Dan Antion

What Does That Tell You? – #SoCS

In honor of Barb

It’s been a crazy week on WordPress, so it seems appropriate that we wrap it up at the bar trying to deal with Linda G. Hill’s weekly stumbling block:

“Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is ‘leaves.’ Use it as a noun or a verb. Have fun!”

Thanks Linda, I think we can work with this.

If we were having a beer, you would be having fun at my expense.

“Aw, look, it’s my two favorite customers. You boys want your usual?”

“I want a beer, Cheryl. I’m not sure if David has a usual.”

“Not because you said that, but I was thinking about having a glass of wine today.”

“One Corona and one glass of Meiomi – got it.”

“So, Dan, I’ve been meaning to ask you, how was your first week of no-blog-Mondays?”

“It was great, David. Faith and I went to Old Sturbridge Village on Sunday, and it was nice not having to think about posting.”

“But you did post.”

“I posted some photos, you know, for Maddie’s fans, MiMi’s fans, MuMu’s fans.”

“Did anyone see them?”

“Ironically, my stats on Monday were forty-nine percent higher than my previous best Monday.”

“Really?”

“Here’s your Corona stat-boy and here’s your wine. Feel free to remember that forty-nine percent higher-than-ever thing when you’re figuring out how much to leave for a tip, Dan.”

“Thanks Cheryl. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“So, Dan, forty-nine percent higher…what do you think that means?”

“I think I have an idea.”

“I’d say logic only leaves us one choice.”

“And that would be?”

“Adding your writing to an otherwise nice group of pictures, reduces their interest level by forty-nine percent.”

“That wasn’t what I was thinking. And, for the record, it wouldn’t be forty-nine percent.”

“You just said…”

“I said Monday’s stats were forty-nine percent higher. If your assumption were true – which it’s not – it would be a thirty-three percent reduction.”

“What?”

“If you increase…”

“Stop. Just stop. I didn’t come to the bar to listen to you explaining your math.”

“It’s not my math. It’s just math, or maths, if you prefer. The point is…”

“The point is, apparently, on most Mondays, you would make more people happy, if you didn’t bother to write anything to accompany your pictures.”

“Actually, there’s a better explanation.”

“Better? Or more accurate?”

“Both.”

“OK stat-boy, let’s hear it.”

“Don’t call me stat-boy.”

“Cheryl did, you didn’t yell at her.”

“Cheryl’s nice. I’d never yell at her.”

“So, what’s your explanation?”

“Spam.”

“Huh?”

“During the middle of the night, I got an alert that ‘my stats had spiked’ by a couple hundred views.”

“And you think that was spammers?”

“Either that or Joey couldn’t sleep.”

“Well, that could be, but you’re blaming a bunch of random low-lifes?”

“Actually, it was the same two people trying to leave comments on a ton of pages.”

“What made you check into that?”

“A post by RiverGirl about all the spam she’s been getting.”

“You did this all in the middle of the night?”

“No, no, I don’t really care that much about my stats. Later in the day, I read RiverGirl’s post and I put one and one together.”

“I hope that added up to two beers Dan, and maybe some wings. It’s pretty slow here today.”

“I think we should get another round, Cheryl.”

“And the wings?”

“Yes, twenty.”

“OK, I’ll get those right in.”

“OK, so let me get this straight, Dan. Your stats spiked in the middle of the night. I’m going to assume that if Joey was having trouble sleeping, she wouldn’t need to read two hundred of your posts – I usually find one or two to be adequate – that leaves spammers?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You just described it perfectly. What don’t you understand?”

“If WordPress knows the comments were left by a spammer, why would they consider the spammer’s visit to be a legitimate view?”

“That’s a good question.”

“Do you have a good answer?”

“Only that WordPress is so screwed-up right now that I’m surprised, they even identified the comment as spam.”

“Was it one of those long rambling things?”

“No, it started out with ‘Pretty useful stuff’ and went on from there.”

