Brian Mark - Guitaraholic

Today, as I was reading an article on Nascar.com, I noticed a banner on the left margin. They were toting "Celebrating 5 years of caring". Well, I don't think I took that how they wanted me to, but I see that as "before then, we didn't care at all". Seriously, how do people at these marketing companies get jobs? That's a terrible message they're sending, which for a charity shouldn't be tolerated. Surely someone other than me can see the negative side of this message. Usually, I like Nascar's advertisements. This time, I almost found it offensive. Really, if you didn't care in the past, cover it up... don't flaunt it.

I was listening to a Nascar podcast on my way in to work today and realized something. They always talk about the balance of a racecar to get optimal performance, and SEO is no difference. If a racecar is too tight, it won't turn. If your SEO is too tight, you won't be able to change directions quickly either. If a racecar is too loose, the back end comes out. If your SEO is too loose, you get a lot of tail action but don't lock in on the main terms. If you get the best balance, your site takes first place and your racecar goes to the lead. Funny how much of life is about balance, and it's funny I hadn't noticed the similarities before. Oh, and both require lots of attention to the details and fine tuning once you get to the track... er... web.

After 5 hours of sitting in Chicago, I'm happy to say I'm now in Huntersville, NC. Tomorrow starts product training at 8am Eastern. Wow that's early for web geeks. At least I'm here now and can start thinking about sleep... not that I'll get any, but I can think about trying to get some.

This is my first blog from an airport. Exciting, isn't it? Well, due to all the stupidity going on today I'm stuck in Chicago. The flight was supposed to take off at 5:55 originally, and we're pushed back to at least 9pm now. Seems like every time I fly something odd happens. Last time it was the whole iPod bomb deal over in the UK that raised security, and before that it was the plane going off the runway at Midway and onto the car driving down the highway. Well, with any luck I will get out of here and on to Charlotte yet today, but I'm not holding my breath. Scheduled arrival is already tomorrow. ;) Here's to hoping I get up and back down with some time left to sleep before training starts in the morning.

As I mentioned in a previous post , Irwin is sending a few of us out to North Carolina to [unnamed] Motor Speedway (sorry, no mention of our competitors here). We get to tour Roush Racing and check out some neat new Irwin products before heading to the races both Friday and Saturday nights. Somewhere in there, we're even supposed to meet up with Jamie. I'll be returning next week for those of you keeping tabs on me. Until then... Go Jamie Go!!!

As many of you know... the fact that I have a red leather #8 jacket and a life-sized cardboard cutout of a guy in a Sharpie uniform in my basement shows just how much I don't like racing. That's why it pains me so much to have to go to Irwin training this October. Yep... 2 days of training, a trip to Jack's place , being forced to watch the Busch series race on Friday night and then being tortured by being dragged to the inside of the track to watch the Cup series race. Oh, woes me. Whatever shall I do? I suppose I'll be forced to enjoy myself, grab some markers (one of Jamie's other sponsors), get as many autographs as I can and fill up a few gigs of SD cards with photographs. I think their mechanics may be better than what my son did for them, but I'll get a chance to see firsthand now. I suppose that's the price of selling a lot of Irwin Tools online. I'll just have to do what I can about enjoying the experience... since I wouldn't ever want to.....