While deciding on the path I want to take with any marketing efforts via the big G following my latest slap, my Yahoo Search Marketing and MS AdCenter campaigns have been trucking along just fine. In fact, I can now see how well these two lowly competitors actually convert, and it has me thinking I should spend a little time focusing here rather than working too hard trying to appease the Adwords gods.

The last few days, I’ve been doing a fair amount of bid tweaking and setting up ad split tests, and while I really appreciate how well my Yahoo efforts are doing, someone over there needs to build a desktop editor to speed up this process! I probably could have tripled my adspend with them by now if I wasn’t so hamstrung by doing things in the web interface.

Anyone know of a third party app that interfaces with ‘em, preferably one that doesn’t cost a fortune?

I suggest you check out almost anything with Scroobius Pip…

…and I feel fine…

Lately I’ve been contemplating the direction to take this side gig that has shown such promise. Along with the future of my main gig, which carries the complications of certain obligations with it. And, well, lots o’ things.

What can I say — looking at the calendar it shows middle age creeping up on me. I seem to be having a touch of a midlife crisis here. I’m not looking at trading in the minivan for a Porsche, or trolling for Young Bombshell Wife 2.0, or anything that stereotypical.

Merely contemplating concepts like meaning and purpose and time and happiness and other such light topics. In other words, deciding what should be my next step.

So today I log in to my advertising account, and see that the big G has slapped me for the third time in this little adventure. Had a minor freak out for an hour or three. Not really because it kills my side biz or anything — though that is my first impulse even though all it really does is slow me down for a while — but because it means I have to rebuild.

I’m a lazy man, and would much prefer to add on to versus re-laying that foundation. Or, better yet (because I can be a truly lazy man at times) be able to just watch the earnings roll on in on those days or weeks I wanted to be doing other things.

The first time this happened, I panicked for a week+. This time, mildly for maybe an hour. Now, oddly, a certain peace has settled upon me as the day goes on. Yes, G is fucking with my business model. But that’s their prerogative. I’ve realized that I just have to build that reality into my model going forward. The key part of that last sentence: going forward.

I still haven’t decided where to take this side gig. Or what to do with my main one and it’s attachments. But this last year’s successes have opened up potential pathways I never would have imagined even five years ago. Or one, for that matter. Gilbert was certainly right in my latest read — we seriously underestimate the potential change that the future holds for us.

…begin the begin…

First, my age. Second, my weight. Third, my BMI. Those three numbers just don’t belong together.

Most of my day to day existence is far too sedentary for a healthy lifestyle. It’s high time to tweak the day a bit, start paying better attention before I cross that fine line between overweight & obese.

I’m going to follow the same tact that I’ve used with my side business, and put goal reminders in front of myself - as well as here in front of the world - where they are right in front of my face as often as possible.

So what’s will my health sticky say?

200 by 9/1

Maybe I’ll tack on a pic of those jelly rolls I’ve developed over the years. Think I’ll pass on sharing that, though… I’m in complete agreement with Tony Robbins on change: you must be disgusted with the current state of affairs to make a change, and I’m disgusted.

While that goal doesn’t get me quite into the healthy BMI range, it gets me well on that path. Wish me luck, and anyone with some tips, feel free to share!

In my neck of the woods, mid-May means it’s high school graduation time. Which also means it’s time for every little community newspaper to run a few page spread giving everyone in the area a few tidbits on each of the graduating seniors. Things like class offices held. Sports participated in. What scholarships they’ve received. You know, all that important-only-to-the-graduate’s-parents minutiae.

But there is always that one section that drives me a little nuts: Future Plans. Generally listing the college that the graduate is going to be drinking at this fall, as well as, most troubling to me, the field he or she is intending to study.

An 18- or 19-year-old making more than a stab at what he wants to be when she grows up just seems patently ridiculous to me. I’m not all that far off hitting forty here, and I still haven’t decided on that one yet. Invariably, the answers generally fall into a few categories:

• The young ladies going into elementary education or english lit or journalism at pricey private colleges. Apparently they all skipped any personal finance classes their high school offered, as the cost/benefit equation wasn’t even considered here.
• Another group of young ladies, hellbent on becoming nurses. Or, more likely, backed into it because nothing came to them when the question was asked.
• The absolute plethora of young men shooting for that mystical ‘business’ degree. Because that’s precisely what we’re missing in this country — more middle management material.

Just once, I would love to read an honest ‘No Fucking Clue‘.

I may just have to set up a scholarship fund and seek one of those individuals out…

Education… has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.
– G. M. Trevelyan

Ah, Tax Season 2009 has come to an end. Two days out, I’ve now spent most of two days playing a lot of LEGOs and Mario Kart with my son while the wife is out of town. (Shhh, don’t tell her — I know Mario Kart is essentially brain rot, but what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her! ) Should probably consider looking for something a bit more productive to do eventually, but right now I’d say spending time with my little five-year-old is just about the absolute right thing to do.

So in the last two months, what have I actually accomplished?

