blogging

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Stats

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Lately, for like the last month, my stats have gone down.  I have been only getting about 80% of the viewers I used to get.  So imagine my surprise when yesterday was my best day since June.  Well I looked at my searches and could see what was bringing all the people here so I made a post to address it.  it turned out to be my all time best day on this blog statistically speaking, beating my previous high day by 50%.  And it's only 9am EDT (-5 zulu) and already I'm on track to blow yesterday away.  This is 3 times more readers than I get on an average "good" day. I am truly astonished by this phenomenon, look at my stat graph.

My statistical jump

Also, thanks to wordpress.com for hosting me.  I'd be freaking out if I was having to pay for this bandwidth.  Even though it's probably not that much, relatively speaking, I'd be freaking out.

Two Posts I'm Recommending

I don't do this often, but today i'm reccommending blog posts by other people. First and shortest, read Adam's blog post about tithing.  It's good and not too preachy.

Then read this post by Dr. Reid.  At the end he recommends this song which I have seen posted by several people over the last few months.  It never connected with me until I read this post.

Here's the video:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqQhZKpZVCo]

I should have a regularly scheduled post for you tomorrow.

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What You People Are Looking For (July edition)

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This is 4 days early, but the 1st is Friday and I don't want it to conflict with best web junk for the week, so I decided to go ahead & post it. Here are the searches for July.  I now have 81 posts with 255 tags, so this list keeps getting broader.  This is not all of the searches, most are pretty normal and the stuff you would expect.  I do, however, think you will notice a trend in this list.  Remember I don't edit this list at all, I just cut & paste the ones I think are interesting.  The spelling and craziness goes to the searcher.

  • peach tree loaded
  • prop up peach tree branches
  • "peach tree branches props"
  • leaning peach tree
  • protected woodpeckers
  • watch sonic husband and wife commercials
  • did people ever eat mountain lion
  • google earth "coolest thing"
  • john mclamb, language school, costa rica (I really hope they found his blog from mine, they searched twice)
  • jeremy dockery and brother
  • prop up leaning tree
  • we harm trees
  • i dont have a drinking problem i drink,
  • how to get rid of peach tree boars
  • commercial jeremey holiday inn express c
  • how to prop branches on a peach tree
  • geekiest thing ever
  • propping up heavy peachtree
  • what does sbc president do? (I guess one post was about this)
  • best web junk
  • how to prop up a peach tree branch

Later this week a post called Peach Tree Redux to address what clearly is a major problem.

It's Pretty Amazing What You Can Do With Just a Few People and Technology

I wrote a post for Monday but I can't quite bring myself to post it.  I'm sure you'll see it later.  In the meantime, read somebody else's blog and enjoy this video.  It's pretty amazing what you can do with some time and technology [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRS9cpOMYv0&eurl=http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2008/01/omaha-beach-diy.html]

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What happens when I link to a popular blog

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Actually these are trackbacks, plus they were very popular topics.

The first is Bart Barber and the topic of the [then upcoming] Southern Baptist presidential election

The other is Jarrod Morris (on the same day he was linked by flowerdust.net) and the topic of christians and drinking.  Something everyone has an opinion about.

And the places where it bottoms out are Sundays.  Apparently no one reads blogs on Sundays.

graph

A Couple Of Ideas

I have been blogging for 6 weeks now. This is post 27. That, of course, means an average of around 4 posts per week. Originally I said that my goal was to post 3 times per week with something fun on Fridays. But it has been more like 2 posts a week with a couple of something funs. I work from a list of what I am planning to post. This list is made up of topics to write on for days when I have nothing to say otherwise, or stuff that I need to think about and formulate for a few days before it is ready to be posted. One of those is coming on Monday. (I think.) That list is currently about 8 items long and I occasionally expand it.

I'm considering a couple of new features on the blog.

I am considering a regular feature called, Jeremy Answers Your Questions. Two of my earlier posts are in response to a question.  And I have another question to answer in the works.  I am not a genius and don't want to presume that everyone cares what I have to say about everything.  But this is a blog, and if you are reading it hopefully you care a little.

