Wednesday, April 30th, 2008
This Weeks Hero Was Suggested By Mary Ann
Wednesday Hero was started to put a face to the men and women of the American Armed Forces and what they do for us. Vary rarely has there been a member of a foreign military profiled. In fact, in the two years Wednesday Hero’s been going on it’s only been done once before. Here’s the second.
Lance Corporal Matt Croucher
24 years old from Birmingham, England
40 Commando Royal Marines
L/Cpl Matt Croucher is not only one of the bravest men alive, he’s also one of the luckiest men alive. On the morning of February 9, 2008 L/Cpl. and his unit were searching a compound near Sangin in Afghanistan that was suspected of being used to make bombs to be used in attacks on British and Afghan troops. Walking in the darkness among a group of four men, Croucher stepped into a tripwire that pulled the pin from a boobytrap grenade. His patrol commander, Corporal Adam Lesley, remembered Croucher shouting “Grenade!”
As others dived for cover, Croucher did something nobody expected. He lay down on the grenade to smother the blast. Lesley got on the ground, another man got behind a wall, but the last member of the patrol was still standing in the open when the grenade went off.
“My reaction was, ‘My God this can’t be real’,” said Lesley. “Croucher had simply lain back and used his day sack to blunt the force of the explosion. You would expect nine out of 10 people to die in that situation.” L/Cpl. Croucher was that 1/10. Not only did he survive, amazingly he only suffered shock from the blast and a bloody nose. He was saved by the special plating inside his Osprey body armor. The backpack he was wearing was thrown more than 30ft by the blast.
“I felt one of the lads giving me a top to toe check. My head was ringing. Blood was streaming from my nose. It took 30 seconds before I realized I was definitely not dead,” said L/Cpl. Croucher.
For his actions that day, L/Cpl. Croucher was in line for the Victoria Cross, the highest award for a British Serviceman, but it has yet to be awarded.
These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived
This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here
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Friday, April 25th, 2008
I am so bad. I have been so busy since I got back, I am finally now writing about this awesome event. I was contacted about this the day before my birthday (I know, what a great birthday present!!!). Sony wanted to talk to 15 mommy bloggers and give us some cameras (I didn’t know this last part till the day before I left for the trip!). All expenses paid trip, how could I say no?
I flew out on April 16th to San Diego. They got me an a flight through Midway (which I seriously needed since Midway is only 15 minutes away and Ohare is about an hour). Sitting in the airport always sucks, but I made due. My plane flight there sucked. A little girl screamed the whole way. This is why I don’t fly with my kids. I am terrified that is going to be me. The mom was by herself, and she walked up and down the aisle for the four and half hour flight. I felt so bad for her.
We then got to San Diego and I had a limo driver waiting for me. He had my name on a sign. It was super cool. I know I’ll never see that again. He took me to the La Valencia Hotel in La Jolla (it was about a half hour drive). The hotel was awesome (I’ll be writing about it on my travel blog, so I won’t go into too many details here). Sony had boxes set up in our room (to use to Fed Ex our cameras back). They also had left us headphones for our kids, a rose, and two chocolate candy bars. They obviously know the way to a woman’s heart. We were on our own for Wednesday night (though we did have a $50 certificate to use at the restaurant). I met up with Deanna and Anne Marie , and we went to dinner. I had filet mignon. It was super yummy. It was one of those steaks that you didn’t even have to chew it — it just melted in your mouth.
The next day we had to be at breakfast at 9:00. We had a buffet breakfast (which was awesome). This is the view we had from the room we were in. Beautiful, isn’t it? We spent the first two hours after that introducing ourselves. We then had lunch out in the beautiful sunshine. We were only out there for about an hour eating some of the best food ever and I got sunburned!!! Here’s a list of all the awesome ladies who were there (if you have more blogs that I haven’t listed, let me know and I’ll get them added):
After lunch, we got to learn about Sony and the impact of women on their business (Let me tell you, we have a huge impact!!!). We then got to start playing with the cameras we got. Oh wait, I didn’t show you the cameras yet —-
Camera #1: Sony Cybershot
Camera #2: Sony DSLR-A300K
Camera #3 – Handycam HDR-SR10
Yes, Sony gave us all three cameras! They also set aside time for us to work with their trainers so we could learn how to use them!
