Lately I've been spending a lot of time working on a book idea. It's 17 pages long now, which isn't bad. The important part is what you learn when you write a book. You solidify what you think about a subject and you deal with subtleties that you've never thought about before. It's an interesting undertaking that I recommend for most people. In my field of internet marketing there are thousands of changes every year so writing a specific step by step book is suicidal. It would be outdated within a few weeks and yet that's what people want. My approach is to write about general guidelines directly related to internet marketing. Ignore the hype and look at the new product through a filter. It's not about getting rich quick it's about building a bMy second goal is to include plenty of stories. I love a good story plus it has the ability to draw an audience into the reading. I really want an involved reader.
We took the kids to the dermatologist yesterday. Everything went well except for Mallory. Apparently Mallory has an invasive mole that runs beneath the surface of her face. Removing one mole on her chin would result in a 3 or 4 inch scar on her face. We are forced to take her to a cosmetic surgeon to get it removed. There's another mole on the top of her head that the dermatologist thinks is suspicious. We are concerned especially when they use the words Melanoma to explain it. UGH!
My workers have been problematic lately. In the 2 years that I've done web design this has been the most inconsistent period. It's causing frustration for me and my customers. I need to look at it with fresh eyes and try something new.
Ron
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Friday, July 09, 2010
I'm in the process of writing a book. (you know everyone should do it) The first 11 pages have flown by in rapid succession. I didn't have to work too hard for them. After asking for opinions on a specific topic from a forum, someone said something that stopped me. I was confronted with a thought that I haven't thought before. Do I really believe what this guy is saying? It sounds a little candy coated for my tastes. Do I go with the prevailing opinion or spend time dwelling on that thought? Dwelling makes for better reading even if you come to the same conclusion as the norm, because you understand more deeply. At around 4 am this morning those thoughts flooded through my head...always 4 am. Why can't I have a creative flash at 9 am? (or sometime more reasonable) So I'm trying to work through that.
Yesterday was an ugh day. It starts off with 3 emails in rapid fire order from a customer complaining. The weird/ironic thing is that he was complaining because I didn't notice HIS mistake sooner. If that had been me, I would have accepted responsibility for my actions and moved on to complete the task. This guy goes on a paragraph rant. I did want most people do who don't want drama, I typed a response that said everything mean I could think of, then I saved it. After an hour or two I went back to that email and deleted it. It's good to have it off your chest but not so good to alienate customers.
At 12:20 I had to take Mallory somewhere across town. She was asking me if it was cancelled. I checked my email for a cancellation notice...nothing. When we arrived, it was cancelled. I'm guessing that Mallory knew something more than she was saying because she asked me to wait before leaving. In essence I wasted an hour driving across town when I had customers who needed help. To further add to the "ugh" day, Mallory and Griffin fought the entire trip. Everything Griffin did was greeted with disdain and a mean spirited comment. Griffin's response was to push Mallory's buttons by repeating annoying phrases over and over again. Fun!
Finally I tried to hire a new designer to finish some website projects for me and he didn't respond. We talked back and forth all day, then when I offered him a job and a task. POOF, he's gone. Hopefully this morning he will reappear. I think he's going to get a nickname really fast. I present the Magician. Now you see him, now you don't. We'll see.
On a day like that I try to think about the good in my life, the things that are noble, the things that are amazing, the things that are beautiful. That puts an "ugh" day into perspective and keeps me from biting everyone's head off. Double bonus.
Have a great day,
Ron
Yesterday was an ugh day. It starts off with 3 emails in rapid fire order from a customer complaining. The weird/ironic thing is that he was complaining because I didn't notice HIS mistake sooner. If that had been me, I would have accepted responsibility for my actions and moved on to complete the task. This guy goes on a paragraph rant. I did want most people do who don't want drama, I typed a response that said everything mean I could think of, then I saved it. After an hour or two I went back to that email and deleted it. It's good to have it off your chest but not so good to alienate customers.
At 12:20 I had to take Mallory somewhere across town. She was asking me if it was cancelled. I checked my email for a cancellation notice...nothing. When we arrived, it was cancelled. I'm guessing that Mallory knew something more than she was saying because she asked me to wait before leaving. In essence I wasted an hour driving across town when I had customers who needed help. To further add to the "ugh" day, Mallory and Griffin fought the entire trip. Everything Griffin did was greeted with disdain and a mean spirited comment. Griffin's response was to push Mallory's buttons by repeating annoying phrases over and over again. Fun!
