Catharsis of the Bogue

SAHD Friday: Cooking school

Justin Matthews — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:35:46 +0000

Well we finally decided that it was time for my 10 year old and my 7 year old to learn to cook. A bit at least. My 7 year old gets to push the buttons on the microwave and put the cheese in the macaroni and cheese. More will come as he can handle it.

My 10 year old is learning more and more things to cook. And how to tell if the pasta is done, and how to make Jello. She is able to turn on the oven and put things in and out. It is rather nice that the kids are getting old enough to do some things around the house. It is especially nice when we have to take care of the new baby.

The most surprising thing to me is how quickly they are taking to the chores and learning. They are learning how to put things together for dinner and they are learning not to be afraid of the stove or the microwave. I think half of the excitement of cooking for them is being able to use the appliances that have been off limits for so long.

I think one of the most important things that we are all learning is trust. My wife and I are learning to trust our kids to do things without us showing them how. The kids are learning that we do trust them. They are also learning that the things we have been saying for years about the stove being hot and knives being dangerous are true, and not just something we made up to repress the kids with.

This whole journey of letting the kids grow up can be overwhelming. They will always grow physically. They will get bigger and need new clothes and shoes no matter what we do. The trick is to let them grow mentally, adapting to their personalities and aptitudes as they can handle it.

Giving them more responsibility is a fine line between “too much I can’t handle it” and “not enough to keep my interest for long”. That is a line I constantly test as a parent. There are things that I remember doing at their ages that my kids are just not ready for yet. They are coming. The trick is to keep them interested so they don’t drift away on you.

They want to mow the lawn now….I am not quite ready to relinquish that yet. On the front yard people see at least.

Have a great weekend guys, thanks for reading.

-Justin

Podcast 7: Pause for the reboot!

Justin Matthews — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:47:42 +0000

Hey folks here is my latest podcast, sorry about all of the breathing noises, I am learning more every podcast about sound and how to play with it. Thanks for listening!

A New version launches today!!!

Justin Matthews — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:23:06 +0000

Hey folks, since I first wrote this Post, Dr. Doolin has been frantically working and reworking Blog Post Engineering. He is launching version 0.7.2 Today and let me tell you it will be well worth having a copy. Like I say below, I purchased an earlier copy and Dave was kind enough to send me a review copy of this release. It has more depth and several bonuses that will make your blog posts even better. Click any of the links here or over on the sidebar to learn more. I really think that this e-book should be in every bloggers toolkit to make some killer, SEO friendly blog posts. Read on for more!

I deliberately delayed the posting of my Blog Post Engineering review. I know the “un-launch” has come and gone, but there were so many glowing reviews of this book, I wanted to wait and post later. So I could get more traffic and SEO without the masses clogging up google. It is selfish but there you are.

Oh, and all of the links here are probably affiliate links, so take that and do what you will with it, I may make money from anything you click. And that wouldn’t be a bad thing.

I actually bought and paid for this book. It does come with updates, of which I have already received one. This book will really help you write excellent blog posts.

I bought Blog Post Engineering to make my posts better and ultimately gain followers, customers, and Google rank. My first concern when buying the book was the same whenever I buy anything, am I actually going to use this and make it worth the investment. The email I go t from Dave about breaking legs and sledge hammers had something else to do with it. Of course I can’t prove that e-mail ever existed so I may have been dreaming.

I wondered if I could actually use the information in a practical way. Guess what, yes I could and so can everyone who blogs. This book and these tips are for anyone who blogs, no experience required. If you have experience posting on a blog, this book will help you polish and refine your posts.

There is a TON of useful and relevant information that is spelled out in a very straightforward way. It showed me how to use tags and categories in a more useful way, to be more productive and get on the SEO radar.

I liked how it read more like a conversation than a textbook, it was easy to follow and retain the information. It is formatted to look like a book, so it kind of feels like reading a book. There are plenty of links to articles on Website In A Weekend. I had already read most of these posts so I could really see the implementation of the concepts described.

This book also goes into some promotion of your posts, so that you can actually get readers there and let the SEO magic start happening.

I would very much recommend Blog Post Engineering, especially if you are new to blogging and are trying to get eyes on your blog, all of the techniques int BPE are proven and tested several times over. They work.

This ebook is on my desktop so that I can refer to it as often as I need. I found some stuff I was doing right, some I was doing kind of right, and some I wasn’t doing at all. In one fairly concise ebook all of this information is at your fingertips.

Now, to be fair, all of this information is available on Website In A Weekend. If you go looking for it on there, you will find it but it takes quite a bit of digging. This book brings together all of that great information in one spot, that is instantly useable. I think this is half of the value of the book. The other is increasing your SEO significantly.

