It Means What It is.

If I knew where I was sailing from, I could calculate where I was sailing to from Aaron Angell on Vimeo.

I created this blog three years ago because our story of our first cruise kept getting deleted from a cruising association website that we were active at that time.  I learned to write html code and how to personalize our blog so that it is easy for me or anyone to find information about cruising, dogs, or cooking.  Since blogger is free, I have been careful about not putting too much personal  information about us.  

Google had offered the analytic tool a few years ago, which I signed up for but never used until recently. A recent active visitor sparked my curiosity.  Most of our visitors were coming from search engines which I allowed and encouraged.  But what was most shocking to me is the repeated visits from the US DOJ server and social security administration server. Why would they be looking at our blog about sailing, cooking, and dogs?

Anyone looking over my shoulder always makes me nervous.  I like my privacy.  I know my history, and if we allow our privacy to be encroached upon, we may become like our neighboring islands.

After further examining of the visitor data, I found something even more troubling. The US DOJ was mostly from BOP out of NC.  Why are federal prisoners allowed to surf the internet?  Most of the posts visited was about living in close quarters and the fourth amendment, but this visitor still troubles me.  

Now Tim Berners-Lee is a great and wonderful man who created the world wide web, but I doubt that he would imagine federal prisoners allowed to use his creation.  He designed it so the engineers in CERN could share information around the globe.  I try to maintain the integrity of his creation with our blogs being helpful, yet fun.

What has been most enlightened to me is how my visits to a website or blog may look and how much personal information about me as a visitor is being recorded on other people's computer. Now the idea to escape (as shown in the above video, The Prisoner) from this numeric world sounds delightful.  I have turned off the search engines under the settings of blogger, but some traffic is still coming from there.

I love the idea that active or soon to be active cruisers are using our blog for inspiration on trips, and traveling together with dogs.  I love to share information and educate others which is why I created the now defunct wiki sailing website that became the series of Quickie Guides for Sailing Destinations (paper or digital) on the Gulf coast.  

Please continue visiting our site to find new musicians and songs for the boat, movies to enjoy at sea, books to pass the time between destinations, dishes to try, inspiration from our crew, and a little science along the way.