I’ve been trying to figure out how to catalog tragedies and disasters for the tragedies study I’m working on. I want to use my blog to help me keep track of them. That way I can use tags to help me sort them by months for future reference.

I’d like to do it weekly. Last week was a bit nuts and got away from me so I’m scrunching 10 days together in this inaugural tracking post.

May 3, 1962 - Trains collide near Tokyo: Two commuter trains and freight train collided. 160 people died. Double that was injured in the wreck.

May 4, 2002 – Nigerian plane crash in crowded city: An EAS airplane crashed in Kano, Nigeria. 148 people died. (All 76 passengers plus the remaining victims who were on the ground and burned to death in the resulting explosion.) Three full blocks of structures were destroyed.

May 4, 1886 – The Haymarket Square Riot: A labor rally turned deadly when a bomb was thrown at police trying to break it up. The police fired on the crowd. Several were killed. Over 100 were injured.

May 4, 1970 – National Guard Kills 4 at Kent State: National Guardsman fired on a group of anti-war demonstrators. 4 students killed, 8 wounded, another permanently paralyzed.

May 5, 1995 – Dallas Hail Storm: This surprise hail storm was the worst to hit the area in the century. Hail was the size of tennis balls to start. It was the flash flooding, not the hail, that left 17 dead, though. Interesting to note sentence from History.com entry: “Reportedly, items as large as frogs, worms and fruit have been swept up by updrafts and turned into hail.”

May 6, 1937 – Hindenburg Explosion: It was the largest dirigible ever built and 36 people died when it exploded near Lakehurst, New Jersey. But what made it iconic and significant was of the live radio broadcast of the event. There were 56 surivors.

On WLS radio, announcer Herbert Morrison gave an unforgettably harrowing live account of the disaster, “Oh, oh, oh. It’s burst into flames. Get out of the way, please . . . this is terrible . . . it’s burning, bursting into flames, and is falling . . . Oh! This is one of the worst . . . it’s a terrific sight . . .oh, the humanity.”

May 7, 1902 – Volcano buries Martinique city of Saint Pierre:Mount Pele started steaming on April 2, 1902. Residents ignored the warnings, thinking they only had to worry about lava. When it erupted, it burst out a cloud of gas with a temperature of more than 3,000 degrees and sent boiling ash down the side of the mountain. Saint Pierre was buried within minutes. Number of casualites was not specified on History.com article, but it was noted 2 people somehow survived. Also, 15 ships in the harbor capsized when the volcano exploded. One ship stayed afloat and half the crew survived, but had serious burns.

May 7, 1915 – Lusitania sinks: Without warning a German submarine torpedoed the British ocean liner Lusitania in the Celtic Sea. 1,959 passengers and crew were on board. 1,198 were drowned. Significant event during World War I.

May 8, 1950 – Flash floods in Nebraska kill 23: Most were caught by surprise and were trapped in their vehicles and drowned.

May 9, 2001 – Soccer stampede kills 126 in Ghana: Accra Stadium in Ghana. Police clash with rowdy fans, sparks a stampede. Was “the worst ever-sports-related disaster” in Africa at that time. (Um, I thought sporting events were spectator events? “Worst-ever sports-related disaster” should not be words that all go together.)

May 10, 1996 – Eight climbers die on Mount Everest during storm: It was the worse loss of life in a single day and sparked the bestselling book Into Thin Air. In total, 15 climbers died during the spring 1996 climbing season. (98 successfully completeed the climb that year.) From 1980 to 2002, 91 died attempting the climb.

May 11, 1934 – Dust storm sweeps from Great Plains to Eastern U.S.: Millions of tons of topsoil were swept from the Great Plains region to states in the East like New York, Boston and Atlanta. (Not sure if it was the start of the Dust Bowl time. April 15, 1935 came to be called “Black Sunday.”)

May 11, 1985 – 50 die in soccer stadium fire: Bradford, England. Fire was most likely started by a cigarete that ignited trash. Wooden roof over the stands caught fire. Some had no idea of the enormity of the situation. Reported some “danced and sang in front of the raging fire while others threw stones at a television crew.”

