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Road Work Complete [05/20/13]

I gave the Exit 9 Page a long overdue update this week. This would be the highway themed page linking to my favorite sites on the internet. Links change, I discover new sites and sometimes they go away. I should really update this page more than once every three years. :)

2013 brings many new links to the page, each with their own "interchange" number. Here are some of the highlights:

[Link 3] 3 Count Radio: Wrestling & Shenanigans
A wrestling podcast a few of my co-workers do every week. Replaced the "What is Brad Anderson eating?" Facebook page, but it's cool because Brad's one of the shows hosts.

[Link 45] GIMP: The GNU Image Manipulation Program
My main image editor, used for most of the graphics on this website. Maybe not as powerful as Photoshop, but for most applications I don't miss it. There was a learning curve when switching, though.

[Link 141] Goodreads (.com)
A good site for us bibliophiles. Caffeine seems to get the best reviews here.

[Links 161 N-S]
Confused Matthew
SF Debris: Science Fiction Reviews and More
Two good sites for reviews of Star Trek movies and TV episodes, among other sci-fi franchises. Sometimes they team up on reviews. (videos are hosted by blip.tv)

[Link 255] Worldwide TV-FM DX Association
I rejoined the TV DX club last year. Naturally, their site rejoins the Exit 9 Page as well.

[Link 439] Twelve Mile Circle
A blog for people interested in geographic oddities, exclaves, border jogs, state high points, etc. (I should know about the last one, Florida has the lowest of the 50, LOL)

[Link 461] eluko's YouTube Page
One of my newest finds. YouTube has plenty of dashcam videos that allow you to tour the world's highways, but these are nicely produced.

Can't choose? Use this random link!

Progress during April [05/05/13]

The Day The Rain Came Back has a decent homepage now . Let the progress reports begin.

For updates you can follow me on Facebook .

Into the Long Term [03/11/13]

It's been fourteen months since Caffeine's commercial release, and over three years since its original release here on egrabow.com. The energy of the promotional flurry: making the YouTube trailer , appearing on guest blogs , running ads on Google, etc. has long transitioned to a fresh writing stage. The Day The Rain Came Back is full steam ahead, but I thought I'd take a moment to see where my first novel stands here in 2013.

Between EG, ManyBooks, and the Internet Archive, Caffeine's non-commercial version has been downloaded over 11,000 times. People who viewed it in web browsers, on Scribd for instance, aren't included in that number. Through Splashdown , of course, my book is now a source of income. In fourteen months the Print/ Kindle sales stand at, um, 40. A royalty check is nice, even a very small one, but I had Caffeine published to increase its presence among potential readers. The commercial version makes up less than half a percent of all readership, and there's been no increase in the free downloads either. Even the YouTube trailer (which I still believe is awesome) is barely getting any eyeballs. I'm starting to wonder if all that extra trouble was worth it. :(

With publishing still came advantages. A couple of the changes between the 2009 and 2011 versions weren't my ideas, but they were good ones. The small but steady stream of typos I was finding in the 2009 version has completely stopped. I've yet to spot one, or have one reported to me, in the 2011 release.

And going to Dragon*Con . Oh yes.

So now this novel is transitioning from its gimmicky short-term "new release" presence to its long-term "does it become a classic now?" presence. I know because the reviews are improving. Caffeine was always seen by me as a cult classic with more potential in the long term than the short. The initial feedback was positive, but turned quickly negative, staying so through the 2011 release. Now it's turned positive again, with one marked trend I'm happy to observe: the positive reviews are growing longer and the negative ones shorter. If a negative review went into detail and analysis, I might worry, but most of them just boil down to "I don't like long novels" or "I don't like Christian/ philosophical novels". Okay. Thanks for taking five minutes to skim the book and post a one-star rating. :P

Alas, the ultimate feedback has yet to arrive on the internet: The 2,000 word in-depth analysis of Caffeine's symbolism, message, etc. Maybe even a total deconstruction of the work. I know I must be patient. Maybe it'll come in among the next 11,000 readers. :D

