Final Blog Post

Well, this will be my final blog post of the semester! I have really enjoyed this project and feel like I have learned a great deal about how heavily I can be a part of the current online scene. I think that blogging especially has been helpful in opening my eyes to the endless posibilities of one to one marketing and making a small voice be heard. I hope my posts have been helpful in at least directing readers to sites I have found interesting over the last few months. I do plan to keep a blog in the future, if only for personal use, so I keep in touch with current internet trends. I think it will help me with my professional career. So, here's to a great semester! Blogs away! :)

Wiki Articles: The Wrap Up

I thoroughly enjoyed the Wikipedia segment of this blog project. I frequent Wiki on a daily basis for all kinds of information and am thankful to all the people keeping articles up to date. It is now easier to understand what exactly open-source means and I have a greater appreciation for all the time that has gone into the creation and updating of each individual article. I'd now like to recap what I have accomplished on Wiki this semester and briefly discuss the evolution of each article.

The Last Five Years:
This play is one of my favorites and I was very impressed by what Wiki had to offer regarding the story and lyrics. There was more information that I had anticipated but there was still much to contribute. I first added an award that this show had won in 2002. The next two edits added content as well, but to the plotline. I felt it necessary to incorporate a few more lyrics into the telling of the story for added effect, because they are so heartfelt. I was surprised to see how often this article gets edited, and it is clear that it is usually done by the same few people. Mostly, people added information to different touring companies or international productions, and very little content was added. All in all, the evolution was pretty standard and I have a feeling this is because it is such a niche, and the people who wrote this article know tons and tons about the subject.

Hallstatt:
There was very little evolution on this article, which doesn't really surprise me. I do think, however, that my contributions were pretty helpful, especially for tourists trying to find out more information about this town. I started by discussing the toy town appeal it holds and how it is a great town to cover by foot. For the next two edits, I added different attractions: salt mines and ice caves. I thought these would be interesting for prospective tourists. Basically one user did most of the edits in between mine, adding content to the History section. Between the two of us, we were the main editors of this article for the past few months, which I think is really cool!

Trumbull:
I thought it would be neat to edit a wiki article on my hometown, and it turns out I was correct! Apparantly lots of other people thought this as well, because it was the most edited articles of all the ones I've followed. Most of the edits added content, especially to notable people and external links. There were a few grammatical edits and a few spelling corrections of people and places, which leads me to believe they were done by people closely associated with Trumbull and its history. In my first edit, I added that Trumbull was named after Jonathan Trumbull, because I thought this was extremely important regarding my town's history. The next edit entailed me adding a link to The Trumbull Times, our local newspaper, because there were a ton of other resources and this one was left out for some reason. My last edit added information about the evolution of the town name. I thought this was cool because it had to do with my first edit.

Las Cruces:
After visiting this town again in March, I thought it would be cool to add info on wiki about what I've learned. I can't believe how many people edit this article! There was much info added about trivia and demographics, and people are constantly correct grammer and spelling. Personally, I went for adding interesting content. My first edit added the fact that there are many art galleries in the downtown area, because this was left out among a long list of other activities offered. My second edit incorporated Stahman's Farm because it is one of my favorite places in Las Cruces, and I would like if tourists checked it out on their journeys. My last edit discussed the state question of "red or green" because this was something I found quite comical in my travels!

LAST Last Five Years Edit

The Last Five Years gets all of its power from its brilliant lyrics written by Jason Robert Brown. The wiki article does a great job of incorporating some of these lyrics as they tell the story of the play. However, I felt that one little lyric was missing as Jamie's christmas song for Cathy, "The Schmuel Song" is discussed. I decided to add that he tells Cathy indirectly through the song to "unlock the dreams you've lost" which pertains to her dreams of becoming an actress. This song is really cool, the way it parallels this dressmaker's life with Cathy's. To understand more fully the context of the lyrics, check out the article here, along with my edit!

Las Cruces Edit

As you know by now, I have a soft spot for Las Cruces, NM. I also am a huge fan of Mexican cuisine and love dining in New Mexico because their food it mostly authentic (and spicy!). Whenever you order a plate with chile you must ask your server which chiles are spicy that year.. the red or green. This is very important because it varies year to year depending on the crops. This question is so popular in New Mexico that it has become the official state question. I touched upon this in my wiki article: "In honor of the chile crop of New Mexico, the state has adopted "Red or Green" as its official state question to specify which type of chile is more spicy that season." See for yourself here!

