Battening Down the Hatches

Today's order of business: Battening down the hatches.

We've got our first winter storm likely to blow in tomorrow afternoon, and I was a bit behind in getting our outdoor stuff ready for the foul weather.

This is what responsibility feels like. It's frighteningly like a mix between the flu and old age. Of course, I've had a touch of the flu for the past few days, so maybe responsibility doesn't feel all that bad.

It started with the carrots. We still had carrots in the garden until noon. They're now all dug up, with some of them bottled. We may pack the rest in sand, or we may bottle the rest. I don't know. I'm too tired to think about it now.

Then I cleaned out the shed so we had enough room to cram the outdoor stuff into it -- bicycles, wagons, wheelbarrows, and all sorts of junk. Still have more to put in, and I'm running out of room.

Then the worst of it: I had to fix the gutter on the front of the house. Really didn't want to, especially after I'd buried the ladder putting stuff in the shed. But I fixed it. I even liquid nailed it in place, hoping this time that it'll stay put together.

Still have more to do, including getting the camper stowed for the season. So here's to hoping the weatherman is wrong.

Financial Planning

We make a pair, Michelle and I.

We had our financial planner come over today (Hi, Trent! Thanks for coming!). We've managed to squirrel away a bit more in savings that we wanted to be doing more with than collecting miniscule profits from credit union savings account interest.

Also Tired of Miniscule Profits

Trent always comes well prepared, ready to study our current portfolio and make recommendations for how to tweak it and then find ways for us to invest what little chicken scratch we've got.

And 90 percent of the time, the stuff he suggests just goes right over our heads.

See, we're not numbers people. Words, yes, you can depend on us to come up with them, and in mass quantities. But when it comes to words that are mixed up with numbers, we just sit there pleasantly nodding while our brains pull a Homer Simpson on us:

To give us a bit more credit than I'm giving us at the moment, we do try our darndest to understand. We do ask questions. I try to follow the financial news and try to think as an investor should think (buy low, sell high; isn't it about time that gold did a header, et cetera). And then we both kind of sit back and think, "Wow. Are we investing in gold?" (Yes we are. In China, too. We're getting out of both, based on Trent's advice, which, from what I've learned, I think is sound.)

We have an ace in the hole in that Trent also works for the same company that advises Michelle's Dad, who has done not so badly with his investments over the years. We always check in with him when we make these decisions - and he always gives us the same song and dance we get from Trent: No one can predict how these things will work out. But he said we made some good decisions, based on the trust we've got in Trent. That's good enough for me.

Talking Out Loud About Making Uncharted Better for Explorers

NOTE: Bear with me if you've heard all you ever wanted to hear about Uncharted. I'm just thinking aloud here, trying to figure out what we can do to make our site more attractive to people who want to post their stories and photos. We've got some challenges to overcome.

Challenge: We've got a website – Uncharted – where the key to growth lies not only in getting eyeballs to the site but getting the brains connected to those eyeballs contributing to the site.

Reasons for folks not making contributions vary from situation to situation. The most likely scenarios:

• People are just busy
• They're following us on Facebook, or made a profile at Uncharted, because they're friends or acquaintances with us, but that's as far as it goes
• Our interface makes it cumbersome or time-consuming to submit content
• They're intimidated by what's already on the site
• They're not aware they, too, can contribute.

This little plan is being concocted to see what we can do better to surmount the final two obstacles, while other plans are being developed to tackle other challenges, including those not listed in this plan.

So, what do we have on the site right now that invites people to contribute?

First, this SHARE/REGISTER:

The SHARE tab and the Register link appear on our home page. Given the color scheme and location, SHARE is more prominent. To share, however, one must log in, or, if one is not yet an Explorer, one must register.

This is what a potential explorer sees when he or she clicks on the share tab without registering or logging in first:

Okay, the invitation is there. But what are the benefits? What does a potential Explorer get by registering? We don't explain that. More on that later.

We do offer lots of enticement. Here's a banner that also offers an invitation:

We've got another one that's similar, but you get the idea.

It's somewhat of a crapshoot to know where to click. Parts of the image are clickable, others are not. Clicking on either gets you to the following page:

Cool. An invitation that asks them to sign up.

But what are the benefits? Again, I'm not sure we're communicating those benefits. We know them. Perhaps we take them for granted. But we can't do that. Our Explorers don't know the benefits as we see them.

(An aside: I think we need to revise the Terms of Service. But more on that later.)

