Rumors have been going around recently that there would be snow tonight (Sunday). Apparently it’s not a rumor, because I just looked outside and saw snow on the streets. Unlike the Nor’easter we are still cleaning up from (I’ve found large plates of ice along the sidewalks), this is the real deal, coming down in powder instead of little ice pebbles. Let it snow!
I came across this absolutely crazy photo, which really outlines how stupid governments can be. Never before has such a “joke” (as the person who uploaded it refers to it) crossed me, but I feel that this is hilarious.
Remember to stay in school kids!
Trackbacks are one of those blogging features that some beginners just don’t get (I was there – trackbacks have only made sense to me recently). The truth is that they are very simple to understand.
Think of trackbacks as comments that are posted by your blogging tool, rather than your own self-determination. To use a rather crude comparison, they are similar to video responses on YouTube. Someone makes a video. You think that you can add to that video. you make a video, and it shows up under the existing video.
Same concept with trackbacks. You find a blog post on someone’s blog that you think is interesting. You write about it on your blog, and leave a trackback in the process. The whole nine yards:
To make this all fair, you should remember to include a link to their post in your post if your post is not specifically about their post, in which case you may not remember to leave a link. That way, the network between you and them is built, and you two have formed a “micro-relationship” of sorts.
You should also leave comments on blogs regularly, but that’s another topic. Following these tips will help you build your blogging future, giving your blog increased exposure. But remember the main rule for any Web site: Content is king.
Lorelle raised a blogging challenge for this week. She wants to know what search keywords (when used on Google) bring your site up to the top of the list.
Your blog challenge this week is to research what word or phrase makes your blog number one in Google search results.
It’s an interesting challenge, one that will demand a lot from many bloggers. Fortunately, I know that I have a set of keywords that bring Educated to the number one position:
Give it a shot, and report back on either mine or Lorelle’s blog. Good luck!
Since this past November, I’ve been trying to keep up with the thrilling House series. The show highlights various human emotions and the marvels of modern medicine. The main character, Dr. House (acted by Hugh Laurie) is an evil genius, annoying his colleagues while saving people’s lives. From the House section of Fox.com:
From executive producers Katie Jacobs, David Shore, Paul Attanasio and Bryan Singer, HOUSE, an innovative take on the medical drama, solves mysteries where the villain is a medical malady and the hero is an irreverent, controversial doctor who trusts no one, least of all his patients.
DR. GREGORY HOUSE (Hugh Laurie) is devoid of anything resembling bedside manner and wouldn’t even talk to his patients if he could get away with it. Dealing with his own constant physical pain, he uses a cane that seems to punctuate his acerbic, brutally honest demeanor. While his behavior can border on antisocial, House is a brilliant diagnostician whose unconventional thinking and flawless instincts afford him widespread respect.
Dr. House seems to like torturing people’s emotions in his own process to finding cures. He has a wonderful sense of sarcasm, and a vast knowledge of medical treatments.
His assistants, Drs. Cameron, Chase, Cuddy, Foreman, and Wilson, all admire his mixed personality. They believe that he has the knowledge to make things go, even if it takes more than one try, which is often the case. Never knowing what a patient is telling the team (or not telling them), they work extremely hard to resolve their cases.
House airs on Tuesday nights from 9:00 to 10:00 PM ET. Schedules can be found on the Fox Web site.
I couldn’t get my hands on a machine with Vista Ultimate at CompUSA today, but I did manage to find one with Home Premium or Basic. Despite all the hype I talked about earlier, there isn’t much that significantly improves your compter. And it’s kind of hard to believe, but Windows Photo Gallery actually crashed on me.
This is not to say that I hate or dislike Vista in any way. I was trying out Vista for the first time today. If it was my computer, maybe I would have gotten a little further with the experimentation. I guess I have to wait for my next computer (which may actually be a Mac) to get the full Vista experience.
Notes for members of the Cult of Mac: I took a slightly deeper look at the Macs, and I liked what I saw even more so than previous examinations. Earlier, I have looked at Macs (all types) that have Boot Camp and Windows XP on them, and all seems swell. Perhaps a MacBook or MacBook Pro is in order?
Devin has outlined the steps to blog from within MS Word 2007. Follow-up to my original post.
After all these months of waiting, my school took us skiing last week (as I posted about earlier). It’s a little disappointing to say that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy myself, partly because of the lack of rest before hand. But at least I did go skiing, which I am very thankful for being able to do.
Interstate 80 (I-80 from now on) is a marvelous highway. It goes all the way from the George Washington Bridge (in New York / New Jersey) to California, and covers significant territory in between. I-80 also is one of the most common routes to the Pocono Mountains from New York. Fortunately, this super-highway was practically empty on Thursday morning, like it usually is at that time of day.
This trip was a bit different to me, because after I got dressed and picked up my gear for the day, I was able to hit the slopes right away (which is exactly what I did). I don’t know whether this particular set of steps was efficient or not, but either way it would have taken some time to get all ready:
I started off on Camelback’s Coolmoor beginner trail with a few warm-up runs, and then went over to The Birches and The Meadows. This was the majority of my excitement for the day, which included a few runs with my friends.
I learned a bit more about controlling speed, which is essential on any trail other than the bunny slopes. I figured out an inefficient but effective way to get absolute control over how fast I’m going. With this technique, one ski is at an angle, with the other ski pointing straight down the hill and positioned slightly behind the angled ski. With the application of pressure on the tilted ski, you directly control your speed, but if you want to go faster, the straight ski allows it to happen.
This trick helped me make it down trails in one piece, but it came with an at-first unexpected side effect. It takes a lot of effort to keep the downhill ski in position, most of which I concentrated on my right knee, and I ended up with a bit of aching in that leg as well as the knee for the rest of the day. Stupidly, I didn’t take a lesson this trip (anytime I saw a ski school instructor, they were working with someone, and when I managed to find any other employee, it was for something else), so I didn’t officially learn anything new. I still feel a bit depressed about this mistake.
By the time lunch rolled around, I was really out of it. I ate somewhat slowly, constantly sighing at my level of “wiped out-ness”. Skiing, with or without made up techniques, is really a tiring sport, using muscle groups one never knew existed. Add the adrenaline rushes (after just avoiding falls) to the mix, and you’ve got one exhausted skier.
I didn’t do a whole lot after lunch. I sat around in the lodge, talking with my principal, and staring at the nice scenery outside the windows. I did manage to make two or three more runs later on, but they were kind of bad. My knee was about to crumble (not literally), and I felt like I could fall asleep while watching the trees go by on The Meadows.
For dinner, my class set up for a barbecue in the farthest parking lot. We had hot dogs and burgers, with pickles and soda on the side. I did enjoy this, even with the finger-freezing winds present at the time. We ate the food basically straight of the grill, decreasing the total time it spent in cold air, and helping to make sure we were able to get back home on the van with the rest of the school (I think my principal would have left without us if I didn’t have the key to the van, which I had used earlier to get something).
After this trip, I really thanked myself for buying my Smith Universal Helmet Helper, which currently is a bit difficult to find. If it wasn’t for the five dollar piece of plastic that extends a goggle strap, my eyes would have been stressed out too.
Lessons for next trip: Do more, and stick with the group. For the former part of that statement, I mean that I want to try even more trails, and take a good lesson, and for the latter, I am saying that I should stay with my friends most of the time. But for any trip, the main goal is simple: Have fun!
Favorite Tweets