Traffic War Heats Up
Kenny and I are still competeing to see who can generate more traffic to our website. I was worried about the middle of this month that he was going to beat me. He had a good increase in traffic and I was about 200 visits behind him. I went and read every website I could find about how to promote your blog and drive traffic to it. I implimented some new techniques that apparently worked. You can see a defined increase in traffic as soon as I made these changes.
Kenny got 2568 visits for the month which is a huge improvement over last month at 1441. I got 2859 which is still a good improvement over last month at 1705. I finished in the lead by a margin of 291. That is not a big margin, but I think it’s good since I was 200 behind in the middle of the month. I will continue what I am doing. It is apparently working.
At the average daily visits over the last week, I believe I am tracking to get near 4000 this coming month. That is my goal, so at the end of May we will all see if I make it to that goal. That is a big jump, but the last week of this month has shown an average of 122 visits per day. 122 visits times 31 days is 3782 total visits. Take into account some growth over the course of the month and I could get that 4000 visits.
Witnessed an Accident
On my home from church today I watched the guy in front of me run right through the red light and hit a car on the drivers side door. I was thinking as we approached the intersection that he was going a little fast. Then he never slowed at all. He was deep in conversation with the passenger of the car and ran right through. He was completely in the intersection before he realized that there was a car in front of him. He hit the brakes, but the roads were very wet because of the rain so he didn’t have a chance. He slid right into them. There was a lot of smoke from his radiator, and the doors on the other car was completely mashed in.
I know that people need to be cut some slack for making mistakes, but he was not watching the road at all. He had no clue the light was red. What would have happened if that car had been me on my motorcycle. I would have had no chance at all. At what point do you make someone requalify for their drivers license. Personally, I think you should have to requalify every time you are found at fault for a trafiic accident, and once every five years over 60. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen some 80’ish year old woman who has no clue what is going on around her. She, oblivious to everything, pulls out into traffic cuts off three cars and just goes on like nothing happened completely unaware that anything might be wrong. Then she gets very mad if you suggest that her driving might not be safe, or that she should consider getting someone to drive her where she needs to go. This goes for bad male drivers as well. I’m not picking on women, that was just my example.
Pastor Tommy’s Great Opportunity
We, at the church, received bitter sweet news today. Pastor Tommy has been at this church longer than I have. It is hard to imagine what it will be like without him here. He has been looking for a little while now for an opportunity to Pastor a church. I am very happy for him and his wife because this is a great transition for him.
There is no other person that deserves this more. He has been such a blessing to this church. When I started coming here, he was the youth pastor. He took the youth group and built it to over 100 kids. When Pastor Gary left to be a missionary in Jamaica, Pastor Tommy stepped up and took his place. He had big shoes to fill, and made it look easy.
Ever since I started attending this church, Pastor Tommy has always been a great friend. I always knew I could count on him if I needed advice. I’ve been at this church for about four years, maybe five, I’m not real sure. All I know is that Pastor Tommy has become a good friend of mine. I only have a few of those really close friends, and it’s always hard when one moves away. I wish him the best of luck, and that God would bless him in his ministry at his new church.
Go get ’em Tommy. You’ll always have this friend to come visit any time.
Spoofed Caller ID
I got a phone call this morning from the phone number 1-000-000-0000. They called me a 6:10am and it rang about three times. I picked up my phone and the disconnected right as I hit the button to answer it. I was curious as to who would be calling me with a fake number like that just after 6am. After Googleing it, I found that I am not the only one with this problem. It looks like CID spoofing is a big problem now. With the right equipment you can make it look like you are calling from any phone number you choose.
I wonder how long it will take the credit card collection industry to figure out they can spoof their number to look like your mother is calling to make you answer. Just one more thing for Dave Ramsey to rant about.
iPod nano
I am one more step closer to being ready to go to Jamaica. I now have tunes to carry on the plane with me. I just purchased one iPod Nano from my local Radio Shack. I got the 2GB black one, ’cause it just looks cool and I thought 2GB should be plenty of space for me. It turns out that I was right. I filled it up, but I didn’t really have to leave anything out that I wanted to have. I have all the music I’ll want to listen to.
They claim it willl play continuous for 14 hours, and hold somewhere around 500 songs. I have 280 songs with 48.6MB free. I guess I now have reason to consider encodeing my music smaller than 320kbs. I could fit a lot more had I done that. As for play time, I’ll just have to watch it and see how it does. So far my only complaint is about the ear buds. They don’t have the sound quality that I had expected for what I spent. I have to keep in mind that I can’t expect little ear buds to compete with my Sennheiser headphones I’m used to. They sound ok, just nothing to write home about.
There are actually two reasons I got this. One I already mentioned. I want to have music with me for my trip to Jamaica. The other is for my motorcycle. I don’t have a radio on the bike, so I can use this to have some music on my way to work. It’s a long ride with no tunes. I already tested the ear buds that came with the iPod. They fit inside the helmet without any discomfort to my ears. I am happy with the purchase. I think it will serve its function well.
Ken Wendland 