David Pitlyuk

Yesterday I had a post that my kickball team had won our championship game.  On Monday my volleyball team was in the championships.  The team we were playing was the only team we had lost against, so this was going to be a good match.  The league is co-ed, so each team requires at least two girls to play.

In the first game we ended up winning by a decent amount, the score was like 15-10 or something along those lines.  The second game we were losing 10-14 at one point (15 is a win) , but ended up coming back and winning 18-16 (win by two).  We almost had to call off the second game because right in the middle the sky just opened up and started pouring.  Luckily it didn’t last very long.  The series is best of 3, so we ended up winning the championship.  So this season of sports I’m 2 for 2 in championship wins!  Here’s a few pics from the match:

You can see me closest to the camera waiting for the ball to come over.  The guy closest to the net is one of my best friends Jason who I’ve mentioned on this blog before as the guy who makes some nice side-cash on Craigslist.

Here I am trying to make a save, Alex is there for backup just in case I screw up:

The other team is about to do a nasty spike onto our side:

Jason gets some major air going for the block (which he missed)

Hopefully next year we’ll by defending our championship.  Now that kickball and volleyball are over, I’ll finally have a little extra much needed free-time.

I play in both a kickball and a volleyball league, and the kickball league just finished. We ended up winning the championship! I haven’t played kickball since I was in middle school, but it’s a blast to play. To find a league near you, there is something called WAKA (World Adult Kickball Association) which organizes kickball leagues all over. You can find more information at Kickball.com.

The championship game was a best of 3 series, and we won the first two games. The first game we won 3-0. The second game went into overtime, and we ended up winning 1-0. The celebration was a bit more than expected with free-flowing champagne, drinking out of the trophy, a big speech, and the ice drop on the coach…I would have never thought all that for a kickball game lol.

Here’s our team with yours truly looking to the left:

Our captain, David drinking out of trophy:

The champagne shake:

Dropping the ice on our captain!

Traffic

August was another month that was similar in traffic to last month, but still different in a few key ways.  While this month I had higher uniques and pageviews, the sources of traffic dramatically changed.  Last month I saw a monstrous spike in search engine traffic, this month that dropped by close to 11%, as well as a 20% drop in direct traffic.  The difference was a 28% increase in referral traffic.

Monetization

There were three sources of advertising this month:

Text Link Ads: $7.44
Kontera: $11.89
AdSense: $33.95

Total: $53.98

Last month I brought in about $10 less, but had also spend $20 in advertising…this month there was no advertising expense, so it’s 100% profit.  A nice little jump, but still not too much.  I have been working on a new look in the background, and expect there to be some major changes in this over the upcoming months once launched.  At this point, I’m not too worried about monetization, but I think once the blog goes to around $500/month, I will start to care more and worry about getting the numbers even higher.  In the meantime I will continue to concentrate on writing good content, and increasing traffic.

RSS Subscribers

Last month the number of RSS subscribers was slowly crawling up.  I mentioned that I was hoping to hit the magic “100 subscribers” number in August, and I did!  I peaked at 104 subscribers, and am definitely averaging in the 90’s now.  This goes to show you that if you keep the consistency of your blog, over time it will continue to grow…but you have to keep at it.

Search Engine Goodness

This month search engine traffic decreased by 11% to 2,813 unique visitors.  I had a strong feeling I was going to expect a decrease because I was getting a ton of traffic last month in regards to the Virginia driving law articles I had written.  This news was starting to get out of the news, therefore traffic was expected to come down.  Even though this was the case, I still generated much more traffic that I had thought I would.  Let’s see how traffic from each top engine differed from last month:

Google: -11.41%
Yahoo: +86.79%
MSN: -29.27%
AOL: -31.25%

Lets take a look and see which keywords were used most to find my blog last month:

1. best blog designs
2. mercedes blk
3. e92 m3
4. 10 dollar plane tickets
5. blog title ideas
6. penis
7. rip hangers
8. best corporate websites
9. atlantic city
10. infiniti g37

Popular Pages/Content

Here was the most popular content in June:

1. April (Month)
2. David Pitlyuk (Homepage)
3. Hot Import Nights 2007, Washington DC Pictures
4. New Virginia Civil Fee For Traffic Tickets Is Nuts
5. Mansion Hunting In Northern Virginia Part 3
6. Internet Comments In A Real Life Boardroom
7. Installed 19″ Volk SF Challenge Wheels On My Infiniti G35 Coupe
8. Picture Gallery of Mansions In Northern Virginia Part 1
9. The 45 Best Technology Sector Corporate Web Designs: A-G
10. Tech Sector Corporate Web Designs: Best Of The Best

April is the most popular page due to Google Image search showing a ton of referral traffic for a lot of car things that I had posted that month.  It’s nice to see the homepage being the #2 page, I would like that to takeover #1 at all time in my opinion.
Top Referrals

Referring traffic took a huge jump in the overall percentages of how people got to my blog.  This is mainly because I’ve been more active in forum communities and linking some of my content.  It’s a great source of traffic, and I will continue to do this.

