The projects

That title makes me want to make this blog about "The Wire," which would probably be more fun, but since it has nothing to do with the 2 personal projects that resulted in me typing right now I guess I won't.   Anyway, for the benefit of any who may accidentally find this blog, I'll briefly define the 2 projects, which combined may result in updates to this blog:

Projects:

• Reading a biography or auto-biography about each President of the United States in the order in which they held the office.   I decided to start this project after feeling pathetically under informed about the history of my country (and probably yours since I doubt anyone outside the U.S.A. will find this blog).  In the past few years my work related international travel has increased and in doing so the number of times I have been surprised by how much more people from other countries know about their country than I know about mine has increased as well...if you think this is a run-on sentence, you're in for a real treat if you read on.   So anyway, I decided I would like to know more about our country, it's history etc. etc., but I didn't really want to straight-up study history for obvious reasons, but also because how do you even do that?  Every year or every event could be studied for the rest of one's life, or I could probably find a web page that gave a history of the country that was no more than 3 pages long...obviously I needed a theme.   Well, I happen to like biographies and auto-biographies (actually I like auto-b's more, but I was pretty sure some of the Presidents hadn't written one...Lincoln, Kennedy...and the project also seemed to lend itself more to biographies which had the benefit of hindsight, in-depth study and time to provide the authors perspective), so I decided I'd start reading biographies of each President in order...we'll see how far I get.
• Starting a blog.   Well, this never occurred to me and I'm actually surprised I'm even trying it as I believe it is even less likely that I continue posting to it than it is that I'll eventually catch up to whoever is currently the President with my reading....note:  I'll probably switch to Auto-biographies when I get to the point that guys have just left the office or something, simply because, again, I like them and the benefits mentioned above...but, since my friends Laura and Craig are bloggers and suggested that I start a blog I figured I'd give it a try.  Maybe at least they'll read it.   OK, so now that we're on the subject of blogs, let's further define what this one will be....originally conceived as a book review type of blog, giving my thoughts on the books read about each past Pres, I've decided I'll be less formal than that and just give my thoughts as I go along.   I'm thinking now (as I'm 70% through the William Henry Harrison book...he's already died, so wondering what the rest of the book will be about, but I guess I'll see...plus I can also hope that I only have to read to 85% completion before reaching the index or whatever...yes, as have probably realized, I have a Kindle and therefore never know what page I'm on nor how much further I have to read to reach the end of a chapter etc. -- that is truly something Kindle needs to remedy with their next version.   Showing 5/8 on the right side of the bottom of the screen to indicate that there are 3 more page clicks until the end of the chapter being read would be universally appreciated I am certain) that this blog may mostly end up reading like a confession of things I shamefully didn't know....like that the French and Indian War predates The Revolutionary War and that the Louisiana Purchase didn't include California etc. etc. (I know those things now cus I'm becoming so freakin smart I might not even be able to talk to any of my friends).  The blog will also likely be about my enjoyment and or struggles through the project of reading about the presidents, picking good books and figuring out how to post stuff to this blog.   Here are a few features I'm planning for the enjoyment of anyone who ever views:
• Updating the profile photo to show the President that I am currently reading about
• A listing of my favorite Presidents as I go along...I don't know how to create such a list that can be accessed whenever, without reposting, but whatever, I've got about 300 years to figure it out.  No, I don't ever plan on dying.

OK, so those are the projects...I figure I'll get around to posting something about GW within the next week and then catch up on postings as I slog through the Whig party Presidents I'm currently learning about...now, am I supposed to sign off in some way at the end of posts?   What is the protocol for blogging?   I'm not sure I'm happy about being a 'blogger,' but perhaps I'll get used to -- I'd go to Ironchad.com, or Just Enough Craig or Not Enough Laura to see how I should sign off, but I'm afraid I'd lose all of the amazing prose I've typed above, so, signing off as Idiot Bob getting smarter about U.S. history at least every week!