Testing

This post is to test some tracking functionality I've enabled at another site.

I want to apologize to those of you who were reading my series on the Constitution and the other posts I’ve put up, especially those who were actually waiting around/checking in to see if I had posted another update. I appreciate your support, sharing, retweeting, etc. I tried to keep up my content production throughout the outage I’m working, but I haven’t been able to manage it. For the six days a week I’m working, I have about an hour and a half between when I get home and when I go to bed. On my day off, it is more important for me to be a dad to my 3 awesome kids and a moderately useful husband to my even more awesome wife. All of them have been troopers through this whole thing and they have to come first.

Read more:http://dillonallen.com/blog/#ixzz1uaiwwDCn

My first hugelkultur bed has been filled with soil and planted. My wife loved it, thekidswere excited about it, and now we are seeing the beginnings of what will be a summer full of work to keep up with all of the veggies that are sprouting out now. Below is the play-by-play update.

Read more:http://dillonallen.com/blog/hugelkultur-bed-i-part-ii/#ixzz1uaj5Ye6s

The functionality, for those who might run across it, is from tynt.com and may be worth checking out for improved pingback/SEO.

Smart Voter Are you one? Find others.

Check out TheSmartVoter.com to help form the basis for your votes on election day. A guy I went to high school with has taken the last year to develop a site that encourages discussion about the people who will end up in office before they get there, as well as discourse between people who care about the issues that are confronting our country. Here are links to the various ways to engage in the site:

• TheSmartVoter.com
  
• The Smart Voter on Facebook
  
• @TheSmartVoter on Twitter

Here's why I'm there. I hope you will find your reason and join me. This country needs all of the SMART voters we can get. I have been interested in politics since I was in high school. To my stepmom's chagrin during a fund raiser in 1995, I told Trent Lott that I was going to take his [US Senate] seat one day. I spent election night '95 watching the results roll in while hanging out with the MS Speaker of the House followed by the parties. I loved the idea of being able to effect change on my state, my country, and our world. The years have added a bit of salt to my taste for politics, but as a voter I still stay on top of the issues that I think both matter and can be affected by a given position (i.e., the immigration position of a Secretary of State in MS is irrelevant, but not for a Presidential candidate). I believe that, unfortunately, the masses in our country vote based on the sophomoric ads put forth by the monied politicians who keep aerosol hair spray producers in business. Those guys will say just about anything to get in the game and then say AND do anything to stay in it. It makes me sick, so I really try hard to know who I'm voting for or whether I need to simply abstain totally because I can't vote for either clown on a ballot.

Poppycakes - Fancy cakes that are actually good

My sister-in-law Jen has started a company called Poppycakes, which makes high-end cakes, cupcakes, & other baked goods. She is based out of DC, but we occasionally get her to make a freebie batch here in Mississippi or at the in-laws in North Carolina. She has always been great with the tail end of a meal. But since 2004 when my first son was born, she has really focused on her craft and built up a set of tools & techniques that would make a mechanic proud. When she began branching out from family birthdays to showers and other larger events with cakes that knock the socks off of anything we can find here in Mississippi, the word started spreading.

If you're in the DC area and have a thousand calories to spare, get in touch with Jen (Poppycakes on Facebook) and let her bake your party into a creative realm that you won't find anywhere else with her quality and prices. Poppycakes makes me kick paleo to the curb quickly, only regaining control once icing and crumbs are all over my face.

Measuring Social Media

I am trying to learn about different ways to measure effectiveness in "getting out there" in the world of social media. I am spending a bit of time exploring things like:

• Empire Avenue, an investment/community game that allows you to monitor statistics of your media
  
• Klout, descriptions and metrics of your influence and who you influence
  

There are some efforts I begin in which I feel WAY over my head. This is one of those efforts. I hope I can change that soon.