Here’s a list of the top referrals that do not include search engines:

1. Google Images
   
2. G35 Driver
3. My350Z
4. YoungGoGetter
5. ShoeMoney
6. ActiveTuning
7. Digg
8. Anandtech Forums
9. SEO Blackhat
10. Smashing Magazine

The summer is coming to an end, and now I must sell my Dodge Viper. The money I used to purchase the car is money that I’m saving for a house downpayment, but I knew I would not be ready to buy anytime this summer. I decided to buy a 1st generation Dodge Viper because it was a dream car of mine to have, and because the car is so rare they really do not depreciate anymore. It’s one of the best investments in car you can buy! Many people don’t realize, but they are fairly affordable as well. Now is your chance to get the the Viper that took me months to find exactly what I was looking for.

So on to some specs so you know what you could be getting:

• 1994 Dodge Viper RT/10 Convertible with 400hp
• Just over 16,000 original miles. I purchased it with a little under 15,000 miles, so I have only put on less than 2,000 miles since I got it…and most of that is from two trips to Ocean City, MD
• The tires have about 40-50% tread left on the rears, and the fronts have a good amount left. They are not the original tires, so they are ok to use (You don’t want to drive around on 13 year old tires!)
• The wheels are all pristine, no curb rash or anything
• Brake pads look good
• The car has the A/C option, but I think it just needs to be recharged (should be real cheap)
• Original paint with no accidents, clean title, etc
• The paint looks absolutely awesome considering it’s from 1994! There is only one tiny chip in the hood. There are some scrapes under the front bumper, but as you can tell in the above pic, they are mostly under the car, and very common on Vipers due to it being so low. You have to be extremely careful going over speed bumps
• The car has always been garage kept under a car cover, freshly waxed
• The interior looks good, the glove box has the common wear due to the soft dash that Dodge put in the 1st generation Vipers. There are also two scratches above the center gauges, again due to the soft dash material
• The seats look great and really aren’t worn at all
• A short shifter is installed as well as a Simpson 5-point harness on the drivers side. Everything else on the car is factory
• I just installed a brand new battery just a few weeks ago
• I have an aftermarket Autoform dubble bubble hard top with glass windows. This costs almost $4,000 new! I’m offering it for $1,750 over the asking price of the car, otherwise it will not be included
• A door popper was installed in the inner drivers side fender in order to open the door when the windows/hardtop is on the car
• Included are all the factory removable windows, soft top, rear glass window, and bra

I’m asking $34,500 OBO for the car, and $36,250 OBO with the hard top/glass windows. I had it listed at the beginning of the summer for close to $40,000, so I’m drastically coming down on the price in order to sell it quickly.

If you or anybody you know is interested, please have them get in touch with me. I can provide full pictures upon request and answer any questions. Here’s a couple other pictures. You can find more pictures in a higher resolution here.

Drive a truck? Trick it out with the hottest truck accessories like nerf bars and tonneau covers. Make it into the best truck you can and read some truck information.

Back in May I made the decision to undergo a custom design for this blog.  I even went about pretty much doing the entire design and getting it to a coder.  I had some communication issues with the company/person I had hired to do the coding and Wordpress integration, but I sure am glad that nothing came out of that.  While I liked the design I had done, I have been working on a couple new websites for Tri Megatech clients (more on that in upcoming posts as those come along), and have been more inspired to do something even better.  My inspirations come mainly from some magazines and other prominent blogs out there, and I can’t wait to show you guys what I have in mind….I think it’s going to look amazing.

At this point I have two main concerns:

1) It’s not going to be your standard blog layout, but I still want everything integrated through Wordpress.  What I have in mind is probably pretty easy to do, but not something that I want to do

2) My other concern is who I will get to help me do the coding and Wordpress integration.  While I’m sure I can do it on my own, I don’t like to.  It takes me much too long, and I hate dealing with all of the inter-browser compatibility issues.  I also want to ensure that everything is coded with the best SEO standards in place.  I’d still love to work with the original guys I was working with (you know who you are, contact me and let me know what’s up!!), but if that cannot happen, I need to look at other alternatives.  If you know of anybody that may be capable of this, let me know…Keep in mind, all of the design is being done by me.

Stay tuned, I’ll be providing sneak peaks as I continue to find some time to design in-between all the other stuff going on!  In the meantime, check out the new redesign at ProBlogger, and John Chow will be launching his new design tomorrow or tonight (at the time of writing this).

Last week I told you guys that I got new 19″ Volk SF Challenge wheels for my daily driver, a 2004 Infiniti G35 Coupe. The wheels were supposed to arrive on Friday, which would have been perfect as I would have the weekend to put them on and also make sure I had time to learn how to change front brake pads since I had never done that before. DHL dropped the ball, and weren’t able to get them in on Friday. After speaking with them on the phone they were going try and do a Saturday delivery…unfortunately that did not happen either.

Today I tracked the packages, and saw they were delivered to the house. I decided to work remotely from home for my day job because I didn’t want $3,500 worth of wheels and tires just sitting outside of my house.

