)Over 80 on the Internet

I get a lot of strange kind of looks when I tell people my grandma has a blog," said Cora Huffman of Moxee, Lemaster's 31-year-old granddaughter.

Internet use by seniors is on the rise, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which released surveys on the subject in 2000 and 2004. The percentage of Americans 65 or older who go online jumped from 15 percent in 2000 to 22 percent in 2004 and appeared to be on an upward trajectory, the studies found.

"There are a lot of people who are 80 and over who are using computers and the Internet," said Phil Carnahan, a consultant with SeniorNet, a national group that offers computer training to seniors.

Carnahan, a 75-year-old retiree who lives in Sparks, Nev., said most people his age don't blog; but they are online and they use e-mail heavily.

"The biggest reason you have for people who come in (to a SeniorNet center) is they want to be able to correspond with their family," he said. "They want to e-mail their grandchildren."

Still, there is a relatively small proportion of seniors online compared with other age groups. There are older bloggers than Lemaster out there, but among her contemporaries it's still unusual.

"I don't think I've even told any of my friends," she said of her blog, which is frequented by family members and the occasional stranger who stumbles upon it. "They're not into computers. They wouldn't know what I was talking about."