Cshel Chicago SEO, PR and Web Development

Work, Conference and Podcast Schedule

Posted on 13. Aug, 2007 by Carolyn Shelby.

First off, I’d like to apologize for not keeping up with the blogging lately. I’m hip deep in rebuilding a very large website at the moment, and there have been some issues that have cropped up with the programming that might get in the way of the August 29th (failure-is-not-an-option) deadline. So I’ve been traveling each week for the past five weeks, which has sucked majorly. This is actually the first week in a month I’ll spend at home.

My cats, btw, are beside themselves with joy to have a human in the house again on a regular basis… I think they started to think they’d been abandoned — My children on the other hand, are probably slightly upset that I’m home again because when I’m gone they’re with grandma and, I mean really, what’s not to like about being with grandma for an extended period of time?

SEO 101 Broadcasts and Podcasts
In the middle of all the work craziness, I’ve also been recording podcasts with David (NeO) Brown and Brian Mark for SEO 101: The Beginning SEO Podcast, and doing a live SEO 101 show on Thursdays from 12:00p-12:30p CST on WebmasterRadio.fm. I’m in the chatroom during the live show, and we’re posting recaps of the shows on the show website. [...]

Popularity: 30% [?]

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Omaha Airport Security Annoys Me

Posted on 20. Jul, 2007 by Carolyn Shelby.

Okay, so I’m sitting in the Omaha airport’s little cafe area near the gates, eating a Krispy Kreme and trying to stop feeling so freaking aggravated.

I travel fairly frequently. I have the same bags that I always travel with and they’re always packed the same. I’ve never had a problem with the security checkpoint thing.

So, here’s what happened… I’m going through security with my laptop bag and my purse. Alls fine until my laptop bag goes through… apparently my bottle of tanning lotion (8 ounces) is too big to get through. Now mind you.. I could have had a plastic baggy with five 2 ounce bottles of various toiletries (total of 10 ounces for the blondes in the audience), but my one 8 ounce bottle of tanning lotion (and those of you who fake bake know that crap ain’t cheap) is verboten. So, after I express my desire to NOT have my expensive tanning lotion thrown out, I’m *escorted by security* back out to the ticketing counter. They make me check my laptop bag with the tanning lotion in it; but graciously let me keep the actual laptop.

So, now I have to go back through security. I put the shoes in a tray with the hand bag. I put the laptop in a tray. Put everything on the conveyor belt. Go through the metal detector. Fine.

Oh no wait.

The same guy who scanned my bags the first time, all of a sudden finds something NEW that’s verboten… this time in my hand bag. (My hand bag that the SAME guy had checked not but 15 minutes before and it was okay…)

Yeah, I was pissed.

Me: “What?? *YOU* checked that 15 minutes ago and it was FINE.”
Him: *shrug* “I guess I missed something.”
Me: “YOU MISSED SOMETHING?”
Him: “Looks that way.”

My first thought here is: OMG I don’t have anymore bags I can check.
My second thought is: You f’ing MISSED it? Is it not your JOB to find things, like, I don’t know… BOMBS?
My third thought is: What else do you miss, you incompetent jackass?

Airport security doesn’t like it when you raise your voice at them and make mean faces. They get all uptight and tense and then send the supervisor over to order you to calm down and not yell, etc. Whatever. I just want my stupid bag back, and I want to go to the gate, and I want to go HOME.

So what do I need to do to get what I want? Clearly, getting mad and “assertive” wasn’t going to get me anywhere, so I resorted to Plan B. Tears.

Bitchy women can be ignored. Crying girls get what they want :)

SUre enough, as soon as the first little sniffle started, accompanied by “seriously, I just want to go hoooome.” All of a sudden, it was “You know what, it’ll be okay. Just take your bag. Have a nice trip.”

YAY.

Okay. Whining done. I should get back to my gate and wait for my (delayed) flight and perhaps resist the urge to have another KK.

Popularity: 10% [?]

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Omaha, SEO 101, and other misc stuff

Posted on 19. Jul, 2007 by Carolyn Shelby.

Alrighty, friends and neighbors. Here’s what’s going on with me as of 1:25p, Thursday, July 19.

I’m in Omaha meeting with our consultants to wrap up development and bug squashing on our new site. Finally got the connectivity issues squared away, so I now have access to IRC (to chat on the WebmasterRadio.fm chatroom), and all the various IMing services, plus SSH and all the web access I could ever want.

My hotel also has free wireless, so I’m all kinds of connected (unlike when I was in Miami and New York earlier this year…)

SEO 101 – Beginning SEO Podcast is now broadcasting at 1pm/Eastern, Noon/Central on WebmasterRadio.fm. Neo, Brian Mark and I try to all be in the chatroom and available to answer questions and hang out with listeners.

The inaugural SEO 101 live show on WMR was today, Thursday, July 19th at the normal broadcast time (1 Eastern, Noon Central, 10 Pacific)… and again, the three of us were in the chatroom to answer questions, take questions from the audience and just generally be smart asses. We were joined by Todd Malicoat (Stuntdubl) and we discussed the pros and cons of in-house SEO vs. outsourcing SEO.

I’ll drop a link to the podcast here as soon as it’s available.

Popularity: 9% [?]

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