This was the Week that Was, Vol. 12

I bet the mosquitoes are loving the rain we're getting today. It will make my walk interesting, that's for sure. It's also heading into fall, and as I write this, the temperature in my area is 55°F (13°C) - I might just try out the orange "Hello, I'm Walkin' Here!" shirt out today. ;)

Posts I liked -

• Meg from Dipping into the Blogpond has 7 reasons blogs are like Aversion Therapy
• From Cynical Dad, he and his wife have been named the world's worst parents for not reading over every piece of paper sent home by their kindergartener
• Thiru from How To Live Online has 15 super cool USB tools. I particularly like the belt ;)
• A couple from ProBlogger - first up, 27 bloggers share their workspaces - I have to say that I'm nto as organized as those folks are ;)


• Secondly, readers share their organizational techniques for blogging
• Knifey has a very, well, creepy look at some of the people in the world
• Lastly, the title of the New Indiana Jones film has been announced

New Blogs I'm reading in Google Reader - a couple of photoblogs this week

• Scenes from the Kinnickinnic
• Twin Cities Daily Photo
• Visual St. Paul

Great Stumbles -

• 100 reasons it's great to be a guy

To get started stumbling, go to StumbleUpon and download the toolbar. Click here to check out my Stumbles.

New blogs this week in the US Blogs community at BumpZEE -

• Freebie Fanatics
• Highlight HEALTH
• Tasty Booze
• Ask GirlShrink-Free Relationship Advice Column

This week around the blog, there were 822 visitors - the most on Tuesday, and a majority as a result of stumbled posts.

Keywords -

painted nipple picture scam 419 - I'd recommend the face painting modality myself - it's much more fun ;)
ben jabituya audio clip - Well, I don't know about you, but I am planning to scream and run.
jeepers creepers halloween masks for cheap costs - Here's an idea - a white sheet with a couple of holes cut into it for eyes and arms...a simple ghost.
watch the raiders of the lost ark online free - You could try YouTube, but I don't think they keep the clips up for too long

I posted this week about Issues of Value for the Hump Day Hmm, some new clothes that I bought and love. I also talked about how to remove nofollow from your blog in the Tuesday Think Tank. I also discussed my volunteering work.

Coming up, tomorrow I'll be talking about Google Analytics and why your counter doesn't pick up all the visitors you get to your blog. The Hump Day Hmm this week is open to talk about anything we wish. I'll have to have a think about what I want to talk about. ;) Other than that, I don't have a plan for this week, but I do have a couple of posts that I am working on that I might wind up posting this week. We'll see how it goes. :)

The Week in Walks, etc. Vol 7

Time to recap my week of walking, and set some goals for the week. As always, clicking on the pictures in the post will bring them up to 1024x768 size.
Monday, 3rd September

A view of some of the rolling hills of the park

Whoever said walking was a good way to clear the mind never walked during an active infestation of mosquitoes. Although I had bug spray on (Deep Woods Off - 25% deet), it didn't do anything to make the bugs any less tolerable. It took me getting all the way to the parking lot before I could have a chance to pause for more than a brief second and drink some water without having to deal with the bugs.

total distance - 7358 steps, 5.88km

Tuesday, 4th September

Maybe 1% of all the mosquitoes in the area

Well, on the radio today, they mentioned all the mosquitoes in the area. The reason they're all out there is because of all the rain we had a couple of weeks ago. It turns out that the rain has hatched mosquitoes which have been eggs for many years. Not only that, according to this article in the paper, they're expected to stick around for upwards of a month!

Ah well, we have a lot of bug spray, and I've been using it quite judiciously. However, it doesn't help the fact that they will fly up to me, touch my skin and then fly away. At one point, I looked down at my legs, and they were just swarmed in mosquitoes. Again, I decided to go up to the parking lot to get away from them, and wound up in the middle of soccer practice for the local community clubs. I probably lingered too long up there before deciding to start back into the flying haze.

As I was walking back, I made the decision to walk in the middle of the road - that way, I'd be at least 10 feet away from the areas where they were congregating. Luckily, it worked out reasonably well, as they did tend to stay away.

