Thursday, November 15, 2012

Over 100,000 Served

We made it, 100,000 visits!



This was messy though. Sitemeter.com has been having a lot of problems tracking visits. The counter shown at the bottom of this web page is out of sync with the visit number shown when you click on the counter and view the details.

On November 3, 2012, the counter on the web page clicked to 100,000, as seen above. However, the Sitemeter data showed only 99,369 visits. I was the winner on this visit.



It wasn't until November 14, 2012, that the Sitemeter data finally caught up. Congratulations go to a visitor from New Jersey, visiting from ups.com.



I am seriously considering abandoning Sitemeter for a different service. Tracking has been extremely spotty the last few months, and I know others have had even worse problems. Their support is non-existent as well.

Anyway, time for our roll-up on the stats. It took 1 year, 10 months and 24 days to get to 10,000. It took another 1 year and 17 days to get to 20,000. It took another 11 months and 19 days to get to 30,000 visits. It only took another 7 months and 15 days to get to 40,000. It took an additional 5 months and 1 week to get to 50,000. Slowing down, it took an additional 6 months and two days to get to 60,000. It took almost exactly 5 more months to get to 70,000. It took 5 months and 10 days to get to 80,000. It took an additional 4 months and 19 days to get to 90,000. Finally, it took 5 months and 1 day to cross the 100,000 mark, if you can believe the Sitemeter data.



Well, after four years of posting this data, I'll give it a rest, at least until we get to 200,000 hits (which may be never, who knows?).

As always, thank you for visiting!

-Victor

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Wedding Reception

This evening R2 paid a surprise visit to a wedding reception, as a favor to a friend. He was an instant hit.



It turns out the bride is a big Star Wars fan, and even had a couple of young cousins participate in the wedding as Jedi Knights. She's been to the Star Wars Celebrations and has seen the club's R2s before, so she was very happy to have R2 pay a visit at the reception.



A quick picture with the family, and R2 was on his way back home.



Five events in ten days, I think R2 can use a break. His right foot shell took some damage from a jealous elevator at CHOC, so I have some minor repairs to do tomorrow.

Frank & Sons Visit

Today R2 visited Frank & Sons Collectible Show for the creatively named "Nuke the Fridge Con," where many personalities were on hand to sign autographs, including Billy Dee Williams, Ray Park, Daniel Logan, Stan Lee and others. In the early going, the only two droids roaming about were my R2-D2 and Gene Arena's R2-A6.



A little while later, Mike Senna's WALL•E joined us as well.



It was very crowded, with people lining up hours before opening, and filling the building after.



This mini-Tusken was terrific, and had a voice amplifier so he could do the sand person yell. Quite menacing.



Just about every local Star Wars club was present and accounted for, and we squeezed everyone in for a group picture.



As for me, I had Billy Dee Williams sign my back panel. Mike also got his droid's back panel signed, thus filling out the last missing autograph for him. He's got pretty much everyone now.



Around noon we were joined by the Miyamoto family, and things wrapped up around 2:00pm with a group picture, with Daniel Logan standing in for Gene.



Crowded, but fun!

Thursday, November 08, 2012

CHOC Visit Fall 2012

Today R2 made his quarterly visit to Childrens Hospital Orange County, and he brought that other Disney droid with him, WALL•E.



Mike Senna operated his WALL•E as I operated my R2. The droids roamed the corridors en route to their visits to both the patients' rooms, and the activity rooms on each floor of the hospital.



It was too tight of a squeeze in most of the rooms to get both droids in at the same time, so we usually took turns having our robots enter and visit the young patients.




R2 got some love once WALL•E was back in jail.



It was another great visit, and we hope to be back for the Winter 2012 quarter.

Sunday, November 04, 2012

Down Syndrome Buddy Walk 2012

For the fourth time, R2 appeared at the Down Syndrome Buddy Walk at Angel Stadium in Anaheim CA, to support Trevor Henricks (and his dad, fellow R2 Builder Matthew Henricks), and Trevor's Troopers.



R2 was joined by members of the 501st and Rebel Legion (and a fire hydrant).



We were stationed out in front of the stadium. Around 11:30am the Buddy Walkers started to arrive, and were quite excited to stop and take pictures with R2 and the characters.





After the walk was done, we took a short break, and then headed for the field for a group picture. It was tent-city, as the various support teams set up booths in the outfield.



And the group picture, complete with Trevor himself, inspecting R2 just to the left of the droid.



It was over 90 degrees today, not bad for November 4. Another enjoyable outing.