It was pretty cool.

More than anything else, though, I have to say that the folks who worked at the Distillery were phenomenal. We went on a tour of the facilities and our tour guide (his name was John) was not just extremely knowledgeable about the Jack Daniel’s distilling process, but he was a funny, friendly guy, too. If anyone happens to be in the Lynchburg or Nashville area, then I highly recommend heading over to the Jack Daniel’s Distillery. You won’t be disappointed!

Here are some thirty pictures from my visit to the Distillery. Enjoy!

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.

In addition, I’ve been reading through some of the books that are taking up space on my bookshelf and, obviously, you should look for a few book reviews coming in the next few days/weeks. And hey, at least one of these reviews is for a book sent to me from a professional wrestler’s publishing company so I could offer some commentary on the piece. Pretty cool, huh? Here are some other things that I’m working on that may not receive their own entry on JerseySmarts.com:

• Sigma Pi Educational Foundation: I make no secret out of the fact that I donate my time, talent, and whatever treasure I can scrounge up to the Sigma Pi Educational Foundation. With respect to that “talent” portion of my contributions, since August I’ve been heading up the Foundation’s strategic plan study group. This duty has allowed me to work closely with some of my fellow Trustees as well as some volunteers – all of whom are looking for a better, stronger way forward for the Foundation and Fraternity alike. Earlier this week we held the last focus group conference call which capped a two and a half week period of these types of calls – many of which I was on for over an hour. I’ve compiled a preliminary, raw data report and sent it out for the study group’s review. Later this week we’re going to have another conference call and then I’m going to spend some time compiling a final report to the entire Board of Trustees. However, the work isn’t over yet. In a few weeks I’ll be heading to Nashville, Tennessee to present our research findings and then to lead the larger strategic planning process with the entire Board of Trustees. This process will be capped off during the December/January time frame and then, finally, I can take a breather on this stuff! By the way, click here if you want to make a small, 100% tax-deductible donation to support the Foundation’s scholarships.
• Preparing for a Family Night: Over the last few weeks, I worked with my brothers and future sister-in-law to plan for a family night and dinner for my Mother’s recent birthday. We had the family night and dinner last night and it was a lot of fun, I think. In fact, one of the best things to come out of last night was a family discussion about reducing our excess spending on Christmas this year because, frankly, we’re all working towards specific financial goals that require a dedicated planning effort on our parts. It was a great conversation and a great conclusion, I think. Plus, spending the night with the family for dinner to celebrate my Mother’s birthday was a great time!
• Financial Planning Roadblock, Courtesy of NJHESAA: I’m not sure yet, but I might spin this little blip off into its own entry to mimic an entry that I wrote both one month ago and many months ago. The long and short of it is that I sent a $1,000 payment to NJHESAA on Monday, October 18th. The check was finally posted to my account on Thursday, October 28th. But that’s not what has me completely frustrated and aggravated with this anti-customer service organization. What bothers me is that I sent a $4,300 check to NJHESAA on Tuesday, October 19th and here we are on Saturday, October 30th and the check hasn’t been posted to my account yet. What the Hell is NJHESAA waiting for to post my damn check?! This isn’t hard, NJHESAA – I know you have the check now post the damn thing to my account for goodness’ sake. I can’t wait to be done with this miserable, horrible organization. NJHESAA could learn a thing or two from the United States Department of Education about customer service and making the student loan repayment process easier for the borrower. Because, at this point, NJHESAA’s payment processing system is borderline ineffective which tells me that there has to be some incompetent people working there. What else could bring on a nearly two week delay?!
• Financial Projections and Forecasting Stunted: As you might imagine, because of NJHESAA’s inability to process a check with any semblance of efficiency, my financial projections and forecasting has been stunted for the last few weeks. For a guy who checks each of his accounts both in the morning and at night (and sometimes in the middle of the day), waiting for these bozos to post this check is torture. I’ve been adjusting my projection models by $4,300 every time that I go in there and make a move. It’s annoying. I have a lot of financial goals that I expect myself to achieve in the coming weeks, months, and years and with my ability to precisely project when my dollars will be posted to various accounts, it makes planning for the immediate future very difficult.
• Bizarre Indian Summer: I’m not going to spin this out into its own entry because it’s short, but if you live in New Jersey then you know that we had this weird Indian summer hit us in the last week or so. Before the mini-heat wave hit, I went out and purchased a radiator for my bedroom and it’s awesome! It actually warms up the entire second floor of the townhouse – can’t complain about that at all!
