Sherman Peak - site of 1988 White Mtn. fire

Jen and I just returned from a weekend mountain bike festival, the 2010 Kettle Crest Fest.

Friday, our trail work party cleared more trees than we could count from the Sherman Peak Loop trail (photo above, ~6,000 ft.). Then we enjoyed two days of some of Washington State’s finest singletrack – including a 2,000′ descent of the Jungle Hill Loop.

The annual advocacy event is hosted by Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance and coordinated by volunteer Tim Banning. Lucky for us, New Belgium Brewing was a sponsor!

What I learned at WordCamp:

• For WordPress.com-hosted blogs, there is 1 theme for every 6,000 sites.
• For self-hosted blogs, there is 1 theme for every 3,000 sites.
• 31% of visitors post blog comments [source: Forrester Research]
• 95% of WordPress blogs are hosted on Apache-Linux (vs. Windows IIS)
• Include numerals in Permalinks (for PHP optimization)
• Replace your default admin user (for security purposes)
• Recommended plugins: Clean Archives Reload, Dashboard Scheduled Posts, Gallery2, Headspace, Maintenance Mode, NextGen Gallery, No Self Pings, Revelanssi, Twitter Tools, WP DB Manager, WP Open ID, WP Security Scans, WP Super Cache
• Read How To Be a RockStar WordPress Designer by Rockable Press
• Read Trust Agents by Chris Brogan
• Read PHP Solutions by David Powers
• Read Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel
• Setup Feedburner (vs. RSS only)
• Use Starkers Naked theme
• Be Authentic
• Blog

Thanks to Adobe for providing free space.

Puget Sound King Crabs are a species of King Crab that inhabit the Pacific Ocean between central California and Alaska. As you can see, adults are orange, red, and purple.

What does this have to do with marketing? Absolutely nothing.

I’m scuba diving around Stuart Island in the San Juans this weekend with James Keithly and Jason Baker.

Note of interest: the African wildlife pictured above live on Spieden Island, owned by James Jannard, the founder of Oakley, who resides on Orcas Island.

Yours truly has been invited to join The Mountaineers esteemed 2009 Crag Committee. I’ll be volunteering to help coordinate climbing field trips, where I may also serve as an assistant instructor. I also have to attend some committee meetings. And we’ll probably drink some brews.

Thanks to my friend M.J. Kelly who recommended that I take the Crag Course. If you are looking to build your rock climbing skills, I highly recommend this hands-on instruction.