Neal Grosskopf Dot Com A NG Designs Site

Tonight my house was shown to some people. I decided to get some groceries to waste some time while they looked at my house. I got to my house around 5:56 and noticed there were still cars in my driveway "perhaps these people are interested" I said to myself noticing that they were to only be there for 30 minutes. I then pounded another lap around the sub-division. On lap 2 I noticed they were still there, 10 minutes later. "Gez, they really must be interested" I thought. On lap three 6:13, no cars, so I pulled into my driveway.

It dawned on me that snow+tracks = websites+analytics. I looked down at the ground and could see that yes, there were two cars in my driveway (which I already knew) but I also could see that one car only had 1 set of tracks going to its driver's side door while the other car had 3 tracks, one set very small, and two others going to the front of the car. Being the analytical god that I am at work, I deduced that yes, it was a couple, perhaps like Emily and I but, with a small child. The perfect match for my house. This instantly made me think of what I do at work from day to day. I know that people are leaving tracks on our websites (via log files) but I don't know them personally and I can't identify them, only certain things about them.

It was quite depressing to drive by my house a couple of times, seeing all the lights on, with cars that aren't mine in the driveway, knowing people I don't know are walking around in it. Sort of smacked me in the face that, hey...this isn't always going to be my home, and that was a depressing thought. Call me materialistic, but being a homeowner makes me feel really good. I feel like I've worked hard to get this house (put up with high school, put up with tech, put up with lakeland, got married) and soon much of that won't matter, unless I can find Emily 2.0 or some other poor sap like myself in a similar situation.

It almost felt like my house was being burglarized or something, I don't know, I should probably just seek counseling on my infatuation with my house, who knows? And no, I don't care about your opinion or suggestion on how I can keep it. I've heard dozens of people act like they know, and they're all wrong. Plain and simple I need another $300+ more a month, at a minimum to keep it and that isn't going to happen. Heck, I was just told at work that our raises are being delayed so I might as well forget about that being an option.

Who knows, perhaps we won't have a job anymore in the next 3 months, then my house will definitely not be mine, it will be Associated Bank's house then. So far our company has laid of 64 office employees out of an original 400 or so and we've lost one in my immediate team of 4 people now down to 3. I really, really, really hope I don't loose my job as well.

Fin.

Well, I got back from deer hunting for the first time in my life. I probably should have started hunting much earlier, I mean my own sister has been since she was like 12 and my Dad always has. Anyway's I sat out in the woods Saturday and Sunday and had a good time with my Dad.

It was really cold Saturday morning, and it probably didn't help that we woke up at 4:30 am. I didn't see any deer in the morning. Then in the afternoon I saw a 4-6 point buck and I took a shot at him. I hit him in the upper shoulder (because I was trying to pass the bullet through his shoulder and into the heart and lungs area). The bullet apparently ricocheted off the deer's shoulder and he took off running. My Dad and I tracked him for probably an hour or hour and a half through the woods but got stuck and couldn't track him anymore.

It was really exciting to see a deer walking around without knowing I was watching. I had probably 30 seconds of time before I shot and it was really nerve racking. Then on Sunday I saw two does at two separate times but didn't have a good shot on them. So I didn't bring a deer home but I had a good time.

In other random news, I've been listening to Bob Marley non-stop lately. It all started one night because I was sort of feeling like I was Will Smith from the movie I Am Legend (you know where he's more or less the last man on earth...alone) and I got that Bob Marley song from that movie stuck in my head - Three Little Birds. Then I was about to download that song when I realized I had the greatest hit CD all along (who'd a thunk?). Since then it's been the only music I've been listening to.

I was always under the impression that reggae music was the inspiration for the ska music genre (which I am a huge fan of) but after a little research I discovered that ska came first and reggae actually was an off shoot of ska. Then later in the 80's ska and punk become joined at the hip which is a strange marriage if you ask me.

In house news, I had an open house this weekend and I guess some people were also shown my house as well. I'm sure all the noisy neighbors went through my house to try to figure out what's going on. It seems like the worst possible time to have to sell a house, but there's not a great deal I do about that. Hopefully I can keep my head above water long enough to sell it for a reasonable price. Things definitely aren't like they used to be where Emily and I spent money like no tomorrow. Now I have to carefully evaluate every purchase I make.

Tonight I sacrificed a bunch of food I needed to buy so I could buy a snow shovel. It's funny how little snow shovels are appreciated until you need them. This morning all I had was a small 3 foot handle, skinny shovel to shovel out my driveway. It took me a good 20 minutes to do a really bad job but I got my car out. I can only imagine what this morning would have been like had blondie still lived here. Chaos!

Fin

The other day I got an email sent from my contact form on my website. It was from a comedian known as Jack Handey who has been featured on Saturday Night Live dozens of times, and who has written several books. Now it wasn't a good email but interesting nonetheless:

While I hoped I would hear from Jack Handey in another fashion it's still cool that some famous person visited my website. I of course removed all of the quotes I had of his, on my website. Being the Google Analytics freak that I am I wondered, what sort of computer setup does Mr. Handey have. Using GA's sweet new segmentation feature I can find this out pretty easily.

