Dead Zebras and the Mysteries of Google

As a society we give a lot of credit to Google. We rely on them for just about every piece of information that we need to easily find. This is a lot of power for one company to possess. Think about it, how hard would it be to to include or omit information based on what you would like society to be exposed to. Somebody is making those decisions which led me to immediately think of the obvious……dead zebras.

Over the past year I have been casually observing the statistics of my blog and have learned some rather interesting things…..

#1: In 2009 I had 459 visitors to this blog. 231 of those were tagged as “unique” visitors. And here I was always taught that everyone was unique.

#2. The average visitor spent and entire 50 seconds on my blog which tells me that I either have a small following of world class speed readers or people just don’t find me as interesting as I find myself.

#3. I’ve had two “unique” visits from Slovenia which I am guessing is in Eastern Europe but I honestly couldn’t tell you much more.

#4. By far my most viewed blog entry was written on February 11th and entitled Beer, Camouflage, and Dead Zebras 

I found the popularity of the Beer, Camouflage, and Dead Zebras entry curious. There wasn’t anything spectacular about the piece. In fact, it was simply an entry documenting my annual tip to the Portland Sportsman Show. I figured there must have been something more to this phenomena. So I Googled it…..

Not surprisingly when you type the word combination Beer, Camouflage, Dead, and Zebras my blog entry is at the very top of the Google list. So I tried other combinations to see how high up the entry was on the “Google List”…..

• Beer and Camouflage………#4 just after a “How to Camouflage Your Beer Can” tutorial. Why?
• Beer and Zebras……..#12 right after The Beer Goggler blog with naked pictures of some chick in a zebra striped skirt.
• Dead and Beer……Too far down on the list to even find. Apparently the word “dead” and a commonly consumed alcoholic beverage are often found in the same article.
• Dead and Zebras……#4 right after a myspace page for the band “Naybubble and the Dead Zebras”. I bet they’re glad they’re #3.

I find this to be a little disturbing. Not so much the way Google lists the search results, but more the keywords you need to type to get those results. What sicko is out there searching for beer and dead safari animals? I would think no one, but that apparently is not the case. In addition these people are finding my blog!! I’d better be nice. So the next time you are researching the life expectancy of Zebras, studying beer camo, or looking for dead animal pictures and come across my blog site stop in and say hello.

2009

I’m not really good about getting out the camera and taking pictures. The camera always seems to be back in the truck, at home, out of batteries, or stuck in my desk. Cameras built into phones has helped a little but I doubt I’ll ever be the type of person where the first instinct is to pull out a camera to capture a moment. However over the course of a year I end up accumulating an array of pictures from various events and have decided to put them together to form a sort of a Fleming Family summary of 2009. I have tried to put these in semi-chronilogical order but no guarantees….

We started off January right and Jake and I packed up the camper and headed to Morro Bay for the NFL Championships weekend. We basically spent two entire days at the Embarcadero Grill eating and enjoying endless free refills of soda! Of course Mojo the Monkey had to come along for support.

Jacob reacting in utter shock at another 4.0 GPA Principles Award. Later in the year he was stunned to learn that he had received the very first B Grade of his entire scholastic “career”.

Yet another week-long trip to Vegas. I used to love going but after a dozen years straight I’d actually rather stay in Fresno. And I lost $200.

In April Brian and I flew to Portland for a salmon fishing trip. It was cold. So cold that even a week later my testicles had yet to drop from their shrunken location in my lower abdomen. We caught one fish the whole weekend.

The 2009 Free Chipper Debacle: Jennifer scored a “free” chipper from one of her neighbors. It took four people, 23.5 man hours, a blade sharpening expert, and a round trip visit to the motor shop to discover that the “chipper” would only “chip” leaves and small branches that were already hand cut into “chip” sized pieces.

I had my first garden this year. Tons of peppers, zucchini, squash, and tomatoes. Along with the delicious fresh vegetables came the critters looking for a free meal….

My entire trapping haul from 2009 was One mama possum, 1 baby possum, and three curious neighbor cats that were wondering why the cat food was sitting so far back in that metal cage.

In one of the few times Brieana emerged from her room this year I was able to capture I glimpse of her right after her relay team won the gold medal in the 4x100 Individual Medley. She immediately returned to her room and put her headphones back on….

Jake had a championship moment of his own as his Angels team won the River Park AAA Championship. Jake knocked in the winning RBI to beat the Cubs in the Championship game!!

Post baseball game with Jake, cousin Noah, and some chick that snuck into the photo at the last second.

Speaking of chicks……

…..I don’t even know how this picture got onto my phone but bears the telltale signs of an impromptu Brieana photo shoot. Jennifer harbors illegal chickens in her backyard. Several of the chickens (possibly this one as well) eventually fell victim to a very persistence chicken-eating toy poodle named Marley.

Fresno Grizzlies game with Jake and his friend Josh.

Jake trying to heckle top Giants prospect Buster Posey into tossing him a baseball. He didn’t. He was actually sort of an ass.

Jake finally earning a little of his rent money.

This is where the time frames get sketchy so I’m just going to start posting pictures.

Labor day salmon fishing in Washington.

Labor Day Kite battles at Long Beach in Washington.

Magic Mountain with Denae’s Family, Jake and Michelle.

Jake winning 3rd place in the Clovis Unified JV Wrestling tournament.

Probably relatives of the possums I caught earlier in the year.

Some lazy surfer jumping off the Cayucos pier to avoid paddling out in the storm. I actually remember doing this when I was younger. I was fishing off the pier but only caught two tiny fish or I would have had better things to take pictures of than a seagull and the water.

Dad bought Jake a canoe for his birthday this year. The San Joaquin River is awesome!! This year we actually saw two deer on the river just up from Woodward Park. Of course I only had my camera out when Jake turned around to make a face.

I think the best trip of the year was to Tahoe. It was typical Fleming family craziness. By the end of the trip the kids were the Godfathers of the Marriott Grand Residence. We had a three bedroom suite which was probably twice the size of my house. It was a great time.

Nick “CC Rider” Mertens sporting the ice skates and the Gayviator glasses.

The members of Team Ghetto Sled

Grandpa Derral aka “The Skipper”
Grandma Becky aka “Garlic Grandma”
Brian aka “The Grand Pooba”
Denae aka “Sweetpea”
Darrin aka “Big D”
Brieana aka “Sguiggy”
Nick aka “Chubby Chaser” (Can also be shorteded to “CC” and/or “CC Rider”)
Noah aka “Colonel Klink”
Jake aka “Kowalski”

Long Live Team Ghetto Sled