May 12, 1987 – Massive China wildfire claims 193 victims: The fire actually began on May 6, 1987 in Mohe County of the Heilongjiang Province. It was finally contained on this day, but didn’t totally burn out until May 27. It burned 2 1/2 million acres of land, destroyed 50,000 homes, hundreds were injured, and 193 people perished.

May 13, 1846 – Polk declares war on Mexico: Not quite a “disaster” but a significant event.

May 13, 1981 – Pope John Paul II shot: Again, not quite a “disaster” but a significant event worth noting.

May 13, 1972 – Club fire in Japan kills 118: The Playtown Cabaret in Osaka, Japan caught fire. Only 48 survived.

Well, I was well on my way to starting last week when I wrote about it. I went to History.com and signed up for the This Day in History daily emails and everything.

Or so I thought.

I kept checking my email and not seeing anything. I didn’t have time to investigate what happened though until this morning.

Apparently I didn’t check a box right that I should have. Doh! Such is always my plot. I mean well but always goof.

I do believe I’ve got it corrected now. Then I can finally get my “research” underway…

I’ve been saying I want to see which months have the most tragedies for years now. I’m going to put my April Theory to the test. I decided to start it today after seeing a This Day in History via History.com link someone else posted on Facebook today.

What caught my eye about it was it referred to, what else?, a tragedy. This day in history in 1865 saw the worst maritime disaster in American history. The steamboat Sultana exploded on the Mississippi River and sunk. 2,100 passengers were on board. It killed all but 400. The explosion was thought to be the result of a boiler malfunction.

Very tragic indeed. Even more so because it was right after the Civil War ended. Just days after. Most of the passengers onboard were soldiers. Mostly Union veterans who had survived serving time in brutal Confederate prisoner of war camps only to be released and meet their ends this way.

More April victims.

But will we see other months with similarly sad and tragic stories? I know we will, but come this time next year which month will have racked up the most stories?

I’m officially on my way to finding out. No sense putting it off any longer. Might as well just dive right in starting today. And so I have.

Next I’d like to track if any of these tragedies happened during Mercury Retrograde cycles, or other astrological events.

But that’s research for after I’ve compiled all my tragedies data. Excited to be on my way with this study, though. Looking forward to what comes of it!

OTHER BIG EVENTS ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1521: Magellan killed in the Philippines (not exactly a “tragedy” but newsworthy then and interesting to note now)

1789: Mutiny on the HMS Bounty (again, not a tragedy of the sort I’m documenting but another interesting historical tidbit to note)

*1992: Riots in Los Angeles (BINGO! This is exactly the sort of thing I believe April is famous for.)

*1996: Port Arthur Massacre in Australia (Ditto the above. Another BINGO! find.)

I’m on a quest to earn my first $100 from AdSense. I’m very close.

Today I decided to switch things up ad-wise on Haunt Jaunts, which is my current leading AdSense revenue generating blog. (Although, even though I haven’t been as active with the SAHW Experiment, it’s already trickling in cents here and there. I can see how that one might be the main breadwinner if I started investing more time in it.)

But as far as AdSense overall, it’s been a little stagnant lately. Which I sort of expected. When I switched things around last time I was curious to see what kind of an impact it would have.

I’ve read all sorts of tips about how to get the most out of AdSense. Everything from the size of the ad, to how many you have (you can only have 3 at a time, which you should always do), to colors, and most importantly placement.

Placement, above all, has definitely been the one thing I’ve noticed matters most. The second I moved AdSense ads from HJ’s sidebar alone to the little box within HJ’s header, I noticed more pennies piling up in my account.

Also, ads within posts, which I took out last time as part of my experiment, seem to matter. Sidebars do okay, if there’s nothing else to compete with. But ads within posts are golden.

However, I’ve got other affiliate accounts too. I’ve now come to realize you don’t want too many of those, though. It’s too many ads which makes things look cluttered and cheap.

Instead, I’ve tried to hone in on key affiliates. For Haunt Jaunts that’s mostly iTunes, Halloween Express and Spirit Halloween. Although I also have Amazon, but I can link to specific products within my posts and I’ve found that works rather well actually. 