I got home and during whatever free time I had from working I worked on swapping the wheels. I also took on changing the front brake pads. A quick call to my good friend Alex for a fast explanation of what to do, and him assuring that it was pretty easy, and I was ready to go. It turned out to be really easy (a lot better than the 50 hours it took 3 of us to install a twin turbo on my old 350Z!) , and once the wheels were off the car the new pads were in within 10-15 minutes.

Now my car will pass state inspection, which I’ll do tomorrow so I can get rid of the rejection sticker on my windshield! The new wheels look great (would be even better if I lowered the car slightly), what do you think?

If you like truck mods, look at the newest truck accessories to hit the market. Nerf bars are the latest craze in truck accessories and chrome accessories always look great on Dodge trucks!

I took my Infiniti G35 Coupe to get inspected this week just to find out I need new tires and brakes!  I wasn’t even planning on keeping the car for more than another few thousand miles or so.  Oh well, what can ya do when those unexpected costs come around!  Anytime I’ve ever needed new tires, I usually just get new wheels and tires instead…and this time is no different.

My last fun car was a Nissan 350Z that I put about $35,000 worth of work into.  One of the best looking mods I did to that car was wheels.  I started off with gunmetal 19″ Volk SF Challenges:

I’m a huge fan of Volk wheels, especially the SF Challenges.  They look great, have a nice polished lip, and are forged metal…so they are fairly light and strong for the size wheel they are.  They are also imported from Japan, and all that comes at a hefty pricetag.  Wheels and tires will run you about $3,500.  Luckily I had a sponsorship from Bridgestone for tires, so I just had to shell out for the wheels.

As my Z came along, I decided to go a little more “show” and bought the same wheels, but in gold:

I liked the look of both the gold and gunmetal, especially on the Lemans Sunset color that my car was, but the gold let the car stand out just a bit more when it was in a show.

I sold my Z a while ago, and I realy missed the look of the wheels…so I decided to go with the same thing again!  I went with the gunmetal, but this time I bought them used.  I found a great deal…enough that I will be able to resell them when I sell the car for the same price or more.  Great looks for free works for me!  Here’s the wheels, they just shipped yesterday, and I’ll post pics when I get them on the car:

I picked this shirt up from a store called Ruehl, I thought it was funny/inspiring enough to share with you guys:

The top says “Age related ratios within the work population”. So funny, but so true! I love breaking the standard thought.

I dig into my archive of posts to feature some of my favorites and ones that I think you guys will like and may have not seen yet.

• Mansion Hunting In Northern Virginia -  A compilation of pictures of big houses I’ve found in Northern Virginia.  This is actually a series of posts which I have to complete
• The Quick-Casual Restaurant - Here’s a post I made about a restaurant called Pei Wei.  It’s considered a “quick-casual” restaurant, and I think it’s a great concept, and would love to see more chain restaurants like Friday’s, etc do this.
• Eating Out For Lunch…On A Time Constraint - Find out the best way to optimize going out to lunch.  Have a good meal, but get in and out of the restaurant and back to work fast.
• Universal Sitemaps: Help Search Engines Drive More Traffic To You - Learn what a universal sitemap is, and how it helped get my blog indexed by Google so quickly after launching my blog.
• The View Of The Real Estate Boom Through A Rollercoaster - A neat video showing the historical real estate prices since 1890.  See how much prices have changed in just the last 10 years.
• Losing $200,000 In One Year On Real Estate - Learn the lesson that one couple made when they lose $200,000 in one year selling their house.
• Managing My Personal Finances & How You Should Too - See how I manage my personal finances, and use what you learn to better manage your own.

I went to my good friend Will’s beach house this past weekend with Jason and his girlfriend Allie. The beach house is located near Chincoteague Island, which is about 40 minutes outside of Ocean City. I usually go to his beach house at least once a year over the past 4 or 5 years, and the area is just blowing up like crazy. I know they had bought the land and property for about $200,000, and now it’s worth over $800,000…not a bad investment.

Will’s beach house is great because he’s got a lot of toys. Two Sea Doo Jet Ski’s, a Sea Doo jet boat, a big regular boat, hot tub, and an 04 convertible 350Z that he bought in 2004 which he never drives (it only has 1,400 miles on it!). Here’s a bunch of pictures to recap the weekend:

Allie driving the jet boat:

Here is Will hanging on for life on the innertube, and I’m in the background following him on the jet ski:

This is what happened to me when I did the innertube. I left my bracelet on, and when I hit a big wave, my face went into my bracelet, and then flew me off the innertube. It happened on the first day too, but it didn’t stop me from having fun for the rest of the weekend!

The next day on the other jet ski I wore goggles to protect my eye from the previous days damage:

Jason doing tricks on the jet ski:

Being stupid in the hot tub, I really look dead, and the eye doesn’t help lol:

A better picture of the jet boat:

On the way to the beach, we saw two of these mini cars pulled over, I don’t think they were speeding!

See, here’s the cops:

Boogey boarding at the beach, only Will was able to catch the wave:

Later that night, Jason and Will went to go race with the jet skis, and Allie and I were going to take the boat out. The only problem was the battery died, so how do we fix this? Sit there and start drinking of course!