The comely Rachel from Just Something to Think About tagged me up with a Giving Thanks Meme, and while Thanksgiving has already come and gone, I guess I can reiterate some of the things I’ve been thankful for. Here’s my top five:

1. Being alive, which is solid proof that God still doesn’t hate me enough to lob a meteorite in my general direction. And of course my loving parents, who only occasionally regret not giving me up for adoption.

2. Being so good looking.

3. Pizza!!!!!!!!!!!

4. Fall Foliage.

5. That Jessica Alba is still single.

I’d pass this on to 5 other blogging friends but I’m just too lazy today. Besides I only counted 3 or 4 altogether that I could consider my friends. Gees, that’s actually kinda sad.

Tags: adoption, fall foliage, God, jessica alba, meme, meteorite, pizza, proof, thankfulness, thanks, Thanksgiving
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
(  Print This Post | | 781 views )

I won a small victory at work, but it may not be over just yet.

Tomorrow I go back to my job for the first time in a month since this whole debacle began. Even though my union called and let me know the Devil Woman would be moved back to her old section, my coworkers were telling me a different story. I also heard that my supervisor might be transferred out as well, but nobody seems to know anything about that either. There’s a feeling that the brass might be pulling some maneuvering stunts here so that if my supervisor does get transferred out, they will move Devil Woman in his place and she’ll end up becoming my new supervisor after all.

I’ll know for sure tomorrow, at which point I’ll be calling in ahead of time to make sure she’s really gone. If she’s not, it’s war.

You know, finding justice is a noble calling, but the road to it is not a pleasant one, and there are no guarantees either. I’m in this alone, without the support of my coworkers, my union, or anybody else. All I have is God and a clear conscience in knowing I’m doing the right thing. The line has been drawn. This madness has to end now. People are getting hurt, and the integrity of our workforce is being compromised. And yet nobody wants to take a stand here because they’re all afraid for their jobs?

To hell with that. I’d rather stand in line at the unemployment office than take this kind of abuse. I want to go to bed at night knowing I stood up against evil and that I refused to be cowed by their intimidation and threats. I will not be their @#$% rug for them to walk all over.

And if they don’t know that already, then they surely will soon.

Tags: corruption, debacle, devil woman, fight, God, guarantees, hell, integrity, intimidation, job, jobs, justice, madness, office politics, small victory, stunts, supervisor, union, workforce
Categories: In The Coal Mine
 
(  Print This Post | | 892 views )

If I were to be perfectly fair, there really is much to be thankful for. I have a roof over my head, food on the table, a stable job, a loving family, and a smokin’ ride.

But I always have a tendency to focus on the negative. I get reminded of all the disappointments of life, all the unanswered prayers, all the times when it feels like God left me here to rot, and I get angry instead. I’m upset that I have to spend yet another Thanksgiving without knowing who the love of my life is, if she even exists. Upset that once I go into work next Monday I may have to gear up for another fight with my union and the department I work for, with no resolution in sight. Upset that my health may never get better, and that I foolishly put myself at risk for life threatening diseases. Upset that no matter how hard I try, my blog doesn’t appear to be getting any traction. Upset that my career prospects are quickly going down the toilet.

So yeah, while there may be some things to be thankful for, there are plenty more reasons for me to remain an ungrateful bastard.

But for whatever reason, I trudge onward with hope. There are times when I really despair, but even in my darkest moments I always dream of a better future. I always hope.

So, if there was one thing I should be thankful to God for above all else, I guess it would be hope. I hope that the present darkness will lead to morning light. I hope that I will someday soon meet my true love. I hope for a better future for both my family and those who remain stedfast in their faith in Christ, even in trying times. I hope for the safety of our troops and their speedy return. I hope peace will continue to reign in the hearts of all my dear friends.

I hope.

Tags: anger, better future, christ, dear friends, despair, disappointments, God, head food, hope, lord, love, present darkness, thankful, Thanksgiving, traction, trudge, true love, unanswered prayers
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
(  Print This Post | | 737 views )

Sign up for a Clicky account today!