Mr. Handey did a Google search for the phrase "message president jack handey outside" which really doesn't make any sense as is, but he ended up on my site where he proceeded to view 9 of my pages. That's sort of the fun thing about web analytics is I can make assumptions, and find out what people are doing on websites that I have analytics on (at work or at home). People generally assume that what they do online is private but it really isn't and crazy people like me can figure those things out assuming we have the data to do so. I always laugh when some idiot gets caught using a proxy to do something illegal online (like hacking Sarah Palin's Yahoo! account).

Anyway's here's Mr. Handey's computer setup:

• ISP: Comcast
• City & State: Santa Fe, New Mexico
• Browser: Safari 523.12
• Operating System: Macintosh
• Screen Resolution: 1680 x 1050
• Flash Version: 9.0 r19
• Java Installed: Yes
• Screen Colors: 24 bit
• Visited My Website: 2 PM, November 9th for about 8 minutes and 48 seconds

I'd like to apologize to Mr. Handey who I admire and find very funny. I essentially just copied a bunch of his quotes from some other website that probably did the same thing. It seems that too often people search Google for one of his quotes and ended up on my website (which they can't do via his books because books are not searchable). Either way I didn't profit from this other than answering some random person's question.

And now deep thoughts...by Jack Handey...

It feels like lately my life is going in reverse. Usually the general course of a life after high school is, go to college, get girlfriend, graduate, get married, buy house etc. Now I feel like I'm sort of back at "graduate college" again which occurred about a year and a half ago for me. I personally feel like getting "back on the horse" and see if I can't get life moving forward again but that will probably be a problem that I can't control 100%.

Last night I met with a realitor to put my house up for sale (I should have a link I can post on my website in a couple of days). The house will officially be up for sale starting next Tuesday. I believe Emily came over today and removed some of her remaining things as well. After that I need to clean my house up, mostly due to damage the dog and cats did to it (or myself in one case). My Mom and Dad are coming over this weekend for a morning to help clean things up. If all goes to plan I'll probably have an open house next weekend while I'm gone deer hunting (or just sitting up in the stand with my Dad). I hope the house doesn't need to be for sale too long, mainly so I can get it behind me and start focusing on other things. It would also be nice to not have to stress my self out everyday about how much money I do or don't have.

For most of this week I've been troubling myself with what I'm going to do this weekend. It just seems like if I'm sitting at home along, nothing positive comes out of it. Usually I'm obssesively checking my email, phone or facebook with no results. I seem to be the happiest when other people are around but I don't have a great deal of friends in the Oshkosh area. As it stands it doesn't look like I'm doing anything this weekend, which sucks. I guess after having such a top notch time last weekend I don't know what I'll do with myself this weekend. So far it seems that just about everybody is busy with one thing or another or would rather not hang out with me.

Yeah, this is quite the self loathing blog isn't it? Well hit me up tonight, Saturday, or Sunday if any of you 5 people out there that read my blog are free.

Doesn't it seem like every time you check the news, another company is going out of business or laying off half their employees? Heck, last week my own company laid off 30 corporate employees, 2 which were in my own department! It's really terrible, and I really feel for the people that got let go. It sucks!

I am almost to the point of advocating, people withdraw all of their money from their savings and invest in the 4 G's: Guns, Gold, Groceries & Generators. Yes, no matter how bad of a depression the country gets into, the 4 G's will always be of value even when the US dollar is only worth the paper it is printed on.

Another reason 'Armageddon is Nigh' is that I am getting a divorce. Yes, unfortunately Emily and I can not work out our differences and we're in the process of splitting up all of our possessions. She is no longer living at our house and today she is coming over and removing a lot of her possessions.

If anybody cares, I'm doing alright regarding the whole situation. When I'm alone I sometimes feel bad, other times I'm ok, but I've been trying to stay active with friends and family and other interests as much as possible. I've been playing a lot of guitar lately and that has helped me relieve some stress.

I've pretty much convinced myself already that I'll have to sell the house. I really don't want to but it just seems like it needs to be done. It also makes for one less issue to debate about in these post-marriage times. Things will be rough for both Emily and I, financially and emotionally but hopefully we can get through the process quickly and as painlessly as possible.

Also, something many people probably didn't know, but I had applied for a job in Green Bay. Had I got the job I would have fared a lot better and probably been able to keep my house but I was told today that I won't be getting it. I already told my current employer that I had interviewed so this isn't some double-secret information coming out. I always try to looking on the bright side of whatever lousy situation I'm in, and I guess all I can say about this is that now it's made my future choices a lot easier to make, like whether to keep the house or not, or what city I should live in.

Well probably not the most upbeat blog post I've ever written but I feel like I might as well just get lay it all out there.

Props go out to the Holyland.

Fin.