We’re Back…

Sorry for the technical difficulties you’ve been experiencing trying to reach the site. In the beginning of February it was migrated to some better hosting, but during the move, I forgot to update the hostname for the database. It’s similar to have a great TV to watch stuff on (WordPress), but no movies to watch (the database).

Technical jargon aside, everything is all good now… except for the fact that my lake is still a solid. As in, it’s surface (the part I find most useful during the non-winter months) is currently a rather solid sheet of ice.

Frozen Lake Monona

Admittedly, that picture is a few years old, but the lake is in a very similar state today. Hopefully, sometime this month (if Mother Nature cooperates) or very early in April I’ll be back on the water.

Thank You!

A Logo made by BarefootSki Dot Com for this site

I’d like to take a brief moment to thank everyone for visiting my little corner of the internet. My little website still isn’t nearly as popular as The Creaky Rowboat (the nearly always entertaining, often non-nonsensical, general water skiing blog), but it’s gone from the 10-20 visitors a day, to the 40-50 visitors a day. For those of you wondering, you can’t make a living running a website with 40-50 visitors a day, this is strictly a hobby. It’s been fun though. I’ve heard from people all over the USA (and the rest of the world) and met lots of people.

You may start to see the occasional non-barefoot post here and there on the site, but the site’s focus will always stay on barefooting. There are just occasionally other things of note in the world of water skiing worth noting, or that I manage to witness, that I’ll want to share.

As always, the site has never been intended to be just about my opinion on barefooting and what I’ve seen. I’m just one man, who’s very active on a show skiing team (yes, I’m also a show skier) so I only have so much time in my day. So if you have something you want to share (an event, a story, cool barefooting pictures, a slick video you made/found or whatever) drop me a line by sending an email to wedge [at] talesfromthefoot.com. That email address is always in the sidebar in the contact area, you’ll just need to replace that [at] with the actual @ sign (I’m trying to cut down on spam bots finding the address.) If it’s just a one off, I can post that for you. Or if you feel like you want to be a regular (or semi-regular) contributor, we can probably even work that out.

Ever wonder if you’re the only one showing up besides me, you’re host? Well, I’d like to let you know that you are not alone. According to Google Analytics, over the past month, the site has had a little over 800 visitors, from 65 different countries spanning all of the continents (I’m even going to count Antarctica since there are 10 visits with an unspecified continent:)) Since the site launched in January 2008, there have been about 9000 visitors.

So, if you’d like to let the world know that you’re stopping by here, just drop a comment down below and say hi to everyone. You can always comment on all of the posts. I’ve also made it easier for people to spread the word about the website. See something you like, just click on the little Facebook share button in the post to tell all of your Facebook friends about what you saw here. Chances are, you have a whole lot of friends who barefoot too.

So once again, thanks for stopping by. Come on back soon.

New Look, Same Great Content

Hey  Everyone, I’ve been doing some site updates around here the last few days. You may have noticed a little different look to the site. Everything is still here, it just looks a little different and may keep changing as I work on the layout I want.

Anywho, one of the changes involves a new banner image across the top of the site. The current image features me on one of my epically bad attempts at a tumble turn from a few years back. Yes, that is suppose to be a tumble turn. Don’t even ask why I’m not on my back, or why it looks like I may be trying to break dance… poorly. As I said, it was epically bad. Makes for a good picture though. I’ve got some others too.

Here are some other great pictures of epically bad tumble attempts…

Finally, I’m glad you’re still reading. Do you have a funny picture related to the sport of barefooting? Or a spectacular wipeout caught on film*. Send it my way with a paragraph describing why it should be plastered across the top of this site and it may just end up there. Send it to wedge[at]talesfromthefoot[dot]com with a subject of TFTF Header. Just keep in mind that the header is typically a very wide picture that isn’t very tall, so I may have to creatively crop it to get it to work up there.

*Film being the digital 1’s and 0’s that capture the images today.

People All Over the World Have Visited Here

I was bored and decided to dig into my Google Analytics stats for this site.  Officially, people from 65 different countries have visited this site and I’m going to make the call that someone from every continent has visited.  Yes, I’m even going to include Antartica.  There are known hits from all the continents and there are 2 hits that didn’t have a continent specified, so I’m going to chalk those up to the people living at the South Pole.

Don’t worry people.  It doesn’t show details down to the individual visit.  It mainly just does anonymous stats about where people are coming from, how they got here and how long they stay.

Asking for Stories…

Hello Readers!  if you’ve read the “What Is…” link at the top, you’d have read that I’m trying to make this into a barefooting community.  I want to make it more than I sight where I watch barefooting videos I find and then write about them.

I’m looking for stories from you, the readers, about funny things that happended while you were footing, or that first time you nailed a trick.  If you’ve got pictures or videos, send those a long as well.

Likewise, if you’re attending a barefoot event of some sort (a figure 8 tournament, barefoot race, 3-event tourny, etc) send in a little recap of the event and share it with the world.

Also, I’ve add a forum for everyone to discuss barefooting related stuff.

Enjoy!

The Forums Are Now Open

I just wanted to let the world know that Tales from the Foot now has it own discussion forums.  They are still a little bit of work in progress, but they are up and running.  Over the next few weeks, the look of them will change a little bit as I learn more about the forum software.  

For now, you can get to them with the link on the left, or at the top of the screen.  Both are working.