Oddities, Profundities, Profanities and Dad Stuff

Author: Justin Matthews (Page 18 of 76)

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The Bane of Real Work vs. Fake Work

The Twitter fail whale error message.

Image via Wikipedia

You can fool yourself into thinking you are actually being productive.  In all of the fanfare of super connectivity and internet everywhere I at least get stuck in the ruts that we are not supposed to get stuck in.

Social media and email are the worst offenders in my world.  I know you are not supposed to look at twitter or email but some days that is all I get done in my business world.  It is pathetic but nevertheless true.  And I know, I know that I am not supposed to be looking but I am hoping that so and so replied to my comment or someone cool is following me on twitter.
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February, Fishing and my Alexa Ranking.

Good February everyone!  I can’t believe January is over already.  It is moderately cold here in Utah right now but not snowing.  I am not sure if I like that or not.  It seems like winter should either get with it and snow for more than 15 minutes (like it has the past couple of nights) or turn into spring already.  I got the spring yard clean up/landscaping bug this weekend while watching some home improvement shows on HGTV.  I can’t wait for the ground to thaw!

I keep hearing about this Alexa thing that apparently is important to be on the high side, in the top 100,000.  So I decided to look up where my site is.  On Saturday Jan. 30, I was at 12,829,290.  All I could do was laugh.  This morning, February 1, I was almost shocked to see I had DROPPED to 12,850,206.  I dropped nearly 21000 spots in 2 days.  I am not sure what this means but I will keep looking at it.  At least it is better than the other website that I run with my wife Brendasquiltshop.com.  That site doesn’t even have a ranking so 12,850,206 must be ok.  What does it mean?  I need to get out there more and not worry too much until I get some more incoming traffic.

And finally I so want to go fishing.  Not ice fishing which should just be called “freeze your butt off while sitting on the ice” fishing but real fishing.  From the bank, from the boat, standing in the stream I don’t care.  Winter gets long some days and my gear calls to me.

Last fall our family went to Kidney Kamp.  It is sponsored by the National Kidney Foundation and the Great Salt Lake Truck Show and it lets families of people with kidney disease and or kidney transplants a chance to go to camp.  I am glad my 3 year old is in the latter category now.  For 2 years that was the only camp we could do because they had facilities to do dialysis.

I digress yet again.  This camp has a very small pond that they stock with fish and let the kids check out poles to fish with.  Me, I keep a travel fly rod in the car and wanted to practice.  But they only want kids to fish so I recruited my 9 year old and told her it was her first training session.  We didn’t catch anything that day, the fish were more interested in the gummy bears that the kid across the pond was using for bait than a natural looking fly.  Hmm, that is another post idea, Seeking out the flash we want instead of the stuff we need.

The lesson here is I will try to find a way to fish anywhere I can, even if it requires my kids to do it.  I just want to fish.  Anyone want to come with?  My wife will be having our 4th child this July so I know my fishing outings will be limited, but I will still go some.  Not actually going fishing will leave me time to work on my e-book about beginning fly fishing.  I am reworking and updating a website I made in one of my college writing classes to work as a book.  I should take pre-orders to force me to finish by my St. Patrick’s Day deadline.

Anyhow, Life is Great when you are satisfied with it.  If you are reading this, You Are Awesome. Thanks for your support.

Justin

Bloggywood Squares!!!

Hello there loyal readers!  I am really cheating today after spending all day yesterday working on my other site that I hope to get launched on Saturday.   It is our family business that we started a few years ago and have hit off and on.  Last year we did pretty well selling handmade quilts, table runners and casserole dish holders.  I am totally redoing our old site and bringing it onto a WordPress platform.  It should work really well and keep us from getting screwed by eBay’s fees.  More on that tomorrow.

Today I am posting the e-mail that I sent out yesterday to my small but loyal e-mail list.  This is something fun, and will only be available next week.  So I am promoting it!  Please consider signing up for my mailing list here. I promise not to sell your email address or trade it for cookies.  Or to send you a bunch of garbage.

You have enough to read, so you will only hear from me for big announcements and *fingers crossed* monthly newsletters.  Please sign up, it may not be the best thing you do today, but it won’t be the worst either! Plus there is a free e-book on writing tips for authors just for signing up.

I want you to know about a fun new Internet Game show called Bloggywood Squares.  If you have been cruising the blogosphere for a while, you probably have heard of Mike Cliffe-Jones and Nathan Hangen.  Or even their product, Beyond Blogging. You may also know Jordan Cooper, professional funnyman and owner of Not A Pro Blog.com.

They have teamed up for this new game show with some “celebrity” guests.  It will be a fun watch over the next week at 7pm EST.  The winner of the show will get a free membership to the beyond blogging sessions which are cool in and of themselves.  You can also win a membership just for signing up for the sessions!

So head over here: Bloggywood Squares (affiliate link) and sign up for the fun!

have a good one.

Justin

Holiday Short Time Blues

22 December 2009

 

It’s almost Christmas. Why does the week up to Christmas always seem to be one of the busiest weeks ever. I know that I am about worn out and it is only Tuesday! Bah. Well in a couple of days it will all be over.

Until then, Be well

Justin

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