A new addiction

This is what you get when you start browsing random Flickr streams - I was browsing a stream (from, apparently, the founder of del.icio.us - he had some screenshots of when they first started). I did some more surfing and found this picture of a program called "Within a Deep Forest."

I'd not heard of it and kind of assumed that it'd be one of those try to buy games, but as it turns out, it's a piece of freeware! :)

It's a puzzle game where you are playing the role of a bouncy ball and have to clear a bunch of stages. It's a very good game, and one that really makes you think (well, at least until you find someone on youtube who posted a video walkthrough of the game ;))

Although it is very addictive, if you know what you're doing or have found the videos, it does go by very quickly. If you're up for a challenge, it's a very small program that leaves no junk on your system, so feel free to delete it when you're done with it. :)

(Oh, did I mention that there's a program included called Secret Levels.exe? I haven't seen that yet, but I'm sure it's a good deal.)

Delving into the past...

As I was glancing through the Bumpzee Dofollow community RSS feed, I spotted a post that caught my attention (I found the update, but not the original in the feed, but nevertheless, I found the original ;)). It's a bit of fun and a great way to see how far we've come as bloggers. The challenge is to republish your first post from your blog.

My first post on a blog was about 8 years ago, and on a disk somewhere. I had made a page in HTML that I would update with a new post, and put up on my ISP webspace. The page was designed after that of a really, really old version of a site called Nickd. I've had a few other blogs between then and now, but this has been the longest-lasting and most consistently updated blog that I've maintained. Not ironically, this has also been the most successful blog I've had.

The first post on this blog was really a placeholder, mentioning that I'd be back with another post later on that same day. So, here are the first *two* posts from my blog:

1st post: Hey there!

Hi there! This is the first post in a new blog, if you hadn't noticed :-)

Hope you come back soon. I'll be having a roundup of the latest installment of Rockstar: Supernova up at around 9 pm Central Time (0200 GMT). Based on this week's reality episode, it could be interesting.

I then came back a couple of hours later with a recap of the reality episode for that week's Rockstar:

Rockstar - Week 7 Reality Episode

week 7 - reality episode

could the promoter be any more boring? I mean come on! That'll put me to sleep. Interestingly, it appears that they have the airshow installed in the plane as well.

Let's count the times we see Honda, the logo or anything else realted to honda - 3. at least.

Yo Zayra, your own stuff is only going to be in the Hard Rock Café if you leave it there; also, don't think you're going to be on that stage unless you're invited by someone you know personally...

Good on ya Dilana for making your case ;-)

hmm - one original song; and all acoustic

Gilby on Solsbury hill..and everyone wants to do it :D

This ought to be good...zayra doing an original :O

well, it will be somewhat different - she'll be screaming in spanish

toby - solsberry hill

No generic post saying that this is a Blogger or Blogspot blog with a comment from someone from Pyra labs called Mr. Blogger. ;)

Grilled Salmon & Veggies

Last week, we heard of a sale of salmon at one of the local grocery stores - they were selling whole fish at $1.99 per pound. These weren't your farm-raised Alaskan or Chilean salmon, but came in fresh from Lake Michigan in the back of a truck.

The only processing that was done before they came to the store was that they were gutted and had the scales removed. The folks they had there gave everyone the option of having fillets, steaks or a combination of both. We opted to go for the half-and-half option of steaks and fillets.

When we got home, we cut the fillets down further to cuts of about 1-inch or so, perfect for a single serve of fish. We also packaged each of the five steaks separately, freezing everything but two of the steaks. It was then my time to go in search of a recipe to make.

The one that I found - Grilled Salmon Steak - is a recipe that is easy to make; the only change that we made was substituting black pepper for white (after seeing that the white pepper was $3.59 for a small container). I went along with the instructions; one orange, and two limes and lemons were all that was needed to get the 1/4 cup amounts. I wasn't sure if they meant to cut the actual rind out from the flesh of the fruit, so I just put little slices of each item in there in place.

On the side, we had gotten some asparagus (also on sale $2.99 per pound), so I made that, along with a small zucchini picked fresh from the garden, using olive oil, lime juice, kosher salt, black pepper, thyme and garlic as the marinade for that.

