My, Myself and the Ceiling!!!!

Well, after spending some time writing about mobility issues and products for our new US Mobility web site, it seems I am now conducting some real empirical research!!  Frolicking on the bed, I managed to strain a muscle or tendon in my neck, and collapsed in acute agony.  I am now suffering with absolute limited movement, to such a point that it is painful to even move and go to the toilet!!!!  Poor old Nick is trying his best to ease things for me, and make me comfortable……..but I feel a right useless noggin, and look a right site!  Unable to purchase a neck brace, we have improvised with a large towel, tied around my neck with one of Nick’s ties.  For my heat treatment, we have filled a plastic water bottle and sheaved it in a sock.  This is then stuck in the right side of my neck-towel. 

I spent most of yesterday lay on my back immobile staring at the ceiling going a little (more) crazy!!  Having too much time to just think is not really what I need, or want, however luckily I managed to prop myself enough that I could hold up a book and start reading again.   AT LAST I have finally finished Fahrenheit 451….an accomplishment at least!

Nick even took to completing re-organizing our room at 10 pm last night in an effort to move me out of the direct line of the cold air form the air-con.

Today is a much better day J  Although still suffering somewhat, the chronic pain has eased and I am capable of much more movement.

If it isn't broke...don't fix it!!!!

I have long had my reservations about the oracle that is Google.  My concerns arise form the uber power Google has gained as THE authority on the Internet.  Not only are they now revered as the No. 1 search engine on the planet, that has their fingers in so, so many pies!  Whatever you require, be it maps, images, translation services, analytics……..Google dominates!

But all is not right with the guru.  Google has tried to get too clever for its own good.  Or more likely, it has now become such a money-greedy corporate that it is solely driven by monetary gain, and not just the aspiration to be the BEST at what it does.  Although, by no means a webmaster, I live with a semi-webmaster and our observations are that something is very, very wrong in the Googleplex!

Google introduced ‘Caffeine’ back in April, a new indexing algorithm that was supposed to sophisticate Google’s search results (SERPs).  Well, I wouldn’t say it has stimulated them at all, in fact quite the opposite.   What does seem evident is that Google is playing with new algo’s that somehow are privileging web sites that run Adsense.  Which kind of means they are more interested in getting web sites that they can make money from into the SERPs. 

No longer are great organic sites featuring where they should, or getting the right key word traffic.  What does this mean?  Some webmasters are reporting more traffic from Yahoo and Bing, and believe this is due to consumers switching to an alternative search engine when they don’t find what they want on Google.

Combine this with Google's other great recent change, fondly referred to as 'Mayday', and it seems that the outcome is a major shift in traffic patterns and many glitches with Google's matrix.  In an effort to supposedly refine the Great Google, and keep the Internet SERPs fresh, we seem to be witnessing completely inconsistent and at times random, in not irrelevant, results!!

What is going on Google?

What we have witnessed is content added to our blogs, or article-writing sites, can be in Google almost instantly.  Whereas genuine, fresh, quality content added directly to our web sites can take days to index properly.  Why is this?  And how can content added on 'social media' sites be regarded as more important than quality content on authority web sites?

Guess this could be Mr Gates big chance to guzump the Googleplex…..or maybe it is some industrial espionage???  I bet the guy that plugged in Caffeine is hiding under the table now!

Runner of a different kind!

So since leaving Belize our plans changed somewhat.  We had planned to exit the way we had come, and return to the States for now.  But instead we ended up spending time in Mexico.  I really could never have imagined that I would end up living in Mexico, but guess what……if it’s good enough for Train Robbers, then I guess they must have known something eh?!!

Yesterday marked my first ‘Mexican’ tummy, and meant I spent the whole day (and night) running to the toilet.  Nick played Florence Nightingale wonderfully, ran out for Eskapar (the local recommended remedy), and gently administered love.

My experience was made worse by the fact that our water had gone off here, yet again, so I was running into the block behind us to use the toilet!!

Fortunately our water came back on later in the afternoon, and although still delicate, my stomach seems to be settling down.