Two More Weeks Before We Leave & More Spam

Our street here at the Sands is emptying out fast.  It seemed like just yesterday when there wasn’t a site to be had in this park but not anymore.  By the end of March, it’s going to look pretty deserted but by that time we’ll be packing up too as we’re set to hit the road on April 2nd for what we hope will be a leisurely trip up the west coasts of California and Oregon.

Our first two stops on our way home will be places quite familiar to us but some of our favourites as well.  The first stop after leaving Desert Hot Springs will be Pismo Beach on the California coast.  The Pismo Coast Village RV Resort sits right on the ocean and it’s also a great place to stay as a jumping off point to all kinds of activities and attractions including Morro Bay, the Hearst Castle, Solvang and many other small towns and beaches.

Pismo Coast Village RV Resort

After 3 or 4 nights in Pismo Beach, we’ll head up to the Monterey Peninsula where we hope to spend another 3 or 4 nights at the beautifully located Marina Dunes RV Park.  It’s a bit pricey at $70 a night but what isn’t in this area?  Marina Dunes has a spectacular beach adjacent to it and is centrally located for touring everything and anything including Carmel, Monterey and it’s even close enough for a day trip up to San Francisco!

Marina Dunes RV Park

But, not to get ahead of ourselves here, we still have 2 more weeks to enjoy here at the Sands and that’s exactly what Paulette and I intend to do.  We still have a few new restaurants to get too and we’ll definitely be returning to a couple of our old favourites to tide us over until next year.  One spot on my list for sure is breakfast at Sherman’s Deli.  We’ve had lunch and dinner there several times but never breakfast but we hear it’s excellent – maybe this weekend!

The topic of spam messages is once again a hot topic on a lot of blogs with many bloggers, out of complete frustration, deciding to turn off ‘anonymous comments’ altogether.  Retired Rod is the latest to do this and I can’t say I blame him one bit.  Here’s Rod’s main reason for banning anonymous comments:  “we have been having really nasty vulgar sexual comments placed on this blog..”

Some bloggers seem to be getting hit harder than others because of the recent volume of spam.  Luckily for me, while the spam count has definitely increased substantially, the Blogger Filters are still doing a great job of catching it before it ever hits my blog.  For instance, the table below shows the stats for my blog taken for the 18 hours from midnight to 6pm on Tuesday.

Spam totals for the 18 hours between midnight and 6pm Tuesday

Total Spam Comments	Total Published
102	1

As you can see from the above numbers, the Blog Spam Detector is still catching over 99% of all anonymous spam comments.  I’m fine with that but I certainly understand the frustration of folks like Rod who find these anonymous spams on their blogs.

Here’s how I have my comments setup:

On my blog, I allow anyone to comment without moderation with the EXCEPTION of comments left on blogs older than 7 days.  The reason for this is that seldom do legitimate commenters ever leave a comment on a blog older than 7 days.  So, by moderating all comments older than 7 days, none get on my blog without my prior approval but it doesn’t effect my current postings.

Have a great Wednesday, and thanks again for visiting!