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February 10, 2003 |
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About Town Dave Uphoff |
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MinonkTalk outranks Washington Post
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Pretty catchy title, huh? Let me explain.
Another example of the power of the internet was illustrated last week as a result of the editorial
on Willie McCool, one of the astronauts killed in the Columbia space shuttle tragedy. The editorial
mentioned that Minonk resident Terry Keith was a classmate of McCool.
On Saturday I received an email from a former classmate of Terry and Willie who wanted to get into contact with Terry again. The person said, "I was two years behind the members of the "Urrah Lounge" shown in the photograph accompanying your article about Terry Keith and Willie McCool. (They called themselves "Keith with the curly hair," "Haines with the big nose" and "McCool with the skinny legs" to help us poor plebes memorize their names.)" The person also mentioned that he enjoyed the article about Willie and Terry. I sent the person Terry's email address and then forwarded the email to Terry. I wondered how this person found about the editorial since this person was obviously not connected to Minonk. On a hunch I pulled up the Google search engine and entered "Willie McCool" in the search box. The search returned 5210 articles that mentioned Willie McCool and guess what? The Minonk Talk editorial was the 27th entry returned. That is how this person found the editorial on Willie McCool. I looked up the Google definition to determine why the MinonkTalk editorial had a page rank of 27 out of a possible 5210. In Google's own words, page rank is described as, "Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search." It is hard to believe that MinonkTalk received a higher PageRank than the Washington Post or the Atlanta Journal, but that is what happened. While I feel proud of this rank, there are two reasons that probably account for this. Firstly, the editorial mentioned a word that was currently popular. Secondly, the accuracy of the PageRank is probably suspect. In any case, MinonkTalk is increasing its advertising rates 1000% effective immediately! Normally, MinonkTalk receives around 1800 hits a week. If this week's figures show an unusually large increase in hits, I will know it is because of the Google listing of the editorial on Willie McCool. |
Random thoughtsI suggest that people who have complained about high water bills to start reading their meters to verify the accuracy of their bills. This should be easy to do. Read the meter around the 20th of each month before the city reads the meter and then compare the reading to the previous month. The difference is measured in cubic feet of water. The water is billed at $4.10 per 100 cubic feet and the sewer rate is $4.00 per 100 cubic feet. To calculate your bill divide your reading by 100 and multiply the result by 8.10 to get an amount. Add to this $9 for your garbage collection and the result should be close to your water bill. If the result varies significantly from your water bill, contact the city to determine the discrepancy.City Administrator Trent Smith said that the Minonk water rates are in line with other communities in the area. Smith added that water is billed per 100 cubic feet and if you use 1 ounce over the next 100 cubic feet your water bill will increase by $8.10 from one month to the next. According to the news stories, the death of a Minonk youngster at a rural intersection last month was apparently due to a missed stop sign. I urge everyone to take caution at every intersection and stop at all stop signs. People still run the stop sign on the rural corner where I live. Some don't even slow down. Sooner or later, another tragic accident will occur if people continue to ignore safe driving habits. Jack Cullen wrote an excellent article on the old Minonk Softball League last week. If anyone has any pictures of any players or team photos from that era, I would appreciate it if you would send it to me so that I can add it to the article. I remember going to the games when I was a little boy to watch my brother Don play for the Homestead team. For some reason, one of the things that I remembered about those games was concerning a drawing for a television set. When the winner was announced, somebody yelled out, "Better paint it yellow!" Apparently, the winner was a young man who had avoided military service during the Korean War. I wonder if people will have this same level of patriotism if we go to war with Iraq. Stay tuned. Finally, you may have noticed that the MinonkTalk website has been down a few times this past week. This was due to a system problem with the internet provider where this website is controlled. Eventually, the MinonkTalk website will have its own server and these problems will, hopefully, go away. |