Here's another invitation we offer, in the form of a slide on the home page (again, it's hit and miss as to where one has to click on the image to go anywhere):

Click here, and you go to this page:

Here, you get to see what a story and photoset look like. Kinda nifty, isn't it? We do better on the invitation, but there's something lacking – we don't tell them where to go to sign up (we should) and we don't tell them what the benefits of being a member are.

Oh, we give them hints. Like this:

That looks cool. But what is it? Again, maybe it's obvious to us. But is it obvious to a non-inducted servant of Alan the Sith Lord what this means? We don't explain it. I'm glad it's there – but we need to do a better job explaining what the benefits are, why people should become Explorers, before we can expect to see them join.

So, what are the benefits? We must eludicate, and communicate them on the site so people will know why we want them to sign up so badly. Here are a few examples:

• Planning a trip to Planet X? Maybe someone at Uncharted has been there before you and can show you photos or let you know if it's a place where you can take your kids, for example, or if it's even worth the trouble
• Not only do you get their words and photos, but if you become a friend with them and communicate with Uncharted's email, you're automatically connected with a kindred spirit who might pass on some other tips he or she didn't share online yet
• Like to write or shoot photos? Here's a place to show your stuff off with other people doing exactly the same thing. Sure, you can post your stuff on Facebook for your friends to ignore
• Maybe you want some help learning how to shoot better photos, or write a snappier story. Uncharted touts itself as a place where amateurs and professionals get together and help each other out. Except we don't advertise that. More on how to fix that later
• If we like your stuff, we'll brag about it for you on Twitter, Facebook, et cetera
• Maybe we'll send a little bit of Uncharted swag your way because you signed up and posted your first photoset or story, and because we like you
• And many, many other advantages
• More importantly, what do our Explorers see as the advantages?

Where can we communicate them? I see several opportunities:

• Staff page, where we share a set of photos of our current Explorers, quoting from them why they like Uncharted. We can talk about why it's a great place all we want, but until potential Explorers hear it from current Explorers, it's not as powerful
• Blog, where we can do the same
• Facebook, where we can do the same

What needs to be there?

• Short, sweet testimonials
• An invitation
• An immediate opportunity to follow up on that invitation by signing up and submitting a story or photo
• An explanation of the “behind the scenes” at Uncharted, including a tour of a typical explorer's page (possibly in a video or, given our tech limitations, a slide show; an example, in a slide show, of what happens when one of the Sith Lords at Uncharted decides an Explorer contribution is worthy of being featured on the home page.

In the preceding list, we see where we have our Explorers tell why they like Uncharted, where we explain our processes – at the same time giving them a taste of the amateur/professional mix, but said in friendlier terms so they're not intimidated, and examples of what others have done on the site.

I guess what I'm getting at is that we can't just assume that because the site is there, potential Explorers will explore the site and figure out the process and advantages by osmosis. We need to tell them. Honestly, succinctly, and firmly.

Hocus . . . Pocus! I Am a Vampire!

It's that time of year again when I turn into a vampire.

Not literally, of course. But as I'm heading out to the bus at 4:45 am with Orion watching from the southeast and the Big Dipper pointing its handle at the horizon to the north and coming home with the first stars coming out and the twilight ending, I do feel a bit vampirish. If it weren't for the window in my cubicle and the occasional stroll outside, I wouldn't see the sun at all. And it's a condition that lasts through mid-April, when the days finally start to get a bit longer.

No wonder I feel a bit fatty-gyooed.

So it is nice when the weekends come and I can be outdoors, soaking up the sun and making Vitamin D. Tomorrow, my adventures will likely include digging all of the carrots out of the garden and getting stuff stowed in the shed for winter; we've got our first winter storm scheduled to start storming into the area on Sunday.

For those of you who are interested, I'm trying a new summer accoutrement storage approach, in using the kids' playhouse, both underneath and inside, to store stuff for the winter. The shed is great, but it gets so crowded with stuff over the season that it's hard to get in there. So when the snow is here in earnest, the tomato cages and the kids' bicycles are going in the playhouse, with the wagon and one of the wheelbarrows is going underneath the playhouse.

The Left Pulls A Brietbart

Several years ago, my wife and I were sitting alone at an airline gate at London’s Heathrow Airport, waiting for our return flight to the United States. We were at the gate early, as is our practice. We were the only ones there.

The flight previous to ours was destined to fly to Iran.

No worries, I thought. No reason to think anything ill of people just trying to get home, like us.

Then the passengers started to filter in. Most in traditional Westernized Arab garb: headscarves worn over suits and collared shirts, burquas and such.

I started to feel nervous.

No worries, I reminded myself. No reason to think ill of anybody.

No reason at all.

