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By Fireman Chris, January 31, 2008 12:07 AM

I posted awhile back that I’d started a MySpace page under my kink identity. At the time, I wasn’t quite sure what MySpace was all about and was really just experimenting. I’d created a vanilla one about the same time too after finding out my sister and some other friends and family were using it and thought “What the heck, I’ll give it a try”.

At this point, I have 21 friends on the kink one and almost twice as many on my vanilla one. Earlier this week, I started a vanilla Facebook account too, and also joined a social networking site designed just for firefighters.

I’m still not sure I’m understanding everything about the purpose of these sites or utilizing them to their fullest, but I have managed to reconnect with old high school friends (and in one case, an elementary school friend), stay in touch with my family and meet some new people in both the kink and vanilla worlds. I’ve also found myself spending more time on these sites than I thought I would.

The last couple of days, I’ve been pondering what it is that attracts me to these social networks, and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I’m a social person. I like a feeling of community, and to some extent, these services offer that in the cyber-realm. In some ways, they’re like the old newsgroups or the newer forums, but it’s a different type of interaction, one that’s more focused on “connection” rather than “content”.

Another thing that’s attracting me to them, particularly on the vanilla side, is the reconnection with old friends. While I’ve loved the move up here and the chance to make new friends, part me has been missing my old friends, and surprisingly, not just the ones I recently left, but ones I’ve not seen in a decade or too. Perhaps having moved away from my hometown area is making me nostalgic, or perhaps it’s just getting older. Perhaps it’s realizing that my 15 year high school reunion is coming up this year and that there are friends I very much cared for at the time whom I’ve not seen since then. Perhaps it’s being in a new area with less of a “support network” than I had before. It’s probably a bit of all of these things.
So, I’ll continue to experiment with them and enjoy the friendships, old and new, that I have there.

And as Brad Paisley says, “go check out MySpace.”

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By Fireman Chris, January 23, 2008 6:55 PM

Well, it’s not kinky, but it’s exciting news for us.

Sparkle and I bought a house yesterday!

For those who haven’t been paying attention, we’ve been renting a condo since June when she and the princess moved up her. We held off on looking for a new house until our old house sold (which happened in October) and then with vacations and holidays and everything else, we only started seriously looking earlier this month. We looked at this house Saturday, made an offer that night, and went through Sunday and Monday with counter-offers and negotiations until the sellers accepted our offer yesterday.

It’s about the same size as our old place overall, but with one more bedroom (two more, really, if you discount the third quasi-bedroom at the old place) and on a larger lot. It’s close to where we are now, but in a slightly more rural area. Lot seems very private, so shouldn’t have to worry about the neighbors inquiring about strange slapping noises coming from within. And it has a hot tub that may be private enough for some, well, private hot tubbing.

So, assuming nothing strange happens, a month from now we should have a new place, and should be moved in a couple weeks before my one year anniversary of moving up here.

I’m not particularly looking forward to moving again, but I am ready to be settled finally. 2008 is already shaping up to be a good year for that.

And at least there’s no 350 mile drives with moving trucks this time.

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By Fireman Chris, January 19, 2008 1:08 PM

Couple more new blogs: one from someone I know, and one from someone I don’t. One’s another “brand spanking new” blog, the other’s been around for awhile but new to me.

Many of you who are on the Shadow Lane boards or have gone to their parties probably know Katie (acuseme), who’s a super nice gal. If you don’t know Katie, you probably know Razor, her other half, who’s appeared in several Shadow Lane videos (as both a top and bottom) and is a super nice guy. In any event, Katie’s started a new blog entitled Motions Of The Heart In E. Only one post up so far, but as Ollivander said, “I predict great things”.

The other blog I just found the other day is called Spanking, Sex and other Dirty Stuff. Three of my favorite things! It’s primarily written by mtn’s slave, a female submissive from Norway, with occasional entries from Master T, her master. Lot’s of pictures of the results of the trouble she gets into, if you know what I mean.

And since this is the third post in a row that’s primarily just links to new blogs, I’ll try to write something more personal next time. Sparkle suggests that I write about her. Good idea, especially since that means I’ll get to do something to her worth blogging about [evil grin].

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By Fireman Chris, January 16, 2008 10:14 PM

Or should that be “brand new spanking blog”?

In either case, I’ve got a new blog to share with you from my friend Bridget. It’s called Kinky Little Girl. Bridget’s in a rather interesting kink situation…as she puts it:

“I am involved in a Master/slave relationship with my Owner and his other slave. We all live together and have our family together. That sounds really extreme, but my day to day existence is actually pretty normal.“

Gotta love a 24/7 poly M/s relationship being characterized as “pretty normal”. Probably one of the reasons I like her so much…she’s very comfortable with her kink.

