In this he says, and I paraphrase, he doesn’t time to go around with his birth certificate plastered on his face.
My question is, has it ever been shown yet, to the people of the US that is, and why does he think we want him to plaster it on his face, rather than in newspapers, and on the air? In a manner that we can verify that he was in fact born in the US, and not in Africa as his Doctor that was there has said, his Grandmother has said (early on, now she says Hawaii), and those that were there have said?
I’ve been blogging for several years now, and recently I’ve seen a trend that I’m not sure I like. In fact, I KNOW I don’t like it.
People are writing their blogs with short excerpts on the front page, with a “read more”, “click here to continue” link at the end of the excerpt, which then takes you to the whole message they have written. When I see these blogs, unless the excerpt is EXCEPTIONALLY good and leading, I tend to ignore the whole blog and move on.
Why do this? Is it to get more entries on one page? That is the only reason I can see to do it. It is not to keep them on your blog, as they are already there…
Now, I can see submitting only excerpts to sites such as bloglines.com and such so you get the reader to come to your site, and hopefully stay a while, but in general, the front page of your blog, to me, should have the whole message there and not require me to click to read it all.
Another trend is in format, again one I’m not liking, and how the blog looks. Many people are choosing a three column format in which two of the columns have squares of excerpts with the “read more” and the third column is full of ads and junk. Looks VERY cluttered to me, and is often difficult to read, so I move on and don’t read them….
Ok, first (or more recently anyway), we have the guy that was married to one lady, and was messing around with another lady, then he took a trip to Disney World and got married, while still married to the first lady, to this lady. And the lady has the gumption to post the wedding pictures on her Facebook page. Busted!
Now, I have a friend here in my area that has been dating a guy for several weeks, and it was getting serious. “Exclusive” supposedly. Then the guy goes out and finds another lady, concurrently, and posts about it on his facebook page. BUSTED!
I have heard many stories like this. WHY are people so dumb to post such things to get themselves in trouble?
I still don’t get Facebook in general though… Or Twitter, or MySpace (is that still around, don’t hear much about it anymore?), or ….
Well, my week off form work is all but half over, and I’m already wishing for more time off.
It has been a busy week of traveling to Ohio for a medical appointment to make sure my bad knee, given to me by the US Army, was still bad, and if to see if I could get a bump up in how bad it was (more money, and it is in pain ALL the time these days, gives out often, and I’m in a brace most of the time now), fixing the code behind ExposeYourBlog! and WORKING on getting Surf&Chat back in place (not quite there yet, but getting closer) in a manner that the system doesn’t bog down like it was. I have also been busy cleaning out my dresser, night stand, car, and closet. My wife wants me to clean up my books too, but there is no place to put them, and I’m not wanting to get rid of them…. I have also added more music to my music selection, equalized all the music in my collection so it all comes out with the same volume when it plays, and updated the autoDJ at Radio ExposeYourBlog! today.
Tribal Blogs and ExposeYourBlog! have joined up in partnership in what I think will be great for the blogging community! I look forward to this relationship growing stronger each day! (And if you don’t use either service for your blogs, you should sign up for both, and actively use them!)
Tomorrow I get to go to the dentist for a cleaning, anyone want to go for me? Please? Pretty please?
Busy times. But I’m having fun, and I’m getting some reading in to boot!!
Next week I am on leave from work, and I plan on staying pretty busy working on ExposeYourBlog! so if you have anything you want to see added (or removed) please be sure to comment here or on the forums and I may consider it. I have a couple of surprises I hope to release during the week!
I will also be busy on a couple of other web sites I manage, and hope to keep this blog and my other three blogs current as well.
I plan on working on my “workout schedule” as well. I need to get my fat behind back in shape, like it was 10ish years ago, or as close to it as I can!! I hope to be getting a mountain bike (pedal kind) next week as well, so that may help.
Looking forward to a week of from work that is for sure… Was supposed to go to Florida and get what is left of my stuff out of storage down there, but my Mother-In-Law broke her hip, and while she is now home, we felt it was better to hang here just in case. Good thing too, because the VA decided to make an important exam for me, as I try to up my compensation for my service connected disability, and they made it for the middle of next week!! (Good thing I don’t have to use up sick leave for it!!)
Anyway, if you have anything you want to see changed on ExposeYourBlog! Let me know!
