I was at a restaurant last night. At another table there were two people sitting across from each other with their netbooks open. I showed my friends, and then said, "I sank your battleship!" My friends laughed. The two people looked annoyed.



This got me thinking, is there a web based version of the old classic that people could play on separate PCs?

All my clothes hangers match the clothes hanging on them! When I look at my closet, everything is color coordinated and looks great. It also makes the process of putting together matching outfits much more enjoyable. It also makes laundry more enjoyable because now it is an activity which helps give my life just a little bit extra sense of order.

I am not telling you this so that you will know how weird I am, but because you are a similar kind of weird. You no doubt have a collection of different colored clothes hangers. As you do laundry, you might consider putting that black shirt on a black hanger, and that maroon shirt on a maroon hanger, and little by little you will realize how nice this is. Then you will tell others and maybe someone else will also begin color coordinating their hangers, and so on until there are enough people doing this that clothes hanger manufacturers begin producing a wider variety of colors, and then I will finally be able to get that perfect shade which is currently unavailable.

2010 CENSUS TO BEGIN

All family members should be aware of this important information:

With the U.S. Census process beginning, the Better Business Bureau (BBB) advises people to be cooperative, but cautious, so as not to become a victim of fraud or identity theft. The first phase of the 2010 U.S. Census is under way as workers have begun verifying the addresses of households across the country.

Eventually, more than 140,000 U.S. Census workers will count every person in The United States and will gather information about every person living at each address including name, age, gender, race, and other relevant data.

The big question is - how do you tell the difference between a U.S. Census worker and a con artist? BBB offers the following advice:

**If a U.S. Census worker knocks on your door, they will have a badge, a handheld device, a Census Bureau canvas bag, and a Confidentiality Notice... Ask to see their Identification and their Badge before answering their questions. However, you should NEVER invite anyone you don't know into your home.

**Census workers are currently only knocking on doors to verify address information. Do NOT give Your Social Security number, credit card or banking information to anyone, even if they claim they need it for the U.S. Census.

REMEMBER, NO MATTER WHAT THEY ASK, YOU ARE ONLY REQUIRED TO TELL THEM HOW MANY PEOPLE LIVE AT YOUR ADDRESS.

While the Census Bureau might ask for basic financial information, such as a salary range, YOU ARE NOT REQUIRED TO PROVIDE ANY ANSWERS REGARDING YOUR FINANCIAL SITUATION. The Census Bureau will not ask for Social Security, bank account, or credit card numbers, nor will employees solicit for donations. Anyone asking for this type of information is NOT with the Census Bureau.

THE CENSUS BUREAU HAS DECIDED NOT TO WORK WITH ACORN ON GATHERING THIS INFORMATION. NO Acorn worker should approach you saying he/she is with the Census Bureau.

At some point Census workers may contact you by telephone, mail, or in person at your home. However, the Census Bureau will not contact you by E-mail. Be aware of E-mail scams impersonating the Census Bureau. Never click on a link or open any attachments in an E-mail that are supposedly from the U.S. Census Bureau.

I just read an email from a woman who's infant son is sick in the hospital. She wants a Wiccaning performed on him, but doesn't know who to contact. I offered her some leads, and would gladly offer more.

I'm guessing that most of the Pagans reading this, if you needed a ritual performed you would know who to contact because most of the Pagans reading this are active in the community. Getting to know our spiritual community should be an important priority because situations come up where we need our spiritual community. I'm hopeful that I will be able to help her, but I am more hopeful that Pagans will get involved with the community and already have a network of people they can contact without having to turn to a stranger for help.

So I guess I'm offering this as a cautionary tale to all Pagans. Get to know your Pagan community or this could happen to you to.

I'm also offering this to the Pagan ministerial community. Is there anyone who can help this woman?

10 groups and 20 seekers. Anywhere else, that would be an amazing turnout. Even here, for the second time the event has been tried, it's not a bad turnout. We raised $140 for the Sacred Paths Center. As the event organizer, I want more seekers.

There were a few suggestions which might bring in more people. Have the event on a week-night, preferably a Monday or Tuesday. Have door prizes. Encourage the groups to have snacks available (the event is at meal time). I intend to incorporate these suggestions.

On the promotion side, I could post fliers at the local metaphysical shops, and try to better utilize the currently available on-line networks.

