Perfectly Petersen

USF Bulls Beat West Virginia for Biggest Win Yet

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Tonight, the now 4-0 USF Bulls took the West Virginia Mountaineers to town, beating them 21-13. It is the Bulls’ first win against an AP Top 5 ranked school in the program’s history, in the school’s first year being ranked themselves. Currently ranked 18 in the polls, this win is sure to put the Bulls on the national map.

I’m proud to be a Bull, and my sleeping wife was, and shall evermore be a Bull.

GO BULLS!

Big Day, Thanks to Yahoo!

Today has been going great here at P-Squared. When I awoke this morning, the traffic on the blog was about normal, if not even a tad lower than sometimes. My day totally changed when I got to work just 30 minutes later and that initial number had increased over 3,000%.

I wondered what was going on, so I checked where people were coming from, and it was Yahoo! search engine traffic, every few seconds… to the same article using the exact same search string! Wondering what was going on, I thought maybe someone was trying a Denial of Service attack and spamming the same search to bring down the server. I checked where the hits were originating, but they were coming from all over the world.

Since they were all directed toward the article on Kevin Richardson, Lion Whisperer from June, I wondered if he went and pulled a Steve Irwin and got himself killed being with the animals he’s so nuts about. Since they were all coming from Yahoo!, I went there to see if there was a headline about his death or something.

This is what I saw: More »

10 Things About Blogging That Are Not Intuitive: Your Content

Last issue, we explored how important the location of your blog, both physically and it’s address, is to the success and reputation of your blog as a body of work. Today, let’s nail down some tips on content.

Find Your Brand, Theme, or Niche

A vitally important part about blogging is what to blog about. Naturally. There are business blogs, helpful blogs, blogging blogs, gadget blogs, mommy blogs, and portfolio blogs. My personal favorites are gaming blogs, particularly those about World of Warcraft. Within each topic and niche comes the full spectrum of fantastic design, content, and passion. The ability to do your blog well has a lot to do with finding yourself within your blog and showing that to others. Even the most professional, anonymous business blog can convey enough passion and insight to make a following.

One of the reasons the term “blogger” brings negative reactions from friends and relatives who are up with technology is that there are so many bad blogs out there. More »

10 Things About Blogging That Are Not Intuitive: Blog Location

Blogging can be one of the most rewarding hobbies you can imagine, if you do it right. Successful blogs even become profitable without being annoying, and can vault you into the limelight of the publishing community. If your blog is struggling or you are struggling to come up with content, then maybe it’s just because successful blogging is not intuitive. Today is the first in my 10-Part series on improving your blog and your blogging. Here is the first tip that you either have to discover the hard way or evolve to succeed.

Blog Location

Where does your blog live? Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, LiveJournal? Those are all fine platforms for getting the job done, but surely you’ve noticed that some blogs do not have the extra address information to remember. Have you ever found a good blog before, but not been able to remember whether it was a “.blogspot” or “.wordpress” to get back there? You have to do a search and hope they are indexed. Search engines work fine, and people usually have you in their sidebars for easy clicking, but an easy URL is priceless, too.

“How do you get a cool name?” you ask. That’s the easy part. More »

The Forbidden Journey: A Short Story

A ruler watched one day as nearly two dozen warriors from a neighboring kingdom reigned chaos over an entire country, one considered to be a mutual enemy. This brought much delight to the ruler. The world trembled at such a display of brazen violence.

Not too long after (if any time is acceptable), people began to forget what  happened that day and how many lives were lost. Wars sprung up, people fought over the wars, and political offices were won and lost over “moving on” or staying fast.

At the height of the divide, the ruler decided he would like to visit the spot of the opening blow. More »

Comfort Food Recipe: Homemade Macaroni and Cheese

It’s Open Mic Night at Successful Blog, and tonight’s topic is Comfort Food. Here’s my current favorite. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it twice. Seriously. I wasn’t a huge fan the first time I tried it, but I can’t get enough of it now.

• 1/2 box of elbow macaroni
• 1 can of condensed tomato soup (YES, really!)
• 1/2 cup of milk
• 2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese
• black pepper as you see fit for a little bit of zing

Boil your noodles, drain and place in a 2 quart baking dish. Mix the soup, milk, cheese, and pepper. Cover and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees, stirring at the halfway point.

I’ve Been Tagged by Joe Through Liz Through Chris

Chris Cree tagged me with Joe’s Promise today after Joe wrote a post that got Liz thinking. Isn’t that how it so often happens with Liz? It’s wonderful.

Here is Joe’s Promise:

• I will be sure to comment on other Blogs if I can add to the conversation.
• I will respond to comments on my own Blog.
• I will acknowledge any links to my Blog with a comment on the linker’s Blog.
• I will continue to link to other Blogs that are pertinent to a posts content.
• I will once again be a part of the Blogging Community.

I have been quite busy of late, but I have been keeping up with Joe’s Promise without knowing about it. That being the case, we must be on the right track.

It’s fine to by too busy to post once a day, let alone the 3-5 times some of us have been prone to do from time to time. Sometimes you just need to pull back, lie low, and observe. If you leave me a link or comment on something I’ve put my time into sharing, you can bet you’ll hear from me one way or another.

I promise.

I’m tagging you — Wendy, Mark, Mike, Ben, and David.