Go Check out Dave’s site and Blog Post Engineering. You will be glad you did!

Fiction Saturday 3! The Man in the Hazy Suit Part 8

Justin Matthews — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 21:05:17 +0000

Hey folks Here is the next chapter in the story! I hope you are still entertained and interested!

Previously in the Man in the Hazy Suit:

Police detective Thompson was wrapping up a crime scene when he found a scrap of paper in the dead man’s posessions. The paper led him to the bus station and a locker that was filled with legal pads, all written by the deceased man. Sergeant Thompson is currently reading the legal pads which are spelling out a strange narrative and a chronicle of a serial killers murders, that somehow the man writing the story knows before they happen, if only by moments. So far our writer has witnessed several deaths with apparently more to come. Strange coincidences surround the narrator having to do with the Man in the Hazy Suit, leading to paranoia and a wonder as to the outcome of his sanity.

When we left our story last time:

I sat up shaking yet again. I tried to assimilate what I had just seen. I got up and went to the radio on the floor in the hall. It had been placed back on the shelf and on top of it were a set of lockpicks. I screamed and ran for the front door. I almost made it, but a miscalculation caused me to slip and hit my head rather solidly on the counter, leaving a nasty gash for my trouble.

I woke up in a small pool of blood on the kitchen floor sometime later. The angle of the sun said late afternoon. I scooted to a corner in the kitchen and huddled in on myself, scared to look further into this strange Man in an even stranger Hazy Suit.

And today we join our story already in progress:

Finally I fell asleep huddling in the corner of the kitchen. Passed out is more like it. I began to have another confounded dream. I hoped that this one would be the simple, flying in a field of clover or falling off of a cliff, or well, anything that didn’t have to do with a man in a Hazy Suit.

It began in the library at the college again. Night had fallen. Finals were only a few weeks away so the library was open all night. I was wandering through the study tables by myself thankfully. Faces of people that I knew flashed in and out of the small circles of light given off by the reading lamps.

I wandered aimlessly for a while, overhearing snippets of conversations that I couldn’t remember 5 seconds later, until one caught my attention. There was a party going on up on the 5^th floor. I decided to check it out. Only seconds later I was walking out of the elevator and into a party of loud music and flashing lights. There was no studying going on here.

I smiled and began to wander the floor. I moved through people dancing very inappropriately and those trying not to vomit on themselves. I flowed from one spot to the next with a grace that I had never possessed in real life. I looked down at myself and blinked at my stylish clothes. I didn’t even own a pair of khaki pants or a blue striped shirt.

I could hear and see everyone but no one acknowledged me. I knew it was a dream but I was still excited to be part of the party. I made my way to the center of the room and around the temporary walls that they had erected.

There was basically a tent in the middle of the library. All lined with dark silk and flashing neon lights. People moved in a stupor inside the tent, all in various states of undress. An orgy in the library, and, as I circled the large bed, I saw a gas can on the floor beside it.

The man was here somewhere. I wasn’t going to let him burn anything down today. I grabbed the gas can and ran to the other end of the floor trying to get away. I nearly made it too, but as I rounded the corner to the elevator, The Man in the Hazy Suit stood there.

Join us again next week for more of The Man in the Hazy Suit!

-Justin

SAHD Friday: The new one slows us all down

Justin Matthews — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 00:16:06 +0000

This title proves prophetic today. I had forgotten just how much an infant forces you to slow down certain things.

Over the past 2 weeks I have had to slow down many times, with my writing and housework and yard work. I have watched more movies and tv shows in the last 2 weeks than I have in the past 6 months when I started this whole online venture.

I have been writing about unplugging the past few days and I think that he has a lot to do with this. Now, if you have read any of this blog in the past, you know that my family is very important to me. I love doing things with my kids and I really am excited to watch them grow and develop.

It is so much fun to see them grow and change through all of the ages. It is fun to see their tastes in music and movies change and mature as they grow. It is also fun to see what the new one will choose when he can control what to watch. My 4 year old is finally gtting into some of her own things and not just copying her older sister. My son has always kind of done his own thing, it will be interesting to see if my new son follows him or does something totally new.

I think it has been good for all of us to just slow down. It has been good for me to get off of the computer and just hold the baby for a couple of hours at a time. These are the times you can’t get back if you miss them. This is exactly why I am a dad.

Being a Stay At Home Dad allows me to see all of these milestones. These 4 kids I own make me want to work my butt off and be able to stay home with them and all of the things that they accomplish. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Have a great weekend! We get to watch fireworks tomorrow!

-Justin

Catharsis of the Bogue

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