Categories
Work

I feel awesome

Alright, I know what you’re thinking: what am I looking at here? For the uninitiated, this is the homepage of Digg. Okay, technically, it’s the bottom of page 2 of Digg. For the really uninitiated, Digg is basically a website where people submit (“digg,” v.) cool stories for other people to read. If others like the stories, they also “digg” them. The most popular stories make it to the Digg homepage. This sends lots of traffic to the page, which may or may not be a good thing, depending on the purpose of your site and how well-received your story is.

Okay, now you’re thinking: so what? Well, my friends, that middle story there, “Most SEOs are Crooks?“, which reached the Digg homepage about five hours ago now, was written by yours truly.

And also quite wonderful: Rand Fishkin, whom I’m sure you’ve never heard of, but whom I pretty much worship (professionally speaking, of course), commented on it. Sure, he directed his comment to Andy, the guy who actually owns and runs the blog, but I’ll take it. I’ll take it.

I know, you have no idea how I feel right now. Let’s just say when I got the e-mail from Andy telling me I’d made the homepage, and saw the e-mail notifying me of Rand’s comment,
I ran to the back where Ryan was with tears in my eyes.

You see . . . I have arrived. I am awesome. And I’m going to charge more for my Internet marketing services (j/k… maybe…) . . . y’know, if/when I get any clients. And yeah, I’ll have to start playing the “Hey, over here, my name’s not Andy and no, I’m not a man” game (I hate to be called Mr. McCollum). But that’s a heck of a lot better than the “Hey Google/Yahoo/MSN/Digg/readers/anyone?, my website is over here, pay attention to meeeee!!!!!” game in this industry.

(Grr to husband’s employer for hiring someone else without giving me the chance to pitch to you! I have awesomeness on my side. I have linkbait ideas. I have experience with your company and much success. Now you have overpriced, inferior services. Grr.)

You may congratulate me now. 😉

Categories
Work

Big debut

This morning I made my grand debut into the real Internet marketing blogging sphere. Here’s my introduction (though I’m almost too modest to link to this!).

I’m super excited about this opportunity. Over the past few months, I’ve become just a little attached to my RSS reader. (Hayden and Ryan might never see my eyes again if I went mobile with my RSS!) And now, 2-3 times a week I’ll be on a well-known Internet marketing blog.

On Facebook, they used to have a pull down menu for occupation. There were options like “secret ops,” etc. If they still had that, today I would feel like I could officially select the option “Kind of a big deal.”

Yep, that’s me.

Side note: I really thought I would be less busy after losing my job. Oh well, it’s the holiday rush.

Categories
Work

Fortunate one

It’s funny how losing your job can change your outlook on things. Normally, when I see a ‘House for Sale’ sign, I think “Investment opportunity?” Now my first thought is “Aw, they must’ve lost their job and can’t afford that house anymore. That’s so sad.” (Don’t worry, that’s not our situation at all.)

Yesterday, after the bad news came in, my old coworkers and I all went to a Chinese buffet. I thought that work should have paid for it, since we were all suddenly uninvited to the work Christmas lunch on Monday, but oh well.

At the end of our lunch, we got our fortune cookies. The two people who were not laid off got the same fortune—something about having a problem.

My fortune was pretty positive: “You will have a chance soon to make a profitable transaction.” ( 1 25 30 34 36 38)

Let’s hope so!

Categories
Random Work

End of the idyll?

Last night, I was remarking to Ryan how idyllic our life really is. I mean, it’s tough to get up several times a night (HAYDEN SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT LAST NIGHT!!!), but I’m not worrying about Hayden making bad choices or talking back or anything bad like that.

Also yesterday, I was given the opportunity to post to a work-related blog. It’s actually the place that hosted the contest I was in a couple months ago. That’s cool. I’m pretty excited—it’s a pretty well-known blog, so I could get to be just a little bit famous in my sector. Kind of mind boggling.

Then there’s today. I get a message from my supervisor—if there’s anyway I can come in today, she needs me to. She has bad news. What, I won’t get a raise? Maybe the parent company doesn’t want to have WAHMs on their staff anymore? My e-mail stops working.

I finally get up with my supervisor—our parent company has decided to close our entire division. A few employees will stay on through February, and 2-3 will stay on permanently. The rest, including all of our management, are supposed to clear out of their offices by the end of today.

I’ve been laid off. Hm. Oh well. I’ll miss my coworkers, but I don’t get to see them very often anyway. I’m not overly concerned about finding something else, possibly because just last Friday my supervisor and I discussed opportunities for me/us outside of the company. We kind of thought that the parent company would drive our division into the ground—I guess they decided not to prolong our suffering.

Oh well, I got severance pay. Maybe I should go collect unemployment.

Categories
Kids/Parenting Work

The opening bell

Today officially marks the beginning of the holiday season: I ate the last of the Hallowe’en candy today.

I’m in an unusually Christmas-y mode lately. I don’t know why. But I’m excited about Thanksgiving, too—and especially about seeing my family.

More odds’n’ends:

I like this picture:And I’m grateful to have a husband that gives Hayden his bath almost every night. (Also, check out the water droplets in the photo; very cool!)

I have “Hate (I Really Don’t Like You)” by Plain White T’s (how they spell it) in my head. I like it.

Tonight I was thinking about how much I love Hayden and suddenly wanted to have another baby. Then I remembered that I already have a baby. I think I’ll take my time.

I got an offer today to do some contract work for another company for quite a bit more than I normally make. Merry Christmas to me!

Okay, I obviously need more sleep. I’m off to get some. But knowing Hayden, just some.

Categories
Kids/Parenting Work

Mama called the doctor

Today was Hayden’s nine month doctor appointment. Here are his latest vital stats:

  • 18 pounds, 4 ounces (15th percentile)
  • 29 inches long (75th percentile)
  • 46 centimeter head circumference (75th percentile)

So, as the doctor (or was it a nurse?) said, “He’s never been a big guy,” and this time’s no different. He’s long and skinny, and everything seems to be going very well—except for sleeping and eating solids. The doctor gave us some advice, but so far Hayden’s been stubborn (yes, just tonight).

Other news:

  • I did not win the grand prize in the SEM Scholarship Contest. I did tie for second with two judges’ votes which is more than I’d expected! Here’s what one of them said: “Jordan’s is instructive and focused on where SEO techniques can be expanded on to bring long term value by becoming more intimately involved with the design of a site itself.”
  • Today at my work meeting, we learned that November is “NaNoWriMo“: National Novel Writing Month. One of the writers challenged the writing team to each churn out a 50,000 word novel in the 20 remaining days in the month. That’s 2500 words a day now. I’ve taken the challenge. I have 281 words so far, including about 25 of a plot sketch. Check my progress. No guarantees, though, since we’re going to be on a trip (not a vacation; moms don’t get those!) to my parents’ for two weeks, we’ll just have to see. I’ll give it a shot. Eesh…

Onward, ever onward, to the next nightwaking we go.