Inviting All of YOU to Submit Guest Post(s)
Although I’ve always been open to posting article written by my fellow bloggers AND readers who may not have their own site, I’d like to present an open invitation to submit guest articles on any subject that falls under:
Family Marriage Finances or Life
Is that broad enough? Depending on how many I get, I’ll be posting submissions over the next 2 weeks, give or take. The sooner you submit, the sooner I’ll post it!
Obviously I have a couple rules/standards:
- It has to be relevant to readers. I probably won’t post a rant about your cat unless it’s actually useful to others. For example, if you hate your cat’s shedding, then research ways to shave the cat without losing an eye.
- No swearing, racism or anything else that would bar you from a normally respectable site, assuming this site is respectable
- Don’t worry about formatting as I’ll make sure it fits into the style of this site. Try as hard as you can to write with proper grammar, but don’t worry about getting it perfect.
What did I do all weekend? A New Theme!
Actually, I did two things over the weekend:
1. “Finished” the retaining wall (still have some some work to do but the blocks are in place) and
2. Implemented a new theme at Clever Dude
While looking for a theme for a new site I’m developing, I ran across the Daily32 theme at DailyBlogTips.com and liked it so much that I spent about 30 hours rewriting the whole thing to what you see now. You can see from the Daily32 Demo that not much has stayed the same in the conversion process. Most importantly, I added a 2nd column (so it looks like my old theme), changed almost all of the colors, and “rewrote” a number of behind-the-scenes code that supports things like:
- Separating trackbacks from comments
- Redoing almost all of the stylesheet (it was quite messy)
- Taking the stupid display:block off the “a” styles so the text wasn’t bumped down to the next row. Seriously, who thought of doing that?
Thanks for the Hits: April 2008 Traffic and Referral Numbers
Now that April has come to a close, I’ve tallied the (almost) final traffic numbers and determined that although not as big as March, April was still a success. I had over 26,000 visitors and over 40,000 pageviews, but the more important thing to note is that I’ve consistently had 800-1000 visitors per day. It shows that Clever Dude is still growing in readership and maintaining steady growth.
Subscriber Growth
Speaking of readership, the blog has grown from about 500 readers a year ago to over 1600 readers now! Apparently I’m doing something right, or I just have a bunch of robots scraping my feed daily. Either way, it’s readers right?
Now if you want to be one of my daily subscribers, you have 2 options: RSS Feeds or Email. If you don’t know what RSS is, but read a number of blogs daily, I highly suggest getting an account with Google Reader. I alone read over 100 sites per day, and if I were to bookmark every one of them, I would never get around to reading their stuff.
Light Posting Day: Final Exam and Homework to do
Since I know hundreds of people hang on my every word, I didn’t want to leave you wondering where my post is today. Right now I only have time to write this as I have the final exam in one course tonight, and I still have to finish homework for the other one (both classes are on Mondays). The other class’ final is next week.
I did get in touch with the winner of “Stay Healthy, Live Longer, Spend Wisely“, and I’ll be getting that book out shortly. Don’t fret, though, because I’m almost finished with the next book and plan on writing up a review this week…and posting another contest. I’ll forewarn you that I have conflicting feelings about the ideas this next book is presenting, so it may take a little more time to gather my thoughts on it.
Until then, feel free to read through my archives!
And the praise keeps rolling in for Stacie!
A month ago, I reported that Stacie got a positive review from her boss, even though it didn’t help relieve the pressure she’s under at work. She’s still working long hours and still doesn’t get to see all her patients for as much time as she feels they deserve (she’s a clinical dietitian). Part of it is that she just has high standards for herself, which is good for her career and the patients, but bad for her mental (and physical) health.
So I get a voicemail from Stacie yesterday to call her back. She had a little spring in her voice, so I knew it wasn’t the regular “hey, did you leave work yet?” call.
I returned the call and Stacie told me she received the Employee of the Month award at the hospital! This is no small hospital either (it’s over an 800 beds and over 2000 employees)! She thinks this is the first time a dietitian has ever received the award (or at least as long as she has been there).
Review of the Pope’s Mass and the New Nationals Ballpark
Being on the church council and inviting our pastor over each summer to go swimming (which he loves) netted us two tickets to the Pope’s mass at the Washington Nationals baseball stadium today. Although I’d call myself a “cafeteria Catholic” in that I don’t subscribe to all the beliefs of the Church, I still wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to attend such a special event.
Just in case you don’t get through the entire article, I want to say up front that seeing the Pope in person (or on TV) is much different than seeing pictures of him. I’ve thought many times that he looks like the evil emperor from Star Wars and even a bit creepy, but watching him speak his Homily and preside over the Mass gave me new respect for him. I even agree with Stacie that he’s a cute, little old man.
Heading to the Pope’s Mass
Just a quick note that Stacie and I will be hangin’ with Pope B XVI this morning in the new Nationals Ballpark. I’m pretty excited to see the new stadium AND be one of a few thousand (well, about 45,000) who gets to attend the Pope’s mass here in D.C. I will say I have mixed feelings about the church hierarchy, but I’m not going to turn down free tickets for a once-in-a-lifetime experience AND to see the new stadium for just the cost of the metro fare!
And if you’re watching the mass on TV, we’ll be on the third base line.
Rules for Spring Cleaning Your Fridge and Cupboards
Stacie wrote an excellent “Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen” post today teaching us when we can keep and when we should throw out various types of frozen, fresh, canned and bottled foods PLUS herbs and seasonings! If you ever wondered how long you can keep eggs in the fridge, or how long that Emeril’s Cajun Seasoning lasts, then go check it out!
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