I'm racing to catch up with my writing today, and I'm really focusing on trying to write extremely well but extremely efficiently. I'm running a new voice recognition software program today and at the same time a running a software program I'm listening to the soundtrack from blue crush, surfing movie from about five or six years ago. It's a good soundtrack and right now I'm listening to "everybody's got their something" by Nikka Costa on repeat. I've experimented with the idea of listening to somebody else sing while I talk, and I'm trying to determine if that'll help me edit my work easier and faster. Sometimes I say things, and I think I've said them loud enough for other people to hear them, but I really haven't. The voice inside my head is louder than my external voice. So this is kind of like a training technique for me to practice speaking louder and more clearly.

I remember listening to this soundtrack a little too much when it came out a few years back. Its definitely a great summer song, especially the remix of the Bannanarama remix of cruel summer. If you have a convertible, its also a good cd to listen to while you are driving by the beach top down. I used to commute up A1A in south florida to work everyday and this would definitely wake you up in the morning and get you motivated. Today, I'm listening to it while I stand next to the bar in my dockside office by the lake.

I do not work in the medical profession.  However I have worked in the health insurance industry, and I have many relatives that have worked in various capacities and hospitals and doctors offices as nurses and technicians.

These days I travel across the country working on many different projects and assignments for companies all around the world.  When we think about the nursing profession we don't always realize that nurses and medical professionals do the same thing.  There's an entire segment of the nursing industry called travel nursing which calls a nurses to travel from one of the country to the other to work long-term projects for hospitals and doctors offices and other facilities that need highly qualified professionals for short to medium term basis.

I am a history buff and so when I think of travel nursing my mind turns to historical memories of pictures of nurses from ages past.  Picture Florence Nightengale helping soldiers heel in the Crimerian war (is that the right name, I think so).

Today, however, a travel nurse might not only work as a contractor in Iraq, but they might work in a hospital in San Francisco or a cosmetic surgeons office in Boca Raton.  Their contract work might last for 3 to 6 to 10 months and the pay rates are far better than they might have been 10 - 20 years ago, let alone 50 to 100.  Some travel nurses actually make better money working part time on contract that some full time nurses.

OK, here's one that won't make me hold my breath. My photo contest submission has made it to the semi finals!

Hope I don't Win or it might Wreck My Marriage

My wife is the photographer in the family, not me.  If I win that would be terrible . . . . !

Seriously, I doubt I will win, I think its just one of those things to keep my interest up, but it is good fun.

It has been about 3 weeks since I went jogging last, and I was hurting for some exercise.  It seems to me that during those stretches of time, when I get distracted or preoccupied and fail to get exercise, life gets more stressful.

I suspect that when I do not exercise, my body builds up negative something (hormones, stress, chi, something) and I can't get back on track until I burn some of that negative stuff out of my system.

So today, I got up late (on purpose and after working late last night).  I went for a 3-4 mile run, then walked one of the dogs for another mile after that.  I feel a lot better.  More centered, focused and balanced.  All those little things that were weighing down on me just 12 hours ago feel much lighter.

I notice that I tend to get off the exercise cycle whenever I travel.  Last month I went to the Podcast convention in California and that's when it broke down this time.  Next month, I'm going to Blogworld.  I am going to try and run every other day until Blogworld, and for the first time, I am going to try and run while I am in Vegas.

I have a friend that packs a bicycle on the plain to Vegas for trade shows and then rides into the mountains.  I do not think I am ready for that level of dedication, but this time when I take my running shoes I will use them!

I have been excruciatingly slow to put together this video for a company that has been a very good partner for me.  I kept shooting and reshooting the video on a little digital camera, but I couldn't get the length right.  I'd edit it and it would get worse.

I then purchased a new video camera and shot the video a couple more times, but lost the disc(big mental head slap).  So I ultimately put together a bit of a montage (no idea what that means but felt right) with my original digital camera video and some footage from my trip to the Podcast Expo, where the French Maids from French Maid TV were handing out a bunch of freebies to the podcasters.

The company is PayU2Blog and they specialize in the old fashion variety of Blog Advertising. 

