Archive for July, 2006
Wednesday, July 26th, 2006
What the hell is linkiewinkie?
Supposedly, linkiewinkie is a web 2.0 social experiment. The website describes itself; “Linkie Winkie is a bit of a social experiment and we want to see what happens. We’re not going to tell you much about it, except that its a very altruistic little site and loves to be talked about.” Heck, as a scientist I’m willing to participate in an experiment to make the world a little bit more interesting.
I’m not sure what it’s all about, but I assume it’s a way to attract and dish out traffic. The website appears to seek out blogs that talk about it and return the favor by displaying a link to that blog on their website. Let’s see if it works!
Update: My post was the top link on linkie winkie within 5 minutes, and it’s been up for over 12 hours. Since then, I’ve had 30 unique visitors and a lot of page views. Visitors have come from: Monaco, Netherlands, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Israel, Canada, Australia, and the US.
Leave a comment if you stop by from linkie winkie!
Update 2: My post is still listed at the top of linkie winkie, about 38 hours later. I’ve had over 125 unique visitors from the site, including the following countries not listed above: India, Bulgaria, Italy, Spain, France, Egypt, Germany, Portugal, Norway, South Africa, and Poland!
Update 3: Okay, we’re onto day 3, and still at the top. I now have over 173 unique visitors, and can include the following countries in addition to all those listed above: Mexico, Malaysia, Hungary, Romania, Greece, Venezuela, China, and Sweden!
Update 4: I’m no longer the top link at linkie winkie, and now my link will slide down the side and eventually off the bottom. Last night someone who arrived at the blog via linkie winkie submitted by site to StumbleUpon, and within an hour I had 70 hits from that site. I also have to add the following countries: Brazil, Switzerland, and Russia.
19 Comments » - Posted in Life by blaine_5
Sunday, July 23rd, 2006
Uh-oh!
Time to panic:
This was originally a countdown to my thesis defense, but I’ve since passed, and everything went great.
Comments Off - Posted in Life by blaine_5
Sunday, July 23rd, 2006
Magic
As a kid I loved magic, all kids do. I remember watching the specials that were on TV every once in a while (back when there was only 10 channels to choose from) with my family and being absolutely spell-bound, pardon the pun. According to my Mom, my brother and I would spend the next day or two trying to do magic tricks. Even though we were never able to recreate a moment of ‘magic’ in our own livingroom, we never stopped trying.
I just saw this magic trick by David Copperfield that had been popularly dugg over at digg.com. It might be a little hokey, and as adults we spend every minute trying to figure out how he’s doing it, but deep inside I still feel the amazement of the performance. I couldn’t help but feel like a kid again. No one does it like David Copperfield, with the perfect combination of illusion, emotion, comedy, and drama.
I can’t wait until the E-man is old enough to watch magic shows with us, and I can experience it through his eyes. I don’t want to spend an hour trying to figure out how the magicians did their tricks. I want to sit there for an hour and believe in magic again.
1 Comment » - Posted in Life by blaine_5
Friday, July 21st, 2006
12 Angry Men Trivia
Ever since my history teacher showed us the film “12 Angry Men” in class (probably the only thing he ever taught me), I’ve loved the movie. If I’m flipping through the channels and find it, no matter how much of it I’ve missed I’ll stop and watch the rest. A lot of great actors in a really entertaining film. A while ago I was visiting with my family and we asked the morbid question, “How many of the 12 are still alive?”
Well, as of Wednesday, there’s only one left - Jack Klugman, who is 84 years old. Jack Warden, aged 85, died in New York City. In the movie he was Juror #7, a salesman and a sports fan. Warden had a 60-year career in movies and won numerous awards.
1 Comment » - Posted in Life by blaine_5
Tuesday, July 18th, 2006
100!!!
This is my 100th post, just 329 days after my first post. Life sure has changed since then. I’m fully settled into fatherhood and I still love every minute of it. Of course, I’m even more scared now than I was back then. It’s so easy to protect a 3-month-old. A 14-month-old, on the other hand runs everywhere, gets into everything, dares to try it all, and loves danger. Nothing makes the E-man happier than doing something he shouldn’t be doing! Parenting doesn’t get any less worrisome, does it? Even when’s he’s my age I know I’ll still worry about him.