Finally I tried to hire a new designer to finish some website projects for me and he didn't respond. We talked back and forth all day, then when I offered him a job and a task. POOF, he's gone. Hopefully this morning he will reappear. I think he's going to get a nickname really fast. I present the Magician. Now you see him, now you don't. We'll see.
On a day like that I try to think about the good in my life, the things that are noble, the things that are amazing, the things that are beautiful. That puts an "ugh" day into perspective and keeps me from biting everyone's head off. Double bonus.
Have a great day,
Ron
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Well, I guess it's important to mention that Griffin doesn't have Chiari's. That a big fat Yahooooooo.
Since I've been hiding from my blog lately, I bought a new car. A wicked sweet new car! 2011 Mustang GT California Special.
This is an amazing car and I love it. You can drive it like a sedan or like a beast. With 412 hp it is a monster when you slam the pedal to the floor...not that I would do that of course. Since it's the first 2011 that most people have seen (with the 5.0 engine) I get mobbed by people everywhere I go. Grocery store, restaurants, car washes, etc The most entertaining was a gentleman with a new Camaro. This guy bought a brand new Camaro on the same day I bought my Mustang. As we stood there and talked about the cars, he liked my car better. In many facets, he was enamored with my car and not his. It was strange but fun from my perspective.
In life you occasionally run across people who are entertaining and interesting. I always try to draw those kinds of people to me. They add spice and variety to life. One of my online friends who is like that has been blog vacant. No blog posts, gone, disappeared and it's sad. I guess the thing to take from this is that you affect people that you don't even know about. People read your blog or article even when you don't know it.
Later,
Ron
Since I've been hiding from my blog lately, I bought a new car. A wicked sweet new car! 2011 Mustang GT California Special.
This is an amazing car and I love it. You can drive it like a sedan or like a beast. With 412 hp it is a monster when you slam the pedal to the floor...not that I would do that of course. Since it's the first 2011 that most people have seen (with the 5.0 engine) I get mobbed by people everywhere I go. Grocery store, restaurants, car washes, etc The most entertaining was a gentleman with a new Camaro. This guy bought a brand new Camaro on the same day I bought my Mustang. As we stood there and talked about the cars, he liked my car better. In many facets, he was enamored with my car and not his. It was strange but fun from my perspective.
In life you occasionally run across people who are entertaining and interesting. I always try to draw those kinds of people to me. They add spice and variety to life. One of my online friends who is like that has been blog vacant. No blog posts, gone, disappeared and it's sad. I guess the thing to take from this is that you affect people that you don't even know about. People read your blog or article even when you don't know it.
Later,
Ron
Monday, April 26, 2010
On Wednesday Griffin will go to get an MRI. He's 6 and a boy so I'm not expecting this to be fun. They said that he will be partially sedated for the test. Since he HATES closed in spaces, this could go to fully sedated pretty easily. Why? Why is Griffin getting an MRI? My little man is getting motion sickness on short car trips. Our 25 minute, straight as an arrow drive to church on Sunday ended with Griffin barfing in the parking lot. Not exactly a curvy road or a long road trip. He also got motion sickness while playing video games...at home. No car needed this time. Playing on the Wii he got sick. We are especially concerned because of Tina's recent surgery.
See www.CloerFamily.com for more details (November 09 timeframe)
It's possible that Griffin has Chiari's Malformation like Tina. This runs heavy in her side of the family so we are really concerned. I can't imagine my son needing to have brain surgery at such a young age. I would rather have brain surgery than for him to have it. No contest. Beyond the surgery it would mean no contact sports, no heavy lifting, and a life of careful monitoring. I'm hoping and praying that the test will show nothing. In this case nothing is the best possible scenario.
Wednesday is the day of the MRI and Friday is the day we find out more information. This week is going to be so tough to focus in on work and responsibilities with this potentially life changing test, 2 days away.
Ron
See www.CloerFamily.com for more details (November 09 timeframe)
It's possible that Griffin has Chiari's Malformation like Tina. This runs heavy in her side of the family so we are really concerned. I can't imagine my son needing to have brain surgery at such a young age. I would rather have brain surgery than for him to have it. No contest. Beyond the surgery it would mean no contact sports, no heavy lifting, and a life of careful monitoring. I'm hoping and praying that the test will show nothing. In this case nothing is the best possible scenario.