I'm talking about the original scenario where a blogger would write anything they like and include a hyperlink with a specific keyword worked into their writing.

For this PayU2Blog pays about $5 each.  They do offer up some alternative missions from time to time.  I received a pair of Air Jordan basketball shoes a while back for writing a review on a vintage shoe site, but the bread and butter (and simplicity) that makes PayU2Blogs special is there simple brand of advertising that ends up giving bloggers a huge amount of freedom in their writing.

I was typing the story below on the deck and the chill snuck up on me. We had a bon fire going(cooked brats on the fire for supper) so I came down later to warm up and have been standing here mesmerized since ....

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The border guards were chasing her through the jungle.  She could hear their angry curses but couldn't see more than few shadows in front of herself in the dark, let alone see where they were behind her.

Jena stumbled over a sharp edged rock and went down hard into a muddy area below just as a flash light beam passed through the air she had just vacated. 

She let out a quick but deep breath and she was up and moving again.  A little more quickly as she had fallen out of the tree line just a bit into a marshier and slightly open area.  It wasn't very wide across, and she knew that she had to cross it before the soldiers caught up with the beam emanating from the flashlights mounted below their rifles.

Well, despite her fall and long night, she was a world class sprinter.  She took off with her knees reaching high almost like she were back in a specialized training camp for the Olympics.  In a strange mix of high stepping and sprinting for her life, she managed to get across the 100 meter marsh in about 25 seconds.  It seemed like an eternity as she ran, her internal sprinting clock honed over the years ticking off every second, but in short order she was in the far tree line.

She proceeded to work her way up what should be a ridge, that would take her to an awaiting jeep. 

Farley better be there, she thought to herself, with a touch of anger as she thought of the vagabond that had never been anywhere he was supposed to be on time, but always managed to make things right with a little impossible luck.

She hit the top of the ridge and almost faltered when she didn't see the road.  Then she noticed that she was on a small ridge just below the main ridge, a fold in the hill top.  She ran across and up to the real ridge and found the road.

She was now exposed on the road and the ridge top to the moon, which was out from the clouds and shining very bright.  She could see the bottom of the hill and the marsh she had traversed earlier had 2 dots of lights crossing it.

Probably following my muddy high stepping foot steps, Jena thought.

She could see down the ridge road and there was no jeep and no Farley.  She couldn't see as far up the ridge road as there was a slight corner about a mile up.

She took a quick breath and set out up the road.  The mile turned out to be about 2 miles.  Her eyes and the moon and landscape had been playing tricks on her eyes.  Just as she was preparing to round the corner, she heard something loud ping off the rock next to her and at the same time the sound of rifle fire caught up to her. 

She turned in time to see a flash of muzzle fire, and quickly hit the ground as a tree branch about five feet over her head took a round of lead.

She scuttled closer to the tree line on the road and started sprinting down the road away from danger.  Another half mile further and she had cleared the corner and could make out the the girders of an old wooden bridge ahead.  She couldn't see nor hear the soldiers yet, but didn't want to wait around much longer for them.

She ran up on the bridge preparing to run across, but slid up short as she realized two things.  One the bridge had collapsed ages ago and two, the bridge stood at the top of a gorge almost 100 feet above what could only be the Río Ulúa, the main river in Honduras that led to the Caribbean Sea.

She stood looking down the gorge for half a second trying to figure out how she might scale the wall and get away from the soldiers.  This section of the ridge was all rock and no trees.  There were no good places to hide and no paths of escape.

She thought she saw a place that might provide a path down.  She had to climb just below the bridge, going through a rotted section of timbers.  She reached the ledge and was trying to scale the wall sideways to the path.

She stopped short as she heard the soldiers boots running up and slide to a stop in the gravel.  She tried to still her heartbeat and suck in air as quietly as possible, but could swear that the thunder coming from her chest could possibly threaten the remaining foundation of the decrepit bridge.

Apparently, she had made a noise or the soldiers had spotted her fluorescent striped sweat shirt, some of the mud had dried and flaked off.

They called out a warning in Spanish and started to swing their rifles towards her. 

