Coming this week…

I feel bad about breaking this semi-regular posting streak I’ve had going this month, but the last few days in the Mariner household have been nuts.  This is just a quick note to 1) keep regular here and 2) let you know what to expect the rest of the week.

Wednesday: After writing about Coulter’s Asperger’s syndrome recently, I decided to make it a subject for my column last week.  I’ll post that article here tomorrow.  If’s a more in-depth look at AS and Coulter’s need for mountains.

Thursday:  A Halloween round-up. There are a few stories I never got a chance to tell or link to.  Thursday’s post will gear you up for the weekend.

Friday: This year’s big Halloween story.  This one’s about a trip I took last weekend to the Pony Express Trail and a spooky little place called “Old River Bed.”  It should be a good one!

 

It’s Halloweentime at BonnevilleMariner.com!

The decorations and costumes have been in stores now for over a month, but with the weather now turning (at least here in Utah), their presence on the “Seasonal” aisle finally seems appropriate.  Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays, but the last few years it’s kinda sneaked up on me.  Somehow in the hustle and bustle of work and newspaper and kids school parties, the oh-so-sweet Halloween spirit has passed me by.

Not this year, dangit!  The house is already decorated, the Goosebumps books already put in the kids’ nightly reading rotation, and I’ve already downloaded an iPod full of old-time horror radio shows.  Bring it, October!

Here on the blog, I’ll be dedicating the Thursday slot to posts about Halloween, ghost towns, and general spookiness.  [I say Thursday, but don't hold me to that schedule-- I'm a busy dad riddled with adult ADD.]

I’ll be re-adapting and re-posting some of my older stuff that you might not have caught back then.  I’ll be linking to external sources of eerie goodness, and I’ll be blurbing about some of the more Hallweeny places I’ve been.  So sit back, grab some candy corn, and enjoy Halloweentime here at BonnevilleMariner.com!

 

To better serve you…

I’ve long been aware that this blog lacks one of the proven foundations of successful blogs:  Focus.

Most topical blogs focus on one specific theme:  politics, photography, hunting, tech, etc.  Or they cover a variety of topics but are geared toward a single demographic.  Mine does neither.

This blog’s tagline is ‘Adventure, History, Americana.’  It might as well read “Random Stuff I’m Interested In.”

But that’s not completely true.  Everything I cover here really is interrelated in my own mind– different cuts of the same fabric, so to speak.  I have interests other than those I blog about here, but I tend to omit them because they’re not part of that contiguous stream of consciousness that I’m trying to tap.

If my goal was pure numbers, this modus operendi would be fine.  I get plenty of hits on certain posts here.  Stats-wise, I’m doing well.  The problem is that the majority of these hits are one-time visitors.  Somebody Googles a topic, finds a post here, uses it, and never comes back.

My goal isn’t to attract hits.  My goal is to attract regular readers who think my blog, for whatever reason, is worth spending a few minutes reading.  To that end, I’d appreciate it if you’d take a second and respond to the following poll:

 

UPDATED: Weekly Run-Down: Little D, my column, and the real Four Corners

Boy, it’s been a while since I posted a Weekly Run-Down! I guess some new responsibilities at my paying job and a brand new baby boy have discouraged regular blogging as of late. But the dust is settling now and I should be able to be post more regularly now.

Speaking of the new baby…
Aside from some early reflux-related projectile vomiting and his downright insistence on sleeping in our bed with us, the little fella is doing quite well.

Poor Mommy is another story, though she’s still tickled pink that the pregnancy from hell is finally over. She just wishes she didn’t have to feed him every two hours (because of the afore-mentioned reflux), something that, by nature of my male gender, I cannot help her with. There must be a special place in heaven for mommies like her.

Several readers have asked me to post pictures of Little D, which I’ve been hesitant to do. Not exactly sure why, since he’s virtually indistinguishable at this point from most other babies in the world (except much, much more adorable than most other babies in the world). But I still don’t love the idea. I have yet to post even one picture of his older sister, Miss Ella. Overprotective? Maybe. Wise? Likely.