This is the only event that I am personally responsible for, so it's my job to never be satisfied and always strive to make it better.

I just realized that most of the work I do promoting things could not possibly have a huge impact on attendance.

Attendance at Pagan events tends to come from three sources; the general public (the people I deal with), the core group (every gathering has its core group of people who are most likely to show up), and other groups (the true X-factor). When you look at it like that it makes it obvious that it only takes a few groups to bring in as many people as a huge promotion to the general public. Also the core group is people who are already more likely than average to show up, so rallying them really gets the most bang for the buck. But the general public are the least number and not especially likely to show up.

Most organizations should already have mechanisms in place to bring in the core group and the general public, but recruiting groups is really the most savvy part of this promotional plan, and that has not been something I have focused on in much of my promotional work. Ideally this should require working behind the scenes with group leaders.

I've heard event organizers complain that their event was not well attended because other groups had events at the same time, but most groups aren't so huge that they can't reschedule if most of their members are going to do something else. Also, very few events are so well attended that they detract from every other event. So I don't really believe that excuse. It's far more likely that the core group was not rallied, groups were not enticed, and the general public was not solicited.

I like this view of a three fold promotional system. I think I'll have to share this with my friends who promote events and see what they think. It also means that event organizers should be at the Group/Seeker Meet & Greet to do some networking this Saturday.

I've been figuring out the cross over between all the different places where Paganistan Weekly is sent, and the number of people each place who are local, and right now Paganistan Weekly has the potential of reaching about 1150 local Pagans. The largest block of whom are on the Facebook group, then the Yahoo group, then all the other Yahoo groups combined, and then MySpace way down on the list (254 members, and no reason to believe that many of them actually read Paganistan Weekly, so they didn't really influence the number with more than a justification to round up).

I came up with that number because the Facebook group has 1045 members who are emailed Paganistan Weekly. The Yahoo group has 408 members, 170 of whom are confirmed on the Facebook group. Of the other Yahoo groups where Paganistan Weekly is sent, there are about 75 local people who are not the Twin Cities Pagan Yahoo group. That's 1358 recipients. These groups are overwhelmingly local. I'd say they're 85% local, which gives us 1154. There are probably some cross over numbers between yahoo and Facebook that I didn't account for, and also some MySpace readers who I didn't allow for, so I figure it all balances out and the number is somewhere around 1150.

Facebook has pretty much made MySpace obsolete and irrelevant, and is also contributing to the decline of most Yahoo groups. The Twin Cities Pagans Yahoo group is monstrously larger than any other local Pagan Yahoo group (408 members as compared to 191 in TCpagans) but dwarfed by the Facebook group (1045 members). However, the Yahoo group does continue to grow (two new members today).

A year ago, the calendar was plugging along full steam on the Twin Cities Pagans yahoo group, but there were only about 100 people on the group benefiting from it. Today, 10 times as many local Pagans are reaping the benefits of that calendar.That's pretty good for a year. I look forward to seeing how many local Pagans are being reached next year.

History of Paganistan Weekly:

March 9, 2009, I sent out a message to the Facebook group titled, "Full Moon and Gatherings". This was essentially an attempt to promote the Yahoo group and was followed within a couple days with promotion on other Yahoo groups.

April 15, 2009, I went through the members' lists for the other local Pagan Yahoo groups, found the locals who were not on the Twin Cities Pagans Yahoo group and invited them to join. 307 were invited, and over 100 joined at that time (many of the rest have since joined). This resulted in the Yahoo group growing to be the second largest Yahoo group after the Eye of Horus group (which it has since surpassed by about a hundred) and the discovery that at that time there were approximately 445 local people on the local Pagan Yahoo groups.

