My most popular blog post is on a most unpopular topic

At least it's unpopular with me. It's the blog post I did in 2007, about 9-11, and the circumstances of the people who jumped or fell to their deaths:

The 9-11 jumpers; they didn't "jump"

It's not a nice topic by any means; it was painful to write about. Yet it receives more hits in Google searches than any other post on my blog. And each year around September 11th, the hits skyrocket. I think this year, it will be the highest ever:


Source: My Site Meter

People leave comments on the post. Some of them are incredibly vile, cheap and disgusting. Others push political agendas and conspiracy theories.

There are other places to post that stuff. The topic of the jumper post is the jumpers/fallers. I try to keep it on that topic, and delete anything else.

I sometimes think I'd like to turn comments off for that post. Perhaps I will one day. But some people seem to use the comments to help them deal with something, so maybe that's a good thing. And they aren't all bad.

Someone left this comment today:

Thank you. I want to understand the world around me before I choose my own conclusions. I do not want to be pushed around, I'm tired of it. Thank you for your honesty, for your courage with difficult material, and for the respect you have shown all of us who have read this article. [...]

That IS what I was trying for, so I'm glad some people understand that. I was not trying to tell people what to think, but rather to just try to provide a complete picture of the variables many of the jumpers/fallers may have faced (and the lack of acceptable choices available to them).

And I will quite freely admit that it's possible some people jumped out of despair. But there are many variations on the human theme; each person was unique, and we just can't know what was going through all their minds, or the details of what each one faced. Yet, I think it's likely that NONE of them would have jumped or fallen that day, if the planes did not hit the towers. They were forced into impossible circumstances that are painful to even imagine.

The above commenter ended his comment with:

[...] Again, thank you. This thoughtfulness, honesty, and respect for others is the only path back to national greatness. [...]

Those qualities, given and received, are much needed. I hope we will all strive for them, because it will help. It's impossible for us all to agree on everything, nor do we need to, but we do need to stand on common ground and be united on those things we can be united on.
     

From 9-11, to a Farm. Life, Death, and what is important to us.

I was living in San Francisco when 9-11 happened; I'd lived there for many years. I'd always preferred rural life to urban life, but I needed to work, and cities offered more job opportunities.

By 2001 I was a business owner. But as the economy soured, our business suffered, and we sold up and moved out. To a rural area, where we have a business in town and a small farm at home. I always figured we were heading to a place like this eventually. But 9-11, and it's effect on the economy and our business, made us decide to make the transition sooner rather than later.

While surfing the net, I came across one woman's 9-ll story. She worked near the towers. She got caught in the dust cloud when the first tower collapsed. She's a writer, and reading her story makes you feel like you were there:

First-hand account of 9/11

At the Wall St. train stop people were covered with papers. A plane crash. That's what everyone said. Then a boom. Everyone ran. I ran to my office and called my brother in the Midwest.

I wanted to be closer. At the corner of Church and Broadway, I angled my way through a large, packed crowd to get the best view. We talked about people jumping. The police stood behind the yellow tape. Minutes later, there was a boom. I thought it was a bomb, so I crouched, but people ran, so I ran. I couldn't see anything. I don't know how far I ran. Couldn't see where I was running. Didn't know if I was in a street or next to a building. Didn't know what street I was on. No one could talk because the dust filled our throats. After about ten steps I tripped over a pile of people and then people tripped on me.

I laid there. The only sound was the falling of dust and debris. No one moved under me. The weight of people on top of me got heavier. I couldn't breathe. I knew we were all going to die in that pile. I pulled myself out of the pile. My slip-ons slipped off. I stood up and saw nothing. Not even an inch in front of me. I put my hands out and felt for something. [...]

She ends up drinking out of a ... well, read the whole thing.

She writes for a living. She has a blog, and she's written about how the experience has affected her, shaped her life, even 10 years later:

Surviving 9/11: Ten years later

She also lives on a farm now. I can't say there are a lot of other similarities between my life and hers. But she does have some keen insights, and I do know, like her, that, when you think you are going to die in the next moment, your priorities suddenly become very clear. And when you survive, instead of die, if you have any sort of depth to you, those revealed priorities stay with you the rest of your life.

And I have to say, poking around her blog, I've really enjoyed reading some of her rants, observations, and advice:

What to do in college right now

Bad career advice: Do what you love

Motivation Tips from the Bath

Best alternative to grad school

Voices of the defenders of grad school. And me crushing them.

Overcome the willpower myth

Figuring out where you fit

She isn't politically correct, and her posts are full of interesting embedded links.
     

Beware of the "Sploggers" (Spam-Blogs)

So THAT'S what they are! Here is a link to my Google search results:

"Fake Blogs Sploggers"

I got some requests for these kind of generic blogs to be added to my sidebar list. They added mine to theirs, so I reciprocated, at first.

But then I started getting more and more requests. All the blogs seemed to have a kind of generic sameness, often using the same template, and their posts seemed rather generic and impersonal. The requests to be added to my blog roll seemed odd, unnatural, like they could be computer generated.

