Here is My List of Things I don’t like or don’t Understand…

OM at Harsh Reality started this with his list.  See it here.  My list is different, but I notice some similarities.  Have fun!  Enjoy the nice weather and the holiday!

1. I hate when I am on a dating site and I read about this fantastic woman and her traits.  I am really happy, then I read the last line, “If you voted for Trump, we won’t get along.”  Heck, that’s fine, but couldn’t you have said that FIRST!!!?
2. I hate when you grab your phone for an important call you had forgotten to make, see the power bar is flashing and you punch in your number only to have the phone die when they answer.
3. I hate when I grab my satchel and keys, drive 15 minutes to the store, face the crowd, only to find out I left my wallet next to the computer earlier – then, it rains.
4. I hate when I download a good movie to my tablet, then, when I go to watch it, it says “expired”.
5. I hate when I walk into the kitchen to get something, can’t remember what it is, figure that out and pick up the thing, then can’t remember why I wanted it.
6. I hate when I get beat to a parking space or rush only to find the next car is over the line, and all I can think about is Kathy Bates in Fried Green Tomatoes.
7. I really hate when a blog writer doesn’t know when to stop…

Namaste,

Scott

Two Important Things? or – How Things are Different

I stopped doing almost everything when it occurred to me:  it was May 10th!  The reason that this struck me so odd is that, for the last two years, I have absolutely made it a point to go to Greenwood, IN and eat at the Olive Garden on each May 7th because that is where and when I had my stroke.

It has kinda been an “in your face” thing at fate because I am still here.  I sat in that restaurant eating and discussing things with my, at the time, girlfriend.  I remember hearing that “click” in my head and my eyes going double, but that was it.  Then, when we decided I had better go to a hospital, I remember that my left leg would not work much at all.  I don’t remember anyone offering to help, but I imagine I looked more drunk than in trouble.  Fact was, at the time, I said, “I am not drunk!” enough times that I am certain most people thought I was.  Regardless of the fact that we don’t date now, that woman (Barbara) saved my life by driving my stick shift to the hospital quicker than an ambulance would have gotten there.  That is my anniversary of life date.

Of much less concern, I realized that, several days ago, I passed 20,000 views on my blog.  I have been carefully watching this amount because, to me, it was a very special number and I wanted to make sure I blogged about it when it happened.  Then, that night, I decided that I had other things to say that my audience might find more important.  So, I put it off.

These two events are vastly different; however, they have one thing in common:  I didn’t do them when I was supposed to.  I changed my mind.  For the 20,000 views I understand that I made a conscious decision.  But, for the stroke anniversary, I have been talking about it for months and had even made some, tentative, plans with my daughter to meet there for supper (hope it was tentative.  If not, sorry, Dear Daughter!).

The fact is I realize I have changed.  The stroke is prominent in my life, but it is not the do-all and be-all anymore.  I have moved on.  I have changed priorities and living has taken over the aspect of almost dying.  I now can celebrate life instead of celebrating that I almost didn’t make it that day.

It has been a humbling conclusion.  To realize I no longer have to live by the “I almost didn’t” idea is, actually, a bit confusing.  It is difficult to move on, even though I have done it rather unconsciously.

It goes to show me we all have it within us to make monumental changes and decisions for those changes.  We are all able to move past things if we really want to.  My “unconscious” decision wasn’t unconscious, really.  It was a matter of conveniently forgetting that part of my life by changing its priority from a 1 to much farther down the scale.

Will I ever forget it? No.

Do I want to?  No.

How about you?  Are there events you have moved past that you never thought you would?  How did you do it?

Namaste,

Scott

Some Room with a View!

Before I get into the post, I really wanted to tell you that I read Mollie Player’s book “Alone and Together” today in one sitting and it was wonderful!  Pop over to her site and/or take a look on Amazon at her book.

Ok, back to our regularly scheduled program:

I decided to try something new just to see what happens.  I was thinking about that day a couple of weeks ago in which my tiny little Minotaur poem went berserk and granted me over 700 views in one day.  For my blog, that is a lot.  I tracked it down and, if you have read that post, you will see that it was mostly because it hit in the top 50 for the pictures on Google searches on the word “Minotaur.”

So, here is what I am doing as an experiment.  I have taken 13 key words from what has been searched the most on Google so far (this year?).  Those 13 terms have been searched for over 1.9 million times.  I topped it off with 2 of the top pictures searched for on Google.  I put the words into a poem.  Now, I am posting it.  I will keep you informed over the next week or so as to what happens with those terms and 2 pictures.  I guess I am just curious.

Will I get more views?

Will I get more followers?

Why don’t you give a guess in the comments as to how many views you think I might get in the next couple of days?

