The Brits are taking steps to make people active again

This story from the BBC details ways to encourage people to be more active in their daily lives--essentially undoing all of the "progress" made since the 1950s. I am a big fan of this. Encourage people to walk or bike instead of driving, and they'll help their own health, and benefit the environment and use fewer natural resources.

Ethanol is a sham

A recent story on Autosavant.net has blown the lid off all of those lies about the greatness of ethanol.
Wanna cut down on greenhouse gasses? Take public transport or ride a bike! (That will leave less of you on the road to get in the way of my Volvo.)

Analytical Site Statistics

So a while back I signed up for Google Analytics, a program designed to track usage on the site. I thought it would be interesting to see how many visitors see my ramblings about bikes, Swedish cars, and the weather in Wisconsin. The results are presented with big colorful graphs and maps.Over the last month I've had 286 visits from 39 countries! I've had 191, 15, 11 and 8 visitors from the USA, Canada, the UK and Germany respectively. Mostly domestic, but the rest of the world is starting to catch on. So how do they get to my site?
About 90-95% are referred from Google. Images.google.com referred 25%, google (organic) referred another 16%, and google.ca referred all 11 of my Canadian visitors (3.85%). sixteen percent of people type in the address directly, and another nine percent are directed to the page from another blogger.com site. Minimal referrals come from saablog.blog.com, auto-snob.blogspot.com, autosnob.blogspot.com and forums.sweedspeed.com. The rest come from worldwide google sites.

So what keywords are people searching for that land them on the site? Various combinations of "Madison," "earthquake," and "icequake" make up 12 of the first 30. Fields Auto Group comes in at number three though, so don't think that my ranting and raving has not been heard! Most of the rest are various combinations of "Volvo," Tailgate struts," "running costs" or "madison snow." Only a couple about bikes.

So what does this all tell me? Well, not too much, but it does tell me that although not too many people see these pages, a few people from all around the world do see the site. It also tells me that since most google hits came from images.google.country, having pictures in the blog is the way to draw more traffic. Pretty soon, I'll be an internet superstar!

Three things...

These three topics could not be further apart:

Alicia Silverstone has an ad promoting vegetarianism. It was too provocative and was pulled from Comcast Cable in Houston. Was it the beef manufacturers, or the bible belters?

Blackwater USA has posted a classified ad (#18370, posted 9/19 )on a popular rowing website (www.row2k.com) looking for personal trainers for Navy SEAL candidates.

And French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared that "France doesn't want war." LOL! With 600 years of French military history, I can see why.

German Town Scraps Street Signs

Time to lay on the horn and stab the gas!! Anarchy rules on the streets. Crazy Germans. I guess the Dutch tried it too. I don't think it would make much difference in Madison, since nobody seems to obey street signs anyway.
As an aside, I can now blog in Hindi: एरिक'एस फ़ोन ब्लोग हस चंगेद तो एरंदोम्ब्लाठेर!

From Russia with Love

*in best Russian accent* "You have the mother of all bombs? Ha ha ha, I now build the father of all bombs, four times bigger than zis mother bomb... " And all this just after Russia resumes the long range bomber sorties. Well, now maybe they won't have to carry nukes. Well, at least Russia has a stable government. But wait...

In other happy news from Russia, President Putin dissolved the government today. He then named an obscure cabinet official "loyal technocrat Viktor Zubkov" to be the next prime minister, and Putin's likely successor at the end of his term. I have my doubts he'll go away so quietly. My bet is Putin's hand gets tired from flapping the gums of his puppet. But then again, we saw how jacked Putin is, so maybe he won't get tired.

Finally, the love part of the posintg. The governor of a Russian province has urged his citizens to take the day off and have sex in order to have babies born in nine months on Russia's National Day and increase the overall Russian population.

So in summary, Russia has a new big bomb, has resumed long-range bomber runs, had it's government dissolved by a power-hungry ex-KGB man (at least GW hasn't tried that yet, although I'm sure he has pondered it) and is trying to increase its population. All this not long after the ex-KGB spy poisoning and the resulting diplomatic fallout with the UK. Russia is definitely stepping up their global presence and global show-of-force, and Putin is trying to recapture much of the power that Russia lost with the collapse of the Soviet Union. In order to be seen as a major player in world politics, Putin feels it is necessary to rattle his sword a little bit and show the world that Russia still means business. Now with its state-controlled oil business, Russia has the funds to finance the military machine that sunk the USSR.