That's when googled "fake blogs" and found out about "sploggs".

I made the mistake of adding some to my sidebar, and now I'm being spammed by hundreds of them. My spam filter it catching them, but it's inconvenient to deal with, and creepy. I may have to turn off comments on my blog for a while.

I've deleted suspected sploggs from my sidebar. I'm not accepting new reciprocal links anymore, I'm sticking with people I actually know from the past. I may even delete some of my blogrolls, as they don't seem to work half the time anyway.

Things like this dampen my enthusiasm for blogging. It's like dealing with Pod People. I've definitely got better things to do with my time.
     

My Trip East, and my Long Break from Blogging

My father, working in his yard.
On September 11th, I flew back east to visit family. I didn't post anything about 9-ll memorials or such, because I had a lot to do to prepare for my trip, and I didn't want to be extremely focused on the awfulness of what happened eight years earlier, on the same day I was taking several connecting flights to get to my destination. I was already thinking about it plenty, without blogging about it too. I don't like flying even under the best of circumstances. But I needed to make this trip, and I had to stay focused on that.

My parents are getting on in years, and my mom has had some serious health issues, including pulmonary hypertension. It's becoming increasingly difficult for them to manage staying in their home in the winter time, so we (me and my siblings) are doing what we can to help them cope where they are, until other living arrangements can be made.

I hadn't seen my parents for several years, and as it was a short visit, it was rather intense. There was a lot to fit into a short amount of time.

I missed a connecting flight on my journey back, so I spent a lot of time in airports and planes. With all that and jet-lag too, I've been pretty exhausted. There have been things I've wanted to blog about, but I've been too preoccupied with other things, and haven't felt very motivated for blogging. I think it's going to take me some time to get back into it. Meanwhile, I'm just posting this as an explanation.

Most of the political things I find interesting you can find on Pat's blog. My own "farm reports" and such, I will get back to doing eventually, but it's going to take a while for me to get my blogging legs back again.
     

Check your HTML code on-line

Have you ever had a blog post with an HTML error, like an open tag, that you couldn't find? Well this website is really great for checking out code:

WC3 Markup Validation Service

You just copy and paste your code in validation box, and run a check on it. Very useful. A great time saver.
     

Have a Happy, Healthy & Prospersous New Year

This past year, an election year, was a tough one. I spent a lot of my time blogging about politics, in a contentious election. I won't be doing as much politics in 2009.

Oh, I'm sure I will do some political posts, I will criticize, but not like I did during the election. In 2008 I was working to save something. But we lost. I'm a realist. We have Democrats in control, they are going to do many things I don't like, because they are who they are. I'm not going to bang my head against the wall about it. We have to expect Democrats to be Democrats. I'll pick and choose my battles carefully.

We have some very grave challenges facing us in the next four years, both domestically and globally. I'll be praying for our president and our entire government to make wise choices. As Americans, we all have an investment in wishing our new President and his Administration a certain amount of success; there are key areas in which America must succeed.

I'll also be praying for the Republican party to find some unity and build a genuine coalition with a BIG tent, so they can become an effective political opposition and start winning elections again. That can only happen if all the ideological factions of the Republican party stop taking hostages, learn to compromise, and learn to understand the strength, power and value of incremental change. It's the greatest challenge our party faces over the next four years; to grow and become relevant again. ALL Republicans can contribute to that, if we unite and battle the political opposition, instead of each other.

I may spend less time blogging this year, and more time pursing other interests, but I will also be posting about whatever I am studying or working on. Blogging was more fun when I wasn't posting about politics all the time, and I intend to go back to that. I'm making a New Year's Resolution to have more FUN in 2009.

Best Wishes to All for the New Year!
     

Blogosphere Map; the most popular groupings

This photo is from an article by Stephen Ornes at Discover Magazine:

Map: Welcome to the Blogosphere

The blogosphere is the most explosive social network you’ll never see. Recent studies suggest that nearly 60 million blogs exist online, and about 175,000 more crop up daily (that’s about 2 every second). Even though the vast majority of blogs are either abandoned or isolated, many bloggers like to link to other Web sites. These links allow analysts to track trends in blogs and identify the most popular topics of data exchange. Social media expert Matthew Hurst recently collected link data for six weeks and produced this plot of the most active and interconnected parts of the blogosphere. [...]

The article goes on to break the map down into six major groupings. Large white dots represent popular websites. Number one is the DailyKos. Number 4 is Michelle Malkin. See the whole article for the others and the explanations of what it all means.


Related Link:

What "Map: Welcome to the Blogosphere" Doesn't Tell You!

Dave Lucas has quite a few things to say about the Discover Magazine article. He looks at the many variables that need to be considered when looking at web traffic data, in order to get a more complete understanding of what it all means.

I'm not sure I would agree with all his conclusions, but it is an interesting read on a fascinating topic. If this subject is at all interesting to you, I would head on over there for a visit.