Apr 19, 2009, began sending the newsletter to the other local Pagan yahoo groups

May 17, 2009, after a focused title each week to represent the contents of the message, I began titling the message simply, "Weekly Update", and the format changed to pretty much what it still is today

July 5, 2009, the term "Weekly Update" was way to common, so I changed the name to "Paganistan Weekly Update" distinguish it from other weekly updates being sent out

October 12, 2009, the name was shortened to simply "Paganistan Weekly"

A couple days ago I checked the Yahoo member list against the Facebook list and found that of the 406 members at that time, 170 were already listed as friends on Facebook, 92 were on facebook but not on the friends'list, and 144 were not listed on facebook. I also went through the facebook friends' list checking profiles for yahoo addresses, and found approximately 460. I am currently inviting them to join the yahoo group, but so far they aren't replying to the invitations. This could indicate that the crossover between the groups is much higher than I realized, but people are simply not using different email addresses on the different groups, or that the Yahoo group has pretty much hit its saturation level for now. The Yahoo group is about a third the size of the Facebook friends' list at 1272. The facebook group tends to always be at about 85% of the facebook friends' list (I created an account and friend them to be able to then invite them to the facebook group)

Addendum: January 17, 2010

I went through the Facebook friends' list to find people who listed Yahoo addresses or Yahoo IDs, a process which took about 2 weeks and I found 502. I then invited them to join the Yahoo group, a process which again took 9 days because Yahoo only allows 50 to be invited per day. 57 were already members, 37 failed, resulting in 438. So far the number of people in the group has risen by 18 from 404 to 422.

Meanwhile, I exported the members list of the Yahoo group, converted it into an acceptable form, and plugged it into Facebook to find people to invite into the Facebook network, a process which took a morning. 170 were already in the network, 144 were not listed on Facebook, and 92 were actually invited. In that time, the group has gained 42 members.

In review, inviting 438 people on Yahoo with about a month of effort gained 18 new people, while inviting 92 people on Facebook with a morning's effort gained 42 new people.

Addendum: January 25, 2010

The following was produced by a Facebook application.

Here are some stats about my friends:
Number of friends:1370
Gender:37% male, 63% female
Relationship Status:39% single, 61% taken
Countries:12
States:39
Longest name:Sharada Lakhan
Shortest name:Lyz M
Most popular music:Rock (45 friends)
Most popular TV show:House (71 friends)
Most popular movie:Lord Of The Rings (44 friends)
Most popular book:Harry Potter (31 friends)

Someone posted on the Twin Cities Pagans Faceboog account, "Does anyone know if there are any meeting centers south of the Twin Cities? Sacred Paths is so hard to get to, for me!" Anywhere else in the nation, a comment like this would be laughed at and ridiculed. For the sake of finding good connections, it's not uncommon for Pagans to have to drive an hour or more. I used to go to Omaha at least every couple months, and generally more often because they had a somewhat active community and a metaphysical shop. Up here, there are so many Pagans, such an active community, and three major metaphysical shops, so the idea of commuting to a central location seems a bit too excessive. I really don't think that most of the people in the community around here really realize how lucky they are to have the resources that they do.

Reading through this article I do have some issues with their methodology, but that's not why I'm posting. The part that really gets me is that all the guys now have their names on a document which essentially declares, "We can't find the G-spot. Yes, that's right world, we have not been successful in locating it. Not only that, but concluding this study declares that we are done looking for it, so don't even ask because we don't think it exists. Now lay back and think of England."

I'm expecting there to be another study coauthored by about 5000 scientists worldwide declaring, "We found the G-spot, in fact we can find it all the time. we can't really explain exactly where it is. It's all very subtle. But ask any of us and we assure you that we can find it."

I just got my car fixed at Bradan Automotive. We've been going there and they have earned our trust. They are good, honest, professional, and competitively priced. If you're looking for a good mechanic in the Twin cities, I recommend Bradan Automotive.

831 East Hennepin Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55414
(612) 331-1889

Also, for any single women, The guy who fixed my car today, Dave, is single, cute, sweet, and knows how to make your motor go.

The sun has risen. 11 of us gathered on a bridge with an excellent view of the sunrise to sing the sun up. On a bridge in the middle of winter for an hour and a half. Thank goodness for long underwear. Behold, out of the darkest night the sun did rise again. And now I am laying down.

I wonder if Buddhists are less likely to get computer viruses? Another benefit of avoiding attachments.

Would anyone like a free Christmas tree? We've been gifted one but don't really want it. We pick it up on December 5, and we're not bringing it to our house. I do have a truck and am willing to deliver the blessings of the season.

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Health Freedom Action

I just got hired at Whole Foods! I start in two weeks.

Jumping for joy. I love Whole Foods. This job fits my values.

Thank you to everyone who wished me well in my job search.