Website traffic
I mentioned in an earlier post that this website has hundreds of unique visitors a month.
Just to backtrack, from the beginning, I was monitoring the website traffic through two sources, one was WordPress (the software that runs the blog) built-in one and later using a Google Analytics. Both were showing that there were very few visitors. Tops once every other day. Almost always viewing the main page and then leaving.
I had an experience where a relative was able to read through the posts, without triggering either of these two trackers (but not completely). That is when I figured that they were missing a lot of the traffic.
So, I turned to another traffic source, on the website server, that is very simple. This one captures every visit. This one was reporting that there were hundreds of unique visitors each month.
Later on, I dug into the data to determine which one was right. As I investigated the visits, it became clear that almost all the traffic was from bots, or computers. How was I able to tell? Simple, if a “unique visitor” is visiting several pages a second, likely it is not a human. These are bots, and there a lot of them do that periodically.
Eventually I determined that Google Analytics was right, there were almost no visitors to the website. As far as I can tell, the only visitors that read some content were the people that I shared the website address with.
So, no rush to put content out, since there is no one really waiting.
I am planning to have a post about once a month. This seems to be a cadence that I can handle.
New Car
I have ordered a new car about four months ago. It should arrive the second half of October. It is a Subaru Forester SUV that has AWD, which is really important in navigating some of the roads (and my driveway) in the winter here in Rochester, NY.
I remember when I moved back in with my parents and got another job (about four years ago), they were encouraging me to buy a new car. At the time, even though my car was approaching ten years old, I was not caring about a new car, and felt that it would be a waste of money.
Later on, maybe three years ago, I started to research to buy a car. This did not work out and I gave up on it.
Fast forward to this year, I tried again and this time I was able to do it. I am really looking forward to the Forester and can’t wait to have the extra leg room and general space. I feel it will be a big improvement over the 2010 Ford Fusion sedan that I have.
When I went shopping for it in April 2022, new cars were hard to find. I found a place that had a new Forrester listed on their website and scheduled an appointment. At the appointment the salesperson immediately said that there is a 4-7 month wait for a new car – they did not have any available that day – and that Subaru was planning on cutting off orders soon. So, without test driving a Forester, I ordered it.
I really believe in the positive reviews that I read about it; they were better than the other SUV AWD models. I have never had a car with good trims, so this one I got with something better than the base version.
How I am doing
This is not an easy question. I can explain how I have changed over the past few years.
After I was fired from my job – which was a big relief, I went through a period where I was not able or maybe not willing to do much. I spent my days helping my parents out but doing things like reading a technical article or looking for an object in the house or even using the computer were giving me symptoms. One of the main symptoms was a stomach ache, if ignored and the act continued, a bowel movement or if further then diarrhea.
I didn’t think of going to a doctor over this. I felt that I would naturally get over this in time (and this has largely proved to be true today) as I was in a too fragile health, to have a doctor perform diagnostics on me, I feared would have caused further problems – or as they call it complications.
Some of the stomach problems that doctors can help with are treated with medication, and from what I have read through some articles is that it could sometimes make the situation worse. So, I had no faith in the doctor and have largely stayed out of his office.
I remember in those days I was able to sit the entire morning in front of my turned off computer. Later in the afternoon I may have quickly browsed the news before my symptoms started.
I figured that browsing for news in the morning was pointless because they were not written yet.
As the months progressed, I was able to browse more and more.
Today, I get up early in the morning, and start to browse the news. Sometimes I am through in a few minutes and then try again later in the day.
I am told by my family members that reading news is bad for your health. For me often it is the only thing that I can do on my computer. House projects are often not fun and still I am not completely healthy for. But I find some mental stimulation and interest in reading what is happening around the world. I do this throughout the day. Sometimes the sessions are as short as a few minutes, sometimes longer.
I don’t find that it adversely impacts me psychologically. Usually, I read an article and have some fun reading it. Later in the day, I have a real hard time recalling what I read. This benefit of passing the time reading and not worrying about it later seems to me to be okay.
However, too much computer usage does drain me, and I must stop doing this after some time otherwise it can cause problems.
More Changes
I stopped drinking coffee since a few years ago. At that time after drinking coffee, I would get a mental reaction and would not like it. I felt that I had made a mistake and it would take hours to recover from. So I stopped.
Just a few months ago, I tried it again and liked it – without the guilt.
Before I stopped drinking coffee, my days at TI in Texas (over five years ago), I must have drunk like 10 cups of decaf coffee a day. A mug in the morning at home and throughout the day at work.
As I tried the coffee a few months ago, it was still a delicate task. I was not sure if it was the right time to restart. But after a few weeks I was regularly drinking it.
Today, my mornings begin with coffee, and generally I drink about three to six cups of coffee a day. Usually split in half, with decaf in the afternoon. It satisfies my cravings, and I don’t think it’s because of the caffeine.
Observation
I made an observation about my life. If you read my autobiography, you would have come across the section where I started out on a bad generic manufacturer of my medication and slowly got really sick over time and did not even realize that I was getting sick and that it was because of the bad medication. It got really serious.
I wondered why.
Well, recently, as I was spending an evening one time, in a really good way and was unusual for me and it didn’t even occur to me that it was unusual.
As I caught myself afterward, I wondered why. I believe it is because of poor short-term memory. You see, I generally have a hard time recalling how my morning started, what happened a few minutes ago or even an hour. I have to do some real digging, and this is hard and not always successful what happened minutes ago.
Well with poor short-term memory (remember the forgotten news articles) any change would be hard to pick up – bad or good changes. Sometimes it is obvious if it happens in matter of seconds, but if it is longer than that I don’t think that I am able to reliably catch it.
Overall, my health has been in the category that it will get worse before it gets better. I feel like I am a piece of meat that has been taken out of the oven. The outside starts to cool right away, but the core will get hotter before it gets cooler. Some things are improving, while some things are getting worse.
Tech
I took the picture for this blog with my Google Pixel 6 Pro phone. One evening I saw the sun setting down and it was deep red. This was unusual so I decided to take a picture. However, the smartphone captured the sun as white and red on the outside. So, even with modern smartphones they still have a way to go to capture pictures properly. My previous smartphones, in this low light condition, would have made really dark photos. So, they are improving but still have a way to go.
I am considering getting the Pixel smartwatch when it comes out. It’s been a long time since I have worn a watch, I stopped after I got a smartphone. I think now is a good time to restart. It will be announced early in October.
I am trying to stay within the Google ecosystem and believe in them versus the two other big players (Apple and Samsung). I am surprised that it took Google so long to develop quality smartphones (true overall and the camera mostly too) and now a smartwatch. They are behind but are quickly improving.
Looking forward
Looking forward to October, I plan on working on house projects and hopefully buying the new car. I am considering exercising, this is still not certain, and I have to figure out how to do it.
Rosh Hashanah begins on sundown September 25th, and this starts the Jewish new year. There are some reports that this will severely impact the financial sector. This Jewish new year can be positive life change for people personally though.
Edit 1/1/2023: I found out that my phone has a night mode. I did not use it when taking this picture. Maybe there would have been improvement.
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