Glenn on the Web

Very often these days, I see AdWords campaigns that have either been set up by clients or set up by web folks who weren’t quite sure what they were doing.  So here are some ideas for things to do with AdWords so you can minimize cost, maximize clicks, and try to get more conversions. Continue Reading ->

A few years ago, my friend Michael Kaulkin mentioned seeing a guy in Golden Gate Park playing a “Hang Drum”. This is a metal drum with tuned surfaces on the top, and makes a really neat sound. Here’s a sample:

I think Michael was interested in the drum because he thought it was from Hungary, and he’s obsessed with all things Hungary. I was interested in it because I’m in a percussion group at church, and thought this thing would be an amazing addition. (The drum is actually from Switzerland, which like all European countries, Michael thinks of as “formerly part of Hungary”.)

Sadly, the things are impossible to get from the originators, and incredibly expensive, so I was at a loss.

Luckily, the Internet intervened, and in a moment of serendipity provided me with a random YouTube link to this:

So now I’m obsessed with buying a propane tank, drilling and cutting tongues into it, and tuning it up to make my very own “Hank Drum”.  Great for the Orff group at church, and great for taking camping!

Looks like tonight might be a nice night to get the telescope out. I do need to collimate it first, and grab an updated sky map. Here’s a sky condition thingie for a nearby observatory:

Pesky moon. Not dark enough to see much other than it tonight.

We’ve got a new-ish incarnation of the “Improv Everywhere” group here in the Kansas City area. I’ve done two “missions” with the group so far, and it’s thoroughly fun stuff.

The first one, I ran video of “moebius”, a 5-minute loop of action performed for unsuspecting viewers in a Starbucks inside a Barnes & Noble. I’m fascinated with the idea that in traditional theater, the audience engages in a “willing suspension of disbelief”, but in Improv Everywhere missions, their disbelief is unwillingly forced upon them by a surprising scene they gradually realize is theater.

Hey there.  I’m not really sure what this blog will end up covering.  Probably a smattering of things I’m interested in, including Search Engine Optimization, running a small business, music, raising kids, World of Warcraft, and maybe some crazy synergy of all of the above.

But I’ll start with a brief intro, so folks know who I am.  I’m Glenn Crocker, a web developer in Overland Park, Kansas.  I’ve got a great wife, 2 great kids, and a bunch of great clients.  I do web technology integration work, which usually means I make weird databases talk to other weird databases, with a web interface in the middle.

But these days, I’m doing more and more “search engine optimization”, trying to get clients’ web sites to rank higher on Google for their target phrases.  It’s fun, and appeals to the puzzle-solving part of my brain.

Hopefully, this blog will include the occasional interesting tid-bit for folks involved with any of the above!

-glenn