The Adventurist: Global Visitors Debugged

I posted a day or two ago about how I added a new feature to “The Adventurist” called Global Visitors.  What this does is it allows me to see where The Adventurist is being read by state and country.

Well, the first day I had it up–it worked smooth for about an hour, then it lost contact with my site…I had to go back through and redo everything–

The good news is that it is working great now–you may view this new feature by scrolling down the left-hand sidebar till you see “Global Visitors”.  This gives you a list of where everyone comes from that has viewed this site.

Just going on today’s stats alone, “The Adventurist” has recieved visitors from 16 different U.S. states and five foreign countries including Spain, France, India, Canada, and the UK.

Also, the same day I added this new feature to The Adventurist, I also added the “Blogtopsites” button just below the Global Visitors.  This is a ranking of the top sites in a few given catagories–”The Adventurist” being listed in the Sports catagory…at listing time, this site was raked 399th–we are now sitting at 243rd–an advancement of 156 spots in only two days.  The Adventurist is also ranked 5th in the “Adventure” catagory overall.

This site is starting to get the following and become pretty well known for being the best adventure blog on the net.  Thanks to all of you readers for helping me try to achieve my goals with this site.  Hope you will enjoy your stay–checkout the archives if you like–and possibly learn something you didn’t know before stopping by.

Cheers-

J. Alan Hendricks, Editor “The Adventurist”

DailyLit: Adventure Books by Email–A New Concept?

One of my good blogging friends–ISUALum–recently made a post about a website that he had ran across called DailyLit.

This site is a good idea for all those casual readers out there that find it impossibly hard to either 1) find the time to read a full length book or, 2) can’t seem to tear yourself away from the computer for a given length of time.

DailyLit now let’s you read that book you have had on the backburner for some time now–through email–and the best part about it is that it is completely free.

After reading ISUALum’s post on his site “Me, Myself, and Who?” I decided to check it out for myself.

What DailyLit does is it breaks down a book–I will go on the one I have taken up reading–Let’s say “Moby Dick”–DailyLit breaks this book down to 242 emails and delivers one a day into your email box at a specified time that you designate.

There are a ton of catagories to choose from, everything from my personal favorite “Adventure” to “Poetry” and “Classics”..there is something there for everyone.

I did recieve the first email of “Moby Dick” today and enjoyed it–not to long..not to short–could be read in 5-10 minutes time, and it made me actually feel like I was getting something done.  I will be looking forward to that next installment–

If you decide to check this site out, leave a comment here about your thoughts.  I would also be interested in if you signed up and what book you are reading.

As for my good friend Alex, or rather “ISUALum“–he started reading “The Adventurist” and commenting, quite possibly the day I came online 5 months ago–he has a running joke with me about wanting to stay “original” by putting the link up to this site as “The Hendricks Report”–my first concept which eventually lead me to “The Adventurist”–He is a great guy, a training tri-athlete–and a very big family man.  I hope you will all stop by his place and enjoy his witty, yet down to earth posts.  Thanks Alex.

River Swimming the Amazon

Martin Strel from Slovenia could very well be the World’s most accomplished River Swimmer.  That is right, Martin has swam some of the greatest and most dangerous rivers in the world–but his latest adventure might just be to much.

Martin Strel is attempting to swim the raging Amazon River in it’s entirety–and he is halfway to his destination.  The 52 year old has swam the likes of The Danube River, The Mississippi, and China’s Yangtze River–but the Amazon is proving to be his greatest challenge to date.

Read more

A Guide for the Extreme Sports Enthusiast–What are some of these?

I has surfing around the net this afternoon contemplating exactly what are Extreme Sports.  I was doing this in an effort to find more coverage for certain areas that The Adventurist has been lacking in–so I typed it up on Wikipedia…you may find this list here.

So here are my questions, to you, the reader’s of this site:  I have never even heard of some of these sports, have you?  Would it be helpful for me to run a “Spotlight” on this list to inform everyone of what each of these sports are?  What can I cover more of that you would find interesting.  My goal is to be the best Adventure site on the Internet…and in doing so, I need my reader’s input of what they would like to see more of.  So now I give you this space….Let’s hear those voices and see those thoughts.

Outerspace Extreme: Michel Fournier and the 130,000 Ft. Skydive

Michel Fournier, 62, plans to be the first person to ever skydive from outerspace–back to Earth…a distance of 130,000 ft., and he is planning on doing it this year!

Michel Fournier Plans to jump from an atmospheric balloon suspended 130,00 feet in the stratosphere over Saskatchewan, Canada, breaking 4 records in the process.  They are as follows: Read more

The Adventurist: Going Legal and a Couple of New Features

Alright, so I had to finally get “legal” as far as The Adventurist was concerned.  If you will look to the upper right hand corner of this site, you will notice a new area–the “Legal Mumbo-Jumbo”.   What this is, is the license and copyright information for this site.  If you will click the link (the highlighted words) it will take you to my legal agreement.

