Pauls Rants & Revelations

My wife, the ultimate wife in the universe, just got me my birthday present early. We went to the Nike employee store and picked up my new running shoes, then to Best Buy to pick up my new iPod Nano.

We also go the Nike+ to go with the shoes and the iPod so now I can keep track of my runs and even upload them to nikeplus.com to show the world how crappy I run after winter of not doing anything.

Anyways, I may post some pics but everyone knows what an iPod looks like so it isn’t anything new. I’m just really stoked that she did that for me for my birthday and wanted to tell everyone.
-Cheers

Update: Here are some pics of my new toy. I would have done it sooner, but I’m lazy about grabbing em out of the camera.

Eventually I did go out for a run and it was pretty sweet once I got it working right (forgot you had to restart the nano with the Nike+ system). Cheers.

My wife is of the opinion “What I don’t know cant hurt me”. In essence, if she doesn’t find out about something and I don’t tell her about it, then it wont her her or cause her anger (and would possibly spare me an ass-whopping). I often have trouble with this though because I usually tell my wife everything (trying to be truthful and all).

Anyways, my wife was sick this week and on Monday I took her to the emergency room. My son went with us while my sister in law stayed with our daughter at our home. My son checked out fine and could go home. My wife had an IV to get her re-hydrated and medicated. My wife said to take our son home and come back. Easy enough.

I took our son home and put him to bed. As I climbed back into the car I realized that I had not eaten at all that day (it was 9:30 pm) so I stopped to get some Burger King on the way back to the hospital. Now before you say anything, when I left she was fine, resting, and in no way in any danger.

Anyways, I scarfed it down while en route and disposed of the trash on the way to the room. I got back and she didn’t even notice I was there until she woke up about 2 hours later. I took her home after that and put her to bed as well.

OK. Enough backstory. Skip ahead to 3 days later. My wife and I are having a tender moment when she says that she was really glad that I was there when she woke up in the that night and that she appreciated rushing back to her side. I, stupid git that I am, told her I stopped by BK on the way back. Moment, killed.

The morale of the story: If you ever find yourself in a position where your significant other is praising you for being a great wife/husband, keep quiet. You’ll only get yourself in trouble if you tell them about the side trip to the store, your friends house, or the quick stop at the casino. So do yourself a favor; keep your pie hole shut and just say ‘Thank You’.

-Cheers

The family wants to go on vacation this year. My wife and I are arguing somewhat over what exactly to do on our little jaunt and where we should go. I suggested Ireland or Scotland so we could visit some family. My wife wasnt keen on this idea so she said no to that (sorry Aunt Agnes). She suggested a road trip to see some of the sites in the western Unites States. Maybe even visit my sister in Texas. I considered this and we left it there for a bit. Then I started researching some places to see what we could do with our limited budget (most of it being our tax return from this year).

I found one place offering a Great Beach Vacation and checked it out. Vacations.net was a pretty nice looking site and they also had some pretty good deals. I found one in Ixtapa Mexico (my sister-in-law went there) for $108 a night for the whole family and it included meals. They went up in price of course (I saw one for $350) but the average price was pretty reasonable.

I’m trying to get my info together before I present the plan to my wife. The more airtight my case the harder it is to shoot down. If anyone has any more ideas on where to go for vacation let me know.

-Cheers

… If it hurts when you poke a blind person in the eye.

… if Cher would melt if she sat to close to a campfire.

… if the “Young and the Restless” will ever become the “Old and the Gaseous”.

… if a man says his opinion in a forest, and a woman isn’t around to hear it, is he still wrong?

… why women go through 14 clothing changes in 15 minutes just to go with the first thing they put on. And they still aren’t happy with it.

… why, from your perspective, everyone who posts a comment is a moron, everyone who argues against you is an asshole, and everyone who agrees with you is a suck-up?

… what would happen if I pushed the big red button?

… if life is what you make it, then are problems just “manufacturer defects”? Can we get a replacement?

… what would happen if you follow the white rabbit?

… what the monetary difference is between justifiable homicide and a raging murdering spree?

… if Freddy will visit me in my dreams? And will he bring cookies?

… can a cat kill another cat and steal its extra lives? Kinda like pillaging a fallen enemy for ammo.

… how many people would die without the internet. Not like “my WoW Lv64 Palidin was crushed by that troll” dead; but Dead dead.