As you may already know, we've switched from charcoal to gas for our grill, and I have to say that I'm now getting accustomed to the different flavor that you get from a gas grill. It's also so much easier to use compared to the charcoal - no need to worry about getting the paper lit for the coals, and there's hardly any waiting necessary for the grill to either heat up or cool down. I can totally understand now why gas is preferred to charcoal now. ;)

So, it was a quick 10-minute warmup for the grill, after which I put the salmon on to the grates, and put the vegies on a piece of aluminum foil over the other side of the grill.

After about 12 minutes or so of grilling, it was all done, and the salmon was nice and flaky. It was interesting trying to take the steaks off the grill with a pair of tongs - they fell apart, but luckily nothing fell between the grates. The vegies were also nice and tender, with some charring on them, but not a lot.

It all tasted excellent, though in hindsight, I would have just left the lime juice out of the asparagus and zucchini; we've always had it without, and it added a bit of unusual flavor to them, though it wasn't that bad.

Of course, here are the pictures, clicking on them will make them bigger -

The salmon, sitting in its marinade after an hour in the fridge.

The vegies in their marinade.

The salmon, just after putting it onto the grill; the white specks you see are the "grated" onions.

Just after flipping the salmon, you can see the wonderful grill marks on the fish ;)

Here's everything, just before being taken off of the grill and into the house.

It's never too early to think ahead

Note: This is a sponsored post.

I just turned another year older yesterday, and while it's at least another thirty or so years before I considering retiring, it's never too early to think about the day that I won't be here. I know it's something that I don't think about that often, but I know that it's going to happen one day. I also know that I will likely be involved in settling estates of my relatives in the future, which involves the world of wills and probate courts.

However, there are ways that you can possibly avoid having the estate brought through the lengthy and public probate process; the most common of which is setting up a living trust. Under the law, a living trust is a legal entity that holds your property as a guardian in case something would happen to you or someone else who is a part of the trust.

If you're in Arizona, you probably are already aware that there are many options available for living trusts, more so because of the state's status as a magnet for retirees to relocate. One of the premier firms in the state is Morris, Hall & Kinghorn; who have over 30 years of experience in the field of estate planning. They also have experience in handling issues important to an aging population, and can assist you with finding an attorney in your home state or for someone you love who is in another part of the country.

The most important thing, however, is to realize that it's never too early to begin planning how to handle your belongings and assets. It doesn't matter if you're 24, 34, 44, 54 or older; if you have someone you care about in your life, and are in Arizona, look into the services Morris, Hall & Kinghorn are able to provide to you at any age.

Why do you dress like that on a plane?

This week's Hump Day Hmm is a bit of a lighter topic. Take something and find the humor in it; write about it from a humorous angle, sarcastic, any way you want. There's still time to get involved, it's only noon on the east coast. ;)

Over the last couple of days, there have been a couple of stories about women being told that they're dressed too skimpily to fly on Southwest Airlines. It just doesn't make any sense to me at all.

While the passengers were totally within their rights to wear what they did (and there is nothing in the Southwest Contract of Carriage (PDF) that specifies a dress code), what I don't get is the circumstances they found themselves in.

Let's look at the first story. Kyla Ebbert was told to get off of a plane because she was wearing clothes that was "too revealing". Well, yeah, she was dressed in something that could be considered to be showing off her stuff - there's absolutely nothing wrong with that (and honestly, she looks pretty darn good in it). However, it just doesn't add up.

First off, she claims that she was flying from San Diego to Tuscon for a doctor's appointment. Is there a shortage of doctors in San Diego? Matt Lauer never bothered asking why she was flying interstate to see a doctor, and it certainly doesn't sound like her family lives in Tuscon. The next issue is the question of why in the world she was wearing these clothes to go to the doctor? This is the outfit in question -

I don't know about you, but when I go to the doctor, I try to wear something sensible - full length pants at the very least; it's not that difficult to do, and certainly not that much of an expectation for anyone. The story gets better though.

