While I’ve been thinking about ways to get more traffic and links to my site here, something occurred to me: there was one particular way that I could have easily gotten a huge spike in traffic and finally put my blog on the map.

I could have gone to Massachusetts and volunteered for Scott Brown’s campaign. Seriously. A mad dash to Worcester just for the weekend would have put me in the middle of all the action and given me so much blogging fodder that people would have been hard pressed to ignore me then. Think of the possibilities: me blogging live while I meet and greet Brown supporters at rallies. Or posting photos of me shaking Scott Brown’s hand. And then photos of me flirting with his daughter Ayla Brown, begging for her phone number. And then photos and vids of Scott Brown punching my lights out after flirting with said daughter.

Oh, the possibilities…

I could have done it too, except ironically enough my money was already tied up in launching a marketing campaign. Um, whoops?

It was a missed opportunity, but I’m sure others will come along, especially as we get closer to the 2010 elections. I’m glad I had this revelation now though. In order to breathe life into my blog, I really do have to put myself out there, instead of waiting for the action to come to me. I even thought about going down to Haiti too, hitching a ride with Red Cross and just going down there to help out wherever I could. And then of course, I’d blog about the experience. And blog, and blog, and blog…

That’s been my objective for a while, to somehow bridge the desire to help others with my love for writing, but I had been so narrowly focused on trying to bring more traffic to my site that I had failed to consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, the traffic would take care of itself if I instead focused on writing and living life the way I’ve always wanted to. So I’m not self-employed just yet, but I can certainly ACT like I am.

Maybe instead of chasing the dream, I should be LIVING the dream, and the rest will fall into place. The battle is already won, the race already done, the future made, the foundation laid, and I need only claim the victory.

Tags: blog, blogging, campaign, election, epiphany, future, Haiti, life, living, marketing, marketing campaign, Massachusetts, revelation, Scott Brown, traffic, writing
Categories: Blog Fog, Politics and Poker
 
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So I won’t be going to Amish Land, Pennsylvania for Christmas after all, partly due to the snow and because it’s supposed to rain on Christmas, which would create a nightmarish traffic mess of epic proportions due to all the snow we got last weekend.

Needless to say, I’m not really happy about it.

Don’t even ask me what I think about what Congress just did to our freedoms and liberties at one in the morning either, because I’ll just gnaw your face off.

Oh and did I mention that I am still single, and will be spending yet another Christmas alone? Awesome.

So fair warning to all, if you see me going off about blowing stuff up and killing people and stomping all over kittens and puppies and then eating them for breakfast, don’t be alarmed. I’m probably just venting.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go take a 2 by 4 and bash the head of one of the coworkers here just to SHUT HER THE UP.

Tags: anger, Christmas, congress, freedoms, hate, rain, rant, traffic
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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I’ve had all week off from work due to finagling my time around and connecting Election Day and Veterans Day to my usual time off. One of the reasons October/November continues to be my favorite months.

But then of course, it rains. And rains, and rains, and rains, and rains, and rains… Man, I don’t think I’ve seen the sun since Monday. This dude is not pleased.

So instead, I opt to go to the movies, but this time I wanted to check out one that had closed captioning available. There was only one nearby that captioned a movie I wanted to see (2012), so I decided to check it out.

I knew I was in for another whirly day when my GPS wouldn’t accept the address I put in. Sigh. Instead I drove to the location and of COURSE on the way I run into a MASSIVE traffic jam. Cars upon cars upon cars upon cars, and always the guy in front of me drives too slow while the guy behind me drives too fast. By the time I had reached my destination I was gripping the wheel so hard my knuckles were white. I was about THISCLOSE to flipping my lid and playing real life bumper cars.

By the time I got there the movie was just about to start. Only problem is, I arrived in front of a gas station.

Where between heaven and hell WAS this movie theater? Google Maps says it’s supposed to be right here, and Google never lies, @&%^!

I drove some more, than drove back again. After about a few miles I see a small sign indicating a movie theater was nearby. Turns out Google Maps was about 5 miles off the mark. By the time I had finally gotten to the right spot the movie had already started 30 minutes ago.

Sigh. It was just as well, the theater looked packed, and if there was one thing I could not abide by, it was the obnoxious, ugly weekend crowd of skanky kids, tired looking parents and stupid teenage couples getting all up in my space as I try to enjoy what more than likely turns out to be a sucky movie.

