Virginia Is For Families

Beth and I went downtown this past weekend to hang out at the Irish Festival near St. Patrick’s Church on Church Hill. It was a warm day and there were crowds aplenty enjoying themselves as they tried to get from one side of the street to the other by burrowing through some of their neighbors.

I can do this for about an hour before I start to get really, really tired and cranky. Having a camera in my hand does tend to prolong my participation in these kinds of events however. Beth was happy to find a present or two and some Brunswick stew. I don’t wait in lines to buy food (at least until the next depression). But I did get some photos!

(There’s a photo here of St John’s  Church where Patrick Henry gave his  famous speech. )

On a separate and unrelated subject I have deep-sixed the Keyword Luv plugin. I did this for a variety of reasons and none of them will make sense to some of you.

But what else is new?

Basically I feel like KWL is messing up my  entire blogging experience and my blog as well.  It draws comments based on its existence here and what it does.   It’s like free advertising.  Most of the comments drive me crazy because they are so transparently fake.

And here I am trying to create a blog that is moves to a deeper level of human feeling.  It hopes to visit our common humanity once in awhile.   So why would I encourage these comments?   My mistake.

And what must Google think?  It is trying to create search results  based on genuine interest and not commercial gimmicks.  My stats don’t look that impressive since I installed this thing and there is a gradual decrease in monthly visits.  Could there be a connection?  I don’t know but I guess we will find out.

The bottom line is that I’m losing interest in posting and wondering why?   The combination of falling stats and inane comments may be two of the biggest reasons as I try to introspect about this issue.

Beth and I will be going to Virginia Beach and Washington DC in a week or so and there will be some better opportunities to post.   I’m hoping that the vacation plus  the goodbye party for KWL will reinvigorate my desire to blog.

And, as always, I will share my thoughts and feelings here.  Because that’s what this blog is supposed to be about.  It’s a personal blog and a diary of sorts with lots of photos.

I need to do a better job and stick to the mission.

Click on the thumbnail photo to enlarge and for a slide show

St patrick day

, originally uploaded by Davidlind.

When we were up in Washington I was impressed by the bridges we passed through on our way to the zoo. Some of them are quite grand. This one had a shiny orange/red interior.

I don’t know if this photo is any good or not. But I like it. So here it is.

Also. . .I wrote in a recent post HERE about a different strategy to increase readership involving increasing Page Rank by internal post linking.

Example:   Bernie has written some very encouraging things today here at VB.  You can see in the comments here that he feels this photo is alright.  I appreciate that very much because I really didn’t have a clue.  I just “thought” it looked interesting.

I’m going to add some NextGen stuff about bridges we saw as we drove along this route.  One of them I think is really cool.  Can you tell which one?

I went over to Bernie’s to see what he was doing and he also is fooling around with bridges!  What a coincidence!   So here is the Link to Bernie’s Bridge.  . .

http://sindianavisions.wordpress.com/2008/10/17/madison-indiana-sunset/

If we are going to be successful bloggers  (and I believe we are going to succeed) we need to try new things and find new ways to grow.

I guarantee you that this post will be gathering readers who will shoot over to Bernies Bridge long after a StumbleUpon link has fizzled out. I feel like we were seduced by SU in the early stages of our blogging experiences.   “It’s all about Plastic” as Mr. Robinson used to say.  (But Mrs Robinson had a different story).   Don’t get me wrong.  I like SU a lot.  But I understand now why it’s not really there to promote individual blogs.  It promotes cool posts.  Growing a blog requires a helping hand from Google.

Because links like these help to increase PR and Google is a LOT bigger than StumbleUpon.  See?

[Show as slideshow]

 

I’m in the Chesterfield Mall this morning.  The dining court has a high peaked roof and all the sound bounces around up there.  I just tried calling Beth and we had a somewhat unsatisfactory conversation because of bouncing sound.  But the WiFi seems to be working well.  Come on by if you are near here and look for the guy in the plaid shirt typing away at a table with uneven legs.  It’s difficult to type on a wobbly table.  But they fixed up the bathrooms.  Stellar B rooms.  Hoping everyone will decide the Mall is too nice to pass up even if you pay more for some things.

Look for the guy who is going to throw a chair in a minute if the table doesn’t stop wobbling.  It’s all about the details guys.  Fix the tables!

I’m not well this morning.  My stomach feels iffy.  And my brain is sleepy.  And I’m convinced most of the readers who write comments here have gone for good.  Because I’m such a poor conversationalist.  This makes me sad.  I’m sure there a few of you guys and girls still around.  Hopefully.  But some of you have run out of comments.  And that’s my fault.  I guess.

But there are many more readers here who I don’t know.  Google is up to about fifty percent now after falling to zero this past summer.  Or just about zero.  A little misunderstanding.

But no one was terminally misunderstood.  We patched things up.   And now there are thousands of keywords doing their thing.  So the blog is well.  But the blogger is sick.  And his commenters are gone.

It’s a mixed bag.  But this dining court must be for crazy people like myself because all the music and the conversation are mixed together up in the pitched roof and then bounced back down here.  It’s like ease dropping on a telephone  trunk cable.  You can’t really make anything out but it’s all there.  And I would be much more comfortable sitting at home in front of my computer.

Maybe it’s time for a Hagan Das milkshake.  I was successful in my quest to buy my lovely daughter who must not be named a birthday present.  Soon we will head up to the Northern Virginia to see her and the family and the new home.  Leesburg.

It’s supposed to be nice.  I’ve never been there.  But I have to go.  I can’t stay here.  It’s too confusing.

Update:  I’m going to read this ebook.  Maybe learn to be a more skilled conversationalist.  Craig Ferguson is my role model when it comes to being good at this.  He is awesome.  He can have an interesting conversation with a rock.

Maybe this book will help.

Make the leap from writing in the offline world to effective online communication.

Bye.

Views per week/ Virginia Breeze

Views per week/ Photo LinkLove (little brother)