I am also considering a guest blogger feature. I have many very talented, bordering on genius readers, and I may occasionally let them write a post if they so desire. That would prevent the slow down that this blog suffered last week. My brother may want to write about how he loves Jeff Gordon, or Brent may write about why he doesn't actually read this blog even though it is written by his very good friend. Caroline may want to write and point out all the grammatical errors in my previous posts. (it will be long) Roland might want to write about the smack-off.   Ryan might want to write about his love of the Helvetica typeface. Adam might write about why he is writing on somebody else’s blog when he has one of his own. (That would be so meta) I hope that pretty much covers all of my regular readers.

This is where I beg for comments. Tell me what you think of these two ideas. Do you care about my answers to your questions? Would you care about guest bloggers? Would any of you ever write anything?

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RS Wha...?

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This is day 2 and post 2 But if I am realistic, I know that if I manage to keep a regular blog, it won’t be daily. So how are you, my reader to know that I have a new post up? You could visit every single day. That would look good on my stat counter, and would probably be good for my ego. But the much better answer is - via RSS.

If you don’t know what RSS is or if you do but aren’t using it you are missing out on half of the internet. RSS is what allows podcasts to work and it the quickest way to view a plethora of sites every day. (I read 30, not counting my podcasts) RSS stands for really simple syndication and it basically lets you know when blogs, podcasts, and websites are updated. It allows you to read them without actually visiting them in your browser It works much like e-mail with a headline (subject) and a preview pane that lets you read the body of the post. I prefer to get my feeds via my e-mail program. As a service to you, I’ll recommend a few excellent programs or services to help you read feeds.

I use Thunderbird as both my e-mail client and RSS reader If you are a yahoo mail user, the new format has an RSS section Gmail has a feed section (but I really don’t like it) a much better option is reader.google.com If you use Microsoft Outlook, then try News Gator which works as a plugin For Firefox users, (hopefully all of you) there are many extensions, none that I really love, but Wizz seems well supported and good

If anyone else has a suggestion they particularly love, leave it in the comment section.

I’ll end this post with the feed address of several of my favorite blogs and sites, there are no podcasts in this list

SBC related blogs

Sports related Blogs

Comedy

My Friends

Shopping

InterfaceLIFT (Cool desktop backgrounds)

My First Post

Recently I decided to launch a regular blog. This post is the first fruit of that decision. I realize that there is a certain amount of arrogance in putting out a blog. To quote Scott Adams, “the decision to write a regular blog is tantamount to saying What the world needs is more of me and my opinion.” Having said that, I hope to not seem too arrogant or boring as I do this. The students in my youth group were complaining about having a state writing exam today. They didn’t want to do it. Most people don’t want to write. But I told them that it would be good for them to learn, because pretty much every essay test they take in college will be the same thing as this exam.

“But Jeremy,” you ask, “You’ve already graduated college, and seminary, why would you want to keep writing?” Because it is good practice for people, including myself, to learn to write. Writing teaches us to organize our thoughts and makes us better communicators. Also, hopefully I have something useful to say about the world. I hope I will be interesting to read as well as organized and well though out.

Another reason that I chose to begin a blog is that I am horrible at keeping my daily journal. For years, (actually since I was 15) I have kept a daily journal that is really just a rundown of how I spent my days. But in the last 5 years I’ve missed more days than I’ve kept, including a gap of over a year. This blog is a way of replacing that journal. Hopefully the accountability of knowing others are reading will keep me doing it. And I’m sure that literally a quarter of a dozen people will read this blog regularly, including such luminaries as my mother and some guy who just randomly stumbled here because I tagged a post with NFL.

Also I decided to begin a blog rather than just go back to my journal because I would feel silly journaling about how much I hate the in-car view of racing in NASCAR coverage, and I want to be able to occasionally write about something that won’t matter in my journal after I’m dead.

I have two friends who keep a regular blog that also inspired me to do this. One is Adam Reed, a youth minister in South Carolina. The other is John McLamb, a missionary to Bolivia who is currently in language school in Costa Rica. (Go leave him an encouraging comment in Spanish)

My plan is to post three times a week, with something silly like a comic or video on Fridays. (Another idea I stole from Adam) I may post on any of the following topics:

· My life (This will be most posts)

· Church

· Sports (I particularly follow NFL, NCAA basketball and football, NASCAR, and BASS & FLW fishing)

· Theology

· Book reviews

· Witnessing

· Whatever strikes me as interesting

Please feel free to comment at any time, that helps me know that somebody is reading and that I’m not only doing this for my own practice.

Thanks for reading this first one