Oh My Golly (Part II)

One of the coolest things I've seem is Google Analytics. I set up an account when I started this site and would check it frequently, but haven't bothered to in a while.

Google Analytics can track the traffic to your website showing location, number of visitors, how long each visitor stays, what sites they came from (referring site) and even which parts of your site they looked at. Not having looked in a while, I found a few surprises.

Almost 20% of my traffic is referred from my sister-in-law's website: talesofanordinaryhousewife.blogspot.com Thanks Cristin!

Another 14 comes from my oldest sister's site: kkjjkent.blogspot.com
11% comes from my good friend and his wife's website: theadventuresofambogweg.blogspot.com
8% comes from my mom's site debilassen.blogspot.com
The rest comes from google and a few other sites. It even shows which keywords help others find my site from an internet search.

On the map, a lot of traffic comes from Camarillo and Newbury Park (there's probably a large routing center in Newbury Park that a lot of Camarillo traffic goes through). A fair bit from Tehachapi. A good amount from Utah and Madison, Wisconsin. There even seems to be a regular visitor from Vancouver (they could be anywhere in BC since I'm guessing most traffic is routed through Vancouver). I'd like to find out who that is. Plus a few visitors from all sorts of other states. Poor saps who mistakenly find my little blog hoping to find some useful information. Heh Heh Heh forgive me a cruel chuckle.

Google Analytics is good fun. On the whole, I get about an average of seven visitors per day. Too bad I don't write more often to reward them.

In other news, spring is coming, yesterday after class, I took Grace to the botany pond on the south side of campus and fed the ducks some old bread. Two weeks ago, there was a great deal of hormone going through those ducks, and yesterday I found several nests on the hillside. One nest had over twenty eggs in it. I bet that momma duck felt better after getting all those out. We've always enjoyed taking Grace to see the ducks at various spots around campus. Last spring we saw a momma duck with a brood of 12 ducklings following her everywhere. Crazy. I'd add a picture of Grace with the ducks, but blogger is being dumb right now and won't upload it.

Last night, Emily spent the night at her parents house to spend time with a good good friend visiting from St. George. I stayed here since I'm pretty sick and wouldn't be appreciated as company. I told Emily she could go as long as she makes me lots of cookies. Mmmmm. She won the 1st Prize ribbon for chocolate chip cookies at the Utah State Fair in 2004. And me, despite having a number of assignments and tests due next week, I spent the evening watching a couple downloaded episodes of Man Vs. Wild and reading friends blogs that I only discovered last night (through Google Analytics). Today, I'm playing hookie from work (under Emily's orders). I'd probably go, except that the 2 mile uphill bike ride in the drizzly weather would probably make me more sick.

Enjoy the music I added. A coworker has got tons of good stuff we listen to at work and I've been getting a lot of it from him. Another Dane, Christian Wiggo Axelgard. His name is almost as cool as mine. Funny, my brother worked with his brother at the same job over four years ago.

I'm feelin spacy and I'm having a harder time putting together coherent thoughts the longer I sit here. Later