Total distance - 7162 steps, 5.72km

Wednesday, 5th September

The gate I walk around to access the park, from the other side of the road

It was another hot day, so I made the decision to go out later in the day again. And yet again, the mosquitoes were evil! However, I'm learning some new tricks to handle them though, such as spraying my whole shirt before I go out and walk - that way they don't bite my back. Of course, if it were about 15 degrees cooler, I'd wear a long sleeve shirt because the feeling of the mosquitoes going on and off of your body is just creepy!

While I was walking, I heard something. It was the sound of all the mosquitoes buzzing around out there, one of the most horrific sounds I've ever heard in my life, but that's just me.

Total distance - 7134 steps, 5.70km

Thursday, 6th September

Some leaves fall from trees that have already changed colors, aided by the breeze.

After I tried on my new shoes, I went for my walk. I had to walk earlier (a good idea with the mosquitoes), and I went around 2pm. The bugs weren't that bad at all, especially in an open area like the soccer fields - they were actually not bothering me constantly! It was almost amazing. I also did some exploration around the parking lot area, and consequently wound up walking a longer distance than I had ever done before.

Total distance - 7890 steps, 6.31km

Friday, 7th September

A flock of birds fly towards the sunset.

After coming back from volunteering, it was already later in the day when I first had the opportunity to walk. However, I first went out to walk at 7pm - which meant that it would be dark by the time that I'd get back. As it so happened, that did occur. I could see well for the first part of my walk, but as I was starting to head out of the park, I could not see anything in the forest. The only light I had was from my mobile phone, which I only used sparingly so that I didn't attract mosquitoes to the light.

When I got back out to the road, it was dark enough that you could see the lights from cars reflecting off of things. At one point, a car came along the road, and then I got dazzled by its lights; I was already over to the end of the road, but I almost fell over from the dazzling.

total distance - 7146 steps, 5.71km

Saturday, 8th September

A better view of some of the turkeys. :)

I walked actually during the daytime, but it would seem that the bugs were just as bad, if not worse than at night - it took about three minutes of being in the parking lot before the swarm cleared away from me. However, it was still a good day to walk, with a nice breeze blowing. I walked back and forth on one of the soccer fields before heading back out, and decided to cut back across some high grass, but that didn't take away too many steps from my walk; that'll help out to get me to the next step for walking.

Total distance - 7798 steps, 6.23km

Sunday, 9th September

A fawn in the field; first one I've seen while walking. When I heard it rustling the grass in the field, I thought it was just another rabbit, but then I saw it jumping, and knew it was something else. :)

Over the last couple of days, I've been doing something different - listening to music or today, listening to the radio. I started to do it on Friday because of the experience I had on Wednesday with hearing the swarming, and it's something that's got a bit of a calming effect on me, even though the mosquitoes are still there. Also, I am a bit more attentive to exterior noises such as cars and other things when I'm walking with the earbuds in.

Today, I walked along the parking lot and then walked across the soccer fields and cut across a bit of the disc golf course to head back out of the forest; the mosquitoes actually weren't too bad away from the forest again, like on Thursday.

Total distance - 7350 steps, 5.88km

The update for the GYST challenge; this is what I'm going to post on Craig's site - This week, I've really come together with the walking, even though we are being bombarded by mosquitoes. In fact, I exceeded my goal every day this week, travelling no less than 7100 steps per day. I've even managed to cross the next goal of 7500 steps twice. I've also met my goal for water each day, mostly through the use of an ingenious idea - a pitcher that holds about 1.5 liters. I'm also watching my diet carefully, and working on that as well.

In other news, I mentioned on Friday that I went to volunteer; I went and when I got done, I was tired - it's been over two years since I've put in a day's worth of solid work in. However, I did like doing it and am going to continue to go in on Fridays.

I also worked on the proposal that I've been mentioning. Right now, it's being mulled over, but apparently they've had something similar in the past, so there needs to be some contacting made on their end to find out the story behind that.

This week's goals include improving on my time management - it's something that I really need to work on, and am kinda bad at keeping track of.

I'll be back with the blog wrap up

I can listen to the races, but...

Folks who have been watching the Nascar races over the last couple of weeks in this area have had no problem seeing them. Well, except for the last four laps of the Busch race at Bristol.

