Postcards from the Funny Farm

Boy that is sometimes easier said than done. Have you ever got so uppity at someone only to find out later you were wrong? It’s a bad feeling let me tell you. Kind of like when your baby has a really bad diaper and for the life of you you can’t remember where your wife put the wipes. Tonight I waited on the phone for the longest time with the bank thinking I had an unapproved transaction on my statement for $15. After going through it with three people on the fraud line, I realized the mistake was mine … wow.

I think I’d like to be the nice person for a change. Do you think people say that about you? We all get frustrated and we all have issues. Come on, let’s face it … we ALL do. Instead of bumming the world out about it, how about we decide to be a nice voice on the phone, a nice face passing on the street, or a nice “voice” of writing on internet comments. This world is so screwed up and there is more pain around you than you could imagine. Let’s focus on that “be nice” energy point and see where it gets us. Are you game?

Before I close I just want to encourage all my readers about an opportunity to write on an exciting subject. It pretty much applies to anyone, so everyone can go for it. It’s for my current contest and you don’t have to do anything special, just link to this site. The prizes are pretty good I think and everyone who enters will get their share of new traffic. More details here.

Well, there weren’t any comments yesterday so either you are all speechless about my question or you are waiting for me, your dysfunctional guide to psychology, to give you my take on how to let things go. SPLENDID … I have a few methods I can recommend. Before I do though, let me just give a quick update on the house. It’s going really well. Unfortunately there is a lot of stuff we still haven’t gotten to but we are learning to just let it ride. The doors to the kids rooms are laying off their hinges on the floor as we are planing them to the right size and it’s a real bitch! Actually I should say that Sarah’s dad is doing that job and dealing with the hassles, but we all wish it could go smoother for him. We sat in the spa for the first time day … niiiiiiice. Okay, enough of the update. I only have a short time here at Starbucks since I have to get back with dinner for everybody. This is so weird not having internet at home. Driving around town finding the hot spots feels a lot like wanting sex! Anybody ever try it? Hopefully you won’t have to. Oh, one more thing: I just want to recommend movers as another way to relax. Without them this time I think we appeared to our new neighbors to be their new freaks moving in faster than the speed of light probably on criminal amounts of diet pills or something. On to letting go (how appropriate).

The Christian mystics said that getting closest to God was possible by completely letting go of all physical material things. That means, for example, that you would give up your house, your possessions, and even people if they got in the way of you surrendering completely to God. While I shiver at the thought of such a life, I do feel they were onto something. We can all benefit from this type of thinking if only varied by degree a bit.

The two words “oh well” are some of the most powerful when used together. In essence what you say with them is that you prefer something higher. Remember when you were a kid and someone took your new bike to be a bully. If you cried about it they laughed and had a blast. You might get it back eventually but only with your ego badly bruised and everybody on the street labeling you as a major wimp. On the other hand, if you used the words “oh well,” you might have found as I did that the bully’s psychology changed. Now, he wanted to know WHY you weren’t affected. You took away his power. It’s the same now as adults only the bully is in our own minds and we victimize ourselves with stress. Saying “Oh well” can get us through a world of trouble and come out the other side shining.

Have you ever lost your keys? I have gone literally insane looking for them. I have thrown couches over I have done terrible things to unsuspecting items on my counter space … I am not proud of these things. Recently my wife lost hers and after much of that, we decided to table the worry and take my car. The end result was an amazing conclusion that restored the keys and our sanity. These things couldn’t have happened until we let go and said “oh well.”

So there is my suggestion to you. I know it isn’t too complicated but I offer it anyway. Did you expect the Mayo Clinc summary of the matter? Come here, I want to tell you a quick secret: it’s just a blog.

I had a different sort of “www” this evening, I walked around Wal-Mart with my wife. She is amazing. When people talk about meant to be, I think of her and I. I had a bad day today and all I wanted to do was come home and veg in front of the TV. She made me get up off my butt and do the necessary shopping at Wal-Mart for the week with her we have been putting off. At first I was really grumpy but after just a few sentences with Sarah, my troubles began to lift. When I got home, I blogged about it on my new personal blog, Damien at the Speed of Life*.

I don’t know where I would be today without my wife. She listens and echoes back what I say. She offers editorial when she sees fit but mostly she’s highly supportive of the things I say or do. The internet is a great place to make money, but it can never offer what a simple walk with wife can in a million years. I usually don’t write gushing posts like this but I wanted to share with you all in a sort of personal diary fashion how important I feel she is. I have a feeling some of you can relate and we should celebrate it!

Do you have someone in your life that keeps you centered? Share about them in the comments won’t you?

*Note: Some time ago I started a new personal blog/diary at this url: damienatthespeedoflife.wordpress.com Stop by and say hello.

