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The Ex4mined Life: Thin Content, Thick Friendship (Or, How a Google Slap, a Retired IT Guy, and a Few Silent Letters Got Me Blogging Today)

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Recently, I got some tough love from Google AdSense. Apparently, my blog has thin content.

Ouch.  That phrase hit harder than my morning coffee, and sometimes it is strong enough to strip paint. “Thin content,” really? I prefer the term lean prose. But still, it stung. So, I called in backup: my longtime brother-from-another-mother, occasional blog anti-hero, and full-time IT wizard, Michael Sinak.

Michael is a true-blue tech geek, retired, too (and yes, I’m insanely jealous). He’s helping me bulk up The Ex4mined Life and get this blog looking less like a middle-school science project and more like something a grown-up would click on. Think of him as my unpaid intern who somehow outranks me.

The IT Guy and the Word Nerd

Michael speaks fluent HTML; I speak fluent why-the-heck-is-“colonel”-spelled-like-that? Together, we make a solid pair; he fixes the broken links while I break people’s brains with useless trivia about English.

He’s the structure guy. I’m a storyteller. He optimizes; I overthink. Between us, we might make this site shine, or at least distract people with some well-timed puns while it loads.

From “Thin Content” to Full Life

The AdSense audit, brutal as it was, made a fair point. Maybe my content was thin, not because I had nothing to say, but because I was saying it too safely. So, I decided to start writing about the weird things that really occupy my mind, such as the origins of words, dad jokes, and the occasional existential crisis while sanding a birdhouse or designing another wooden gnome sign.

That’s the retirement plan anyway: a mix of woodcrafts, dusting off my real estate license, and keeping this blog alive. Once it’s monetized, maybe I’ll make enough to buy Michael a coffee. (He’s retired, he has the time, but not the motive...YET!).

Enter Bill Bryson, Stage Left
My fascination with words can be primarily attributed to Bill Bryson. The man-made English feel alive, like a family reunion of words that all secretly dislike each other. His books The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way and A Really Short History of Words turned my casual curiosity into a full-blown obsession.

Because of Bryson, I can’t look at a word without wondering how it ended up looking so wrong yet sounding so right. “Colonel,” for example. Who decided that spelling made sense? Was there a 17th-century spelling committee that threw darts at a wall and said, “Perfect! Let’s confuse future generations”?

The Word Rabbit Hole

And once you start wondering about one word, the rest tumble out after it: “gnome,” “knight,” “pterodactyl.” Why do so many words begin with letters that sit there quietly, judging us for pronouncing them wrong?  Which, naturally, leads me to one of my favorite dad jokes (and yes, I’ll happily stoop to this level to fatten up my thin content):

Why can’t you hear a pterodactyl go to the bathroom?
Because the “P” is silent. Go ahead, moan & groan. You know you want to.

From Thin to Full

So, here I am thickening up the content and the waistline, too. My unpaid interns are on the tech side, I’m on the word side, and between us, we’re building something that feels right.

Maybe my blog started thin, but life sure isn’t. Between friendship, wood shavings, and a dictionary whispering, “Write about me,” I think I’ve finally found my rhythm, silent letters and all.

Stay tuned, next time, we’re going to dive into why English words seem designed to humiliate first graders and foreigners alike. Until then, remember: “Thin content” just means there’s room to grow.

by D. Gregorio Medellin-Sturgill (and his trusty unpaid intern, Michael Sinak)

 

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