If you’re looking for a tracking solution to monitor your blogging stats, you might want to take a look at Clicky (not to be confused with pMetrics, which licensed and rebranded Clicky for their own user base). Clicky sports a pleasant looking Web 2.0 interface and a myriad of features that rival even Google Analytics, yet it’s much more easier and fun to use. I’ve been so pleased with the service so far that I became one of their affiliates as well.

One of the great things about their dashboard is that you can customize it in a variety of ways so that it will only show the stats that matter most to you. In addition to the dashboard’s versatility, Clicky will also monitor:

• Visitors – including a really fun Google Maps mashup that highlight the countries and cities your visitors are coming from. It also tracks the web browsers they use, as well as the operating systems and screen resolutions.
• Actions – page views, searches, incoming links, what outgoing links visitors clicked on, and what files they downloaded as well.
• Content – what pages on your site received the most attention, the entrance and exit pages, and the top referrals.
• Searches – keywords and keyphrases that led visitors to your site, and the engines they used.
• Spying – in addition, Clicky also offers a “Spy” feature that allows you to see who’s visiting your site in real time, and what pages they’re currently viewing.

These stats can be shown using either a bar graph or a tags cloud, and most of it is exportable in CSV, XML or JavaScript format. You can also drill down to a particular IP address and learn its complete surfing history, a very cool feature if you want to keep track of a particular individual. Clicky also offers you a way to rename IP addresses so they’re easier to track as well. It’s very handy when you want to track when and how often your friends, fans (or trolls) have been visiting your blog.

Clicky also provides several feeds you can use to track your stats in your feed reader, and if you add your Feedburner url, Clicky will also monitor your Feedburner stats as well, including subscriber counts, item views and item clickthroughs.

There are also widgets available that can give your readers a glimpse of your traffic stats (unless of course your traffic numbers are truly dismal, in which case you might want to wait until it reaches a respectable level before playing with Clicky’s widgets).

As for reliability, Clicky’s servers have been pretty stable for me, only going down for maintenance or other minor issues, which have been pretty rare in my experience so far. The traffic numbers also tend to vary somewhat with other tracking services, but compared to Sitemeter they are usually about the same. Google Analytics however tend to report more traffic, which I attribute to the code being placed in the header rather than the footer of the page. That way even if a page doesn’t load completely, the Google code will still likely be executed, while the other tracking codes in the footer will instead fail to register a hit. It is possible though to place the Clicky code near the header as well to see if it results in a more accurate traffic count. As always, test and see what works best for you.

You can try out the premium version of Clicky completely free for 3 weeks. After your trial period expires, you’ll have the choice of using the basic version for free, or continue using a premium version for the price of a Starbucks coffee a month (I use the Blogger package for $2 a month).

Update: Clicky has now been upgraded with a host of new features, most notably new filtering abilities that allow you to analyze individual visitors and their surfing habits up to when they first visited your site, including stats on location, link referrals, IP addresses, hostnames and more. The new features are amazing and are worth checking out on their own.

Sign up for a Clicky account today!

Tags: affiliate, blog, clicky, review, statistics, stats tracking, web analytics
Categories: Blog Fog
 
(  Print This Post | | 2,042 views )

I’ve been using Hostgator to host my blog for a little over a year now, and I think it’s finally safe to say they’ve proven to be a reliable shared hosting service, so much that I decided to become one of their affiliates. Although I’ve never received hordes of traffic to see how well it could hold up under heavy load, I’ve never had trouble with my site during those times it’s gotten stumbled either (where it’s received hundreds of visitors within a short period of time). My highest peak was when I had about 130 active visitors to my blog at once (and still the server merely yawned). Tickets to help support for one reason or another have always been promptly answered, but my best experience had to be when I was having trouble logging into my WordPress admin one day. I first spoke to someone via live support, who tried his best to resolve the issue on his own before having me open up a ticket so a sysadmin could look into the problem. In the space of about 20 minutes, a systems administrator named David had me up and running after learning that a problem with my Akismet plugin was causing my blog to lag. After I deactivated Akismet and replaced it with a newer version, I was up and running again.