• Beginning to Complete Coursework: Some of you may remember that I’m actually enrolled in an independent study course at the local college where I teach. Successfully completing this independent study will give me a Public Relations Specialist certificate. Not too bad, huh? I’ve read through the material for the course and, once the final strategic plan report is completed for the Foundation (see above), I’m going to aggressively complete the required coursework for the independent study. I’ve decided that this is going to be the last course that I take for a while since it will complete the certificate program. Also, I don’t want to go back for more education until my life calms down just a little bit (which I think is coming within the next two years, thankfully).
• Grading, Grading, and More Grading: It’s midterm season at the college where I’m an Adjunct Professor so you know what that means – grading time! But it’s not only grading time for the class that I teach in the face-to-face setting. It’s also grading time for the classes that I teach for the online college. I’m thinking of asking the online college to reduce the number of classes that they assign to me – they’re giving me two or three each month and it is so incredibly time consuming that it’s painful sometimes…
• Some Consistency at the Local Gym: Hey – I’ve been going to the local college gym at least once each weekend for the last three weeks. Not bad, right? And now you know why I’ve been able to read so much in the last few weeks – I’ve been on the treadmill. I’ll be heading to the gym tomorrow morning before the trick-or-treaters start knocking on my door. While my results at the gym haven’t been overly impressive (I’m not necessarily losing a bunch of weight – a pound here and there maybe), I am pretty pleased that I’ve been able to make it there one day each weekend during a very busy, crazy time for me.
• Unending Projects at the Office: Hovering above all of the stuff written above is the fact that I have a pretty busy, increasingly stressful day job. Part of that stress comes from the person that manages my department and her mood swings, part of that stress comes from a changing workplace that expects the existing employees to transition to a new organizational structure without officially telling us what that structure will look like (or interviewing us for new positions), and part of that stress comes from the daily grind stuff that needs to be completed day in and day out that is made harder by the fact that my particular department is well-understaffed and thus we all have to do four/five different jobs each. And when you add in the fact that I’ve been doing a lot of the communication work for the organization – you can see how the stress builds up. Very annoying and, frankly, until this day-to-day stress goes away (which better happen soon), I think some of the other goals I have for my health and finances are going to be hard to achieve.
• Changing the Face of Usable Web Solutions, LLC: Thankfully, after months of trying, I’ve successfully spun off one of my last remaining problem clients. Sure, the client screwed me on the way out the door, but I’m so excited that this client is gone that I don’t even care any more about the screw job. Whatever. Removing this client effectively removes more stress from my life and, ultimately, makes Usable Web Solutions, LLC a stronger, better organization. And with that, I’m beginning to change the nature of this small business. In the future, I’m going to focus on websites that are owned by the company and bring in advertising revenue because, honestly, that’s where the money is in this online business stuff. Going out there to find independent clients is not the way to find success in the website world.
• Barnes & Noble’s New NookColor: Here’s a quick item for both the “Watch What You Say to Customers” and “Buyer Beware” files. For some awful reason I’ve been researching e-readers lately. I don’t know why – I love reading an actual book and I really don’t like the setup or arrangement of the e-readers that are on the market. But still, I began researching them and decided that I wanted to buy a Barnes & Noble Nook. However, something told me to wait. I wasn’t sure what it was that told me to wait, but I think it had something to do with the good voice in my head constantly shouting that I had dozens and dozens of physical books in my home that I haven’t even read yet! So, this buyer was wary of the products on the market and didn’t buy. Then, lo and behold, the NookColor is introduced and now I want to buy that thing as soon as possible (probably early next year once the inevitable glitches have been worked out). But the “Watch What You Say to Customers” file comes into play here because, just days before the NookColor was released I asked the guy at the local Barnes & Noble whether or not a new model was coming out and he swore up and down to me that, “We’re not Apple – we don’t have a new version of the product each year.” Oh yeah? Really? Hmmm…

There are a few different items that I’ve been working on that I didn’t think would find full entries on JerseySmarts.com. However, this stuff may be of some importance to a few of you so I hope that you enjoyed reading!

