Some people are born naturally beautiful, some might even say that in the eye of the beholder they are beautiful.  Many of us however may not be perfect or beautiful and the beholder might even turn away when we walk by.

Now, for now I am not going to make any moralistic judgements on whether or not people should change the body they are born with or grow into or whether they should just learn to accept it.  I will suggest that life is short and we should make the most of the lives we are given.  Sometimes that means making the most with the body your are given.

From that perspective if undergoing plastic surgery enables a person to seize the day and make something more of themselves or of their lives then who am I to judge?

Beverly Hills cosmetic surgeon options are pleantiful but the area does have a long history of providing great service and results to the starts and to many people from around the country for many decades.

Beverly Hills plastic surgery can also be utilized for reconstructive purposes.  People that suffer accidents or traumas or even surgeries to remove tumors or fix other problems some times need to receive plastic surgery just so that they can begin to live a more normal life within a society that is often times a bit shallow.

I forgot to mention one other fiction project that I have been working on.  It deals with a washed up golf pro turned private investigator.

He has an unusal talent that he discovered a few years back when he was accused of murder. 

He can get into people's minds, but only in certain locations or situations.

I've got some way to go on this one and a lot of golfing research to do also, but I like the start on it so far.

See more at

Tee'd Off

Tee'd Off - Socialite Bar Tender   & Part 2

Many office workers have learned the benefits and capabilities of projectors over the last few years.  More and more people are learning that projector technology has advanced to the point that it is as strong and bright and clear as many wide screen televisions.

The question becomes, How and where can you apply projector technologies? 

If you have an extra $1k - $10k you could go buy your own projector and have it at your ready disposal for work or play. 

Projectors have multiple purposes, but they are typically utilized for passive communications.  That means that an audience or groups shows up and watches what is presented.  However many new technologies are utilizing these displays to help show an audience a message and through other tools capture their feedback and put the information right back through the projector where they can see their feedback in action.

Alternatively projectors can be used for simple entertainment.  I have sometimes used a projector to display a movie on a wall or a screen or when outside even on a new white bed sheet.

A year ago I was visiting Tybee Island and the local YMCA had a movie night on Saturday night where a projector was used to display a movie on the side of a white concrete wall.

Once you figure out how to apply the technology, you then have to figure out when to apply it.  Now I mentioned that you could buy your own, but you could also rent a projector.  Projector123 has started spreading their services and now offer projector rentals in many more more areas and states, such as Denver projector rental, Colorado Springs projector rental, and even Salt Lake City projector rental.

These options are very useful.  You do not have to worry about maintenance, bulb replacement, travelling with a projector in a plane or getting the latest unit year after year.

All in all its a good way for individuals or even event organizers to utilize a projector for individual or even several days of events without having to spend an arm and a leg.

I mentioned that I had these two songs running through my head all week.  Well as I have been working today, I have been replaying these YouTube videos over and over.

I'm hoping to get these out of my system a bit, but as it got late, I came inside to work off the dock by the lake.  The family was sleeping and I didn't want to be too noisy, so I started searching for my trusty headphones that I always keep in my computer bag.

Guess What?

No need to guess, its in the title . . . that's right no head phones.

So I have been using my Dragon Naturally Speaking headphones which only has one ear piece to listen to the songs now.  Reminds me of when I was a kid.  I'd have a pair of headphones and one of the ear buds would always go bad or start to go bad and I'd go a few days with a half working set of headphones before I got them replaced.

Sponsored Article

Our sponsor Krillion.com has come up with a good solution to a ten year old internet marketers problem.  People for many years now have been using the internet to investigate products and services and then later go to a bricks and mortar store and buy the product there.

Krillion allows people to search the internet for deals through their site and then find a local source for the product in that search.  Their latest release provides an example with Frigidaire Refrigerators.  Just try a search for Refrigerators, narrow down the results and then settle on the best deal in your local area and go pick it up.  Nothing could be easier.

This week I have been having more fun than I have had in a while writing some fun fiction stuff.

I go through periods where stories come to me and then I go through periods where there's nothing.

A couple weeks back the flood gates opened up with a ludicrous story (that I haven't developed much for obvious reasons) see Plight of the Orgasm Gnomes (cartoon concept more than a story concept).

Now sure that's a bit of a non-starter.  I'm not arguing that it isn't.  I'm not arguing at all.

But it did warm up that side of my non-analytical brain.

From there I moved into a fun story kicked off by a PPP op.

So now I have two installments written on this one and its actually starting off pretty good.

MindMapping Got Me Fired from the CIA

and the 2nd installment

MindMapping Got Me Fired from the CIA 2

Then tonight I was surfing through BlogExplosion and I found inspiration again.

This time I came across a funny little post from GirlCapitalist.com.  She wrote a funny little piece that included a funny visual about streaming search phrases running on the walls in Google.  She made a crack about a search term 'Giant Horse Vagina', and how she sometimes had the idle day dream that she might see that term floating down the wall.

Well for no good reasons, I found that little visualization in her words inspirational and I was off to the races with a protest idea (for anyone that wants to protest Google and put their CEO out of a job.  I don't really have anything against Google, but don't enjoy the people that gush over them.  They are a multinational monopoly and that last part is not a good thing in my book).

So anyway that inspired

Protesting Google with the Giant Horse Vagina Search Strategy

I'm not sure where I'm going with that one, but I think I might work it into the CIA story, might provide some nice comic relief.  Anyway I need to ride this wave while it lasts before I leep back into the analytical world of the other side of my brain.

The last few days I have had to songs (good songs) running through my head incessantly.  The first is a song that I heard of all places, on America's got talent.  Its a cover of a Police song Walking on the Moon.

I happened to channel flip through a James Bond marathon the other day and got sucked in as Roger Moore was saving the day and going up against Christopher Walken.

Now I am old enough to have been a Duran Duran fan when they were still new and this song was played completely into the ground on the crappy radio stations of the 1980's. People rave about the great music of the 80's. The thing is the music of the 80's was mostly shit promoted by the record industry. When they had a good song, they either completely buried it and it languished for 2 decades in obscurity and alternative settings, or they played it so often that you felt like President Noriega suffering from psychological warfare.

So anyway, thank god for YouTube. At least there is some place I can go to listen to copyrighted materials to get the songs out of my head and ease my fix without having to spend a dollar at the iTunes store for a song that I probably won't listen to again for another 20 years.

Note at the end of the Duran Duran music video, Grace Jones leaps off the eifel tower. That was real, she really did jump. She was sick to death of hearing that Duran Duran song over played on French radio. They later rebuilt her with horse steroids and came up with the plot for the James Bond movie after the fact. ;)

When I was in college, I took a number of courses on stock option analysis, trading and especially accounting for options.  I was a finance and accounting double major, so I kind of got two different perspectives on options.  The how to make money perspective an the how to conservatively account for the money you make or loose perspective.

Our sponsor PowerOpt.com recently put out a new release about their stock options educational materials and complete suite of products through their patented SmartSearchXL technology.  They position their tools as the best way to:

Find

Compare

Analyze

Make Money on Option Trading.

Basically there tool is a decision support web platform that helps investors analyze situations and portfolios to identify the potential times and scenarios for placing puts and calls to optimize their returns and minimize their losses.  Their technology works with almost 3,000 optionable stocks and is fairly comprehensive.

Today I went Kayaking on Lake Wylie in North Carolina.  It sits in between Charlotte and Belmont (Belmont's kind of on a penninsula in between two rivers, one of which is also called Lake Wylie, a big long damned up affair).

I've been reading The BenSpark Photo blog off and on over the last few months and finally had a chance to try the cayaking thing out for myself.

I don't know a whole lot about kayaking, but I have pushed canoe around a few times.  In fact I didn't even host Bill kayak until I just ran this through spellcheck!

So here are some of the things I used to get ready for my trip, I planned on going couple miles upstream are upriver.