Customer support that’s responsive and knowledgeable, a shared server that remains fast and suffers virtually no downtime, all for an easy 10 bucks a month. I really can’t ask for anything more. They also offer a semi-dedicated solution that’s still shared but where you’ll only share a server with 3 other users, but for some reason they don’t offer any VPS solutions (yet). Regardless, they offer excellent packages for your hosting needs, and in fact mine recently enjoyed a free upgrade (due to Hostgator adding new hard drives to the server I was using).

Word to the wise though: the web hosting industry has had a history of embellishing the bandwidth they claim to offer to potential clients, but what many people don’t know is that such bandwidth will be limited by the server’s CPU and memory resources. Unless you have a vanilla site, you’ll likely never be able to reach the high bandwidth ceiling many hosting services provide because your site will be shut down long before then, due to using too much of the server’s resources. How much you can actually use will depend on the service, and such info is usually buried somewhere in the terms of agreement. Read Hostgator’s Terms of Service and then compare it to other hosting companies for a better idea of how much freedom you’ll have when purchasing a shared hosting account. Regardless, based on the report of other customers, even people who have been slashdotted or dugg have never had a problem with taxing too much of the server. Just make sure you build a good site that’s optimized well (with caching abilities if possible) and you’ll likely never have a problem with Hostgator.

Sign up for a Hostgator account today!

Tags: affiliate, akismet, bandwidth, blog, customer support, downtime, guide, hard drives, hostgator, hosting, hosting service, period of time, review, server, short period, sysadmin, systems administrator, traffic, website, wordpress
Categories: Blog Fog
 
(  Print This Post | | 1,898 views )

I called up the Director’s office, but apparently the Director is such an important guy that I have to write a letter formally requesting a meeting with him first, then outline the reasons why. Good grief.

So I wrote a nice long letter explaining everything: naming names, describing Devil Woman’s long and sordid history, and my request to be immediately transferred either to another division altogether, or somewhere outside of headquarters.

Then I drove down to HQ and parked next to the building entrance. I grabbed my MP3 player in case the Director decided to see me then so I could record the conversation, and braced myself. In 7 years I had never done anything like this, and now my job and future was on the line. Once I turned in that letter there would be no going back. All of hell was about to be unleashed. I let out a long breath, and opened the door…

*RING*

My cell phone lit up, but I let it go to voicemail. I hesitated long enough to check my message just to see who it was, and it turned out to be my union rep, letting me know she had good news and to call her back as soon as possible.

Hmmmmmm… I looked at the entrance again for a moment, then decided to call her back.

“Hello?”

“Hi Del, it’s Linc. You had news for me?”

“Yep, she’s gone.”

“…………..what??“

“She’s gone, back to her old section.”

“What happened??”

“Apparently she wasn’t authorized to be in that section to begin with, so she’s been ordered back to her division.”

“……….well I’ll be a son of a b….”

I spoke for a few more minutes, and from what I could garner, my union rep had finally talked to one of the chiefs, who upon learning that Devil Woman had been moved, immediately called to have her put back. The move had been unauthorized and never should have occurred.

It was a victory, but I was peeved. My union rep had given me the runaround for days, telling me she couldn’t couldn’t be transferred, there was nothing she could do, I had no case, blah blah blah, and one conversation with the chief finally took care of that stupidity. Really, how about you actually find out for sure first what can’t be done before you start making broad assumptions and making me out to be the bad guy here? Damned stupid woman.

But… a victory is a victory, and I do need to thank God for it. If I hadn’t stood my ground, who knows how long she would have remained there. The powers that be in my section were trying to pull a fast one, but now they’re on notice. Next time they push me, I WILL bring the noise.

Tags: battle, cell phone, chiefs, corruption, devil woman, fight, good grief, hq, job, mp3 player, runaround, union, union rep, victory
Categories: In The Coal Mine
 
(  Print This Post | | 827 views )