“Pffft, yeah, chuck that in the spam-bucket.”

“Thanks.”

“Here you go, one Corona, one lime, one glass of wine and a plate of wings.”

“Thanks Cheryl.”

“You’re welcome. Sorry I can’t help you with WordPress. I’ve been fighting with them all week, too.”

“Oh, Cheryl. You might want to suggest a tip amount when you give Dan the bill, he’s been struggling with math lately.”

“It’s OK, David. Dan always leaves me a nice tip.”

The photos in today’s gallery were collected during a mostly rainswept week. As of last night, the sun was starting to break through. I appreciate your visit. I hope you enjoyed this post and these photos. I hope you are either unaffected by the WordPress gremlins or dealing with the affects with good humor. I also hope you will saunter on down to Parliament, Mississippi to see what Teagan has crafted for us in Chapter-9.

It’s a beautiful sky, but it’s still cloudy.
Most all of the plants seem to be enjoying the extra moisture this week.
This is how wet it’s been this week.
This was one of the better mornings this week.
The honeysuckle seem to be enjoying the rain.
I do love water drops.
It’s almost July and they are still planting tobacco. It’s simply been too wet. At this rate, they’ll be harvesting in October.
A large family of geese decided to visit Great River Park.
They weren’t willing to show me their best side, but I’ve never seen geese in the parking lot.
The tobacco plants are all in the ground.
The dock at Great River Park.
Hint – I enjoyed a vacation day during the week. More about this later.
Come on Mr. Sun!
A better view of the “Candy Cane” building and the outflow of The Hog River. They buried the river in the 1930’s so it couldn’t flood Hartford.
This day started out showing signs of clearing, but it turned back to rain.
All three major news stations were here to cover the crews rowing in the river.
The first view of sunshine we had all week.
Last night was the first night we had any sunshine. Maddie twisted me around her little finger – we sat.

100 comments

  4. I’m with Joanne, I checked and had four comments in spam. Guess we aren’t as popular as you are Dan. :-) If we could have a beer, I’d really like to talk about when I try to log into an AT&T email account and all I get is a page of code versus access to my account, then maybe a day later it works for a few days, then repeat. That’s the internet issue that continues to drive me nuts. But, I’d feel much better sitting there with Maddie on ‘her’ new deck. :-) Does the Editor have tomato plants this year? Are they growing? Mine have been in the ground since Memorial Day weekend, and I don’t think they’ve grown more than 3-4″ with all this rain and lack of sun.

    Liked by 1 person

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    • Thanks Judy. I’m hard pressed to say I’m sorry you don’t have more spam 🙂

      I know what you mean about the pages loading as text. I see that when we have a really slow connection. I usually reset the router at that point.

      Tomatoes are in the ground, but not making much progress.

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  7. I went to check my spam comments and apparently a couple of people wanted to leave a long diatribe on Bible prophecy. Yeah, yeah, whatever, delete. Initially, I thought your Monday numbers were up because, you know – Maddie, Mimi, MuMu, but in the middle of the night? Unless it was Gibbs and his crazy 3:30 am wake-up periods. He’s been known to write stuff…

    We’ve had some break from the rain and clouds this past week, a day or two, but still not enough. The sun is out this morning and the skies are clear blue, so I’ll try to send that your way, while holding off the rain storms that are supposed to appear later tonight. It has to dry up soon so we can enjoy our summer!

    Happy Saturday, Dan.

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  10. I get my share of spam, but not from the guys you identified. With viewers from so many different places, I can never tell whether something is abnormal from the time at which it happened. One of the fun things about the WordPress metrics is way that it will let you know what search terms people were using when they found a posting–it can be quite amusing at times.

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  11. My SPAM level has been at its usual level. Loved the photos of the tobacco fields. The geese are interesting but from my days in California (Sliding on geese poop) I like to see them from afar. Have a good week, Dan.

