Don't Back Down

After one year of advertising, I was seeing AdSense at about 80% of the income from the site. This month, that figure went back up a bit - to about 85% - which is not as high as it has been, but still the wrong direction. Mostly this is due to a largish return on one of the other affiliate programs, which reduced that percentage by a bit. Everything else held fairly steady for the month - traffic, income and page views were remarkably... even.

The interesting thing about this was that, even though you will find content for August at this point, it wasn't actually posted during August. As I mentioned in What Affects My Advertising Revenue? I was on a bit of a self-imposed sabbatical for the month, and that meant that I didn't really write. Well, I did write - but I didn't post the writings when they happened. Instead I hid in my cave and just sort of watched to see what happened. In reality, not much happened - traffic stayed fairly steady, and so did the income. It's almost like I didn't have to be here. Which is nice. But now I'm back (though I'm still catching up, so I'm a little behind - that will be rectified in the next couple days).

Read "August Review, New Layout and Ad Plans, Thanks Sponsors" »

Last night, as the clock neared midnight, the streak of 109 consecutive football victories was snapped. Whether it was the fact that the Cincinnati Elder Panthers (that name just doesn't flow off the tongue) out-played or out-coached the Independence Patriots, or whether the fact that the players from the Big I had to travel much of the day Friday and face another team while they were so far away from home is irrelevant. The streak is over. For now, at least.

While this streak ends, another is still alive, for the Patriots have at least a passing chance at securing their eighth straight state championship this year, and after all, coach Tom Knotts wasn't wearing a shirt in summer practice that read 120 (or something similar) - it had a big, fat 8 on it. Though it would have been nice for the tradition to continue, it would have been another two years after this one for the Patriots to even challenge the Concord de la Salle record of 151 straight wins.

And by all accounts, it was a good game.

Read "Independence Loses to Cincinnati Elder in Overtime" »

With all the attention I've been paying to statistics, I thought I'd take a look and see where traffic has been headed lately, which of course raises the question of whether to look at current content (in other words, posts I made this month) or total content (posts that have been made since the site was started). I have to say that I still haven't decided, but for the moment, I'm leaning towards the latter. After all, if a post was written years ago, and it's still more popular than a post that was written a week ago, then there's probably a reason for it.

I'd like to think that I'm keeping things current, but maybe I'm just not. So I'd like to start off by looking at the posts that have been the most popular overall. I'm interested to hear your feedback, however - if you are more interested in a monthly recap, then perhaps I can do separate posts, or even combine them into one. I'm not a huge fan of metrics (that's really my wife's thing), but I do like to see what is getting people's attention. Let me know what you think.

Read "Most Popular Ten Posts During August" »

In 1986, I was in high school when I had my first seizure. I was at a friend's house and we were playing Boggle. That's about all I remember. According to him, I sort of half-stood and then leaned over, as if I was playing some sort of other game, and shortly thereafter he realized that I wasn't. That's when he got his mom, who realized that I was having a seizure. I'm glad that she had worked in a day care environment and knew what it was, as I had no idea. It was my first.

I went to the doctor and some time later was diagnosed with epilepsy, which doesn't really help - it just means that you are prone to seizures. Thanks, doc. For the next twenty or so years I took Dilantin of varying strengths. My mom tells me that when I was in high school, I had so much in my that I slept. It may have just been school. I don't really recall. But about eighteen months ago, my neurologist decided that it was time for a change. He suggested Zonegran.

Read "Eighteen Months of Zonegran and I Feel Fine" »

Exactly six years ago today, our country underwent one of the most gut-wrenching moments in its existence. Nineteen people hijacked four airplanes were hijacked. Two of the planes crashed into - and eventually toppled - the world trade centers in New York City. One crashed into the Pentagon in Washington. The fourth crashed into a field in rural Pennsylvania. At this writing, 2974 deaths were directly attributed to the attacks.

It is an easy leap to attribute a huge number of additional deaths to this, as the United States sent a military force to Afghanistan and Iraq. It's quite possible that those tallies will never be accurate, but the numbers are certainly much, much higher - both on our side and on theirs. Whether right o wrong, a number of lives have been lost.

What is interesting to me is that one of the issues with those planes is that the hijackers knew how to turn off the emergency locator beacon in the planes, so that their exact location could not be found. It seem that if you are going to hijack a plane, this would be a really, really good idea. Hijack the plane, and turn off the signal so that no one can find you. Is it hard to do? I don't think so.

Read "Maybe we Should Hide the Emergeny Locator Beacon" »

As we were on the way to the lake today, we noticed something next to the road - a turtle! Those of you who have been reading for a while probably realize that we're a bit sappy when it comes to animals in need (we already have four stray dogs), and seeing a turtle along the side of the road trying to decide whether to cross or not, well, it just hits us right in the breadbox. So naturally I made my wife pull over and turn around so we could check him out.