She didn't know what to do. 

They told her to raise her hands and she obliged.  She was trying to think fast and momentarily looked down.  She could tell that the ledge she stood on jutted out over the river.  The river was wide and deep, she knew this from her child hood knowledge of Honduras.  It was moving rather swiftly though.

In a moment, she had made her decision and leapt out backwards from the cliff.  She held herself calm and true as she executed a slow long flip.  She knew that from this height she could not dive hands first no matter how many medals she had won in diving.  The water was too fast and she was too high.

She hit the water feet first with her hands held at her side. 

The shock of the fall was stunning, but all her training kicked in as she pushed and kicked for the surface.  Her adrenaline was flowing very hard and her movements were paying off and then she was breathing.

She stroked down the river to get away from the soldiers and to stay afloat.  She was safe.

.....

An hour later, she was floating down stream holding onto a log, when a search light lit up on her.  She was through, that was it.  She had no more miracles left in her.

"I surrender," she said.

"Always knew you were a quitter," a familiar voice said. It was Farley.  "Never did understand how you managed to win all those medals."

"Farley, you ass!  Where were you?"

"Road blocks along the base of the mountain, so I went to plan B."

"We had no plan B!"

"I figured, odds were good that you would try and get to the river and make your way down stream to the Caribbean so that you could catch your ride."

She hadn't even really thought that far ahead, not even in the last hour while she was floating down stream. 

"Right.  You know me pretty well cousin."

---

The next morning she was in a cigar boat headed back to Belize.  She had been gone 48 hours from the resort. 

She had offered the unbelievable excuse that she wanted to hike and camp alone in the rain forest.  The host and hostess had both tried to talk her out of that as they thought for sure it would be too dangerous and they did not want a dead Olympic hero on their hands.

Eventually, they had partly relented and she had partly snuck away.  Later that afternoon, she got off the boat and caught a ride back to Belmopan, the capital of Belize formerly known as British Honduras.  From there she rented a land rover and drove back to Chaa Creek.

Her hosts came out to greet her and were very surprised to see her step out of the vehicle.

"We thought you were a goner," the owner said.

"I was fine, but you were right it was a lot more dangerous than I thought.  I got lost and ended up hitching a ride from a farmer that took me back into town where I got this vehicle. Next time, I'll listen to you."

"We are just so happy that you are ok." the hostess said with a very genuine smile.

"Well you promised an adventure vacation in your video and I have definitely had an some adventure travel over the last couple of days.  Next time, I'll stick to the adventures in the brochure!"

That night as she rested, soaking in a tub, the tears started to come.  Sergi, her son was alive!  It brought joy and grief at the same time.  She had thought him dead long ago, when the nuns had taken him from her.  Knowing that he was alive and now captive in Honduras was almost more than she could handle, but she would get him free and bring him home, to her new home in the United States.

It was time to start planning . . .

Last winter when my grandfather passed away, I gained some insights into my grandfather's life and talents through person that new him for a much shorter period of time.  My cousin had married a great guy from North Carolina, he is a farmer here and that proved to be significant.

My grandfather had grown up working on a farm in the 20s and 30s, and later had gone on to work in many other trades and businesses from photography to real estate to the vacation industry and construction, finance and charity and salvage and much more.

He loved to tinker with things whether they were big or small and my cousins husband remarked on the fact that my grandfather was just as at home breaking down a Caterpillar bulldozer or working on a watch.  You mention that it's not easy for people to work with in mediums that are very large and very small.

Transitioning from a bulldozer to the small gears or watch and feeling at home in either medium is not something that everyone can do.

Sometimes Saying it Brings it Home

Now I think that the statement was very true, but it's something that we hadn't vocalized before.  Making that comment help bring it home for everyone.

Now the other day I was reading an article, it was kind of a watch article.  It was talking about a number of different tools that can be used to work on watches. 

The normally I don't have all that much interest in watches, that's not something that I picked up for my grandfather although my father and brother both picked up that gene.

However, my cousin in law's statement rang through when I read the article title, and it let me over to the site that talked about a number of essential watch tools that anyone that worked on watches would need.