At Last, An Excuse to Learn Spanish [02/10/13]

I've decided to add the AM band to my TV DXing hobby. Suffice it to say that spanish-language targets are numerous here in Florida, among both domestic stations and latin american targets. (Cuba is extremely active. They try to drown out Miami stations.) After more than a decade of on-again off-again language learning I finally have a solid motivation. It'll be a lot easier to put radio stations in the logbook, after all, if I understand what they're saying. :)

I did make a few casual catches in New York ~10 years ago, some of which are on my Patchogue DX Page . Now I'll be a lot more organized, and AM will get its own page, a map, etc. I also plan to get a good portable radio for the task... when I have money to spend. In the meantime, I'll dust off my Radio Shack DX-394 and add a loop antenna.

Good ol' analog AM should fill the gap left by now-digital TV. TV E-skip is still possible, but digital makes catches a lot harder and there are also fewer targets. This means the 1500-mile map won't fill up as quickly as it did with analog - if it ever fills up at all. The story with AM stations will be quite different, and there're opportunities for new catches every night!

The Next Big Update [01/22/13]

I'm prepared to announce the first redesign of this website since 1/1/2010 (the last of the annual "New Year's Upgrades"). The goals, as always, are lofty. The date however is far off: July 10, 2015. This will almost coincide with the 10th anniversary of my move to Florida, and allow me to shift to newer software and equipment as my student loans start to get paid off. 2015 should also see the completion of the HTML5 standard , which will be a perfectly good excuse for me to finally start learning it. :)

I learned HTML in high school and PHP/SQL in college, even putting this knowledge to work on WLVG's original website (still the only good one they ever had) and then applying it here in 2007. I never embraced CSS, though, or much of anything since about 2004. I was happy for the moment. It made the "To Do" but it's a long list to be at the bottom of. Now Web 2.0 is finally going to be a priority.

The new version will be M33. "33" will match my age in 2015 (as 28 did in 2010). I'm also adding the letter M because 1) I like how it looks and 2) let's just make it stand for mobile. My primary goal in studying Web 2.0 and redesigning this site is making it more "mobile" across platforms. I already launched EG Mobile last year, but it's in beta and it shows. I want my website to shine on mobile phones as well as it does on the PC.

Oh, and more compliance with HTML standards. Yeah. Moving on...

I haven't brainstormed what M33 will look like yet, but the ideas are starting to trickle in. It'll easily be the biggest change since 2007. I still expect to use PHP, so the URLs probably won't change this time.

Comments are welcome as always!

RRR&R [10/31/12]

When I first got my driver's license I quickly made a tradition out of road trips, long and short. I lived on Long Island back then, and any crossing into New York City meant a long trip: not stopping until I got to Florida (I certainly wasn't stopping in the city, LOL). For these long interstate trips I adopted the title RRR&R: "Roads, Rest, Radio & Relaxation." Yes, Radio. I loved scanning the Radio and TV stations of other cities when my parents drove me through them. Now that I could go where I wanted and use my own radio the bandscans became a big feature of my road trips, if not the point.

Now that the DXing hobby is back so is this aspect of my road trips. I celebrated the 12th anniversary of my driver's license, "Asphalt Day," with a trip across the state to West Palm Beach. I echoed my 2009 achievement of driving US 17 from beginning to end (FL to VA) by driving FL 80 from beginning to end (Fort Myers to West Palm - okay, not as impressive). This is my second trip since becoming a DXer again, and my second trip with the new portable television. Unlike Atlanta , though, I stopped at several points to scan for stations. These are stations I'm targeting from a hundred miles away, so it's nice to see them ahead of time. (Especially those that don't show call letters, such as the one in the picture.)

As money gets less tight in the next few years I expect to be making regular trips across Florida. Then the longer trips will follow: RRR&R 2014 to Canada, perhaps? I'll be sure to bring a good antenna. :)

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