As far as hearing the action, I just have not been able to adjust to ESPN's commentary crew - going into the season, there were somewhat high expectations, with them coming back after a six-year absence from Nascar coverage. It was expected that they'd have a high quality of coverage, but it just hasn't seemed to click.

My choice has been now to do the old trick that we all do in this area for football - listen on the radio and watch the pictures on TV. By doing this, you generally get a better idea of what's going on with the whole field instead of just the drivers the director decides to cover - and that's usually a choice of: the leader, the points leader, or Dale Earnhardt Jr.

The problem is that over the last couple of weeks, the races have been at night. This means that it's nearly impossible to find a good signal for the races, as one station that broadcasts races during the day is a daytime-only station and hand over the broadcast to a weaker station that's hard to get during the day, and the other station goes down to something like 250 watts.

Last week, I wound up listening to WSM radio. From Nashville, which is about 800km (500 miles) in a straight line from where I am, mostly because I couldn't get the FM station that is covering the race in clearly.

Luckily tonight, I can get the FM station (even though it is somewhat staticy) from about 50km (30 miles) away. At least there I can hear all the restarts... ;)

If you're interested in following the discussion of the race broadcast, you can visit The Daly Planet.

Volunteering my services

I'm actually not here when you're reading this; I'm off volunteering with one of the many organizations in the area that are in need of volunteers. I don't know what I'm going to do today, but it could be any number of tasks in the office.

The story of getting to this point, however, is one that has been long in the making. It was first recommended to me to volunteer back in November. I looked at a couple of opportunities, but didn't pursue any of them - I made excuses as to why I didn't do it, but the most reasonable explanation is that I wasn't ready to commit to something new.

Then we get to July, eight months having passed and I'm still in my comfort zone. If you've been reading for a while, you'll know the full history, so I'll just focus on my volunteering.

I was looking around for opportunities in an area that would be easy for me to get to without inconveniencing my mother, and without having to pay for transportation to get there, because I'm cheap and all.

Searching the volunteering website for a neighboring county, I found an opportunity at an office that sounded interesting. I look at the address, put it into google maps and find out that it's a very convenient spot - so convenient that I can walk there.

So, I emailed the person in charge of volunteering. A couple of days go by and I don't hear anything, so I then call the office and leave a voicemail. Yet again, I don't hear anything back, but that didn't stop me.

I called yet again, and finally got through to the person in charge, told them who I was and that I was interested in volunteering. They led me through what I would be doing, that I'd have to fill in a form, and that I can bring it with me the first time I go to volunteer or that I can fill it out when I go for the first time. I decided that I'd fill in the form before I got there, so it was picked up for me.

Then, I picked a day to go volunteer (it was a Thursday the first time), called the office and confirmed that I'd be there from x to y time; this caused a bit of confusion with my mother who though that I was only going to go there and drop off the form, not actually put in a stint at volunteering. However, I explained how it worked and everything went well.

Thursday comes around, and I head down there, and walk into a meeting taking place in the lobby of the building. There's no better way to introduce yourself to the office than by jumping in during a meeting which was just wrapping up. :)

Then, I was given the basics of what I'd have to do when I came in (signing in and out, etc) and given another form to sign which basically says that I will keep what I see to myself.

After that, I got the 5-cent tour of the offices and got to see all the amenities they have, including a full kitchen with stove. I then got to work with my assigned employee (who nicked me from another employee ;)).

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I have a tendency to be a bit of a pedant, so the job I got fitted perfectly with me. It was alphabetizing items and sorting ones of the same nature by date.

To a lot of people, this might seem like tedious work, but for me, it was quite enjoyable. The person I was working with thanked me about ten times for the work I was doing, and it made me feel pretty good. I have to say that the four hours flew by without me even noticing. Towards the end of my stint, I made the comment, which was agreed with, that by volunteering, I could turn it into a full-time job. :)

After I left and started walking over to the car, I was really beaming and feeling good for myself, and the first thing that I did was texted Snoskred and told her about what I did. Of course it was 6am down there, so I didn't get a reply until she came around later in the day, but she was the one who kicked me into doing this, however, it had to come from me to make it work.

That happened, and it has worked out. Now, I'm going to try to set aside each Friday for volunteering there, all day. All it takes is to call ahead, or to tell them as I'm heading out of the office when I'll be there next.

