Virginia Breeze

I don’t understand a lot about SEO and this blog really isn’t too concerned about it.  As time goes on I find it more difficult to read due to the medication I take for RLS.  Restless Legs Syndrome.  And so trying to comprehend a text about SEO is difficult.

I like taking photos and enjoy editing them.  Writing doesn’t seem to be affected too much.  But if I sit down with a book I go to sleep after about three pages.  I used to love to read and I have a nice library so this is frustrating to some degree.

But it’s just the way life is. . . You go up and you go down.  You count your blessings and you deal with your problems. You take your meds and YOU will take them too when you need them.

So back to the SEO stuff.  What I DO understand is that linking to posts you find interesting is very important.  And I actually do that quite a bit.  I don’t buy the theory that you want to keep people on your blog so you don’t send them to interesting places.  I find this ludicrous and a lot like trying to collect water with a sieve.  Someone did some testing and found that you are better off showering your readers with interesting links.  Because they will come back for more!

Look at Drudge!  That’s all he does and he has made millions.

In the past we  have concentrated on the StumbleUpon stuff.  And that’s fairly temporary.  What we need to do is send links back and forth from relevant posts.

This is what will produce higher PR and in turn more search engine traffic.

Blogging is fun.  It’s even an entertaining conversation from time to time.

PR is important.  We went through a period where a lot of folks were saying it’s not.  But that was, in my opinion, a reaction to the fact that PR was being reduced on the blogs of a lot of these same folks.   PR helps us to reach out to a larger audience.

I await your comments.  And if I say that  you need  to “draw me a picture” don’t take it personally, alright?

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No physician is really good before he has killed one or two patients.  ~Hindu Proverb

Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.  ~Auguste Rodin

More Writing About Blogging

http://davidnotes.com/2008/05/20/blogger-and-huge-photos/

Today I did a lot of computer stuff and didn’t have much time to think about anything interesting. Because setting up computers to work well is not very interesting in my book. It involves trying to figure out why the computer which is supposedly a perfectly rational being of some sort acts in such perverse fashions. It’s almost as if it  was. . . . .human!

And I was almost like Henry VIII. Drop it out the window and go shopping for a new one. But that wouldn’t be a wise move and Beth would probably start thinking I was getting too near The Edge.

Well I have news for her pretty self. It won’t be computers that send me there. It will be Restless Legs Syndrome. Ten percent of the population have this scourge? I doubt it. Because that would mean that at least two percent of the population are jumping out of windows every night.

And unless someone doesn’t think that is a newsworthy event we can safely say no! That’s not happening.

But I do have a new idea in my ongoing quest to find ways to outsmart Mr. R. Legs Syndrome. I am going to have a stand next to my desk and put a wireless keyboard on it. Then when the RLS starts up I can stand up and type away without bringing this insidious stuff into play. One of the reasons I started blogging was to share my experience and (hopefully) some helpful tips about dealing with RLS since so many people have or will have it.

I need to work on my new “seating” arrangement in the morning. Because right now I cannot even continue this post.

Night. Night.

I have been wandering through the web this Sunday morning. It is peaceful so far around here and there is not much happening.  Zachary has apparently made it to Daytona, Florida  with Ashley for their vacation.  My daughter, Jena, and her family are moving any day to Northern Virginia.  My father is doing well up on Cape Cod.   I have three sisters in various locations across the United States but I must confess I do not know where all my nieces and nephews are these days.

I am a bad uncle.  I did find out recently that my nephew Mathew who is in the Air Force is stationed in the US Embassy in Berlin, Germany.  That’s pretty cool.  And I have another nephew Tom who is stationed in the Navy in Florida.  Do you know where all your nieces and nephews are located?  What about your spouse’s nieces and nephews?

Here’s my Exercise and Dieting Report for Week Number One.

And it’s brought to you by anything that doesn’t have a lot of refined sugar in it.  In other words I am still looking for an advertiser.