What this agreement does is that it allows a blogger or website or anyone else for that matter to republish, reprint, or distribute any article found on The Adventurist as long as you follow three criteria: 1)  That you acknowledge The Adventurist as the source by including a link back to this site as well as including my name as the author,  J. Alan Hendricks, of the article being used. 2) That if you decide to use an article on your blog, webpage, ect. that you send me a note and let me know where it is being featured and lastly, 3) that any portion of this site or it’s written or photographic material submitted by myself or any writer of this site shall not be used on a Commercial Website without the expressed consent of the owner, myself, J. Alan Hendricks.

This is just a little bit of protection I have set up for myself as this site continues to grow and generate interest from abroad.  It is a binding contract and in every sense of the law, Legal.

Now on to the fun stuff!  I have updated the left-hand side-bar with a couple of new additions. 

1. If you will scroll down past the AlanArnette RSS Feed, you will notice a small photo and link that promminently says “Donate your Opinions, Save the Planet” featured on a very nice photo of someone rock-climbing.  This comes from the Laneo website–I think being the outdoors types that we are, that it is very important for us to protect our world and natural and wildlife resources.  This great feature will let all of us help without spending a dime.  It is really a neat organization and I am proud to make myself and The Adventurist a part of it.  By the way, this is not advertising–no one has been paid.  This is trying to keep in the spirit of keeping this a free site for all of my loyal readers.
2. On past the Laneo Ad, You will now find a pretty neat feature called “Global Visitors”.  What this does, is it allows everyone to see where the readers of The Adventurist are arriving from.  It will also rank the top 10 countries that have visited this site.  Should be pretty interesting to watch and will be nice to know how far out in the world The Adventurist is being read.
3. Below the “Global Visitors” Box, you will now find a small tag that says “Blog Top Sites”.  This is a ranking of Blogs and how they are doing.  There will be a small number listed to the right, in a small box giving The Adventurist’s current ranking–which I see is currently 399–but I just put it up and it is new, so I am sure the ranking will rise (hopefully)
4. and lastly added is a small text link that says “Who Links to Me?”  If you will click this, this will give you information on who links to this site–how many links are found in search engines ect. 

 For the most part all of this new stuff that I have added will aid all of us to know and understand how this website is working and doing in general.  This is a way that I can allow all of you to be a part of our continued growth and success.—Now click that Laneo link and go SAVE the World….

SuperSherpa Basecamp: The Adventurist Arrives at the Foot of Mt. Everest

A couple of days ago I ran a story here talking about the upcoming SuperSherpa Everest Expedition taking place this Spring.  After publishing this story here, a man by the name of “Roger” commented on this story with a line under his name that said “Base Camp Manager”.   Hmmm….Base Camp Manager, that peaked my curiosity.

I soon contacted Roger and discovered that he was, in his own words “The Token White Guy” at Supersherpa Basecamp on Mt. Everest.  Now, I am not sure what being the “Token White Guy” means, but my guess would be that he is the “Do-All”, taking care of anything that needs done and spreading the word about the SuperSherpa Expedition any way he can.

Editor’s Note: Before you read any more, I would like to direct you to my first post concerning the SuperSherpa Expedition.  After reading this, you will know a little bit more about this great upcoming expedition.

Anyways, come to find out, Roger liked my story so much that he subsequently printed it off and gave it to Apa and Lhakpa Gelu Sherpa, the two Sherpas making this daring Expedition in the spring to the summit of Mt. Everest.  The following is the email Roger sent me concerning this:

Jason-

We Printed your story out and gave it to Apa and Lhakpa Gelu to read as it really hit the nail on the head.  I’d be happy to work with you on what is going on with our expedition as long as one of our sponsors or documentary sponsors don’t object.

Thanks for the offer on DigitAltitude.com but I don’t have any extra time to do any shooting for anyone at the momment.  Next fall would be nice.  I’ll get back to you then when I get the chance to get the site up properly.

Yes, mountains treat all people equally.  However the stories of what people do to help each other is rarely told in a totally factual basis.  The Sherpa history is rarely told and when it is, it is as an afterthought.

Remember there is a “Sir Edmund Hillary” but how many Sherpa have been knighted by the Queen?  How many Sherpa have perished to help Westerner’s claim the glory of a single Everest summit?  How many Sherpa did it take to help Erik Weihenmayer make the summit-how many did you see in his movie “Farther Than the Eye Can See”? 

The Kings of Everest are certainly the Sherpa but they are underpaid, under appreciated, and make 1/10 of the money of public speakers with 1/10th of the their accomplishments.

Sorry to be on a “soap box” but the truth is a rare commodity.  Our mission is to get the truth out there.  We certainly hope that you will help.

Best-

Roger

As you can tell Roger and everyone else associated with this Expedition is very passionate about why this needs to happen and why this needs to happen NOW.  Apa and Lhakpa Gelu  are embarking on this incredible journey to bring to light the history and struggle of the Sherpa people.

The Adventurist supports SuperSherpa and what it is trying to achieve.  The Sherpa people deserve to have the credit that has been well overdue both in history and monetarily.  These guys make between $300-$3000 to risk life and limb that the people they are supporting on these Expeditions make it up and down safely.  The Sherpa people are the true reason that anyone else can even climb on Everest today–they are the workhorses that drive the train, making sure all is safe on the way up.

If you would like to read more about this Expedition you may do so by clicking here to the SuperSherpa Website.

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