If you don’t know, that suite of websites consists of the blog that you are currently reading and a variety of professional wrestling websites. When I was younger, I was a big professional wrestling fan. However, as I was in college and then graduate school, I began to grow apart from watching the sport. Plus, I was a big fan of the old World Championship Wrestling (WCW) promotion and once it was bought up by Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) group, I gradually stopped watching the shows. Once the wrestler that I hated watching the most married his way into the McMahon family and, essentially, wrote the scripts so that he always won at the end of each feud, I was turned off to professional wrestling completely.

And then this upstart promotion out of Nashville and Orlando started putting out a product. I watched here and there, but my watching habits were nothing worthy of merit. Then about two years ago I started watching that TNA Wrestling promotion more and more and more and you know what? It began to grow on me. It reminded me of the old WCW and the old Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) and it was fun to watch. More than that, though, it made me want to get back into the business of professional wrestling websites. When I initially started making websites back in 1996, I was making primarily professional wrestling websites (The Balrog’s Lair, The Brood, and Wrestle Universe were the three wrestling-themed websites that I worked with back on the old GeoCities platform).

But this entry isn’t supposed to be a history lesson, so I’ll get on with it!

These days I own three professional wrestling websites – TBLWrestling.com, XHeadlines.com, and TNAStars.com. Of the three, I actively manage and operate the TNAStars.com website. TBLWrestling.com has been around the longest as it has existed in one incarnation or another since 1996. XHeadlines.com was the next site that I created and I think that, for a long time, it was my best work in terms of laying out the design of a professional wrestling website. However, I began working on TNAStars.com on and off during the summer of 2008. Once it was announced that Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff were moving to TNA Wrestling during the fall of 2009, I kicked the development of that site into high gear and we went live completely live on January 1, 2010.

On the first day that TNAStars.com was live back in January, it received 2 hits. And believe it or not, that is where this success story begins.

Viewership on the site gradually increased as the news articles were picked up by the various search engines. By the middle to end of January 2010, TNAStars.com was routinely pulling in around 500 hits per day and I was really pleased that the site had a decent presence with less than a month of existence underneath its belt. However, my goal for all of the new websites that I start is for them to be at 1,000 hits per day on a consistent basis – then grow from there. Sometime in March 2010, TNAStars.com began generating 1,000 hits per day, but then the summer months came on and – as has been my experience with professional wrestling websites – the hits began to go down until August, when they started to pick up again.

But I’m always looking for a consistent 1,000+ hits each day and I knew that TNAStars.com was so close. I’m not sure what it took to make the jump, but sometime around the end of September the website began consistently generating 1,000+ hits per day. Then on October 1, 2010, TNAStars.com generated 1,989 hits in a single day – the most in the site’s history. I was very pleased!

Until October 7, 2010 (last Thursday), when the site drew in 3,189 hits in a single day. I was floored at the great response, but knew that hard work always pays off in the end. Last Thursday I began to wonder – how high could this thing go? Then on Friday, the site drew in 3,147 hits – only a small decrease from the day before. But it didn’t stop there…

On Sunday, October 10, 2010, TNAStars.com drew in some 5,017 hits in a single day. Phenomenal! I was convinced that this number was going to be the high mark in the series of banner days for TNAStars.com. Then yesterday came around and wouldn’t you know it, but the website drew in some 8,500 hits in a single day!

Let me put this in perspective and explain why this is significant and worthy of celebration. The most hits that any of my websites ever received in a single day was on June 26, 2007 when TheBalrogsLair.com (which eventually became TBLWrestling.com) received 25,305 hits due to its thorough coverage of the Chris Benoit double murder suicide. Not really something to go screaming around about, but it’s true. The next highest day of hits in the history of my suite of websites? That would be the day before – June 25, 2007 – when the Chris Benoit coverage began. Blech. The story is the same with the third highest day in my suite of websites’ history – June 27, 2007 – Chris Benoit coverage.

You have to go to the fourth highest day in the history of my suite of professional wrestling websites to find a banner day in terms of visitors that were not drawn to the site because of a tragedy! And that day was Monday, March 15, 2004 when TheBalrogsLair.com took in some 7,299 hits in a single day due to its excellent coverage of WrestleMania XX. That was a good day for my professional wrestling websites.

Incidentally, the fifth and sixth highest traffic days in the history of my suite of sites are both Chris Benoit double murder suicide. Annoying.