Todd's new bike

So my friend Todd just finished his thesis research/bike trip down the coast of Norway from Nordkapp and Svalbard to Egersund and then a ferry across to Denmark and ride into Copenhagen. (No, he didn't really ride all the way to Svalbard, he took a ferry) The picture at the left is of Trollstigen, a famous series of switchbacks northeast of Bergen. From Todd's blog (there is a link on the right of this page) here are some stats:

total--2141 km (1330 miles)
avg speed--16.5 kph (10.3 mph)
total ascent--72,836 feet
broken spokes--8 (+ one complete wheel rebuild)



He had quite a trip. He met some fellow nomadic travellers from around the world, and spent lots of nights frezezing and wet camped by an icy stream in which he bathed. Any time he paid for a campground or hotel (electricity and hot water) he felt really guilty about it. He went for the first month of the trip without a trailer, but realized that his bike was overloaded, so he bought one for the last two weeks of the trip to try and avoid getting any more broken spokes (although he had already made it through the most remote parts of his travels and the majority of the trip before he broke down and dropped the kroner on the trailer). I can't wait until he posts some pictures!


Anyway, he'll be in Copenhagen completing his studies thru February so he deccided to get a new carry-all bicycle for his in-town sojourns. He got a new Nihola! I'd never heard of it, but there are a lot of euro companies making bikes like this. He says that he has been riding around the city with his fiancee in the front taking pictures of the city. They even put a doggy door in the front of it for their whippets. I guess that if Todd is going to be a pedicab driver, it is a good thing he got himself in shape by pedalling the length of Norway!

New World's Tallest Man

Yes, I know that I am a little bit late on this story, but I was busy dealing with the rules and intricacies of socialist Canada and was unable to post for a while. Also, I'll admit I was a bit sad to see Bao Xishun, the Chinese superhero stripped of the title. Bao saved the dolphins, and here you can see the new World's tallest man, Ukrainian Leonid Stadnik with Ukraine's president Viktor Yushchenko. Leonid must not be too much of a superhero, because you can see he was unable to do anything about the 2004 poisoning of President Yushchenko.


While we are on the topic of Eastern European leaders, some new photos came out of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He was on a fishing trip in Siberia with Prince Albert of Monaco and soon afterwards released a whole bunch of photos. Let's hope that world diplomacy doesn't come down to a battle of wits or hand-to-hand combat between world leaders. Of course, maybe that would teach GW a lesson. Putin holds a 6th-dan black belt in the Japanese martial art of Judo. I think he could slap around most world leaders even with one hand tied behind his back and without that huge knife on his hip!

New blog entries on Todd's Norwegian adventure

Fun stuff, Todd biking in Norway, gets a broken spoke in the middle of nowhere!

Sustainable toilet systems

Move over little flush-flush, we're going back to squatting over a little hole in the ground.

Ex-F1 champ takes driving lessons

Yeah, but I be he stays right unless he is passing somebody...

Bao Xishun is at it again!!

World's tallest man meets world's shortest man

Okay, I got the scoop reading another blog, but twice in as many days Bao Xishun is in the news!! Just a dew days after his traditional Inner-Mongolian marriage ceremony, Bao has met He Pingping, who has petitioned to be recognized as the world's shortest man at just 74cm tall (less than 2.5 feet!!).

I have found a picture of Bao saving the dolphins as well...

My Favorite Chinese guy

I love seeing Bao Xishun in the news again. I think he is like the Chinese version of Paris Hilton. (haven't seen too much of her in the news since she went on Larry King after getting out of the slammer, huh?) Anytime Bao makes a move, it is in the news. First, he was certified "World's Tallest Man." Then he saved the dolphins with is super-long arms. Then he got married in a civil service, and now he is in this "traditional" ceremony. I can't wait to see what this hero does next! Hopefully they put him in charge of cleaning up Chinese food! He can use his massive feet to kick some serious ass!

Who needs frequent flier miles?

Modes of transport

I've given a clue to my brother on the mobile phone. I've told him that the native peoples of the land I'll be visiting had no wheels in their "olde tyme" civilization. For whatever reason, the wheel was not an idea which would have given them much advantage. There are many climates and topographies where a wheel would not be too helpful. Imagine pulling a cart through sand, across rivers, through thick mud, or up a steep, narrow mountainous trail. (Or down a steep, narrow mountainous trail!).
The country is roughly ten times the size of England.

Nobody has guessed correctly...

At least not the country. The state has been mentioned, and is one where I have driven my own vehicle, and a state-owned vehicle. If
As for the country
Clue #1: It is not an island.
Clue #2: It has mountains and an ocean.
Clue #3: It is the only place in the world we could get tickets to, but the few tourists who have venured there and have returned said it was amazing...

With more guesses, you'll get more clues...

Which of these vehicles will we encounter on Vacation?

Which of these vehicles will we use or see on our trip? (make sure to guess the location--see 6/26 post)

We're going on Vacation! Where in the world...?

So we're going to another country on another continent, in another hemishphere. Then we'll be visiting a US State. We've both been to the state before, but not together. This will be at Christmas time. Any guesses?p.s. I'll bet you've never been there!