Saturday, July 19, 2008

Lovin' Hubbin'

I haven't earned my fortune (yet), but I have really enjoyed publishing and reading articles on HubPages. Truthfully, I probably spend way too much time reading and not enough time writing, but there's some really good stuff there!

Today ShadesBreath had me laughing hysterically with Top 5 Worst Species in Which to Be a Guy: an absolutely scientific (or not) look at sex in the animal world. And he's just the first one to catch my attention today--I have tons of favorite hubbers, and I'll be mentioning others as I blog.

While I haven't made a ton of money, I have made a little, and I am seeing a steady rise in my traffic. I'm over 1600 views now, and more than half are from the search engines. At first, most of my views were from other hubbers, which is really a great way to get started. Hubbers are encouraging, they leave comments on your articles, they become your fans. All of this moral support keeps you motivated until the money starts to trickle in. Hubbers also openly share their experience on the Hub Forums. I've learned that while that first $100 paycheck may take months to earn, they seem to start coming more quickly after that. I'm really encouraged by several Hubbers who say they are earning pretty steady pocket change with very little SEO (that's search engine optimization, which I have NOT learned much about...yet.) I think the best thing about earning money through hupages (and other online writing opporunities) is the passive nature of the earnings. Once you publish a really good article, and learn a little about keywords and SEO, the traffic will come, and keep coming.

Are you ready to sign up for hubpages and give it a try? Use this link and I'll get referral credit ;-0 That means when you start earning, I'll get a commission. Don't worry--the commission comes from HubPages share, not yours!

After One Week of BB 10

Funny how quickly things can change in the Big Brother house, and how quickly our impressions change! I still like Jerry, but not as much. And now that Brian got the boot, I kinda feel bad about my earlier distaste for him. The puppet show was hysterical--easily one of my favorite all-time Big Brother moments. Dan...well, he's growing on me a little but I still have a problem with this extreme conservative statements about women. He seems to be genuinely opening up to Steven though and maybe learning a thing or two about tolerance.

Libra and April really rub me the wrong way, but for some reason I'm really liking Keesha, the Hooter's girl.

I'm very proud of myself! I've made it to bed everynight instead of falling asleep on the couch watchin BBAD. Honestly with the excellent work Carolyn does at BBDish, I don't usually watch much of BBAD. I have debated getting the live feeds this year. I'd like to support Carolyn but I'm afraid I would either be so obsessed the rest of my life would be too neglected, or the opposite, I wouldn't have time to really enjoy the feeds.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Here We Go - Big Brother 10

So, I just finished watching the premier with Camille. She says it's too early to pick a fave, and she's probably right. You don't get to see much of everyone on the first episode. But thanks to BBDish, I've seen lots of interviews and clips so far, and I have a couple of strong likes and dislikes.

I really like Jerry and would love to see someone with a little age win this thing, but I'm not happy about his alliance with Brian. I wanted to like Brian, since we work in the same industry, but his interview didn't impress me, and I seriously dislike school teacher Dan. What a jerk. Darn, darn, darn. I just don't like this early alliance and I'm afraid Jerry will stick to it.

Renny, poor Renny. I wanted to like her, too. Am I getting old? I keep picking the older house guests as faves. Remember Chicken George? I so rooted for him. And who was the old guy on Survivor? Big Tom? loved him too. But Renny is making everyone crazy, so I don't think she'll last long. I'm not too disappointed in the nominations. Renny was predictable, Jessie isn't impressing me much. Camille thinks the body-builder stuff is gross :-)

Ah, the addiction has returned. I'll probably be falling asleep on the couch for the next 2 months--Big Brother After Dark airs on Showtime midnight until 3 am.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Small Town Fourth of July

We decided in last minute fashion to check out the Rolesville fireworks yesterday. I haven't been to a 4th of July celebration in a while. Fuddy-duddy that I am, I usually think it's not worth the hassle of traffic and crowds. We carpooled with friends and parked far enough away that by the time we got back to the car, getting onto the road was no problem. I just wish I'd had a little warning about the walking part. I wore a new pair of sandles and by the time we reached the festivities, I had a nice blister on my foot.

I asked at the gate if there was a first aid station where I could find a bandaid and was directed to the firetrucks. The firemen had sweet little plastic helmets for the kids and real suits and hats to try, and of course kids and grownups alike were crawling in and out of the fire trucks. They searched bag after bag, diligently tryinng to find a bandaid. They assured me that if I cut my foot off they would be equipped to handle it, but finding a small bandaid for a small blister was a bit of a challenge. Eventually they fixed me up with a bandage and some tape that worked even better than a bandaid would have.

Mother Nature had her own plans for fireworks, and the live music ended early so Rolesville could get the man-made show going before the storm arrived. The cool breeze made us all comfortable physically while we got crinks in our neck staring at the colorful sky, but it also had me wondering where all these people were going to go if the thunder and lightening caught up with us!

I felt like a kid again watching the fireworks. "I love that smell," I was thinking to myself, just as a young man walking by said "I love that smell," outloud. And one really neat oval shaped burst inspired me to share a "That was cool!" with my stepson. Jinx!

We made it back the car, and in fact back to the house for some smaller backyard fireworks, before the storm hit. All in all it was a pretty cool evening.