Soliciting Website Feedback

I've had this new site up for a few months now, and I feel that I've been pretty good about adding to it on a reasonable basis. The summer is an excellent time to work on my web projects so I feel it is time to assess how this site is doing and what it needs. (I also have long todo lists for all my other sites that I want to get to)

Occasionally someone mentioned this site to me, but for the most part I have no idea if people actually read this. I don't have a good way of checking my web access logs, so for now they just sit there. I'll get to that one day. I've got the system for leaving comments but I've only gotten one or two. So here I'm going to strongly encourage people to leave comments.

If nothing else, just leave a comment letting me know you read this site. If you really want to be helpful, here are few things I'd like to know what people think about. Tell me about how you read my site (frequency, browsing pattern, etc). What other of my sites (all listed on the left) do you visit/use? What do you like about my journal? What don't you like? What new features would you want to see?

And more specifically... How do you feel about me having my own code vs. keeping a blog on a site like LiveJournal or Xanga? I've been trying to keep the content to the most interesting stories, opinions, and information (stuff I'm likely to talk a lot about if I know you). How do you feel about that? Should I write about feelings/daily events more? Should I write more/less often? How do you feel about the length of the entries? Do use use the keyword at all? Is the main listing in a decent format or is there one you'd like better? (like LiveJoural, more date based than entry based?) If you don't feel like telling me in a comment, send me an email. I want to hear any kind of comments people have.
Keywords:Website Projects
Comments:1 comments
Transportation

I've been meaning to write about this for a while. A side interest of mine is finding the perfect transportation. I don't believe in convention and I don't care what other people think which leads me to try out some unusual things.

For a few weeks, a couple years ago I had "shoes with wheels". Street shoes with wheels that fold out of the soles so that they become skates. The problem with those was that the wheels were too small so you tripped everywhere. What finally did them in was that I actually bent one of the locking mechanisms. My diagnosis is that they are just toys and not meant to be used as actual transportation.

I rode a Razor scooter a little while I was an undergrad because Stage3 had one. For the past year I have owned one and rode it all around. A few days ago I replaced my first set of wheels. A week ago, while braking, the rear wheel locked up and the bottom rubbed off.

Which brings me to my point about authentic vs. rip-off scooters. I'll only buy an actual Razor. The rip-offs are cheap and bad. My friend Jared has one. There are a number of things that I think are more poorly designed about it, but I'll only mention one. He bought silly light up wheels, so he let me use one of the original ones as a spare while I ordered my new ones. The first time I rode it I rode to work. My route is quite downhill including one really steep part. I know that after going downhill fast and breaking I have to be careful because the friction break could actually burn me.

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Keywords:Quirks | Rants
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Doodles

If you've been in contact with me lately, you know that I've been very busy with this experiment I have been running. You may even know the significance of the phrase "Report your status, Bravo Leader." Basically, I have been running a lot of subjects through this experiment. It requires a lot of work on my part, but it also require a lot of sitting around and waiting. I've taken up drawing as a way to pass the time. I thought some people might like to see the doodles I came up with.
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Keywords:Stage3 | Projects | Art | Busyness
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July 4th

URL: http://sparkyb.net/pictures/gallery/2004 Summer/July 4/
This July 4th was excellent. This was my fourth year in a row barbequing at AEPi and then taking the bus downtown to the point to see the fireworks. It was the third year in a row that I hosted the BBQ. This year we went all out. We went shopping at Restaurant Depot and got a ton of food. A couple people even did some cooking. There were a lot of people there because a lot of people were in town for this summer.

When we went down to the point, there were 12 of us, which I think is a record. I had been more than anyone in the group so I led. I carried a small american flag that I'd wave above my head to keep the group together. I thought of everything including blankets and Set. The show was good. Better than last year when the smoke was blowing in the wrong direction. I got lots of pictures.

The sad part about having a tradition like this is that it can't last forever. But speaking of the past, a friend from middle school IMed me today. That was quite exciting. Ok, I better sleep now. More journal entries from now on, I think. I like writing lots of stuff, I just don't know if I'm comfortable with just simple day-to-day entries that aren't important. Maybe a special keyword for it will filter well enough.
Keywords:Summer | Friends
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Thought Repository » July 2004