While I am not overly happy that a Mosque is going to be built that close to a place that was destroyed, and in which many people were killed, by people claiming to be Muslim, I do feel that the right to purchase land, and build what you want there, be it religious or not, is your right. We should not be fighting this building, but rather, should be building a Christian Church across the street or in the same area with a “Rec area” as well. Have all faiths build a site there to bring faith back to the area.
I know this won’t sit well with many people, especially here in the US, but freedom of religion is a right given to us by our Constitution and something I hold close to my heart. Presuming that the owners are US Citizens, regardless of where they are getting the money to build it, that they are using local talent to build it, and they are obeying the laws of the US on the property, it is their right to do so.
Now, if we come to find that they are training terrorist there, or doing other illegal actions there, then the State should come in, close it down, confiscate it, if they legally can over the actions performed, and go from there.
Let’s all live in God, we appear to be praying to the same one, even if in different ways, and live in peace and love instead of in war!
Over the past 15 years, I have been studying various religions and the theology behind those religions. Six or so years ago I began “homing” in on the Catholic faith and converted a few years ago to the Catholic faith. I continue to grow in my “new found faith”, and in that function of growing, I am always wanting to get a deeper understanding of where the Church stands on things, and why.
This book was a great find to help me grow in understanding in the faith that God has led me to.
This book follows, loosely, the American version of the Catechism of the Church book released a few years ago. It does a very good job of describing why the Church believes as it does, ties it to the Bible, and explains the differences on a concept between the Catholic Church and other Christian Churches in the Protestant areas.
I HIGHLY recommend this book for any Christian, so they can better understand where the Catholic Church comes from in it’s theology of life.
I don’t normally post much on this blog about Watkins or it’s products, I do that on “Watkins Ramblings“, but I thought I’d bring the business and products out here as well again. (I’ve done it before, most recently here, but will try not to do it too often… )
Watkins is a 141+ year old company that has great “Green” products for home and personal care, and some of the best spices and flavorings you will ever find. Once you buy any of these products, you will never go back to store bought products!
Now, comes the good part, for a fee of $39.95/year, you can become an Associate and receive a 25% discount on all products you buy for yourself, and you receive at least a 25% commission on any products you sell. You can sell in person, over the Internet, by mail, etc. There is no need to buy products and store them in your already full garage. You take your orders, send the order in and three to seven days later the products are either delivered to you, or if you want, directly to your client/customer.
As you get clients that like to buy a lot of products each month, you talk to them about becoming an Associate themselves, giving them a 25% discount on the products from what they were paying you for them, and they begin saving. At the same time, you receive from 1% to 15% commission on their use and sales of product, provided you are still using or selling the products yourself. (There is no commission just for having a person sign up. Both you and the new Associate need to buy or sell product to earn a commission!)
You can also go straight to a person and share the business concept with that person and have them start out as an Associate. The same principles work here.
Now, the secret, and it’s not a secret, but that is what draws people in right?, is to USE THE PRODUCTS yourself. One, the products are great. The food products taste good, and are of the highest quality and of the best production. The household products are made to Green standards, are all natural and will not cause health issues to the users, or kill pets, etc. The personal care products are great as well. (I know, I may be prejudice, as I’m a Watkins Associate, but it was the products that sold me on it, and caused me to join over 8 years ago.)
Now, I know I’m going to get the nay sayers who are going to say that this business is nothing but a Pyramid Scheme. First off, all business are pyramids in pay structure for the most part. The person at the top makes more money than the person directly below them, and they make more money than the person directly below them, all the way down to the bottom person in the company. In Watkins, you can be “under” someone and make more money than them, by building your client base and selling more product and/or by building your “sales/use” team bigger than that person above you, making you more money than they make. And you don’t make money on the person joining. ONLY when they buy (or sell) product is there any upward commission.
This is not a get rich quick scheme either. It will take you from three to ten years to make a strong business of it, based on a 5 to 20 hour work week. Meaning, you work the business for 5 to 20 hours a week talking to people, and sharing the products. It can be done quicker if you work more. (But in today’s world, who can always put more time in a “side job”?) The first key to this business is to use the products yourself. If you do this, first you get great products that do a great job, and you get your volume in. (If you use the supplements, house cleaning products, and/or personal care products on a daily/monthly basis, you will reach your needed volume without any sales, to earn commission on those you bring into the business. Sales brings you added volume and revenue, so never overlook a sales opportunity!)