But of course I was nervous. This was pre-9/11, but post 1980s, when hijackings and airport bombings by Muslim extremists were still in the news. To say we didn’t maintain a low profile would be to lie. To say I wasn’t nervous would be to lie.

But nothing happened, of course, except a little paranoia which was pretty embarrassing at the time, and still causes embarrassment as I think about it now. I’d seen my inner bigot.

I know it’s an irrational fear, of course; just as silly as some Japanese kid spotting Dave Barry while on vacation there and yelling GAIJIN! (foreigner!) and running to his mommy, as if there were something to fear from a humor columnist.

The only thing that really troubled me on the flight home was the two-liter bottle of lemonade I’d drunk at the airport. I had to get up during the ascent, against stewardess’ orders, to visit the toilet because there was going to be an accident. I’m sure there were people who saw me moving and were wondering, “Where is that guy going? Does he have a bomb? He could be a neo-Nazi extremist, with that burly build and blond hair.”

Irrational, of course. But a fear nonetheless.

Juan Williams, an NPR reporter and “news analyst” got fired this week for expressing such a fear while appearing on Bill O’Reilley’s show on Fox News. This is what Williams said, per the Washington Post (via CBS News):

"I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country," he said. "But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they're identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."
Williams then brought up a statement made in a New York courtroom this month by Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-American who pleaded guilty to trying to detonate a bomb in Times Square and was sentenced to life in prison.

"He said the war with Muslims, America's war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don't think there's any way to get away from these facts," Williams said.

Reached this morning in Washington, Williams said he was still digesting the news of his termination and didn't want to comment. "I better bite my tongue at this point," he said.

Nothing that I haven’t expressed here, of course, nor nothing just about anyone hasn’t thought about, say, a black person, a Tea Partier, a Hell’s Angel, or any other individual whose race or appearance makes them stand out in a crowd and make it easy to identify what group that person identifies with.

Here’s why NPR fired him:

NPR said in a statement that Williams's remarks--including that he gets "worried" and "nervous" when he sees people dressed in Muslim-style clothing on airplanes--"were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR."

If he’d said such things about, say, a neo-Nazi, a costumed Tea Partier, or even a guy on the airplane wearing a pink bunny suit, it’s likely no one at NPR would have noticed.

Williams got fired for expressing a common fear. That’s it. Thoughtcrime, uttered aloud, has been committed. But maybe I’d better bite my tongue at this point as well.

Here's what William Saletan writes at Slate.com:

I'm not saying Williams is the world's most enlightened guy. He's wrong, for example, about the proposed Islamic Center near Ground Zero. And it's certainly unsettling to hear him admit that he worries when he sees Muslims in distinctive dress. But admitting such fears doesn't make you a bigot. Sometimes, to work through your fears, you have to face them honestly. You have to think through the perils of acting on those fears. And you have to explain to others why they, too, should transcend their anxieties or resentments and treat people as individuals.

Bravo.

New Blog Page! V.V.V.V. Exciting!

I take the information on the most popular posts on this blog and then put it here, with pithy and occasionally stupid reactions from myself as I re-read my own crapola.

Stats are as of Oct. 20, 10 pm.

1) Drivelalia Factosis

82 page views since July 18. By far the most popular post, by pageviews. One of my favorites as well, as comic strip artist Richard Thompson nails the affliction I have, as evidenced by my nearly 1,000 blog posts this year alone.

2) Paul Yarrow, News Raider

40 page views since July 29. I sincerely hope Mr. Yarrow, who appeared as a wandering background character in hundreds of news reports in the greater London area, is still plying his trade, taking potshots against a world of glamour for the unattractive man in all of us.

3) Walkman vs. iPod Family: Sony Holds Up Well

38 page views since July 24. ARRRRGH! I hate it when my typos stand out as clearly as they do in this post. Oh well. Ironically, I've not used my Sony for quite a while, as I'm addicted to a new iPod Touch game that I won't go into at the moment.

4)  Exploring the Creative Commons; Sgt. Rizzo, Advisi...

36 page views since July 12. A long discussion I had with myself about the creative commons, writing a novel with a collaborator found via the web, and such. Nothing has come of it.

5) Awl Ah Wahnt Is Mah Monnnaayy. . .

27 page views since July 9. Rounding up a very fecund July, a follow-up post to the post on creative commons licensing. I have made significant progress on the novel I mention in this post, finishing it with just over 80,000 words. Now I must edit, find an agent, and continue writing.

6) The Grammar Nazi is Loathe to Mention This . . . A...

27 page views since February 3. I'm happy to see the Grammar Nazi -- who has been absent from my blog as of late -- make an appearance. Apparently, lots of people out there are anxious to know the difference between loath and loathe.

