Blogging is addicting as hell :)

I haven't had much time to put anything over here in my personal space, I've been spending a lot of time in the new tech blog, Geek Talks Tech!. I'm having a great time, and it's really working well for a blog that's only two weeks old. It started off slow, looks like friends and family were giving me most of my traffic between 10-15 page views a day. I posted a good story this weekend and began trying to optimize my posts' data for search engines, and boy did things take off. I started getting 50 page views a day, even on days when I didn't put new posts up. Yesterday I basically increased my traffic over 6x with a single post on a funny thing inside Google's new web browser, "Chrome". With the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques, that's where most of my traffic was coming from. My blog is actually the top hit in a Google search for "chrome easter egg". Wasn't one of my original goals to be a top hit on even a simply Google search, but I'll take it, pretty excited about it.

From my initial traffic, I was thinking that the first goal of the website was going to be tough to attain, 1,000 page views in a month. I'm counting that as a calendar month, even though I only had 12 days to count. Chalking that up to a ramp up month, and was going to make September the first real month that I was going to benchmark against that goal. Based on the activity in the last 4 days, I'm going to hit that number easily by mid-month, so I'm counting this blog as a success in my eyes, and fun as hell . . . but I need to come up with a new goal for page views. Once I hit this goal, I'll probably switch it over to 5,000 page views per month.

So, next up is going to be the podcast. I haven't really started in on planning it yet, though I've got my shopping list for a small mixer and microphone. I'll have to come up with some theme music as well, which will either mean getting some pod-safe music to use as an intro or writing my own (which I'd love to do).

This is really getting fun. Once it gets more traffic and popularity, I'd love to see how I could monetize it to make it something I can get some extra cash out of. Thanks for all of your support in getting this off the ground, and stay tuned!

Blog is live, but still a work in progress

Finally, I've got the new blog up and running! Working on the first real meaty post, but I wanted to at least get it online and where the search engines could find it. It's called "Geek Talks Tech!", mainly as I'm a geek and I love to talk tech (go figure). Go check it out at http://geektalkstech.com but you'll see it's still kind of in progress. I should have the new logo up tonight (the first letter in the "Geek" is the picture I have on this post, my lovely bride Teri made it for me), getting the blog-roll, links, and archives all worked out, and starting my posting routine should also come tonight or tomorrow. I'll be talking about tech news, how-to's, cool gadgets I've seen or used to review, entertainment stuff I think is relevant to geek culture (movies and TV), sci-fi, games, all that kind of stuff. Should be pretty light hearted and a good general source of information. Comments, constructive criticism, and suggestions are more than welcome. In fact, anything you can add I would love to hear. Once I get used to the writing, I will start putting the podcast together that will initially be a more in-depth discussion of topics covered on the blog, maybe within the previous week's posts.

Wish me luck, check out the site, and let me know what you think!

Launching blog soon

I hope . . . I'm going to be trying to get the design of the page customized off of default or widely used templates to at least make it look original, but I'm not going to wait until it's perfect before I launch or, knowing me, it will never get off the ground. I'm too much of a perfectionist for that, so it winds up taking longer than I anticipate. Anyway, should have the logo and header bar finished soon, and I'm tentatively planning on trying to launch the blog this coming weekend.

We had Amanda and Drew's birthday party this weekend, probably the last year we're going to be able to put them together before they want their own party. Fun was had by all, but Dairy Queen damn near screwed the pooch on the ice-cream cake for Drew. All three kids have a severe food allergy, and conveniently it's not all for the same food. Alex (oldest) is allergic to tree-nuts, and we've had to use the Epi-Pen twice since we've been here in AZ and he's taken a few trips to the ER. Amanda is allergic to peanuts (moderate, but we've got Epi-Pens just in case), and Drew is allergic to both peanuts and eggs (eggs are severe for him). So, since he can't have eggs that rules out most cakes. So Amanda gets the regular cake and Drew gets an ice cream cake. We ordered an Oreo Blizzard cake for him and I picked it up on the way to the party place. Later, after they were all played out and ready for the pizza/cake/presents part, everyone's eating, cake flying like a tornado is going through. Drew later comes over to me and said that his cake had a peanut in it, but it was ok because he put it aside to save for later. Damn good thing he knows about how peanuts and eggs make him sick and can recognize the foods he shouldn't have, because we looked at the ice cream cake and they made it a Reese's Cup Blizzard cake instead of an Oreo!

No harm done, but it could have been tragic if he wasn't as alert or Amanda got a piece (though she would have recognized the peanuts too). I talked to the manager at the Dairy Queen, and she fell all over herself knowing how serious that could have been (that's points for me, if she'd have been nonchalant about it I would have had a much more serious time with her). They had a help wanted sign in the window, and she explained that they were training new people last week when my cake was staged. She was taking the order back to talk directly with the person who made it and the supervisor who helped with the cake, and did not take the situation lightly. I got a few free cakes out of the deal (obviously got full refund for the first cake and coupons for a few more free ones), so I might get Drew another cake for his actual birthday on Thursday - one of the pre-made ones that I know what it is.

Validation that I'm not crazy...

