Saturday, June 18, 2011

My Daddy, the best dad there ever was

My Dad was the best dad ever, in my humble opinion. He was the first boy who hugged me and told me I was special. Then he continued to hug me and tell me he loved me and still thought I was special as I got older, until the day he passed away.

Daddy was always interested in what I had to say or do. When I wanted to learn how to ski, he researched the ski and boots market and found me the best skis, poles, boots, ski jacket and pants that his little budget could afford. When my mother refused to go to the movies, he and I started "movie night" where the 2 of us would go to the movies together, eat candy bars and drink Coca-Cola (which m mother never allowed in the house) and then discuss the movies together on the way home. I still remember seeing "Zhivago" and "Lawrence of Arabia" with him. I was around 12 years old, but somehow he thought I was old enough to see adult movies.

He never let on to me that the world might impose any limitations on me, not because of being a female growing up in the 60's and 70's, nor because maybe I might not be able to hack it. He had great confidence in me, much more than I had myself, growing up. Whenever I think I might not be able to hack it, I try to remember my dad's faith in me, and how he thought his greatest accomplishments were the daughters that he raised.

My only regrets are that sometimes we all didn't live up to what he wanted for us all the time. And I regret that he didn't live to see my children grow up to be fabulous people on their own. He loved his grandchildren so much, and loved spending time with them. Once he told me that I was too hard on one of my kids. I replied that he would never have let me do what he was telling me that I should let slide. "Yeah, well. Maybe I was too hard on you kids", was his reply. He really wasn't.  Most of the time, his discipline was a harsh look and a comment that he was "disappointed" in me. All this makes me realize that what I do remember is how much he loved me, not how much he disciplined me.

Parents are never perfect, and kids, unfortunately, don't come with a simple How-to Manual. I'm sure he felt he made mistakes, and I'm sure that I've made mistakes, too. But I remember him with great fondness, and much love.

And that's how I want my own children to remember me when I'm gone. I want them to remember me just like I remember my dad -- I want them to know how much I love them, just like how much I knew he loved me, just as I am. 

Friday, June 17, 2011

Making money with blogs

Yesterday I signed up for Google ads....I'd already signed up for Adsense previously...in hopes that somehow I would be able to make a few $$ from writing something that somebody might like to read. Next I posted my blog address on my Facebook page and asked all my friends to click to the site and please to click on the ads.


Today, I checked the site stats and Voila!! So far, in 2 days, I've made a total of $5.26 !! How exciting! Now, if I make about $2.60 every day, that's, hmm...less than a hundred dollars a month. Not too shabby for my first attempt, but I believe I need to get serious about this if I'm planning on being able to live off of writing.

When I signed up for the ads, I applied to a number of ads that Google prompted to my site after I selected a few of my "interests". I immediately got 2 "acceptances" and a few other "pending" notices. Later, I received "declined" notices from all the rest of my choices. I've found that Blogspot and Adsense only allow 3 ads to appear on the blog. I searched around in the "setup" of the site, and found that I had previously set up 3 Adsense spots. Adsense spots are a rolling list of anywhere from 3 to 7 click-thru ads.  This prompted me to try to remove 2, but I was only successful in figuring out how to remove 1, leaving me with 2 Adsense ads and only 1 of the selected ads that I had uploaded to my blog. Why? remember, you can only have 2. So, I will have to rotate the ads, see how they work.

I also have a blog on Wordpress. Wordpress is much easier to manipulate, writing and design wise, but I haven't yet figured out how to monetize my Wordpress blog. I'm not even sure that it allows for paid ads. That's my next project.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

"Monetizing" the blog....I'm not really sure I know what I'm doing?

And will this actually produce any money?

To date, I have learned the following about monetizing a blog:
1) Adsense will override any other ads that I've signed up with and are approved for on my blog;
2) Blogspot will only allow 3 ads to be viewed on your blog; so, if Adsense is set for 2 spots, you can only have one other money producing ad.
3) If all my 277 friends on FB click through just once on an ad, I may make about...$2.77...or less, if not enough people click through.
4) most ads state that if 100 click thru's happen, you get $xx.xx payment. Somehow I have not figured out how Adsense will pay, nor how much they will pay. I'm still learning.
5) whoever writes the "help" pages and the instructions on blogs and blog ads must be much more technology savvy than the average user.  IMHO, I am more knowledgeable than many, but there's a lot in there that is as bad as learning Chinese. Oh, wait, maybe someone in China wrote it and then google translated it?

Meanwhile, I should be writing on my contract job, but writing about Alzheimer's is so much less fun than figuring out stuff on blogging and how to get paid for it.

I better get back to my real writing job.

Trying to get rid of old stuff

Over the last 30+ years, I have amassed a large quantity of National Geographic magazines. I have also picked up a few very old ones, from the 50's and 60's. I find them fascinating and I love reading and re-reading them. Unfortunately, they take up a lot of space in my closet and they are nasty dustcatchers. 

This week, I decided to cull out a few keepers and sell the rest on Craig's list. I took a picture of a few new and a very old one, and posted the item on Craig's list. Someone named "Mike" immediately asked to come look at them, and I replied that we could meet at a local diner. Nice safe busy place, I don't really want any strangers at my house!

I asked my strong son to get them down off the top shelf in the closet and help me put them in boxes, so I could cart them out to the car and hopefully, sell the lot.