Bridget’s also very much into spanking. I’ve gotten to play with her once, and we both had a great time.

There’s only two posts on her blog now, but with the right encouragement, I’m sure she’ll share more. And threats of spanking probably aren’t the right form of encouragement.

She’d enjoy that too much.

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By Fireman Chris, January 13, 2008 11:14 AM

As I mentioned in my last post, I find some interesting blogs linked to me from looking at StatCounter.

Two of the more surprising ones are (or in one case, were) blogs written in other languages.

The first that I noticed was one called El Despacho del Spanker, written by a young man in Madrid, Spain and originally written entirely in Spanish. He has me linked as “The Spanker Fireman”, or in Spanish, “El Bombero Spanker”. I noticed today that he also does intersperse some English into his blog (read the post about how and why he learned English) and has also started a parallel, English language blog titled The Spanker’s Office.

The second one I see fairly consistently on my stats is called strenger Lehrer and is written in German. by a guy in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. While I understand very little German, he finds some very interesting pictures, usually drawings, to post.

So, for the links, gracias and danke schön.

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By Fireman Chris, January 12, 2008 10:55 PM

Like many bloggers, I have StatCounter running on my site, and I frequently look at the stats for my site. While I check the number of hits, that’s not what really interests me.

The two items I get the most out of are the “came from” page, which shows the other blogs that people come to mine from, and the “keyword analysis” page, which shows the search terms that land people on my site.

The first usually reads pretty closely like my list of linked blogs. There’s a few others that show up there from time to time as well, and I’ll occasionally find a new blog I like by browsing the list.

The keywords, however, are the most fun, especially the terms that brought people here when they were looking for something decidedly non-kinky. For example, at least once a month, I get a hit from someone looking for advice on how to repair a bed due to this post back from my first month of blogging in 2006. I also get a lot of hits for “Banned YouTube Spankings”, probably looking for a short-lived blog of the same name that compiled spanking videos that had been posted on and subsequently banned by YouTube. Aside from the link (which has been removed), I mentioned that site twice: once in this post from November 2006 and again in March 2007 when I said I was removing the link due to the blog being gone. Still, I get someone to my site at least once a week looking for it (and will probably get more now that I’ve mentioned the term again).

Bonnie makes it a regular habit of posting her quirky keywords under a label she appropriately calls “keyword chaos“. I have to admit, she gets some great ones, but what’s really funny about them are her comments on the terms. I’ve seen a few others out there emulate her, and, going with the concept that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, here’s a few good ones from my list:

“iris sparkle m chris“ – Three of my favorite people (four if I’m feeling narcissistic)

“kinky housewives” – My favorite kind (much better than the “desperate” variety)

“cheerleaders spanking” – I prefer cheerleader being spanked myself, but nothing wrong with a toppy ones either.

“science fiction spanking hairbrush” – Does it have artificial intelligence? Does it spank by itself? Is it made of a futuristic, unbreakable material?

That’s just from today. I’ve added a new category to post any other good ones that come up. Enjoy!

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By Fireman Chris, January 11, 2008 10:28 PM

I found out this week that Dan, the owner of Satinwood Paddles, passed away on November 29 from pancreatic cancer. I missed hearing about it originally due to being on vacation and only found out the other day when Susan, his partner, contacted me through MySpace.

Sparkle and I met Dan and Susan at the Shadow Lane party in 2006. The lacewood paddle we’ve posted about several times was made by him and purchased at that party. Susan’s even commented on our blogs a few times.

Susan wrote the following on the Satinwood website:

“My best friend, my significant other, my partner, my companion, my lover, my Dominant, passed away November 29, 2007. At the moment I am heart broken. With the coming of the holiday season, I need for people to understand that this site which was created by us both will be closing on approximately December 19, 2007. I will be selling and donating some remaining items while keeping some of the treasures. Yes, we played with every kind of toy you see on this site plus so many more, created specially by him. Pretty awesome. Dear Sir… I have no idea how to go on without you. I am going to miss you more than you could ever know. I love you…“

Cancer is a terrible disease. Coincidentally, Sparkle lost one of her uncles to cancer the day before Dan lost his own fight. She lost another uncle a few years ago as well (note: both were related to her by marriage, not blood). My grandmother was a breast cancer survivor who ultimately succumbed to colon cancer and advanced Alzheimer’s. We’ve both known others who’ve battled cancer, with varying results. For the past several years, we’ve walked in and raised money for the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life event held in our old town, and will probably participate in a local event up here once we find one.

