Admittedly, I’ve been booked solid at my office and on the road for work over the last three months. That’s really nothing new, though I really do think that the last three months at my office have been busier than the three years leading into them. The truth is that being busy at the office is a good thing because if we weren’t busy, then we wouldn’t be in business, right? So part of the reason why I haven’t been able to attend to JerseySmarts.com with the type of focus that you may be used to is because I’m doing so much more at the office and, consequently, tiring myself out during those short periods of free time when I’m in my home office and I typically write up a few blog entries.

And on that point, my free time continues to be eaten up by a variety of items – most of which we’ve covered at length on this blog in the past so I will try not to rehash old information here. The most pertinent “new” time consumer is the fact that I was elected to be the Chairman of a local charter school foundation’s Board of Trustees. It’s pretty cool and I’m looking forward to helping to rebuild this foundation and lead it to new heights. The most exciting part about leading this foundation is that it really is a blank canvas. So… after we get an event out of the way this coming Monday night, I’m going to focus on the most primary of all goals for all foundations – raising money. More on that as it comes and it relevant to this blog.

On the entrepreneurial front, I’ve decided to go with my gut instinct and begin shedding my third party clients. In short, Usable Web Solutions, LLC brings in money from two primary sources: websites that I host and manage for third party clients and websites that I host and manage that I own. Year after year, the majority of the income generated by this company is from the websites that I own. If I’m going to spend some of the meager time that I have available on this company, then it just makes logical business sense for me to focus on increasing the capacity and reach of the income-generating websites that I own. About two months ago I began helping my third party clients find new web management services and everything has gone very well thus far.

The adjunct professoring/online mentoring is what it is, I guess. These days the local college doesn’t have enough demand in its core political science program to warrant bringing in an additional adjunct professor, so I’m out of the few bucks that I earned teaching over at the local institute of higher learning. On the other hand, the online college where I work as an online mentor has been scheduling me to teach a new class each beginning each month (they run their semesters differently with a new semester beginning each month). The number of total students in these classes is going down, but the number of classes where I’m serving as the mentor is going up, so it evens out over the course of a year.

There are any other number of time consuming items that keep me busy these days that I could probably write a good article around (i.e. online dating that has transitioned into face-to-face dating over the last few months, managing a crazy budget that was devastated with the down payment for my new car and the taxes that I had to pay this year, time dedicated to local volunteering efforts as well as selected national volunteering efforts, reading more whenever I can, working out whenever I can, etc). However, I urge you to stay tuned and you can read all about these events in my daily life – and so much more – in the coming days and weeks. Further, if you have Google Reader or another RSS aggregator, then I encourage you to subscribe to JerseySmarts.com so that way you’ll never miss out on what’s going on here! Our RSS feed may be found here: http://www.jerseysmarts.com/feed/

As you’ll see, the feed contains just random thoughts, complaints, and observations. I’m not solving world hunger here, folks – I’m just living my life!

On the topic of what is going on with this blog there’s nothing major to update everyone on, but here is the general rundown:

First, for some reason we’ve been receiving a large number of spammy comments. Now, I write “spammy” comments because these comments aren’t your typical “click here for drugs” robotic spam comments, but rather vitriolic hate speech that is actually written by a human being. It’s really some pretty vicious stuff that has no place on a personal blog. And I don’t know how many times I have to write this in the comments section, but this always has been and always will be a personal blog. In other words, what I say goes so if you write a comment that attacks another commenter or blatantly distorts the issues presented in the various updates, you can stick your comment up your ass. Now granted, in the last year we’ve only gotten about 6 or 7 really vitriolic, arrogant, hateful comments and all of those were moderated before they made it on to the site. However, if you plan on writing bullshit and hate in the comments section you might as well save yourself the time because it’s not getting posted, period. My personal blog, my dictatorial rules – very simple to understand.

Second, I have a lot of content written and ready to be posted to the blog, but I’m waiting for the right time. For example, I have my next student loan update written and ready to go for whenever my total amount outstanding drops again (which should be in about a month – more on that in a minute). Also, I’ve been working on some other projects that are taking up some time so I’ve only been writing for the blog in my spare time.

