Medary.com has achieved the not-quite-so-lame-as-before Lowly Insect status in the TTLB Ecosystem.

So, there's some small success to be had getting up far too early in the morning, drinking excessive amounts of coffee, and digging through RSS feeds.

Must blog more! Get link count up! (What's that, Snookums? I need to go pick up the dog poop in the back yard? Well, OK . . . )

Due to some recent annoyances with spammers posting in the comment areas of some articles, I've now required users to log in to post.

Getting a login id is easy...just click on the New User link on the left side of the page.

Using the login id is easier. If you've got cookies turned on, your id/password should automatically fill the spaces, and you just hit the login button. (Some browsers make you type in your id before populating your password--sorry about that.)

Snookums and I are wandering the American Outback of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Nebraska, so posting volume is down a bit.

According to the Truth Laid Bear blog tracking site, Medary.com has blown through the "Insignificant Microbe" and "Multicellular Microorganism" levels to achieve a somewhat more prestigious "Wiggly Worm" ranking.

At Medary.com, we're always evolving to better serve your needs (sorry, Kansas).

Actually, as far as I can tell, a lot of the ranking is sheer longevity. Oh, well . . . I live, therefore I post.

Regular readers (both of them) may have noticed that we have begun putting information in the "body text" of the article.

What this means is that we'll try to write teaser paragraphs which will show up on the main page. If you want to see the rest of the article, you'll need to "click through" to the article by clicking on the title of the article.

Sneaky, yes, but it's all about driving up the hit count, you know? So, do us a favor and click through to the full articles. We know you'll enjoy them! Really, you will!

We barreled through the 100-visit-per-day mark in May, with 136 average visits per day in the month. Our growth curve is quite satisfactory, especially considering we haven't really gone too far out of our way to do any kind of promotion, cross-linking, trackback, or any of the other tricks of the blogging trade to get us out and noticed in the Blogosphere.

Here's the average daily unique visits per day since this iteration of Medary.com went on line in February:
May 2005, 136 hits per day;
Apr 2005, 75 hits per day;
Mar 2005, 62 hits per day;
Feb 2005, 39 hits per day.

Thanks, everyone. Tell your friends! Send us your feedback, let us know what you want to see more of (or less of). Or, JOIN US!!!!!! - - - sign in and post your own articles...it's really pretty easy.

How to sign in and post articles coming soon, in a followup article.

It's been something I've been meaning to do for a while . . . the Medary.com Position Paper. You can look at it by clicking Where We Stand up above the blue masthead bar at the top of Medary.com pages.

Please feel free to comment on Where We Stand in the Comments section of this article.

I stepped away from the blog for a couple of days, but I'm back now. Here we go again . . .

I see Google has rolled out their image ads in their Adsense program (which Medary.com is enrolled in as a "publisher". Look over to the left side of Medary.com pages and you should see context-sensitive ads, now including image (picture) ads as well as text ads.

Of course, the first one I see is a hate-GWB ad, so I had to go out to the Google site and tell them that I choose not to promote that particular advertiser. Sigh.

Anyway, hopefully this whole ad thing will continue to be refined, and you'll occasionally see something over there that piques your interest.

I've spent most of today moving my Big Page O'Links over to the shiny new Web Resources page, and loading in a bunch more links.

Wander over to Web Resources (it's up at the top of the page just above the blue header bar) and check it out. I think you'll like the improved categorization.

Next up is looking into increasing the number of links displayed on each page from 10 to something more reasonable, but that may take some time.

As you can see, we're out with the old and in with the new at Medary.com. I'll continue to tweak and play for some time, but I'm pretty happy with the overall layout.

I'm not sure I like the sans-serif font type for the main entries (I tend to think serif fonts like Times Roman are easier to read) but we'll see what kind of response I get.

Anyway, comment on this article to let me know what you think.

This weekend, Medary.com will say goodbye to the Greymatter content/blogging system and introduce a brand new look to the site.

I've got the new Geeklog software configured to the point where I can start converting our site content, then finish up with some of the other stuff (like figuring out how to display the Google advertising bar and the Amazon donation button). It's a bit awkward as I'm doing some fiddling and fudging between the two sites on the same server, and can't have them both available on the web at the same time without doing things I don't want to do.

The current bulletin board will go away, and it looks like the links page will be transformed as well. Both are actually OK, as the bulletin board wasn't going anywhere, and I was never particularly happy with the links page. The new software actually has some combined blog/bulletin board function, so I think that will overall be an improvement. Downside is those of you who registered on the bulletin board will need to re-register on the site once the migration is complete.

So, coming to a Web near you, Medary.com v2.0.

From time to time over the next few days you might see something different when you visit Medary.com. I've installed the Geeklog blogging software to replace my current Greymatter software, which is really kind of obsolete and no longer actively supported.

From time to time I'll be activating the Geeklog system for configuration and testing purposes. My hope is to replicate the basic look and feel of the current Greymatter-based Medary.com interface in the new Geeklog system. All part of the service you get from Medary.com--Feel free to click on the donation button over there to the right if you're finding this site entertaining and/or informative.

Apologies for any interruptions you may see, and thanks for visiting Medary.com.

The settlement of Medary was one of the first white settlements in what is now South Dakota. In 1869, a permanent settlement was founded on the Big Sioux River, and named after the third and last Territorial governor of Minnesota, Samuel Medary, whose son, Samuel Medary, Jr. accompanied the party as engineer and surveyor.

When the railroad came through in 1879, Medary was bypassed to the north by about 4 miles south. The town didn't immediately pick up and move to the railhead at Brookings, but over the years dwindled away.

Today, the southern edge of Brookings is now within a mile or two of the old Medary town site. Medary Avenue in Brookings runs north and south, and bisects the South Dakota State University campus. Medary Commons is on the SDSU campus, and Medary Elementary School is just off Medary Avenue.

Links:
Brookings County History
Brookings Tourist Information
The Town of Medary
Pre-Territorial History of Dakota Territory