Life on Snow Hill

The site will be going down for a little while tonight (4/12/08)  for some maintenance and patch updates.  Total downtime should be less than an hour.

As most of you know by now, I’ve been really excited about the arrival of Spring.  This week in particular has been really warm, with highs in the mid-70′s most of the time, and lows only as low as the 50′s.  I was even able to ride the motorcycle all week long to save a ton on gas.

Becky and I have been watching the tulips grow in our front yard.  We bought some bulbs last fall and planted them, not expecting any blooms for the first year.  But we noticed one red tulip getting ready to open up.  We were both surprised, and decided that would probably be the only one.  But after a couple of days, we noticed most of the others doing the same.  Needless to say, this area of our front yard is now a bright red and yellow reaffirmation that Spring is here to stay.

This weekend we’re coming into the ‘Dogwood Winter’.  It’s one of two cold snaps we get here in East Tennessee after Spring has arrived.  There will be another one in a week or two that we like to call ‘Blackberry Winter’.

For those of you not from the Tennessee area, I can hear you asking, “Why is it all about Dogwoods and Blackberries?”  You see, Dogwood Winter is right about the time Dogwood trees bloom, and the same goes for Blackberries.  So while things will get cool again a couple more times, Becky and I have been enjoying ourselves in this warm weather and getting lots of work done outside.  I love Spring.

The power was out this morning, so it was a nice little challenge trying to get ready for work in the dark.  The site was down for a couple hours, but all is well now.

I’ve often wondered what it really takes to be a good blogger.  I mean, I always appreciate those that come and visit, but what would it take to get you to stay?  More importantly, what would it take to convince you to come back?  I spent a little time today researching this, and I’ve found 4 simple rules that I will try to heed to from now on.  These rules (or tips, really) came from blog readers across the blogosphere, and they are what keep them going back to certain blogs over and over.

1. Post Regularly – Regular content is a must.  I think I do pretty well with this one, but I think I actually overdo sometimes.  They say 5-7 posts a week are plenty, with 1 per week being the minimum.  This one is my 3rd today, so I’m over my limit for the day.  I’ll try to space things out a little better, and be a little more ‘predictable’ with the timing of my posts.
2. Be Conversational – Rather than presenting information matter-of-factly, make a conversation out of it.  Write it as if you are writing a letter to a friend, or better yet, speaking to them about it.  Don’t write it out as if it is a formal speech.  Make it personal, and write as a conversation.
3. Be Thought-Provoking – This one is a little difficult sometimes.  Don’t post boring, bland informational topics.  Don’t get me wrong, they do have their place, but if that’s all you do you won’t have many loyal readers.  An idea is to post topics as questions, soliciting feedback from readers.  Don’t make it into a fact, necessarily, but make the post into something that will cause the readers to think about what they are reading, rather than reading it and simply moving on.
4. Respond – When someone leaves comments, don’t leave them hanging out to dry!  Make it a truly interactive experience.  Let your readers know you are listening to them so that it will become a more personal experience for everyone involved.

So from now on, again, I will adhere to these rules and tips.  I hope that it will pay off in the end, and I hope that you, my loyal readers, remain loyal.  More than that, I hope that you’re no longer bored with the content that I post.

Yes, you read that right. And you’re not seeing double, either. It seems like all this kinda weird stuff happens somewhere in India. When I was told about it by a coworker, the first question I asked was, “So are they worshipping this baby?” Sure enough, the answer was yes.

There have been hundreds of people visit the baby and her parents. They come to ‘touch her feet out of respect and receive blessings.’ I’m just curious which blessings they think they are receiving. They think she is some kind of reincarnation of some Hindu goddess. There was another baby born a while back that had a tail. They worshipped that one too because they thought he was some sort of reincarnated god. I don’t get why these people have so many ‘gods’ for so many different purposes. There is one God, for everything. I’ve always wondered which of their ‘gods’ saves their souls and takes them to Heaven… I’ve never heard anything about that one.

As a kid, I always longed for the Olympics to come on TV again.  I didn’t care if it was the Winter or the Summer games – it was all fun to watch.  Of course, it was the most fun to watch when America won the contests.  It showed that America was the best.

But then America began getting professional athletes from home and from abroad, in an effort to guarantee victory.  Only on the American teams would you find Asian, Hispanic and African athletes.  For the China teams, you’d only see Chinese athletes.  For Mexican teams, you’d only find Mexicans.  I’m not a racist or anything, but does something seem a little off?  Yes, I agree that there are a lot of people from around the world that simply love America and want to live here.  But Americans should represent America – not everyone else.  I won’t go into a lot of the politics that are going on behind the scenes to get these foreign athletes to compete for America.

Which brings me to my real reason for hating the Olympic games lately.  For the past several cycles of the Olympic games, it seems that you hear about nothing but the politics surrounding the games.  I’m sure 99.9% of you are aware that the games are in China this year.  Lots of people are protesting the games because of how China is violating human rights.  I honestly just simply haven’t cared for the past few years because it’s always ‘something’.  I realize the world is falling apart politically, but when its stories are mixed in with everything, it gets a little tiring to hear about it.  I suppose the key here is that I, along with many of you I’m sure, need a break from all the political mumbo-jumbo every once in a while.

So if I don’t care, then why am I even bothering to write about it, you may ask?  I suppose this is my own little form of protest.  Although I technically don’t care enough about it to protest, so I guess this is more of a 4-paragraph essay about me not caring.

Today is CSS Naked Day. Don’t worry, it’s nothing filthy… The idea behind this ‘event’ is basically to promote web standards – proper (x)html, structure and markup. In easier terms (If you’re not geeky), it takes all of the ‘style’ out of the site and gets down to bare bones.

Not only does the event promote proper site design before the ‘styling’ makes it pretty, but in the end it also shows off the talent of the CSS designers and programmers when the styles are finally applied. I know I’m not that talented…

Upgrade or else! WordPress versions 2.3.2 and earlier are vulnerable to attack, and are being attacked. Hackers are injecting spam links into blogs with these holes. Also, and possibly more importantly (if you want your web traffic to keep pace), search engines, specifically Technorati and probably others, are de-listing hacked blogs.

Depending on what the case is, I’m sometimes a fan of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. But I upgraded mine pretty much as soon as the latest version came out. I did it mostly because I’ve been excited about WordPress since I switched to it back in December of ’07, but I’m all about upgrading due to security fixes, etc.

In other words, this is broke, so fix it!

Some of you may have noticed that the site hasn’t been quite as fast as it should be.  I found an option in my web server configuration file that allows browsers to request data faster, and for the web server to get data to you faster.

The weekend is over, time to get back at it.  Maybe it will dry up enough to finish getting the garden ready.  I’ll be working on cutting up some firewood for next Winter too.