My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on January 13, 2013

Hmm, did the content I post to the blog get less interesting or are Internet users getting their fill of personal blogs? Maybe there is just too much content available?

After years of increasing blog readership, at least in pageviews, 2012 was the first year My Desultory Blog saw a decline in the numbers across the board. Now to be fair, I don’t post daily with the intent to attract readers (never did), and instead post as a personal journal … usually something that has interested me at a particular time and place. Still, there is a degree of egotism when seeing traffic numbers rise, a smirk at the deposits from Google Adsense and shock at graphical spikes when reposts appear on busy sites. (I’m floored at what a Reddit mention can do for one day).

Visits to the blog (–14.32%) and unique visitors (-15.42%) dropped  from 2011 to 2012. Total pageviews were down as well, but slightly less at -13.05%. Those who were reading, stayed on page an average of 45 seconds in 2012 before clicking another link, which was 4 seconds longer than in 2011. According to the stats, the number of new visits to the blog were down slightly (-1.46%), but still new visits outweighed returning readers 9 to 1.

The biggest change in 2012 is probably the device that readers use to access MyDesultoryBlog. As might be expected, even with decreased visits, mobile device use (including tablets) increased by 7.57% in 2012 over 2011 – although this is still only about 5% of overall access to the site. Mobile devices users also now visit twice as many pages than 2011 – up 14.68%. The biggest change was in how long mobile devices stayed on content – that was up 78.35%.

Top three posts by number of visits in 2012:

1. Great White Shark post from 2008
2. Rogue Wave post from 2010
3. Analytical Thinking post from 2010

All in all it is interesting to analyze the numbers, although I’m not sure what if anything I will do different in 2013 … perhaps a better mobile accessible site?

Category: Blogs, Misc, Personal | No Comments »
Tags: 2012, analysis, blog, mydesultoryblog, stats

Posted By RichC on January 12, 2013

One would expect some of the conservative western or southern states to adopt deterrents when it comes to criminals targeting gun free zones like public schools, but the Montpelier Exempted Village School Board of Education has been quick to adapt here in Ohio. They approved (5-0) to permit four of their janitors to carry handguns in response to the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut last month. As is often the case, smaller organization know how to do more with less when it comes to budgeting and this is a excellent example. Rather than raising taxes again in order to hire additional staff, they instead are utilizing the staff already being employed. Personally I’d rather not telegraph to would-be bad guys “who” in my school was the deterrent, but it seems common sense that districts could utilize firearm trained personnel or ex-military if a community wants to better protect their children. Hmm, if only our bloated federal government could be this creative … “doing more with less,” what a concept!

Montpelier schools OKs armed janitors

MONTPELIER, Ohio — Janitors at Montpelier Exempted Village Schools are equipped with brooms, sponges, and dustpans to keep classrooms, corridors, and bathrooms clean and tidy.

Within the next several months, the custodial staff will be toting handguns as they carry out their daily duties in the school district buildings.

In reaction to last month’s deadly shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, the board of education of this Williams County school district Wednesday night unanimously voted for four janitors to carry handguns on the K-12 campus.

School officials say having armed personnel, which may be a first for any school system in Ohio, is designed to thwart incidents of violence and prevent what happened in Newtown, Conn., from occurring in Montpelier.

“Sitting back and doing nothing and hoping it doesn’t happen to you is just not good policy anymore. There is a need for schools to beef up their security measures,” Supertendent Jamie Grime told The Blade on Thursday.

“Having guns in the hands of the right people are not a hindrance. They are a means to protect.”

School board President Larry Martin said that, while the school district began looking into arming employees about six months ago, the board didn’t announce the concept publicly until Wednesday’s monthly meeting.

He said the Dec. 14 slayings of 20 children and six staff at Sandy Hook heightened the decision to put the resolution on the board agenda.

“Our main goal is to offer safety for our students while they are in the classrooms and in the building,” Mr. Martin said. “We have to do something and this seems like the most logical, reasonable course to go with.”

Before voting on the resolution, which was approved 5-0, village Police Chief Jeffrey Lehman met with the board and superintendent in executive session to provide advice, suggestions, and his professional opinion, said Mr. Martin, a school board member for 20 years.

School officials also reviewed the resolution with the district’s Cincinnati-based law firm, Ennis, Roberts, and Fischer, LPA, to determine whether gun possession by janitors in the classroom is legal under the state’s concealed-carry license law.

