September 27, 2003 Archives

If true, this is one of the biggest news stories of my lifetime! Imagine, a major form of cancer being cured... and right where they diagnosed Steffie's fractured finger last week, and where she was born, and where my mother's cancer was cured, and where they botched an operation and cost my dad an eye.

This headline is so amazing that I just stared at it somehow imaging I was misreading, or it would go away, or this was some sort of ratings stunt (newspapers can be just as sleazy as TV stations when it comes to circulation/ratings).

Yale is an elite research institution and if a discovery was going to come from somewhere, you could certainly assume that Yale would be high on the list. And, over the past few months I had heard rumors of pending blockbuster discoveries.

If true, this discovery will change the world. Seriously.

On Google's "page rank" scale of 1-10 I was a 2. Now, I am a 3! A good ranking on Google is what anyone with a website wants. Higher rankings means higher placements in searches which translates to more page hits.

Since I don't sell advertising and would actually have to pay more for my website if it became too popular, it's obvious that this is an exercises in vanity. Fine. Guilty as charged.

I know some of how Google works (though they've kept as much of their methods for page ranking as secret as is humanly possible). I've optimized my site so all the content stands out, all the images have meaningful names, the archives are named after the content, etc, ad nauseum. Google is certainly here often enough, hitting this site well over a thousand times in September alone and returning every day or two for a little more.

The big deal in Google, and the part that I can't control, is who links to me. If, for instance, The New York Times linked to me from their home page (9 out of 10) that would give me 'street cred' and up my ranking. This has created controversies over time as some people have developed sites that do nothing but pass links back and forth. There have even been lawsuits filed by disgruntled proprietors of these 'link farms.'

I can see when someone gets here through a search engine. There are logs kept and analysis tools on my web server.

Google links, among others, are quite distinct. So, for instance, during the month of September, search engines sent people my way because they asked about the Pixo AT700S monitor (advertised recently at Staples) that I use, or Scotty Crowe (John Mayer's road manager who was featured in August after Steffie and I went to see John Mayer) or the phony satellite and hurricane pictures I've posted. Even my friend Peter Mokover brought me 3 hits! For an esoteric subject, like Scotty Crowe (I hope Scotty doesn't mind that characterization because he was very nice to Steffie and me), I'm 9th on Google's list:

I could be the most interesting, insightful writer in the world, but without Google's blessing, I'm a tree falling in the forest... no one hears.

After the first few entries I wrote in my blog, I realized how cathartic a process this is. So, I'd continue to write even for a few readers. But lots of hits is more fun.

After all this, I should admit the biggest sender of readers to my site is word of mouth. After I posted over 400 pictures from last week's Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Walk, the floodgates opened. So far 400 people have looked through my gallery, each stopping at a few pictures and possibly coming here to the blog side to see what I have to say.

Most guys, when getting married, don't understand there are certain unwritten responsibilities that come with he job. Tops on that list is probably bug catcher-bug killer.

If this were a government position, or if husbands were unionized, that would be two positions. Here in husbandom, you're a hyphenate.

Maybe my family is different than yours, but my daughter has taken up a tradition passed down from her mother, "bug under glass."

When the bug is spotted, it is quickly, carefully placed under a drinking glass. Then, daddy is called. If daddy is at work, the bug sits, on display (though no one would dare stay in the room) until daddy returns. Even to my wife, while on bug patrol, I qualify for 'daddy.'

Tonight, after Steffie had trapped a spider and after I had gone downstairs, she wondered aloud whether she was asphyxiating the spider. Considering the spider was in the last minute of his life, it was a moot point.

Still, it's nice to know she was concerned... for the hunted, not the hunter.