The Adventures of Cowboy Hazel

It’s been a week since I’ve written and almost two since I’ve written anything of significant length. Hopefully, the lack of my mediocre words didn’t cause you too much discomfort. So, what have I been up to lately that’s kept me so busy I couldn’t write? A lot, actually…

Most recently (i.e. tonight) I finally figured out how to automatically generate an RSS feed out of this thing. So, for the first time ever, this blog entry will be automatically posted to my Facebook and MediaPost pages. I’m going to spend a little time submitting it to RSS directories in the next week in an effort to boost my SEO presence. I’ve been accused of “trying to re-invent the wheel” with this whole build-it-from-scratch blog approach. That may be so, but I got it done. There’s nothing that those fancy blogs can do now that this one can’t. And, this is a hell of a lot cleaner and is much more suited to my needs and wishes. Plus, now I know how to generate an RSS feed. Do you?

Okay, so apparently my RSS feed wasn’t perfect. I just tried posting it on Technorati and it’s coming up all screwy. I guess there’s a standardized file naming convention or something. I suppose that’s more research for this weekend. Eh…

What else did I do this last week? Let’s think… I launched two new sites, did some work for Precision Prospects, and quit my full time job at Saks. Let’s elaborate:

I launched Five Fish List, my own directory. Right now I only have 200 links up there, so it’s definitely on the small side, but I’m going to put up a Suggest URL tool and maybe people will post stuff. If not, I’m not going to stress. This is more of a links page for me than anything. Well, that and a first step in a big link-getting scheme that I’d like to start. I’m not sure exactly what direction that’s going to take. I’ll probably have a better idea after I got to this presentation on SEO at IBM’s offices on Tuesday.

I also launched Plant Ink. Plant Ink is actually not so much a launch as a rename of Old Lantenengo. Looking over my web statistics the other day, I realized that I was completely neglecting some of my heaviest hitters. The humor pages that I had relegated to Old Lantenengo were bringing in considerably more traffic than most of my full sites. I’m really starting to question the whether this whole advertising experiment is going to be profitable (I’ve made like $2 in the last two weeks) and therefore didn’t want to create a specific humor site. Plus, I’m realizing that I may have made a mistake by spreading out the old Lantenengo.com onto different sites because each site has an individual search engine strength weaker than the old site as a whole had. So, instead of branching out further, I decided to just create Plant Ink (which sounds much more alive than Old Lantenengo) and may even bring back some of the now external projects to it.

I’ve been building a big reporting section for the Precision Prospects intranet. It’s caused me to think back to some high school math knowledge that long laid dormant in the recesses of my brain. Nothing too exciting to report there.

And then there’s the whole quitting my job thing. That’s been on the horizon for a while. It felt really good to finally make it official. I put my two weeks notice in on Sunday and now have just a little over a week to go before Lantenengo Industries becomes my sole source of income. Yikes! I’ll be a little more confident about everything after a couple months go by and I see some jobs come in. The whole idea of not having a steady paycheck is still very unsettling. That could be why I don’t ever sleep any more…

I got yet another reminder of the fact that I’m a boring grown-up the other day. I was helping this guy at my store (only because he asked me to) and resenting his cocky attitude with no idea of who he was. When I wandered behind the counter to check something on the register, Jennylee told me to be nice to him because he was the new Carson Daly guy. That didn’t really change my opinion of him, though. He came back the next day with a cute girl who paid for the clothes we picked out with an AmEx in MTV’s name. Seeing that on the card reminded me of what Jennylee had said and so I typed the guy’s name into Google when I got home. Turns out Tim Kash is “the new face of MTV and MTV News.” And I didn’t even know who he was, even when he told me his name. When I was working with Joaquin in Pleasanton back in high school, I used to schedule our breaks for 12:30 so I could watch TRL while eating my lunch. I don’t think I missed an episode all summer. Now, I don’t even recognize this guy and, frankly, don’t give a shit who he is. Wow.

I found the tattoo that I’m going to get. It’s an eagle that I found on Shutterstock. I’ve been looking for a good eagle to get tattooed on me for a while but haven’t come up with anything. This one turned up, though, and I was very happy to find it. I’ll probably get it done later this week. One of my friends suggested a place in the Lower East Side, but I looked on City Search and it only had 3 stars. I found another that had 17 ratings and 5 stars on 36th Street. I’m going there instead. Red Rocket Tattoo, I think it’s called. I was going to go today, but they closed early because it was snowing and nobody was coming in. Good thing I called.

Also I made plans for my trip back to Colorado in May. I registered for the Bolder Boulder and am going to keep that in mind as I step up my running. I’m going to start running in Central Park more for the hills. The East River is nice because it’s so close, but I get no incline work there. I ran at the gym today on a treadmill and wanted to do some incline, but it didn’t happen. I liked the idea of the incline, but not enough to actually make it happen. I’d like to finish the Bolder Boulder in 43 minutes. That’s just under seven minute miles. I’d try for a more ambitious goal, but I know that the elevation is going to mess with me. I’m entering the NYC Marathon lottery in two days (when it opens). I really hope that I get a spot this year. I want my first marathon to be here in New York, but I also really want it to be this year.

I’m actually feeling a little tired so I’m going to try to get some sleep. Good night.