Running a blog is a lot like playing home mechanic with a car – sometimes you’ve got to go deep to see what’s really happening (and discover problems ‘Er…where is that smoke coming from?). And today after lifting the bonnet (or hood depending on where you are) I’d like to send greetings to the wonderful people of Wayne.
Wherever that happens to be..
I’ll be honest about Google Analytics..
…And that is like a highly engineered German engine (hello Audi) I’m not really sure what I’m looking at. Okay I do know the basics (air filter, belts, spark plugs and in GA’s case of stats it’s got from visitors of this page like demographics and time spent faffing about these posts) but there’s a lot in there I just gloss over. Stuff like conversions, paths and campaigns – they sound exciting but not enough for me to investigate further. Honestly I feel while it may be semi important (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong) I’m more concerned with the numbers I’m getting checking out my words and just as importantly, we’re they’re from.
And the people of Wayne seem to love this page.
Well kind of – they’re on the official location list.
Yes okay, they are down the bottom of the list so far in the short time I’ve been writing here but I was still amused by the thought that Google Analytics got momentarily confused and put a reader/viewer down as a place name, some bloke called Wayne.
But no, the City of Wayne is a real place in the United States. And I’ll wax more about what I know about it (I mean what I’ve just Googled about it) in a sec, right after I take a look at the other names on that location list and share what I know:
- Sydney. My history with Sydney Australia is a brief but memorable one, getting wildly drunk at a radio awards night (I didn’t win an award so went on a bit of a bender instead) and walked the wrong way back to the hotel room in the early AM, turning a 10 minute stroll into a three hour wayward stumble. Dressed up in a rented Tux and having no idea of Sydney streets I asked people for directions and got confused why they pointed out the way I’d just come from. Eventually working out how to get back by following the monorail track, I arrived five minutes after an all in street brawl wondering why there were so many cops around and why people were sitting in the gutter with their hands behind their head.
Since then I’ve driven past Sydney a couple of times but never ventured in.
Coincidentally there are the Wayne radio awards but I have no idea if they have anything to do with the actually Township of Wayne.
2. (Not set). The wild yonder, the great unknown. The second most popular place for visitors of this site isn’t actually listed so I’m going to assume it’s somewhere in space. Yes is must be astronauts reading in…for whatever reason. Great to have you onboard!
While I don’t think the town of Wayne has their own Space program, former NASA engineer Wayne Hale does have a blog.
3. Ashburn. For a minute I was confusing this with the Australian suburb of Ashburton and I suspected it was my school mate Jarv logging in (hi Jarv!) and having a look around the place. But no, Ashburn is a suburb of Washington DC that 40k+ people call home and one of them is really digging this place.
If you’re ever in Ashburn and looking to shape up, maybe catch with with Ashburn’s own Wayne Barnes from Body by Wayne – he’ll get you in the condition you want in no time!
4. Las Vegas. Ahh Vegas – I stayed at the Circus Circus hotel, gambled for all of five minutes, loved the underground shopping under Caesers Palace and shopped up a storm at the direct factory outlets right at the edge of the desert. I remember it being full of colourful characters including a cab driver who smoked a stick cigar and yelled directions on the radio like he was a mob boss. Good times.
You can’t talk about Vegas and all things Wayne related without mentioning the great Wayne Newton. And you can’t mention the great Wayne Newton without mentioning his work in Fallout New Vegas as ‘Mr New Vegas’, one of my favourite video games of all time.
5. Melbourne. I grew up here, went to school here, found love, lost love and had some wild adventures along the way in my teen years. And once in a while I go back for a visit, reminding myself that while it’s lovely to revisit I’m quite happy not to move back there in a hurry (too busy for me, expensive and I enjoy where I am.)
Fun fact, Wayne Lorden rides horses in the Melbourne Cup
6. Boardman. The more you know, I had no idea this place existed until this morning. Luckily no one ever asked me to point out where it was on a map because I would have given them a blank look and failed that particular geography class. But Google tells me it’s in Florida so if you didn’t know that, consider us both a little more educated today.
A shout out to Associate Professor Wayne Boardman who has nothing to do whatsoever with either the townships of Wayne and/or Boardman.
7. Brisbane. Aka Brisvegas Australia. Lived close to it for four years but only ventured into the city itself a couple of times, great place to visit and still have family there.
Fun fact: Our cat came from a Brisbane RSPCA adoption day. We didn’t call her Wayne though.
8. Busan. Again I’m getting a real geography lesson here today, thinking Busan was somewhere in the Middle East when actually it’s a Port City in South Korea. I’m struggling to think of what content I’ve written so far would be appealing to someone from over there but maybe they were keen to see how my adventures BBQing some frozen fish went?
