Spaceship Earth, far and near
© Copyright 2010 Tink *~*~*
Smile, it’s Wednesday 
You want me to be happy, don’t you?
DON’T YOU?
Towers and tails – a twilight perspective
© Copyright 2008 Tink *~*~*
A view of the Walt Disney World Dolphin resort from the World Showcase in EPCOT. The dolphin sculptures on top of the resort wave their tails in the air. One is obscured by the Eiffel Tower from the French pavilion. Perspective makes it seem as though the Eiffel Tower stands right alongside the resort.
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You want me to be happy, don’t you?
DON’T YOU?
Scenes from The Blue Dolphin, Sanibel Island
© Copyright 2008 Tink *~*~*
A reader wrote and asked me to opine about The Blue Dolphin, a small, lush resort on West Gulf Drive, Sanibel Island. I have visited my friend Christene of Our Vanilla Life when she has lodged there, and stayed overnight one time.
The Blue Dolphin sits on a stretch of West Gulf Drive that has been known for good shelling. About a half-mile down the beach is a place called “The Rocks”, where some wonderful things, including live tulips, have been known to congregate. The two units I’ve been inside were roomy and comfortable. Both had a separate bedroom, and a sleeper sofa in the “great room”.
I liked the front porch area at the unit Chris rents each year. The entire property is lushly landscaped; not only is it beautiful but it helps to provide some privacy. The only drawback is that it isn’t screened-in, so once the noseeums come out for the evening, you must abandon the area and scurry inside.
One of the things I like best about the Blue Dolphin is that some of the units have a back door. Right outside the door is a spigot to wash your feet and a shelf to lay out your shells to dry. And the back door leads right into the bathroom, so you just bring your wet, sandy self/children in that way instead of traipsing through the whole unit.
If you don’t feel like lounging by your unit, there’s a covered lounge area facing the Gulf where you can sit and read a book while enjoying the shade and the view. You may see dolphins hunting, or pelicans diving for their dinner, or else shore birds foraging in the surf. Or you may just close your eyes and let the rhythm of the waves lull you into a nice afternoon nap. You may not be able to bear to keep them closed for long, though – this is what your view is from the shady lounge area.
And then, there’s the sunset. Nothing compares!
You want me to be happy, don’t you?
DON’T YOU?
More scenes from Disney’s Boardwalk
© Copyright 2008 Tink *~*~*
The Boardwalk as seen from the plaza between the Swan and Dolphin resorts
Here’s that wedding pavilion I was telling you about last week; I think I’m standing in front of Disney’s Yacht Club
And speaking of the Yacht Club… as seen from the restaurant area of the Boardwalk
You want me to be happy, don’t you?
DON’T YOU?
Crest O’ The Wave – scenes from Disney’s Boardwalk
© Copyright 2008 Tink *~*~*
http://MyMobileAdventures.com
There’s a “wedding pavilion” on Disney’s Boardwalk – well, I’ve never seen a wedding happening there, but it is the PERFECT spot for one. It’s a beautiful wooden structure with some wonderfully detailed arches that make a perfect frame for pictures. Since the lake that the Boardwalk follows is crescent-shaped, you can stand at one end, where the pavilion is, and photograph the other end. Here’s what my camera saw when I stood there on a blustery day in December. Enjoy!
You want me to be happy, don’t you?
DON’T YOU?
Stalking the big, red “hidden” Mickey heads at EPCOT
© Copyright 2008 Tink *~*~*
http://MyMobileAdventures.com
Click the photos to see if there is a larger version available in Flickr
I love the banks of the lagoons at EPCOT during the International Flower and Garden Festival, because of the all the fun shapes planted into the flower beds. I’ve seen hearts, stars, half-moons and of course, “hidden” Mickey heads. Last spring, the landscaping included two huge, red “hidden” Mickey heads in these locations. One was very close to the glass pyramids that house the Imagination! attraction. The other was quite close to the butterfly house on the other side of the park. Here we go – enjoy!
You want me to be happy, don’t you?
DON’T YOU?
Picture perfect on the rocks at Disney’s EPCOT
© Copyright 2008 Tink *~*~*
http://MyMobileAdventures.com
In Walt Disney World’s EPCOT theme park, just across the walkway from the China pavilion in the World Showcase, there is a certain rock formation that is distinctive because it has a “doughnut hole” shape cut into it. Many of you reading this may recognize it. Here’s what it looks like on a normal day in May.