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  13. Not to follow a spammer but this IS pretty useful stuff.

    Maths were never my forte. I want to understand the math behind how it was actually a 33% reduction.

    Nice to have links to Joey, Rivergirl and Teagan. I will savor those links later.

    I especially love the water droplets picture. I tried to do that once with a spider’s web. Micro photography at its’ best.

    Happy Saturday!

    Liked by 1 person

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    • Ok, but everyone has to understand that you asked for it.

      If I had100 views, a 50% increase (50 more views) would give me a total of 150.

      If I had 150 views, a 33% reduction (50 views) would leave me with 100.

      Percentages can be evil. Like when a store says they are giving “an additional 50% discount” to their existing “10% sale” but the total discount is 15% (10 + 50% of 10 which is 5). People go in expecting things to be 60% off.

      I included the links cuz those ladies inspired this post. I’m glad you liked it

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  14. One more reason I don’t blog, just follow….SPAM! So sorry for you and your readers who are clearly having mega problems with it, along with a lot of other problems connected to WP.

    Love the reflection photo taken in the rain. Those mushrooms look like someone sprinkled pepper on them so they can eat them fresh from the ground. Yikes! We have mushrooms thanks to the endless rain too, but smaller. The pic of the geese family is adorable. But, oh my, the goose poop!! Ewwwww! I really like the shots of the plants, but mostly the raindrops! Lol.

    Maddie was so anxious to sit on her new deck (yes, face it Dan, it’s Maddie’s deck!), she didn’t even wait for her cushion! Lol.

    I can hardly believe we have oodles of sunshine and blue skies. Repeat performance tomorrow. Enjoy your weekend Dan. Belly rubs and scratchies for the 3 M’s from Murphy (and me!)
    🐾Ginger 🐾

    Liked by 1 person

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    • Thanks Ginger. I took Maddie out on a “business” trip. She dragged me to the deck as if to say “I know it rained, but my deck is dry.” I said no, and I tugged on her leash. She cried 🙁 I caved in a heartbeat. We both sat without the aid of any additional comfort.

      I’m glad you like the pictures. The rain has given me lots of opportunities the get water drops.

      Enjoy the sunshine 🙂

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  15. I should check my spam. Maybe you can replicate the experiment? I do love your photos. The day lily, honeysuckle, and peppery mushrooms, especially…. along with Maddie of course.

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  17. I’m trying to comment again…wish me luck! Way to analyze the data and prove that it had nothing to do with you just sharing photos and fewer words! Dang spammers…so frustrating! Love the photos. Where’s Maddie’s bed? She does look comfy though, way to let her lead you to the new spot! Hope you have a great weekend!

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  18. Oh, Dan–I think I posted once all week and my stats rose, too. WTH??!!! And then I visited my SPAM folder. Oh, dear. What’s going on?? Also, I could not help but notice that Maddie was sitting on bare wood–no bed. What’s the deal? I don’t want to hear about Maddie getting splinters! Happy Weekend, Dan.

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    • Maddie wasn’t supposed to be sitting at all! She was outside on “business” but wanted to sit. I tried to be strong. I said no. She cried (a little whimper) and I caved. I didn’t have a chair either (not that anyone is worried about me getting splinters).

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  20. Marvelous pictures! It’s been mostly wet here, too. I plan to grill out tomorrow evening, rain or no rain. We have an awning, but I’ve been known to stand out under an umbrella when the grilling mood was on me.

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  22. So…had no idea WP was having issues as I’ve not been ‘one’s alot as of late but did check my spam. Interestingly, there were a few comments from you Dan that were in my spam folder, I marked them as not spam, but don’t see where they populated. Hmmm…will continue to monitor.

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    • Ha ha – that made me laugh! Thanks. I seem to always find 2-3 false positives. Just enough that I feel like I need to scroll through the garbage. I wouldn’t mind if they were all short, but the ones that go on and on…sheeesh.