If you've volunteered, what has your experience been?

No Shopper's Remorse for me today

I haven't mentioned it here, but recently I got a voucher to an online clothes store which caters to folks who are more my size. A couple of hours ago, I heard the door open, followed by the sound of something being put on the floor. I went to investigate, and it turns out that my package had arrived!

Now, I knew it would come today, but I expected it to first get here at 5pm or later, so getting it at 1:30 was a pleasant surprise.

Here's what I got:

From the left, a fleece windbreaker/light jacket (which is very roomy and will be really nice to walk in during late fall and winter), a pair of winter boots (fleece lining, fit nicely, made in Canada), hiking shoes, and a pair of pants which I haven't tried on yet.

As I hadn't taken my walk for the day before the stuff came, I put on the hiking shoes and they fit perfectly. In fact, you know how shoes usually require a bit of time to break in? These didn't need that time - they were great to walk in. In fact, I took a longer walk than I had before, but more on that Sunday. ;)

I also tried one of the boots on and I can tell you now that they will be lovely during winter.

Tomorrow, I should be getting another parcel delivered. It's like my birthday has come early. Well, not really early, since it's on Tuesday.

Issues of Value

This week's Hump Day Hmm is about values. This is timely due to the situation that Senator Craig from Idaho finds himself in. To be honest, I hadn't heard of him at all until this all came about; partly because he's from way out west, but also because he just doesn't have that high of a profile in the Senate.

However, the question of his treatment in the media is certainly an interesting one. For years now, the Republicans have been campaigning as the supporters and defenders of "traditional" values. Because of this, you now have a situation where, if someone who is a Republican winds up in a situation like Senator Craig's, they are completely vilified.

The closest comparison that I can draw is when the former Governor of New Jersey, Jim McGreevey (Democrat) came out of the closet a couple of years ago. When that happened, it was seen as a moment that should be celebrated, with him and his wife (they're now separated however) appearing on various TV shows up and down the dial. The coverage couldn't have been more different.

The discussion of values obviously goes beyond one's sexual preference, into what you believe and what you tolerate. It used to be that you could have your own beliefs and values and have the right to belong to whatever groups you wanted to. Now, it seems that if you are part of one group, you must subscribe to all of that group's beliefs.

Again, in the world of politics, it is considered to be almost taboo to be a pro-choice Republican or a pro-life Democrat. That doesn't mean that there have been, are, and will be successful exceptions to the rule, but the chances of that happening are becoming slim. I am sure that if one of the exceptions made it to the running for a national office, they would have attack ad after attack ad questioning their "values".

I personally feel that your values are yours alone; they should be influenced by your experiences and those of the people around you. They shouldn't be dictated to you by a person you've never met, or by a sheet of paper handed to you when you sign up for something.

Another example is that all around the country, you're seeing these votes come up to institute constitutional bans on same-sex marriages. In my state, we voted on it last November. I voted no because I didn't think we needed to have a constitutional amendment to reinforce something that was already clear as day in the laws of our state.

However, the people who were saying to vote yes to this measure were saying that if you voted no, it would mean that the day after the election, you'd have people clamoring to get the laws of the state changed to allow same-sex marriage.

The bit that really tipped me off to voting no on this measure was that it was a very confusing and opened the door to preventing unmarried straight couples of having the same benefits as married couples (such as living trusts and will executorships, of which I'm not totally clear of the laws on, so I might not be qualified to talk about it ;)). This is the text of the amendment:

[Article XIII] Section 13. Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state.

The second sentence is the part that created a lot of confusion. If you read it with the widest understanding, it could be conceived to block these benefits and privileges to all unmarried couples.

The really interesting thing is that although the polls were showing it was going to be a close fight, it passed comfortably at 60-40. Even though I was against the amendment, I can accept that it passed and that it is now part of our constitution. In fact, since the election, you haven't heard anything further about this causing trouble for unmarried couples, so I guess you could almost say that it didn't change anything, except reinforce the laws we already have.

