Raise!
It’s the first Friday of Spring in the States and…pay day! This is my first paycheck to include my merit increase for 2006. It’s a nice monthly boost which will just barely cover my rather large rent increase for the next 7 months. Time is really flying now. It’s hard to believe it’s been 5 years since I conjured up the idea to travel around the world. Here’s the rough plan:
- Late September – submit resignation at work (shhhh!)
- November 2 – last day of work
- November 3 – move key possessions to storage, and shack up with my retired parents
- November 22 – celebrate Thanksgiving with family (parents only, as brother likely to be overseas)
- Soon after – fly to New Zealand (exact date to be determined based on cheap airfare)
Website Design Updates
- Added Top Commentators plugin so the top 5 people automatically get a link back to their website if they have one (middle right side)
- Removed Google Adsense from Blog (after reading an authoritative ProBlogger.net post on attracting advertisers)
- Added WorldNomads travel insurance banner to bottom of pages (recommended by Lonely Planet and BootsnAll.com)
- Renamed Sponsor Me! page to Advertise, removed content, and signed up for Quantcast to track site demographics
- Made site stats visible (lower left side)
- For now, leaving font size the same, as poll indicated reader preference was almost 3:1 against making it bigger (and despite sincere and appreciated pleas from Greg Laden)
- Added Countdown Timer to potential date of departure, using estimate of December 1 (upper right side)
- Added some personal info to About page
Recommended Reading
- Breathingplanet.net is an activist website and blog run by Andrew, a good college friend of mine. Check out the Projects section of the site to find links to a bicycle documentary shot in NYC which he directed, animations, music, and more.
- TravMonkey.com is a new travel blog site begun earlier this month by Paul. He is a master of creating captivating headlines, and he’s put some great content out right from the gates!
- TravelingChris.com is a blog started by Chris, a Canadian who just finished a stint teaching in South Korea, and is now on an overland journey from Bangkok to London on $5,000 Canadian dollars (currently in Laos).
- John Chow dot Com is a blog that helps you make money online. He is offering to link to your blog if you review his blog. His site is now 7 years old, and his knowledge is evident, as I’ve been reading his feed for about a week now, and learned tons about search engine optimization, and other important web and marketing concepts.
As always, please let me know your thoughts!
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