Miles Business Blog

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T05:16:57Z

Just wanted to take a brief moment to wish everyone a Happy New Year! One more time 'round the sun. I probably won't be posting much later today (possibly this evening) as I am getting ready to go in to work and don't get off until 1pm this afternoon. Ugh. Not much fun.

Kevin Foster Dies of Cancer

2008-10-14T18:23:32Z

That sucks. Kevin foster spent seven years in the Major Leagues mostly with the Phillies and Cubs and has died of Renal Cell Carcinoma after fighting it for the last six months. His brother Mark Foster said that "He loved baseball, he loved people and people loved him. He was a happy person who got along with everybody and we will miss him."

Caylee Anthony

2008-09-14T02:02:16Z

I've been spending a great deal of time at my main blog writing about the disappearance of Caylee Anthony and her ne'er-do-well mother Casey Anthony. So far there isn't a whole lot of ground being made in the case. I received an email from someone earlier wondering what was happening in the case and my honest opinion is that law enforcement has been pretty smart about it. If they were to arrest Casey Anthony right now and charge her for murder and she gets off, they can never try her again.

The best thing they can do right now is to hopefully convict her of the economic crimes she's been charged with and hope the body turns up soon so that the police can have DNA testing done on it. Once there's a body she's convicted for sure.

Waiting on the Promotion...

2008-09-11T00:39:40Z

Over the last few months the wife and I have talked several times about relocating if I get promoted. I did finally apply for a promotion and am on a development plan. I pretty much expected that so it wasn't a shock, particularly since right now I don't want to move.

There are a couple of different states we wouldn't mind living in depending on if we could even sell the house. North or South Carolina would be OK. My brother lives in North Carolina and while he has a few issues with the schools there everything else is OK. He moved down from the metro DC area so everything is cheaper. North Carolina health insurance, homes, auto insurance, even groceries are much more reasonable. I sure would be nice to be closer to him as well.

Most likely we will stay in the area though because if we do move the wife ends up losing something like 60% of her teacher retirement and we just can't afford that.

New Charges Against Casey Anthony

2008-09-03T20:38:58Z

The Orange County Sheriff's department has filed new charges against Casey Anthony. There are also some other news items related to the search at http://tinyurl.com/56w8ud

Need to Get Back on Track

2008-09-02T02:32:10Z

I was doing very well earlier this year trying to keep fit. I was working out on an almost daily basis, had pretty much quit smoking and was really starting to feel good and lose a bit of weight as well. I don't take any kind of supplements or diet pills, just exercise.

Lately I have been doing pretty badly at it though. I need to start going to the gym again and get back in shape. I have been maybe once in the last month and I am getting tired earlier in the day. I can really tell the difference.

It's just a matter of mind over body I guess and making myself do the right thing.

Spending Tips For College

2008-08-24T20:36:24Z

CBS News financial consultant Ray Martin offers a bit of advice to parents and children as they head off to college. At times it can be tricky to know exactly how much money you need...

Bermuda

2008-08-23T22:40:12Z

Earlier when I was talking about going on vacation in the spring I forgot to mention that we are also considering going to Bermuda. Now that we both have a valid passport we can actually travel outside of the country. The only place I have ever been outside of the U.S. is Nassau and I would really like to see some more places.

It does mean leaving the girls with a babysitter though which also means that we will only be able to go for the weekend rather than an entire week. That's not really a bad thing because I am trying to start setting more money aside for an emergency account. I don't have nearly enough set aside should we have some sort of emergency.

Vacation Rentals

2008-08-23T22:36:23Z

Every once in awhile I will get on here and talk about vacations. Mostly where we have been but sometimes I will discuss where we want to go, real estate in the area and available rentals. I like doing vacation rentals simply because you get more bang for the buck.

We have been thinking about going to see my brother at some point in the spring and am hoping that if we stay somewhere on te Carolina coast that he and his family can come out for a few days and stay with us. I have been looking at prices for Outer Banks rentals and there are some really affordable places up there that look just beautiful. If we don't go that far north we may stay on the bay in Beaufort, SC. We spent a couple of days there when my son graduated from boot camp and I really liked the area.