During the winter holiday season, that same rock formation gets dressed up in red, China’s favorite color – we discussed this yesterday! Here’s what the area looks like adorned with festive red lanterns.
And here’s what it looks like when you are standing in the exact right spot on the path – the “doughnut hole” perfectly frames a lovely young tree that grows on an island in the middle of World Showcase lagoon.
You want me to be happy, don’t you?
DON’T YOU?
EPCOT Flower and Garden Festival drives away the winter doldrums
© Copyright 2008 Tink *~*~*
http://MyMobileAdventures.com
During the winter time, even here in Florida it can be chilly and bleak. Right now, we’re having an unusually long cold snap, with temps plunging into the lower 30s at night and never making into the 60s during the day. So I went looking for outdoor, watery scenes full of flowers and color and spectacular skies for today’s post. Here’s EPCOT during the Flower and Garden Festival this past May (2009). The Festival will begin again in March – that’s only 2 months away! In the meantime, photographs and memories can keep us going until spring comes once more.
You want me to be happy, don’t you?
DON’T YOU?
My Mobile Adventures *~*~* – Top 20 Posts of 2009
© Copyright 2008 Tink *~*~*
http://MyMobileAdventures.com
Now that 2010 is almost upon us, it’s time to do a 2009 “Best Of” post. I get a kick out of “fun facts”, so this year I’m taking a statistical point of view. Let’s see what 2009 held!
My Mobile Adventures *~*~* Top 20 Posts of 2009
Posts are ranked according to how many visits they received during the 12-month period ranging from 12/29/2008 – 12/29/2009. Data gathered and presented by the Wordpress Stats plugin.
- Lego Sculpture at Downtown Disney: The Dragon
- Colorful birds from Orlando, Florida
- Disney’s Ladies in RED
- My Top 5 FUNky Facts About Pelicans
- “The Rocks”, Sanibel Island
- More Disney Characters in RED
- 7 Things To Do In Walt Disney World On Halloween (except THAT!)
- “There once was a man from Nantucket…”
- Yet More Disney Characters Who Wear RED
- My “favorite” Disney red-head
- A Disney Dance of the Hours
- Of Mice and Mutts
- Lighthouse at Disney’s Yacht Club Resort
- The Empress Lilly, Downtown Disney
- Critters on the Castle: Kaa
- Sanibel Island beach birds
- Frog metamorphosis at Disney
- About
- Dancing mushrooms from Disney’s Fantasia
- Mickey Mouse Chillaxin’ In Paradise
IN WITH THE OLD
Among my Top 20 Posts of 2009 are four posts which were originally published during 2008.
- 100% of these posts contain Disney-related content
- 50% of these posts were created for the Ruby Tuesday meme, and deal with the topic of Disney characters who wear the color red.
- Dark horse: my “About” page somehow squeaked into the Top 20. Who knew, huh?
SPEAKING OF MEMES…
- The Ruby Tuesday meme, created and managed by Mary The Teach, is responsible for prompting 35% of my Top 20 posts. The runners up are:
- Camera Critters (Saturdays, 23%)
- The Wednesday Trifecta (22%)
- The Monday Trifecta at 9%
– of the three memes in which I’ve participated in on Wednesdays, Site Meter indicates that it is Outdoor Wednesday, created and managed by Susan @ A Southern Daydreamer, that brings the most visitors.
– Well, it’s actually a bi-fecta now, one of the memes having fallen prey to blogger burnout. None of them stands out as bringing in more traffic than the others.
THE MORAL OF THE STORY: since I’ve been cutting back on meme participation – it was starting to feel like a “gotta” instead of a “wanna” – I should probably concentrate on my Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday memes, if I want to maintain decent levels of traffic.
SPEAKING OF SITE METER…
Lots of interesting information about your audience and how they get to your blog each day can be had from Site Meter.
- Even though I do get a lot of traffic from the photo meme sites themselves, the vast majority of my traffic comes from Google searches. The memes just seem to provide an excellent prompt for what people are searching for.