Just kidding.  We don’t have advertisers here. Because they are a pain and mostly freeloaders.  In my opinion of course.  Lots of folks love them.  Probably I would love them if they were sending me money.  But it always seemed like I was doing my part of the deal.  I was advertising them.  And they were. . .

Anyway.  In the first week I walked every day for about 45 minutes. And these walks included hills.  I discovered that it’s very important not to think at the beginning of the walk about all the streets you will be walking on and how hot it may be.  It’s better to focus on. . . nothing.  Or to listen to the wind rustling the tops of the trees.  We are fortunate to have large trees around here and they provide lots of shade.

Give me a choice between a large tree or an advertiser and i will pick the tree every time.  So the walks are going well and it pays to take one when you start to experience Restless Legs Syndrome.   If I take one every time I experience RLS it won’t be too long before I look like. . .

As you can see I didn’t take this photo. I have taken the vast majority of the photos in this blog.  Perhaps three or four are by others.  But I am interested in the sharing procedure and that is where I have been wandering this Sunday morning.  Until it’s time for the actual walk.

Here is a useful post I found on the subject from skelliewag

Flickr of course plays a central role in this subject.

And here is something else that I have incorporated into my methods.  It allows you to take a photo stamp of the photo you are using along with the Creative Commons License that determines whether or not you can use the photo.  Because we all change our minds from time to time.  And I can still prove I used it when it was legal to do so.

http://s1.imagestamper.com/login.jsp

My photos in Flickr are combined with a Creative Commons License.  I think it would be rather unfair if I put them in an All Rights Reserved status while using someone else’s photo.

NewsLink Briefs, one of my other two blogs,  will probably make more use of all this information.  Because I am still searching for the right combination of elements there.

PhotoLinkLove.com and Virginia Breeze.com (this blog) are pretty much settled in my mind.

For now.  You never know.  Trying to be creative means never having to say “I will do it this way forever”.

And now it’s time for the walk.  If I can fix a blog maybe I can fix the blob.

Gaining confidence and a willingness to try new things. . .    another one of those unheralded benefits of blogging.

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Today I had a medical physical and then spent the day trying to be more organized. And in the middle of all that I had an attack of Restless Legs (RLS). So when I look back on the day I feel like it was productive. But it wasn’t a fun day.

Do you ever have to wear those little gowns that tie around your neck and don’t really have a back to them? I hate those things. And then they have the AC going like a blast furnace in reverse. So you are freezing your little rear end off. Just sitting there on THAT table waiting for someone to drop by and EXAMINE you.

And then when this person walks in it is not the person you were expecting who has done it before. It’s a woman!

Actually that was a nice surprise. She was nice and I had to ask myself whether I would rather be examined by someone I didn’t really know who was a guy or a girl. And the answer came back. . . .

A GIRL! Woman actually. Health care professional with the XX chromosome. But she took my blood pressure and it was a little high. And it’s never been high. What’s that about?

It’s about geese!! They just walk out into the road in front of your car and they never look first to see if the coast is clear! They just go! And if you are coming down the road at fifty miles an hour when they do it well it’s up to you Jack to STOP THE CAR before there are goose feathers exploding all over your hood ornament.

So that happened right before I got to the medical center. Then it was fifty degrees inside. And then the other stuff happened. Who wouldn’t have slightly high blood pressure after that?

The rest of the day was basically cleaning my office organizing photos and jumping around with restless legs. Jordin Sparks was on So You Want To Be A Dancer tonight. So that was nice. Dinner was lovely. I talked to my son about getting the headlight in his car fixed and he didn’t react negatively.

Basically things went uphill after the geese tried to commit suicide on my car bumper and I got rid of the gown. I’m not really a gown person.

Even a really nice one would not be my cup of tea.

Here are a couple of photos from last weekend that turned out alright. Fireworks!! Don’t you love em. It’s fun trying to time the photo so you take it when the firework explosion is in full bloom.