Yesterday Cathy had the great idea to post the Human H1N1 Swine Flu Map. (there are dozens but this one in particular by a person nicknamed Niman is particularly excellent) I followed her lead and also posted the map because I assume that Domestic Psychology and Reality Me have slightly different audiences albeit with some natural overlap. Her post stayed off the radar and mine jumped to the number one position in Google’s search results, Dogpile’s search results and CNN’s search results for the keywords "swine flu map" which was pretty cool. The post even hit digg (a first for me). The Internet is a fickle place. At the time I began composing this post, I was in 4th position on Google and not even on page 1 for CNN or Dogpile. By the time I finished typing this I was in 5th position on Google. The programmer in me wants to jump over to Cathy’s site and figure out why mine seems to have SEO’d well and hers didn’t. The marketer in me is kicking me for not having redesigned the appearance of Reality Me yet to make it more inviting for visitors to want to continue reading. The bounce rate on this moment of fame was incredibly high. Basically, the landing page gave the visitor no reason to stay on the site. That will have to be fixed…in June. Never judge a web developer by his own site. My time needs to be spent on my clients’ sites. Now back to work!
Category: Daily Life
Ramblings, often stream of conscious, journaling the events of my life.
Spring is here! Stay outside!
As a home owner, I have frequent battles with nature. Mother Nature’s latest assault appears to be a yellow jacket nest near the house. Not the cute tiny yellow jackets that make you curse loudly when you run over their nest with the lawn mower but these are kind that need Rico, Dizzy and Rasczak to show the Orkin man how it’s done. We’ve had 3 of these in the house in the past week:
I know their nests typically have 2 entrances. They return to their nests at dusk. They fly faster than I can run. They tag you with a pheromone when they sting that alerts the rest of the nest that you are a bad guy. They don’t die when they sting like honey bees. And traps near the entrance work as well or better than gasoline down the holes but take longer. One evening this week we will do battle.
And he’s off!
The day could have begun earlier…but it didn’t.
My Eyes Hurt
The children have been with the grandparents all day. Cathy and I are home alone and instead of joining the rest of Knoxville at the Rossini Festival, and believe me they were all there!, we stared at our respective computers all day. It was productive but stomachs beg for food and my eyes need a serious break from the screen.
After the Dogwood Parade There Was Music
We watched Sarah march in Knoxville’s Dogwood Parade last night. Afterwards we watched Brenden James Wright and The Wrongs (MySpace) play on Market Square.
I was introduced to The Wrongs when my brother-in-law turned Cathy onto Luther Wright and The Wrongs’ (MySpace) Rebuild the Wall
A little sidenote to the architects of Market Square: As much as I miss the old pavalion, the new stage is very nice; however, your permanent poles with the stage lighting block the view of the stage from most seating unless you are positioned directly in the middle of the audience. Couldn’t they have been swung more to the side?
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Mobile post sent by djuggler using Utterli. Replies. mp3
Dogwood Parade
That itch that won’t go away
My computer has been performing poorly. So this morning I ran my virus scanner with its toughest settings for piece of mind. Instead I found a virus:
- C:\Documents and Settings\Doug McCaughan\Application Data\Google\mupd1_2_12916358.exe Malware name:Win32-Trogan-gen {Other} Virus/Worm
Guess it is time to do a security sweep of the home network. I bet the kids computers are overrun.
House Committee Hearing Tomorrow! Your pets are in danger!
I almost let this one slip by. Contact your representative today if you love your pets.
Anyone with pet fish, birds, reptiles, or small mammals will be affected by this bill. Any company selling product or services for pet fish, birds, reptiles or small mammals will be affected by this bill. Would you be impacted by "The Nonnative Wildlife Invasion Prevention Act"?
- Virtually all fish in an aquarium are not native to the United States
- Most pet birds are species not native to the US
- Most reptiles kept as pets are not native to the US
- Hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs and ferrets are not native to the US
I think this comment from Facebook sums it up well:
Mandy Kilpatrick at 12:25am April 19
It’s really backwards. They need to work on this. I’m all for protecting native wildlife and plants from harmful imported critters…but every area will have different problem animals. The problem critter that might thrive in Florida more than likely won’t be a problem in Minnesota. This is a ridiculous way of facing the problem. Needs work. Write your reps!
Great Earth Day
Beautiful day!
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Quite Neighborly
My wife had a meeting this morning. She called shortly after leaving to let me know that our neighbor’s girlfriend who parks at the end of our street was out at her car wearing only cowboy boots, panties and a white, open bathrobe. I really have to get out of the basement more often!
Jeopardy
"Emotions for $200 please."
"down, depressed, gloomy"
"Alex, what are words that don’t even scratch the surface for how I am feeling today?"
