The O Blogs: I’ve been privileged to be listed on Dr. Jim West’s blogroll for several months alongside the likes of Ben Myers and Chris Tilling (both of which I just added to my blogroll at Bloglines). Why I am one of the elect while John Hobbins has been passed over is knowledge concealed in the mind of Jim.
How often should you reset your ClustrMap? For me the answer is monthly. Otherwise the world map begins to look like a Space Invaders video game with bloody red dots all over it. I’ve yet to have any visitors from Kazakhstan, Russia, China and Mongolia. What are those people doing? And Esteban from Puerto Rico wonders why I never visit his blog. Answer: I do, so Site Meter and ClustrMap must be confused. All Internet servers in Mozambique are out of Maputo in the South by the way.
The Christmas Slowdown. Speaking of statistics, ages ago I noticed that the number of visits to my blog tanks every Friday afternoon and picks up again Monday morning. This proved that many of my readers are visiting this blog while at work. The other trend that is noticeable is that blogging slows down during the summer and Christmas breaks. Only a few of us diehard obsessive types are still reading and writing.
Christmas in Nampula, Mozambique: Believe it or not I’ve never written a Christmas song about Mozambique. But several friends have. There’s “Muggy Maputo Christmas” modeled on “Tender Tennessee Christmas” and “The Twelve Days of Christmas in Africa” which begins with “A Hornbill in a Flame Tree.” Our friends Christa and Emily wrote the following song to the tune of Winter Wonderland:
Christmas in Nampula, Mozambique
(Tune: Winter Wonderland)by Christa Hyde and Emily Boehr
Mosquitoes hum, are you listening
On the brow, sweat is glistening
Termites in flight, coming out every night,
Christmas in Nampula, MozambiqueGone away, are the sweatshirts
Here to stay, are the wet shirts
The showers are cold
But they don’t collect mold
Christmas in Nampula, MozambiqueIn the market we get called Azungus
The Mozambicans point at us and stare
Fighting crowds with phones we try not to lose
And dig through piles to find a shirt to wearDriving on, in the Rover
All the bumps, you’ll get over
To face unafraid,
The bridges decayed
Christmas in Nampula, MozambiqueIn the darkness I can’t find my flashlight
To shine when all the power has gone out
With no power this will be a long night
We’ll sweat under mosquito nets no doubtLater on, we’ll perspire
For a fan, we’ll inquire
We’ll frolic and play
The African way
Christmas in Nampula, Mozambique
That says it all! This year our family is lucky enough to celebrate Christmas in Vila Ulongwe. The temperature is pleasantly warm in the afternoon with daily thunderstorms cooling things down.
A visit from The Former Optimist. Tim and Naomi visited us this weekend with Mika, Emily, Gabe and Tessa. We had a great time together and it was especially nice for Eleanor to get to play with some girls for a change! The Cowleys are currently in Malawi but are in the process of transferring to Mozambique.
Coming up this week: The Nyungwe translators are coming today to work with me on doing an exegetical check of 1 Timothy. I’ll be reporting on that throughout the week as part of the Adopt A Day for the Nyungwe promotion.
Free Bible: I’ve updated the information on the Free Bible page. Would you like a Bible? Or do you know someone who might enjoy an easy to read version of the Bible? Check out Free Bible.
Dear Rev Mr Ker,
I should like to note that the closest hit to anywhere in the African Continent was from Saudi Arabia, so unless Mozambican servers are sun out of there…
As for the Rev Mr Hobbins, I clearly recall the Rev Dr West stating that that Hobbins, a notorious Sectarian and Communist, was deserving of a “permanent seat” in his blogroll. But of course, “permanent” is such a relative term! As for me, I was honored to be on the Rev Dr West’s blogroll for like two days; when I mentioned that, he
bought me offfurther honored me by putting me on biblioblogs.com!(By the way, I’ve noticed that the Rev Mr Hobbins has another kind of visitor map on his blog, one that does indeed show a visit from Mozambique. Maybe I should change to that more accurate, but less visually appealing, map!)
Sincerely,
Esteban Vázquez
Why should I visit a blog called “The Voice of Stefan” with a url of voxstefani supposedly hosted by someone named Esteban?!?!? Talk about identity crisis. And I just visited your blog and hit reload ten times. See if that works.
Dear sir, my apologies! Sitemeter is indeed out of whack; not one visit from Mozambique is registered even after your, uh, insistent visitation!
As for:
Talk about identity crisis.
Boy, you don’t even know half of it!
My ClustrMap hasn’t updated itself since March. Perhaps the problem was that I had updates set to daily, but the day to day change is never large enough. I have just changed to monthly updates, let’s see how that goes.
But I have a small dot which looks very close to Vila Ulongwe, but might be in nearby Lilongwe, Malawi – and a bigger dot in or near Maputo. I also have lots of visitors from Russia and China (I know why), but none from Kazakhstan or Mongolia.
Sorry Peter I was talking about the frequency of resetting the map not updates. I have it set to daily updates but reset it once a month.
But Esteban, have you clicked on John’s map? The information that it brings up after that is outstanding. Click on each flag and it tells where the person was from and what post(s) they were looking at. It also gives statistics per viewing window for the top posts in that area. (Hi David! Your little elf is adorable as usual … I wish she could help me with my cookie baking too!)
Hi Debbie. The info on that map thingy almost seems like invasion of privacy! Ellie loves to bake but especially likes anything involving needles and thread.
But how do you reset the map? I don’t know any other way. Are you paying for the premium service?
Debbie, that’s nice map technology (although it loads very slowly), even wraps round the globe, but why no hits anywhere in Africa? Surely Lingamish has been reading John’s blog?
Peter, at http://clustrmaps.com/admin/action.php put in your blog address and password and then update Archive frequency to “monthly.”
Not sure why I’m not showing up on John and Esteban’s maps. Yes, I read John’s blog. At least the parts I can understand.
John’s map keeps a listing of the 100 most current hits to his site when you view it. Since his blog receives almost 10 times that a day, you almost need to check the map soon after you’ve been on his site to see yourself on the map. Invasion of privacy? Maybe, but isn’t it kind of neat to see what people are reading from your blog around the world?
But if you subtract the people checking for Victoria Beckham’s tattoo, it’s just about three people a day: you, me and Jim West.
Ah, that’s what “Archive frequency” means. Why don’t they call it “Reset frequency” or something else sensible.
Well, it’s true that many hits on John’s site are for Beckham’s tattoo, but “… you, me and Jim West” – that’s funny! Actually the tattoo post is finally dying down. And I just checked John’s map to see your flag posted on it, and it wasn’t there. Lots of turnover going on there.
So Ellie likes to sew? A girl after my own heart – I love to quilt when I find the time to do it. She really seems like a neat kid!
Debbie, you tempt me with great temptations towards what the Rev Mr Ker calls “invasion of privacy”! I might have to give it a try…
On your slur that we all visit from work, did you not think that a slowdown at weekends might indicate sabbath observance, and that would account for Christmas too… In fact we’re just more religiously religious than you
so there!
You should give it a try Esteban. You can always go back to ClustrMap if you don’t like it. (I just saw your flag on John’s map – it works.)