Hilarious!

A few weeks ago, Keith and Matt got the crazy idea that they wanted to build go karts. Matt already had most of the tools necessary for the build, but having never welded before, it was certainly going to be an interesting project.

The plan was for Matt to build his first as the prototype then they would likely have all of the kinks worked out when it came time to build Keith’s kart.

Here we have the frame already assembled and on jack stands.

These are some pretty decent welds for being a total n00b.

Matt drilling some holes for the back axle mounts.

LOL, yes that is a school desk. He found an old desk and hacked off the seat and welded it in place. No point in spending money for a seat if you can find one for free.

And finally, the finished product! Well sort of, it still needs a floor pan but that should be coming in the next week or so.

The steering shaft and support bars are hacked pieces from old bicycles and the “wheel” consists of two vertically-mounted handle bars. It might look funny, but it works!

The motor is only 6.5 HP but as you can see in the video below, it’s pretty quick. This wasn’t full throttle either.

Besides the floor pan, Matt is going to add a torque converter which will give it a lot more pep off the line. As is, its a little slow until the clutch locks and full power is put down. Either way, it’s pretty sweet and very cool for a built-from-scratch project.

Work started on Keith’s kart today and hopefully should be finished Saturday. The frame was built today and it’s already looking awesome!

Analyzing Traffic Trends

Once you have built a quality website and have a decent amount of content, it’s time to drive traffic to it. I put this post together to share some tips that I have learned over the years in regards to how to analyze traffic trends, find what works and what doesn’t, when to post new content and how to generate a solid and reliable traffic source.

Looking at the general scope of traffic trends, websites tend to generate more visitors in the winter months. Because it is so cold outside, most people stay indoors and thus, get on the computer more than they might in the spring, summer and fall seasons when the weather is nicer and it is more appealing to do outdoor activities. Advertising firms are well aware of this trend as well and some tend to only start new campaigns at the onset of these cooler months.

Moving in closer, there are also some weekly, daily and even hourly trends that you should be aware of to maximize the potential of your articles / reviews. I have noticed that traffic is the strongest on Monday and remains pretty steady throughout the traditional work week. Monday is a high traffic day because people are coming back to work from the weekend and are catching up on everything they may have missed over the weekend.

Traffic remains pretty constant throughout the week, again, simply because people are at work surfing the web rather than doing their jobs. This theory is further solidified by looking at the hourly traffic stats. Without fail, there is a sharp curve around 10:00 a.m. which remains elevated until 5:00 p.m which is roughly the time that most people are at work.

One would think that weekends would bring more traffic since people are off work and free to play on the computer, but that is not true. Weekends tend to be reserved for family time, gaming or other activities not associated with the computer and the Internet. Also, holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas are other times when traffic tends to dip down for the same reasons - people simply aren’t spending time at the computer.

How To Generate More Traffic To Your Site

The tips listed here are just a few that I recommend based on my findings with my product review website, but many of these same techniques can be applied to blogging as well.

Before trying to generate some serious traffic, you need to have a solid foundation. This means a well-designed and easy to navigate website and more importantly, some solid content. I will leave it up to you to decide how much content to start with before trying to drive traffic, but I would recommend at least a full month’s worth. This will give new readers something to keep them busy on their first visit and hopefully entice them enough to return.

Depending on the type of website you are running, you will want to check out other similar websites and see if they have a news e-mail address. This is extremely valuable for me, as every time I publish a new review / article, I send out a press release to my news contact list, which has close to 150 addresses on it. These sites receive my press release and then post a news blurb about it in their daily news section. This drives a lot of traffic to the review and can easily double or triple the amount of traffic I would get on a normal day so it is important to build your contact list with as many sites as you can.

This leads me into my next pointer, which is to have some type of daily news update in addition to your original content. Many sites on my contact list will only post news if you return the favor. Also, having a news section gives your readers a reason to check back daily, and sometimes multiple times a day depending on how many times per day you update this news list. For bloggers, the news listed here could be links to posts from some of your favorite blogs.

For bloggers specifically, one of the keys to generating traffic and participation on your blog is to visit and comment on as many other sites as you can make time for. Most sites provide a spot for you to post your site address which will certainly generate traffic from the site owner as well as other readers of said site. Participation and community involvement is absolutely key for bloggers.

Another good idea to generate traffic and more participation is to host a contest or giveaway. I have found that it is best to have a few prizes to give away, as this gives each reader a better chance at winning something. Cold hard cash works well, but if you don’t have any extra money to spend, you can try getting sponsors to donate some prizes in exchange for advertising. If this isn’t an option, perhaps you could give away a service like designing a logo or doing some HTML coding for free. The options here are pretty limitless, just make sure you are actually giving away something with value that your target audience would be interested in. If you do a giveaway, one idea is to have participants submit their e-mail address for inclusion in a newsletter. A weekly newsletter is a great way to drive targeted traffic to your site.