We then got instruction from photography expert Me Ra Koh. She gave us shooting instruction and tips of how to get specific results. She was really nice and she’s a blogger too!
We then got to go out to the beach and play with the cameras!
We then got a little bit of time to run up to our room and get ready for dinner. I took these pictures from my room!
We then met up with Sony and went to dinner at the Azul Restaurant. I got back to the hotel between 10 – 11 and went to bed.
On Friday, (April 18th), we met again for breakfast. Me Ra took some of our photos and critiqued them for us. She told us how to make our photos better. We then had a presentation from Rocket XL (the advertising agency who helped pull this all together). Us mommy bloggers ended up taking over that session with our opinions and thoughts.
After this session, we were able to do whatever we wanted till we caught our plane. Sony also gave us certificates for the spa, so I went and had a deep tissue massage. I then ate lunch and then had to get on my plane.
And that was my trip to San Diego!
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Saturday, April 5th, 2008
I know I have talked about how much I love Entrecard. They are a great way to drive traffic to your blog and have a great community. Today, some cool changes took place and some not so cool changes too.
First, the cool changes. Now, you can see how many times a person has dropped their Entrecard on you. It also lists your last 5 posts that you have done on your blog. Both are very cool changes that I think are great.
Now, onto the not so good changes. The change that I absolutely hate that happened today (without any warning) is that you can only drop 600 cards per ip. Now, if you have one blog this is no big deal. However, if you have more than 2 blogs in the system (I have 3), this royally screws you. How? Normally, you can drop 300 cards per account you have. Since I have 3 accounts, I was dropping up to 900 cards a day. Yes, I actually do read the majority of those blogs I was dropping my cards on (not everybody updates daily or weekly). It would take me several hours a day to do. However, the traffic that I received from that made it well worth me doing. By looking at my entrecard stats, I can definitely see the difference in my traffic depending on the number of cards I dropped. More cards = more traffic.
Now, this not only effects me. This effects every person who has more than 2 blogs in the system. If I drop evenly between my blogs, I will drop only 200 cards per blog. I am losing out on potentially 100 more drops (if everyone reciprocates). If this is the case, this blog will never make the top three spots nor will my other two blogs since I won’t be able to reciprocate everyone who drops on me. I am also going to assume that the top three blogs are people who only have a single blog in the system. If that is the case, they will be dropping 300 cards to my 200 on a daily basis. Tell me how I ever catch up to the lost traffic. The top spots got there by dropping 300 cards daily.
This change effects anyone who uses a shared computer and/or ip to do their drops. Husbands and wives won’t be able to both have accounts and not effect each others ability to drop. People won’t be able to drop (or be limited) from work if anybody else in the building does Entrecard. And heaven forbid, if you have to use an internet cafe or library to drop. Who knows if somebody already used up the 600 drops off those ips?
What’s the reason for this change? Well, according to Phirate (one of the head guys of Entrecard):
It’s not a penalty, it’s just our only real rational response to people creating multiple “spam blogs” and going nuts dropping a thousand + per day. Unfortunately, some legitimate users will get caught in the cross-fire.
Well, go after the spam blogs. Set up a system where the blogs have to be 30-60 days old and have 10 posts or so. That should weed out a bunch of them right off the bat. I would think they would rather be able to say that they have 7,000 good blogs in the system instead of 6,000 good and 1,000 not so good.
Another issue with this is that it is pretty easy to change your IP. If you use AT&T like I do, it is simple (just a pain in the butt to have to do everyday). I won’t go into how you do it, but if I know how to do it, the spammers definitely do to. Also, another way around this is to use a proxy. Again, if I figured this out, so can the spammers.
Entrecard, I love your system. It does exactly what it is suppose to — it drives traffic to my blogs. However, you are hurting the very people who make the system great. I would think that you would want your best users to be able to put more of their quality blogs into the system.
If you agree, please let them know. From the few people I have talked to like Jenn, I am not the only one who doesn’t agree with this change. Entrecard has made tons of changes based on what the users want. I am hoping that the users can bring about change again.
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