Like any business, this business requires money. But not alot. You can start out by buying products you normally buy from the local store from yourself. You can advertise for free through blogs, free websites (and, if you join under me, you are giving, at no cost to you, access to some great marketing tools such as this which help you get leads), letters and emails to associates, etc. You can always purchase leads through various sources, and your best avenue is just sharing the products with others, or products made from Watkins products.
This business is fun, you get a great support team through me, and my up line, which includes access to a great training system (again for free) with tons of tools and information about building your business.
For the past 8 years, my focus on this business has been to use the products I like in my daily and monthly life and acquire new associates who are wanting to do the same, and make money while they are at it. Before becoming a Friar, I had over 300 people in my team, and because I quit being an active user of the products, allowed about 280 of them to go to another team. Twenty some stayed with me, and I’m now growing that team up again.
Here is how I do it. I am on a round of sponsoring 10 people that I will keep directly under me. The next 10 people I sponsor go one each under those 10, and then the next 10 go under them again in a round robin system. Those that follow the system of at least using the product, I continue to place people under as I sponsor more people., putting the next 10 under me, following the above pattern for those 10, then I will start placing the rest under those 20, or at least the ones that are active.
Are you ready to be one of the first 10 in this next round of growth for my business? If so, drop me a line here, and I will help you get started. If you would like to research the business on your own, before talking to me, go here.
I look forward to working with you in building your second income, which may become your main income should you wish to make it so!
Ok, as I hope ALL of you know, especially if you have a blog, I own and run a Traffic Exchange for Blogs. In the process of checking out the various scripts out there to manage and run an exchange program, I have visited many sites to see how they set up their software, and to get a feel for each of them from the user side. After a week or so, I set on one, and purchased it and now we have ExposeYourBlog!. It’s up and running and it is niche based, meaning it is only for surfing blogs. It is there to help blog writers to get others to read their blogs, and surprisingly most of the bloggers read the blogs, comment on them, and are enjoying seeing the other blogs.
What I don’t get is the majority of the exchanges I’ve been on, especially the ones you can “earn money” on, are exchanges of exchanges. Meaning, every site in rotation on one exchange is another exchange site with other exchange sites on it. It is almost like they are making money off of one and giving it to another to make money off it to give it to another to make money of it. I just don’t get it!?
Find a niche category of websites, and I don’t mean other exchanges, which granted is a niche, and target that niche and go from there.. WILD!
This past two weeks has been pretty busy for me. And, while a lot of that busy has been on line, I really haven’t been able to surf much on ExposeYourBlog!, post here, post on Watkins Ramblings, or Daily Readings. I’ve been busy working on the back end of ExposeYourBlog! (some surprises coming in the near future there!), and on the Council web page for the Knights of Columbus that I belong to.
Add on to that all the work at work, restarting and re-building my Watkins business, working on Circular Wind Ryu building it up, and then last weekend and this weekend going to Knights of Columbus related events (last weekend doing service work at a Missionary Church, and this weekend going to Knights of Columbus training). Busy times.
Monday of next week, I will get to (I wish I could say back to, but I just haven’t been doing it!) doing daily postings on both Watkins Ramblings and Daily Readings. With Daily Readings I plan on going back in and filling in the missing days, all the way back to the first day I started it. (That will take some time though… )
See you all Monday!! Be safe and have fun, and if you have a blog, be sure to come to ExposeYourBlog!
As we come to the end of the day, I hope you have had a great 4th of July if you live here in the US. I have had a great day, and weekend, so far.
As we celebrate the achieving of independence from Great Britain, I think through the actions of the United States of America since then. We have assisted in, or fought numerous battles since then, always for the purpose, or at least the stated purpose, of defending freedoms that we feel all people should have. I am very happy to be called an US Citizen, and hope we can see our country go back to the principles we fought for to achieve our independence!
Ok, so now Mexico has been allowed to file a amicus brief on the law suit by the US Government against AZ. What does this mean? In a round about way, it means that Mexico is becoming a complainant against AZ on their Illegal Alien laws they recently inacted.
This is against the US Constitution for one, and two, opens up a whole new can of worms in our political structure. (First, why is the US Government even SUING a state? Should they be doing that?)
Where does Mexico come off telling us what to do in our own States? They sure as heck don’t want us to tell them what to do! And their laws on illegal aliens are WORSE than what AZ has put up!
I am not liking where I am seeing the US head by any way shape or form lately…
When I was growing up, kids could win or loose in games. Kids could (and did) flunk in class or get an F as a grade on a test or assignment. While these things may happen today, for the most part when kids play games, such as baseball, or other sports, there is no loosing team, all win. Everyone gets a trophy or banner, or something to show they “won”, rather they did or they didn’t. In school, everyone one seems to pass now, rather they know what they were supposed to learn or not.
