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Summerfesting 2010
Jul 08
Well I've wrapped up another year of Summerfest. Last year I checked out Reel Big Fish which is still probably my favorite show of all time. This year I made the trip down to Summerfest twice! I was hoping to make it down a third time but that didn't pan out. Either way it was a lot of fun this year just like last year. And yes I'm rambling on, on purpose here to get this text to clear the image on the right (sorry web designer nerd joke).
Trip 1: 311 & Pepper
I made the first trip down with my good friend and co-worker Kyle. We arrived at Summerfest early enough to see two bands. The first band was a Reggae/Ska/Punk band by the name of Pepper. Pepper was the opening act for 311. I would say I probably liked their style of music more than 311 but it was early in the night so the show wasn't as exciting at this point.
Pepper playing at Summerfest 2010
Next up was 311. Mike and his friends arrived at this point and we worked our way up in the crowd. At one point we got a really wimpy mosh pit going but since it was a Reggae/Rock band that quickly ended. After that we moved our way up to the 2nd row, right off the stage.
Finally, 311 played their song "Down" which was a favorite of mine so I ditched the front row and returned to the scene of the mosh pit expecting it to be going on during their most popular song. I was disappointed to see a bunch of hippies just standing around like it was a hippie jamfest or something.
So I started jumping around a bit and bumping into people. After a few minutes the crazy die-hard mosh pit people surfaced (shaved heads, no shirt on, tattoos, they're easy to spot) and joined me. We only moshed for a song or two until a cop came in and told me to 'KNOCK IT OFF'. It was child's play compared to the Reel Big Fish show last year where I was scared for my safety.
311 performing 'Amber' at Summerfest 2010
After the show we ended up getting stuck in a parking garage for 30-45 minutes. Overall it was a good time.
Trip 2: Slightly Stoopid
The next trip down to Summerfest was to see another Reggae/Ska/Punk band named Slightly Stoopid. The band apparently was hired to the record label that one of the Sublime band members started in the 90's. The band is mainly a Reggae band but has horns and has a few faster songs as well. This show probably had the most weed smoking of any of the shows I've been to before. It probably didn't help that we pushed our way up to the front again, but that's where all the fun is.
About quarter of the way into the show a crazy dude climbed up the rafters at the Potawatomi Casino stage and after some encouragement, on our part, jumped. I was surprised to find that a fellow YouTuber captured this epic event on video. If you crank up your brightness on your monitor you can see the entire thing unfold.
Crazy guy at Slightly Stoopid jumping from 10-15 foot support beam at Summerfest
Some other highlights from the show that I can recall was me fighting with some 18 year old girls who couldn't handle my need to mosh during one of their few fast songs. Another interesting moment was when a fight broke out (at a Reggae/pothead show mind you) between two guys eventually ending in them both choking each other and falling into the bleachers. The verdict is still out whether it was for real or staged since security ran in and everyone seemed to be friends again.
Wrapping It Up
Overall it was a good time at both shows. I really wanted to see Less Than Jake, but they played on a Sunday night and nobody was able to make that. Regardless I think the other two shows equal a single Less Than Jake show in value.
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Posted By: Neal Grosskopf @ 7/8/2010 7:32:00 PM
Radio Silence
May 14
Okay, yeah, I know. I haven't done anything on my site in over a month now. Ironically I had a uber spike in traffic at the end of April that I didn't even notice until yesterday. Sadly I hadn't even logged into Google Analytics to check on this in over a month as well. There's three reasons for this occurrence.
Reason 1
Work... It's safe to say I've never, been busier at a job than I have in the past 3 weeks. I suppose I took it for granted at my previous jobs that working 40 hours a week was normal. For the past 3 weeks I've logged 55, 53.5 & 50+ (not done yet) this week. A few people have left and a new one started coupled with there seeming to just be more work lately. Because of that I've been getting home at night, plugging in my laptop and working till it got dark out. I tend to prefer working long days during the week and completely tuning out on the weekends.
Reason 2
Great Success...! This has affected my online presence on numerous websites, with Facebook, Twitter & NealGrosskopf.com. I simply have less to say after earning my greatest achievement to date. It just seems like nothing can top the fact that I'm out of the house! Every other life event dwarfs in comparison to that and seems so insignificant that it's not worth talking about. I've also started to change my perception of giving out information to the masses on the teh internet(s).