Getting Healthier...

2008-08-23T22:17:07Z

One of the things we have started doing around the house over the last few months is to try and eat healthier and well as doing other things that get us in shape. The wife is doing a much better job of it than I am but I am at least trying to participate. We don't eat as much junk and we are taking supplements that we know work as well.

My wife was looking at different drinks the other day. One of the big things right now are energy drinks. The problem with most of them is that they are full of sugar and other stuff that work temporarily but don't really have any kind of beneficial effect the way that Orovo and other good juices do.

Kids

2008-08-23T21:58:35Z

So my oldest daughter is almost eleven. Amazing. My son of course will be 20 in January and he's long gone but one of the awful things we dealt with that I can remember from my teenage years was the acne. No matter what you are doing as a kid that stuff just keeps interrupting :)

No doubt it won't be long again before we start shopping again for acne cream and facial treatments, except that with the girls I am sure that I will be spending even more money than I did with my son. Women are so much more complicated...

Work Shoes

2008-08-15T18:31:36Z

I have to buy work shoes about two or three times a year. The rough floors combined with the grease from cooking are pretty hard on clothing, particularly shoes. For the last couple of years I have been shopping at Shoes for Crews and prior to that Walmart or whatever I could find cheapest.

I'm considering getting a pair of Dansko shoes this time just to see how they hold up. My daughter also saw some over there that she's interested in so although i may end up getting my non-slip shoes from somewhere else I have the feeling I will be shopping for her and getting Dansko.

Templates

2008-08-15T18:28:50Z

I have almost finished my templates at Shadowscope and will soon begin working on this site's design as well as my other ones. They are in bad need of an overhaul and design now that Movabletype has been updated to 4.2

It may be a while, as "soon" is sort of relative. I do expect to finish all of them by the end of the year though.

Vacations

2008-08-15T18:15:11Z

Image via Wikipedia

I really enjoy my vacations when they finally roll around each year. I get three weeks a year and one of those is a ten day vacation. This year my ten day was spent in Disney World with my wife and kids. The one prior to that the wife and I flew to Nassau and spent a weekend there. It was a blast. My last one for the year will be spent in Helen, Georgia during Oktoberfest at a blogmeet. I'm really looking forward to that one...

One of the biggest expenses seems to be the lodging and the problem is that even if you get a really nice hotel (or what seems nice online) it's not always that great. I prefer cabins and rentals but finding and booking them is harder than going through a big hotels web site.

Luckily there is a place to find vacation rentals and vacation homes for rent at VacationsByOwner.com.

Vacations By Owner has thousands of vacation rental listings around the country to choose from including California vacation rentals and Lake Tahoe vacation rentals to name a couple.

What I was REALLY interested in was looking at rentals in the Keys. I found a really nice two-bedroom house on the beach in Key West that only goes for $2500 a week during the summer and fall. That's the off-season down there. During the tourist seasons of winter and spring it goes for about $600 more per week. That would be a great place for us to go on spring break next year. I may have to go ahead and make my vacation plans and head south for the spring...

PPC Campaigns

2008-08-15T18:06:44Z

I don't claim to know a whole lot about PPC and other banner ad campaigns. There are several different companies on the Internet that offer that kind of stuff to publishers and advertisers. The biggest of course being Google Ads. I have tried several different companies on my web sites including Google, AdBrite and several others. I had have had several Google ads on my sites for a couple of years now. Last year I might have made $200 from them and so far this year that's up to about $300. Nothing really major and since I don't run any really heavily trafficked sites it's hard to make any money with them. My busiest site is Shadowscope and I probably average about 2,000 hits a day there. All the rest combined might get 100 a day.

Recently I joined Six Apart Media as a publisher and so far I am really pleased. I only have their ads set up on one site. I have had them there for about a week now and tripled the amount of income that I normally get with Google. I am extremely impressed with them so far.

It doesn't mean I am going to dump Google or any of the other ones I am using but they have the best spots over at Shadowscope and I am going to continue to see how their ads perform over the next few months.