Mr. Grime said their legal counsel advised that Ohio’s gun law allows for school boards to authorize employees to possess weapons on school grounds if they pass the requirements of the concealed-carry law.

“This is not something that we decided to do, did it, and then figured out what was right and wrong. It is the right thing to do,” Mr. Martin said.

Mr. Martin said that no one spoke in favor or against the measure during the part of the meeting set aside for public comment, and the community has been supportive of the decision.

“The reaction has all been positive,” he said.

The school district will pay for the employees to undergo a two-day training class in mid-March, when instructors with the Tactical Defense Institute will give them a defense class on handgun use in Montpelier.

“Until the training has been completed, nobody will be carrying a concealed handgun here in school,” Mr. Grime said.

The school district will not buy the handguns that will be used by the janitors. Instead, they will be paid a stipend for holstering a weapon.

School officials said the custodians, who are all men and don’t belong to a collective-bargaining group, have agreed to carry guns on the job.

“We will not be forcing this upon anybody,” Mr. Grime said.

LINK

Category: Education, Financial, News, Politics | No Comments »
Tags: firearms, guns, janitor, montpelier, schools

Posted By RichC on January 11, 2013

Here’s a helpful “Tech Friday” post that is really just some smart advice – it has nothing to do with the photo of Tootsie above except that it was taken with the iPhone 5. Anyway, a client of mine regularly upgrades his high end phone (and now his iPad) every 2 years as permitted by his cellphone contract and takes advantage of the subsidized plans like most of us in the U.S. As a gadget guy, he looks forward to new in phone, tablet and computer technology, even though a new phone requires some out of pocket costs to upgrade. Most of us toss our old phones in a drawer or box, but could be selling that relatively useful phone if it were new enough and in good shape.

His advice:
“Buy a top end desirable/popular phone and put it in a protective case as it improves the resale value of a two year old phone. Listing a “like-new” phone on eBay without a contract sells quickly and the $100-$200 can covered the out of pocket costs of a new phone.” (his last two “like-new” phones sold for enough to cover the cost of new phones and he’s been pretty successful in selling to upgrading his iPads too)

Just a personal comment on switching to the iPhone 5 from the Palm Pre. I had though that I would miss the physical keyboard, but have been shock at just how quickly I’ve adapted to iOS and the virtual keyboard. I have very few gripes about it and will continue to rave about the excellent camera … what an improvement over the old Palm Treo and Palm Pre. (above is a normally lit indoor photo and below is a macro of a flower using the camera on the iPhone 5) 

click for larger

Category: Advice, Cellphone, Photos, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: advice, iphone, photo, smarphone

Posted By RichC on January 10, 2013

The popular automotive site, Autoblog, wasn’t overly complementary when it came to parting with a 2011 Volkswagen Jetta TDI after a 12 month 20,000 plus mile test drive. This current and slightly larger body style has been widely criticized for its "cheapened" feel and less than European driving characteristics. Autoblog drivers did however say positive things about the little diesel’s fuel economy:

… we added up all of the fuel economy records in our logbook, divided by the number of fill-ups and came to this final observed number: 42.1 mpg. That’s right, our average just narrowly bested the claimed highway economy number. And, to be honest, we could have done better if we actually tried. Many drivers noted fuel economy of over 50 mpg, with Editor Korzeniewski taking the cake with one 53.8-mpg run, which he achieved without even trying.

LINK

Category: Automotive, Blogs, Diesel, Volkswagen | 1 Comment »
Tags: diesel, jetta, tdi, volkswagen, vw

Posted By RichC on January 9, 2013

Jacksonville, Florida beachgoers (although it is a bit cold for swimming) have had a large visitor named Mary Lee the last few days. I seems a 16-1/2 foot 3500 pound great white shark has been wandering very close to shore. Ocearch, a shark research group, has tagged and is tracking “Mary Lee” on a website and Facebook page. The nonprofit group is dedicated to shark preservation and was surprised to see the GPS signal moving this far south and this close to shore (below). Founding chairman Chris Fischer tagged the great white shark off Massachusetts in September, where they are more common, but Mary Lee has been moving steadily south this year.

