Change Is In The Air At Police Helicopter Pilot.com: A Message From The Host
Sunday, July 11, 2010 at 09:06PM This post will be a bit of a departure from the norm here at Police Helicopter Pilot.com.
July 6th 2010 will be remembered as the day that our dear friend and fellow ASTREA pilot Rocky Laws, departed this world for a place in the heavens above. It is a day we will not soon forget. Losing Rocky was like losing a favorite uncle. As a unit we are still in disbelief that his voice, his wisdom and his person will no longer grace the hallways of the Emergency Services Building at Gillespie Field.
On the very next day, July 7th 2010, the host of Police Helicopter Pilot.com was notified by the Sheriff of San Diego County that he was being promoted to the rank of Sergeant. In short this means that I will be leaving the air unit for a period of time to take a position as a rookie sergeant in either the courts or patrol.
While there are no guarantees in life, I certainly hope & plan on returning to the air unit when the next sergeant position comes open, sometime in the not too distant future. But no worries, in the mean time my love for aviation, helicopters, and law enforcement flying shall not be impeded I assure you!
Up to now this site has been tightly focused on Law Enforcement Aviation, along with encouraging and teaching others about the profession of policing from the air. But like many things in life we must re-evaluate from time to time to ensure we are moving forward, and not stuck in the doldrums. To shake it up even more, it's summertime and the back yard projects don't care that I write a blog about flying law enforcement helicopters. They want me!
If you are a loyal reader, (I think I have 2) you may have detected that the information flow here is at times sporadic. Now perhaps that has something to do with the fact that I do most of my writing on cold, rainy,winter days, and the rainy season in Southern California has given way to the dry but moderately cool months of May Gray and June Gloom. Perfect weather for working outside. No more excuses to sit in the house and write for 2-3 hours at a time.
Just in case that was not enough to ponder, the whole point of writing a blog or building a website is for people to read it. If no one reads your blog then you might as well be the tree that falls in the forest but no one hears. On the internet, every writer and blogger lives by the number of "unique visitors" who happen upon their site every day, and every month. Bloggers by their very nature must conduct experiments in "building traffic." If something doesn't increase your traffic, you stop doing it and try something different.
The "Police Helicopter News Page" and the "Police/Sheriff Helicopter Blotter" are what I would call experiments. After many months of writing the News Page, and testing various formats of the Blotter, overall traffic at Police Helicopter Pilot.com is noticeably down. Now there is a possible technical explanation for this, true. It is highly likely that Google and other search engines treat updates to a static page differently than an actual blog post, such as the one I am writing now. Each new blog post is treated as a new page, and tiny news flashes get sent out to all the search engines telling them that a new page was just added to your site. So for now, the News Page and the Blotter are being pushed aside, while I focus on writing new and fresh blog posts.
If you have smartly deduced that everything in this post up to now is the set up, and I am about to deliver the punch line, then you would be correct. The point is that some changes are in order, and it is time for me to re-think the format of this website. Nothing dramatic of course. Helicopters and flying law enforcement helicopters will always be the primary focus of this site. But the format as of now will be a more relaxed, open format. Ok, so what does that mean?
That means that I write about pretty much anything I wish to write about! How much more could I screw it up right? Seriously though, I am a one person show and good or bad, it is I who gets the blame.
In addition to being more open and relaxed, I think a more candid approach is also in order. This post is a perfect example: We have touch on everything from the loss of a dear friend, to Southern California Weather, to blogging and search engines. Yeah, something like that.......
If it is a subject matter that I believe I can contribute to in a positive way, and someone else on the internet can benefit from it, then It will be given consideration on this site. Police Helicopter Pilot on politics? Police Helicopter Pilot on exercise? Crazy perhaps, but not inconceavable.
My next blog entry will be about the final flight one Bolitha "Rocky" Laws. It will be an awesome story on the impromptu gathering of 50 or so friends and co-workers, who came together to meet Rocky on his final journey. I think I will title it, "ON A ROTOR-WING AND A PRAYER, THE FINAL FLIGHT OF ROCKY LAWS".
I can assure you it is not about search engines or traffic, but my personal account of the passing of great human being. Rest in peace Rock, you did good.