Here's where some people could get confounded by the fact I voted against it. I am to the right of center on the political spectrum. I believe that the government shouldn't be getting in the way of personal business, and that they shouldn't be forcing new regulations down our throats. I also believe that, when it comes to the "big" values question - abortion - there are a lot of choices that are made on the path to choosing whether or not to terminate a pregnancy. I don't like the idea of aborting a pregnancy, but I do think that if the mother-to-be decides that it is best for her, for any reason, to end the pregnancy, she should have the right to do that.

I know it is a touchy subject, but if you wish to share your outlook on it, or on anything I've mentioned, please do so. ;)

Lastly, on the topic of exceptions to the rule, once again, The West Wing did this wonderfully with the election at the end of the series. They made the election between two pro-choice candidates, one a Republican from California and the other a Democrat from Texas. I don't like to spoil the show for y'all, but if you have the chance, watch an episode from the final season called "The Al Smith Dinner" - it confronts the challenges of a pro-choice Republican running for national office.

Say No! to Nofollow

One of the most controversial subjects in the world of blogging recently has been the growth of the use of something called "nofollow". However, there are ways to remove it from most parts of your blog.

The short story on nofollow is that it was created a couple of years ago by some of the folks at Google in an effort to prevent spam sites from getting legitimate value from a link left on another site. The primary example of this comes from comments left on blogs, a known target for spammers.

What makes nofollow so controversial is that, while it does prevent the spammers from reaping any benefit from their comment in the way of increased pagerank, it has the unintended consequence of not allowing other bloggers who leave legitimate comments on blogs the right of having the link made when they post the comment recognized by the search engine spiders as existing.

Therefore, a movement has come forth to stop the use of nofollow on blogs, through a variety of ways - most commonly for Bloger users is by removing the code from your template.

An important distinction should be made between the nofollow tag and other forms of instructions to robots. The nofollow tag only tells a robot to ignore the fact that the link exists - it can still go to the site, but the link will not count.

Removing nofollow

For almost all bloggers, it is relatively simple to remove nofollow from your blog. About the only system (that I know of) where you cannot remove nofollow from your blog at all is if you're on wordpress.com. The reason is that you need to use a plugin to remove nofollow and if you're on wordpress.com, you are not allowed to install plugins beyond what you are given by Wordpress itself.

On other platforms and sites, check below.

Blogger

In Blogger, it is relatively simple to remove nofollow from most of your blog. It is important to note that when you do remove nofollow, it is not removed from all aspects of your blog. The areas where nofollow will still exist are blogger comment pages (the page where you actually leave a comment), and any links within comments.

There is no way that I know of to remove nofollow from those two areas (for the first, I don't expect there ever to be a way devised since it is a page created and served by Google). If you do know how to remove nofollow from posted links in comments, leave me a comment ;)

To remove nofollow, you will need to go into the Edit HTML screen of your blog's dashboard, by going into Template -> Edit HTML

Then, the first thing that you need to do is save your template. It is unlikely that you will make a catastrophic error, but it is always advisable to back it up, just in case.

The next step you need to do is to click Expand Widget Templates.

After that, if you have Firefox 2.0+, this is really easy; other browsers, you will have to dig through the template to find it. I'll give you a pointer to where they are located though (the two occurrences are not that far apart actually).

Search in your template for nofollow - the first appearance should be in the comments section, in a tag that starts <a expr:href='data:comment.authorUrl; …. After that, you will find the first "rel='nofollow'". delete that, and then you can move on.

The next part of your template that will have nofollow is in the backlinks section. The text to look for this time is "<a expr:href='data:backlink.url'…. As with the comment section, simply delete "rel='nofollow'" from the tag.

Now, you can go ahead and save your template. Now, your commentators will be able to leave a link with their name and have it recognized by the spiders. :)

WordPress

There are a number of plugins that are available which remove nofollow from your independently-hosted WordPress blog (again, if you're on wordpress.com, you cannot remove nofollow since you cannot install plugins). I have only tried out one - Lucia's Linky Love, and it is a very comprehensive plugin.

You are able to control how many comments a person has before their name has nofollow removed, how many comments they must make for links left in the comments to be made dofollow, and lots more. However, it is slightly more complex than the other solutions.

See below for some alternative plugins to remove nofollow from your blog.