A newer but very important marketing tool that you should be taking advantage of is social networking sites, the “Big 3″ as I call them: Facebook MySpace and Twitter. Amass as many friends / followers as you can on each of these networks then use it to your advantage. Create a fan page for your site on Facebook and post updates to it each time you release a new post / article / review. Do the same with MySpace and Twitter, creating a bulletin post / Tweet with each new post. The possibilities here are only limited to how many friends you have, so the more the better!

It is important to remember that offline marketing can be just as lucrative as online promotion. Ideas here can range from promotional pens to custom t-shirts. I probably have close to 10 company promotional t-shirts in my closet that I wear on a regular basis. This is free advertising for the company and a free shirt for me; a win-win situation!

The last bit of information I will offer here today is to print up some business cards. This is vital, especially if you offer some type of service on your site. Business cards are great for networking at trade shows and other social gatherings of like-minded people. Often they are a requirement for admission as well.

These are just a few tips for analyzing traffic sources and generating some more traffic to your site. Let me know if you have any others that I should add to the list!

Even after I swore I never would, I gave Twitter an honest try, I really did. In the short 24 days that I have been a member, it has pretty much been a disaster from the start.

My first day with Twitter was frustrating, as it appeared their service was having technical issues and I couldn’t do simple tasks like update my profile picture… or at times, even refresh my page. Then a few days later, I had a very strange problem where it seemed my account had been taken over… sorta. Some of my updates were still visible, and some of my followers and those I am following were listed, but most weren’t. It seemed they just disappeared.

I created a brand new profile but again, the same problems started popping up almost immediately. After some help from a friend, I changed my password and magically everything was back to normal. Odd.

Another week or so passed and again, the same thing happened, but this time, it was showing a different user’s name on my page. What? I reverted back to changing my password and again, was up and running as if nothing had happened.

The final nail in the coffin occurred late last week, when again, the same thing happened. In the above screenshot, you can see MY page on the right (my URL in the address bar), with “cracker_mandi” as the user name. The funny thing here is that those are MY updates listed below, although only a fraction of them. Now on the left side is what i found on Google as her cached page. It appears this is a real person… very strange.

But this time, I was unable to change my password, as I never received the password change notification email from Twitter. I did some research on Twitter’s page and it seems this is a known issue. I tried contacting Twitter about this but their customer service is a total joke, so no help there. It appears I am now permanently locked out of my account.

I really wanted Twitter to work as I think it could be a powerful marketing tool if used correctly, but after having so many problems in less than a month, is it really worth starting ALL over again?

Have you had any problems with Twitter like this or anything else that went unresolved?

UPDATE - Not five minutes after this post, I was FINALLY able to reset my password and everything is back to normal. Don’t know if I should even fool with it anymore…

Summer is coming
Gasoline prices will rise
People will complain!

Memphis plays host to the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest each year as part of Memphis in May. The event itself spans three days and is open to the public, but none of the teams are allowed to sell barbecue (health concerns I’d imagine). So, the only point in going is if you know someone with a tent.

All hope is not lost, however, as last year’s championship team Natural Born Grillers has a restaurant here in Southaven. I just recently heard about it and decided to give it a try yesterday with Keith, Airica, Matt and Laura. I was so impressed that I went back again tonight with Josh, Adam and Kiwi for round 2.

Since there were three of us (Kiwi showed up later), we decided to try the BBQ Lovers Feast which consists of a full rack of ribs, 1/2 pounds of pulled pork, three wings and four side items (barbecue beans, cole slaw, potato salad and french fries). The meal was supposed to come with chicken legs or something but they were out and gave us more pulled pork instead, but I think they short-changed us there because what we got in the package was certainly not 1/2 pound.

Either way, the food was really good. I used the extra pulled port to make a nice sandwich with sweet and spicy sauce. The meat was extremely tender and absolutely delicious. The ribs were also good, although the ones Keith had the night before were a bit better I believe. Potato salad is hit-or-miss but thankfully I really liked their offering.

I’m not entirely sure I would order the group meal again as it seems you could get more for your money buying separate meals, but it was nice to get a sampling of everything. Individual meals only come with a single main course and two side items. After tax and tip, each of us chipped in $15 which isn’t too bad for some world class barbecue! I will certainly be going back here again as it is closer and better than Cork’s IMO.

Oh, and dessert at Baskin Robbins

Enough said.

But seriously, everyone has been to the movies enough to know that you should turn off your cell phone before the film starts and not talk the entire time. The fact that messages like this are still even displayed is pretty lame, but maybe people just can’t read?

Two of my more recent trips to the local theater were pretty much ruined by dumb ass people. The first was a few months ago when Josh and I went to check out a movie (I can’t even remember which it was because I was so pissed). The show starts and there are a few people behind us just talking it up… not even whispering, just flat out talking in their normal voice, acting a fool. This goes on for several minutes before someone asks them to be quiet. They just laugh it off and carry on, before more people get involved. Josh even spoke up once.