This does not work for me. We need to get back to letting kids know that they can fail in life, and in what they do. We need to get back to having sporting events where there are winners and losers. Where kids that aren’t able to play, for what ever reason, don’t play, if they can’t cut the requirements of that sport.
When we change the schools back to the format of pass or fail, and if you fail, you stay at that level until you pass, kids will find that they need to do their best to move forward in life.
I fear that thew two events, no failing, no losing, are the main reasons things are not going so well here in the US. (That and the breaking up of families….)
As of about 10 minutes ago, ExposeYourBlog! has begun broadcasting Radio ExposeYourBlog! 24/7 for your listening enjoyment! There were be an eclectic assortment of music played 24/7 via an autoDJ, and schedule live events that will include live DJ’ing, interviews with blog writers and readers, live reviews of blog software and service providers, and internet and international news cast.
Please join us by selecting your music player and clicking the related link:
I currently work at the VAMC (Veteran’s Administration Medical Center) in Huntington WV. One of my associates there came to me with a company, Mikaylas Place for Autism, had come upon several thousand laptops and desktops, and having received them free as donations from companies and governments, was able to sell laptops for $50.00. These laptops were to be less than a year and a half old, in good condition, have licensed copies of Windows VISTA or Windows 7, WIFI ready, CD/DVD RW devices, MS Office 2007 and other software, and over all nice systems. You could also get a Mac PowerBook at the same cost.
So, I figured it was coming from someone I trusted at work, this may be a good thing. With another group, I decided to buy 5 computers, 3 for them, all Windows, two for me, one Windows, one Mac. $250.00… Wait time was to be three to four weeks. I can live with that. (I did this through the friend, and I received a receipt from Mikayla’s Place about a week later.)
I took this to my Knights of Columbus group and we raised $4,650 worth of orders. I went to the Mikayla’s Place web site, as no one answered the phones, but directed me there (first warning alarm for me). I left a message that I had a order of 4.5K that I would like to place, and within about two hours received a call from Vicky that she was out of town, when “next week could we meet”? We set a date for Wednesday of THIS week, and all was good.
Sunday I received a call, “I’m back in town, can we meet today?” She told me she had just moved to Ashland, living with her boyfriend, the Uncle of Mikayla, and didn’t know the area well (I came to find out through the news and other sources, the two were living at a hotel in town, she is from Ohio), but agreed to meet me at the mall parking lot. When she got there, she was on the phone, not overly professionally dressed. After she got off the phone I went up to her, and we chatted, she showed me a few computers, one with a broken latch she was going to get fixed “Monday”, but otherwise they looked fine. (Did not turn any on.)
I handed her the checks (two, one for $4,500 and one for $150) and told her not to cash the big one till Tuesday, and the little one till Thursday of this week. (Waiting for deposits to clear so the checks wouldn’t bounce.) She said fine.
Monday evening about two hours before the local evening news, she calls me and says, “We may be on the news tonight, not sure if it will be good or bad, but I thought I should let you know! I haven’t cashed the checks yet, and if you want them back I will bring them to you.” Still thinking everything was OK, I said I’d stick behind her, let’s move forward. The news wasn’t all that good though.
The next morning as I was composing an email to the people that had given me the money for the computers, I get a frantic email from one that had raised $3,150 of the orders saying they wanted the money back (which is what I was recommending). Once they confirmed it, I called Vicky and told her that everyone wanted to cancel the order, could I meet up with her and pick up the checks? She informed me she was in Seattle, Washington, but that she hadn’t deposited or cashed the checks, but that she would throw them out after shredding them.
Something didn’t ring right, so I did some research and found that the cell site she had received the call on was in South Point Ohio (about 30 minutes (slow driving) from here), not Washington State…
Yesterday afternoon I received an email from Earl, from the Knights, saying that the news was reporting that Vicky and her boy friend were now in NC and that she had called in and said he had kidnapped her. (And they were in NC, the police had arrested him, both have been let go as I understand it.)
What a mess.. Well, that old adage of “If it is too good to be true, it probably isn’t true” (or words to that effect) came into play here. And I have now joined the ranks of the scammed.
I am out $46.00 in stop payment charges on the two checks, and $250 for my first order, that I doubt I will ever see back (computers or money).