• A couple hundred tax returns.
• Completed somewhere in the range of half a Campaign Blast Challenge. The brain and time just wouldn’t cooperate to allow me to finish the whole thing. Outside of the challenge, I built next to nothing.
• A hard slap of my eBay AdWords campaigns by Google — twice. You know Google, if you don’t want my money, fine, I’ll move them and the substantial amount I was paying to advertise with you to…
• Yahoo & MSN. Transferred all my campaigns over. The traffic isn’t quite up to Google’s numbers, but they are slowly building. And the traffic appears to convert even better!
• I’ve got another side business that is in serious need of, well, going the hell away. I just have to come up with a means of making a clean break with it. Now that tax season has ended, I have no excuse in putting that off other than not wanting to deal with it.

OK, so I guess I did at least get a few things done on this side endeavor that I’d like to make my main one.

Immediately after the slaps, my earnings took a major nosedive to the tune of around 10% of my peak. I’m back to around 60% and steadily increasing. Now that I have time and available brain cells to focus, it’s time to get back to the game and see where I want to be and what I need to do in order to get there.

After all, I have a single monetary goal for the summer: September 1st, I plan to write a check for the remainder of our mortgage…

First off, I play tax preparer during this time of the year. And work at likely the busiest little accounting firm in Nebraska. It isn’t absolutely insane yet, but soon enough I’ll be knee deep in 1099s and W2s and calculator tape…

Then, one of my favorite membership decided it was about time to run a Blast Challenge.

What’s that, you ask? It’s a group effort to get you to ramp up your blasting business. I’ve participated in two of them so far, and they are responsible for most of the progress that has taken my side endeavor’s monthly earnings from the low three figures to what is now low five figures.

Could I skip out on this one? Well sure. Would it be the smart choice, based on it being tax season and the fact that I’ll soon be swamped? Nah. This little side trip has tripled my overall income in a matter of months. I don’t care how hard I would work, tax prep work just ain’t going to do that! Plus, a little sleep deprivation never hurt anyone!

And of course, I’ve been busy as hell mastering tennis on my new Wii…

Oh, and one last thing. That last sticky? Had to replace that as well, ’cause I hit it. Twice.

And who needs that holding me back? So, let’s try this one on for size:

It’s been almost a week since attending the Earn $1k A Day Summit down in sunny Orlando. Almost every local Orlandoan I chatted with kept apologizing for the unseasonably cold weather. considering I left Nebraska at 5 below zero, 60 felt almost warm enough to hit that outdoor pool at the hotel…

But what does this have to do with sleep deprivation? Well, I didn’t want to miss a single thing at the summit, so I set my return flight for Monday morning rather than risking having to leave early by taking a Sunday evening flight out. 6:15am Monday morning, in particular. Which meant my prepaid shuttle company guaranteeing catching my flight only if I took a 3:15am or earlier ride. For a night owl like myself, the first thing that popped into my head was ouch!

Nevertheless, my mind was fried from all that information thrown at me over the weekend, and I thought I was tired enough to actually get a few hours of sleep after everything wound down. Only to find my mind racing. And racing. And racing. And looking over and seeing 1:42am on the clock. And then the alarm waking me about 40 minutes later.

A half hour sleep + the piss poor rest you can get in economy airline seats doesn’t really cut it!

The rest of the week? Kind of a blur.

More on the summit later…

As a freshman in college in 1989, I participated in one of the many rites of passage for those leaving home for the first time: I applied for my first credit card. I received the card shortly before Christmas that year, if I remember correctly. To go along with that awesome feat, I went almost immediately into debt. For whatever reason, I can even tell you what my first purchase was:

• Beet by Eleventh Dream Day
• Earth, Sun, Moon by Love & Rockets

And if I went back to Iowa City, I could probably even point out the building that the music store those CDs were purchased was in. Hell, it’s a college town, the store may just still be there. About the only place an independent store like that could still survive.

But that’s neither here nor there. My point is, the day prior to that purchase, over nineteen years ago, was the last day I was free of credit card debt. Sometimes it was only a small amount. Often it was not. But it was always there.

Until today.

Thanks Matt! Thanks Dennis! And thanks eBay for the big ol’ direct deposit!

Ideas can be life-changing. Sometimes all you need to open the door is just one more good idea.
— Jim Rohn

photo credit: giiks

At long last — in other words, a month — I’ve tracked down a Wii in the configuration I want… Every now and then, my December motivator would pop into my mind, but of course it was never in stock at anything like retail price. Sure, there are all kinds of ways to pick one up if I was willing to pay retail+50%, but I guess I’m just not that eager a consumer. Today, one is en route to me.

For those looking for one (or similar always out-of-stock items), here’s how I ended up tracking it down this afternoon:

• Install the Firefox plugin Check4Change.
• Load up a few retailers’ Wii console page, and find the Out of Stock text that almost always exists there.
• Highlight that text, right click, and Check4Change -> Every 5 Minutes.
• Do whatever you normally do, but keep Firefox and those tabs loaded.
• When that tidbit of text changes, Check4Change will give you a little visual cue on the tab that something has been altered. You can also configure it to play a sound or bring the window to the front if you happen to not live in your browser.
• Order your Wii.

This will certainly boost my productivity…