Specifically, I hadone kayak, one paddle, a life vest,Coke zero,my digital camera that was in an otter box and that was it.

Not sure if you can tell that I was missing one very important piece of equipment, a cozy for my soda!

That's an experience for you, anyway I set out and I headed out of the Covewhere we have a boat dock.It's about a half-mile to get out of the Cove.As I was leaving the code I turned left and headed up the river.  The entire way out of the Cove and up the river I felt like I was going upstream, and there was.  I knew my technique was lower rustyor nonexistent butI thought it would get easieras it went along.It wasn't hard, it just didn't feel terribly efficient.I'm an efficiency nut and sothat annoyed me a little bit, but eventually I forgot about it just focused on the surroundings and the exercise.

I stopped after about a mile half and took a few pictures just of the panoramic view.

It was a little tricky taking the pictures because I have my camera still behind my back side to reach back behind me with both hands and keep the kayak balanced the same time.  It worked but I wouldn't say that it was comfortable.

What about another mile upstreamI stopped by a bank to grab couple pictures of this flower look up my attention.

Then I headed back upstreamand Iexperimental but with my positioning in technique and attempted to see how fast I could go.I did that for about another mile until I got a littlehot from the exertion, it was around one o'clock in the afternoon so the sun was out and I was kind cooking were in the life vest and all.My plan was to go as far of stream as I could before my arms got tired for that isn't until my arms did get tired.  But I forced myself to turn around and coast back down the river.  I figured I'd have the car going with you and be nice and easy at them back.

Again the human experience of using a kayak leapt out at me, because my turnaround space and into the windit was just as our going back as it had been going out, which is to say it wasn't too hard but that only was an easy.  I did make an improvement in my technique when i realized that I had mypaddles upside down, so I switch that and it helped just a little bit.

I kind of have this thing for driftwood, and some driftwood sticking up out of the river caught my attention so it's a couple more pictures.  This was a little tricky because I kept being pushed one way or the other by the current in the windand so I kept having to take the pictures as I posted by it either forwards or backwards.

Here are a couple more shots from a different angle.

After that I turned around and headed back,on my way back in the code I rescued a couple floaty said it got lost in the wind and dropped them ontheir respective docs.

I got back to our dock and pulled all the equipment back onto the dock and then jumped in for a quick swim selected cool down.

Kayaking Lessons Learned

• I enjoy kayaking
• It's pretty good exercise
• Technique helps, but not that much
• Take a Coke Cozy
• Get a better place to put my camera
• Try and sit still when you are taking a picture
• Take a voice recorder next time so that I can record my thoughts.

This is definitely be a summer for Harry Potter.  I've been reading all the Harry Potter books since about the time the first movie came out.  Since then I've become a definite Harry Potter fan.  The books are excellent and if you ignore the books, the movies are pretty good too.

So were kind of running into a double witching hour this summer, as Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix the movie comes out and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows comes out about a month later at the end of July.

In part of an effort involving hundreds maybe thousands of bloggers by now, were working together to try and promote the sales of the last Harry Potter book.  The proceeds from the sales of the books that we help bring about through Amazon( after its marketing costs are paid) are going to be donated to two different charities.  One of the charities encourages and helps young children to read and the other charity will help to feed children in Africa.

Basically is a group of bloggers were trying to funnel all of the sales of the last Harry Potter book through one website that is tied into Amazon.com.  Were hoping to focus and funnel our readers that are interested to go to http://HarryPotterTheDeathlyHAllows.net and pre-order or purchase the last Harry Potter book.

Now in addition the site is running a couple different contests.  Each contest will award $500.  They're hoping to receive comments from readers who will guess that the ending of the book.  The person I gets the most facts correct will win.  Tiebreakers will go to the person that provides those facts written up in story format.

Some of the submissions so far are excellent, you'd think that JK Rowling herself had stopped by to write an extra chapter of the book.  In fact I hope the last book is half as good as some of the submissions been received.  So if you're planning on buying a Harry Potter book please stop by and pre-order a copy today.  If you're a blogger and like to get on the bandwagon drop me a comment or an e-mail get to the details.

A few years ago my wife and I purchased three Muskogee ducks as a gift for my wife's father.  He took care of the ducks and the ducks prospered.  They had lots of babies, but they don't take care of the baby's very well and baby ducks often were gobbled up and became part of the local ecosystem.  We were originally concerned that the Muskogee ducks with super populate their front yard or something.  That didn't happen.

Unfortunately the result was the same.  The Muskogee ducks apparently told all of the other ducks and geese would a great time they were having hair and how much great food they were getting, and now all sorts of other ducks of every duck typed persuasion shows up for a free meal and a handout literally.

So we've been trying to train the dogs chase the same ducks that we used to train the dogs not chase.  I think the dogs and the ducks think that we are nuts.

Fortunately for the local ecosystem, one of the Muskogee's recently hatched another batch of ducklings.

This is the greatest picture but you get the idea, they're just starting to come out in this one.The kids think a cute as hell may play with them for a couple days, but eventuallya snake or muskrats are raccoons or something like that  gets to have some good old-fashioned duck soup.

I guess it's a good thing because it's a few less ducks  that  the dogs have two learn how to chase, and a few less ducks to spread the good news about good food for ducks here at our place.

Unfortunately with ducks you never know who the father is, one of the original ducks that we brought here,was named Bubba.He's been hanging around the more the last couple of daysMcKenna suspected he might be the father of the ducks that just hatched.

Maybe he's come to check out his handiwork,and maybe he's come to check out as competitionand put in a bad word to the local raccoons.Regardless were probably not going to have to do a DNA test anytime soon to discover if he is the actual paternal duck father, but with ducks it's probably impossible to tell. It knows maybe they even have fraternal twins induct batches, or is it a clutch?

It's the Friday before the Fourth of July.  You should be on vacation.  There's no excuse if you're in the Northern Hemisphere, you should be on vacation.  I'm on vacation and I'm enjoying the sun and the water.  I wish you were here, but it couldn't be here should probably be on vacation in Hawaii.

You can pick up one of those nice rubble homes, one of those great little Kihei homes or maybe one of those Hawaiian Beach Rentals with a greatly wide open windows, no screens and a wisp of a curtain blowing in the breeze.

It's just not a vacation home if it's not right on the water, planted in the sand where you can walk through the dunes in between the houses to get to the water and enjoy some truly relaxing vacation time.  Maybe take a day trip hike of diamond head, maybe even visit Pearl Harbor and go to the museum may be just take a driver around the island and watch the surfers on the North Shore.

Regardless you should be on vacation, right now.  You could be and join yourself and relaxing having a good time together be better than sitting in a cubicle, it's got to be even better than sitting in traffic congestion, and I'll bet you that it's even better than standing on a street corner somewhere looking up at the same fireworks that you watch year and and year out.

So what are you waiting for?  Don't you think it's time that you took a vacation?

:)

I had a very good exercise day today.  I got out my rant about 4 1/2 miles maybe five, but it was in pretty hot sun.  As purposely trying to get a worked out in the sun to make sure that I can deal with multiple different weather scenarios.  A bit of a wimp when it comes to running in exercising and I preferred exercise when things are ideal.

This time a year that means I usually trying to run in the evenings when it's cool.  But that's not really doing my system justice nor keeping me completely in shape.  So today I got out and went running around 11 o'clock, Iran until my legs are telling me that they couldn't run anymore, and I turned around and ran back.  It is work for several hours and then later on this afternoon I went out and went swimming.  I'm a Lake and I don't exactly know how far the distances I slam, but there is this no wake buoy (how do you spell booeee?) in the middle of the Cove of the lake that I'm on.  I swam all the way up to that as fast as I could, and then I came back doing a mixed backstroke switching to a breaststroke.  I should mention that my form sucks. I've never had swimming lessons, but a group of the water and swim pretty well.

This evening physically I'm pretty tired, but it was a good day and I feel better for getting exercise.  Truthfully I been more productive today than I have in the last two so that's a good thing also.