Apparently she has a really good doctor which she doesn't have to sit in the waiting room for very long as she had only 2 hours to see them before having to get back out to the airport to board her return flight. Therefore, she didn't get different clothes to wear for the return trip, and on this occasion, she was actually complimented about her clothes.

The second story involves someone called Setara Qassim. Although her episode happened before Ms. Ebbert's, she first came forward with her story after the first one aired on the Today Show. She was asked to cover up on a flight from Las Vegas to Burbank in June. In this case, she's wearing clothes that is less revealing than the first girl (and honestly, it doesn't look good on her), but still "felt the same way" that the other girl did.

It all sounds a bit fishy to me. Why did the second woman wait until after seeing the story on the news to make a point that the same thing happened to her? How come the station didn't wait a day to get a response from Southwest before going to air on the story?

The funny thing is that both of these women decided to get on the plane wearing clothes that just shouldn't be worn on a plane in the first place. In the second case, if it's true that she was asked to put a blanket around her for the flight, what would have happened if there was an emergency? Never mind the fact that she'd have issues with the clothes she had on in the first place, would the attendants still have the same hardline attitude towards her clothes when going down the slide?

Another strange thing is why anyone cared what they were wearing in the first place. It's not like any other passengers complained about their clothes (or so they claimed). Maybe it's just one old frumpy woman who had the issue with their clothes. Or a cranky old man. We'll probably never know the full story.

If you want a primer (not that y'all do need one, this is pointed at those who don't quite understand what to wear when flying) for what to wear, I recommend that you read Snoskred's guide to plane clothes. I guarantee that if you follow her guide, you'll never have to file a frivolous lawsuit against an airline for being told to cover up. ;)

Maybe they should recommend that if you have a dumb name like Kyla or Setara, you should pass up on flying? I don't know, but I have this feeling that if they were called Kylie or Sandra, there'd be no issue. Oh well....

Track Your Visitors with Google Analytics

One of the first things that bloggers do when they set up their blogs is set up some form of visitor tracking. A few of the more common trackers are Statcounter, Site Meter and Google Analytics.

Personally, I run all three counters on this blog, but mostly look at Statcounter's stats. It is useful to give me an overview of what is happening *right now* on my blog, and lets me see each individual visitor as they come into the blog.

Google Analytics is most useful to get an overview of your blog's trends, and it does not give you the information on individual visitors like most other counters do. There are a vast array of things that you can do with the data that Google Analytics picks up, but I'll explain some of the more common things that you can do.

Setting up the code

When you first start with Analytics, you will be sent through a seemingly lengthy sign-up process.

To start, you need to go to Google Analytics and sign in with your Google Account (if you don't already have one, you can sign up for one easily and for free).

You'll then be taken to the first page in the sign-up process. To move on, click Sign Up »

Then, you will be asked for some basic information about the page you wish to track - its address, the name you want to assign to the site, your country and your timezone. Click Continue » to proceed. In this example, I'll use the testing blog from a couple of weeks ago as the example.

Then, Google will ask you for your information. The only information that is required is the Country or territory. Again, click Continue » to move on.

The next step is reading through the Terms of Service. As always, be sure to read the whole thing, and if you're OK with the information that is being collected, how it is used, etc. Click Yes to agree to the terms, and then click Create New Account » to set your account up.

Now, you have to set up the tracking code in your blog. This does require you to have the ability to edit your template, and for you to use Javascript in your site. They recommend that you put the code right at the very end of your site's code, but you can place it anywhere on your page that you wish. Simply copy the code and place it in your blog's code. I won't show you how to do that here, but if you need assistance, let me know and I'll post about it. :)

After installing the code, you will be taken to the Analytics Settings page - here you will have access to all the sites you've set up tracking for; you can view the reports, edit settings, delete the tracker and check the status of your site's metering. When you first set up your site's code, the screen will look like the one below, with the status saying that the code is not verify. After you've installed your code and saved the page, you can click on Check Status to tell Google to check that the code is there.

This is the page that you will see after clicking on Check Status. When your code has been just put into your page, you will see that it is Waiting for Data. After about 24 hours, the staus will change to Receiving Data, and unless there is an error with your page, it will stay that way for as long as you have the tracking setup.