That let me even further into the site to a number of different pictures of tools for watch repair, and that took me back to my grandfather's workshop. 

More Powerful than a Psychiatrist's Couch

It's a weird journey that your mind can take when you start to put together words and can rapidly follow those words back across the Internet and bring home memories of the past.  In its own way, the Internet enables us to follow her chain of thoughts and deal with demons that would normally remain repressed for the lack of an opportunity to put those demons down.

It's funny how that article about watches helped me to absorb that one little sentiment that will probably help me remember my grandfather even more clearly than before.

:-O

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It has been a couple months as I talked about the perils of being a pro blogger and having to Pressure Wash the Duck Crap out of My Office.

Since then I've been a little bit more diligent about chasing the ducks out of my office, but it is an open-air office and this morning when I came out to set up shop, I discovered that a smaller variety of bird visit my office.

If you are wondering what that is, in guessing that it's bird crap,  then you are right!

One of the ducks cousins apparently flew through and did a a drive by pooping on my keyboard. I'm not complaining too much it's still beautiful work and outside, and a wet paper towel was altered to fix the damage.  Fortunately I don't have to break out the pressure washer to clean up this time.

OK, so Columbus didn't deliver Blankets of Mass Destruction that was a form of Bio terror utilized by the United States against Native Americans, but the truth about Columbus is that he and the people that followed brought types of disease that were foreign to the Americas. These diseases in large part, and the ruthless nature of the conquistadors and other settlers (my 13th great grandfather came across on the Mayflower along with his brother but my great great grandmother was Native American and survived Columbus) contributed in smaller part to the killing of 90% of the population throughout the Americas.

It was a different time and a great deal of ignorance on many levels helped to glorify the actions for decades and centuries even. We are not as ignorant (or like to think we are not) today and so we must recognize the historical realities of the past. Only if we recognize those realities do we have a chance of possibly recognizing the realities of the present.

fyi in case you had not noticed there is not a country or government anywhere on this planet that has evolved very much beyond the times of Columbus. As individuals we have learned and gained much wisdom but as organized groups and countries, we are as ignorant, petty, selfish, scared, and brutal as we ever were.

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I really enjoy playing Texas hold 'em poker.  There's two places I like to play Texas Hold 'em, in Las Vegas in poker tournaments and online.

When I play poker online I don't like to use real money.  So although websites out there that cater to gamblers at like to play for real money online, don't do much for me.

There are a lot of these websites and I'm not knocking them.  I think if people want to gamble online or should have the ability to do so.  I don't think it's wise as online gambling I believe encourages people to spend a lot more money than they would anywhere else.

Plus for US citizens, and recent laws of made it almost illegal if not illegal to gamble online.  I haven't gone and got into these particular laws, but as I understand it if you're US citizen you're not allowed to gamble online any longer.

That is not eliminated online gambling because there are people all around the world that like to gamble online, and their gambling sites all around the world that like to cater to them.

OnlineCasinoBluebook.com provides a quick rundown of some of these real money gambling websites.  A typical scene with real money gambling websites is that they provide new gamblers with some amount of money up front to gamble at the websites.  These amounts can range anywhere from $100-$1000 or more.

That may sound like a lot of money, but the reality is that online gambling casinos make a lot of money from their patrons.  That means the house wins more often than the people do just like in real world casinos.

Still if you're looking to check out some of the top 10 places that offer the biggest bonuses for new gamblers to gamble online and you're in a jurisdiction where it's legal to gamble online you might check this out.  As an accountant I would look at it from the perspective of a marketing campaign.  If a business can run a promotion that offers new customers $1000 to use their services, odds are that business expects to make at least $1000 for that customer.  So businesses that offer $1000 bonus are likely to be more successful at earning $1000 from their customers than other businesses that can only offer $500 or $100 bonuses.

You Might Be Better off with the Bottom 10 Online Casinos!

Now as I mentioned I don't gamble with real money online, however if I were to extrapolate my logic into how to choose an online gambling establishment and I lived outside of the US where was legal to gamble online, I would go to the establishment that offered the lowest sign up bonus looking at it from the perspective that they must be the least successful gambling casino as success is measured by taking money away from gambling patrons.

