Damien at the Speed of Life – DATSOL

I measure my 3 blogs’ progress toward goals. You can browse current and past entries in the CAN… category.

CAN stands for:
Circulation: Incoming links.
Analytics: # of visitors
Net: Money made or key takeaways. (Because money isn’t everything.)

I often use shorthand in referring to my blogs:
PFTFF: Postcards from the Funny Farm
DATSOL: Damien at the Speed of Life
DLP: Dynamite Lesson Plan

Here are my goals for October 2008:

PFTFF:
C – 5
A – 3000
N – $70

DATSOL:
C – 4
A – 700
N – $10

DLP:
C – 3
A – 500
N – $10

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Note: A conservative yet challenging set of numbers.  Watch how I do in October.  Why not subscribe and watch it in real time? -or-

Today the DOW plummeted 777 points.  I understand this is an all-time record.  The last time it even came close was “Black Monday” in 1987, the year I graduated from high school.  The bailout Bush tried to get through Congress was denied so now we are stuck with the fallout.  Bad loans have sucked our country dry.  I have no idea where it is going to go but I do have a point! (I always try to): Maybe we need to look inward at the 10-20 people in our lives that really matter.  If we did fall into a depression like the 1930’s, maybe it would be the best thing for many of our souls.  Soup with family?  Give it a thought.  Maybe we don’t need to fear it so much.

This is a monthly feature at Damien at the Speed of Life where I measure my 3 blogs’ progress toward goals. You can browse current and past entries in the CAN… category.
CAN stands for:
Circulation: Incoming links.
Analytics: # of visitors
Net: Money made or key takeaways. (Because money isn’t everything.)

I often use shorthand in referring to my blogs:
PFTFF: Postcards from the Funny Farm
DATSOL: Damien at the Speed of Life
DLP: Dynamite Lesson Plan

Below are my results.  I invite your comments on this topic.

___

PFTFF:

C – 15/20

A – 4325/4000

N – $335/$400

DATSOL:

C – 7/10

A – 540/1140

N – $27/$50

DLP:

C – 4/3

A – 465/500

N – $29.63/$40

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My Notes:

As you can see I met most my blogging goals across the board.  But the blues came in a few days ago like a storm over a pirate ship.

I’ve learned with life as with blogging that most things are not worth letting them get me down.  But I am down folks.  Thanks to some “weeding” I did in the way Google views my site, specifically with the canonical www, Google saw fit to knock PFTFF from a strong PR4 down to a miserable PR1.  *sigh* Google is just calibrating the change but I could have avoided this ding and that gets me the deepest.  It will last about 6 months.

I am still strong in my spirits and not into blaming Google this time.  I’m back on the “CAN” system full force  since I can’t rely on Google’s PR1 to dictate my worth to the blogosphere.  I made just as much money when I was a PR0 it was just a heck of a lot more laborious finding the work.  But as I noted above, money isn’t everything.  Respect is important too.  Watch for my October goals in another post.

One of my favorite inventors had the mantra: “Keep moving forward.”  As I look back at my posts of this week, I can say without debate that I have followed that mantra successfully.  It’s a good idea for a recurring series here I think.

Last Sunday I wrote about re-evaluating my blogging goals, yet again.  This is what I said (not sure how eloquent it was):

What is it that I want from blogging?

• A large audience that reads my writing.
• Money for my posts (seems to come automatically at this point.)
• Help other bloggers.

I think it was good to leave my familiar “CAN” goals behind.  I was getting too fixated.  I started as an online diarist and I think that’s what I’ll always be in my core.  I feel the only success in blogging for me will be the success that comes as I am not looking for it.

Having said that, I am also a goal oriented individual and I enjoy watching my progression (whether it be up or down).  Like the ebb and flow of a river through a region, so is my blogging adventure through the blogosphere.  More than what I get from the journey, I make sure to enjoy the sound of the rushing waters.