Not really what I had in mind to cap off my last week off from work. Grrrr.

Ah well, I might be able to redeem myself yet if it stops raining tomorrow. I’ll be heading off to Sleepy Hollow then for some geocaching and cemetery exploring. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig’s graves will be nearby too, so I might go see that as well. My coworker of course will wrinkle his nose at the thought of me going off to see a few Yankee ballplayers, but then again what else can you expect from a disgruntled Mets fan.

Pray I don’t get ticks or run into snakes or anything. I really, really hate bugs, and I really, REALLY hate snakes. Why can’t these people hide geocaches in like a Starbucks or something? Sheesh.

Tags: captioning, cemetery, crowd, geocache, geocaching, google maps, gps, movie, movie theater, theater, traffic, weekend
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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So I got up early this morning for a 3 day trip to Lancaster County in Pennsylvania, where I would meet up with a few relatives to celebrate a birthday at a bluegrass show. The next few days though would be all about meeeeeeeeeee, as I go off to do some geocaching deep in the heart of Amish Country.

So I have my GPS all set up, and I take off, first with a stop at 7-11 for some coffee.

And yep, I knew things were going to go south the minute I poured Half and Half into my coffee and the cap fell out and landed right into my cup.

“Ow, ouch, ow, ouch!” My fingers burned as I tried to pick the cap out of the sizzling coffee. Finally I wised up and used a pair of stirrers to get it out. The coffee of course tasted flat too.

Afterwards, I start heading south and already my spirits were beginning to improve, knowing I would be out of New York and breathing a bit easier over the next few days from being away from this accursed place. Then I see a road sign:

“Verrazano Bridge Closed.”

Nah, that can’t be right. Who completely closes a major metropolitan bridge anyway? Refusing to accept the warning, I pressed on, thinking the sign meant they only closed a few lanes.

THEY CLOSED THE ENTIRE @#$%^ VERRAZANO BRIDGE WHAT THE @*&$%^ GAAAAYEEARRGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

I furiously started tapping the detour button on my GPS, but it kept telling me to take the same route that was now completely BLOCKED by barriers and cops. Livid and ready to mow people down, I turned around and made my way back uptown again. The GPS finally wised up to my location and rerouted me through the Battery tunnel and the Holland. Thank God the traffic was light or I probably never would have made it out of New York alive. Eventually I did make it out and before I knew it I was zipping along on the New Jersey Turnpike at high speed.

I didn’t drive slower than 80-90… (ok maybe 100 at times) until I was finally in Pennsylvania. Breathing a bit easier now that I was out of the craphole that was New York and New Jersey, I noticed there was a geocache right by the rest area, so I decided to take a quick look so I could log this one as a find too.

Unfortunately I didn’t find it, although I did manage to muddy up my shoes and cut my hands too from the blades of the grass I was pulling up to find this bloody stupid cache. Oy! Plus for some reason my cell phone was not cooperating, so I could not access the Internet to get more info either so I could locate it.

I gave up and eventually continued deeper into Pennsylvania, then stopped by a Walmart to pick up a few things. I noticed there was yet another cache nearby the parking lot, so it was off I went. (Yep, I am in fact hooked to this.) This time I managed to find it, though not before stepping around in what I’m pretty sure now was poison ivy. I am really, really hoping that’s not the case, or this mini-vacation is going to take a very miserable turn for the worse in a hurry.

I arrived at the hotel around 3PM and checked in, dragged my suitcase up to my room and tried to open the door. After jiggling around for a minute, the door suddenly swung open and the guy whose room that DID belong to stared curiously at me.

“Whoops, sorry, wrong room.” He had just about scared the living crapola out of me too. Yeesh. I quickly moved away, only to move back again when I realized my room was directly across from his. A few minutes later, after I went out into the parking lot to grab more stuff, I saw the same guy again heading out and waving at me. I happened to notice a sticker on his car too, and it was an emblem that had become all too familiar to me. The guy actually worked for the same agency I did. We were, in fact, coworkers.

200 miles I travel and I still can’t get away from my job.

As soon as I realized it I ran to see if I could catch up to him to find out more, but his car had already left the parking lot. Are these people watching me or something??

Regardless, the whirly day finally began to simmer down as I met up with my folks again and we went off to the bluegrass show. I had a nice time, came back to the hotel, and somehow concluded the evening by having a pretty, sweetheart of a girl stop by my room so she could help light my fire.

