Well, I have returned from my sabbatical (not really, I was just really busy watching/listening to the French Open the last few weeks).  Rafael Nadal  won his seventh Roland Garros title to set a new record! Vamos Rafa!  Anyways, this section of my blog actually is not about tennis, so I will get on with the real happenings of my life here in hot and humid Topeka, Kansas.

Since my last blog post, I have acquired a bit (very, very little) more responsibility at MOTHER EARTH NEWS.  I am responsible for the "Homestead Skills From Days Gone By" blog which consists of mostly editing and finding cool pictures, and I wrote my first blog about my gardening experience in the office garden harvesting garlic which got quite a few laughs from my fellow staff members.  I've optimized numerous articles from 1978 including an article about Wisconsin (it made me miss the fresh country air and the cows so much that I had to go home and visit over Memorial Day weekend). The other interns also told me that I seem to have a knack for this editing/optimizing thing (I am on a newspaper staff after all).  Since harvesting garlic, Heidi (Hunt) and the rest of the garden group, myself included, dug up beets, turnips, and cabbages.  I still need to make something out of my food, but I'm definitely not the Rachael Ray type; we will see how that goes later this week.  Two new people were hired as part of the MOTHER EARTH NEWS staff, and I look forward to getting to know them and all of the other staff members better over this summer.  Speaking of getting to know people, I got to know my neighbors pretty well.

My neighbors to the right of my summer home tried to convert me to become a Jehovahs Witness I'm pretty sure.  They invited me over to just chat and then started talking about God and Jesus and so forth, and they even gave me this little pamphlet (published by Watchtower) to look over.  I really wanted to tell them that I was perfectly happy with my religion: tennis; however, I feel like they would not have responded well to that comment.  They then proceeded to tell me about the illustrious history of the neighborhood that I live in (it ain't pretty).  Let's just say that many bad things happened here a long time ago.  Since then, it has been cleaned up pretty well.  However, I have been invited to go to the Central Congregational Church on Sunday, and I do intend to go.  Heidi tells me that there's this guy and his followers outside protesting how liberal the church is, and I would like to see that for myself.  Some people can be so narrow-minded.

Other tidbits from Kansas: I have been applying for a part-time job to not be so gosh darn bored all the time (so far not a whole lot of luck).  I have watched the entire four seasons of Wildfire (available for free from Hulu).  I've bought more clothes (yes, I have an online shopping addiction), and I tried to apologize to my ex-best friend (also, did not go well).  Finally, I burnt myself with a curling iron yesterday.  That was not the first time I've done that.  All in all it's been kind of a bad couple of weeks except for Rafa winning which outweighs everything else!  Hopefully, this week will be better.

I arrived in Topeka, Kansas last Saturday after a grueling 8-hour drive.  I have never been so excited to get out of a car in my life especially after going through Iowa which is such a flat state!  Surprisingly, Topeka has numerous hills.  Anyways, I did not do a whole lot my first weekend in Kansas.  I did find a Walmart on my way to scout out Ogden Publications on Sunday.  I figured that I would buy my groceries there.  I know, I know!  Walmart is not an environmentally friendly place to buy food, but I was hungry; it was on my way!  I saved gas and used less carbon dioxide by not going out of my way.

However, I have decided to try to be as environmentally conscious in other aspects as possible.  I seem to have an online shopping problem, and to help the environment, to reduce the strain on my checkbook, and to be awesome, I have decided that I will not buy anything new unless it is absolutely necessary or it is a souvenir for someone.  That is my goal for this summer.  Hopefully, I will meet it!

In other news, I really enjoy my internship and all the fabulous people that I work with (the break room with the great selections of coffee isn't too shabby either).  I will be working on a blog originally entitled "Wisdom From our Elders."  It seems to have changed names a few times since then (now called, "Homestead Skills From Days Gone By").  I will also be dealing with content management systems (CMS), archives, and search engine optimization (SEO). 

Search engine optimization is a beautiful thing!  I am hoping to somehow incorporate this into my work at Lumen back at Viterbo University.  So, what is SEO?  SEO is basically a magical thesaurus as some of my colleagues put it.  It is used before writing articles and blog posts. 

First, you think about what you want to write about and describe it using very specific terms, but you have to keep in mind other ways of saying the same word.

growing raspberries
grow raspberries
how to grow raspberries
backyard raspberries
methods to grow raspberries
diy raspberries
etc.

The next step involves putting these phrases all in a SEO tool which will show you how many times that phrase has been looked up.

Next, you find the one that has some hits and SPECIFICALLY describes your content. 

Finally, you would use the phrase from above in key places within your content to try to get your article best matched and popping up on the first page.

Basically, it is catering to the needs of readers whilst keeping in mind that you can reach more people by being on that first page of searches.  Quality is more important than quantity though.  'Tis better to be on the first page of a search reaching 1000 people than on the 12th page reaching 3000 people.   It almost reminds me of filter bubbles. 

Whatever the case, I hope to use the knowledge I gain here to better the Lumen back home while making an impact here in Kansas.