So this website offers up the top 10 gambling casinos online, I'd argue that if they wanted to help their gambling patrons they should offer up the bottom 10 gambling casinos online.

"Online Casino bluebook has sponsored this review although the thoughts and editorials are all my own. "  

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So next month a mess of us Blogger types are going to turn out in Las Vegas for the BlogWorld convention.  Its going to be a rip roaring good time and its very likely that someone will figure out how to break into the underground vault at the Bellagio, not to actually steal any money or jewels or anything, but just to be able to get the scoop on a great blog story!

That got me thinking that while they are breaking in to the Bellagio, the rest of us bloggers could do our part and run a distraction effort by hitting the bar in the Bellagio outside the famous water fountain show out front.  After we've had some cocktails we could then go out and take a great big mass blogger picture outside the fountain.

Now, Vegas is a very fun town.  Sure, gambling is so thick that you almost have to breath it.  I saw a couple years back an elderly woman that refused to leave the blackjack table.  She was using a portable oxygen concentrator and was being assisted by paramedics that were attempting to convince her that she would be better off getting loaded onto a gurney and going to the local hospital.

She disagreed and felt that what she needed more than a jolt of electricity or hit of oxygen, was a hit to get her to 21, again and again and again.  Then there are the guys handing out porn star trading cards on every corner and it just goes downhill from there.

Vegas is a fun town, so its going to be somewhat interesting when all these internet types turn out of their work from home lifestyle to let loose in the city that sleeps even less than bloggers do!

I was just reading about the lady that was fined $224,000 for sharing 9 songs or something on Kazzaa.

The music industry is actually losing money on these RIAA lawsuits. When the RIAA acts, everyone looses.

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I signed up for BlogWorld and Postiecon, so I am heading to Vegas baby!

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Last week the LinkyLoveArmy quietly rolled out a major referral program for bloggers.  They are going to provide bloggers in their program that refer other bloggers to the system, a cut on the profits that those new bloggers bring in to the company.

Blogger Profit Sharing from a Paid to Blog Company!

First, here's my invitation code for you!  ;)

Second, here's how it works. 

If you refer a person, and they complete a mission or 100 missions for the LLA, you will get a percentage of the profit that those missions bring into the LLA.   No other paid to blog company that I know of pays bloggers a percentage of the profits, at best a couple give a flat fee (if they give anything at all).  A few others will give you an affiliate commission if you refer an advertiser that buys something, but this pays out on everything the referred bloggers earn for the company!

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

Third,  It covers three levels of referrals. 

So if you refer 10 people and they refer 10 people each and those 10 people refer 10 people, you will get a percentage of the profits from your 10, the next 100 and the next 1000. 

A percentage of the profit from 1,110 bloggers!

If you can find a better deal, send me your invitation code and I will sign up under you!

I worked most of the night catching up on projects, and took a short nap before getting back to work this morning, hence the scruffy appearance again.

:-D

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Tonight I am catching up on some database work while the last two episodes of Heroes plays in the back ground.

I just returned from the Podcast and New Media Expo and this is one of the first full articles I have posted from something other than my phone.  I had a great time out at the expo and met some great people and connected up with some even better friends from last year.

I'll cover more about the show and some really cool developments in future articles, when I am not working on a database at the same time.  Database work requires creativity, but definitely not the same type of creativity it takes to write.

Regardless, the database work is for a very good cause.  I am working to give bloggers a second income, a means to blog for their day job, and even for several the option to get rich.

Speaking of rich (well on their way) I met the Ninja from Ask a Ninja out at the show and got close and personal with a couple of the girls from French Maid TV. 

Ninja is actually a very nice, but slightly extra skeptical fellow.  More on that soon too!

btw if you are hoping to keep up with this blog, you might consider picking up a subscription to the blog via email

I am finally back home. I road the red eye in all night.

Did not get any sleep and hoping to fix that in about 10 minutes after the kids get on the bus.

Then I will be online working to catch up with all of you.

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