There are many taboo topics from one culture to the next.  Some people view the topic of sex as taboo, but even people view the topic of sexual problems as an even greater taboo, which is only trumped by the even more taboo of sex therapy.

A recent release focussing on Sex Therapy San Diego helps people find couples counseling in San Diego.

Its a vicious taboo cycle where talking about sex can make people uncomfortable, but talking about sexual problems makes them even more uncomfortable and admitting problems exist and seeking sex therapy to discuss sex and sex problems with a therapist is about the hardest or rather most difficult thing in the world for some people.

This afternoon I had the pleasure of doing something I've never done before.

It took a pressure washer to my new office and sprayed away all the duck crap.

See I had been away for a couple weeks working from my home and I had not been to the office.  While I was way the ducks went into my office and crapped all over the place, and I do mean this in a literal way actual ducks and actual duck crap!

Now as some of you may remember, I've been working on setting up a new office on a fishing dock in North Carolina.  So it's not all that unusual that the ducks were able to get into my office as it's completely open to the elements absent a roof.  The ducks can wander in at their leisure and there's not a lot I can do about it when I'm not there.  When I am there are security team comprised of a beagle and a basset hound and two other dogs are responsible for chasing the ducks off of my office floor.

I think in a future article I'm going to put together a quick tutorial on how to pressure wash your office clean from any duck crap.  I'm sure in the years to come there will be many more telecommuting professionals that have to overcome this challenge.

In my last article I mentioned that I've been traveling the day before. It was a local journey just across a couple different states, and are not sure if there are any state laws on the transportation of household pets, but the journeys over and that's that. Traveling from state to state is much different than traveling from country to country.

Our sponsors TravelSafe Insurance provide Travel Insurance for international travel. Travel insurance can be used for a number of different purposes including protecting your luggage should be lost, you can be reimbursed to buy new luggage and of course all of the items ago and that luggage. It also be used to protect your plane tickets. If your flight should be canceled or if you should have to cancel it due to a pending hurricane, the insurance can be utilized to recover the cost of your tickets and possibly help you get a new ticket out of the danger area or back to the danger area once the danger has past.

This afternoon my family and I hit the road in the minivan. 

We packed up the van with a bunch of stuff, the 3 kids, 3 dogs, 2 ferets and Ready the Chinchilla. 

Ready was in a bird cage that was inside a small dog carrier.  The ferest were loose in the dog carrier.  The dogs were loose in the van, and the kids were tied down in the back seat.

It was a long stinky ride.

Evan Almighty doesn't have anything on us.  In fact we luckily escaped the animals.  They didn't have anything on us either!

Years ago back during the first rise to power of the internet, I sought my Master's Degree from a law school in Miami.  I ended up getting a Master's in Laws from St Thomas University of Law and it was a very hard but good experience.

Back then there were very few complete online degree programs from 'real' accredited schools.  St Thomas University and my program were both accredited by the American Bar Association.  That was a rarity back then, in fact they were the first.

These days things are getting easier.  Our sponsors DirectoryOfSchools.com recently provided a release about their online degrees directory of over 1,300 schools and more than 9,000 degree programs that they list in their directory.  In the Internet 2.0 world, there are definitely many more choices.

We were pretty busy this weekend, but we weren't half as busy as our neighbors were.  They had a garage built this weekend, and the cul de sac was filled with contractor trucks and vans coming and going trying to get this garage up in just couple of days.

The weekend is now over and the garage is almost complete.  The roof of the garage has been paper, but it has not been shingled yet.  They have citing up, but the garage doors have been installed yet.  I'm sure there are a half-dozen Little things as well, but all in all, it looks fantastic.

We definitely did not mind the noise nor the traffic, as our neighbors investment is an investment that will help the whole neighborhood.  We have neighbors behind us, that get a little too touchy about noise issues.  They were probably greeting their teeth all weekend long, but that's their problem I don't understand how much it helps.

Truthfully, they would be better off if they had done something to improve their own house instead of complaining about the noise made by other people that are working to improve their own homes.

One of the things that I think we are going to before we list our own home for sale, is add some sort of fancy house marker, maybe will even install a brick or a stucco framed mailbox.  They seem to be rather popular in Georgia, and they do seem to help curb appeal.

Yesterday, we went for a walk in the neighborhood to view a home that had gone up for sale.  The floor plan of the house is similar to our home and the house sits on a cul de sac like our home also.

We were interested to take a look at it as it has recently been remodeled and we wanted to compare their remodelling effort to our own efforts that are still underway. 

Link to Homes for Sale in River Bridge, Lawrenceville, Georgia $210,000

Its a good price for the home, part of the reason why we were paying attention.  Most of the homes in our area price out in the $250 - $350 price range.  That's relatively average, possibly a little on the low side for Lawrenceville Georgia Real Estate.

I used to always have problems finding the right online coupons. I would shop online for something, usually a book or electroni device or a software program, and I'd get to the check out screen and then I almost get a slap in the face when they ask if I am "smart enough" to have a coupon code to get a discount.

Ughh, I'd kick myself for not having one and maybe do a quick Google search that always returned something slightly shady and always outdated. Fortunately, online stores do offer some trusted sites with access to good online coupon offers such as Coupon Chief. CouponChief has even recently put together some screencast videos to help walk you through the process on some of the larger online stores that sometimes obscure the area where you can input that code to save a big percentage.

So now when I'm making last minute travel arrangements through Expedia I can save a good chunk of change on the trip when I book. That always makes the flight a little easier and the hotel a little more relaxing.

This weekend I'm playing musical blogging chairs.  I'm moving my laptop and all my gear from place to place throughout my house from the deck to the kitchen to the downstairs to the upstairs to the loss to the library to living room and back again.  My wife Becky and her father are working on our house, they have been laying tile and remodeling one of our bathrooms.  All of these projects were in progress already they're trying to finish some of them up.  We'd started a few of them a few weeks back, and we ran out of time so they're trying to tidy things up.

I feel a little silly because I have to catch up on my blogging, and I'm launching several different campaigns to the LinkyLoveArmy this weekend, one of those campaigns is focused on building a website that will be selling the latest Harry Potter book.   It's titled Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  (Each time I say that title using my voice recognition software from Dragon NaturallySpeaking, I am always surprised when the program gets the were deathly hallows correct but substitutes the word Kerry for Harry.  Go figure?)

Regardless, Ryan Caldwell from performancing purchased a website sometime ago with the domain of http://harrypotterthedeathlyhallows.net he has been designing some great WordPress themes and offering them up on performancing.  One of those themes is a photo blog name which is excellent.

Anyway to make a long story short, he was looking for suggestions on what to do with the domain, and put them to the Performancing community where we put together a plan to involve the entire blogosphere to promote the book through this website.  Were hoping to sell a million books and share part of the proceeds to charity raising $1 million if we sell a million books.

Bloggers will receive a portion of the proceeds split between all the bloggers that participate. (see how to participate at the LinkyLoveArmy, drop me a comment or send me an email).  There is also a contest that will award to prizes of $500 each for the person that writes the most accurate (in facts) version of the ending of the final Harry Potter Book.  There are already some great contributions, which are definitely worth reading.

You can drop your submission in the form of a comment and there is a digg like feature that allows readers to vote on their favorites.

So maybe you can't make it to the beach right now, that's no reason not to build a sandcastle.  VirtualSandCastle.com has an easy touse little online program that enables you to create your own Sandcastles online.

I tried it myself and it only took a couple minutes.  Once you create your sand castle, you can send it as an ecard.

I built Castle SandVania, which you can see I have embedded below.  It only took me a couple dozen mouse clicks.  :)

I also put together a little video of this effort, which I will share separately as soon as I can get the video uploaded and approved by Revver.

In the meantime if you are preparing to travel to the beach this might be something to entertain your kids before you leave.   The graphics in this program are very fast and pretty easy and intuitive to use.

