (along Taft Avenue). it looks like the organizers have already lined up several notable resource speakers so i’m hoping this could lead to other things.

i just signed up a few hours ago. this is a boon for some of us bloggers who could use some extra help in tweaking and optimizing some of Wordpress’s flexible functions. the following groups/organizations are sponsoring the event.

• Free Online Flash Games
• i.PH: the Domain for Individuals
• Wazzup Manila Philippines
• Real Estate CRM
• Real Estate Website Designers
• Orange County Real Estate
• Auto Insurance Quotes
• Lane Systems Inc.
• RedMedia

lastly, for those who might want to join, you better sign up soon because it looks like the list is filling up rather quickly (only 350 slots are available, and more than 220 are already taken). don’t worry guys, it’s free.