I’ve had the honor and pleasure of meeting Kimberly Clay, internet marketing expert, online entrepeneur, and founder/blogger at GetMyWealthNow. You may have seen her 125×125 ad on my blog that reads: “Make Money, Build Wealth.” I whole-heartedly endorse her services. They are largely free and extremely helpful in generating online wealth. She’s an expert. When I read through her posts I always find something new of great value. And you may recall last month she asked me to write a guestblog in her niche, and I wrote about how to master making money through blogging one st.... That was a lot of fun, since I don’t usually write about mmol stuff. I am getting more and more into it … you should too if you’re not already! Kimberly’s blog and website is an excellent way to do just that.

Readers that have been here since the early days know that my progression into money has been a gradual one. I’ve taken and continue to take “baby steps” into the marvelous world of being paid. Some ask me “How are you making money with your blog?”  I will tell you that reading Kimberly’s blog is part of how.  So far with the money I have made through blogging has taken my wife and I out on dates, bought my son some reard treats at the store, and allowed me to do advertising of my own of Postcards from the Funny Farm.

Kimberly is not just a stellar coach who will work with you and help you create wealth through blogging, she is also a very nice person who I am happy to know. Her emails are always upbeat and positive and she always takes the extra time to answer my questions about making blog money. You should click on her link and see if you agree with me about Kimberly. What have you got to lose? A couple seconds? I can tell you what you have to gain by knowing Kimberly and/or reading her blog: bucks in your pocket and traffic for your blog!

The first time I ever listened to BlogTalkRadio was when I heard an interview with Matt Mullenwegg, co-creator of WordPress. Since then, when I hear an interesting voice of our times is being featured on there, I click back over and put my headphones on to enjoy a great show.

I’m writing here about a new show being featured on BlogTalkRadio, it’s called Your Mental Health Radio Talk Show. Some readers will assume immediately that mental health is neither interesting nor does it have anything to do with them: bare with me, I beg to differ, it does. Other readers’ ears perk up because they know mental illness. Whether schizophrenia has touched an aunt or bipolar has ravaged a brother, mental illness (and/or health) is too close to home for many many people in the world. The next time you are walking through a swarmed crowd, remember that one in three people are affected by mental illness. It could be a million dollar movie star you adore or an unseen immigrant in the back of a restaurant quietly cleaning dishes in sinks.

An upcoming show will feature Dr. Raymond Moody, MD author of the world-reknown book Life After Life and his new book Life After Loss takes up where Life After Life left off. The esteemed host and more information about this talk radio channel can be cound here: www.authorsden.com/jacquelinesforeman

That’s what is so great about this new Blog Talk Radio service. I’ll be tuning in regularly because psychology has played a huge role in my personal development. Not only have I read Peck’s treatise but many many others. Incidentally, another amazing one is the classic, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff by Richard Carlson. Books and other media like these can transform your life from simple survival to truly enjoying life. It can be like the sun shining through the clouds of your life. A regular internet radio show like this can be a great tool for your mental health and that of your friends and loved ones.

Don’t you agree the time for such an internet medium has come?

To raise your awareness of mental health issues or just to be entertained, I wholeheartedly endorse listening to Your Mental Health Talk Radio at blogtalkradio.com/yourmentalhealth Tuesday’s and Thursday’s at 6 PM EST.

The expression: “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water” seems especially appropriate for Google here at the beginning of 2008. I am no seo or blogging mmol genius but I do know a few things about logic and ethics and setting PayPerPost writers’ pagerank to zero is a choice lacking in both.

Under the guise of weeding out vacuous content from searches, they claim all blogs that have PayPerPost articles on them are less helpful than those who don’t and thus set their PageRank to zero. This is an example of a company thinking they will reinvent natural law to suit them because they can, not because they should. It’s going to bite them, the internet did not evolve to this point to be defined by one company.

I recall when I first got into using Google, it seemed like such a cool enterprise. The page was white with no ads and it had applications that were all utility, no fluff (ie; analytics, gmail …). Now, they have decided they know based on one criteria if a blog is helpful to the internet, this is ignorance at its height and I hope Google stops this practice. My how Google’s “feel” has changed for me.

As for me? I will continue to be a postie because it’s something I am good at and it’s something I profit from. That’s why Walt Disney, Rod Serling, Ray Kroc, Richard Carlso... did what they did. Last week I lost my PageRank of 4/10 when it was set to zero. I had a feeling this might happen when I read the news about what Google was doing to posties. But has my readership changed? It has gone up. Has my content changed? It has gotten better. The way I see it is this: Google figured the blogosphere would appreciate it if they targeted posties, and for the most part, they are probably right (check out Duncan Riley’s tone on Tech Crunch). But that doesn’t mean that weeding out all blogs with PayPerPosts on them will increase the value of a search. In fact, in many cases, it will keep good information out of a search. Is the only information we want on the internet that which is written without compensation? You might as well stop watching TV as far back as I Love Lucy.

To quote Michael Stipe: “It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.” Emphasize: I feel fine.