So, I'm reading through CNN today after reading about Morgan Freeman (one of my favorite actors), and I see this article talking about just what I mentioned my only real issue was with the movie - Batman's voice. This article shows that others noticed it too and it seems to have become a topic of discussion. Apparently, they even added modulation to Bale's "Batman" voice to make it deeper, I think they took it a bit overboard if people really seem to be noticing it. I'm sure it won't be as pronounced in the next movie.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Movies/08/04/mondaymoviebuzz.darkknight.ap/index.html

New blog is coming along

Hi everyone, just wanted to post an update to my blog creation and what I'm doing. I'm planning a tech/gadget/gaming/sci-fi blog (basically, all the things I think are cool and love to talk about). I've got the site name and domain all registered, but I don't want to release that until it's ready to start having visitors (which, based on my Wordpress coding skill, might be a while...).


I've always had a certain aptitude for technology, I just kind of know how things work and how stuff fits together, and love talking about new developments, so that will be one side. Any of you who know me also know that I love my toys, so gadget discussion is also on the menu. I was brought up on video games and am always amazed at how far we've come since Donkey Kong and Space Invaders, and now that I have kids myself I love seeing how they interact with games out there today. And lastly, I'm a huge sci-fi/TV/movie buff, so I'll be talking about Battlestar Galactica, Lost, Heroes, 24 (when it ever comes back on the air), and other things like that.

My initial plan is to have a daily post, Mon-Fri. I might be able to squeeze more in there, maybe some on the weekends, but I'm not pushing myself for that yet. My metric for success in the blog will be to have 1000 unique hits in a month period. If I get a story on Digg, I'm golden, as I'd most likely get that number in a day. If I can keep up the quality of my posts and bring something new to the discussion then I should be able to meet that goal.

Once things settle in, I also want to get back into audio production and do a weekly podcast. Most likely, 10-15 minutes and based on posts on the blog, maybe other topics at hand. Again, I'll use the same metric (mainly as I'm not sure how to best measure audio podcasts at this point) and start with a goal of 1000 downloads in a month. With a weekly podcast, that would mean 250 downloads per podcast. Doable, without too much pain, I believe.

My long-term goal is a big one, though. What's really inspired me to take this on has been Leo Laporte and his "This Week in Tech" podcast, basically his whole TWiT network of podcasts. I listen to those each week, and have always felt like I could add to those discussions. He'll have people on, I'll hear some good stuff, but someone will come up with something that just doesn't sound right or complete and I know the answer. I'd like to get big enough in the podcast so that Leo brings me on as a guest panelist someday. Long-term goal, I know that's not going to happen overnight. Cali Lewis is another one, I've been inspired by her "Geek Brief" video podcast for a while as well and would love to do an interview with her on my podcast, or be a guest on hers someday. Again, long term goal.

So, more on this as it develops. Leave me a comment here, Facebook, Twitter me, email, whatever, let me know what you think. Until the next time,

Andy

The Dark Knight was awesome

Great movie, if you haven't already seen it. We didn't get to see it in the IMAX, I underestimated the crowd there. Of course, it's only playing at one IMAX theater here in the Valley, so that should have told me something at least. We got there around 5pm for the 5:35pm showing, but it was sold out. So was the 9pm showing. They had a few seats left for the 11:55pm showing, but that's way past our date time and Alex wasn't feeling good so we didn't want to stay out too late. I made Teri laugh by using my iPhone to quickly find another theater close and their showtime, so we got over there for the 6:10pm showing. Great movie, Heath exceed my expectations for his performance as Joker. Aaron Eckhart was surprisingly good as Harvey Dent, too. I haven't really liked him much in other roles, but he knocked Dent out of the park. Wouldn't be surprised if you see both Ledger and Eckhart get nods for supporting actor. Eckhart will probably get nominated for the Golden Globe while Ledger gets the nomination for the Oscar, just my guess. But there's no way that they won't be recognized for their performances.

Morgan Freeman remains one of my all time favorites, though. He really had some great parts. Christian Bale was good, but sounded like he was trying too hard to talk like the Batman . . . disguising the voice is one thing, and he did it well in the first movie. But, especially near the end of "Dark Knight", it seemed like he was just getting too gravely-voiced, just too much really. Great overall performance, though, just started getting annoyed at the voice.


So, as I posted earlier from the ER, Alex was having a really tough time with the croup this morning. Had to take him in wheezing to the ER, where they gave him a shot and a breathing treatment. Both of which went over like gangbusters, you know. The shot was kind of funny, part of me wanted to laugh but I waited until we got it over with and he'd calmed down. He's lying on the bed face down when the nurse comes in and she's going to give him the steroid shot in his bottom. I say to Alex, "Is it ok if I show the nurse your bottom?" as I sit down by him and get ready to hold him down. We pull his pants down a little and she starts to stick him and he flips out, a lot faster than I expected with as lethargic as he was. The nurse says she'll get some help to hold him down, and when she comes back, Alex yells, "I'm not going to show you my bottom!!!" I just about lost it when he said that.

We wound up getting him in the thigh, but it took three of us. It's amazing how strong a 61 pound 8 year old can be...

ER adventures

Went to the ER with Alex this morning. Croup got really bad this
morning, he was having trouble breathing. So, one shot, a breathing
treatment and x-rays, he's feeling better now. Needless to say, he's
missing Sunday School today :)

Sent from my iPhone