Meanwhile, my son started looking through them, and said that $30 was way too cheap a price for the collection; then he started finding the ones that he wanted to keep - and started throwing out bids for the lot. My reply was that "Mike" already wanted to buy the lot for $30.  My sense of duty and honesty propelled me to keep my word, I felt that I couldn't go back on "Mike" and sell the lot to someone else and tell him, tough luck.

Plan was to meet "Mike" today @ noon. Around 11:00, I received an email from "Mike", he no longer wants to buy them.

New Plan:  I will chronicle the issues and edit my Craig's list posting. Or else just take them down to Half-Priced books and get a few dollars credit.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

turning .tif file pictures into .gif files. Any advice?

I scanned a few photos from way back when, prints, to my computer so that I could upload them onto my Facebook page of my high school friends. Unfortunately, Facebook will not upload .tif files. I've been told to "re-save" them as .gif files but when I try to do this, I don't get that option available. Any suggestions?

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Laptops! I have 2 now!

I bought a new laptop last summer. I am certain that it was defective because in about 2 weeks the screen went crazy horizontal lines - no normal screen sights at all. I took it in to the computer big box store and 5 weeks later, they sent me a new one. First they lost it, then they apparently hadn't typed in my correct phone number, so they sent me a nasty email that said "we have tried to reach you, your computer is ready, come get it." Hooray! then a few months later, I dropped it on the tile floor. It still worked fine but the external box on the left by the hinge was severely dented and closed funny.

Since it still worked fine, I was too embarrassed to take it in for repairs, so I waited until this spring to take it back. I took it in, along with my external hard drive so that they could back up all my new stuff onto the external drive. They called me a few days later to say that the external drive was ready. I went there to pick it up, and they had lost it! Stolen, destroyed, lost, who knows where that thing - mind you with all my stuff on it - was.

Someone there with a few brain cells went and retrieved my laptop from the warehouse (where it goes to be sent off to Sony for repairs) so that the data could be backed up onto a new external drive. Whew. Then they couldn't find the laptop AGAIN!! I was furious. When I went to pick up my laptop, it had been sent back, yet not repaired!

I'm going to skip over all the back and forth and trips to the store and complaints and people passing the buck and so on etc. I will skip ahead to a call I received from the store manager telling me that, because of the bad service that I received, they wanted to GIVE ME another laptop! OK, but what about the one that is @ Sony, supposedly being repaired? Oh, that one is yours, too. This will be one from us to show us our sincere apologies.

I might also mention that right before this call that I received, on my last trip to the store, I had  requested a letter, signed by someone at the store, that stated that the store LOST my external hard drive and took responsibility for that loss. Yes, they replaced it, but it had a lot of personal, private information on it. I wanted some proof in case my identity got stolen somehow, that could trace it back to that. The manager said that he was certain that the hard drive was destroyed.  Apparently when they transfer data from one old external drive to another new one, they destroy the old one. I certainly hope that is what happened.

So, now I am enjoying using 2 computers at once! I can research on one screen, write on the other....so much easier than tabbing back and forth.

I guess it pays to complain sometimes. And ask for proof of loss.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Editor's approval!

My current writing assignment was supposed to be finalized last Wednesday, but the original instruction was that I could write 50 to 70 or more articles out of a possible 200 or 300 titles.  I asked for a short extension to Friday, which was granted. On Friday, I wrote my editor and said, I can keep writing if you need me to? Each article is supposed to be 500 to 650 words. He wrote back on Sunday that what I had written was "certainly fine so far" and that I could keep at it this week, no worries.

"Certainly" makes up for those 2 rejections that I keep trying to "reject" out of my memory!

Saturday, June 4, 2011

I'm too busy to be unemployed!

Not to be too distracted by the 2 rejects that I received from one publisher, for 2 very small articles, I decided to move on.
I spent the better part of 2 weeks in May enrolling teachers in their choice of insurance benefits for a broker friend of mine. I like doing this type of work; I'm not really selling but my expertise and knowledge of the benefits and the insurance business is greatly appreciated by the majority of the people with whom I sit with while explaining their options.
In between the 2 weeks that I was enrolling, I spent a week or so with a friend in Cuenca Ecuador. She and her hubby have listened to me talk on and on about Ecuador for almost 20 years and they decided that, maybe we should just up and sell the farm (literally) and go. They did, last winter, and love it there - no regrets. So I had to go, see them, check out the new pad, enjoy the gorgeous weather, flowers, food and good company -- and I had a blast. Wish my hubby went with me, too, but, somebody has to work...harder than me, anyway.
I'm working on finishing an assignment for the one publisher that I have actually been successful - and who has actually paid me!! but it's been a bit slow going as the articles are all about medical conditions and I have to do a lot of research to get it right.
Next, I have applied to no less than 3 other publishers to hopefully! be approved/hired/accepted to write for them. I can't live on the one assignment about every month and a half that I do receive currently.
I had plans to re-arrange the "office/guest room/bicycle stuff room" to be my office, buy a new desk, throw out the junk I haven't used for years... For the last 2 years, my office has been the dining room table...and I believe that I like being able to look out the front window at my favorite tree, be close to the fridge for snacks, and put my feet up on one of the other chairs. Here's a pic of my new Sony Vaio laptop on my messy "desk"!