7) What Else Needs A Permit in Rexburg?

26 page views since September 16. From the second-most popular month on this blog, where I wrote about needing a permit to hold a water balloon fight in town. The city has since banned such fights, while the university remains ambiguous to them -- probably because nobody's had the nerve to ask the Rexburg Taliban the question.

8) I Sell Other People's Belongings

22 page views since April 28. Commentary here on the theft of an iPhone prototype. Interesting how this has faded from the news now, given the umbrage it received in April. C'est la guerre.

9) International Read the Qur'an Day

20 page views since September 9. I'm still reading, though it's slow going.

10) Words Less Valuable Than Spreadable Cheese

18 page views since September 30. My lament on the cheapness of words. Ironic, considering how much I babble on this blog for nothing.

I still dwell mostly in zero (0) comments land, as expressed at xkcd.com. But that's okay. I do these blogs mainly as an outlet for self-expression, not because I want to be noticed. I'm also successfully ignored on Twitter and Facebook.

Angry Birds

This is, apparently, all it takes.

Write an addictive smartphone game. Say, Angry Birds. Sell that baby for, say a cheap 99 cents. Then watch your publisher get snapped up by gaming giant Electronic Arts for a rumored $20 million, while you retain the copyrights to your game and begin exploring things such as television shows, a movie, and other associated and ancillary media.

Profit.

And, if you’re lucky, repeat.

That has come to pass.

I play the game. The free version. I have not added a red cent to revenue earned by RovioMobile, the Finnish company that wrote the game, or Chillingo, the American company that published it and was bought by Electronic Arts. Not that it matters. It seems they can afford to give me a free version in the hopes that, once addicted, I’ll buy the 99 cent version – as I said earlier, cheap; cheaper than a terrapin, Mr. Bean. More importantly, I’d pass on that addiction.

Bravo to them. Just another example of making the pie higher: Producing a good a lot of people want, not charging much for it, but then beating the spread when it becomes popular.

Of course, thousands try to replicate this success, and thousands fail. Thus is the nature of any kind of ‘ism you’d care to bring up. People buy what they want. They don’t buy what they don’t want. Finding what they want, that’s the key.

The key for anything, really. Is the novel – you knew that was going to come up – that I’ve written something people want? I don’t know. Nobody seems to be reading it. That’s my fault; I’m not marketing it well enough.

Should I sell it for 99 cents a pop in the hopes that it’ll become a sensation? I don’t know. I can’t seem to give it away at the moment. And forget appealing to the gods of Google for help on ebook publishing. Just entering that search term into Google brought 38.2 million hits from a buncha different companies, each shadier than the last. And marketing is a full-time job. I’m not up to that.

I wonder, when the printing press was developed, followed by the folio, were there scam artists there just waiting for some naïve author to come along and ask the question: I’ve got a book. Who wants to publish it? I’m sure there were as many as there were questionable bits of movable type stolen from the more legitimate publishing houses.

So what to do, what to do, while waiting for my Angry Birds moment? I can make the book better, for one. And continue writing, for another. And find an agent, who knows this business better than I.

PS: Story behind the story. RoxioMobile had to go into a flurry of Twittering because a lot of folks thought they'd been bought out by EA, and not their publisher. This is probably due to journalistic shorthand, which goes like this: Obscure Company A has been bought by Prominent Company B. Nobody knows A, not even as publisher of Company C's Product X, but since Company C's Product X is very hot at the moment, the quickest way to provide context is to say that the publishers of  Product X. The public, in reading the story, aren't into the nuances of publisher versus owner, so they automatically assume that Company C has been bought out, since they're the ones with the hot product and they've never heard of Company B. Easy for the journalist, harder for the public and for Company C.

But Dreng Has No Fortune

Taboo subject here: That ol' payscale.

One of my Facebook friends (I defeated him in the grueling election to become eighth grade president at North Bonneville Junior High School, but I think he's forgiven me for that) posed the question Would I rather live now with a "middle" income of 70k a year, or with that same income in 1900, when it was the income of the top wealthiest cadre in the United States.

Trick question, I thought. Especially since even today, I don't quite meet the "middle" income mark he picks.

This isn't going to be a big Pity Me party, because, considering, we're doing quite well. I did just get news yesterday that I am getting a cost of living adjustment, putting me above a certain numerical threshold for the first time in my life. Not quite the middle income my Facebook friend was posing questions about, but then again it's certainly considerably more than I was making as a journalist.

