Word-press project initial status report

Since the word-press project is just getting underway, I’m posting a few figures about the current state of this blog and web site mid-day November 5th, as one way to measure the growth of the the blog, and the word-press project in particular.

Totals to date: 99 posts, 72 comments, 9 tags.

Blog Stats, total number of views, or “hits”, to date: 3400.

Most views in a single day, 279 (20 Oct 06). (2nd was 246, on 23 Oct)

Traffic the last few days, starting with 19 Oct: 70, 279, 62, 58, 246, 88, 51, 45, 38, 12, 70, 51, 36, 69.

Feed stats, estimated number of people who read the feed each day, also starting from 19 Oct: 2, 6, 1, 5, 4, 4, 5, 5, 0, 5, 8, 3, 4, 7, 3, 4.

Technorati rating, Technorati search on this blog: Rank 376,370 (13 links from 9 blogs). Updated three days ago.

Dave Shields Deli.cio.us tag/network status: 188 items; my network has three entries, Bob Sutor, James Governor, Steve O’Grady; one fan, Steve O’Grady.

flickr.com: 25 photos, 15 views.

Blogroll: 0 (no entries)

Google English pages :

• open-source-twit: 171
• open-education: 330,000
• the wayward wordpress: 142,000
• dave shields blog: 2,730,000
• First postion of one of my posts in “dave shields blog” search: 5
• dave shields: 2,030,000
• First position of me in “dave shields”: 4
• The Dave Shields you get on “dave shields” and “I’m feeling lucky”: Dave Shields The Author’s Official Site. He’s the “bikes” Dave Shields; I am the “Jikes” Dave Shields.

By the way, I used to be a “bikes” Dave Shields too. I purchased a used Yamaha YDS2 250 cc two-cylinder motorcyle in September of 1964. I believe The YDS2 was one of the first high-performance two-cylinder bikes sold in this country.

My most memorable trip was in December 1964 when I drove it from Pasadena to Albuquerque via Palm Springs, Phoenix and Socorro, New Mexico. I woke up about 8AM on Wednesday, December 23rd, and set off on the YDS2 about 6 PM. I crossed the California-Arizona border early the next morning. Soon thereafter the bike broke down due to a battery problem. I managed to get a hitch to a garge to get the battery recharged, and I was made it to Phoenix early in the afternoon of Christmas Eve. The problem was due to a faulty brush in the alternator and I was thus able to leave Phoenix around 4PM.

I didn’t sleep during the entire trip. As I entered New Mexico it started snowing. At that point I had been awake about 40 hours.
I fell asleep on the bike, and woke up to find myself going across a field lightly covered in snow. I’m lucky I wasn’t killed — I hadn’t seen another vehicle for hours, and if I had been knocked out or if my bike had been damaged then I would have almost certainly have frozen to death.

Since it was Christmas Eve all the gas stations were closed. I was running very low on gas when I reached a small town in the mountains of southwestern New Mexico. The only business open was a bar. When I explained my plight and asked for help, I learned there was no gas available, but they could put me up.

So I went to sleep around 3AM, after being continuousy awake about 43 hours.

Others have sought shelter on the day that we now call Christmas; indeed, Christmas itself is named after what happened when one such family sought shelter over two thousand years ago. The town in which I found shelter early on a Christmay day was named after what happened on the first Christmas night over two thousand years ago — I ended my journey early on a Christmas day in Magdalena, New Mexico.