The only connection I can find between a Wayne and Busan is that you might be able to get a flight from Fort Wayne all the way over there. I say might because I’ve never booked one myself.
9. Edinburgh. Capital of Scotland. Their castle is built on an extinct volcano and they were the first city in the world to have their own fire service. In the same country where J&B Rare scotch is made. What else do I know about this wonderful place? Preciously little but they made the list!
My readers from Edinburgh could possibly include one or more of these Waynes!
10. Forest City. Home of the elves of some mystical realm? Er..no. Interestingly it’s a private town in Malaysia which started off as a billionaires backyard and is now a bit of a ghost town which I find absolutely fascinating. Somewhere in this ghost town someone is reading this blog, possibly while taking in the sights from a very tall and largely empty skyscraper..
Although there’s also a chance they may just be referring to the Forest City of North Carolina here, which to me seems slightly less exciting than a ghost town for billionaires (although I’m sure it’s a lovely place.)
Or perhaps it’s Forest City in Pennsylvania.
Also Cleveland’s nickname is ‘The Forest City.’
There’s probably more Wayne’s in the US locations than the Malaysian one I’m guessing.
11. Hyderabad. Not to be confused with Hyborem which is a demon character in the excellent Fall from Heaven 2 mod for Civ 4. No this is one of the richest cities in India making the list (which goes well with number 10 then) checking out my random ramblings. And I think the great citizens of Hyderabad for coming on over.
Sadly our tenuous Wayne connection here is currently closed.
12. Kingston Upon Hull. Did you know that people from Kingston Upon Hull UK are known as Hullesians? You do now.
Wayne Porter (below) is a drummer from there. Isn’t that nice?
13. Orange. Now I’m fairly certain this is Orange NSW, roughly five hours drive from where I’m typing at the moment. And this certainty comes from two facts 1) We have a sister radio station in Orange and 2) I put in my out of office emails that if anyone is bored, they could come to this site and check it out.
Of course there’s also the chance that it’s not someone from the radio network having a look in which case, that’s fine time. Lovely to meet you, possible Wayne.
This is what you get when you Google Image Search ‘Wayne Orange’. It’s a Wayne Cooper Batwing dress (in orange) available at Myer.
14. Prinneville. We’re off to Crook County Oregon for this one, a city named after a merchant whose name was not Wayne. There’s around 10k people there at any time give or take and obviously there’s something here of interest to some of them to take a closer look.
One of them was caught with an air rifle near businesses and a school though which wasn’t clever.
15. Santa Anna. Not to be mistaken with Santa Ana California, this is another small town either in Mexico or in Central Texas. There’s probably a way to delve deeper into Google Analytics to find out which but we’re getting to the end of this list and I can’t really be bothered. Either way, One Man Many Plans greets you good people of Santa Anna – whichever version you’re from.
When GIS ‘Santa Anna Wayne’ this model keeps turning up. While her is name is Ana Wayne, I can’t find any link to her and Santa Anna.
Which just leaves:
16. Wayne.
What’s going on in Wayne then?
Greetings to Wayne Pennsylvania where it’s currently night and a cool 10c at the moment (at the time of writing). From the five minutes of research I’ve done they have a nice theatre but their UPS service seems to leave a lot to be desired:
Thankfully while there’s certainly the name Wayne in it, they are not the location of Wayne County Jail which is over 430 miles away. (It’s in Ohio).
I’m also keen to try the food at The Goats Beard in Wayne (on Wayne Ave in Wayne Pennsylvania of all places) because their TGB Smash Burger sounds awesome and there seems to be no shortage of nice places to eat.
It seems appealing to me too because the median age is 41 (I’m 42) and the average wage is $109k a year (which is more than double what I make now when you convert US coin to AUS dollerydoos.)
While Wayne Pensylvania sounds like a great place to move to, one downside is that apparently it’s 54% higher than the national (US) average for cost of living. I’m already annoyed by the cost of everything going up after the last couple of years, the last thing I need is to ship off to somewhere far more expensive (especially on my wage).
Still it seems nice enough for a visit and thank you some much to the resident(s) of Wayne PN who came by and helped put their nice looking township on the map. I can only assume since there’s places such as Wayne Ave in the town of Wayne, it’s more than likely that your name is Wayne too.
In which case, thanks to all the Wayne’s (and non Wayne’s) for reading.
Amusingly I did search up a Wayne PA phone book for anyone with the first or last name of Wayne and it told me there were more than 100+ available. So I might be right on the Wayne hunch there.
Also I can’t wait to see how this list is going to look in a years time from now. Will Wayne still be in the top twenty rankings? Residents, you know what you need to do!