Exploring Your Data

So, now you've been receiving data for a while and want to do something with the data you're getting with your new tracker. This is really where the power of Google Analytics shows itself. This is also the point where I must depart from the testing blog and open the books of my own blog for you all to see, hehe ;)

When you go into the View Reports screen, you're taken to the Dashboard, where you are given an overview of the last month's activity on your site. An important thing to know about these reports is that in the default view, you will only see information through yesterday. However, you can change the date quite easily.

This is what the dashboard looks like -

The main graph is the number of visits. Below that, you will find six other types of data for your site. If you click on the links in that section, you will be taken to a page detailing that particular stat with daily breakdowns. The next four sections below that are movable. There, you see a pie chart detailing where traffic has come from for your site, a map of all of your visitors, a graph of the number of visitors to your site, and a list of the five most popular pages on your site.

To change the dates that you wish to look at for your stats, simply click on the date range in the upper right. This will bring down a calendar that allows you to click on the dates you wish to use for the stats. An additional feature that can come in handy is the Compare to Past checkbox. If you check that, you will be given a second set of dates. When you select a range of dates to look at with this option turned on, it will select the same amount of time previous to the period you selected to use. To confirm the date range, click Apply Range, and your stats will update to reflect the new timeframe.

Also, you can select dates by using the Timeline feature. You can drag the frame to move the dates you want to cover, and you can expand or contract to increase or decrease, respectively, the timeframe you want.

One of the most common things done by bloggers is to look at some of the unusual search terms that people used to get to their page. This is one of the best things about its ability to keep the data for thousands and thousands of visitors to your site - you can see all the keywords that have been used, and not just the ones from the number of visits or page views the counter is limited to.

To get to the list of keywords from the dashboard, click on Traffic Sources. That will bring you to the Traffic Sources Overview, which outlines where your traffic has come from. Here, you will see a list of the top five keywords that have been used to get to your site. To see all the keywords, just click on either "view full report" in the main section of the screen, or on Keywords in the left hand side.

On the Keywords report screen, you will see yet another line graph, showing you how many visitors came by via the use of keywords over your specified time frame. Along with that, you can see some statistics about the visitors which came in via keywords. Below that are the actual keywords; clicking on them will take you to a page charting that keyword's use over time.

The stats, from left to right are: total number of visits and percent of site total; Pages per visit; Average time on the site (the time that they had the site open); percentage of visitors who are new; and the bounce rate (percentage of visitors who viewed only one page and then left). These four have comparisons to the site average, with the percent difference between the site average and the average for that particular category.

For all the keywords, you can see the statistics for each category as well.

This is just one example of the information you can find using Google Analytics. My best advice would be to take some time and just have a look around. Below are all the different categories that you can look into with your Analytics account. There is almost no end to the information you can get.

How it all works in a nutshell

Basically, how most trackers work is by your browser having Javascript activated. When a page loads, it will see the javascript code and send the server information about your browser and system. Most of the time this will include your browser's information (as in the version you're running), your screen resolution, your Operating System, IP address, and the referrer.

Some counters do have code designed for users who have turned Javascript off, but you can never be sure that it does work for them.

Snoskred has a lot more on this in her companion post to this, but the reason that most of us do decide to run multiple counters on our sites is that they are notoriously unreliable. The count can vary widely from one to another, depending on the user's configuration, and how you've set up the code in your blog.

Further Reading
Google Analytics Official Blog
Unofficial Google Analytics Blog
27 Features that Make Google Analytics Best of the Breed
Google Analytics Tutorial on Squidoo

Previously in the Tuesday Think Tank
14 Reasons Readers Unsubscribe From Your Blog
Tuesday Think Tank: All About RSS
Blog Design - Open Your Eyes.
Demystifying Blogger Template Editing
Spam, Spiders And Do Follow, Oh My!
Say No! to Nofollow

Over to you

Have you used Google Analytics? What do you think about it? Do you prefer another counter such as Statcounter, or does GA do it for you? Let me know in the comments.

Also, if you like this post, feel free to Stumble It. ;)

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?