TwoPennies

Anybody Home???

So the blogging's been... shall we say... sparse over the last couple of months.  As usual, real life's been pretty hectic.  Here's what I've been doing instead:

• Working.
• Trying to keep up with the 782 hours of new TV shows that the DVR records every week.
• Not coincidentally, developing a serious fondness for Yvonne Strahovski from Chuck.
• Working some more.
• House-hunting.
• Working yet again (are we detecting a trend?)
• Occasionally, sleeping.
• Still working.
• Almost-house-buying (there's a deal pending as I write this, which hopefully will be resolved in the next few days).
• Taking a break from working.   Nah, just kidding...
• Booking my long-awaited trip back to Portland this upcoming weekend.
• Guiding the fictional Frail Blazers (with a healthy Greg Oden) through a .500 season in NBA 2K8 on the XBox 360.
• And, just for a little variety, working.

So the stress of work, and trying to find (and buy) a house, have been pretty draining to say the least.  And this pending deal will hopefully be resolved soon (it's a pretty complicated situation involving a slightly botched short sale with multiple bidders being evaluated by the bank) but my fear is that the seller tries to make a move either Friday or Monday which are both travel days for me.  Yikes.

In any event, the work doesn't look like it'll let up any time soon, but hopefully I'll be able to pop in and mouth off once in a while.  I see that a lot of people are still getting to this site looking at the flight simulator screen shots (and many of them get here while searching for "Aladdin Screen Caps" interestingly enough... how disappointing that must be!)  So perhaps I'll get a chance to do a bit more flying and post some pictures.  Anybody want to see anything in particular?  Leave a comment here and let me know!

Hunkered Down

The blogging's been light for a couple of weeks (that's my charming understatement for "nonexistent"), as I've been going through an intense period at work.  We're getting close to the release of our first major new product in about a year, so it's been kind of a big deal.  The next month will be very busy, but once we get through March things should settle down just a bit.

And I received some interesting news recently, which bodes well for the future.  Details to follow when they become public.  ;-)

Meanwhile, hopefully Phriedom and Jason will have a few things to say while I'm out of the loop...

New Categories

So it turns out that, neat as TypePad is, there's no built-in facility for archiving blog posts by author directly.  You'd think they'd have something for that, since every post automatically identifies the author, but I can't seem to find it anywhere.  If someone out there knows how to do this, I'd sure appreciate it if you'd drop me a line and clue me in!

Meanwhile, I've set up some new categories for our authors, which you'll find in the sidebar at the right.  I've got all the posts from Jason and Phriedom recategorized now, but it's a not-particularly-quick-and-painless process so I'm not sure when I'll finish updating my own posts (of which there are now about 100 or so).

Anyhow, just in case you want to follow the train of thought for a particular contributor, now there's a way to do so.

Playing Catch-Up

Man, it's amazing how quickly three weeks can pass by!

It's been a pretty busy three weeks, for sure.  There was the election, of course... then a number of work and personal milestones.  Then the annual international gaming trade show here in Vegas, so more work deadlines and general busy-ness.  Got rear-ended by Kenny, part of a four-car incident at lunch time during the show.  Very exciting that, I was lucky enough to escape with barely a scuff on my car, while Kenny's car has been in the shop for a couple of weeks now.  The guy behind him fared poorer still, as he got smooshed between Kenny's car and the BMW in the tail end that apparently started the whole thing.

And last week was Thanksgiving, of course, and my parents decided to come down for the holiday this year.  Which was nice, I got to hang out with them for four days, without work responsibilities (normally they show up mid-week, rarely on weekends, so I've got to juggle schedules).  We had Thanksgiving Dinner at the top of the Stratosphere, which is the tallest building in Vegas.  I believe it's twice as tall as Seattle's Space Needle.  The restaurant is located at the 106th floor, about 860 feet above the Strip.

After dinner we visited the outdoor observation level, where Dad snapped a fuzzy picture of me with my phone (for quick distribution to a couple of friends). 

(Click image to enlarge)

It was a lovely clear night, a bit cool but not cold.  I was able to take a few pictures with my regular camera as well, and I learned some important lessons about taking nighttime pictures of bright lights from a distance.  Mostly I learned that one of the settings on my camera takes decent shots, while all of the rest of the settings take complete crap shots.  And I also learned that next time, I really need to be organized about figuring out which of those settings is the right one, because apparently just changing settings randomly while snapping shots is a somewhat ineffective technique.

