One of the goals I have for my blog is to be visited by someone from each of the 50 United States.  Tracking this data has been easy with Google Analytics.  My blog has been consistently visited by people from 45 states. The only states not visiting are: State Population Rank Rhode Island 43rd Montana 44th Delaware 45th Alaska 47th Wyoming 50th In my quest to meet this goal, I have been looking into the demographics of these states.  I am trying to figure out why I haven’t received any visits from these states.  So far, the only  thing I see in common are they have...

Have you ever wondered why some people are hesitant to refer their family, friends or even colleagues to perform work for someone else?  What does it take to get a job referral or letter of recommendation?  The key to getting a referral is not just having a history with someone, but having a history of success with this person. How to get referrals: History of completion – projects are completed when you’re involved History of success - projects are done on time or ahead of schedule when you’re involved Be credible – worthy of belief; trustworthy Be excellent...

Here is my list of things that every able bodied student should know before leaving high school.  Some of these are obvious and many of these life skills are being taught one way or another in most schools today.  However, I occasionally hear or see examples of people who have slipped through the cracks and haven’t learned these essential life skills.  These are the life skills in my opinion that every student should know before leaving high school. 1. Read phonetically I sometimes see kids who have not learned how to read phonetically struggle.  I wonder how they’re going...

The first exercise in 31 Days to Build a Better Blog is to write an elevator speech for my blog.  This has been a little challenging for me because I never though of trying to describe my blog to someone in an elevator speech before.  But this is a great exercise to try and put in words what this blog is about. The short elevator speech: Wes’ Words of Wisdom teaches through sharing life lessons learned. The long elevator speech: Wes’ Words of Wisdom is a collection of reviews, tutorials, technical guides, and inpirational essays usually anecdotal in nature.  The primary...

Familiarity breeds contempt – an idiom that basically says, the better you know something, the less you respect it.  A simple example is like when you first learn that knives are sharp, you’re very careful not to cut yourself.  After using them for many years, you sometimes get careless and misuse or abuse them.  The end result is you might cut yourself.  I have a few scars that show when I didn’t respect knives like I should. Sometimes, remaining in our comfort zone, repeating the same thing day after day can lead to neglect or disrespect of things we once valued. ...