Third, I’ve been working really hard to cull and delete a ton of the tags on this blog. If you don’t know what a “tag” is, it’s the keywords that bloggers use to help their individual pages categorize themselves and rise up in the search engines. A few years ago I utilized a system that provided a whole host of tags for specific keywords and that has bogged down and crapped up the database for the blog. As an example, if I wrote something about my old Chevy Blazer, I would get the following tags added to the database: Chevy, Chevy Blazer, Blazer, Chevrolet, Chevrolet Blazer, Blazer SUV, SUV, Chevy SUV, etc. That’s totally unnecessary. My culling process is reducing all of that gunk to two tags: Chevrolet and Blazer. That’s it – nothing more is needed. Obviously, this is a long process since there are some 6 or 7 thousand of tags in the database that need to be reviewed and deleted. I’m going through them about 250 at a time and I hope to have the project completed by the end of the year.

And the final part of this part of the update is that I’m looking for ways to freshen up the design of the blog. If you’ve been eagle-eyed, then over the last few weeks you might have noticed random updates here and there in certain design features (the addition of the Twitter feed, the lengthening of the Facebook feed, the layout change for news from the other sites that I own, change in some of the external button links, etc). However, I’ve been thinking that it might be time for wholesale change – I just don’t know how far I want to take it. If you have any ideas on how to change the design, please feel free to add them to the comments section of this post (but don’t post hate or it won’t get to see the light of day!).

That’s it for the JerseySmarts.com Update. And before I end the web-based updates I thought I might add that one of the sites that I own through Usable Web Solutions, LLC has really exploded in the last month and a half. Hits to that website have tripled and it is growing into a very respected site. I’m proud of the team that works there and plan to continue providing them with as much support as possible to let the growth continue. As for the rest of my life…

Things have been very busy. Towards the end of January my company moved its offices from Trenton to New Brunswick. That’s about ten miles less of a drive each morning for me, but the same amount of time thanks to the Route 18 traffic (which sucks). However, I tried to bypass most of the heavy traffic by changing my work schedule from 9am-ish to 5pm-ish to 7:45am-ish to 4:00pm-ish. I’m getting up earlier and leaving my house about an hour and a half earlier, but I’m also getting home right at or slightly before 5:00pm, so that’s an hour and a half earlier than the Trenton commute. The change hasn’t been too bad, but when you shift your schedule to work (and live life) an hour and a half earlier, you experience a personal seismic shift.

On my end, I’m finding that I have less time to spend on the computer in the evening (not playing around on the computer, but working on computer-based, paid projects). Also, I find that I’m totally exhausted by about 3:00pm. I think this is happening because my body isn’t used to going to bed at 10:00pm so I wind up tossing and turning for about a half an hour (though I’m totally beat right now and expect to sleep like a log tonight). It’s a change and I’ll get used to it.

Also, we’re getting towards the end of the college basketball season and I’ve been busy attending the Monmouth University men’s basketball team home games. The Hawks have struggled a little bit this season, but they’re starting to show signs of strength heading into their last four games of the season. Oh, and unlike the last few years I don’t really have a ton of pictures to post from these home games. I’ve actually been sitting back and enjoying the games instead of waiting for the perfect camera shot. However, I have taken a small handful of pictures at the games (mostly of the scoreboard after the games are over) and I plan to post them in the next few weeks.

I’ve also been hit with a variety of big expenses in the last few weeks. First, I spent a good deal of money traveling to Washington, DC for a business trip last week (granted, these expenses will be reimbursed, but I have to wait for the reimbursement to arrive). Then, I had my car crap out on me and it cost over eleven hundred bucks to get the thing fixed. And on the same day that I paid to get the car fixed, I co-hosted a fundraiser/donor recognition event at one of the Monmouth home games (which wasn’t a huge expense, but still an irregular expense in my routine budget). While all of these expenses are manageable, they are all irregular costs in my planned budget and they all hit within the same three day period. So… I’m glad that tomorrow is pay day!

