We Want You

Do you love The Sandbar? Do you have funny stories or pictures to share? Would you like to be featured on the blog?

Since you’re probably all tired of reading the things I have to say, I thought I’d open this up to the readers.  Send me a story; a picture; whatever you want (nothing dirty, please, my eyes are sensitive).  Are you a regular? A blast from the past?  Tell me about yourself- your first visit to The Sandbar, the last time you were there, your favorite drink, whatever you want.  I can’t promise that everything received will be posted (we are a family place, you know) but it would be fun to get some new perspectives on here.

There’s an "email me" link in the right side menu, down towards the bottom of the list.  Just click on that and send me an email.

So start thinking about something to say!

St. Patrick’s Day Pictures

A new photo album has been added over to the right.  Some of the best pictures of St. Patrick’s Day through the years- in some cases, the only pictures I could find of that year- have been selected for your viewing pleasure.  Check it out to see our favorite floats and characters of past parades!

Another new item on the right is a section with links to Sandbar videos.  You can find links to videos that were featured in previous posts here. Enjoy!

How did you get here?

It’s kind of funny to see how some of you wind up at this blog.

I have a web counter set up on this blog to track the number of hits and some other general information.  I can see the domain name you came from, like sunflower.com or rr.com or swbell.com.  That doesn’t usually tell me much, because half of the people in Lawrence use sunflower.com. I can also see the time of day that each hit takes place, and how long the person stayed as well as how many pages they viewed.

The most interesting part to me, however, is the referring URL.  In most cases, there isn’t one. Those people likely are customers or friends of The Sandbar and just typed the blog address directly into their browser.  A lot of people came directly from the main Sandbar website. But others have ended up here because they are searching the web for something that may or may not have anything to do with us.

Searches for "sandbar webcam" and "sandbar dancing" would, not surprisingly, lead a person to our blog.  But, someone out there was searching Google for "super dave costumes" and was directed here.  Still others have searched for "indoor fun nashville" and "tuxedo thong" and ended up reading our blog.  Someone even was looking for "maynard’s birthday" and showed up here! What’s funny to me is that the Sandbar blog shows up on the first page of search results for some of these searches.

Lots of folks out there are looking for the elusive Dirty Banana recipe.  We talk about it, but we don’t tell you how to make it. Other people are looking for Halloween costumes, especially Dee Snider wigs and how to dress as a woman.

The internet really is an amazing thing.

Wanna be our friend?

If you ever visit the Sandbar website, you’ve probably noticed that it hasn’t changed much lately.  In fact, it hasn’t changed in nearly six months.  The person in charge of the web finally got motivated last night (okay, it’s me) and made some major changes. 

The website links to this blog now, which I hope will draw some more readers.  You can also find our daily specials, the story of the hurricane, pictures, and merchandise on the website.

Along with this blog, we now have a page on MySpace. When I was thinking about doing a blog, many people suggested that I just set up a MySpace page, which offers a blog.  I resisted this, for a couple reasons.  Mostly, it’s because if you’re viewing a profile on MySpace, you have to log in to view pictures, blogs, and other things.  I didn’t want to force everyone to have a MySpace account just to read our blog or see our pictures.  However, it was also pointed out to me that MySpace is one of the top websites for traffic these days, and everybody has a page.  So, The Sandbar has joined the rest of the world and joined MySpace.  We’re now accepting friends.

The goal is to keep the website updated with new pictures frequently, as well as any big announcements.  The website, blog, and MySpace page all link together, so check them out and let us know what you think.

Picture Albums

One of the cool things about Typepad is that you can add photo albums to your blogs.  We take a lot of pictures at The Sandbar, and we love to share them with our friends and customers.  We also love to receive pictures from our friends, so if you have taken pictures at The Sandbar, send them to us at thesandbar@sunflower.com.  Your pictures may end up featured on this blog or on our main website, which will be undergoing a major redesign (hopefully sooner than later!). 

I hope to keep a variety of photo albums available to readers of this blog, so that even if you can’t be at The Sandbar every time something fun happens, you can still look at the pictures and feel like you were there.  We’ll have picture albums for all of the big Sandbar events, like St. Patrick’s Day, Halloween, and New Year’s Eve, but also for other fun things that don’t necessarily happen every year.  The first album that I am adding will have photos taken at Jake and John’s going away party before they left for Australia.

Speaking of Jake and John….last we heard from them, they were becoming big fans of an Australian boxed wine, and Jake had to load John into a shopping cart and wheel him home one night.  Would love to have pictures of that….

Anyway, I hope you enjoy perusing our photo albums as they get posted. Scroll down the page, and the albums will be in the right-hand side menu. And remember, send us your pictures!

Welcome

This blog is all about The Sandbar. Upcoming events…pictures… staff info… drink recipes… anything you want to know about The Sandbar, you can find it here.

Submit your questions, pictures, and comments. We promise to read them all and do our best to respond.

In the meantime, visit us in person at 17th E. 8th Street in Lawrence, KS. Or check out our newest location in Ottawa, KS, at 1608 S. Main.

Cheers!