I was looking through my site’s set of stats.  Truthfully, I’ve never been one to stress or obsess with how many or how few visits this blog gets.  Originally, the whole thing was restricted to those who registered and I only let family and close friends do that.  It was my way of keeping everyone up to date with what ever was happening with me.  In other words is was a place to share what my kids were doing and the latest pictures of them.  Then some friends asked why didn’t I just use FaceBook so I did and the blog collected cyberdust.  Then stuff happened to me or I saw something in the real world or online that I wanted to say something about and I thought why not put it on that space GoDaddy was auto-renewing as a favor to me every year.  Then my good friend Tee Morris practically dragged me kicking and screaming to Twitter.  And then I found neat plug-ins that could tie it all together if I were so inclined.  Then a Twitter friend, Odin1eye, who I’ve come to trust and admire talked about the increase of visits his little corner was getting and I went looking for another plug-in for that and here we are.  I can see how many visits the place of mine gets.

It’s right there on my Dashboard whenever I happen to stop by myself to create a new post from a PC (not often.  Go ahead and check for yourself), whenever a new comment is waiting my approval (that happens even less) or when I check for updates to WordPress or one of the plug-ins installed.  But I was looking at the stats and say it tracked what searches led people here. Nearly all of them had to do with the game Word with Friends which speaks more to the popularity of the game than my blog but that’s cool anyway.  What caught my attention where some really odd ones.

I’ve had more than a fair amount of free time and I’ve spent quite a bit of it online studying for and passing tests and what are known as professional certifications. I have a few more lined up under my desirable column and for motivation recently made a friendly wager with a very close friend. The basics of it is a race to see which of us will add five new certified skills to our “portfolio”. I’ll share updates on that as they come but for now that’s not what the whole “Planning Ahead” is about.

It’s about Christmas which is right around the corner. Well, at least the advertising for it is. See, I’m originally from New York and growing up there was this store whose spokeperson and store was named Crazy Eddie. The man’s prices were insane and so were his commercials. Truthfully, I don’t know why i got to thinking of him or the store but if you’re so inclined head on over to YouTube and prepare for a serious flashback.

Then I remembered that sometimes there are “Christmas in July” sales events and realized I’d better get my list ready. Good thing that whenever my brain started locking up from hours of reading and CBTs it was a simply thing to open another browser tab and look at nice, shiny things. Since most of you are too polite to ask and I’m too old to start dropping hints I thought it best to just, you know, present what would make me super happy to receive any time.

Mind you, this is in no particular order.

1. Zoom h4n – I’ve no immediate need for one. Seems all my friends have a nice digital recorder. Perhpas if I had one I could enter the world of Podcasting? Chalk this one up to peer envy.

2. This is an Invicta Reserved SubAqua Venom model 6116 and is absolutely stunning. It would look great on my wrist or alongside my other 10+

3. Pens, fountain pens in particular, are works of art and this one is no exception. This one happens to be the Waterman Edson Diamond Black Fine Point (I don’t have a fine point model yet. An omission I hope to rectify.) Fountain Pen.

Well, that’s about it.  Any of these will do.  What’s on your list and don’t go trying to make me feel bad about my short list by answering “Peace on Earth”.  Please.