In other news, my dissertation is almost finished, my 1st author paper has been submitted, and my review will be submitted soon. I’ll wrap up the dissertation this weekend and hand it out to the committee members. August 3rd is the defense, and I can’t wait until it’s over. I’ve never been happy with my ability to think off-the-cuff, so needless to say I’m anxious about the whole process.
I have a question for the blogosphere. The E-man has been making himself throw up by sticking his fingers in his mouth, and I was wondering if anyone else has had this problem. Although we know it’s not unnatural or dangerous, it would be nice to know that other people have experienced this as well.
3 Comments » - Posted in Life by blaine_5
Tuesday, July 18th, 2006
A Day at the Beach
Comments Off - Posted in Life by blaine_5
Monday, July 10th, 2006
Finding your way to me
Since thisbiochemicallife is googled by google, it’s available to anyone who’s lucky enough to pick the right search terms. For example, the first few results for both “thisbiochemicallife” and “this biochemical life” bring up my blog. Here are some searches that brought people to the blog in the past few months:
1. “reviews for tin pan galley” - the best restaurant in Sackets Harbor, I highly recommend a visit.
2. “luna loca restaurant lake placid” - my wife and I first ate at this Mexican restaurant on our honeymoon, and we fell in love with the place. There’s nothing too special about the place, but the atmosphere is nice, the food was good, and it was our honeymoon.
3. “upstate swimming holes” - I wrote about this a while ago when talking about how much I enjoyed growing up in Upstate New York. I don’t have a list of Upstate swimming holes, but that would be a great wiki for someone to set up.
4. “giant germ toy” - okay
5. “fisher price toot-toot 643″ - I know what they’re looking for (one of the vintage toys I blogged about just recently), but it sounds kinda funny, doesn’t it?
6. “cutting down trees as grad prank” - Just for the record, I don’t think that’s such a great idea!
In other news, the E-man has settled into the mini-toddler room, a room for children between 1 and 2 years old. It’s a pretty wild room, since 9 of the 10 children just happen to be boys! Luckily the lone girl is able to hold her own.
Last night he woke up with a cry that he only does once in a great while. When we checked this morning, sure enough, tooth number 8 had popped through. They’re adding up fast now!
3 Comments » - Posted in Life by blaine_5
Tuesday, July 4th, 2006
A trip back in time
After reading a post about childhood toys by greg over at Daddy Types, I found a few toys that I remember from when I was a kid. A lot of them I had at my house, and others I played with when I visited my grandmother’s house. My wife and I love the current Fisher Price Little People toys, and I’d forgotten how many old Little People toys I had as a kid! Some of these toys I hadn’t seen or thought about in at least 20 years!!
Tupperware Zoo-It-Yourself
Tupperware Shape-O Sorter Ball
Fisher Price Little People Play Farm (#915)
Fisher Price Little People Tudor House (#952)
Fisher Price Little People Service Garage (#930)
Fisher Price Little People School House (#923)
Kenner Little People Tree Tots Tree House
Fisher Price Giant Screen Music Box TV (#114)
Fisher Price Activity Center (#143)
Fisher Price Roly Poly Chime Ball (#165)
Fisher Price Medical Kit (#936)
Fisher Price Chatter Phone Pull Toy (#747)
Fisher Price Pop-Up-Pal Chime Phone (#150)
Fisher Price Pocket Camera (#464)
Fisher Price Crazy Combo Horn Set (#604)
Fisher Price School Toot Toot Train (#643)
Fisher Price Desk (#176)
2 Comments » - Posted in Life by blaine_5
Monday, July 3rd, 2006
Changes
Last week my wife received some great news on the job front. She’s a high school teacher and recently decided see what would happen if she put out some applications at other schools. Her school is one of the lowest paid schools in the county, and they budget one of the smallest amounts per department and per student. One of the best schools in the county, however, loved her application and after two interviews she was offered and accepted the job! This district is considered pretty difficult to get into because they treat the teachers so well. Including a 20% raise! The timing couldn’t be any better since I’m only two months away from starting law school (and thus losing my grad school stipend). The new district has a much bigger budget for supplies and has many more resources for students and teachers. And lastly, it’s only 2 miles away from our house, compared to 30 miles for the previous school. So we’re all really happy around here!
And so my status as a kept man is as true as ever. But don’t knock it, it’s not a bad deal!
We just spent the weekend at a cabin in the Adirondacks, I’ll have some pictures soon. We had a great time, a last hurrah before my thesis defense August 3rd.