Maybe the best thing about building a sandcastle online is the fact that you won't get any sand or grit in your keyboard or mouse wheel!

I get lost in photoshop and many other photo programs in about 30 seconds, but I was able to build this on my first try without really making any mistakes at all.  I even put in the sea gulls and crabs and the sea gull with a crab.

I have been having fun writing fiction the last couple of days.  I'm trying to get warmed up for a blogger contest to write the best and most accurate ending to the Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

I've been doing quite bit of copywriting lately and a good deal more technical writing and so it's kind of funny get back to little more fiction in my life.

Two days ago I started writing the pilot and the cartoon, and then I wrote a little comedy to a company that cartoon.  Today I kicked off the opening chapter of a spy novel and I'm not sure what I am going to do next but it has been fun.

We are moving this summer and using a different corporate relocatin specialist than we have in the past.  We are using ourselves!

The last two times we moved we were assisted by GMAC.  They helped to coordinate the move, pack up our stuff, find us corporate housing and a real estate broker.  The first time we worked with them, the move went great but the house hunt went terrible.

We were referred to a very bad realtor.(not a GMAC realtor some local home grown variety in Boynton Beach.)

The second move was much better.  The move went very smoothly and this time we dumped the realtor we were referred to(again not a GMAC realtor) and found our own realtor.  We also found our house within a week! 

It's summertime and many people are starting to take to the outdoors .  When it's beautiful outside many people don't like the cooped up inside.  Plus a lot of people are stuck inside all week long while their work to get home on the weekends they want to enjoy the fun in the sun.

In my strange way of juxtaposing problems, I realize that people also like to play poker during the wintertime.  But you don't hear too much about people playing poker in the summertime.

It struck me that you also don't hear too much about people playing poker outdoors.  It might have a poker game by your campaign or something like that, but typically doesn't happen.  Part of this is due to the wind.

Can you imagine a world series of poker tournament played outside and all of a sudden a nice little bit of wind blows up and blows all the cards of table!

There's essentially two problems here.

The cards and the poker table. 

You can find some beautiful poker tables for your game room, but you won't find too many poker tables for your deck or your fishing dock.

Finding cards that are waterproof and wind resistant are also a problem.  Card needs to be heavy enough so that won't be blown around, yet it needs to be light and flexible enough so it feels like a card, and most importantly so that you can shuffle it or at least put it through a shuffling machine capable of shuffling it.

If scientists could figure that out, you might even see some skydivers playing poker, and that's really what the world needs a world series of poker skydiving championship!

I had to go chase Devil Dog again tonight.  Last time I chased devil dog, I referred to devil dog as 'sausage dog'.  Sausage Devil is not a bad dog, he just prefers to remain at a minimum safe distance from all humans, ten feet.

He also likes to tease people.  He continually attempted to tease me with his tennis ball.  The other dogs are easy to deal with as they are very practical lab pooches.

devil sausage dog is not practical, just vindictive.  I chased after him for about 45 minutes with no luck.  Finally, my wife came over to check on things and see if devil sausage had eaten me or something.

I was OK, no worse for the wear.  I had managed to caputre devil sausage's tennis ball and almost captured him when he attempted to get his tennis ball back, but at the last minute he decided that freedom was worth more than a slobbery tennis ball and abandonded his tennis ball and resumed his taunt.

When my wife arrived he continued to run for another 10 minutes, but eventually ran up the stairs of the deck to see who was there and then we were able to corner him on the deck and it was all over.

Now I hold no ill will against devil sausage dog.  I'd sacrifice hundreds of tennis balls for my own freedom.  He is annoying but you can't hold his nature against him.  The only problem is that I have to capture him and get him inside.  He likes to bark non-stop when people are not around for him to taunt.

This gets him into trouble with animal control and increases his risk of premature capital punishment.  SO I have to capture him as part of my dogsitting duty.  They may offer up child life insurance for kids but they don't really offer up dog life insurance and anyway, life insurance doesn't do a dog or a person any good when it comes to evading excessive dog barking capital punishment measures.

So my neighbors have been

out of town for the last few days on vacation.  They're returning tomorrow I think and while they have been gone we've been watching their dogs.

As I mentioned in my last post I think, they have three dogs.  (By the way that last post was written from my Treo, which might explain why it looks so peculiar)

So they've been at the beach and we've been watching their dogs.  I need to get to the beach for so sometime soon, I could really benefit from some time on the beach and some time in the water.

Our sponsor, The Beach Club in Hallandale Beach recently provided a press release describing their new luxurious condominiums within their sky rises on the beach in South Florida.  They offer a very luxury us condominiums, typically European styled with extremely elaborate upgrades.

Their high-rises set on nine acres in between the intercoastal the Atlantic ocean. Based on my experience living in South Florida in the past, your choice of positioning your condominium on the Atlantic side versus the intercoastal side should really depend on whether or not you like to wake up at the crack of dawn or sleep in.

If you like to get up early, sleep on the Atlantic side where the sun will come into your massive windows and wake you up every morning.  If you like to sleep then, get a condo on the intercoastal side and sleep till noon!

We are watching our neighbor's dogs this week. They have three. One is a little dim and runs away when you call him.

Right now I'm trying to get him to come in the house because a lightning storm is coming.

No Luck with that. So I'm standing inside there house with my beagle trying to lure him to safety.

No luck with that either.

Then I let my beagle run to him. She does come when you call. The yard is fenced so they aren't going to get lost, its more about getting zapped.

So I'm in & they are both outside sniffing around. Finally, it starts to sprinkle and Bleu, my beagle wanders in, but the other dog persists in staying out.

Nothing entices him, food, water, toys, leash.

Now he's just inside door. I want to shut it, but then he will run back out.

Finally, I try and give my dog his food. He comes in a little further I run out the other way through a circle of rooms (living room, den, back to kitchen!) slam door shut & I've got him!

But there's a down poor outside so Bleu & I are going to get drenched walking home.

Fighting an addiction is extremely difficult and something typically frowned upon by society. To restate that, society doesn't frown on fighting addiction, but they frown on addiction itself. That stigma makes it difficult for people to come forward that have a problem and need help.

Its even harder for people to continue with that help if they have a difficult time connecting with the people, facilitators, counselors or medical staff trying to help them. Our sponsors at narconon work very hard to make people fighting addiction comfortable and feel accepted so that they can clear their minds of the social issues and focus first on fighting their addiction at a chemical level and at a personal mental level. These things have to be tackled in a balanced way to prepare a person for later going back out into the world to continue the fight under the regular day to day pressures that the world can present.

Its very important to pay attention to your sleeping conditions to insure that you get a good restful night of sleep.  We here about the need for a good night of sleep, the type of bed, the temperature, the room, the level of ambient noise, humidity, firmness of matress, number of dogs on the bed in winter, sleeping during the day, how dark or light the room is and on and on.

I find it fairly easy to sleep in many conditions.  I sleep deepest and best in a room as dark as a cave with lots of blankets and a slightly cool temperature that encourages me to huddle under the blankets like I'm in a cocoon. 

The problem with this situation is that I sleep like I'm in a cocoon, like I'm hybernating and not going to emerge until spring.

Well its almost summertime (about 10 more days or so) and its long past time to wake up out of hybernation!

Seriously, these conditions are great for deep sleep, but terrible for me if I need to wake up on time.  If I need to wake up on time, I need to sleep in a room that has lots of natural light coming in.  The room temperature needs to be a little on the warm side (about seventy five degrees).  This discourages me from hiding under the covers to stay warm and encourages me to get up without having to worry about being subconciously cold.

My subconcious is a big cold wimp!

So for example, my bedroom gets very dark.  I sleep great there.  But even in the morning its pretty dark.  I have a propensity to over sleep because it stays dark unless the lights are on.

So if I want to get up early, I sometimes sleep on the couch in the living room.  That room gets flooded with light in the morning and the discomfort of the couch combined with the extra light encourages me to wake up and to get up so that my back won't ache from sleeping on the couch!