TypePad

I've never used TypePad (mostly because they require you to pay at least $4.95 per month for basic services), but there is a way to remove nofollow from your blog. You can read up on how to remove Nofollow in TypePad Comments, but if you're not hooked up with at least a Pro ($14.95 per month) account, you won't be able to do anything.

Movable Type

Again, I've not used MT, but it is a very common system to use for blogging. You can remove nofollow from your blog by reading about Disabling “nofollow” on Movable Type 3.3.

Making links Nofollow manually

There are some circumstances when you will want to set links as nofollow on their own. For example, when I was talking about paid comments on my blog, I linked to the sites in question, but made them nofollow. You will have your own sites and reasons for making them nofollow, but here is how to do it:

When you're making a link, instead of just leaving the link code as this -

<a href="linky">link text</a>

add "rel="nofollow"" after the "href" segment of the code, for example -

<a href="linky" rel="nofollow">link text</a>

What can I expect after I remove nofollow?

For the most part, you will not notice any difference between your blog before taking nofollow off, and after. However, if you do make it known that you have removed nofollow, you do open yourself up to receiving spam from paid commentators.

A paid commentator will go around a list of blogs which have taken nofollow off and leave comments which are quite generic, but on-topic enough to not raise a lot of suspicision. In the name field, where you would leave your blog's address, they leave the address of the blog (or website) they are advertising for.

Having said that, there are a lot of cool things that you can do with your blog after removing nofollow. If you're a member of Bumpzee, you can join the No Nofollow | I Follow | DoFollow Community. You can also put up one of the neat badges that are available, in order to signify that you do follow links now. Most importantly, you can let your readers know that you've made the decision by posting about it.

Further Reading

As always, there are tons of great resources on this matter out there to read. These are only a few of the better ones. :)

- Ultimate List of DoFollow & Nofollow Plugins - Banish Nofollow From Comments and Trackbacks - this is a list of almost all the plugins that you can use to remove Nofollow from your blog, along with instructions for other platforms
- Removing Nofollow from Blogger Styled Layouts - the "original" when it comes to directions on removing nofollow from a Blogger blog.
- Official Google Blog: Preventing comment Spam - this was where nofollow was first announced. Google all say that it has had a positive reaction, but take a look at the links below the article...
- 11 Reasons against nofollow - nonofollow.net gives 11 great reasons why we should not be using nofollow.
- Spam, Spiders And Do Follow, Oh My! - in the companion post to this, Snoskred discusses the ramifications of nofollow on you, as a reader, and as a blogger who interacts with your readers.

What do you think? Is it right that some bloggers are stuck with nofollow and no way to change it? Should it be easier to remove the function from blogs by making it a simple option in a blog's control panel?

If you've liked what you've read, feel free to stumble the post, or to make a note of it on your own blog. :)

This was the Week that Was, Vol. 11

Even though it's a holiday here in the States (Labor Day), that doesn't mean that I don't have a TW3 ;)

Posts I liked -

• From Cut the Bullshit, a summary of just some of the myriad of restrictions placed on Sydneysiders for this week's APEC meetings
• Craig Harper does a great ad for bein' a guy. It's a bit of fun from the
• From Duncan's Print, an ad from Animal Care & Control of NYC, featuring mug shots of pets currently in their shelters
• From Google Operating System, the revelation of a flight sim in Google Earth

New Blogs I'm reading in Google Reader; a couple of foodies this week ;)

• 101 Cookbooks
• Lunch In A Box: Building a Better Bento

Great Stumbles:

• The ultimate rejection letter
• How to hide an airplane factory during a war
• Color photos & stories about World War I

To get started stumbling, go to StumbleUpon and download the toolbar. Click here to check out my Stumbles.

New blogs this week in the US Blogs community at BumpZEE. We're up to 100 blogs in the community now! Way to go everybody! :) -

• Net Hustlin' (URL Change)


• Kingdom Concepts


• CEOConsultant.com

This week around the blog, it has been the busiest week ever around here - with 752 visitors, mostly coming from two stumbled posts - Demystifying Blogger Template Editing, and Tuesday Think Tank: All about RSS.

