PamRotella.com

What I'm working on now
On this page, I'll describe upcoming changes and additions. For example, pages I intend to write soon, what stories will be updated soon, lame excuses why I haven't made changes for so long, and so on. It'll give the few thousand people who visit this page every month something to look forward to, if they're interested.

17 June 2004: Somehow I managed to add new health & political articles over the past few weeks, even a couple of animal stories, and am also working on replacing the pumpkin ads tonight. My page on healthy fats has been going wild with visits lately, far surpassing the other pages, and so I'm reminded that I need to continue updating my old articles. I have a lot of work to do over the weekend, but will try to revise a couple of articles and maybe write a few new ones -- it'll keep my brain busy whenever I need to sit down & take a break. I still haven't received a legitimate job offer yet, which means I have more time than ever to update this page -- no doubt why the page is being improved so much lately. Check back next week to see how the page continues to grow!

23 May 2004: I finally finished my "Healthy Eating" article on how my book stacks up to today's best theories on nutrition. Originally I thought I could write the article in a few hours, but it kept growing as I thought of more theories. In the end, it took days to write. I do have other articles coming soon, so many in fact that I'm not sure which one will be finished next. More to come soon, possibly even later today! Check back soon!

12 May 2004: Sorry for leaving the MLK Day stuff up for so long! Obviously, I've been very busy for months, but am now ready to work on this page regularly. I'll try to improve it a little each day now. Today I simply moved the MLK quote to the page on being thankful for activists, and also removed the MLK radio show recommendation at the top of the page. I'll be making more changes over the next few days and weeks. For one thing, those pumpkin ads have to be changed to something more seasonal. I'm also hoping to add at least one short page per day, in addition to improving and updating the existing pages. We'll see how much I can handle. More to come soon...

Week ending January 24th 2004: Haven't been able to do much with the page lately, but I've noticed that the mad cow page's rank has jumped to 2nd place. Yeah, mad cow finally "officially" hits the U.S., although most people educated on the issue believe it's been here for years, pretty much since the same time Britain had it. The U.S. just kills its cows on average before they're old enough to show symptoms, and the U.S. government hardly tests any cows for the disease -- not even the tiny number they've committed to test. Now that my health pages are the most popular of the top ten (I don't get stats on the lower-ranked pages), I notice the need to edit my somewhat sloppy writing... Also, the jobforjohn.com page is gone (hopefully because he's found a job, not because he's become too broke to support it), as is Eric Blumrich's "Democratic Leadership Council TV" animation -- will need to take their links off of the main page. Also want to write a political rant on the Martha Stewart case, maybe another short article or two. Will recap here soon.

My apologies for the out-of-date pumpkin ads on the articles. A real estate agent friend of mine originally convinced me to put ads on my articles, because most people don't visit the main page and see my book. They just find the article they want through a search engine, visit it, then leave. (My web hosting company's stats tell me this.) My real estate friend convinced me that a few ads wouldn't take away from the page, since most other pages aren't ad-free. I also had to admit that some of my articles lack color, other than the pamrotella.com logos. When I don't have interesting photos to share, at least ads break up the text a little. Will try to replace the pumpkins with something more seasonal soon, though!

Week ending November 15th: Have had almost no spare time over the past two weeks -- preparing for and entertaining visiting relatives has taken its toll. Now I'm so far behind with other web page commitments that I doubt anything serious will be accomplished this coming week, at least for pamrotella.com. The irony of it is, the Omega-3 page has suddenly enjoyed an upsurge in visits for some unknown reason. Perhaps the subject was featured on a TV or radio show recently. Only wish I had the time to turn that into a decent article. Doubtful it'll happen in the upcoming week, though.

Week ending November 1st: A terrible week for me, hardly anything done for the page or at home.

1.) Lame excuse #1. I've been sick during the past week. Bought a Halloween costume, didn't go to a single party last night, no lie. Had to go to bed early, seriously fatigued. Friends know that I'm trying to help my mother out since dad passed away a couple of years ago, at least while I'm in between jobs. (Yup, a Bush must be in the White House, 'cuz the economy's down the toilet.) She's doesn't drive anymore, and I take her around shopping, help her carry in groceries as much as I can with my accident injuries, etc. As if helping care for a demanding 70-year-old isn't enough, I swear that my mother gave me pneumonia last week. Her best friend is in a wheelchair, and was sent home with pneumonia and a couple of bottles of antibiotics last week. Every so often she wanted my mother to visit her, and just a few days later, I started coming down with one of the more serious flus of my life. It didn't help that when my mother started developing symptoms (dry cough and such), that she'd cough over our food at the restaurant... Anyway, even the zapper only helps for a few hours or so, which means it's a really bad cold (or pneumonia...). So I'm taking 4 very strong supplements and have been zapping once or twice a day for the past few days. Today I noticed that the symptoms are finally starting to turn around, fever has gone down, am still awake at 9:25 p.m., etc. I'm just glad I won't have to see a doctor... So that's my excuse for the week. But even with the bad cold, I was able to crank out an article on the genetic fad in medicine. Yes, it's just a knee-jerk reaction to something I saw on TV, and I put no planning into it, but it turned out OK because I was already familiar with the topic & had books to quote & photos to use on hand.

2.) Lame excuse #2. This isn't my only site. You're not the ONLY ones, you know... OK, veggiecooking.com is done by a professional web designer, not me. Never said I did that page. I need it to be up and running all the time, and can't mess around with that one. He keeps on top of the field for me, makes sure the coding is done properly and that it doesn't get hacked down. (Who'd want to hack down a cookbook page, anyway?) But I am "webmaster" for a few other peoples' pages (usually friends who need a page for their cause or business, but can't afford a REAL web designer), and am trying to set up another one within the next couple of weeks. Also have responsibilities with the existing pages.

3.) Plans #1. I look at the monthly site statistics, just recently started a spreadsheet for them, and noticed that my Omega-3 article has surpassed visits for my 9-11 article. The 9-11 article was the most popular article for quite a while, but interest in 9-11 is probably disappearing as people look for the Iraq scandal instead. Now the old Omega-3 article is the most popular page on this site. But it's a sorry old thing that needs updating and re-writing. So even if I can't finish it within this next week, I'll try to work on it and improve it as much as possible.

4.) Plans#2. I want to write a new article on aspartame. This has been on my list for months, another knee-jerk reaction to a radio show I heard. One of these talk-radio MDs advised a pregnant woman that it was safe to drink aspartame-sweetened drinks during pregnancy. Outrageous. I want to cover some of the known side effects of aspartame, including birth defects and brain damage, as well as Rumsfeld's role in getting it approved, the lab tests which all showed its dangers, and the fact that it's the one substance which the FDA receives the most complaints over. That article will mostly be a link to other pages, much like the 9-11 page, but in the meantime visit Dorway.com for aspartame info.

5.) Lame excuse #3. Holy man! It just started thundering and lightning here. Even though my computer is plugged into a UPS, a spike protector, and a surge supressor, I know enough to get this thing turned off and unplugged ASAP. Anyway, look for the changes throughout the week! Yow! Another big zap. Close, too, about 2/5 miles away (judging by 1/5 mile per second between flash and thunder). See ya!

Back to the top

[Original page posted 1 November 2003] © 2003, 2004 by Pam Rotella.

Back to the main page