Wearing The Contacts At Work

Unfortunately when I looked in the little case where they ‘live’ the left lens had escaped!

“Adorable,” said my wife. “You look marvelous,” chimed the guy responsible for me getting hired to host “Inside Space” on SciFi. “You are squinting Geoff, put on the glasses, you look better and more trustworthy,” was the word from a Facebook friend¹. They were all commenting about tonight’s test run in contact lenses. It went reasonably well.

That is the glassless me on the left. Alas, I have my father’s tiny eyes and it always looks like I’m squinting.

The lenses have been on-and-off twice today. I am getting used to sticking my finger on my eyeball. That’s gross just to say. Both lenses stung for the first 30 seconds or so but were fine after that.

I had to work tonight, covering for a colleague whose furnace started a small fire that filled his downstairs with smoke. No injuries. Hopefully no lasting damage.

It is an awful night following an awful day with enough rain to bring flood warnings and enough wind to knock down power lines and trees.

On the drive in what was noticed at home became more obvious. My distance vision is not as good as it was with glasses. I can still see well enough to drive but signs and other objects aren’t nearly as clear.

The “Fitting Guide” for the lenses, instructions for my eye doctor, have instructions to work around this problem. I’d like to try.

My plan was to take the contacts out as soon as I got home which I did easily. Unfortunately when I looked in the little case where they ‘live’ the left lens had escaped! About ten minutes later I located it on the floor. If these things are going to last for three months holding onto them will be critical.

The real question will be how this looks at work and whether viewers accept it or even care.

¹ – Let’s just think of this guy as dentist number five. The dentist who doesn’t recommend Trident to his patients who chew gum.

What My Facebook Friend Running For Congress Probably Didn’t Know… Until Now

My problem… and now possibly her problem… is I’m a geek. I looked at her site and immediately looked under-the-hood.

If you ask to be my friend on Facebook and you’re a person and not a business, you’re my friend. It didn’t start out like that, but I’ve learned the error of my ways. That’s how I amassed 1,604 ‘friends’.

One of my ‘friends’ is running for Congress. She posted a link on her wall and like an obedient puppy I followed.

My problem… and now possibly her problem… is I’m a geek. I looked at her site and immediately looked under-the-hood. It’s possible for anyone to see this kind of thing. Your browser is equipped to divulge the code it sees.

The site is run under WordPress. My site too. Obviously I approve.

The site is very stylish so I checked out the theme–“Probama.” Uh oh.

Daria Novak is a Republican candidate for Congress. She’s a former Reagan administration staffer and is pictured with Newt Gingrich on her site.

On the other hand “Probama” is described as:

“A timely WordPress theme for supporters of Senator Barack Obama’s political career and presidential campaign. Built-in control panel options allow easy management of images, video, podcasts and other RSS info.”

My bet is Daria Novak will soon have a new look on her campaign’s website–and again, it’s a really well designed site. I hope I’m wrong, but “Probama?” That’ll be difficult.

It’s possible there’s a real life lesson hidden in here somewhere. A good idea doesn’t become a bad idea just because someone you don’t support or don’t like is associated with it.

Will the theme lose its luster because of its name? Stay tuned.

The story continues with changes made to Candidate Novak’s site after this entry went onlline.

Why My Blog Traffic Exploded Today!

A confluence of circumstances conspired to raise my totals. The first says a lot about the power of Google

On March 11, 2010 NBC announced this documentary would re-air. More details here.

My blog is my entertainment. I enjoy writing. I enjoy seeing how many people read what I write. Recently that number has been between 1,200 and 1,500 page views a day. Not too shabby, especially when you consider it’s never been mentioned on-the-air during our newscasts! Today I’m at 9,000 11,621 and counting!

A confluence of circumstances conspired to raise my totals. The first says a lot about the power of Google.

brokaw-google.pngI watched the Tom Brokaw documentary about Gander, Newfoundland on September 11, 2001 tonight (and wrote this about that remarkable doc). On a Saturday afternoon there aren’t too many people writing abut what’s on TV, but there were a lot of people interested in this documentary.

When I ‘publish’ an entry word is automatically sent to Google and its competitors. My pages are in Google’s index in minutes. Usually on popular topics I’m drowned out by more powerful websites. Today, if you searched for “Brokaw, Gander” this site was number one or two (it changed during the day).

I experienced this once before when I wrote about Ashlee Simpson’s lip sync debacle on Saturday Night Live. My East Coast entry was up early and pulled lots of traffic. As Sunday progressed and the story was picked up my search position kept falling–as you’d expect.

This Brokaw doc brought thousands of page reads for both the EST and PST showings!

The second traffic driver was an entry I wrote in 2004. A friend sent me a note about terrible storm damage in California. Attached was a photo of a deck chair on its side. It was pretty funny.

Today someone on Fark.com attached directly to that same picture with a link reading: “Tsunami damage photos begin trickling in, not for the weak of heart (geofffox.com).” I guess that was funny after Hawaii prepped for a tsunami that didn’t come.

I only ‘saw’ that traffic by accident. Since Fark’s link was directly to the photo it didn’t register through my normal counting mechanisms. It was only because of my checking on the Brokaw doc that it was caught.

Linking directly to a photo without linking to my site’s content is like running your house off my electricity! That upset me.
Luckily it’s easy to command this server to redirect photo traffic to the original entry.

They still get a joke and now a little of my site too. I can live with that.

By Monday my traffic levels will return to normal.

On the other hand, links from other sites plus Twitter and Facebook mentions will help Google think more highly of me. This is how traffic is built.