Knock on wood I've been lucky. Got out of the journalism business before the Big Tanking. Also got a substantial raise at my current job in September 2008, right before the economy collapsed. So with the COLA this year, I'm going to say we're doing okay. Of course, 2011 is going to bring between 600-700 layoffs at the company I work for as a subcontractor -- with the subcontractors first in line for the firing squad. We're hoping -- and are fairly certain, but you know how fate works -- that we as a group will survive the layoffs, as there is still work in the areas we're attached to. That won't stop them, of course, from dumping subcontractors like me and then moving company people into those positions. So I've got to be ready for any contingency. But in the meantime, a COLA which will bring in almost another $200 a month is welcome. We can squirrel it away for the inevitable day I do get that funny little tap on the shoulder and am sent to that Sweet Fanny Adams in the Sky.

Working on aces up the sleeve:

• I have signed a contract to teach at BYU-Idaho next semester. It's pittance pay and depends on whether there's enough demand for the course, but I see it mainly as a foot in the door at the university. Do a good enough job, my friend, and I might be considered more heavily for a better position.
• The novel is written. My goal with it now is to have it polished by the new year and to have, to go with it, a polished query letter with which I may begin to pepper the agents. And I'll begin work on the second portion of the story I'm telling, with the possibility of picking up two other unrelated novels I've been working on for quite some time. Not necessarily here the promise of a cash future, but certainly something with which to feed the soul.
• Applying for jobs like crazy. I interviewed (unsuccessfully) at the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Utah a few months ago, and still prowl the Internets for opportunities. I need to do better networking, but it's pretty difficult for a hermit to get excited about meeting people. I do have a few allies (and perhaps one enemy) working for BEA -- the research side of the Idaho National Laboratory -- so that helps/hurts at the same time.
• I do know this: journalism, Target, and call centers are out. I'd rather chew tin cans and make my children do the same.

Soul food is as important as a paycheck, I discovered, when one is underemployed. I spent a fair portion of 2005 and 2006 working at Target and at a call center while looking for a job after I exited the journalism biz butt-first. Then I worked on a few short stories and a novel that I still think has a few possibilities. It's one I'm still working on.

Blowed Up Real Good

So it has come to this: President Obama, leader of the free world, is going to appear on “Mythbusters.”

Has already taped the episode, to air Dec. 8. Will observe (or participate in, or don a crash helmet for) an experiment “consider[ing] whether Greek scientist Archimedes set fire to an invading Roman fleet using only mirrors and the reflected rays of the sun.”

No word yet if this is going to be a broadcast of the group’s failed attempt to ignite a wooden fishing boat in San Francisco. No word on if, when Obama made the request, if anyone had the guts to tell him that myth had been busted, or if they all sat there in thrall as if they were Archie Bunker writing that letter to Richard Nixon:

Yes, President Obama is going to appear on “Mythbusters,” a show on which things get blowed up real good:

I like the show. I’m not a regular viewer of it – nor of any TV show – but when I’m at the in-laws and it happens to be on, I’ll watch it. But what’s the utility of having a standing president of the United States appear on a television show to request a demonstration of a myth that’s already been busted? Or is this a coy way for Obama, with help from the Pentagon, to show Iran and other adversaries the new Archimedes Death Ray that’s been developed out in the Nevada desert? Only time will tell.

And part of me wonders if this is going to be another ludicrous "boxers or briefs" moments in which, in attempting to connect with the youth of America, an American president makes himself look foolish. I don't know about you, but I kinda anticipate that in my president, there's going to be a bit of a generation gap. Not that he or she won't want to understand youth, but I'm not sure doing this kind of things is up to the dignity inherent in the office.

Jeremy Messersmith -- Tatooine

So, Digg.com, even with v. 4 inciting the ire of Diggers everywhere, can be good for something.

I've never heard this Jeremy Messersmith sing -- so surprise; I don't get out much, and, musically, I'm pretty stuck in the 1970s. But I like his stuff. And not just because of this video:

Here's another good one, kinda filled with that gleeful angst that George Orwell warned us about:

Orwell said this of the middle class, in countering an argument that it must be the lower class that is the most miserable:

In every one of those little stucco boxes there's some poor bastard who's never free except when he's fast asleep and dreaming that he's got the boss down the bottom of a well and is bunging lumps of coal at him.

Anyway, when I heard this song, that's the quote that came to mind.

This might be the most upbeat depressing song I've ever heard.

I love his lyrics -- very tightly rhymed in a style that I've been told I do well. I should do more of it, obviously.

Messersmith is online of course, here. He's got downloadable music on a pay-what-you-want meter. I'm not sure how smart that is, but perhaps it's working for him. It would be interesting to look at the economics there. But this music is definitely worth something, if you ask me.