If you haven’t seen this yet, it’s quite amazing.  A guy had the discipline and patience to take pictures of himself every day for 17 years.  The result is an amazing stop action “flip book” style show of his receding hair.  He doesn’t age much in the face but the hair you really notice.  Stuff like this is both cool and scary reminding us how we are changing every minute.

http://www.todaysbigthing.com/2008/09/18

I’ve loved this band for years.  Their guitarist, David Gilmour, has some of the best riffs and chops I am yet to hear.  I’ve seen them live twice back in the early 90’s.  Yes people were passing joints around and offering smal squares of LSD to put on your tongue.  I was in my early 20’s and a little TOO open minded.  I never really got into that lifestyle though … I just genuinely loved the music.  I recently heard that a member of the band passed away and it hit me hard.  That’s like the death of an era.  Just like the Beatles only have two left, so Pink Floyd now are less.  I love their song: “Comfortably Numb.”  Everytime I hear it I go into a trance.

Any Floyd fans out there?

Our house has been cleaner than ever the past week and it’s all due to a program my wife instituted called “15 Minute Cleaning.”  Every night at 7:45p, we change the cable channel to the radio station we like and everybody goes t work.  My 10 year old son is given a job, I pick something, my wife etc.  We all work non stop and hard for 15 minutes.  If you add it up, the three of us (the babies just play) working equals 45 minutes of hard work.  Done everyday this makes quite a difference.  Try it!

So I woke up this morning early.  I was out sick yesterday with some form of the flu, horrible.  Anyway, you know that feeling you get at 4am when you start thinking about all the catch up you have to play?  Well, I managed to roll around in bed until 5:30.  They say laying there is almost as restful as a deep sleep.

I pulled my outfit off the closet hanger bar and put it on in virual darkness being careful to not wake up my wife,  Then I heard it … Julie, my 1 year old, was shrieking for daddy.  Wonderful. (sarcasm).  When she is up, the mornings are chaotic.  She’s fine on the weekends because you can give her a lot of attention but on workdays, you pray that she stays asleep until Daddy is out the door.  At least, that’s what I pray ;)

I went in to get her and saw that her diaper was half-way off.  Poor baby, I thought.  I picked her up and started walking downstairs to where the diapers are when she peed all down the front of me.

Now you know what the title means.

I have a new outfit on now and a weathered eye for picking up babies with half off diapers.

Ny daughters rock.  No, literally when music comes on, they rock.  On any other day I would love it but I am home sick today with a headache, nausea, and sinus congestion.  I hate to miss work, but I knew I wouldn’t be myself if I went in.  So, Sarah went in to do her subbing job and I am in charge of the girls.  Watching kids is funny.  You have moments of chaos and moments of peace intermittently.  The only problem is that when you’re sick like I am, those peaceful moments aren’t fully appreciated.

Being sick is such a drag!  I seem to have mastered this ability to find calm in any situation.  Not so when I am sick.  As I look around and see the commercials for flu stuff I know it’s that time of year.  I hope this will be the last one for me this year.  Sarah tells me to take the Echinacea and drink the juice but I am lazy.  I wish I was as disciplined as her in that department.  Anyway, one of my goals was to take some picture of the girls so here’s the best one of what I got.  How can I feel sick long with these two angels around?

I’ve been with Technorati.com since December of 2006 and have found them to be a confusing, only remotely helpful blogging index.  There have been countless times my 67 friends turned up as zero.  Then, later, they pop up again later.  My incoming links (blog reactions) are sometimes weeks in refreshing.  But all this wasn’t so bad, I still liked searching for blogs for my Blog Safari’s there and browsing people’s profiles.

Now they have really mistreated a user.

My three blogs needed updating with a canonical www at the beginning.  I went in and tried to claim this address and it says “This blog has been flagged by our systems.”  So, I figured OK maybe they think its spam etc.  I’ll just telkl their bots it’s me.  So two weeks ago I started a ticket for each blog.  I have heard nothing.  What’s more, I left three messages on their “support” forum.  None has been replied to.

If they would just tell me what is happening I would feel better.  Do you find Technorati frustrating?