Now that I'm past my writer's block I would like to share something personal about myself with you.

I'm cheap.

I said it that makes me feel a lot better.  :-)

When I go on vacation I don't like to spend a lot of money on things, I do like to have a good time and I don't like to worry about stuff.  I like to vacation in place where I can be carefree and not have to worry about money.

There are some places where this is difficult.  If you travel to Orlando, Florida, there are some great places to go and some great things to do, but they all cost money.  Now I'm not against having a good time and spending money to have a good time, but I prefer to take care of that up front so that when I get there I just can have fun.

Our sponsor Orlandofuntickets.com, provides Cheap Universal Studios Tickets.  There are three great things about this type of service. 

1. The tickets are cheap.
2. Once you pay for the tickets you don't have to worry about the price anymore, so you can just have fun.
3. If you do think about the tickets, referred to Number .1

They recently provided a press release about their services and the money that you can save if you visit Orlando, Florida.  They can help you with any of the major theme parks from Universal Studios, to Disney to Sea World, you go to dinner shows or Busch Gardens and even the Blizzard Beach Water Park. 

Wow!  I have been suffering from a major case of writer's block today.  It's been downright ridiculous.  It's kind of been one thing after the next today that's kept me a little bit off the edge.

I went to sleep a little late, I woke up a little too early.

I was catching up on the bills after being on vacation, I got stuck on hold for 35 minutes with Bank of America when they could not get their own representatives to answer a phone call on an inter-department transfer. 

It was really kind of sad, I was talking to one person from Bank of America, and they were trying to call the right department talk to a person in that department to get an answer.  That department was supposed to be working today, but they couldn't get them on the phone. 

So they called another person and their own department to see if they could call the department that wouldn't answer the phone, and surprise surprise, they couldn't get them on the phone either.

Hold-time can definitely kick off writers block.

Then it was just little things, lots of little things kept popping up to give me an excuse not to write.  Don't get me wrong I wrote her for articles today but they were all mediocre at best.  All these little things kept happening to pull me away from a computer, or distract me.  Things like eating breakfast and eating lunch and then eating dinner. 

Adventures in Mowing

Mowing the grass and teaching my son how to mow the grass, that was actually rather touching in an odd fatherly sort of way.  I even took a short little video of it, as he was pushing a lawnmower. 

This was his second attempt at mowing the grass and he still can't quite keep a lot more going straight in a line.  He was doing better and he didn't break the lawnmower this time like he did last time.  Last time, he accidentally ran over a steel wheel that was laying in the grass of my neighbors yard.  He was swerving really bad that time and swerved into my neighbors yard and ran over this object laying in the grass that he couldn't see.  So all things considered he did pretty good today.

To make matters worse I was listening to a new book, actually I was about halfway done with the book and I was trying to finish it just to get it out of the way.  When I'm reading a book it's sometimes difficult to write. 

Writing as much in volume as I read

The weird thing is, I sometimes feel like I can only write as many words as I've read.  I don't mean that I'm plagiarizing or copying words, I mean there's some sort of strange digestion of knowledge or information or stories, I chew up words and then I'm able to re-create my own words.  But if I'm running low on thoughts or ideas, my own imagination sometimes stalls out.  Sometimes the books that I read don't even have anything to do with the topics that I'm writing about.  In fact they're usually just the opposite.

If I'm reading something really dole or dry like international tax law, or ancient Roman trust law, or a Dutch variation on trust law, then I'll probably take a break and write something really creative that has absolutely nothing to do with Dutch Roman trust law.  If I'm reading something funny, then I'm probably going to write some rather dry and serious words.

Head Game Writing

So tonight it's about a quarter till two in the morning, and I don't feel like I've accomplished much writing today.  I kicked ass yesterday, and I kicked major ass the day before that.  I really wanted to kick ass again today, but things just kind of conspired against me, in my own head at least.  That's the thing about writing is truly a head game.  You're going toe to toe with your own brain and sometimes your brain wins and other times your brain wins.

Left Side v Right Side - Battle of the Brain

Today my brain won, the problem is my brain apparently didn't want to win at writing a whole bunch.  I visualized it I was in the zone to do it, my brain seemed to be in gear, but I kept slipping the clutch.

I tried a number of great tricks that normally help me beat writers block.  It took a break, I ate some food, I watched a movie, I jogged 2 miles, I walked the dogs a mile, I mowed the grass, I've played with the kids, I read a book, I cook some food, I watch the daily show, I paid some bills and the list goes on.  All those things to fight writers block ended up blocking a lot of writing.

Now, I'm doing something else to break writers block, I'm writing.  As you can probably tell by now this is just a free flow dialogue.  There is no purpose, I'm just rambling about the day about my thoughts and about writers block.

Business Work

I did several other things today, I worked on organizing some new missions for the link below Army, I did write several comments on a number of different blogs which kind of falls into marketing when you're a blogger.  The thing is, when I write a lot comments I start to feel guilty that I'm not writing on my own blog.

Damn Forums

Then there's the damn forums.  I do enjoy talking to people and forums, but I find that when I do this it rapidly leads to writers block.  I need the interaction, it's good for my thoughts and it's good for keeping in touch with people and stay on top of trends and a dozen other things.  It's also very distracting when you're supposed to be writing.

Fighting Forum Spam

Then I went into my own forums on the LinkyLoveArmy, and I cleaned out the spam.  The spam on that forum is driving me nuts.  What I'm not being bombarded with ads for drugs, people are posting porn on the forum.  I'm about ready to shut the form down and move all the content somewhere else.

Chef Boyardee Trolls

I did come up with an idea for a nice little short story or possibly a children's book.  My four-year-old daughter tends to inspire some great little books and ideas.  When she asks me a question about anything under the sun, I always try to give her a good answer.  Sometimes I get a little silly and make up a crazy story as an answer.  Then later I tell her the right answer shortly after she's learned that daddy was just being silly.

Today I came up with the idea of the Chef Boyardee ravioli troll.  Not too many people realize that there's trolls living in the bottom of Chef Boyardee cans.  You'll be a little on my short story on Amazon.com very soon.  I'll send you the details and maybe I'll have my daughter created an illustration for the book cover.

Dragon Tune Up

After a couple weeks of writing with Dragon NaturallySpeaking, I typically have to give it a tune up.  I don't know why but the accuracy starts to decrease instead of increase.  I'm making corrections and adding to the vocabulary all the time, but eventually I need to go in and do a dragon sanctioned training session.

These sessions take about 30 minutes and they're not a whole lot of fun.  Worse yet I'm basically dictating someone else's writing so that my computer can learn what it is that I'm saying.  The problem with this scenario is that I'm not writing, and my writer's block therefore gets worse.

This time I think I'm going to run the screen recorder during my training session to show people interested in Dragon NaturallySpeaking with these training sessions look like.  It's not going to be terribly entertaining, but it will give them a good idea and I doubt anyone will watch the whole thing all the way through.

Behind on my pictures

When I was on vacation last week I forgot to take the battery charger for my camera.  For no good reason, that meant that I didn't upload the pictures from my camera to my computer.  There is no good reason for not uploading the pictures.  I don't need a battery charger to upload pictures.  My laptop has a built-in flash card reader.

Apparently I had photographers block or some stupid thing and I just kept taking pictures until the battery went dead but I didn't do anything with them.  For me this is bad, because I tend to take a lot of pictures.  And if I don't do something with them right away, then I'll have a lot of work to do once I finally start to clean out my camera.

That's a big pain, but I do have some good and important pictures.

Packing for the Move

I need to get cracking on a number of House projects, that were put on hold when we went on vacation last week.  Any delay about 125 ft.² of tile and I have to paint some rooms.  I have a number of other things to do as well.