Keywords -

supermarket cugat - I forgot to mention this one last week. However, if you're looking for supermarkets, I'd try the phonebook. If you're looking for Cugat - try clicking here
don.stella@yahoo.de - That is why I post examples of the death threat emails. Folks search for parts of the email, and get led to here where they find out that the mail is just a way to lose money.
teaching raiders of the lost ark - I'm not sure how you would teach it, but I have seen a leaked image from the new movie, in animated form. It's from yesterday's FoxTrot. I'll post it at the bottom of the post :)
aspartame complicating crohn's disease - I don't know if it actually does, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did
blogger robots disallow hack search - I don't know if they've blocked hack searches, but I do know that they've blocked robots from seeing parts of your blog...

This week, I showed you how to add a Google search box to your site, discussed back-to-school shopping lists, tried to get a free promotional offer, but the company lost a customer, and shared another example of the extremes scammers go to in order to swindle people's money.

Coming up, tomorrow I'll talk about nofollow, and how to eradicate it from your blog (for the most part); this week's Hump Day Hmm is about values - what do they mean today, why do politicians make such a big stink about it, and why it shouldn't be wrong to be different from the rest of the group. I'll also have some various posts about the usual stuff - random stuff in my world, and tech stuff.

Here's yesterday's FoxTrot -



Till next week y'all!

The Week in Walks, etc. Vol 6

Monday, 27th August

A couple of large mushrooms growing along the path.

There were some storms Sunday, so there was a touch of trepidation, not knowing if there is any other damage out in the park. As it turned out, there was minimal new damage. The only thing that I spotted was a tree that had snapped in two, but the part that had snapped off was just sitting over a path, and in not much danger of falling. I took the regular route.

Total Distance - 4955 steps, 3.96km

Tuesday, 28th August

A bird sits perched on a branch of a pine tree. I did try some up-close shots, but those were blurry, and by the time I set the camera to a faster shutter speed, it had flown away.

Hot hot hot could describe the day; it was somewhere in the range of 30°C, with high humidity. However, it wasn't too bad to walk in that weather as there was a nice breeze blowing, depending on where I was. While I was heading around the path, a dog came up behind me; its owner was over on another part of the path. I went on the reverse regular route.

Total distance - 5043 steps, 4.03km

Wednesday, 29th August

For the first time since I started walking, I gave up. Yep, I couldn't do it.

Nah, I'm just kidding. :) It was raining really hard, and I had gotten myself a little way down the road when I realized that the camera's batteries had died. I could have just gone ahead and went on without the camera, but I decided to go back, change out the batteries, and also devise a couple of systems - keeping my pants relatively dry, and stopping the umbrella from dripping through to me.

The solutions were somewhat ingenious - I used some clothespins to clip the pants together, and a piece of plastic wrap worked for the umbrella problem. As it turned out, in heading back, I managed to get into a better slot for the weather, as the rain had slackened off a bit from when I first went out. I took the regular route, without the diversion.

I really like how this picture came out - if you enlarge it, you can see that I've managed to capture some of the falling rain in the picture (which is part of the reason there's a bit of motion blur ;))

Total distance - 5665 steps, 4.53km

Thursday, 30th August

A view of the sunset over the trees in the area.

It was a fairly busy day around the house, so I didn't get a chance to get out to walk until around 7pm. However, unlike last week, I took along a flashlight, but I really didn't need to use it since the sun was out causing there to be some more light. I also walked a little quicker than I normally do, so I was out for less time. I took the regular route. As I was coming back out of the park, I spotted a rabbit, which scared the heck outta me, and then there was a dog that went after the rabbit. I don't believe it caught the rabbit though, and eventually it ran back to its owner (who I didn't ever see).

Total distance - 5128 steps, 4.10km

Friday, 31st August

I left y'all hanging there, just mentioning the caboose. As it happened, the train that was going through is called "Artrain USA". I'd not heard of it, but it certainly sounds interesting. It's headed towards Iron Mountain, MI for an exhibition in a couple of weeks. While I was walking, they were doing some inspection or other work on it; I didn't have my scanner with me so I'm not totally sure.

All I know is that when I was coming back, the train was still there, so I had an opportunity to snap some more pictures ;) I went along the normal route once again.

Total distance - 5494 steps, 4.39km

Saturday, 1st September

A plane flies over the area; I think they were doing some training exercises (i.e. pilot training, not any other kind) as a couple of times, I heard the motor engage after flying; as if they were trying to stall the engine on purpuse.