… what would happen if I filled the car tires with water instead of air.

The speed limit here in Oregon is 65mph. I think. I dont really know for sure since I never really bother to read the posted limits and usually plow down the road at about 70-75mph. I have never had a speeding ticket (know on my wood desk) but most of my friends have and they got fined pretty heavily.

Now, over in Denmark, they have speeding problems as well. But instead of those stupid little radar gun trailers that tell you your speed, they came up with a better, more… human… solution. You’ll have to check out the site to get the full impact.

www.speedbandits.dk
(Not suitable if work in a cubicle, or an office that doesnt lock, or you are in a meeting. Everyone else if fine.)

Before you click on the link (because once you do you won’t come back) let just say that if this was ever implemented here, I would follow the posted limits to the letter…er, number.

-Cheers

Now I really don’t mind all the folks promoting search engine optimization. I think that it’s a vital service a useful service that most people can use.

I’ve been trying to get a good handle on how to do it right but there are always varying opinions on what is “right” and frankly I’m sick of some SEO folks saying I’m doing it wrong just last week they said I should be doing it like this.

Anyways, there are some companies that offer search engine optimization services that can actually produce good results. With less than 30% of internet surfers clicking on your sponsored ads, increasing your traffic makes sure you at least get your fair share of the 30%.

And speaking of SEO, be sure to link back here and help spread the search engine love around a bit. That, and I need a new iPod and AdSense isn’t paying what it used to.

-Cheers

I really wish it was more health than sickness, but this winter has not been kind to my family.

I took my wife and son to the emergnecy room last night for what was diagnosed as Gastroenteritis; which is just a fancy name the doctors have given to a “vomit bug”. Anyway, it causes dehydration and other non-fun things including vomiting. Luckily, myself and my daughter have escaped the bug this time around (knock on wood). I’m also hoping my bosses advice (take crap tons of vitamins) really will work to armor me up against the nasty little viruses. It’s no fun being sick.

-Cheers

EDIT: Oh and “YourOwnPersonalLumburgBaby “, I know who you are; I know where you live; and I am right behind you!

EDIT 2: Made you look! Ok, back to work I go.

OK. Gotta make this quick.

Wife, son, and I think daughter now are sick with a vomit bug.

Have shit-ton of work to get done as result of taking care of them.

Thats it.

-Paul

So I’ve already reached the 100th post on this little soapbox of mine. I thought I would be really happy about it and I’m more of the feeling of “WTF? 100 already? Don’t I still have a job to do or something?”.

I was trying to think of something witty or ground breaking in my 100th post, but nothing came to mind. Instead, I will leave you with a bit of advice that has been passed down through generations. Advice that you can use every day and it will have a direct impact on your life.

“Don’t eat yellow snow.”

There, you now have 1/67th of the answer to the meaning of life. Figure out the other 66 parts and you are all set.

-Cheers

Originally when I start this site, I thought “I could make money from AdSense like I see on every other site on the planet”. This turned out to be wrong in many and varied ways.

For starters, AdSense is great if you have a busy site with thousands of visitors an hour. Then it would make sense. But for smaller sites (and I mean much smaller) it just isn’t really a big earner and often it doesn’t do anything except take up screen real-estate. And, I feel compelled to point out, that the people who have 2 AdSense blocks on their sites side bars, a header and footer block of ads, and ads within every freaking post, are not going to be making any more money than if you had one ad block on a page. I don’t think Google will count the impressions from the 4-6 ad blocks on a page so you are left only with click thru’s which are becoming more rare. And I believe, as most people are turned off by an ad overloaded site, that site owners will be waiting quite a while to get the minimum cash out amount ($100) from Google.

There are, of course, exceptions. A niche site for example that has a lot of back links and content to offer will probably do well with an ad block or a random ad somewhere in a post or page. However this also, once again, proves the rule that content is king. So most exceptions aren’t truly exceptions as they just follow the standard good practices of writing which is, basically, write well and write often.

So, for all of you with sites that have 100 ads on it, take away all but one ad block and see what you are left with. This is what Google is actually looking at and what your visitors would like to see. If you don’t like what you see build up more and better content. And for those that say “You’re crazy! I’ve made oodles from AdSense”, please comment and post your site and let us know how you did it whether it be one busy site or 50 kinda-busy sites. Or if you bribed Google. If you did that (and it worked) please post the name and address of whom to send it too.

- Cheers