Trumbull: Last Edit

I am still dissapointed in the lack of history given on Trumbull's wiki page so I decided to add some information about the origin of the town's name. I found it interesting that Trumbull aquired land from Stratford because I visit that town regularly and I had no idea they were once one in the same. I discovered it was named yet another name, Unity, when it was first settled. This is the edit I chose to make on Wikipedia."This town was first named Unity and then changed to North Stratford in 1747. The name finally changed to Trumbull in 1797 when the town was incorportated on Stratford land." here

Hallstatt Final Entry

For my last edit on this page, I choose to add a little information to the history of salt mining. I discovered in my research of this beautiful Austrian city that the world's first salt mine was founded upon it's soil. This was very interesting to me because I had never really thought of salt mining in the first place. I am incredibly excited to check it out myself in just a few short months when I travel to Europe. Here is my contribution to the article: "It is possible to tour the world's first salt mine, located above downtown Hallstatt." See for yourself here!

Trumbull CT edit #2

The article on Wikipedia for my hometown, Trumbull CT, includes a bunch of resources to find out more information. It also provides links to many of Trumbull's news resources such as webpages and TV stations. I felt that it would be important to include Trumbull's newspaper on this list and was very surprised to find it wasn't there. You can see my addition under the page's Eternal Links section.

Last Five Years 2nd post

I love The Last Five Years. The lyrics are incredible and the story is just heartbreaking. I chose to add a little to the Wiki article in the section discussing each song as the play progresses and what message they are giving to the story. The final song of the show (which just happens to be my favorite) is entitled "Goodbye Until Tomorrow" and it is sung by both characters (Jamie and Cathy.. the only two in the show). The premise, simplified, is that this couple met,got married and then Jamie left her. BUT, the story is told fowards by Jamie's songs, and backwards by Cathy's songs. So at the end of show, Cathy is singing about being excited and breathless after meeting Jamie for the first time and how she is saying goodbye until he calls tomorrow..until he calls. Jamie, however, is actually singing goodbye.. forever. I decided to include a lyric sung by Jamie that explains that he tried to keep the marriage together and love his wife, but he couldn't and now he must say goodbye. My edit was, "He says to her, "all I could do was love you hard, and let you go"." Check out the article on Wiki. They do a fantastic job of explaining the show.

Las Cruces, numero dos

Whenever I visit my Grandma in Las Cruces, we do a number of things. We go hiking in different springs, travel to White Sands, go to the farmer's market,explore Mesilla.... and go to Stahmann's Farm. Stahmann's Farm is a huge pecan farm that holds about 180,000 trees on its miles of farmland. It's fun to go and walk around the groves and see nothing but pecan trees all in perfect lines. There is also a country store which sells Stahmann products; my favorite being pecan pie topped with pecan ice cream! Although Wiki doesn't have an article for Stahmann's, I decided to add it to the places to see on the Las Cruces page. To find out more about this great farm, you can visit their website and maybe even order a little something pecan-y for yourself!

Second Hallstatt Edit

After spending more time of Wikipedia's site devoted to Hallstatt, I realized there really wasn't much interesting information. I feel that is there is going to be a page devoted to a town, there should at least be a number of things listed to help readers understand what it is all about. Through researching Europe, and different tourist attractions, I came across the big ice cave. I decided it would be nice to add this to Wiki's article in case soon-to-be visitors were scanning the page to learn more about what there is to do in Hallstat. Therefore, I added "The Giant Ice Cave is located in Hallstatt and is one of the largest in the world." Hopefully this may encourage others to explore the many exciting points this Austrian town has to offer.

Hallstatt Wiki Edit

I chose Hallstatt, a tiny Austrian town, for my final Wikipedia article. As I have mentioned in earlier blogs, I will be traveling through Europe this July, and stumbled upon this place in a book entitled "Europe Through the Back Door" (which is excellent, by the way. Highly recommeded.) The article featured on Wiki about this town doesn't really do it justice and states mainly background information such as history. I thought it would be helpful to include a bit of information that goes a little something like this: "Hallstatt is a popular tourist attraction due to it's "to town" appeal and can be toured on foot in ten minutes flat." You can check out my edit here!