Between the big shift in my personal schedule and the time I’ve been spending at the Monmouth games, my health is more or less in a stalemate. I haven’t been to the gym in about three weeks because I can’t figure out this new schedule yet, but my weight hasn’t moved too much and my blood sugar is very stable. I’m glad about the blood sugar being stable because a shift in routine combined with a reduction in the amount of medication that I’m taking could have formed the perfect storm to throw my blood sugar out of whack. On the topic of health, I purchased the Rebel Fitness Guide from Nerd Fitness a few weeks ago and I just finished reading it. Any guy who writes fitness articles and quotes the Lord of the Rings, uses Legos as a graphic tool, and frequently references the video games that I grew up playing and other nerdy topics is alright with me! I expect to begin the Level 1 Rookie workout around the beginning of March so be on the lookout for updates on how I’m progressing with that workout program.

Other than what’s posted above I don’t have many more big updates to provide right now. One of the last originally-written posts that I wrote for the blog was about finding a new church to attend that is close to where I live. Well, I’m still going to church there on a weekly basis and I find it amazing that I used to think that I didn’t have the time to go to church. Absolutely amazing. The services last about 45 – 50 minutes and when you factor in driving there and driving home, I’m only out of the house for about an hour and five minutes each Sunday morning. Who can’t give an hour and five minutes to go to church each week?! In fact, I continue to find that I enjoy going to church to listen to the homilies and the readings and so on. It’s nice – makes you feel good after you leave and gives you guidance for the week.

I’ve also been reading a lot on the NOOK, in The Word Among Us daily meditations, and random articles – so I have a lot to update on the site when I get a moment to do so! Stay tuned and in the mean time, follow me on Twitter @JVince81!

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And while I understand that I haven’t really been visible on this blog in the past few weeks, as usual I’ve been working on a variety of different entries to upload in the coming days. I hope you take this opportunity to subscribe to our mailing list as well as follow us on Twitter @JVince81! And be on the lookout because new content is coming very soon!

Plus, from time to time I do find that I go on Twitter and bitch about something. For example, this morning I was listening to some blabbermouth on the radio and he was talking about education spending in New Jersey. I tweeted (that’s right, I “tweeted” a thought): Spend as much as you want on education – without proper support and reinforcement at home it’s all a waste.

And that’s the truth!

Anyway, if you haven’t already done so you should follow JerseySmarts.com on Twitter @JVince81. Just imagine – you can check my bullshit out directly on your smartphone as well as your own Twitter feed. Wonderful!

Read my babblings all day today on Twitter @JVince81

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, then you know that I don’t like this Twitter stuff. However, it’s one of the “in” things right now, so a few months back I put together a JerseySmarts.com Twitter account. Typically, it’s just an update whenever there is a new entry on the blog. However, I thought I’d spend today updating that Twitter feed with a bunch of my random thoughts. No, I don’t intend on doing this everyday like some vapid teenager, but I thought it might be fun to engage in this Twitter stuff for a day to see how it worked out.

So if you have a Twitter account, then now is the time to follow @JVince81. And feel free to tweet along with the insanity!

However, since I understand that many people are bored by numbers I figured that I’d just lay out some of the statistics that are available regarding JerseySmarts.com. I’m not talking about hits (though I’ll include them below), but rather other somewhat interesting statistics…

Since I merged JerseySmarts.com with Joe’s Journal in November 2009, WordPress has stopped over 140,000 spam comments from being uploaded to the blog. Some 34,000 of those spam comments have been received in the last two months.

There are over 2,100 real comments from fine readers like yourself scattered throughout JerseySmarts.com. Thanks!

As of today, there are 1,951 entries on JerseySmarts.com. A few months ago I read somewhere that some guy won an award for having written the most original blog entries or some such crap. I don’t remember how many entries he had actually written, but I do remember that his number was much lower than mine – I definitely have that guy beat!

Since the merger of JerseySmarts.com and Joe’s Journal back in November 2009, this blog has received over 156,000 hits. While that’s not bad, it’s not where I’d like it to be. Although I guess some better news is that 2010 had more hits than 2009. And, so far, 2011 is on pace to increase the total number of annual hits by over 40% year-over-year. Again, that’s not bad for a personal blog of this size.

There you go – some quick, harmless facts about JerseySmarts.com.