You'll start to notice a difference in the distances now. I'm challenging myself to walk longer distances every day, ultimately building up to doubling my current walking distance to 8km a day. I walked a new route around the park, and the disc golf course, combining bits of the regular and the long route.

Total distance 5877 steps, 4.70km

Sunday, 2nd September

Some of the trees have started to change colors now; it should be fall colors anytime now ;)

For the second time this week I've had to stop walking to get something.

However, this time, it was slightly less complicated as I just called back to the house for some bug spray. When you see the swarm of mosquitoes coming for you, this becomes a very good idea. ;)

When I had the bug spray, it was a very peaceful walk again, as I continued experimenting with new routes to take to get myself up to 5km of walking. This involves taking the long way around corners and curves, going around obstacles I'd just walk through, and a variety of other options. I've even figured out areas where I can pick up more distance as I up the length of my walks.

Total distance - 6324 steps, 5.05km

In other news, I did not have the opportunity to go volunteer this week, as the office I go to was actually closed on Friday. However, I already have my appointment set to go volunteer on this Friday.

Also, as I've mentioned, we've gotten a lot of work done around the house; today and tomorrow we're canning some tomatoes for the winter, since we got a bushel from our local supplier.

This week, I'm starting the Get Yer Shit Together challenge - my goals are to double the length of my walk in 4 weeks, watch my eating, and to drink 3-4 liters a week. This week, my goal is to walk 5km each day, and add a klick each week.

Another death threat

Back in May and June, I talked about a death threat I got from one Don Jutolio Chichi, directed at one of my "famous" scambaiting characters.

The other day, I received another threat - again from Nigeria - aimed at one of my more "anonymous" characters. As with the Don Chichi email, if you do receive a mail like this, just delete it. There is nobody coming for you - they do not have your address, and the whole aim is to get you to send money for protection from this nonexistent person.

This is the first mail that was received -

Subject: Leave Or Die

Friend,


It is important we come to a conclusion now or never because, I have been hired to kill you, this is the simple fact and I have been paid well for this job to be sincere with you, I have your full data’s, from your name, to your address, to your phone numbers including this email address. I watch you everyday since the past two weeks and I know where you go and when you come back and everything you do. Do not dare me, I am a born killer, which is what I do to survive, I was born and brought up in Mexico.


Never the less, I do not want to kill you, reasons best known to me, only if you will comply with my ransom and I will let you go and even send you the pictures of the person in charge (Who Paid me to kill you) including a very important video tape that you might need.


NOTE: No Police. Ignore this message if you wish to die, I give you 5 days to comply or I will come for you. I am presently on another assignment. You have your choice.


Don. Stella
(No Traces)
Reply to: don.stella@yahoo.de

Now, I didn't reply to him, but three days later, he sent another message:

Subject: Home Address

Dear Friend,


It is important we come to a conclusion now or never because, I have been hired to kill you, this is the simple fact and I have been paid well for this job to be sincere with you, I have your full data’s, from your name, to your address, to your phone numbers including this email address. I watch you everyday since the past two weeks and I know where you go and when you come back and everything you do. Do not dare me, I am a born killer, which is what I do to survive, I was born and brought up in Mexico.


Never the less, I do not want to kill you, reasons best known to me, only if you will comply with my ransom and I will let you go and even send you the pictures of the person in charge (Who Paid me to kill you) including a very important video tape that you might need.


NOTE: No Police. Ignore this message if you wish to die, I give you 5 days to comply or I will come for you. I am presently on another assignment. You have your choice.


Don. Stella
(No Traces)
Reply to: don.stela102@yahoo.de

Notice that between the two emails, the only difference is that the reply-to address has changed, from don.stella@yahoo.de to don.stela102@yahoo.de. This is a definite sign that they are not legitimate, as anyone can go get a yahoo email address. Everything else is the same, including the computer that he sent the email from, which is still in Nigeria.

Also, notice that he claims to be from Mexico but is using a German email address. These scammers are known for using email addresses in any language; in fact, some of the most common scam addresses are from Yahoo Hong Kong, and more recently, Yahoo China.

If you have received this mail, feel free to leave a comment, or to email me using the link at the right of the page.