Except I’ve now removed the AdSense ad from HJ’s header and replaced it with an Amazon one. I had to, because I have a Google Search box which also counts as one of the three allowed AdSense ads.

I also removed the AdSense sidebar ad and replaced it with not just one ad, but two, within posts. One at the beginning and one at the end. Two different sizes and not both in the same location. (One is centered, one is aligned to the right.)

AdSense is the one it’s taken me the longest to accumulate money for a payout in. I’m bound and determined to have it earning at maximum capacity and getting me paid out no later than the end of next month. (If I had thought about implementing these changes sooner, I might’ve even been able to manage it this month. Oh well. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that.)

Still, it’s going to be very exciting reaching that goal!

Last year on Haunt Jaunts I wrote about how I believe April is a cursed month. Was I surprised when a coal mine exploded in West Virginia, the Polish president’s plane crashed, the volcano in Iceland erupted, and the BP oil spill happened? Heck no!

There were other factors at play last April, though, too. Planetary type of things. (It was also set to be a period of Mercury Retrograde, and Saturn was re-entering Virgo, which mostly had the potential to affect Virgos but perhaps influenced other factors too.)

I realize not all bad things happen in April. It just seems like April has more than it’s fair share of notable catastrophes.

That’s why I keep watching the Japanese nuclear reactor situation with such interest.  With April only a week away, I’m wondering if a meltdown is inevitable. Or something equally as catastrophic. (I don’t know all the nuclear terms for what can go wrong, but it sure seems to me that’s the path all that’s headed down.)

Last year I found it curious after I did an Internet search that I’m not the only one who believes April’s cursed. I keep threatening to do a study of which months have the most disasters to see if there’s something to it all, but I haven’t been that ambitious. I only get that way as April draws near.

But as I’m writing this I also wonder if it’s not just April, but something else I alluded to above. Did certain astrological influences influence April’s potency last year?

I wonder if anyone’s ever done a study on which stars were aligned how when certain bad things happened? Be it April or otherwise. That’d be interesting to look into also.

Hmmm…I’m certainly never at any shortage for project ideas, but this one keeps nagging at me. And apparently evolving. Now I’m curious to know not only if April is a cursed month, but what was happening astrologically when certain major events happened, be they in April or otherwise.

Oh boy. Another book idea has just been born.

I learned something the other day from my friend, who also happens to be a journalist, Jade Walker. I was telling her how out of sorts and disorganized I feel, especially when it comes to posting on my SAHW Experiment blog.

Ideas are never a problem. I have no shortage of ideas for either Haunt Jaunts or my newer marriage blog. In fact, I often have way more than my fingers can keep up with.

If I didn’t reread everything over and over maybe I’d go faster. But I inevitably notice mistakes or see tweaks I’d like to make, which makes me think I might be missing something so I read it again.

Jade asked if I had ever considered using an editorial calendar. I use calendars all the time. Not just to schedule what I write, but to look ahead and see if there are any key dates coming up that I could feature something for.

That’s not what she meant. She was talking about what I call theme days. Dedicating one day each week to  a particular topic. I sort of do that on HJ.

• I don’t do it every Monday, but when I do I do Movie Mondays.
• Tuesdays I generally try to stick to something travel as part of #traveltuesday on Twitter.
• Wednesdays are Semi-Wordless Wednesdays where I feature photos.
• Fridays are Friday Fun.

I’d also like to do some kind of technology Thursday and focus on different equipment out there, from ghost hunting to photography to neat travel-related gadgets.

I’d also like to do a Feature Friday where I feature various products from Haunt Jaunts Emporium. I haven’t quite gotten my act together to get all that flowing yet though.

Jade suggested it might help me stay on the submitting track for SAHW Experiment if I instituted a routine where I posted certain topics on certain days. It was a good suggestion.

Mostly I just need to get my butt in gear and start posting all the ideas I have. Some are even half written and being held as a draft in my blog’s system. I just need to get ‘em done.

If I only had more time…which if I wasn’t doing all the other stuff I’m doing, if I was only focused on HJ and SAHW, I’d have it. But I’m working on books, doing freelance articles, playing tennis and volleyball several times a week…un, yeah, a schedule might help, but first I’ve got to make time to schedule in making a schedule!