Reason 3
Netflix... After discovering the awesomeness that is Netflix I've been watching movies and TV shows constantly using the streaming service. Also after a 11 hour day, once I'm finished with work my hands are starting to hurt, and I need to get off the keyboard and give them a break. Netflix is the perfect solution to this.
Excuses, Excuses
Blah, blah ,blah. I'd like to say "I'm going to try harder to post more" but I know that's not the truth. I must say that after seeing the large spike in traffic, I am interested in getting back on the horse again and writing tech articles. The last spike was the second highest I've seen so I know I can still churn out a few good articles and help out some fellow web nerds.
Stay tuned.
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Posted By: Neal Grosskopf @ 5/14/2010 8:44:00 PM
Show n' Tell: Moar Stuff!
Mar 28
It's been difficult for me to find something to talk about that is more exciting than my previous blog post. While I don't think I'll ever be able to top that achievement I suppose it's finally time to talk about something else (for a change).
I recently got a pretty good deal on an old school original Xbox along with 25 games. Since then, I've been re-living the glory days of the old Xbox I use to own before it was stolen. Probably my favorite game from the Xbox was Doom 3, which I've been playing constantly for the past two weeks now. Another pretty sweet game is Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory which is a stealth-based third-person shooter. The game has pretty good graphics for an original Xbox game and I find it to be pretty fun.
Then, on my birthday, I woke up decided I felt like buying a new TV set. I've been using my crappy 25 inch TV for the past year or more since the old one was a casualty of the before time. I didn't really mind this since I seldom played any games on it and when I watched movies I usually wasn't paying much attention to them. Then, Best Buy had a 36 month no interest deal running which was exactly what I was waiting for before buying another TV. I did some quick research and decided to buy a LG 42LE5400 LED 42 inch TV.
A couple cool things about it is it's only 1.2 inches thick (as you can see in the picture, it's only as wide as a nickel and more narrow than my 24 inch flat screen computer monitor). Another awesome feature is it has the ability to hook up to the internet for select websites. One of these is Netflix. I had previously used Blockbuster's mail service which was ok but once I started using the Netflix integrated service I was really impressed. I can now select movies on my computer and they'll instantly show up on my TV and I can start watching them streaming. Apparently the TV was a good deal because my friend Tyler went out to Best Buy that same day and bought the exact model I bought.
The picture quality for my LED TV is really awesome, but my main problem is I don't own anything that outputs in 1080p (HD). Time to upgrade. I ended up buying some cheap HDMI cables from Amazon along with a cheap HD Antenna which works great for the price. I had looked around some local stores for HDMI cables but they are wicked expensive, usually around $5 a foot with the shortest cable being 6 feet long for $30. I also bought a floor model LG Blu Ray player for $100. I got it mostly just to upconvert my DVDs so they're not windowboxed anymore.
Overall I'm pretty satisfied with my recent purchases.
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Posted By: Neal Grosskopf @ 3/28/2010 5:07:00 PM
I'm Homeless!!!
Mar 08
I'M FINALLY 100% HOME FREE! Today, the couple interested in my house finally signed all the paperwork and "closed" on the house. I've wanted to write more about the process and how things were going but for some superstitious reason, I waited until it was all finally over. Gone are the days of throwing away $1,381.44 a month and the $16,577.28 I wasted over the last year in a futile effort to keep my credit score at a decent level. Foreclosure and credit scores really aren't as bad as society makes them out to be, it's all scare tactics fabricated by the banks.
Putting It Into Perspective
From November 1st of 2008 to November of 2009, I had 26 house showing, 15+ open houses and dropped the price $10,000. Pretty much nothing was happening and it appeared that I was going to be sitting on it over another winter wasting my money and time. Then in late October, a couple looked at it several times and made an offer of $148,000 which was $11,990 less than I had it listed at. At this price 'we' would have lost roughly $19,000 split in half. At this point I was plenty happy with the offer and was glad just to get the heck out of the place
As usual, nothing could go easy. I went to court and a probama judge basically did nothing. At this point I was 100% ready to give up, I was worn down to the point that if all I had to lose was a hundred points on my credit rating, oh well. The first thing I did was go out and get a credit card in an effort to help my score while I stopped making payments. As November wore on I waffled back and forth on whether I would make December's payment.