But all of that changed over this weekend when TNAStars.com’s Bound for Glory 2010 coverage took the number one traffic spot away from the original TBL’s post-WrestleMania XX coverage. And it changed again when the post-Bound for Glory coverage pushed TNAStars.com ahead of one of the Chris Benoit coverage days back on the original TBL.

I hope that the momentum stays with TNAStars.com as it’s a great little website that isn’t bogged down with crap and annoyances. If you’re into professional wrestling, I highly recommend heading over there and seeing what we’ve done. Here’s hoping that the days of growing hits continues for the entire suite of professional wrestling websites that I own!

But have you heard about the devastating floods that hit Nashville over the last week? Did you hear about the billions (that’s billions with a “b” folks) of dollars in damage that took place? No? You didn’t see that on the evening news each night and all over the morning shows each day? No?

Doesn’t it seem pretty interesting that this natural disaster – the largest, costliest non-hurricane disaster in American history – is receiving almost no media coverage? One of my friends on Facebook posted a link to an article written by a Nashville native that explains exactly why this story isn’t receiving any coverage. The article was written by Patten Fuqua and posted on the Section 303 blog (a hockey blog). You can read it below in its entirety with some of my closing comments beneath it.

Allow me a moment to step away from the usual voice of this website.

What I am about to write has absolutely nothing to do with hockey.

If you live outside of Nashville, you may not be aware, but our city was hit by a 500-year flood over the last few days. The national news coverage gave us 15 minutes, but went back to focusing on a failed car bomb and an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. While both are clearly important stories, was that any reason to ignore our story? It may not be as terror-sexy as a failed car bomb or as eco-sexy as an oil spill, but that’s no reason to be ignored.

The Cumberland River crested at its highest level in over 80 years. Nashville had its highest rainfall totals since records began. People drowned. Billions of dollars in damage occurred. It is the single largest disaster to hit Middle Tennessee since the Civil War. And yet…no one knows about it.

Does it really matter? Eventually, it will…as I mentioned, there are billions of dollars in damage. It seems bizarre that no one seems to be aware that we just experienced what is quite probably the costliest non-hurricane disaster in American history. The funds to rebuild will have to come from somewhere, which is why people need to know. It’s hard to believe that we will receive much relief if there isn’t a perception that we need it.

But let’s look at the other side of the coin for a moment. A large part of the reason that we are being ignored is because of who we are. Think about that for just a second. Did you hear about looting? Did you hear about crime sprees? No…you didn’t. You heard about people pulling their neighbors off of rooftops. You saw a group of people trying to move two horses to higher ground. No…we didn’t loot. Our biggest warning was, “Don’t play in the floodwater.” When you think about it…that speaks a lot for our city. A large portion of why we were being ignored was that we weren’t doing anything to draw attention to ourselves. We were handling it on our own.

Some will be quick to find fault in the way rescue operations were handled, but the fact of the matter is that the catastrophe could not have been prevented and it is simply ignorant beyond all reason to suggest otherwise. It is a flood. It was caused by rain. You can try to find a face to stick this tragedy to, but you’ll be wrong.

Parts of Nashville that could never even conceivably be underwater were underwater. Some of them still are. Opry Mills and the Opryland Hotel are, for all intents and purposes, destroyed. People died sitting in standstill traffic on the Interstate. We saw boats going down West End. And, of course, we all saw the surreal image of the portable building from Lighthouse Christian floating into traffic and being destroyed when cars were knocked into it. I’m still having trouble comprehending all of it.

And yet…life will go on. We’ll go back to work, to school, to our lives…and we’ll carry on. In a little over a month, I’ll be on this website talking about the draft. In October, we’ll be discussing the new Predators’ season with nary a thought of these past few days. But in a way, they changed everyone in this town. We now know that that it can happen to us…but also know that we can handle it.

Because we are Nashville.

And, folks, that’s why I’d move to Nashville. These people didn’t point a finger at a politician and say, “You hate us – look what you did.” These people didn’t rob, loot, or destroy their own city out of their own ignorance. These people didn’t cry that they were being abused by the “system.” No. The good people of Nashville saw a problem coming and reacted as any civilized society would react – they helped each other, they tried to save each other’s lives – they even tried to save their animals! That’s the type of good, down-home civilization that you just don’t find in the uber-urbanized areas of this country.

Nashville has people who can help themselves and don’t rely on (or demand) handouts from the government.