At any rate, it was neat to learn what an editorial calendar is. That Jade is always teaching me new things!

Kindle, Kindle, Kindle. That’s all I hear about anymore. It started off with all of my reading friends raving about loving their Kindles. That was last year. It seemed every time I saw a Facebook post it was about how much someone was loving their Kindle.

This year every time I turn around I see people promoting a book they’ve written and are distributing on Kindle. Many of the same reading friends are also writers so they’ve been amongst that set. But so have many of my blogging buddies.

And they all keep touting the same thing: They’re fed up with regular publishers. Why go with them when Kindle (and Nook) make it easy to publish yourself and offer a royalty rate that can’t be beat?

They pose convincing arguments. I have yet to look into publishing via either Kindle or Nook, but my interest is piqued.

I have to wonder, though, if everyone starts publishing on their own this way, who’s going to be submitting to the small, independent epubs that have sprung up in the last 10 years? (And have also shut down. Many of the ones I started out following are no more. But taht didn’t matter. New ones cropped up every year to replace the crops that folded.)

But why would anyone bother with that route now?

Also, what happens to the quality? Even though people hate the submission and acceptance process, and, granted, many good books probably do get passed over, there’s a whole lot of them that never should see publication. Or that might be okay, but need editing.

Again, since I haven’t looked into it all more, perhaps there is an editing process. From what I gathered, it didn’t sound like it though.

So what happens to editors? Even though they can be pains, they’re necessary and helpful pains. They mean well. Plus, they make books stronger.

All I know is the times they are a changing. There could be a big revolt on this decade’s horizon for the publishing industry as a whole. Both for the small time independent pubs as well as the big daddies.

I’ll be curious to see how it all shakes down. If it even does. Ebooks were supposed to revolutionize and transform the industry last decade. Didn’t quite happen. But maybe technology has caught up to make that  viable threat now? Kindle sure has a loyal following, if that’s any indication of anything…

Some weeks nothing seems to go right. Others are just sort of blah. Then there are those weeks that just amaze you. This was one of those. Amazing!

#s 1 and 2: HAUNT JAUNTS RANKS AS AN EXPERT AND GETS AN AWARD

Rather than rewrite it all, I’ll just link to the post I wrote about this on Haunt Jaunts.

But in case you don’t want to click over, here’s the short version: HJ ranks #50 out of 118 experts on Sulia’s paranormal channel and one of HJ’s Twitter friends nominated the blog for a Shorty Award in Travel.

I’m not gonna lie. The recognition feels great!

#3: MASTER OF THE COURT

Then at Thursday’s tennis clinic the most amazing thing happened. We had just started doing a drill when Coach Beth stopped us and pulled us in.

My heart sunk because I was one of the ones in the middle of the drill. Worse, I had last touched the ball. My first thought was, “Aw man! What did I do wrong this time?” Because I’m always sure I’ve made a good example of something not to do. That’s happened more than I care to admit.

Not this time! I about fell over when Beth said, “Whoopsie (that’s my tennis nickname) is the only who’s mastered something. Can anyone tell me what?”

I sort of phased out for a moment as I did a mental rewind. Had she just said “mastered” and “Whoospie” in the same sentence?

Apparently she had. I then listened with keen interest as people started naming things I might’ve mastered. I had no clue. I had just done another of my trademark lobs before she stopped us and called us all in. I figured it had to do with that.

In part it did, but the point she was trying to drive home was I had mastered reading the court and knowing when to pull out certain shots, like lobs.

Huh? I was waiting for the punchline or the hidden camera reveal. I have never been singled out for doing something good before. Again, the recognition felt awesome!

Until I started thinking about the target on my back. The girls will be gunning for me now, itching to take me down and figure out how to take my lob opportunities away from me. I’ll have to come up with some new tricks and quick!

But it made for an exciting week. I’ll let myself bask in the glory for a moment before I buckle down and get back to just being me –a big ol’ Whoopsie at heart!

