Morning
This morning I woke up at my usual time, ready to walk, but then realized there wasn’t going to be a walk because it’s my roommate’s birthday. Instead, I sat down at my computer and was greeted by an email from Google Search Console telling me about a redirection error on the company website.
After playing with my redirection plugin, I think I got it working the way it should. Previously, I had incorporated a new property rental system and redirected all the old villa pages to the new system. After removing one villa that was sold, the redirection broke and ended in an error. Now, it goes to a 404 page, which is how it should be.
Analytics still show that the site’s bounce rate is too high. I think that part of the problem is bots. I really don’t know why, but we get a few hits nearly everyday from Amazon that immediately bounce. After doing some research, I made a change that will hopefully exclude bot traffic from reports in the future. The process is pretty easy, just click the admin button in GA, click “View Settings” under the property you want to change, and there’s a checkbox to exclude known bot traffic.
As for this site, the SSL still isn’t working! It’s been nearly 4 days (they said 72 hours) and still no certificate. When I did this on the company site, which is hosted with Network Solutions, I didn’t have these problems. Well, would you look at that, after trying the same thing again, I got a different outcome! Guess it pays off to be insane sometimes.
Now I just need to get the redirection working the way I want. Unfortunately, the plugin I have installed doesn’t really do the HTTP-to-HTTPS redirection the way I want. Instead of it just sending you to the same page via secure protocol, it just puts you on the home page.
This redirection is a pain. It seems that since I’m using aGoDaddy managed WordPress installation, it’s doing my redirection to HTTPS automatically. So the behavior I was seeing from the redirection plugins, was actually GoDaddy! That’s good and bad, the good is I don’t have to worry about it, but the behavior is not how I want. Instead of redirecting from a page on HTTP to that same page over SSL, it’s just sending people straight to the home page. I guess I’ll just have to live with it like this. I just wish I hadn’t wasted an hour trying to fix it.
Next step is to update my favicon. For some reason it isn’t showing on the secure site. Unfortunately, I don’t really have the original file in the right size, all I have is a tiny little .ico file. So I’m using something new that is more fitting of the site’s new name. Enter, The Lime! I think I may end up trying to turn it into some kind of mascot.
Now that all the SSL crap is behind me, it’s time to submit my sitemap to Google Search Console. What’s this? Errors? Couldn’t fetch?!? Submitted that thing five times and each time more of the sitemaps came back successful, eventually there were not more errors.
As I said earlier, it’s my roommate’s birthday. Because of that, she’s headed off island with some friends, and I have the house all to myself! That means I get to spend some quality time running around Hong Kong in Sleeping Dogs.
At low tide, I headed down to the shore with my camera. The marine life was abundant! Fish, crab, sea urchin, and other wildlife I can’t identify were everywhere. I spent nearly an hour snapping pictures of everything that caught my eye.
Turns out, it’s really hard to get good clear pictures of animals underwater. I think I need to figure out how to use my camera better and start using manual focus. I’m going to have to do some research on best practices for that. It would probably help to have a tripod.
There were a few pictures I was really looking forward to, but they are just too blurry! I’m really sad that the pictures I took of some underwater centipede thing (I think it was a polychaete worm) were among the blurry. The few photos that turned out well are available to view on my Instagram.
Afternoon
For lunch, I prepared a couple turkey bacon, egg, and provolone sandwiches. They turned out amazing. There’s something about the butter here, it’s not the same as in America, it’s just so much better.
Spoiler Warning
After lunch I spent the rest of the afternoon running around Hong Kong in Sleeping Dogs. I started out my adventures with a drug bust in North point and followed that up by stealing a shipment of counterfeit watches from some gangsters. Cops almost got me, but I deftly outran them.
I bought a couple of cool cars. First I got the Neo V, then purchased the Kyou Kan. Along the way I unlocked a few others, a sweet airbrushed van, the HKPD SUV, and HKPD motorcycle. I guess it pays to help out the local police from time to time!
Afterwards, I took down a local street racer for a guy, then took his place in the race. I won that thing no problem. Afterwards, I was ambushed by some thugs, but I came out on top with only a few bruises.
The case against Popstar blew up after I followed him in a van full of chickens. Got the evidence to put him away for drug running and murder. Along the way I was able to pick up a few more jade statues, learning some sweet moves along the way.
I even went on a few dates. I started with Amanda, met her at Victoria Peak and took some rather provocative photos. Next up was Tiffany, I met her in the karaoke bar during one of the earlier missions. Won her heart with some amazing singing. Then I met Not Ping, and she was totally into me. Showed her my hacking skills, if you know what I mean
Problem is, Tiffany found out about my date with Not Ping somehow. Found out she was seeing someone else too. It wasn’t a happy ending. I am hoping to hear from Amanda again, I think of the love interests in the game she’s the one I want to pursue to most.
/Spoiler
Evening
After spending most of the afternoon playing Sleeping dogs, it was time to retire to my bedroom once again for the evening. Tonight I have Elementary and a bunch of YouTube videos by Guude.