Thanks Upper Management
Then out of nowhere our entire Marketing department got outsourced to a totally awesome marketing agency with super cool audio effects on their home page and we (as in the majority of us) got laid off. "Well that makes my decision easier" I thought. December's house payment was skipped. Ironically if I had made December's payment this entire process would have been pushed back another month and probably cancelled.
In the meantime, for whatever ridiculous reason the people that made an offer on my house still wanted the place, I hated with ever fiber in my body. It was difficult for me to fathom that somebody could desire something I despised so much but I digress. Ultimately all "parties" agreed on a short sale. My credit score would likely be hurt just as much as a foreclosure but at least I wouldn't have to live in hell for another year.
I ended up finally finding a job (at a company I will keep to myself and at a time I will keep to myself and moved to a location which I will keep to myself). As the months (i.e. 3 of them) wore on I started to panic more and more. Would I come home some night and find the place on fire? What about if I woke up one morning and the basement was filled with water? Then there's the furnace, how much longer will that thing last? It looks like it's as old as the house? I was just waiting for Finagle's law to come into effect...but it never did. For those months nothing ever went wrong. I was shocked. "How could this be?" When everything that could go wrong did for the past year nothing did during the short sale process. The place still stands, the basement is dry, and the furnace works like the day it was installed.
Then I expected some crazy amount of money to be due at closing which I knew would be a huge issue, but it never came. $0 was due and it was all over. So here I sit, in disbelief that I'm finally homeless.
Fin...
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Posted By: Neal Grosskopf @ 3/8/2010 10:32:00 PM
NealGrosskopf.com 2009 Year In Review
Jan 12
Well here is my stereotypical year in review blog post. You can also view last year's post. Overall, my site had a great year. Traffic was up almost 200% compared to last year. Almost all of this is due to the articles that I wrote. I also found Twitter to be a great help in increasing traffic. Here were a couple tweets by some high profile twitter users regarding my site this year:
- Smashing Magazine - 106,556 Followers
- Nicholas Patten (NY Designer) - 37,470 Followers
- Elijah Manor (Co-host of The Official jQuery Podcast) - 31,569 Followers
- Alex Puig (Twittexperts.com) - 30,378 Followers
- jQuery (Official Twitter Account) - 16,436 Followers
- Chris Coyier (CSS-Tricks.com) - 14,346 Followers
I was also featured on cssglobe.com and 456bereastreet.com.
2009 Statistics for NealGrosskopf.com
- Total Visits: 95,830 (32,580) +194.14%
- Total Pageviews: 165,086 (61,301) +169.30%
- Most Popular Page: CSS Browser Hacks For Firefox, Opera, Safari & Internet Explorer 24,834 (Same, 16,690 pageviews)
- Most Visits in a Single Day: May 12th with 1,831 (October 10th with 1,371 visits)
Top Search Phrases:
Compared to last year, most of my top searches on my site were related to articles I wrote. This is due to my SEOing of the articles.
- firefox css hack: 661
- opera css hack: 556
- jquery content slider: 387
- css hack for firefox: 313
Visits By Region
My site improved the most internationally while in Wisconsin I had sort of a poor year. I consider most Wisconsin visitors to be people that know me personally.
Wisconsin
3,633 (3,890) -6.42%US
32,866 (13,733) +139.32%International
62,964 (18,847) +234.08%Target Sites
This includes sites such as Digg, Delicious, Twitter etc. These are sites that I market my articles to. As you can see, I improved my targets sites immensely in the last year:
15,856 (2,734) +479.96%
Wrapping It Up
Due to my work situation for the last couple months of 2009, I ran out of ideas to write articles on. Because of this I sort of ran out of momentum towards the end of the year. My goal throughout the year was to break 100,000 visits and I came up 5,000 short. For 2010, I'll set that same goal and hopefully break it this time around.
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Posted By: Neal Grosskopf @ 1/12/2010 8:05:00 PM