The poor little guy was just sitting there, with his legs all tucked up under the shell, his head barely poking out. I'm not sure if he was just intimidated by all the cars passing by or if he had been hit by someone already - but being that he was on the stripe next to the road, I figured that I needed to at least move him off to the side. Since the kids were in the van, I thought that the least I could do was show them, so I took him so they could see. Luckily, he wasn't too big. The last turtle we saw near the road was a monster - when I tried to move him, I almost lost a hand.

Read "Fluffy Lucky Ogee Wilson Everett, or The Eastern Box Turtle" »

Just over a week after taking over the top spot in the Sweet 16 from the Independence Patriots, the Butler Bulldogs have lost it. In a game that was delayed from Friday night due to some severe weather that passed through the area (lightning strikes were seen all over town), the West Charlotte Lions have done what didn't seem possible - they have handed the Bulldogs their first loss of the young season.

A number of games Friday night were postponed due to the bad weather. Some, like the Patriots' win over Vance, was called in the third quarter, and not scheduled to be completed (the Patriots were ahead 28-0 at the time, so I guess it was better than continuing the game). But others, like the Lions and the Bulldogs, were games that both teams wanted to complete, so they were rescheduled for later. The game of the week finished last night, on a perfect night for football, made better because it was free (and there was nothing else happening).

Read "West Charlotte Lions Tackle Butler Bulldogs" »

Almost two years ago, over a period of roughly six months, I had to deal with Suncom. Fortunately, I never actually had Suncom as a carrier - I had AT&T, which had to divest some assets, which were owned by Suncom, but since the phone I had wasn't carried by Suncom, I was able to get out of the contract. Unfortunately, I had to switch carriers. Then I had to transition away from Suncom.

You'd think that might be all, but it wasn't. It was just the beginning, even though it took over a month. It took another five months, and another series of posts to really sever the ties with Suncom. The problem wasn't really the phone service. Since I was with AT&T, I didn't have an issue. My problem was the customer (dis-)service.

Read "Suncom on the Way Out, T-Mobile on the Way In" »

Early this week, the New York Times stopped charging for access to parts of the web site. Obviously part of this comes from the fact that online advertising is doing well. Just look at Google to see this - a huge amount of their profit is derived from advertising.

I've long maintained that access to online data should remain open, and it's really irritated me when it doesn't. I strive to keep the archives here available - a feat which isn't easy if I move things around. And I understand that it's not always easy to do if you have as much data as a newspaper or an online portal. But storage is cheap and advertising plentiful. Why shouldn't archives be free?

Read "New York Times Opens Site, Who is Next?" »

Last night, order was restored to high school football in Charlotte.

The Butler Bulldogs, Independence Patriots and West Charlotte Lions all won.

Alas, all was not quite as it seemed, as there may be troubles still lurking in some of those waters, so we'll have to keep an eye open to see what happens in the coming weeks. But for those of you who have stayed up late to watch the scores and watched nervously, it was at least one week where you didn't suffer heartburn - the teams that were supposed to win did win.

Ready for the details? I've got them for you here.

Read "Butler, Independence and West Charlotte Win" »

Yesterday we visited the 2007 edition of the Festival in the Park - the 43rd go-round of this annual staple at Freedom Park.

As is usually the case for the event, the streets around the park are absolutely packed - so you'll want to be prepared to walk a bit (not to mention walking within the park itself), however this year some churches were supposed to be offering "satellite" parking so that you didn't have to fight the crowds. Park at the church - which cost $5 - and get a ride right to the festival doorstep.

Or you could fight the crowds, park wherever you find a free spot, and walk yourself in. Depending on what you prefer to do, you have plenty of options. We happened to find a free spot on a lawn, just outside the park gates, so our walk was limited to the length of the parking lot (still perhaps half a mile or so - it's a hefty lot). Even if you chose to park yourself without using the shuttle service, the walk wasn't bad - unlike the Charlotte Dragonboat Festival held earlier this year.

Read "43rd Annual Festival in the Park" »

I tend to work with any number of web hosts on a daily basis through my work as a computer and network consultant, and for the most part, they are all the same. Day in and day out, there is really very little difference between hosts - when everything is running smoothly. What really makes the difference is when things aren't running smoothly, and that's why I've chosen to keep my own sites at pair Networks. Their tagline of World Class Web Hosting may seem to be just a bit of marketing fluff, but I have to say that I'm really sold on it.

Some years ago, when I first ventured online, it was through bulletin boards. As with a lot of people - at least a lot of people that I knew - I started off calling into boards, and later ran one of my own. Often it was an adventure in trying to be popular enough that people came by, but not so popular that people couldn't get in. This analogy actually corresponds quite well to web hosts these days.

Read "The Long and Winding Road to pair Networks" »