From first grade to sixth grade I went to a magnificent elementary school. It was a small private school called Cheeseman Academy and it was on the outskirts of Cheeseman Park in Denver, Colorado. In fact, weather permitting, we had recess in the park most days.

Paranormal enthusiasts know Cheeseman Park as a haunted park that was in part Steven Spielberg’s inspiration for Poltergeist.  I think that’s in part where my interest in ghosts and the macabre stemmed from. There was something there. An energy I didn’t understand but always felt. In fact, I used to have wicked crazy dreams about a ghost on Cheeseman’s third floor. Not only while I went to school there, but long after I graduated.

However, sometime in my 20s the dreams stopped. I figured I had outgrown them. Now I think they died when Cheeseman was torn down.

Ah, what a beautiful old brownstone it was. A man named Neil who went there when it was called The Peter Pan School left a comment on one of HJ’s posts about the school and brought back so many wonderful memories.

If there had been witches and wizards it sort of would’ve been like a Hogwarts. Smaller, but with as much character and personality.

When I talk to people who went there (because a couple of people have found my Haunt Jaunts post I guess from Googling Cheeseman), they remember it fondly too. It had a power. It was a remarkable place to go to school. (Have I said that already?)

I’d really love to capture other students memories of Cheeseman. And to collect any remaining photos that may exist of it. It’s such a shame it’s gone now. That is one place I would’ve loved to return to and get lost in the nostalgia.

But maybe I could do that if I made a documentary of it?

The thought keeps nagging me. We’ll see if it persists. If it does, maybe I just might give it a go!

I have been neglecting my poor personal blog again. Quite a while ago (we’re talking months), Jessica at Ghost Stories and Haunted Places was kind enough to pass the Beautiful Blogger Award on to my humble little Court’s Corner.

I decided I needed to hurry up and acknowledge it so I can pass along the award. (Even though I’m positive all the blogs I’m passing it to likely have already received it before.)

At any rate, thanks again, Jessica, for honoring Court’s Corner with such a nice nod.

Now on to the award process…

BEAUTIFUL BLOGGER AWARD RULES

1. Thank the person who gave you this award.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 15 bloggers who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic!
4. Contact the bloggers you’ve picked and let them know about the award.

I’m doing them a smidge out of order because I was always taught it’s impolite to talk about yourself first. (Never paid much mind to directions though.)

15 BLOGS COURT’S CORNER PASSES THE BEAUTIFUL BLOG AWARD TO:

1. A Baked Creation
2. A Fanciful Twist
3. Above the Norm
4. Candid Canine
5. Charli and Me
6. Cuisine Kathleen
7. fiberdoodles
8. Frog on the Pumpkin
9. Jade Walker’s Oddities
10. Maggie’s Station Stationery Blog
11. Marbella Jewelry Designs
12. Mommy D’s Kitchen
13. The Random Mind of Miss Julie
14. The Stiletto Gang
15. The Whimsical Cottage

7 THINGS ABOUT MYSELF:

1. I lived with two guys at the same time before I was married. (One was my boyfriend, who later became my husband, a.k.a. Wayne. The other was our gay roommate.)
2. Part of me regrets not studying meteorology in college. I’m fascinated by the weather. The Weather Channel is definitely one of my faves.
3. I have some form of IBS. Or something. Basically I carry all my emotions in my gut. If I get upset, too stressed or too excited, so does my tummy. It’s caused more emergency potty stops than I can count, and has put me in some pretty embarrassing situations. It’s why I’m always apprehensive about doing things with people for worry about how my tummy will behave. (Or not behave.)
4. I’m nuts for games: Wii (any kind of video games really), air hockey, Foosball, word searches, trivia, and especially find the difference between the pictures games.
5. I’ve always wanted to do a triathlon, but so far have never buckled down to give it a go. (And I’m not talking the Ironman kind Wayne does. I just want to do one of the mini kinds where you swim like 400 yards, bike 12 miles and run 2 or 3 miles.) Maybe I’ll shoot for that in 2011.
6. I believe I might’ve lived before and am curious about having a past life regression session.
7. People are always telling me what a great cartoon voice I have. I think it’d be fun to do voice overs for cartoon characters!