Orientation

Doing an "FAQ" of sorts for Unusual Kentucky is something I've been mulling over for quite some time now, and I reckon it's fully mulled. Here's a few handy-dandy tips on how best to utilize this blog to its optimum potential, and some background exposition to help put all this in context.

First, and perhaps foremost, you should know that although I am a writer and journalist, I do not consider blogging to be journalism per se. When blogging, I pretty much type whatever pops into my cabeza in personal-editorial mode. Virtually everything you will read here consists of just what you would expect from the world of UFOs, paranormal, ghosts, conspiracy theory, etc. - vague rumor, hearsay, anecdotal evidence, folklore, legend, and myth. It just comes with the territory. There's already more than enough of that online, so I try to avoid unsourced falsehoods and Junk Data whenever possible, but hey, this is the internet, so caveat emptor, Jack. If you use my blog - or anything else from the internet, for that matter - as a primary source for your doctoral thesis, well, that's your misfortune.

Updating this silly blog takes up less than 1 percent of what I do in life, and the reader is cautioned to keep that in mind. I rarely spend more than a few minutes on a post, and am as often as not typing under the influence of coffee, bourbon, European snuff, or sleep deprivation. This blog is supposed to be a thought-provoking and fun clearinghouse for weird Kentucky memes, usually reported off the top of my head with very little effort (I charge money for that) - if you take it seriously at all, you're taking it way too seriously.


Which brings us to the second point: comment moderation. With the blog's growing popularity, I now get hundreds of spam comments which I must tediously wade through to pick out the real ones. And among those real ones, I tend to leave out the ones that are insulting and wanting to pick a fight. If you have a beef with something I say here, e-mail me directly. I rarely bother to get into prolonged debates with anyone about anything, but I never do with anonymous internet jerks.

I also tend to ignore comments that are non-sequiturs, that are questions or conversation that would be better off addressed to me via e-mail, or that exist only to post a link.


Now, some tips on some features of Blogger itself you may not be aware of. I get a lot of questions asking things like "Where is your post on such-and-such? I can't find it." Even without doing a Google search for your query, you can cross-search this blog in two ways - by the labels (the keyword links at the bottom of each post) which might assist you in your quest, or by the search box in the upper left corner of every Blogger site.


This blog is not optimized for viewing on RSS, or via any other method or device than actually directly viewing the blog at the source and on a regular computer's web browser.

And finally, I get a lot of confused queries from folks who mistakenly believe that I am from NYC or Los Angeles and am writing about Kentucky from a distance and out of ridicule (One nut even sent me a hate letter once that started out "You big city people come to Kentucky just to laugh at us".) To set the record straight, I am a farmboy from Waco, KY on the Madison/Estill County border, and though I maintain painting/photography studios and branch offices in several cities, my home base is still Kentucky and always will be. My entire purpose in this blog is to highlight what a wondrous and exciting place Kentucky really is, and that it is a key part of those things in Heaven and Earth undreamt of in your imagination, Horatio.

And finally finally: I welcome your input and contributions. Send me pics! Send me reports! Not enough stuff here from Calloway County? Rectify that and help me out! Tell me what's good in your neck of the woods.

Alrighty then, agents of Interzone, consider yourselves briefed. Now get out there and file those reports. Go go go. Oo-rah. Semper Fi.