Monthly Archives: January 2007

Sleep, Eat and ‘Net….

So I haven’t really done much at all today. So you get an “about my day” post. I’ve eaten a lot (and often) and had too way much Coca-Cola (but the last few had some Capt. Morgan’s in it so that’s okay). And I’ve been on the ‘net all day (at home, at Wendy’s, at the bar) catching up (and fixing) on things.

I did participate in a survey that I got $25 for (it might have been $25 for Amazon.com but that’s as good as cash to me). It was a survey about the new extra-secure security features in IE 7. The thing is, I’m not so worried about my information being intercepted en-route; I’m more worried about their servers being compromised after the fact (or someone losing their laptop). My real concern when shopping on-line is that “Bob’s Computer Shack” is just a place that “Bob” set up so he can steal my Charge Card information (he could even have an ultra secure certificate).

But tonight I need to drive to Ypsi to get a CAT scan of my hand. It’s been bugging me and it’s time to get it looked at. My problem is with chronic problems like this is they tend to not find a cause, which means they can’t find a solution. He has said he doesn’t think it’s anything carpel-tunnel or repetitive anything-ish. Continue reading

2000 Bloggers. Will I make the list?

So I kinda jumped on this one a little late. Tino Buntic is trying to compile a list 2000 bloggers with linked mugshots. I see a lot of familiar faces in it, I’m not sure how I didn’t see it before today. I added my name to the list and we’ll see if he gets to me before all 2000 spots are taken. You can try and get on the list too….

Free Skype Minutes!

It’s “Skype Gift Day”! Log into your Skype account (or sign up) and click give me my gift of 10 free minutes of calling to non-internet phones (landline or cellular). Probably limited to the US / Canada.

And it’s almost the last day (Jan 31st) to sign up for unlimited calling to the US and canada for only $14.95 (50% off).

Tortuga Island

Cr Tortuga MapSo almost everyone was giving us mediocre reviews of the volcano this trip, so we decided to skip it. Since we skipped it we were staying in Montezuma for another day and then going back to Jaco.

Staying in Montezuma (Costa Rica) resulted in us taking a tour to Tortuga Island. Every travel group in town seemed to offer a similar tour to this. A trip on the water (hopefully spotting some whales/dolphins) some snorkeling and some time on the beach with with lunch cooked there and then some more (optional) snorkeling and back along the coast. I’m glad we went but the day went by really fast.

Cr Snorkle 2007-01-05 10-59-57.Img 4592The photo with the island (big rock) in the middle is not Tortuga, it’s nearby and it’s where we snorkeled (if you look real close you can see people snorkeling). Now remember where we are, there aren’t real lessons. They hand you some flippers and a mask and a snorkel and off you go! I asked some of the other tourists and got the gist of it but was always afraid of somehow getting a big gulp of water somehow (which never happened). The fish were awesome, different colors and if you stayed still you could be in the middle of a big school of them. Different colored rocks and coral, it was all very cool. Now one some of the people who had gone down to the Caribbean (or other exotic snorkeling places) were a little disappointed but the rest of us were happy.

I also saw some kind of Eel and some kind of Sting Ray. The eel was a squiggly but I’d guess it was about 3-4 feet long and the Sting(?) Ray was probably a little less than 3 feet (from wing tip to wing tip). They were 6-10 feet below me so it’s hard to judge the size. Continue reading

Technorati Tags

So I’m playing with Technorati Tags on my pages (you’ll see some attached to some of my posts) and I’m not liking how they are working from a placement standpoint. I am experimenting so we’ll see where they get moved to (or if I even keep them).

Tags are supposed to do two things (IMHO):

  • help you find other people’s posts on the same topic and
  • help other people find my posts related to those same topics.

    Some of these topics I could probably direct you to more specific places if necessary, I’m just hoping to have a few more people find my site.

    I think Movable Type 3.34 and the new version of Ecto (in development) will interact in a way better than I’m currently doing this but for now it’ll help me experiment.

  • Montezuma Waterfalls (the Movie)

    Costa Rica Montezuma WaterfallSo here’s the Montezuma Waterfall that we climbed way up into the hills to get to. We swam and (I) jumped into the pool there and then we climbed way farther up into the hills to get way above the waterfall (and there were a few more pools up there too) and then I climbed down past them so that if you were where I was when I took this movie you’d seem me at the top of the falls.

    I know I’m behind in getting stuff up, but I’m getting there. FYI, I rotated this movie, so if it doesn’t play, can you please let me know?!?

    Understanding ROBOTS.TXT (which will help search engines understand you)

    So search engines are tricky to understand, especially if you want the search engines to find your site and people to find your site via the search engines. One of the things you may want to do is restrict pages that the search engines find, that might seem silly to exclude yourself but I don’t want people inadvertently finding my site.

    Here’s an example, I don’t let* the search engines search my monthly archives. Because on the page of 20-50 unrelated posts the information on that page is pretty much unrelated by the end of the month. In December 2006 the mention of “iPods” on the 3rd, has nothing to do with any of the mentions of “family” or “Christmas” but if some searched for “iPods” & “family” or “iPods” & “Christmas” they may come upon that page and while I want traffic I’m not trying to lure people here under false pretenses. This is why I have categories like “Apple” and “Friends + Family” that will have related posts in one location (and even then it’s still kinda a wide range of articles).

    So far I’ve just told you why you want a ROBOTS.TXT file but I haven’t told you how and I’m not planning on it, because Google just put together on “Controlling how search engines access and index your website with ROBOTS.TXT”. It’s got a lot of links that take you all over the place but there’s lots of good info there. Continue reading

    Today’s List

    Had a bunch of things to do and I think I got most of them done. I’ll have to check the list that I forgot and left at home…

  • See Doctor: to fix this congestion – got shot, got drugs!
  • Barnes & Nobel: Educator discount week – got three books and 25% off!
  • Dollar store: Get some spare reading glasses – selection stunk but I gat a tiny pair in tiny durable case to keep in the car and a tiny fold up pair (they fold up half the normal size). Actually they had some decent ones but just not in my size. The question is if they are reading glasses, why do they print the size of magnification so small on the glasses?
  • Target: pick up prescription – got it! Doc said it might keep me awake so not to take it late in the day, I’ll start tomorrow.
  • Staples: use that $10 off $10 coupon before it expires – I was just going to get some office supply “stuff” but I picked up tax software on sale.
  • Gas Station: get gas – Prices were heading back up so I filled it up.
  • Hair cut: get it cut – it’s shorter (all of them).
  • Dearborn Credit Union: they’re letting new customers open up a $1,000 CD with 10.47% interest – Most places are giving about 5% so this seems like an easy way to make $50. I did not accomplish this task.

    Later: I did cehek my list at home and this is more than I had on my list :)