My wife started packing a little bit today, she started with pictures and then she moved into some of the desks.  She got extremely pissed off at me when she found copies of receipts to the Morton public Library in Illinois.  We lived in Morton in 1996, and I still went to the library until 2000.  Regardless that was at least seven years ago.

Book Receipts from the Library from 1999

I kept all of the receipts for the books that I checked out, because I read too many books and I can't always remember which ones I've read.  Back then I'd keep the receipts until I had a chance to enter the titles and authors of the books into my PDA.  But I developed a backlog of receipts and my PDA died and so I just kept the receipts.

These days I'm a blogger and one of my blogs is about the books I read.  So it's my intention to go back and write book reviews on all those books that I read based on the receipts.  The thing is I remember the stories I remember the details, I just need help remembering the authors and the titles of the books.

I live the stories in my mind as I listen or read them.  I don't forget those details, but I only look at the covers a couple of times.  So I don't always remember the author's names nor the oddball titles of the book.

My wife thinks I'm a pack rat.  I am a packrat.  But there is a reason why in keeping those receipts and as soon as I've done something useful with them, and all burn them in the fireplace and they will be transformed into mulch in the backyard.

Anyone that follows my blog knows that I tend to take a break and fantasize about my past Hawaii vacation from several years back. It was a great vacation. As I've mentioned before the memory that sticks out the most about the vacation probably, was sleeping and a beach house recovering from jet lag while the Pacific breezes blew into a sliding glass door across my bed. As I recall I wasn't covered up I was probably just wearing shorts and just laying there enjoying the breeze while I slept off jet lag.

That was one of the most relaxed and ng sleeps (is that a noun?) that I've ever had.
I didn't know it at the time, but I was experiencing what would later become a new trend. Maybe to put it better it's a trend reinvented. People are not staying in hotels as much as they used to and are starting to opt for beach villas or beach houses. That's what I did and it proved to be a great experience. The house was literally right on the beach. We walked out the front door to go to the store get groceries we walked out the back door to go the Pacific Ocean and play in the water.

I'm from the Midwest and it's difficult to conceive of living on the ocean. But I can definitely enjoy a vacation in a beach front rental with a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean and South seas sunsets (technically it's not the South seas, but like I said I'm from the Midwest).

Next time I visit Hawaii I'm going to do the same thing, and I'm starting to pick out the place where I'm going to say next. Been reviewing some of the scenery on Maui waiting and I think I'm going to shoot for reserving a Wailea beachfront condo. To someone from the Midwest that might sound like a song out of Lion King, but when I look at these pictures and writing back to my memories of my past trip to Hawaii, I can into it that it really means paradise.

I'm back home!

I got to sleep in my own bed last night after being gone for what seems like two or three weeks. My back has never been happier!

I had a great time visiting family, meeting my new nephew, and doing a dozen other things. I've got lots of new things to share with everyone, for my adventures with genealogy to pictures of my new and future home office and much much more.

After the drive home last night I mostly recuperated and caught up on a few small little things like e-mail and what have you, doing some light cleanup on the house just so that we could fit back in again. This morning I woke up early and I've been going at full speed.

My wife is too. She's done teaching for the year and has the summer off. Lucky her! Seriously short very hard and deserves the time off.

Unfortunately were not get much of a break in her vacation is and I feel like much of a vacation. We have to pack up the house and move. We have to do is getting our house ready to list on the market, and a dozen other things.

Right now she's outrunning several different errands including making some deposits at the bank, taking the girls to the doctor to check on their latest ear infections, swinging by the store for some groceries since our refrigerator is empty and about five other things I've forgotten.

We have to do a ton of things before we move like eating and final doctors appointments and having records transferred to new doctors and a bunch of other stuff. Little things like getting haircuts are teeth cleaned one more time before we move in have to find a new dentist. Maybe even a couple visits to the eye doctor for checkups and I don't know what else, lots more.

I recently purchased a brand-new laptop computer. One of the first things that you have to do when you get a new laptop computer or any computer for that matter is get all of your old software installed and set up on your new computer.

That takes a lot of time and on occasion you might miss something.

About a month ago I miss something very vital. I forgot to install Spy Sweeper on my new laptop. That was a critical mistake.

Initially, I had rushed to install all of the software that I was using that day and you don't always think about the software that runs in the background or on a scheduled basis that can literally keep you in business.

About three weeks ago, my luck ran out and my computer seized up with a very peculiar problem. Spyware had infected my computer and it crashed but not in the typical way.

I kept getting errors on many different applications. Whenever I receive these errors, I would get a pop up window to send the information about the error to Microsoft.

Now, I like to help development along and hopefully help Microsoft make a better mousetrap so I won't curse at them so much.

So, I hit send. It appeared that the message would transmit successfully to Microsoft, but it got Stuck! ...

This was strange because usually these error reporting things work pretty smoothly. To make matters worse it locked up the rest of the computer and I couldn't do anything else with the computer.

I had to perform a hard boot on the computer and start all over again with the errors popping back up.

Restore it?  - Not so fast 

So I thought to myself, I would simply restore the computer to an earlier date when it didn't have a problem.

If only it had been that easy!

The same spyware that had screwed up my computer, also screwed up the restore program on my computer. I couldn't run the restore program! 

Uh Oh, Time to Panic, almost. 

Again the window to send an error message to Microsoft popped up, and if I clicked it, everything locked up.

The Fix

Long story short, I eventually learned that I couldn't hit send and I was eventually able to restore the computer install a spy sweeper program and get my machine cleaned up.

The bad thing about this is that I lost a good half day at work fooling around chasing after spyware and the stupid errors.

I was lucky. I was just reading the other day about a substitute school teacher that was convicted for showing pornography to minors. Experts did not learn that her laptop had been infected with spyware until after she had been convicted.

This nasty spyware program took over her computer at the worst possible moment and made hundreds of pop up porn web images show up on her computer in front of her classroom of seventh grade students.

Her conviction was eventually overturned, but she lost four years of her life fighting the legal battles and almost went to prison for 40 years. I was lucky I only lost six hours!

Now if I had been smart enough to install Spy Sweeper on my computer as the first program that went on, I wouldn't have lost six hours. If that substitute teacher had installed the program, she wouldn't have lost four years and a lot of money.

It's just like taking your vitamins, you need to defend your computer system just like you would defend your body trying to keep it healthy and running smoothly. Spy Sweeper basically does that for you. It's not an antivirus program it's an anti-spyware program. Unfortunately  spyware and virus program sometimes go hand in hand and sometimes spyware programs fill up your machine with so much junk that it just doesn't run anymore.

Not to mention, spyware can often provide hackers and criminal types information that you don't want them to have about you, your family, your business or your job or your work or your products or dozen other things.

All of this can be solved with a simple $20 program, Spy Sweeper.  Don't make the mistake I made and wait to long or take it for granted.

Today, we're going to pack up our things and head back to our house in Georgia. My wife has had a number of successful interviews here in Gaston County North Carolina, and were heading back home to work on small projects before we come back.

We need to start packing some more of our household items. Plus we have a number of home improvement projects that we have to keep working on before we can muster home for sale.

Of course there's lots of work for me to do as well, over the last few days I've caught up on most of my writing, and now I need to switch back over into my web development work and get caught up there as well. Over the last couple of weeks we've blogged about 40 hours of driving and we only have three more hours to go before we get to relax at home for a week or two.

I can't wait to sleep in my own bed!

These days almost everybody and their brother has a digital camera, possibly two.  When you put on a wedding though you want to make sure that all the favorite moments can be captured in film or at least in a digital file.

Now odds are some of your relatives and possibly some of your friends have missed the digital camera revolution, and so it's very common to go to a wedding and find wedding cameras sitting on each of the tables.  The general idea is that anyone can pick up a camera and snap a shot of a memorable moments.

After the reception is over and the dinner is done someone collects all the cameras and sends them to be developed or converted into digital files so that all those great drunken shots, pictures not the actual shots, can be shared with family and friends for years to come.