Wednesday is the day of the MRI and Friday is the day we find out more information. This week is going to be so tough to focus in on work and responsibilities with this potentially life changing test, 2 days away.
Ron
Thursday, March 25, 2010
A few months ago I was approached by a gentleman who found out about me through a mutual friend. I didn't know Steve before Thanksgiving. Now we are friends. So me and my friend, Steve decided a few months ago to start a new site dedicated to helping rescue dogs and puppies. http://www.FindARescuePuppy.com We kicked the site off with zero fanfare about 1 month ago. Even though the site was new we were averaging 120 visitors per day...not bad.
Since we met I've been working on the technical and visual side of this vision while Steve worked on finding business partners. Steve has this gift, he can talk business talk to anyone. I can talk to anyone but he can talk to people about their business and convince them that his idea is great. Well, he started talking to others in the dog industry about our site. He speaks to them like peers and yet we are a startup company and they have huge traffic numbers. (some in the millions) Shockingly, he is getting big name companies to promote our website. It's amazing really.
Today the first company started promoting us in their newsletter that goes out to 160,000 people!
I should say that Steve isn't a typical salesman type he's intelligent and he's been very successful. He was a Wall Street broker, he created the first auto financing site online, he's bought and sold businesses that he's built from nothing. Between us we can be very successful, which means that a lot of dogs will have homes. I feel good about that.
My other business partner, Jim Cockrum, and I just released a new program to help people grow a mailing list. Anyone who makes good money online sells with a mailing list. Think about that product or hobby that you are interested in. Do they have a mailing list? Yes is the right answer. There is some confusion about email lists because people don't know what spam really is and what isn't spam. You can't just take someone's email address and email them your sales pitch...that's spam. You have to get their permission to send them an email. In case anyone is interested in that training program the website is http://www.listbuildingclass.com
Writing out my specific goals for the year has really helped me remain focused. Try it.
Since we met I've been working on the technical and visual side of this vision while Steve worked on finding business partners. Steve has this gift, he can talk business talk to anyone. I can talk to anyone but he can talk to people about their business and convince them that his idea is great. Well, he started talking to others in the dog industry about our site. He speaks to them like peers and yet we are a startup company and they have huge traffic numbers. (some in the millions) Shockingly, he is getting big name companies to promote our website. It's amazing really.
Today the first company started promoting us in their newsletter that goes out to 160,000 people!
I should say that Steve isn't a typical salesman type he's intelligent and he's been very successful. He was a Wall Street broker, he created the first auto financing site online, he's bought and sold businesses that he's built from nothing. Between us we can be very successful, which means that a lot of dogs will have homes. I feel good about that.
My other business partner, Jim Cockrum, and I just released a new program to help people grow a mailing list. Anyone who makes good money online sells with a mailing list. Think about that product or hobby that you are interested in. Do they have a mailing list? Yes is the right answer. There is some confusion about email lists because people don't know what spam really is and what isn't spam. You can't just take someone's email address and email them your sales pitch...that's spam. You have to get their permission to send them an email. In case anyone is interested in that training program the website is http://www.listbuildingclass.com
Writing out my specific goals for the year has really helped me remain focused. Try it.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
The Superbowl Pre-game show
For over 2 hours I listened to the pre-game show for the Super Bowl. The Indianapolis Colts were in it so I wasted plenty of time watching the endless experts discuss the game. Something became obvious. It seems that most people who were cheering for the Saints were doing so out of sentimental reasons. Because New Orleans suffered tragedy with Katrina we were supposed to cheer for them. Apparently Drew Brees became the patron saint of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. In an interview they ask him who was helped more, Drew by New Orleans or New Orleans by Drew? They didn't mention how much he donated to the city but hey, that's his business.
As I sat there I kept thinking, weren't we talking about a football game? Why is New Orleans the only city to benefit from a football player? Oh wait they aren't. Didn't Peyton Manning donate MILLIONS to an Indianapolis children's hospital? Can't we interview some of the kids that benefited from that? Is New Orleans the only city that ever suffered a loss? Granted their loss was large but cities have terrible snow storms, hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, flood, etc. For better or worse New Orleans isn't special for the tragedy, yet that's what the commentators continue to shove down our throats.