Rest in peace, Dan. We’ll miss you. And Susan, you’re in our thoughts and prayers.

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By Fireman Chris, January 1, 2008 4:03 PM

Happy 2008 everyone!

As was somewhat suspected, our travel plans didn’t work out quite as expected. Or I suppose I should say, they did turn out as we expected since weather delays are pretty much the norm when you fly through O’Hare in December. But we were only delayed for about two hours, which is a lot better than the last time we got stuck in O’Hare, which involved a hotel stay and a lot of other headaches. It did mean, however, that we didn’t get home until 3:00 this morning…Sparkle and I shared our New Year’s kiss leaning over a sleeping princess somewhere over the Rockies.

I mentioned in my last post that Sparkle got two spankings at her parents’, and that there would be pictures. What better subject for my first entry of 2008?

Sparkle and I have a rule, which she’s mentioned before, regarding orange socks. It goes back to a discussion some years ago on alt.sex.spanking which was either about how to get a vanilla partner to spank you and/or how to start into a more disciplinary relationship. I forget the exact details, but the suggestion was to come up with a silly and harmless action which would earn a spanking and the example was wearing orange socks. Obviously, Sparkle didn’t really need any help getting me to spank her, but nonetheless, wearing orange socks has always been her way of telling me she needs a spanking (aside from the times when she just says “Spank me, dammit.”)

Sunday at her parents’, she came out of the bathroom after her shower wearing orange socks. Not too surprising given Friday’s events and the general mood (read “horniness”) she’d been in all week.

I noticed immediately, of course, but as we were getting ready to go to her grandparents’, I didn’t say anything right then and went in to take my shower. When I emerged a few minutes later, I heard her saying goodbye to her parents and the princess. Since it’s a tight fight for us all to fit in their SUV, they were heading over in her dad’s truck and we were following in the SUV.

She grinned at me expectantly and asked if I liked the alone time she’d engineered.

I told her I was going to go get “the family paddle”.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned this paddle before, but it hangs on the wall in her parents’ utility room. It was never used on Sparkle or her brother growing up (they were each only spanked once or twice as kids) and only appeared in their house after her great-grandmother passed away when Sparkle was in high school. She remembers seeing it in her house and assumes it was purchased by her parents at the estate auction.

Now before anyone goes suggesting that Sparkle’s parents are kinky too, she’ll probably plug her fingers in her ears and start saying “LALALA I can’t hear you!” at the top of her lungs. Honestly, it fits in with the rest of the decor of the house (lots of country-kitschy things hanging on the walls). And her dad did once make us a very heavy paddle-shaped spaghetti measuring “thing”, but it’s really only useful for, well, measuring spaghetti (believe me, we’ve tried).

Nonetheless, the paddle has hung there every time I’ve been to the house, and I’ve been dying to try it on Sparkle’s backside. As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve only spanked her once or twice in the house, and those have both been fairly rushed affairs. I’ve never even had a chance to examine this paddle closely.

I came back into Sparkle’s old bedroom (where we sleep when we’re visiting) and found her bent over the end of the bed with her jeans in a puddle around her orange-socked feet and her infamous “naughty” panties around her knees. Orange socks and suggestive panties, not to mention a bent over and waiting bare bottom.

After the warmup with my hand, Sparkle began to realize she hadn’t been properly spanked in some time (the SUV spanking was needed, but didn’t quite count as a “proper” spanking).

When her backside felt the first stroke with the paddle, she said as much.

A few dozen swats later, she was hopping from foot to foot and yelping and her bottom was a nice rosy pink. Not the hardest paddling she’s gotten, but definitely sufficient after a week or so of traveling.

After the paddling, I put her in the corner with the paddle. Corner time is something new we’re experimenting with (as part of a number of things that I’m sure Sparkle will be blogging about soon). While I’ve always liked the idea of corner time in conjunction with punishments and even more playful scenes (and have used it in both with others), Sparkle has always been hesitant about it. This past week, laying in bed together one night, she told me she’d like to try it occasionally, and so we are.

Once her corner time was over, we both began to examine the paddle. It’s definitely very old and a bit worn…one could even say well used. As we turned it in the light, we discovered a number of faint pencil signatures on the paddle. Sparkle’s grandmother. Two of her grandmother’s brothers. And, most surprisingly, another family name, but from a different branch of the family tree.

I’d suggest Sparkle sign it too, but one really shouldn’t write on an antique.