The Holland Blog celebrates its First Anniversary!

It was in June of 2007 when I started to expose the Johnsons’ and did the research leading to the Johnson Landgate scandal. Around February of 2008, I started blogging about Johnson Landgate on the Worcester Telegram Blog.
My posts did not last long and were routinely removed immediately. Earl Johnson and his pet Chief of Police, Kevin Gleason, threatened the Telegram with lawsuits if they would not remove my posts from their blog. I bought the domain name www.01521.com and posted a static webpage with the report about the Johnson Landgate scandal and other unflattering facts about our leaders.

In June of 2007, I campaigned for the five year seat on the Planning Board but lost against Christine McCooe. Earl Johnson did what he does best; he repeatedly lied to the voters and claimed that I would file frivolous lawsuits costing the town lots of money.

The voters of Holland believed the lies of Earl Johnson and James Wettlaufer and they missed an opportunity to have me serve on the Planning Board.

Instead, the voters trusted Christine McCooe with their vote. Christine McCooe won the election and attended only two meetings out of her five year term.
Thereafter, Earl Johnson, together with the two other selectmen, appointed a replacement they saw fit... Politics as usual.
It took another two years until I had my day in the Appeals Court and was able to prove that the town denied me my rights. In a last ditch effort, Earl and his cronies hired Super Lawyer Nancy Pelletier to crush me and somehow win the case and save face.
What the town counsel successfully did in Superior Court (lying to the judge) is increasingly difficult to do to a panel of three Appeals Court Judges.

In the end, it was the town who was on the wrong side of the law and the wasted $100,000.00 could not change this fact.
The members of the Select board never informed the community of the fact that they lost.

This was the third lawsuit the taxpayers financed and the town eventually lost!

I realized that my energy would be better put to use by informing the community about the true character and agenda of certain officials in our town government.
Instead of having them judged by judges at the expense of the taxpayer, I was going to have them judged by the taxpayers. This seemed to be better for the community, and a political change would ensue sooner or later. I new I had to have an interactive Blog not just a static webpage.
On February 14, 2009, the Holland Blog was born and went on line for the first time. (I know, I’m a little bit late with this post!)

How does the Holland Blog work?

The software (program) is written in a program language called PERL (Practical Extraction and Report Language.)

PERL was developed by Larry Wall, and is especially designed for processing text. Because of its strong text processing abilities, Perl has become one of the most popular languages for writing CGI scripts. CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface.
The CGI script written in PERL executes a program each time a reader of the Holland Blog visits the Blog. Websites usually are static sites. To update a static site, content is added and manually deleted if not needed any longer.
The Holland Blog is created dynamically each time a reader visits the site. I can just change variables in the PERL script to control the Blog. For instance, if I want to show 45 latest comments instead of 39, I can just change the number in the variable controlling the number of comments shown. If a new comment is added, the last one will no longer be shown. I don’t need to do anything. The same goes for posts and every other aspect of the Blog.

The Holland Blog is hosted on a server at a price of $8 per month and I’m basically running a “one-man show.” However, I wish more people would get involved and contribute to its content.
The Blog is setup so everybody with access to a computer and the password to post new posts could do so from any computer anywhere. If you want to get involved and post pieces yourself please contact me. Everybody can also email me posts and I’m more than glad to publish them.
To leave comments you can just enter your comment, and create your own password to protect your user-id. I do not request any email addresses or other gimmicks to get information form you.
I programmed the script in a way that the server emails me every new comment immediately using the “push” function on the server. My iphone alerts me immediately of every new comment so I can read the comment and delete it immediately using the Safari web-browser on my iphone.
If the Wettlaufers and Johnsons think I’m sitting right next to my computer 24/7 to delete their inappropriate “damage-control” comments, they are mistaken.

How do you best view the Holland Blog?

As you know there is a rivalry going on between Microsoft and Apple. Each company is trying to get the upper hand when it comes to creating a new standard so they can collect license fees form their competitor later on.
The Holland Blog is optimized for Windows computers, especially Internet Explorer version 8 and Windows Media player version 6.4 or higher. You also need the Adobe Reader 9 to view pdf files (Portable Document Format), and the Flash Player from the same company to view other content.

How can you interpret the Google Analytics Reports?

I posted many Google Analytic Reports further down to show the reader the kind of traffic the Holland Blog generates. To interpret these reports, Google created short informative presentations about how to read the reports, click here, for an Adobe presentation, (Adobe Flash Player plug-in required!)
This presentation explains what page views (hits) are, and visits. It also explains the difference between visitors and unique visitors.
There are other presentations on “Google Analytics IQ Lessons” available, click here to go there.

Who are the readers of the Holland Blog?

