Stats

Maybe I will go back to school to study statistics. Or maybe economics. Ok, probably not the latter. The former though - I have always enjoyed numbers. When I was younger I was good at math and math-like endeavors. Lately, not so much. But I digress. Recently I added Sitemeter to the bottom of the website - I don't know if any of you noticed. It is a way to see what sort of traffic this site is getting. Cool stuff - it captures a bunch of information and is a teeny bit of an obsession with me. I like seeing that people are actually coming to the site. Yippee!

Then yesterday, I noticed that one of the tabs in the blogger window is a "Stats" option. Woo hoo! Who knew that I had visitors from Russia? Or Brazil? Cool. So, now I look at both of them. So, keep on reading, and I will keep looking at the numbers.

Diary of a Plate Addict is back in Heather's capable hands. I went through the book yesterday with a fat toothed comb. Ok, my heart wasn't in it and I just went over the text of every page and caught what I could catch. The next version of the book will be sent to a variety of people who, I hope, will actually take the time to look at it and give me comments - unlike the Saucer people. I am sure something is going on there. Two people said they would give me comments and neither did - this was after none of the managers sent me anything. Sigh. Looks like my dreams of selling oodles of copies were just that - dreams. Without even a tacit acceptance from the Saucer Gods I will be lucky to sell 100 copies. Poop! So much for retiring in style. :)

Yesterday I felt a bit blue. I am wondering if it has something to do with the phases of the moon - a slight letdown after the full moon perhaps? I don't know.

Dinner was pasta with easy Alfredo sauce. Yum! Coming up with dinner ideas night after night after night is exhausting. How do people do it all the time? And for larger families? Mom is really easy going and eats just about anything I put in front of her. What happens when you have a picky eater in the mix? Eeek!

No exciting weekend plans. Just the lull before the long drive to NC and back next weekend.

Pictures from June 17, 2011:


Weeds or flowers - you tell me. Mom says they are flowers - they look like pretty weeds to me...


Working on the book!


Easy Alfredo - again, lots of left overs. Yippee!

Christmas Experiment Continued

So, it is almost the end of Monday here on the East Coast. Of the 280ish people that I sent personalized Christmas/New Year messages to, I have heard from a little over 100. That isn't good, in my opinion. I know that there are at least ten who never check their facebook. Maybe twenty. But that leaves 160 who do. My thought is if they haven't responded in a week, to drop them as friends. Any opinions? The ones who I can't drop, high school friends, people I have known for more than five years, family, them I will keep regardless. But people who I have met once or twice and we became facebook friends, usually on their prompting as I try my best not to send friend requests (fear of rejection), them, I can let go of without many qualms, can't I?

My Christmas Experiment

I love to experiment. And am fascinated by numbers. I must, one day, take statistics. I think I would really like it. Anyway, I woke up on Christmas morning and decided to reach out and touch every one of my Facebook friends. I had noticed a lot of people posting a passive Merry Christmas and such like on their profiles. Others wishing others happy holidays on their walls. I decided to write each one of my facebook friends a somewhat personalized note. I didn't write all of my friends. I don't think the museum needs a note, or Paraclete Sky Adventures. And a few of my friends I am in such constant contact with, they didn't need them either. And one or two others might have been skipped by accident. I have discovered a few of those. Glaring exceptions when I noticed, but somehow, in typing out 280+ messages, I did find my mind blurring just a bit.

Here comes the experiment bit. I know that some people are rarely on Facebook, so I don't expect to hear from them. Others are on Facebook often, but I rarely hear from them. Others still are on Facebook all the time and I rarely hear from them. So, I wrote everyone and am seeing what kind of response rate I get.

I will admit, that I did drop a few people as I went through my list. And I will probably drop a few more from the latter two categories - people who are on Facebook often or all the time, and I never hear from them. Hearing from them is either getting a note from them or they post something on my wall or comment on something or like something that I commented on. That sort of thing. Some sort of acknowledgment that we are on the same page, so to speak.

I finished typing at about 12:30 Sunday morning. So far at 10:40 am, I have had 68 responses. Not too shabby. What is that, about one in three? I do hope to get to at least double digits by the end of Monday. After that, the ax falls on a few. I figure if they can't get their acts together by then, they aren't going to. I know, I probably ought to give it a week. We shall see...