But that’s another story.

Anyhoo, that’s it for the day. It’s 1AM, I’m exhausted and I need to get some sleep. Plus I’m starting to itch a little here…

Tags: Amish, coworkers, geocache, geocaching, girl, gps, lancaster county, new york, Pennsylvania, sweetheart, traffic, travel, vacation, verrazano bridge, walmart
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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Today marks the third year anniversary since my first ever post on this blog!

It’s certainly been a weird ride too.   Originally I started out thinking I would be using this blog to chronicle my journey through law school and into the law profession, but unfortunately life has a tendency to poop all over my best laid plans, so instead of writing about adventures in law school and beyond, I found myself rambling about topics of no particular interest to anyone but me.  My blog went for weeks without any updates, and my traffic was virtually nil.  Then I started wrapping myself around the idea that I could turn my blog into a money making machine, getting my hands on whatever material I could find out there that could help me figure out how to turn this site into a magical land of milk and honey, from whence I could quit my job, retire, and live it up as a self made man with a pizza on one hand and a babe on the other.

Then I went from there to wailing about all my health problems, which really put a damper on my blogging spirits for a while.  Then I went on a streak where I raged and ranted about dating sites and women and why they all sucked and disgusted me to no end, and not just them but people too, and they sucked and everybody sucks and the whole world sucks and why doesn’t everyone just explode and DIE????

Come to think of it I think I’m still on that streak. 

Under normal circumstances I probably would have closed this blog by now and moved on.

Only the thing is… this is the first time I’ve ever created a blog that provided a solid income stream for me.  I won’t be retiring or quitting anytime soon of course, but then again, I don’t just throw away something that’s earning me $200 a month, even if I have nothing worth writing about these days.   My feed count also surpassed 200 readers for the first time ever the other day, and it seems apparent that as I keep this site going and keep blogging, my audience and traffic will continue to expand, slowly, but surely.  $200 a month might some day become $300 a month, then $500, and from there, who knows how high it could go.  Love it or hate it, me and my blog, we’re stuck together for the long haul.  And who knows, just because I haven’t been able to earn a living NOW doesn’t mean I can’t earn one down the road, even if that road turns out to be a long, winding one that takes years to cover.  I know of one person who ran a math site since 1997, and it took her over ten years before she finally saw the fruits of her labor and was able to earning a living from her website alone.  From what I learned about search engines like Google, the older your domain gets, the more trusted it becomes, resulting in higher rankings and more traffic.  Some say the tipping point is 4 years, so by this time next year, I could end up seeing a dramatic difference that will boost my earnings potential even more.

In the meantime, this blog is still searching for an identity, a clear purpose, something to help focus my writing and truly make it blossom.  It’s sad that I find myself in my early thirties and even after all these years, I still don’t know who I am or who I was meant to be, if I was meant to be anything at all.  Am I destined to be a drifter, living a small life where I have no impact on anything, or am I meant for something bigger?  Can I overcome my inner demons and become the man God wants me to be, and the man that a future wife could be worthy of, or will I slowly fade away into obscurity and failure?

The story continues…

Tags: anniversary, blog, blogging, dating sites, failure, God, income, income stream, job, journey, land of milk and honey, law school, life, purpose, search engines, traffic, website, writing
Categories: Blog Fog
 
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I checked my stats for last month and I only blogged two posts for the entire month of May. TWO posts.

Yeah, I probably should blog more frequently than that if I’m to get more traffic and achieve my dream of being a full time blogger who lives off the love and affection of his adoring audience.

Part of the reason for the lack of posts is that I simply had no energy to blog. And when I did have some energy, anything I wrote felt too silly or boring that I doubted anyone would have any interest in reading it, especially since I tend to rehash a lot of the same topics. Writing is the one thing I think I can be good at, so when it doesn’t seem to flow freely from my mind to the screen I get so depressed sometimes. I hate being in a funk like this. I’m hoping June will be better blogwise, and maybe from now on I’ll just publish whatever happens to be on my mind, even if they’re like the worst content I’ve ever put to paper in the history of the universe.

So even if my blogging does take a serious dive in quality for the month of June, what’s the worst that could happen, really?

Tags: audience, blogging, energy, funk, muse, posts, quality, traffic, writing
Categories: Blog Fog
 
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