The Sigma Pi Educational Foundation

Oh, and to wrap up the time frame for the whirlwind trip to Nashville, I was back in my townhouse in Tinton Falls by 10:15pm on Saturday night. No big unpacking and cleaning after the trip either since I only had a small carry-on bag with me for the entire trip. Quick and efficient!

Now that I’m back in New Jersey, though, I’m looking at my upcoming schedule and I didn’t realize how jam packed it was for the rest of this month. Actually, over the last few days I’ve been making plans as far ahead as November 2010. Not that I mind – I think it’s good to know your schedule well in advance (yes, even months in advance).

How are your schedules coming along? Does anyone else out there plan themselves weeks and months in advance or do most of you just wing it? I always wondered about how most people plan their days, weeks, and months. Hmmm… I bet there’s a study out there somewhere that I can download to read some research about the issue. Of course, I’m not sure if I have the time for that…

Before I finish up for the day, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that if anyone is looking for a great, extremely efficient nonprofit organization to donate any amount from $1 to $1,000 (or more) to, the Sigma Pi Educational Foundation is the right choice. I know many of my readers are financially savvy and know the tax planning benefits of making tax deductible donations to 501(c)3 nonprofit organizations, so consider the Sigma Pi Educational Foundation the next time you’re putting together your tax planning donations. And don’t worry, we have a variety of funds that you can donate to that benefit folks outside of Sigma Pi Fraternity, including a fund for disabled veterans that awards some great scholarships to even better people each year. Something to consider…

I’ll see you folks back here at the beginning of next week!

Because I was disenfranchised by WWE, I began watching Total Nonstop Action (TNA) which is based out of Orlando and Nashville. It’s pretty entertaining, though the writing seems to be questionable at times. This is the same TNA that Hulk Hogan recently announced he would be working for as a management consultant (in fact, he makes his debut tonight).

Anyway, I began watching TNA a few years ago and at some point during the summer of 2008 I began working on a TNA-only wrestling website. Many of you know that I began my foray into the wrestling website world with a personal website called The Balrog’s Lair, which eventually morphed into TBLWrestling.com. That website is more like a wrestling supersite with information dating back over a decade. I intended for TNAStars.com to be a different type of site – one that has news, rumors, results, and opinions, but also one that has profiles of wrestlers from the promotion. I didn’t quite accomplish my goal to have a bunch of profiles of the wrestlers on TNAStars.com, but I did manage to put together what I think is a pretty bad ass design for a small wrestling website.

Anyway, this pet project of mine is now live so if you have any interest in learning some more about TNA Wrestling, then head over to TNAStars.com and enjoy!

Random Thoughts of the Day:

Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, hitting the G-spot, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey – but I’d bet my ass everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time…

It really pisses me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text.

I wonder if cops ever get pissed off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit.

I keep some people’s phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

When I meet a new girl, I’m terrified of mentioning something she hasn’t already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.

You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you’ve made up your mind that you just aren’t doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

Is it just me or do high school girls get sluttier & sluttier every year?

I would like to officially coin the phrase ‘catching the swine flu’ to be used as a way to make fun of a friend for hooking up with an overweight woman. Example: “Dave caught the swine flu last night.”

MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

I think part of a best friend’s job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

The only time I look forward to a red light is when I’m trying to finish a text.

A recent study has shown that playing beer pong contributes to the spread of mono and the flu. Yeah, if you suck at it.

How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can’t wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that’s not only better, but also more directly involves me.

Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.

Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you’re going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you’re crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

By the way – if anyone really DOES know how to fold a fitted sheet, please let me know!

I think that’s part of it, though. Since the weather has been a little bit wacky and there really haven’t been that many prolonged stretches of “summer weather” in New Jersey, it does make the time fly by a little bit faster. Of course that’s just my reaction to the weather – some people may have viewed the cool temperatures as making it feel like summer was slowly rolling past.

Personally, I’m glad that summer is flying by this year. The two big events I had to look forward to this summer are both over (my buddy’s wedding and my trip to Nashville). Plus, the closer we get to September, the closer I get to teaching over at the local college again! Being the huge nerd that I am, I also view August as preparation month for my course. In the next few days and weeks I’ll start reviewing all of the materials that I use for my class and bring them up to date for the coming semester.

Also, I’m planning on going back to school for a class this semester, but more on that in tomorrow’s entry!