After seeing the location move near the surf and Jacksonville beaches, Fischer decided to call the Jacksonville Beach police from his home in Park City, Utah just to make them aware. The police took the information seriously and stopped to update a lifeguard station in the middle of the night to be sure there were no swimmers in the area. It was a cold night, so there weren’t any … but sent out a warning.

“Due to the size of the shark and the potential dangers we are recommending at this time that people stay out of the water until the shark leaves our area.”

• CNN interview video

Category: Environment, Nature, Sailing | No Comments »
Tags: florida, great white sharks, jacksonville, ocearch

Posted By RichC on January 8, 2013

I’ve held off until now before adding a couple thoughts to the discussion on the high profile killings last year which concluded with the December mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Commenting while emotions were raw was not something that was going to further logical debate … and probably still won’t since from what I can see the focus is still only on gun control.

What we know from the last couple of mass murders is that there are some commonalities. First, the killers are relatively young, male and mentally unstable. Second, they target defenseless victims where the killer is unlikely to encounter resistance … and third, the psychopath used a gun with plenty of ammunition. In order to seriously address this threat, it seems sensible to look at all of the above and come up with a more realistic way to prevent mass killings rather than singularly focusing on the weapon used. I currently not detecting much logic from the approach politicians are taking. If stopping the legal sales of a listed number of magazines and weapons classified at “assault rifles” in a nation of 3 million guns being the only “patch,” we aren’t serious about stopping another massacre. Of course the cynic in me suspects anti-gun advocates aren’t really focused on preventing killings, but are really only focused on restricting gun ownership in America?

If we were really serious, wouldn’t it make more sense to at least discuss the approach and treatment for those who are mentally ill or knowingly unstable … or address the stupidity of telling criminals and killers that they won’t face any armed resistance because they are in a “gun free zone.” Let’s get serious America and focus on a solution that has a chance of working.

Category: Personal, Politics | 1 Comment »
Tags: control, guns, Politics, weapons

Posted By RichC on January 7, 2013

My travel schedule this week was modified slightly to include a couple more cold calls in the Cleveland area that I’ve been putting off until the new year … not really my choice … but it works out so that my son Taylor will be able to go to a seminar and workshop while he is on his college Christmas and New Year’s break.

CSU session (Reserved for CSU faculty, staff and students): Monday, January 7, 2013
10:00am – 2:00pm – Application of Community Mapping

Presentation (Open to Everyone): Monday, January 7, 2013
3:00pm – 4:30pm – Community Participatory Mapping Presentation

Full day session (Open to Everyone): Tuesday, January 8, 2013
9:00am – 4:00pm – Hands on Application of Community Mapping Project Workshop
Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs, Cleveland State University

Let’s hope the “hands on” exposure ignites a excitement to graduate and begin his job search with renewed interest? If for no other reason, the seminar might be a chance to network with people in a new area and offer a chance to exchange “hellos” just in case an interview opportunity pops up in NE Ohio.

Category: Misc, Personal | No Comments »
Tags: cleveland, ohio, seminar, taylor, workshop

Posted By RichC on January 6, 2013

http://www.nfl.com/playoffs/playoff-picture

Posted via email from RichC’s posterous

Category: Misc | No Comments »
Tags:

Posted By RichC on January 5, 2013

Another ultra-small car (the third 3-cylinder) his headed for the U.S. according to reports from Mitsubishi. They have struggled to make inroads due to the stiff competition and sluggish economy, but are hoping Americans will consider their 1.2 liter 3-cylinder Mirage.  Their small three cylinder economy car will compete with Ford’s EcoBoost turbocharged 1.0 liter and the 3-cylinder in the Smart.

Will the Mitsubishi small 79 HP be enough to boost small car sales in North America like the Japanese cars were in the late 70’s and 80’s?

Category: Automotive | No Comments »
Tags: mirage, mitsubishi

Posted By RichC on January 4, 2013

Up and coming shoe technology that charges gadgets could be one of the more interesting inventions this year. I suspect we’ll see more wearable charging in the future.

"This charger works using pressure, as you walk you generate pressure that in turn generates energy, once you have arrived where you were going you can now sit down and charge your mobile phone," Mutua told CNC World.

The technology apparently works with any shoe except bathroom slippers, and can be transferred to another once a shoe gets worn out.

LINK

Category: Cellphone, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: charging, devices, gadget, shoe, smartphone