Were you looking for something?

I was just checking stats and somebody clicked through after searching for the term “sun only shines once a year”.  Undoubtedly, this is because of what I wrote on my Who? page.

But, I really want to know who it was and what they were searching for.  Because I think I know.  I once searched for something using similar terms.

I was looking for a TV show from when I was a kid. It was such an interesting story.  It’s fuzzy, but I think it was about a group of students on some planet where the sun only shines once a year.  It was a big deal for them because every other day was rainy and cold.  If memory serves, one of the children caused trouble and was not allowed outside to enjoy the one day of sunshine.

Well, I found it. The show was an episode of WonderWorks on PBS.  It was adpated from a Ray Bradbury short story called “All Summer in a Day”.

Is that what you were looking for? Drop a line in the comments and let me know.

Seth Godin says:

Here is just one way to vastly improve customer service/satisfaction.

I’d install a BROKEN button. When you hit it, you can do anything and everything to fix the problem. Train people when to hit the button and then trust them to do the right thing.

From: Seth’s Blog: What do you do when your systems break?

I just started a new motorcycle blog

Howdy!

I just started a new blog that is all about motorcyles and the people who ride them. Stop by sometime. And if you ride, too, then you should definitely check out my list of bikers on Twitter. I’m trying to collect the names of all the Twitter-ers who feel at home on two wheels.

Stupid, rodent!

I’m not one to get sentimental over silly holidays. I’ve never celebrated Sweetest day. But this year, I’ve been really looking forward to Groundhog Day. Why? Call me superstitious, but I want to know how much winter we’ve got left. And boy was I disappointed with the outcome today.

Phil saw his shadow. According to the AP:

Brace yourself for more wintry weather. Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow Saturday, leading the groundhog to forecast six more weeks of winter.

So there, you have it; my bike stays dormant for a few more weeks. I’m not sure I’ll be able to survive much longer than that.

October 15th, 2007

Today is Blog Action Day and bloggers all over the world are sharing their thoughts about keeping our natural world in working order. I have some thoughts, too. But I’m having so much fun reading everyone else’s, I don’t think I’ll get mine down tonight.

Maybe tomorrow. Or next week. Can I wait that long? Will I still have an earth to blog about?

DirectBuy is crazy

Here in west Michigan,we have TV adds for DirectBuy, a retailer whose members claim will save you lots of money. It’s not unusual for a member/spokesperson to claim “We saved $20,000 when we remodeled our kitchen,” or some such. But, even if you save 50% on everything you buy, you still have to spend $20,000 to save that much.

Well, it’s even worse than that.

Consumer Reports just published an article spotlighting some of DirectBuy’s policies. They went undercover to to a New York DirectBuy location and came away with some interesting information.

After the fee disclosure, we discovered that we had to sign up on the spot or never come back.

It gets better. In order to sign up you have to pay a membership fee that comes near to $5,000.00. That covers the first 3 years of your 10 year commitment. Don’t sweat it, though. DirectBuy is more than happy to loan you the membership fee for only 17.75%.

Anyone interested in signing up?

With DirectBuy, it will cost you a lot to save – Consumer Reports

Also, infomercialscams.com 

Where’s the love?

I’ve been blogging on WordPress for almost a year now. And I think it’s great. The software is easy to use, the themes are nice, and I’ve got options to upgrade. I appreciate the combination of simple and flexible. But I think there’s one thing lacking: community.

I’m not saying there’s no community here at WordPress.com. If you visit the support forums, you’ll see some bloggers who hang out there quite a bit. And I’ve had a chance to interact with a few others myself.

What I am saying is there’s no major effort to connect bloggers to each other. And that’s ok because the developers are focusing their efforts on making the best product possible. So, it’s in the hands of the users to develop the community. I’ve got a couple thoughts.

Use the Dashboard

There are a couple features built into the Dashboard that give you some connectedness. Under What’s Hot you’ll see some of the most popular blogs and posts on WordPress. You can see latest posts as well. Check out some of these sites; this is the closest you’ll ever be to most of them. Don’t wait for something to become popular to check it out. Help make it popular.

Tag Surfer

Also on the Dashboard is the Tag Surfer. This feature often goes unknown, but it has great power. Just go to the Tag Surfer tab and enter some categories you’re interested in. Then, each day you’ll find new sites that (supposedly) talk about the topics that interest you. You’ll be able to read those posts right from this page. Then, you can go comment on them.

My Comments

Also on the Dashboard is the My Comments tab. This one is exactly what it sounds like: comments you’ve left on other WordPress blogs. The neat thing about this feature is that subsequent comments also show up here. It’s great for keeping track of feedback and for keeping the conversation going.

One more great idea

Internet Duct Tape is the hub for a developer with some great ideas. Recently, he published a Greasemonkey script that helps to facilitate community here at WordPress. It allows you to open 5 random WordPress.com blogs at once. And it alerts you to blogs that have a Recent Comments Widget installed. You know, for some link-love.

Remember, use your blog responsibly. Don’t just rant; join in the conversation. Every one of us wants some kind of feedback. Start by offering some and maybe you’ll get some, too. And don’t forget this: It’s in the upper right-hand corner of your screen (if you’re a WordPress member.)

I love my new phone!

I love my new phone!

Originally uploaded by jason.rehmus

I just got a new camera phone. Right now I’m experimenting with all the cool features that allow me to interact with the web. This is way too cool. Or maybe I’m just a geek.

By the way, the photo above is my wife’s craft table. None of our animals would stand still long enough to get their picture taken.

5,000 page views

This blog is about to hit a milestone. Sometime this week it will have 5,000 page views. I know that’s not a lot. There are plenty of other sites who receive that many views every day. Or maybe even every hour. But it’s exciting for me. Especially since I barely put any effort into it at all.

For example, my first post was almost a year ago. 5,000 views in one year is miniscule! However, this is only my 17th post. So, it’s not too bad.

I just wanted an opportunity to play with words. Along the way, I’ve had some folks add to the conversation. It’s been a lot of fun and I hope 10,000 comes along even sooner.

I’m not happy right now.

One of my favorite sites is reporting the following:

Firefox 2.0.0.5 was released yesterday. Nothing terribly exciting to report (unless security fixes excite you), but you can count on seeing an auto-update pop-up in the next day or so if you haven’t already. Otherwise you can just get it here. – (Striving Toward Perfection – Lifehacker)

Ordinarily, this would be great news. That is not the case today.

You see, when I updated, I got a message saying Java was not working with the new version. I figured I’d just be able to update Java when it became necessary. Whatever.

To make matters worse, none of my extensions or themes work any longer. It’s true. Not a one. I’m completely confounded. Ordinarily, I can dig around and find the answer on the net. But this time I haven’t found anything. When I look at the extensions in the Tools-> Add-ons menu they all say:

This add-on will be installed when Firefox is restarted.

or

This add-on will be upgraded when Firefox is restarted.

I’ve restarted to no avail. I tried reinstalling. I tried uninstalling, then reinstalling. Nothing.

Is anyone else having the same problem? Has anybody got an answer?

Update 7/21/07

I uninstalled Firefox, moved the remaining Mozilla folders to a different directory, and reinstalled 2.0.0.5. That did the trick. I’ve been reinstalling my extensions one at a time as I need them. And I imported my old bookmarks from my old files. It’s been annoying but I’m willing to pay the price for a superior web experience.

Update 8/1/07

If some others out there are having similar problems, be sure to check out the comments for a great tip from Stephan.