New online subscription for the Tooele Transcript Bulletin
So I’ve been told that my column in the Tooele Transcript Bulletin—at least the online version—is now part of the newspaper’s fee-based content. I’ve always been wary of paid online news content as a business model. Personally, when I click a link that requires a subscription, I skip it altogether. Small town newspapers operate on a different dynamic, so it may yet end up being profitable for the TTB.

Still, it poses a problem for non-local readers. But since I’m a freelancer, I own my own material, and I’ll continue to post my column in full here the day after it’s published in the newspaper.

Discovered: The Real Four Corners
If you’ve ever visited Four Corners monument and took pride in standing in 4 states at once (or urinating in 4 states at once), the joke’s on you. This From AP:

National Geodetic Survey officials say the Four Corners marker showing the intersection of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah is about 2.5 miles west of where it should be.

The only place in the United States where four state boundaries come together was first surveyed by the government in 1868 during the initial survey of Colorado’s southern boundary. The survey was inaccurate.

I’ve never been to the monument, but it’s nice to know that when I do visit Four Corners with my little toy Garmin, it’ll be the real deal.

UPDATE: I had originally embedded a Google Map of the area showing the Four Corners monument 2.5 miles west of the border lines. When I previewed my draft, however, the map wouldn’t show up. Thinking my embed code was somehow bad, I opened up a new browser and searched the location again. This time, an entirely new map appeared, sans monument location and place marker. I’m not a Google Maps buff, but I’m guessing Google updated their map when the news came out, and the map and embed code I pulled this morning were cached versions.

UPDATE AGAIN: Now I’m not sure. I zoomed on the current map and switched to sat view, which clearly shows the border convergence overlaying the monument. So unless they’ve been able to pick up and move the monument, its road and parking lot 2.5 miles west, Google Maps is displaying inaccurate state borders.

View Larger Map

MSN has them wrong too. I wonder if they’ll correct this on future maps or simply leave it as it is.

FINAL UPDATE: Finally found a report that didn’t just copy and paste from the AP story. Lynne Arave at the Deseret News writes a satisfyingly detailed account of how this all went down. I’ve got to go to Costco for baby wipes and lunch-time samples, so I’ll let Mr. Arave take it from here.

 

New home for the Outdoor Bloggers Summit

I’ve written a time or two about the Outdoor Bloggers Summit, an organization that encourages outdoor recreation, conservation, and supports outdoor writers.  It’s a fairly informal organization (no formal registration or fees).  I became an OBS supporter to network with other outdoor bloggers and refine my writing skills.  Plus, I’m always up for some good reading, and the OBS blogroll features a bunch of worthwhile blogs.

Anyway, as part of the OBS’s continuing evolution, they’ve switched web addresses.  The OBS can now be found at outdoorbloggerssummit.com.  If you enjoy outdoors writing or are an aspiring outdoors writer yourself,  I encourage you to check it out.

 

I’ve been blogged

I received an email yesterday from a marketing rep at Blogged.com informing me that their editors had reviewed my website and given it a 7.5 score out of 10.  The rating is based on frequency of updates, relevance of content, site design, and writing style.

I don’t really remember submitting this website for their review, but I appreciate them doing it anyway.  Frankly I’m flattered that anybody would consider my website relevant at all- let alone well-designed or well-written!

They didn’t post a written review, but they did send me the handsome badge above for me to add to my sidebar.  In case anybody’s interested, readers can post reviews and ratings of this website on their review page for me here (you do have to register- something I tend to balk at- but it’s fairly painless and it allows you to review other blogs and submit your own for review).

Thanks again to the good editors at Blogged.com.

 

Halloweentime

Halloween, Halloween
Lots of fun on Halloween.
Black cats and ghosts-
Skeletons too
Clowns and witches all say “Boo!”

Pumpkins with eyes
Shiny and bright
Make us shiver with fright.

Halloween, Halloween-
We love Halloween.

Those are the words of the song my mother used to sing to me to as a baby.  And I guess it was a year-round deal.  She says it was my favorite song, regardless of season.  Apparently, nothing would calm my soul or or put a smile on my face quite like this little song. To heck with cradles and treetops and twinkling little stars- give me ghosts and skeletons!

Halloween is once again upon us.  So from now until Friday, all posts will be spooky, mysterious, and in the spirit of this beautiful, warped holiday.