Our sponsor shopforweddings.com offers these wedding cameras and many other items and gifts that can help you put on a good wedding production as they have described in their latest release.

And probably comes as no surprise to anyone Paris Hilton was from a clink today.  She served a whopping three days and got credit for five an actual prison.  Now she gets to go home to opulent conditions and live with a bracelet around her legs for 40 more days.

Apparently jail was tough on Paris during those three days and she cried a lot, so they decided to let her go early.

If you can do the crime you have to do the time unless your crybaby, that should be the new motto for the LA County prison system.

Now I'm sure that they were wasting huge amount of money, taxpayer's money to keep Paris Hilton safe and secure so that they wouldn't have some sensational story to screw with the LA County reputation for us it is.  I'm sure it was much more cost-effective to send her home with the ankle bracelet on her on house arrest.

Still it makes for lousy example of how unfair the legal system is in the United States especially in Los Angeles.  Unfortunately for Paris Justice has a way of coming around like a wheel and I suspect that LA County did not actually do her a favor.  Paris probably missed the chance she needed to receive a wake-up call in to probably end up overdosing or performing some other self-destructive act which will bring her life to a premature close.  At that time society will miss an opportunity to reform a very screwed up person.

Now she probably be able to take on a rebel without a clue or cause persona in milk this for all the publicity and money that it's worth, not that she really needs it, but her new publicist is probably already ending up the royalties on this made-for-TV drama.

The Police are back!

It may not be too hard to find a best of Police CD, but you are not going to find a definitive police cd like this marking the come back of this great band.

This definitive collection of music from The Police offers up 28 tracks on two CD's.

The Police CD Track Listings

Disc: 1
1. Fallout
2. Can't Stand Losing You
3. Next to You
4. Roxanne
5. Truth Hits Everybody
6. Hole in My Life
7. So Lonely
8. Message in a Bottle
9. Reggatta de Blanc
10. Bring on the Night
11. Walking on the Moon
12. Don't Stand So Close to Me
13. Driven to Tears
14. Canary in a Coalmine
Disc: 2
1. Do Do Do de da da Da
2. Voices Inside My Head
3. Invisible Sun
4. Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
5. Spirits in the Material World
6. Demolition Man
7. Every Breath You Take
8. Synchronicity I
9. Wrapped Around Your Finger
10. Walking in Your Footsteps
11. Synchronicity II
12. King of Pain
13. Murder by Numbers
14. Tea in the Sahara

This has got to be the police cd to own even if you don't buy any other.

I have been a fan of the police since they started.  I didn't lament their break up, as Sting kept on putting out great music and they seemed to smart despite their egos to stay broken up forever.

The only downside to the break up is that they missed a lot of great opportunities to keep collaborating and making great music together.  I'm not one to hold a grudge and I will take what I can get, especially when great music is involved.

I've been working on a new novel the last couple of weeks in my spare time. I've done this a few times before and Dole was wrote something just write it.

This time I've kind of had a bit of of vision if you will of an entire story or novel and so I'm basically racing to fill in all the pieces in the gaps for something that in my head is already complete. I've never had that type of experience before but it seems to be working pretty well this time and it definitely helps to have an entire vision of how the book is going to unfold. All I have to do is basically talk about and write about my vision and then edit and polish it up.

I don't think I'm going to blog this book this time I'm going to take a different approach and attempt to publish it through Lulu and possibly through audible.com. I'll either use myself as the voice artist or I'll find a friend of mine to do the voice work for me. I know several professional voiceover people that have been working in the medium for many many years and they would definitely do very well on this book. It's nice to have a side project like this and something to fill in the time and deftly enjoyed this one so I must be doing something right.

It never fails that when it comes time to write up a resume or print off resumes you never have enough of the right paper.  I always have seven sheets of one type left, 10 sheets of another, three of a third, 15 of a fourth and a few curled copies of some really great stuff that you can't find anymore.

Office supplies are often like that you will always need more; you never have enough. It's very difficult to run yourself out of office supplies exhausting them all the way down, especially if you are attempting to keep everything uniform and looking good. Standards and paper stock and envelopes and labels and everything else changes from time to time or from brand to brand or even from manufacturer to manufacturer.

This makes it very difficult keep your office supplies organized because you are always dealing with odds and ends until eventually, you have got to throw those odds and ends out because you know or finally realize that ou will never used them.

The Crayon Factor

Now if you have kids odds are you can finally use those odds and ends by just giving them scrap paper. Sure they'll be very impressed by the threadcount or the stock of the paper as they use their crayons, colored pencils and markers to draw stick figures, but at least you're getting your use out of your office supplies!

I just thought I would share something that's a little surreal to me, I have a cubicle mate at the dock. In fact I have a whole office staffed with ducks and dogs and in lots of different critters.

I am blogging by the lake and watching my kids feed the ducks cornmeal. I'm sitting at a bar on a fish doc with my dog laying on the dock at my feet below and if this is a paradise I don't know what it is.

Well I've got to go to duck got spooked and flew into the side of the boat House and the kids are little worried about its beak . . .

In about two weeks I'm hoping to set up a booth a local job fair in the Charlotte area. I'm hoping to provide people looking for jobs with an additional way to market themselves as well as earn some money while they're doing it.

For anyone that reads this blog you probably know I'm talking about teaching people how to blog.

That's exactly what I'm going to do. The booth only cost $20 which isn't that much, but I do need to be prepared for the resumes and other information I'll receive from people that attend so I can follow up after the fact.

I plan to do a lot of these follow-ups using e-mail but in some regards a probably use snail mail as well. I don't have a lot of experience working with this and fortunately I do have a sponsor that is very experienced in the area.

Our sponsor Martin Worldwide recently provided a press release describing one of their groundbreaking products called ResponseCom. They utilize a blend of consumer databases from the United States. These are multidimensional database is otherwise known as data cubes or data warehouses and they offer an extreme amount of versatility as it enable the company to put together demographics with addresses and other vital statistics from multiple sources of information.

Basically companies have been accumulating information on consumers for many many years but recently cheap OLAP and data queue technologies are making it possible for them to put all that information together and do something extra useful with it. I'm not going to be contributing to the database but I am going to need access to that type of technology if I am to successfully weed through the potential applicants and people that might be interested in the services that I offer as are looking to help make a little extra money working as a contractor.

With that information I will be empowered with enough details to competently invest money running campaigns with Mailing Lists. Many people attempt to send out advertising campaigns through a mailing list utilize a shotgun approach basically sending out literature or paperwork blindly hoping that somebody might notice it or respond to it before they throw it into the circular file. But if you do your homework well enough beforehand and utilize strong database technology you can minimize the number of people that will file your advertising campaign in the trash.

I'm back from my trip to Illinois, and I am temporarily testing out my new office. We haven't moved yet but we will soon and we've been working to set up the office at the new location. We're moving into a house on the lake and we are moving in with relatives when we do this before we purchased our own house in the area. So were attempting to fit two families and to one home.

The parts not such a big deal at establishing a home office in that environment is a bit tricky. Last night I set up a wireless system for the house in a way that allows me to work anywhere in the house as well as on the fishing dock. The fishing dock has roof over top of it and a fan blowing in lights electricity and much more. Plus it's got an excellent view!

In fact I'm working from the fishing dock right now this afternoon. I basically sitting in the shade with a nice breeze blowing in and the fan going just for a little extra cool. I've got some pictures to share but I haven't had a chance to upload them yet as I'm still unpacking from the last trip, but I will share with you some of the details of the new office and how it was taken apart and how the new office is being put back together.

Among other things the new office will enable me to run a number of training sessions with new bloggers are just getting into the genre of blogging. I'm hoping to host several different best practice blogging events here at the lake this summer and next fall.

We've spent the last few days in Illinois and we are planning to drive back this evening.  Its been a great trip so far. 

I spent a lot of time with my kids and family.  I also had time to spend in the woods where I grew up, which always recharges and motivates me.  I learned a few things about my ancestors and had a good time overall.