(Click image to enlarge)

So anyhow, in all that time there have been numerous important stories to talk about, issues to consider, and a whole sea change election to cover.  Hopefully I'll be able to put a little more time into that now.  I'd like to welcome Jason on board, and I look forward to his contributions moving forward.

On with the show!

Closing in on 1,000

Hard to believe this blog has been up and running for about 4 months already!  And I see by the trusty site meter that we're closing in on the 1,000th visitor session, which should happen some time late today or early tomorrow.

And that doesn't even count ME (at least, not from home...)

The stats show an average of 14 visits per day now.  By my unscientific guesstimate, those visitors are:

• 3: Looking for information about FICA
• 3: Looking for information about Nevada ballot measures
• 2: Looking for "Rachel Dresch"
• 2: Looking for Vance Day
• 1: Looking for a cat video
• 2: Somehow affiliated with this site

And I'm happy to welcome them all!

Quick Hits

Seems an awful lot of people all over the country are concerned about FICA limits for 2006.  Is there something going on with FICA that I don't know about?

My favorite FICA search term so far:

"how to decrease amount of fica coming out of payroll check"

The short answer?  Make less money, Bub.  FICA is a flat tax (actually a combination of taxes) taken off the top, no deductions or exemptions.

Switching gears a bit, the saddest search term in general that I've seen so far?  From El Paso, Texas:

"two pennies for a tip"

I guess not everything's bigger in Texas...

Experiencing Technical Difficulties...

I got a new toy a few days ago, and I've been a bit busy setting it up (or rather, trying to set it up) so I've not had time to post.  Fortunately Phriedom has been filling in nicely.  We should be joined shortly by a third regular contributor, to lend another perspective to things around here.

Meanwhile, setting up a home network, while still protecting all PCs from outside threats, is a major pain in the ass.  I'm just sayin'...

I got the laptop to print to the shared desktop printer, which was quite an accomplishment.  And from the laptop, I can see the shared folders on the desktop, but I can't actually access them (it tells me that I'm not authorized to view them).

Aaaargh.

And I still haven't gotten the laptop set up quite the way I want it.  The thought was, if I have a portable PC that I can keep with me while traveling, I could use it for my primary apps (e-mail, banking, and browsing) and maybe development work as well.  Then I could free up the desktop as a gaming machine.

Of course, the desktop is old enough (about 3 years or so) that the brand new laptop is actually a substantially better gaming machine, too (I paid a little extra for the nifty ATI X1400 video card).  So now I've got an itch to update the desktop... it's a vicious cycle!

Hopefully I'll get a chance to post soon about a few topics that I've been mulling over recently, but until then watch for more activity from the others here.

How did you find me?

Thought it might be interesting to take a quick survey of how people are finding this blog, based on the last 100 visitors according to SiteMeter.

Fully 46 of the last 100 visits (at the time I'm writing this) have come through some kind of search engine.  And no, the other 54 visits weren't (all) just me bumping up my hit count.

No big shock, of those 46 who found the site through a search engine the overwhelming majority (38) came from Google (including international and other specialized variations thereof).

The others were a scattering of Yahoo, MSN, and Technorati (hey, I told you that damn cat video was really popular!)

Visitor locations are mostly on the West Coast (heavily concentrated in Oregon and Nevada, naturally, as well as California and Washington).  Foreign visitors have come from the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, China, India, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and Ireland.  Not for nothin' it's called the World-Wide Web.

Some of the more interesting search phrases:

• Mimi Miyagi (linked of course to my post on the Nevada primary)
• Various terms related to 2006 FICA rates/income limits
• Various terms related to the FairTax
• Quite a few variations on Gil the Crab, his commercial, and the Honda Element
• A few hits about Studio 60
• A few hits about Florida motorcycle helmet laws / motorcycle crash stats in Oregon
• Some miscellaneous hits about flag burning, rag-doll physics, and CSI games
• Lots of searches for "two pennies" or "twopennies", for which naturally this site ranks highly in the results -- I'm not sure but it would appear that perhaps there's some story, fable, or some such about two pennies that several people have been seeking, but whatever it is, it doesn't appear to be easy to find

Finally, there are many people looking for information related to David Wright, the current Mets slugger.  Like, a LOT of people check out this site looking for the other David Wright.  And now that I've mentioned "David Wright, the current Mets slugger" (twice, in fact) no doubt a lot more people will find this particular page.  So yeah, for the record in case anybody is confused, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an MLB player.  I don't even like baseball (at least, not watching it), no matter how un-American that makes me. 