Here we go:

By Scott Vannatter – 2/19/2013

Sex, Minotaur, and Zombie oh my!

.

If for the views I write my verse

With nothing else in mind,

I search Google for all the terms

To see what others would find.

.

They look for sex, of course, of course

And Carnival is a hit.

But when it comes to news impacts

Russia’s Meteor may beat it.

.

The NBA and WWE

With NASCAR make a trio.

They watch Safe Haven and OSCAR night

Perhaps, James Bond in Rio?

.

Downton Abby is new to me

Kate Middleton still makes the news.

Put them all into a poem

And cover nearly 2 million views.

.

My poem’s not good I hear you say.

It only makes so much sense.

But if the views strike close to true

The numbers might make you wince.

_____________________________

I find it intriguing that the pics were not really all that special.  They are not the 1 and 2 spot as those were just pages of a spreadsheet or some such.  The actress above, Katrina Kaisf, was supposed to be the most popular celebrity of 2009, right above Michael Jackson.  The other was just an interesting cartoon on Google.  Oh, the power of the search engines!

Namaste,

Scott

A Minotaur? Really?

What a View!!!

I sat down to write my post tonight (just a bit later than normal) and looked at my site stats.  I don’t do double-takes often (unless a beautiful woman is involved, I guess).  But, I staggered a bit and thought that WP was, perhaps, broken.  My view graph was nearly flat-lined for up until yesterday…then it was a mark almost to the top of the graph.  I scratched my little bald head and looked closer…yesterday’s graph showed 726 views for the day!  As my previous record was 150,  I still felt that WP might be messed up.

Now, I had to really begin digging.  I called up the full site stats and began an intensive trek into unknown territory.  Not like Star Trek, more like Watergate, but still…

I was realizing that “Friday Fictioneers” was the topic yesterday and I couldn’t believe it.  I mean, I have been in FF for quite some time and never got near that many views before.  I continued to peruse (love that word) the information and finally found out that yesterday there were two posts that received a total of over 600 views:

1) The Minotaur- Haiku and Poem  434 views

2) Three-mile Walk Starts Today    203  views

That’s a total of 637 – a little over my usual for a whole week!

Now, I have mentioned the Minotaur post before here: Something I Noticed

I wrote this poem as a part of http://www.fiverr.com a place to do things for people for $5.

I retained the rights to the poem / Haiku so I just reprinted them.  Anyway, I am not certain what kicked this into high gear yesterday, but … WOW!  Now, I know that a lot of you get those type of stats everyday and I am glad for that.  But this is a first for me and something that I never thought would happen…or not for a long time.

I do notice that I only had 59 “visitors” yesterday, for over 12 views per visitor, but I am not really sure what that means here either.

I also don’t know what a “Tag” follower is, but I have almost 1,000 now!  Something else different.  I see that the term “minotaur” was hit in the searches a huge amount yesterday.  I guess what I was curious about is why this happened yesterday.

However, after digging some more into the stats, I got a hint:  One of the search engine stats was for http://images.search.yahoo.com/ .  It was very high.  When I went there and typed “Minotaur” into the search parameters, my pic for the post was number 47. If you clicked on the pic, there was a link to my post!!!

Anyway, this was just a time to share strange and good news with some of my favorite people.  I wasn’t going to do this; I planned on … well, doesn’t matter; I will do it on another post.

Question:  What is your biggest view post?  Link to it in the comment section!

Namaste,

Scott

10,000!

Well, it’s time for me to celebrate just a bit.  Today (Tuesday), at some point (apparently between 10am and 11am), I hit 10,000 views!  This is made more important to me because, I figured averages last May and it was going to take until May 2013 to reach that then.

I checked late in the summer and it was still going to be after the 1st of the year.  So, thanks to you all, I have hit my goal way early and am so proud.

I am proud because it means I am doing something meaningful here.  According to the stats I am reaching 97 countries.  That almost freaks me out entirely!  I love it!

In celebration of this moment, I couldn’t decide whether to write a poem or to create a post so long that it would take hours to finish…I decided on the poem.  So, finishing up the happy moment:

10,000

By Scott L Vannatter

November 24, 2012

All is fine,

A peace of mind

I am a writer still.

10,000 views

Makes it so all true

And fills my heart with thrill.

I do a post

About a ghost

They watch and say it’s good.

I do another

About my mother

I’m told I feel, as I should.

I write a story

No need for glory

I am happy as can be.

I sell not one

But three, what fun!

Perhaps, success’s for me.

So, I say to you

And swear it’s true

If an author you would be,

Then write and write

Don’t give up the fight

You will go far; you’ll see.

Namaste,

Scott