My team lost and I'm not bitter. The Saints played better and deserved to win. I am upset that we are supposed to feel sorry for New Orleans. It is a city in a bowl below sea level. It's not a matter of if a hurricane strikes but when. It's difficult for me to have sympathy when you KNOW what's going to happen. The town will flood again. It's like someone in Canada being surprised that it snows in winter and then I'm supposed to feel compassion. The people of Haiti are suffering and they didn't know it was going to happen. They couldn't have done anything to prevent it. They had no idea. That's a tragedy.
Rant over,
Ron
For over 2 hours I listened to the pre-game show for the Super Bowl. The Indianapolis Colts were in it so I wasted plenty of time watching the endless experts discuss the game. Something became obvious. It seems that most people who were cheering for the Saints were doing so out of sentimental reasons. Because New Orleans suffered tragedy with Katrina we were supposed to cheer for them. Apparently Drew Brees became the patron saint of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. In an interview they ask him who was helped more, Drew by New Orleans or New Orleans by Drew? They didn't mention how much he donated to the city but hey, that's his business.
As I sat there I kept thinking, weren't we talking about a football game? Why is New Orleans the only city to benefit from a football player? Oh wait they aren't. Didn't Peyton Manning donate MILLIONS to an Indianapolis children's hospital? Can't we interview some of the kids that benefited from that? Is New Orleans the only city that ever suffered a loss? Granted their loss was large but cities have terrible snow storms, hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, flood, etc. For better or worse New Orleans isn't special for the tragedy, yet that's what the commentators continue to shove down our throats.
My team lost and I'm not bitter. The Saints played better and deserved to win. I am upset that we are supposed to feel sorry for New Orleans. It is a city in a bowl below sea level. It's not a matter of if a hurricane strikes but when. It's difficult for me to have sympathy when you KNOW what's going to happen. The town will flood again. It's like someone in Canada being surprised that it snows in winter and then I'm supposed to feel compassion. The people of Haiti are suffering and they didn't know it was going to happen. They couldn't have done anything to prevent it. They had no idea. That's a tragedy.
Rant over,
Ron
Monday, February 01, 2010
The new puppy and Fabio seem to be getting along lately. They play tug o war with a stretchy toy which looks pretty funny. A 30 pound dog vs a 3 pound dog. What is that over used sports saying...It's not the size of the dog in the fight it's the size of the fight in the dog. Surprisingly the puppy will only get us up 1 time during the night. That's pretty good for a 10 week old puppy. He almost potty trained too. I know, shocking. Cavalier's a wonderful dogs, great with kids, loving, cuddly, friendly, well behaved, not barky. Can you tell that I've had 3 Cavaliers and I love the breed.
Over the weekend Mallory had a band thing. She and 2 boys performed in a contest and they got the gold medal. Just to put this in perspective a lot of kids got gold medals but I was still proud of her. She carried the trio. One of the boys was good and the other was...well...nervous? The funniest part of that 3 hour experience was when I couldn't find Mallory. I was looking and looking for her, finally I asked one of the other parents that I'd been sitting with. Have you seen my daughter? "Oh, she was walking around with a little boy with a saxophone" The little boy with the saxophone is her "boyfriend" Ryan. So it gave me the opportunity to tease Mal mercilessly about leaving Dad for some boy with a saxophone.
2 of my bigger websites set records in January for the most visitors ever. Both had a 1000 more visitors than the previous record. That's exciting when you put so much time and effort into a site for it to take off. In case you're interested the two sites are www.FindRescuePuppy.com, a site dedicated to helping shelters and puppies, and www.ComicBookGeeks.com, which is pretty self explanatory.
Ron
Over the weekend Mallory had a band thing. She and 2 boys performed in a contest and they got the gold medal. Just to put this in perspective a lot of kids got gold medals but I was still proud of her. She carried the trio. One of the boys was good and the other was...well...nervous? The funniest part of that 3 hour experience was when I couldn't find Mallory. I was looking and looking for her, finally I asked one of the other parents that I'd been sitting with. Have you seen my daughter? "Oh, she was walking around with a little boy with a saxophone" The little boy with the saxophone is her "boyfriend" Ryan. So it gave me the opportunity to tease Mal mercilessly about leaving Dad for some boy with a saxophone.
2 of my bigger websites set records in January for the most visitors ever. Both had a 1000 more visitors than the previous record. That's exciting when you put so much time and effort into a site for it to take off. In case you're interested the two sites are www.FindRescuePuppy.com, a site dedicated to helping shelters and puppies, and www.ComicBookGeeks.com, which is pretty self explanatory.
Ron
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