A 10-mile, point-to-point course (named one of the fastest 10-mile courses in the country by Runner’s World) starts at the Central High School Athletic Field at Broad Street and Somerville Avenue. The course is a pleasing run past the varied neighborhoods of Philadelphia along Broad Street. It finishes inside the Philadelphia Navy Yard at the end of Broad Street in South Philadelphia.

This was my kick off to the 2008 running season and I was excited to run this course for the first time.  My training-mate, and cousin, Gary snuck ahead of me at the 8.5 mile mark to finish about 2 minutes ahead of me.  I came in at a respectable 88 minutes and not too much worse for the wear

I was able to attend Search Engine Strategies in NYC March 17-20 2008, and had a fabulously educational experience.   (SES) is the leading global conference & expo series that educates delegates on search engine marketing (SEM), including optimization (SEO) and advertising strategies, tactics and best practices. SES Search Marketing Events provide instruction from the industry’s top Search experts, including representatives of the Search Engines themselves.

The SEO industry converges for a week of spirited discussion, high-level learning and attendees leave with actionable battle plans to go forward with for their companies.

Some topics that were covered:

• How search engines list web sites for free and through paid placements
• How to get free “organic” traffic by building a site that pleases search engines and your visitors
• How to efficiently purchase listings guaranteed to rank your company at the top of search engine results
• How to calculate the roi of your search marketing efforts by tracking your visitors from the time they hit your site until they buy-and get tips on improving conversion if they don’t
• How to build links that generate traffic to your web site, and how to avoid the penalties of “spamming” the search engines
• What’s coming next in the constantly evolving world of web search, and how you can profit from those changes.

The icing on the cake to this incredible opportunity was being able to stay in the Hilton, right around the corner for Times Square, for 4 days and 3 nights of web design greekdom

Over presidents weekend I made my first trip West of PA and met 4 of my best girlfriends from college (lovingly referred to as the HoBabies) in Vegas for 3 nights. We stayed at the Hardrock, which was awesome, if you don’t count the 8am jack hammering going on outside of our window each morning. We visited Body English (Hard Rock), Pure (Caesars), and The Bank (Bellagio) during each of our nights and also caught the Cirque de Soli ‘Zumanity.’

We, somehow, all made it home alive and are looking forward to our next excursion.

I have been a terrible Aunt (and blogger) and have neglected to introduce the newest addition to our family.. my nephew, Camryn.  Cam was born back on  November 29, 2007 and welcomed by two thrilled parents and one very apprehensive big sister.   All have adjusted well, and Cam is currently giving us all a workout by growing insanely fast and packing on the healthy pounds.

I have been working on concepts to update my portfolio site for a little while and have finally completed a redesign. The new Fiske Designs site is up and running, please bare with me while I work out some minor glitches!

www.fiskedesigns.com