I predict Izea (PayPerPost’s rebranding) and SocialSpark will revolutionize rankings in 3-6 months. You can come and tell me I was wrong if they don’t, but as for now I am making sure I focus 100% on my idea of what a good ranking is:

1. Monthly Traffic Goals
2. Inbound links
3. Comment counts, and
4. Quality content (paid or unpaid)

If I can succeed in these areas (which I can and do already) then I’ll take my PR0 with pride and look to other ranking systems like Izea’s RealRank to determine how I’m doing. To my fans/readers: fear not, I am neither down nor out. I will get better through moving away from Google’s PageRank system, not worse. Whether you like PayPerPost or not, I hope you see how throwing every blog out that uses it is harmful to the blogosphere.

Now, to close, I have a question and I promise not to pigeonhole you or throw YOU out if I don’t like your answer:

What do you think about Google setting blogs to zero for participating in PayPerPost?

The blogger over at Writing Aspirations makes some hefty points about blogging in 2007. Some I agree with, and some I am on the fence about. At any rate, it inspired me to share my history with the internet and writing, it’s been a long road that some bloggers might find helpful, if not interesting. Here we go:

I started writing on a personal website in 1995. I started it free at Geocities, and I didn’t even have my own computer. I accessed the page through California State University Fullerton’s computer lab. As I recall they had MAC’s. I’ve since become a PC guy. Geocities separated sites into categories based on broader interests. Because mine was literature and writing (I was an English major in my last semester at the time), they gave me an “Athens” addy. I remember advancing through the other websites and finding sites ranging from highly busy with too many graphics moving to standard written sites where the personal webmaster seemed more conservative. I remember my first webpage was a diatribe on what my named meant (Damien) and a history of how the “Omen” portrayed it in a false bad light. Seems like 100 years ago! Geocities had an extensive help system that taught me basic html, ie: item in bold and how to make a link, colors, pictures, etc. It was web design for the average joe, and I used it to post the little things going on in my life (and occasional big ones). It was so exciting to learn new tricks, like how to post an animated GIF next to something, how to use a background image, etc. I sent my updated pages with “ecolumns,” as I used to call them, to family and friends on my address list. It was a great way to connect with the people I knew and loved. While with Geocities, I also learned a lot of code secrets from Dynamic Drive.

In the late 90’s and early 2000’s, I discovered phpBB forums.? These replaced owner’s manuals and personal websites. I was, at one time, a posting member of 20 forums. My handle was “jeeptravel,” and you could find me in a search posting on anything from High Desert issues to plumbing to Jeep repair. They were great, but my interest waned when posts seemed to be lost after a few replies. There was no permanence to forums, it got boring. I guess it depends on the forum you frequent, but the ones I went to seemed to dribble down to a core of members that weren’t always as interesting as the technology of the forum made you think. This is an important point when considering the blog question of 2007. I started a few forums of my own through PhP. When you purchase a personal website from a server host like Top Class Host (one of the best and cheapest I’ve found), they automatically include “fantastico” which allows the user to instantly install a forum, blog, or any number of awesome sql database driven items. I use them now to host my blog. Specifically I use WordPress software included in the hosting package. I pay $6.95/month and it is well worth it for the freedom of tweaking I have with my blog and storage on my website. That brings us to the state of blogging in 2007.

Before starting my own “not free” hosted site, I blogged off and on for several years at blogger.com

blogger.com is an awesome free service, but there are MANY great free blogging services out there to check out. Here is a list if you are interested (not in order of anything special):

Live Journal
Yahoo! 360
Windows Live Spaces
Bravenet
Geocities
wordpress.com (The free version/ web-based)

The list could go on and on . . .

Now for my point (sorry for the long history, thanks for reading this long).

Speaking to the question of the blog phenom being a passing fad: I must answer with a cop-out, yes and no.

Yes, the trend of signing up for a free blogging service and writing posts like “Yikes I broke a nail,” will inevitably fade out.

It will grow boring for folks just as MySpace has begun to fade in its popularity. The veneer of technological “wow” will wear off (hmmm three w’s in a row) and these folks will either A) continue to keep their blog as a way to communicate with contacts, or B) Shut it down or abandon it in favor of some new technological toy (I don’t know what that will be just yet).

On the other hand, I must reply “no,” it is not a passing trend because great writers are using it to create “ecolumns” for family and friends more than ever before. It is, in essence, a literary renaissance revival. Everywhere across the globe people are writing. It is a phenomenon of communication . . . like the free website was with geocities and other providers but on a WAYYYYY wider scale. Those who remain blogging through 2007 will be those people who are both good, thoughtful writers AND who are also internet savvy. You have to be with blogging. Keeping up with terms like “trackback” and “ping” is a tough endeavor, if you don’t like computers. But a little interest goes a long way.

So what will the blogosphere become? Here’s my image: A highly and daily more refined set of regular posters who enjoy writing about the world, either in a narrowly defined category, or in a “personal blog” format AND who are internet savvy.

It has been said that topic specific blogs are the only ones that will flourish in the future. I disagree. I think the personal blog and the topic specific ones have their place and there is plenty enough audience out there for the good ones.

~~~~Blog Carnival Submissions below~~~~

Corey presents Web 2.0 posted at myopiniononeverything.com.