Which brings us to today’s post. The entry below was originally prepared back in November 2009. My impetus for writing this one was the fact that the roads in New Jersey were packed with folks from other states who had no idea how to drive Garden State style! As you might imagine, dealing with horrible drivers got me pretty irate so I began writing this entry as a way of explaining how people should drive in New Jersey.

Before you read the entry below you should understand that there are half finished sentences and thoughts that just end without being completed (like the very first sentence). Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Driving during the holidays made me extremely angry really brought out the

Stop At A Stop Sign
The picture to the left is a stop sign. When you see one of these signs on a road that you are traveling on – STOP! Stopping is bringing your car to a complete stop. This does NOT mean that you can roll through the stop sign into on-coming traffic, especially if you are at a four way stop intersection.

The Middle Finger
If you see the picture to the left while you’re driving around New Jersey, chances are that you’ve fucked up and made someone driving near you very mad. In fact, there is a strong chance that you broke one of the rules that I’m sharing with you on this page. The image to the left shows what we call the Middle Finger. When someone gives you the Middle Finger, you should refocus your attention on the road and your driving skills and, if necessary, pull into the slow lane (see below) to let the professional drivers get to their destination without being aggravated by you and your ridiculously amateurish driving style.

The Fast Lane and The Slow Lane
You’ll notice in the picture to the left that there are two lanes on this highway. In New Jersey, the lane on the left is what we call the “Fast Lane” and the lane on the right is what we call the “Slow Lane.” When you’re driving in New Jersey, you’ll often see speed limit signs telling you what the suggested speed limit is for the road that you’re on. Note my use of the word “suggested” here. It is common in New Jersey for drivers accelerate between 5 and 10 miles per hour faster than the suggested speed limit. On the highways, you’ll often find people accelerating to greater speeds (none of which is condoned by JerseySmarts.com). However, if you find yourself driving in the left lane and you’re driving either at or below the speed limit, get in the right lane immediately! You’re blocking the professional drivers from using the left lane to drive a little bit faster than the speed limit and will likely cause yourself to receive the Middle Finger (see above).

Do Not Tailgate
You see this picture to the left? That’s the rear end of a car. When you’re driving in your car and you come upon this picture to the left (or a variation of it), you slow down and keep a distance. You do NOT pull the front end of your car within inches of the rear end of the person in front of your car. That would be an asshole move and will likely cause you to receive the Middle Finger (see above).

You know it’s funny. The more I read that half finished entry, the more I think that there was a lot of potential there. Oh well, maybe one day I’ll revisit this entry and actually complete it!

And, unfortunately, this has completely consumed me to the point where I’ve not really been able to focus on writing consistent entries on the blog. In addition, I’ve spending a lot of time preparing a major final report for my Public Relations Specialist Certification program. That report will be submitted for approval in about ten days so between juggling the financial transactions, my day job, both of my teaching jobs, and the final certification project – I’ve been a little preoccupied!

However, I have some fun, exciting entries coming up on JerseySmarts.com in the next two weeks or so. Keep an eye on this place, because that student loan is going to bite the dust before anyone even knows it!

In the mean time, I have a few entries ready for your viewing on JerseySmarts.com! I’ve set the system here to automatically upload a few entries over the next few days – I hope you enjoy them while I’m away.

Frankly, it’s one of the dumbest things that I’ve ever done online. You get 140 characters to say what you’re doing or to give an update on what’s going on in your world. My response to this is – “Who cares?” Honestly, who cares what you’re doing right now in 140 characters or less? Seriously – get a job. Anyway, since this Twitter thing is taking over the world and it does seem to be pretty relevant in the grand scheme of social media, I opted to start a Twitter feed for JerseySmarts.com.

Honestly, I started the feed because I wanted to make sure that I have the “JerseySmarts” user name (which wasn’t a problem). Right now there are two tweets on the Twitter feed (how ridiculous of a sentence was that, by the way?). I’m going to incorporate some software into the back end of JerseySmarts.com that will allow for an automatic update of the Twitter feed each time there is a new entry on JerseySmarts.com. I think that’s the most productive use of that social media client for this website.

What do you think?

As you ponder that question and if you have Twitter, you should head over and follow JerseySmarts.com. You can use the button embedded in the right sidebar or you can click here. Enjoy!