      Thanks for the comment on the pictures.

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  25. I don’t know what to make of Norm’s comment to me today on his post that he’d left a comment or tried to on one of my posts but, it didn’t show up so he thinks it went to my Spam folder. I checked. It’s not there, but 90 comments that I did get and replied to are! I don’t get it.

    The flowers with raindrops on them look wonderful, and the moody, foggy days look neat. I love that foggy skyline.
    I’m looking forward to reading about your vacation day during the week. Hope the sun comes out this week-end for you!

    Liked by 1 person

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    • I’ve had a bunch of comments not show up this week. It’s been crazy.

      The week before, I tried to get the foggy skyline and the fog settled in and I couldn’t see anything – and then it rained – and my camera battery died. This was so much better.

      So many water drip photos this week. I hope not to have as many opportunities next week.

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  26. Another great photo collection, Dan.
    My blog stats are almost as bad as math about giving me a headache. Lately my spam folder is full of religious fanatics with diarrhea of the keyboard.
    Thanks for the shout-out for our Brother Love serial. Hugs on the wing!

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    • Thanks Teagan. The only stat I bother with is visitors. As long as people stop in, I’m good.

      The spam is horrible. I scan, but only to see if any good people got caught in the net.

      I hope you’re having a good weekend -hugs.

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  29. “Stat boy.” That made me giggle. It also made me smile when I saw a Monday post from you, but I refrained from commenting then. Obviously today, I did not!

    I’ve been absent from the posting end of blogging. And maybe that is a good thing – I’ve read elsewhere that WP has stopped spell checking?

    What the heck?

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  30. Who are you lidding Dan? Maddie has you twited, tied and bringing her treats. 😉She sure looks happy. Thanks for the nice tip and for sharing the great photos today. WP….grrrrr…

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  31. You will NOT believe what I got in my spam. Lawd.
    My stats have gone down steadily since I returned to work, which proves that you get out of it what you put into it. I cling to my audience, cause more like friends now, even some are offline friends, but, statistically, my blog does the dying. LOL
    Anyway, I truly did enjoy reading you at 2am but I think it was just one or two posts, because it’s taken me 9 hours to read 311 posts. I did pause for Moo snuggles, Sassy’s braids, and lunch.
    The photos are gorgeous — love the honeysuckle. SO pretty with rains!

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    • Working and blogging is tough, especially when you have kids at home and a zillion things to drive to.I’m lucky. Most days, i’m home right after work, and I don’t go back out. It’s the weekends for me that are problems, which is why I dropped Mondays for the summer.

      You won’t lose me, unless you block me. So, if you ever ramp up the volume of activity, I’ll hang in there – I think most of your followers are the same way – we like our Joey.

      Next time you can’t sleep, dial up some of my early stuff. You’ll be out like a light.

      I hope you have a great rest of the weekend.

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    • I am taking that photo from the shoulder of an on-ramp to the highway, Peter. I am at an angle. I’ll try to get one straight on at some point. There is a trash-to-energy plant on the other side of the river (about a mile away). I think these are the distribution lines from that. Either that, or these are supply lines to the Pratt & Whitney jet engine plant. In any case, thanks for stopping by.

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  33. Interesting to see how your stats increase as you reduce your posting! :) I stopped looking at my stats at the beginning of this year. It made me too anxious. Your prompt reminds me of “Eats, Shoots, and Leaves” (or is it “Eats Shoots and Leaves”?).

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    • Thanks Laurie. I see the stats when I open the app on my phone. I don’t check them during the middle of the night, but the alert had an odd sound. I do remember the book, that’s funny. That would have been a good response to the prompt.

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  35. Love the pics and plug for Teagan!!
    My spam bucket has been in overload….hadn’t thought about the impact to the stats…probably because I don’t care about the stats….not sure that’s a good thing, but oh well:) Have a great week!

    Liked by 1 person

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