Monthly Archives: May 2008

Blog news

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I don’t talk about blog stats much – well, at all – because there isn’t really much to say. I average about 60 to 100 unique visitors a day – with random peaks and valleys – and that has been fairly consistent for several months. But a few weeks ago on April 17, when the earthquake hit Cincinnati, I received nearly 1,100 unique visitors. Woo-wee!

The earthquake woke me up so I decided to get on the computer and start blogging. Within 10 minutes I had made my first post and updated with more for the few hours after that. So, I got a barrage of Google hits on the subject. That was pretty cool.

Also, I’ve added a few widgets to the sidebar. A while back I added a Twitter widget (to go with the Flickr widget). Just a few days ago I added the Google Reader shared posts widget.

Twitter, if you haven’t discovered it yet, is a cool little application that asks the question: What are you doing? I update it as much as I can through my cell phone (either by sending text messages or using the phone’s Web browser) or by going to the Twitter Web site. Or my new toy: Twhirl.

The Google Reader is an RSS feed reader that allows me to read text (or a summary) and see some photographs from several Web pages at once in a single Web page. It also allows me to hit a “share” button that puts up the blog posts I think are worth checking out, which then appear on Report This! I highly recommend the reader – and checking out the posts I share.

I also added some Google ads to the sidebar as an experiment. I more or less just wanted to see how it worked and how quickly pennies added up. Turns out the only people making money off this blog is Google! Expect the ads to come down soon.

CityBeat column: Still don’t get it

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The feeding line

(Photo from October 6, 2007, Feeding Washington Park)

God bless them. Really. They mean well, but after this blog post and my first column in CityBeat, I still believe we are not seeing eye-to-eye on the cause and effect of giving away food in Over-the-Rhine‘s Washington Park (and I would add to that: having a “church” service with loudspeakers so loud that windows shake in the building I live in across from the park). So, the good folks at Vineyard Community Church in Springdale (who give away food on Saturday mornings, provide some clothing and other assistance, plus send a van to pick up folks in OTR to attend Saturday evening church services) invited me to come along on a Saturday morning food run and witness first-hand (in this case, across the street from my house where I had been watching them before) the good they were doing. They believed I really didn’t understand. And they were wrong.

This week’s CityBeat column, this blog post, the past writings put me in the awkward position of being at odds with people who are truly, not only trying to do something good, on many levels they are. So, the question then becomes is just “doing good” enough? Or does the good you’re are aiming for actually have to have positive long-term consequences for those you are helping? And does the residual and indirect effects of your well-intentioned actions matter?

I’d say yes, but I think my pleas for understanding may be directed at minds that have already been made up or refuse to hear what I – and others – are saying.

Your warehouse club membership pays to the end

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I have an interest with things related to death – but not particularly death itself.

Spring Grove Cemetery and Arboretum is one of my favorite places to take photographs, “Six Feet Under” is one of my favorite shows of all time, I volunteered at Fernside: A Center for Grieving Children for many years (and still think it the best single non-profit organization in the Greater Cincinnati area, hands down). I get creeped out every time I see the Hamilton County Sheriff‘s “meat wagon” driving around town with the deputy driving and the two blue jumpsuit-clad prisoner-helpers – one riding shotgun, the other in the back seat of the extended cab pick-up – going either to pick up a dead body, drop one off at the coroner’s office near University Hospital or heading back downtown to the Justice Center.

[It's weird, but I never connected all those things together until just now decided to write this blog post, but it seems to work. Or not work, as the case may be.]

So, I was a little disturbed when I saw our old, good friend Maggie Downs‘ post on Bloggy Style about Costco’s product line.

Smile. Someone or something is watching.

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This week’s CityBeat column is about Bill Brown’s Surveillance Camera Tour he gave Sunday to a mixed-age, mixed-race group of 18 people. I was told about the tour by a neighbor who found it on Brown’s Web page by accident, she said. It seemed interesting – and it was.

My neighbor also wrote a blog entry about the tour, of which Brown apparently took some no offense, having written is own summary of the tour.

Note: I do not “dawn” a coat and tie; I “don” it. Ooops.