Over the past year, I have been busy looking for a job, getting a job, changing jobs (twice changed), and becoming (or trying to) part of an existing family. During that time, I mainly, though not always, neglected my promises to God in reading and studying His Word, neglected my body, which has gotten even more out of shape, although through part of the falling apart, I have lost some weight, and have not kept up as well with my Martial Arts, Reading, and personal growth.
This week, after six months working at the Veteran’s Hospital, I am taking a week of leave. My plans for this week, which have already start include:
1. Restarting an exercise plan. (Started today already!)
2. Back to reading the Bible daily.
3. Returning to the Liturgy of Hours daily. (Praying a set of prayers 7 times a day, and associated readings.)
4. Martial Arts practice and reading.
5. Get my finances back in order.
6. Helping more about the house. (More reliably than I have been.)
I have been lazy of late in all of these aspects, and the change has to come! I need to get back in shape, which will stop some of the illnesses I have had (ulcers in the stomach, arthritis pain, left knee pain and giving out, etc), and I need to get back into spiritual shape as well!
I hope each of you have a life plan that includes health, wealth, and spiritual aspects and that you follow that plan, adjusting it as you need to!
(And I hope these few readers here keep me to this plan, by checking in on me, and by goading me along when I get lazy again!)
Arizona, and many other people, want to put up a wide, long fence along the boarder from Mexico to the US. THIS I DON”T agree with… A fence is not the way to do things, look at the wall in Berlin. Bad move!
A fence is bad on many levels, but the worse two are one it is non-inviting, and I do think LEGAL immigration into the US is a must and should be allowed, the wall helps block that, and second is a wall keeps in as well as out, and it puts into a place a blockade to people wanting to travel away from the US.
By this later I mean: The wall will be a reason to not allow US Citizens permission to enter Mexico for a vacation, or to visit, etc. And it could anger other Nations as well, causing them to be less interested in allowing us to travel to their countries to visit. It just plain keeps US in USofA on many levels.
I am all for legal immigration and visits to the USofA. Immigration is important to our growth, as it has from the beginning. But it must be LEGAL and TOTAL immigration. Many years ago the English language (which wasn’t even the most common language, German was) was selected as the National Language. And for many years new immigrants that came into the USofA and applied for citizenship, learned the language so they could understand our laws and ways, and to understand one another. New citizens, prior to taking their oath of citizenship were, and supposedly stall are, required to learn our laws and a bit about our history. When they became citizens of the USofA, they agreed to speak our language, live by our laws, pay our taxes, and live as US Citizens, and not Citizens of their prior Nation.
I am all for giving those illegal aliens in our nation now six or so months to learn our language, learn our laws, agree to live by our laws, pay their taxes, and take on the role of a citizen of the USofA in supporting the Nation. I don’t require them to forget their old Nation, and I have no problem with them sending money back to family “left behind”. I have no problem with them working for less wages that other US citizens, if that is what they want to do (that is another whole post some day of it’s own…).
My only problem is that they are here illegally, don’t want to learn our language, demand that we learn theirs, don’t pay taxes, yet receive benefits (and DEMAND them!) from our tax revenues.
The wall won’t stop any of that, nor will it make them legally immigrate…
Blood Diamond (Widescreen Edition)
Director: Edward Zwick
Rating: 5
Review: This movie was better than I expected it to be. In many cases "historically correct" movies are good for the information in them, but are often badly put together. This movie was well acted, well written, and well done! It, unfortunately depicts how bad this world is getting on many levels! I would recommend this movie to anyone that is interested in well depicted history, that is action, suspense and adventure.
A Listening Church: Autonomy and Communion in African Churches
Author: Elochukwu E. Uzukwu
Rating: 5
Review: This book looks at religion on a regional basis. The Author is one of the first African's I've read or heard from that places as much blame on slavery on his own people and Europeans as he does on the Americans. He goes into detail on how he would like to see the Catholic Church improve their presence in Africa by allowing the traditions and history of Africa show within the Liturgy of the Church. I fully agree with his concepts and feel that the Church should do so across all of it's areas!
The Notebook (New Line Platinum Series)
Director: Nick Cassavetes
Rating: 4
Review: Only reason this is a 4 instead of a 5 is the speed at which it rolls. A bit slow, but otherwise a VERY good ending with a GREAT, although sad, ending. I am sure mainly the ladies will like this (or admit to it), but it is a good movie, and everyone should enjoy it!
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