My son purchased his first electric scooter with his birthday money, inspired by his uncle Troy who had purchased an electric scooter at a garage sale that didn't work.  He rebuilt it and my son had soo much fun on it that he wanted one for himself.  That was a bit of a relief for us as he previously wanted a remote control boat/plane that had terrible reviews.  We were afraide he'd buy the plane and it wouldn't work for more than 10 minutes and his birthday money would be wasted.

My father and I replaced the bearings on the back of my minivan which were definitely in need of being replaced, and we replaced all the brakes while we were at it.

This was good, because I finally learned how to do rear brakes and I'll be able to do them myself again in the future saving me hundreds of dollars.

All in all it was a great trip.  I didn't get to everything I meant to do, but I never do.  That's OK, we plan for a lot and do as much as possible and save some for next time.

Next time, I hope to do some more work on my ancestors.  I learned that one of my great great grandfathers actually heard Abraham Lincoln speak in Springfield Illinois.  That great great grandfather was very influential on my own grandfather and so I gained a new perspective of a connection with both of them.

I am a little bit enthralled with a new video news service, The News Room. They provide a way for bloggers and web publishers to earn more money from their websites.

Check out this video about the proposed Harry Potter theme park in Florida

The NewsRoom video can strengthen your website instead of cluttering it with more advertising.  They provide relative news feed videos that you can embed on your website or blog.  Advertising mashed into the news, just like its mashed into the news on CNN for example, is played during the news video.

Bloggers and Publishers can earn anywhere from $1 - $4 CPM (Cost Per thousand unique viewers of the video).  So if you provide one of their mashed videos on your blog or website and its viewed 3400 times and the pay rate is $3 CPM, then you would earn $3 x 3400 / 1000 = $3 x 3.4 = $10.20.

Its easy to embed the videos, you can monetize your blog with good content that has relevant advertising and there are several other benefits as well.

This is a great example of how the web can be used to provide some synergy from one site and source of content to the next!

I definitely intend to incorporate this on several of my less personal and more newsy sites.  From Gridlock on Rye and Gridlock News to Top10Tech and HollwoodMoviesUSA.  Plus, I may also utilize the political news feature on my site NoMoreIncumbents.org.

I haven't been running for over a week. As I am waking up this morning, I am going to fix that by taking my son for a nice long run through the neighborhoods I grew up in.

If we have the energy, we might even hit some of the wood trails and jog through the hills and valley. Regardless, I need the run as I have eaten a ton of food in the last 10 days and I gained an extra 6 pounds that is not doing me any good.

A long run won't shed the pounds, but for me it curbs my snacking appetite and it also speeds up my metabolism.

I am due to have a new run of business cards printed up.  I'm not terribly great at developing cool business cards.  I do come up with some good ideas for them, but my Photoshop skills are deplorable and my execution never lives up to my conceptualization.

Regardless in the business world it is often important to have a business card that sticks out.  Now if you are running a company, you need cards that stick out for you and for the employees.  The card is something that helps brand your company and for your employees, you want them to stand out so they will get the time and attention they either deserve or that they need for your company to become, and stay successful.

I spent a good deal of time on graphic art for my most recent business venture at the LinkyLoveArmy and now as I am preparing to start ordering our first batches of cards, I'm not as worried about how difficult the cards will be.  The logo will help carry the day this time around.

When my great great grandfather came to the United States he didn't need a lawyer to travel from Germany to Illinois.  When my 13th great grandfather came to the colonies on the Mayflower, he didn't need an attorney either, but times change.

Immigration is much more complicated these days.  According to a recent press release by LawyerShop.ca, People entering Vancouver need to consider retaining immigration lawyers vancouver.  Not only is the paperwork more complex, but its is much more important these days to apply for the right type of visa, get the right ID and documents established so that an immigrant can find good work.

In the United States many people immigrate illegally.  Since they are not operating within the law, they are often victimized at every turn.  Coyotes victimize them and even enslave them to work off unreasonable debts.  They often times become affraid of deportation and do not seek out medical help when they need it.  They often times do not get paid the same amount of money as a person that is here legally.  They are hiding from the law and don't always get the benefits of the law.  These are just some of the reasons why its important to get the best help money can buy to make a good clean solid start in a new country whether you are immigrating from Germany to Illinois or Asia to Vancouver.

Tomorrow I have a long list of things to accomplish.  I want to take my kids hiking in the woods, hills and creeks that I grew up hiking in. 

I might even take my son to the Metamora Court House (my home town) where Abraham Lincoln used to practice law as a travelling attorney.  Then I hope to do some more research at Springdale Cemetary in Peoria, which is one of the oldest cemetaries in the Midwest.  My great grandfather and his father are buried there in a special veterans section, and I believe several of my other relatives may be there as well.

I'm trying to track down the Osler and Speck threads of the family tree.  Oh and in addition to the kids, I plan on spending some time with the dogs who got lonely today and chewed up some Roach motels for fun.

Our sponsor A&L known as Alliance-Leicester in the United Kingdom was recently awarded the Best Current Account Provider for 2006.  We would like to congratulate them on their hard work and achievement and we look forward to their continued hard work to attempt to repeate the effort and win again in 2007.

Establishing a Bank Accounts is sometimes very mundane, but it can be very important especially if you consider how miserable life can be if you pick a bank or partner that doesn't helpl you stay on top of things, keeping your finances in order or providing services that match up to your lifestyle.

A bank account that does not work for you is almost as bad as having a car broken down in the front yard or garage.  In fact it is probably worse.  A broken down car is an eye sore, but a broken down bank account can ultimately get you into a great deal of trouble.  At a minimum it will cause you a lot of work and effort.  Both can cost a lot of money to fix, but if you go with a bank account from a bank that has a solid reputation and long track record of success then your odds of having to deal with trouble are greatly reduced.

Earlier today I experimented with my blog in a new way.  I blogged a little bit using my Treo.

Its not ideally suited towards blogging since I have to type with my thumbs, but I was able to provide a couple posts that were relatively short and possibly, honestly a little abrupt.

Needless to say I won't be writing a novel with my treo and my thumbs, but it did work to get a couple diary like posts onto my blog here and then later here.

I am a strong proponent of online learning.  Our sponsors at Capella University provide online education and their latest press release highlights a book by Sara Oren describing the results of some of her studies on motivating people through ideologies.

I believe that online learning will evolve from the two dimensional web page world into virtual reality worlds like those found in second life.  In future virtual worlds we will be able to interact with both our teachers and tutors but also with other students from all around the world in live learning environments running twenty four hours a day.

Online learning is excellent but when you get stuck, you have to find a fix for yourself.  Sometimes if you can't do that, you waste a lot of time being stuck for several days.  In a virtual world you might be able to get help from anyone else in the virutal community and learn faster togeher.

This (or “the following”) blog post was (or “is”) based on information provided by Blogitive. For more information, please visit Blogitive.com.

I stopped by two cemetaries in Metamora, my home town. I needed better pictures of my great great grandparents tombstone.

While I was there I found the tombstone of Max Reichhuber, the nephew of my great great grandmother Nothburga.

We then went to the second cemetary where my great grandparents are buried. I found my great great aunt and my great Uncle Eddie and great aunt Ginnie also.

Today we went to the Glen Oak Zoo in Peoria, IL. We have been there a dozen times before.

I'm from Peoria and my father lived a few blocks away when he was a toddler.

The zoo was undergoing construction so they only had half the exhibits they normally have, which means about 20-30 including all the small exhibits. The kids had a good time. The adults remember all the exhibits that used to be there.

They started closing those in the 80's for the humanity of non-human animals. The zoo is a shell of what it used to be, but once construction is over it will be 3x bigger in size and hold as many animals as it ever did, but now in a new and improved humane zoo way.

For a better flavor of Illinois, I would recomend Wild Life Prairie park. Lots of hiking and buffalo!