- I seem to have hit the nail on the head with several of my post titles in the Top 20. There are many, MANY searches for phrases like “facts about pelicans” and “Disney red characters”.
- I get a chuckle every time I see that someone has searched on “there once was a man from Nantucket…”
- Site Meter tells me that I get a lot more visits on the days I mobile blog than I do when I create meme-related posts that are not mobile blogged. This is especially true when I mobile blog from Disney. Visits on mobile blogging days tend to be from fewer unique visitors, yet those unique visitors show up multiple times throughout the day to check for updates. Each post has fewer visitors but collectively they add up for the day to be many more visits than on a regular blogging day.
THE MORAL OF THE STORY: Services such as Site Meter can provide valuable insight into who your audience is, where they come from, why they’re visiting and why they return. Add to this a little intelligent SEO in post titles and repeat traffic ensues.
EFFORT COUNTS… sort of!
It was a difficult year in my day job. I was thrust into something completely new and different and it was a tough row to hoe, for a while there. As the year wore on, my job became more and more carnivorous, devouring my life.
Here we can see that as the year wore on, less and less posts were making it into the Top 20 for the year. 40% of the Top 20 were posted in the first quarter of the year; 30% in the 2nd quarter and 10% in the 3rd quarter. The 4th quarter is not represented at all.There are a couple of reasons for this:
- That’s the way it goes when you’re in corporate finance; the last quarter of the fiscal year is challenging and doesn’t leave much time or frankly energy for other endeavors.
- But to be fair, the posts from the previous quarters and even the previous year have been hanging around longer and had a longer time to rack up search engine traffic.
- Had I been able to put more effort into blogging as the year wore on – posting every day, visiting other blogs – I might have been able to do better, but realistically, this sort of measurement over a finite period of time renders more recent posts chronologically challenged.
Now here’s something weird. Despite the traffic appearing to slow down, the number of subscribers I have has been steadily increasing all year. Take a look at these numbers from Feedburner -
Despite not having the personal bandwidth necessary to visit other bloggers as much as I’d like to, I was still able to do a few things to gain exposure:
- TweetMeme – I put the retweet button on my posts, and occasionally, someone actually pushes it!
- TwitterFeed – I signed up for this and now every post I make is automatically tweeted
- PicATheme – “elite” group of photobloggers/meme participants who posted to a group blog (group has since folded). While I was contributing there, I noticed some visitors who followed my link from there
- WaltDisneyBoards.com – my feed automatically posts there to my very own forum. I get exposure, the owner gets Disney-related content. The fact that it is a forum means I can have conversations with the folks there; a busy thread will draw more and more people in, to see what the buzz is about, and many of them end up clicking through to the blog. If you are a Disney fan, I strongly suggest you check the place out. You will find a nice bunch of folks there to chat with about your favorite obsession.
- Facebook – My Mobile Adventures *~*~* launched a fan page at the beginning of August. At this time, I’m not auto-posting there but I want to do that in the future. So far, I have about 70 fans; I have to assume there is some cross-over from my subscriber base, but a lot of them are real life friends and relatives who were not really aware that I blogged until I created the fan page and sent them an invite. So I gained a few subscribers there as well.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Distribute your feed and mention your URL via multiple means. It all adds up to more exposure, more requests for the feed – more subscribers!
CONCLUSION
These are very modest numbers I’ve been describing. Had I not a day job, I would have the time and the energy to devote to creating more valuable content and publicizing the blog more widely, including those all-important fellow blogger connections. However, modest or not, I think the numbers show that taking action makes a positive impact.
- There are many venues in which to take such actions – Twitter, Facebook, forums are all good places to promote what you’ve got to offer.
- Use metrics tools like Site Meter and a stats plugin to observe and measure – what’s working, what’s not working, what’s standing still. The numbers tell a story!
- Use SEO techniques to attract search engine traffic – name your photos and construct your post titles with SEO in mind.
Even a blog that is “just for fun” can enjoy some success and steady improvement when a few simple actions are taken. I’m looking forward to more of the same in 2010, and I’m also looking forward to hearing about YOUR blogging insights.
Happy New Year!
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Sugar-frosted reflection at the Magic Kingdom
© Copyright 2008 Tink *~*~*
http://MyMobileAdventures.com
You want me to be happy, don’t you?
DON’T YOU?