Eventually someone decided to go report them to the manager, which didn’t seem to do much good. After a bit, however, a security guard came into the theater and of course everyone shuts up. Not wanting them to get away, Josh blurts out, asking them to please be quiet or leave. This was enough to trigger the security guard to come up and investigate. Thankfully, they shut up from that point on and I believe they even left the movie before it was over.

Fast-forward to today, when Keith, Airica, Matt and myself went to check out the new Wolverine movie. The theater wasn’t too crowded so I had high hopes for an enjoyable time. NOPE, no such luck.

Not even two minutes into the movie, the guy behind Matt gets a phone call and answers it. WTF! He turned around and asked the guy “did you really just answer that?”. The guy just keeps talking so Matt asks if he is going to hang up and the guy just stares at him. Matt gets mad and is like “hang up the f*ing phone” to which the guy replies something like “I’ll hang you up”. Matt then says he wishes he would, but the guy never does anything. Then some lady a few seats down from the guy pipes up and is all like “You don’t need to be talking like that in front of my children” - or something along those lines. Matt then has words with her too. Then she says something about how the guy on the phone “wasn’t even that loud” and he was being louder than him. At this point I’m bracing for a riot lol.

Things quiet down after this but there was another idiot near the front row that would open his phone every 20 minutes or so which was really bright and distracting. Disaster.

Should Matt have been so vulgar? Probably not. Am I glad he said something? Yes.

This crap happens all the time at our local theater and 99% of the time, people are too scared to stand up and say anything. So, it just goes on and on. Pretty much all of my friends hate going to the movies because of this and I know we aren’t alone.

I don’t really know what can be done, but the theater staff should at least try to limit this kind of activity. It’s sad when the thought of having someone monitor the crowd for behavior is appealing.

Have you ever had a less-than-pleasant experience at the movie theater?

I finally caved in and signed up for Twitter, something I said I would never do! Why did I finally give in and do this?

Unlike most people, I plan to primarily use it as a business tool. Social networks are very powerful and as I have said many times before, the majority of business (especially online) is based on who you know. It is this exact reason that I am a member of sites like LinkedIn.

My first day with Twitter was frustrating, as it appeared their service was having technical issues and I couldn’t do simple tasks like update my profile picture… or at times, even refresh my page. But that has all been cleared up now and I am starting to get the hang of things. I haven’t had a whole lot of time to mess around with it just yet but I do have a handful of followers already. With some more dedication, I am sure I can get a lot more followers in the near future and really harness the power of this social networking tool.

Feel free to follow me and check out what goes on in my daily life, and of course I will return the favor

Yay, I just got my TV back from the repair shop a few minutes ago. Props to the shop for getting the unit back to me in a timely fashion and having excellent communication. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for Sanyo. They gave me the run-around for nearly three weeks, didn’t return my calls as promised on more than one occasion and just seemed to take their time with things.

I tried searching Google for the model number of the part replaced, but I couldn’t find an exact match. It appears as though they replaced the power supply or some other control board inside the unit.

The good thing is I now have my TV back as good as new and since it was still under warranty, it didn’t cost me anything. Hopefully it will last more than 8 months this time!

One of the best ways to stay productive is to be organized. I know this can be a challenge for many people, especially if you are pressed for free time. But, having everything nice and neat makes your overall work area that much more enjoyable.

Up until recently, my work area had always been kinda tidy, but underneath the desk was a total rat’s nest! This wasn’t a huge issue as I had my recliner on the backside of the desk blocking most of the mess, but it still bothered me when I looked under the desk from the front. Something had to be done.

Keith and I took a trip to Office Depot about a month ago in search of a solution. I had an idea of what I wanted, but of course the moment I get there, I find two other workstation desks that I really liked. I was looking at over $200 for a nice L-shaped desk, but really, that wouldn’t solve my problems. Plus, I didn’t want to spend near that much money for what I had in mind. I stuck to the Dave Ramsey philosophy and ended up with a simple $40 adjustable wire shelving system.

It was exactly what I had in mind before going shopping and as you can see, it worked out great! My desk is only large enough to hold my two monitors, and since I need the computer and virtually everything else level with me, the shelf works great. The bottom shelf holds my printer and Western Digital My Book. The second shelf houses my APC battery backup, cable modem, router, camera battery charger, mouse battery charger and an additional surge protector. My PC sits on the top shelf. All of the cables are zip-tied and kept nice and neat.

Since my TV is still broken, I moved my cable box and Xbox over to the workstation as well. Each of the computer monitors I am using has an HDMI port, so I have the cable box connected to one and the Xbox connected to the other. It’s a bit cluttered with everything, but it’s really not as bad as I anticipated (watching TV and gaming on the monitors).

I think this was a very wise investment as my workstation looks much better without a ton of wires dangling everywhere. I can now easily reach everything, where as before it was on the floor under my desk. A win-win situation!