Though I'm sure the other David Wright is a fine chap and all that.  Sure seems popular in the fantasy leagues anyway, from what I can tell.  So, go Dave, hope the Mets go all the way this year.  I just hope I don't have to watch it happen...   ;-)

Incommunicado

So it's been pretty quiet around here... there was a big old post about union membership and some upcoming NLRB rulings that could have a pretty dramatic impact on union power... it was a highly researched, detailed article... but alas, I had the misfortune of posting it right when TypePad (the host for this site) crashed last Wednesday.  All that work, lost.  Shucks.

And I've been otherwise occupied with work, which REALLY cuts into the blogging time!

I've got a few articles planned, and I'll pump 'em out as fast as I can.  Meanwhile, I'd like to extend an open invitation... anybody who would like to contribute here at TwoPennies, put a quick comment in this post and let me know how to get hold of you.  I'll accept proposed articles and if the quality of writing is sufficient, we'll post your work.

You're trying to find WHAT?

We've had our first "WTF?" search hit this morning:

Google Search

I'm most impressed that whoever entered this search got all the way to result #185 in search of whatever the hell they were searching for.  Me personally, if it isn't on at least the 2nd page of the search results, there's no way I'll get to it.

It is still a pretty fun article, though...

And we're off!!!

I finally took the plunge.

I've been mulling over the idea for this blog for quite some time, really since I first got involved in political blogging during the 2004 presidential campaign.  I cut my teeth as a commenter for the local newspaper web site (at least, it was local to me at the time) discussing how I felt about that race as an "undecided voter".

That undecided voter blog is no longer available online (sheesh, it's only been 2 freakin' years since I started that project -- and 18 months since my guy lost that one) but one of my co-commenters, Chris Snethen, is still at it there.

Anyhow, as I got more involved in writing about political issues of the day, I found that the format provided by that newspaper-affiliated site was too one-sided for my taste.  I much prefer dialogue to monologue, and that site had no real provision for comments.

Then I got heavily involved in comment participation on another local political site, Blue Oregon, which is a distinctly liberal/progressive/whatever slanted "community".  And it was interesting, to me anyhow, dealing with people who just think a bit differently than I do.  That's healthy.  Alas, after a while it became clear that those who run that site are less interested in truly open discussion than in self-congratulatory mutual admiration.  Hey, it's their house, their rules, I've got no problem with that.  I still check it out once in a while to see what they're up to, more for entertainment than anything else.  It's a real shame, for a time they showed promise as a meeting place for vigorous and interesting discussion, but it didn't last long.

On the other side of the aisle, Oregon Catalyst came on the scene with a distinctly more conservative approach to politics.  The quality of that site has never even been on a par with Blue Oregon, however, which I think speaks volumes about the overall quality of the Oregon Republican Party.

Which brings me to the point of this new blog.  My experiences led me to believe that there was a real need for an open forum for healthy, reasoned, vigorous discussion of important issues of the day.  And maybe some not-so-important issues.  But essentially, a place where people could safely put in their "two cents"... and the idea of TwoPennies was born.

Being a developer by trade, and having experience with various blogging platforms already, I was naturally convinced (as all developers are) that I could write much better blogging software on my own.  I've designed web sites in the past; I'm usually pretty good at building functional solutions.  And man, I had a fan-freaking-tastic web site architecture all planned out.  Bells and whistles galore.  Very sophisticated comment filtering and rankings, detailed search and categorization, all manner of "gee-whiz-mos" that would make MY blog the next "killer app" on the web.

And then... I took a new job, moved 1000 miles away from home, and said goodbye to anything like the kind of spare time I might have had before to actually build the damn thing.

But, being overly optimistic, I still thought I could do it, some day.

Some day.

And finally, I came to the realization that... it doesn't have to be perfect.

It doesn't have to have every bell and whistle.

Blogging is about content.  Substance over style.  Getting the word out.

And for crying out loud, if fifteen ka-jillion people can get by using one of the standard blog hosts, then so can I.

So here we are.  I still have my own domain with the site-in-progress that I'd been working on.  I'm on a free trial with TypePad for 30 days, and if I like this system by the end of that time, I'll get everything set up so that you'll hardly even notice the blogging software.

Oh, and I hope to get several additional contributors to kick in with their thoughts in original posts.  There's a lot of people that I know and respect, but don't always agree with, who have valuable things to say and I want to hear them.  I intend for this to be a place not only of a wide range of (civil) comments, but also a wide range of topics from different viewpoints.

Mostly, though, it should be a place for people to relax and have fun.  Maybe learn a little, maybe laugh a little, maybe even think a little.

What more could you ask for?