San Angelo Stock Show and Rodeo Blogs

Rodeo meets Web 2.0
by Randy Davidson on September 6, 2008 at 8:43 am

Have you ever hit an uber-informative website only to find that you need to register before you can read the content?  More than likely this sources of all knowledge is going to require you to enter the one sacred piece of information that must be guarded above all other things… okay not really.  Your email address is not that secret, but in order to prevent yourself from getting spammed off the face of the internet you should really be careful what “master lists” your address gets added to.  For many sites in this category you are required to provide a valid email address that the website will use to send confirmation information about your registration.  Once that email is received you have access to the site.

You may just need to get some quick information and have no ambitions of having this website send you updates or “please buy this” messages.  Here is your solution.  Use a temporary email address that is created by sites such as 10MinuteMail.  An email address, that contains no personal information about you, is created on the fly.  You have access to view the messages sent to that email account for 10 minutes (you can also extend in 10 minute increments).  Once you receive the email that you need simply let the email address expire and it is deleted automatically.

You have killed two birds with one stone:  gained registration to a website for content and protected your true email address from spammers.  Until next time explore… experience… and enlighten.




by Randy Davidson on May 7, 2008 at 12:57 pm

Every rodeo committee strives to fill seats.  The need to come up with something “different” year after year to sell tickets is on your mind constantly.  The crowd that we cater to is changing over time.  Granted, we will always have the wannbe cowboys and buckle bunnies that show up to every event no matter what kind of show you produce.  But you know as well as I that bringing other demographics into your barn is the key to survival.

One population set I believe we are missing are the “young professionals” who view rodeo as a static event that happens in their hometown once a year.  By static I mean an activity that is not interactive.  Watching rodeo in person is not much different than watching it on TV.  Rodeo is typically a unilateral monologue by the announcer or a scripted dialogue with a clown soliciting a canned reaction by the audience.  There are no cheerleaders to bring the crowd to their feet and I’ve never seen the wave done in my arena.  We don’t even have a seventh inning stretch unless you count a bathroom break on the way to the beer stand after tie down.  This is in no way the fault of the announcer, clown, or anyone else for that matter; it is simply the nature of the beast.  Let’s take a closer look at this group we are talking about.

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by Randy Davidson on April 27, 2008 at 10:35 am

Technology has a firm foothold in most of our lives these days.  Mine somewhat more than others as my paycheck comes from the technology field.  I realized how much technology has changed my own life last night.  A line of fairly impressive thunderstorms moved through the area in the middle of the night.  It seemed like the atmospheric electrostatic discharge burned a hole through the back of my eyes and the immediate thunderclap shook the whole house.  My body reacted by shooting out of the bed to the window.  The swirling winds were already gusting to 50 MPH.  At this point, as head of household, it was my duty to check the storm’s status in preparation for getting the rest of the family sheltered.

 

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