 

Back on the grid!

Just a quick note to let anybody know who still might be reading me that I am back after a long break.  I wasn’t exactly off the grid, but I wasn’t exactly in much of a position to keep up my regular posts (anybody who’s ever taken their young family to Disneyland will understand).  I’m back though, and I’ll post teasers for my last two articles sometime tomorrow.

 

Heads up: Updating old posts

Just a heads-up for rss subscribers- you may see some older posts in your reader soon.  

Here’s the deal: I write a weekly column for the Tooele Transcript Bulletin.  While I own the content of these articles, and therefore retain the right to reprint them as I see fit, I usually only post a teaser on this website and link to the full articles on theirs as a courtesy for publishing them and paying me to write them.

In June, the TTB revamped their website, rendering most of my links to them invalid.  Articles published from last spring on are now at different web addresses.  Articles written before spring are no longer available there at all.  

So in order to avoid sending people to into black holes, I’ll be spending the next few days republishing the affected posts, linking to the new locations where possible and reprinting entire articles that are now unavailable.  So if you see some familiar posts in your reader, I apologize.  it’s just me doing some housekeeping.

 

Weekly Run-Down: Site Updates and Cruel April Fools Jokes

Goodbye Blogger, Hello WordPress!

It was a really tough decision—ok, no, it wasn’t—but I’m officially abandoning Blogger and hopping over to WordPress. Blogger is the only Google product that disappoints me. It works ok for regular blogspot.com blogs, but FTP blogs- not so much. It’s clunky, temperamental, and rigid. WordPress isn’t perfect, but it’s stable and versatile. Plus it’s got better widgets, the ability to create multiple pages, and a wider variety of templates. Since mine is an FTP blog (it resides on my own domain rather than a blogspot subdomain), publishing with Blogger is delay-prone, error-ridden pain in the butt. WordPress will allow me to post, edit, and customize things much easier.

I’ll be migrating the site over for the next day or so, and everything should be working properly by the end of the week. The URL will remain the same (www.bonnevillemariner.com), but the format will be different. For those of you who subscribe to my RSS feed, the feed URL will obviously change. Check back by Friday and you can re-subscribe to the new feed. You may see a handful of older posts come through on the feed, but that’s just me doing some housekeeping.

UPDATE: I have migrated the website to WordPress and imported all of the posts. I’ll have to go back through some of them to correct some minor formatting issues. Right now I have my domain forwarding to the WordPress.com subdomain, in case you’re wondering why the Web address redirects when you visit.

Vending Machine Freakiness

Could this be some weird what-comes-around-goes-around lesson, or are the vending machines at work just having some April Fools Day fun at my expense?

So yesterday I go into the break room to get a granola bar from the vending machine. I drop in 75 cents (an absolute rip-off, I know. But what I am I going to do when I don’t have time to grab breakfast before I leave?). The machine steals my money and I walk away hungry and mad. I walk in later that afternoon to buy a Diet Pepsi, which, at $1.25 is even more of a rip-off. I insert 4 quarters and realize I don’t have the 5th. So I hit the coin return button. Nothing.

All I’ve got is a $5 bill, so I walk over to the food machine that robbed me earlier because it accepts $5 bills. If I buy something there, I’ll get $4.25 back in quarters. Then I can add my final quarter to the Pepsi machine and get my Diet Pepsi. I insert my $5 and buy the only thing in there that’s somewhat healthy- the granola bar I was robbed of earlier and that I’ve been craving all day. Not only do I get my granola bar, but the machine graciously drops an extra one, then returns my $4.25.

I drop the final quarter in the Pepsi machine and press the Diet Pepsi button. It drops not one, but two regular Pepsi’s, which took me about 10 minutes to wiggle from the slot. At this point I figure that even though it gave me the wrong bottles, I didn’t see any “Buy One, Get One Free” signs anywhere, so I owe the Pepsi machine $1.25. I figured I’d call the 800 number the next day and inform them that their Pepsi machine was giving away free pop.

That was yesterday. I return today to buy an actual Diet Pepsi (expecting perhaps a Dr. Pepper) and this time, no Pepsi of any variety. I push the coin return. Nothing. Looks like we’re even.