During the first 365 days, a total of 38,933 visitors spent an average of 5:30 minutes on the Holland Blog, that’s an average of 107 visitors a day. If you look at the graphic, the number of visitors is clearly on the rise.
Over the past 30 days, the minimum was 121 visitors (Sunday February 14), the maximum was 260 (Monday January 25). Click here, to see this report! During the last 30 days, the Holland Blog had 971 unique visitors (computers) who visited the Blog.
To see the report about the total visits over the past year, click here!.
As always, just click on any word written in bold/italic to view the report or follow the link!
The number of hits and the time spent on the blog by its readers are skewed as I do not track hits to pdf files, jpg digipics, and external links. In other words, if a reader clicks on a pdf file and spends 10 minutes reading the file, this activity is not included in the numbers of the reports shown here.

It will surprise you that Newspapers read the Holland Blog on a regular basis. Over the past year, Stonebridge Press Inc., visited the Blog 450 times. Stonebridge Press Inc., publishes among other publications the Southbridge Evening News and the Sturbridge Villager. Click here, to view the Google Analytics Report about these visits.
The Republican from Springfield is owned by Newhouse Newspaper and uses a server with the name “Newhouse/union news.” The Republican just started to become a “regular” on the Blog at the beginning of this year and viewed a total of 331 pages during 63 visits. According to the report, they spent an average of 6:56 minutes on the Blog each time they visited.
Even the Boston Globe read the Holland Blog every day between May 4, and May 7. The Holland Blog posted the piece Police Chief Kevin Gleason resigned under duress on May 4, 2009. Click here, to see that report!

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts visited the Blog 1,577 times over the past year. The visits that originated from servers operated by the Commonwealth can be by visits by police officers, court personnel, DEP officials, or any other state officials or state employee. To view this report Click here!
Not all state government officials use servers with the name Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the District Attorneys Association (MDAA) uses its own server. The MDAA visited the Holland Blog 160 times and spent on average time of over six minutes on the Blog. Click here, to read this report!
The DA’s office took an interest in the Holland Blog for the first time on April 23, 2009, just after the Holland Blog published the piece about Gleason with the title, Riddle (no.1).
Just one day later, the members of the Board of Selectmen went into executive session during a regular meeting back on April 21, 2009. The Holland Blog reported about the meeting in Selectboard Meeting of April 21, 2009.
The interest by the MDAA peaked on October 8 with six visits in one day. I had just published the piece, Insanity.

What are the readers of the Holland Blog reading?

The top story was the piece about Gleason’s resignation. The piece was read 1069 times and the comments 836 times. Click here to read the Google Analytics report about the piece Police Chief Kevin Gleason resigned under duress.

The piece who has the most readers of its comments is the report about Brian Johnson’s attempt to have me arrested for alleged trespassing. Even so Brian Johnson ganged-up with his neighbor who lied with and for Brian, the two were exposed as liars. What a difference a chief makes which is not corrupt and controlled like former chief Gleason who was just a puppet of the Johnsons’. The comments to the piece Our elected Highway Superintendent a liar? were read 1,460 times and the piece itself 299 times. The total time the community spent reading about Brian Johnson being a liar is 119 hours and 10 minutes. To see the report, click here!

Achievements of the Holland Blog.

If you just listen to the three selectmen and read the local newspapers, you are misled. Brent Abrahamson wrote in one of his recent pieces about the dashed hope for change after Obama took office: “We hoped that the press would once more become the watchdog of the people rather than the lapdog for the elite.”
What was news for the Telegram and Gazette on September 3, 2009, was already reported by the Holland Blog on May 11, ALMOST FOUR MONTH EARLIER!

The Holland Blog broke the news in the piece, Ex Chief Gleason investigated.
Four month later the Telegram and Gazette published the piece, State police investigate former Holland police chief.

The Republican credited the Holland Blog for raising the issue of Gleason’s involvement as one of the defendants among Earl Johnson in the Quinones lawsuit that was settled by the town to the tune of $50,000.
It was my own research that brought to light the prior history of Gleason’s arrest for operating under the influence after Gleason crashed in the wee hours just yards away from his residence in Southbridge. The story was published on 01521.com back on March 13, 2008 under the title Police Chief of Holland, Kevin Gleason, arrested for OUI, and was picked up later by the Southbridge Evening News and others.

The Holland Blog broke the news that LaMountain was not found guilty of any wrong doing as James Wettlaufer insinuated; a default judgment on a technicality led to the judgment that is now on appeal. The judgment ordered LaMountain and Northeast Concepts Inc., to pay $75,000.00 each. The Holland Blog broke the news in the piece: What really happened...

The Holland Blog will try to inform you in the future as time permits. I don’t have to gain anything other then the satisfaction that comes with serving the public. and the hope that the Holland Blog will make the town of Holland a better place to live.

February 28, 2010, Peter Frei