Hey Roger, if you ever want to check my journal out to see how I record my observations, you are very welcome to do so. When you journal, you record the date, time, temp., wind, location, equiptment and what you are looking at and who you are with. It is an indelible record of what you have done and proof of what you have seen.
I know for a fact I have missed a lot of cool meteors, but on the other hand, when you journal, you can go back to any date that you have been out, check your data (especially for asteroid observations), and follow up on what you are doing.
A lot of times when it's cloudy or cold, it is just plain fun to go thru your records. Right now, mine date from Oct. 29, 2002. I journaled my observations when I was a kid, but not as carefully as I do now, but sadly, those crude notebooks have been lost over the march of time. I wish I had them, I observed the occultation of Venus by the Moon around Christmastime on the ballfield one block south of my childhood home in Spring Grove around 1970 at about 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning. My Mom thought I was crazy. It was colder than the ninth circle of Hell in Dante's Inferno. I'd love to have that one back.