I’ve pretty much spent all day living vicariously through a friend of mine while he’s prancing about at SXSW, which made me think about some of the newer technology that’s being introduced and promoted there and how I could benefit from them.

After already having a few traveling adventures under my belt, I realized there were certain obstacles I needed to address, namely, how can I write and blog about my experiences in a fluid manner while it’s still fresh on my mind?  Usually I would get so caught up in exploring my new locale that by the time I got back to the hotel I was too exhausted to even stay awake, much less blog about the day.  Even worse was the exhausting work of uploading my photos, then organizing, captioning and tagging them all.  It’s the sort of thing that can literally take me hours to do.  Time is a luxury I cannot afford to lose during my travels, so this is something I need address before I go off on my next adventure, although that won’t happen until May.

For the time being, I am experimenting with ways I can interweave blogging vignettes I want to write with my day’s activities during my travels, without it being too much of a burden.  One of the ways I’m exploring doing so is by trying out geolocation apps on my iPod, such as Foursquare, Gowalla and Whrrl.  Whrrl comes closest to fulfilling the vision I have for this blog, by offering a way for me to disclose where I am and what I’m doing in a storytelling format, which is then uploaded and presented in the form of a slideshow I can embed onto my blog.  Even better, I can wirelessly upload pictures from my camera (not my camphone mind you, my REAL camera) directly to Whrrl using a special wifi memory card in place of a normal card.  With such a card I can also upload photos directly from my camera to Flickr and Youtube as well.  That… is… AWESOME.  The amount of time I could save would be astronomical.

From there, it’s just a matter of how I want to present it all on my blog.  Do I write about my travel experiences all in one lengthy post, or do I break them down into vignettes that are spread out via separate posts instead?  Something else I will have to experiment with.  In the meantime, let me know what you might prefer.  

Tags: adventure, blog, blogging, camera, embed, experiment, exploring, flickr, Foursquare, geolocation, Gowalla, iPod, phone, photo, Photos, slideshow, storytelling, SXSW, technology, travel, travels, Whrrl, wifi, Wireless, YouTube
Categories: Blog Fog
 
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While I’ve been thinking about ways to get more traffic and links to my site here, something occurred to me: there was one particular way that I could have easily gotten a huge spike in traffic and finally put my blog on the map.

I could have gone to Massachusetts and volunteered for Scott Brown’s campaign. Seriously. A mad dash to Worcester just for the weekend would have put me in the middle of all the action and given me so much blogging fodder that people would have been hard pressed to ignore me then. Think of the possibilities: me blogging live while I meet and greet Brown supporters at rallies. Or posting photos of me shaking Scott Brown’s hand. And then photos of me flirting with his daughter Ayla Brown, begging for her phone number. And then photos and vids of Scott Brown punching my lights out after flirting with said daughter.

Oh, the possibilities…

I could have done it too, except ironically enough my money was already tied up in launching a marketing campaign. Um, whoops?

It was a missed opportunity, but I’m sure others will come along, especially as we get closer to the 2010 elections. I’m glad I had this revelation now though. In order to breathe life into my blog, I really do have to put myself out there, instead of waiting for the action to come to me. I even thought about going down to Haiti too, hitching a ride with Red Cross and just going down there to help out wherever I could. And then of course, I’d blog about the experience. And blog, and blog, and blog…

That’s been my objective for a while, to somehow bridge the desire to help others with my love for writing, but I had been so narrowly focused on trying to bring more traffic to my site that I had failed to consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, the traffic would take care of itself if I instead focused on writing and living life the way I’ve always wanted to. So I’m not self-employed just yet, but I can certainly ACT like I am.

Maybe instead of chasing the dream, I should be LIVING the dream, and the rest will fall into place. The battle is already won, the race already done, the future made, the foundation laid, and I need only claim the victory.

Tags: blog, blogging, campaign, election, epiphany, future, Haiti, life, living, marketing, marketing campaign, Massachusetts, revelation, Scott Brown, traffic, writing
Categories: Blog Fog, Politics and Poker
 
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Been reading up on miscellaneous income at the IRS due to having to report my blog earnings now, which skyrocketed to $3.34 last year (adjusted for inflation).

When I scanned the list of the different types of income, I noticed this:

They really expect people to confess to a crime, on their TAX RETURNS? Seriously?

Anyhoo, I’m wringing my hand over doing taxes this year since it marks the first time I have to report an income stream outside of my full-time job. I like keeping things simple, so simple in fact that for 10 years or more I’ve only had to file a 1040A using standard deduction to get my refund. It takes like 5 minutes to do my taxes, but then of course I have to do my NY state taxes too, which typically takes me 5 weeks. You think federal taxes are complex? Come live here. You’ll never complain about the feds again.

Evidently I have to report ALL my additional income (not just the ones I got a 1099 for), including the $5 lottery scratch-off I won as a Christmas present. Sure, I’ll get right on that. I’m just righteously anxious to fork over what little of my money I have left so the gubmint can continue to hand out welfare checks to crack addicts. You betcha!

Seriously though, it doesn’t look like it will be too bad this year. I just need to switch over to a 1040 and there’s a line on it where I can report miscellaneous income. Next year though will likely be a completely different story. I can’t even wrap my mind around it, but the day might come where I may have to incorporate my blog as a business, because it’s getting to be THAT profitable. Habitation of Justice, LLC?

By that time I’ll probably need a tax advisor or some dweebie expert to walk me through incorporation and doing my taxes, and just hope they’ll be reputable. All this business crap gives me a serious headache. I just wanna blog and whine about about my lack of a love life in peace, ya know?

Tags: blog, business, earnings, federal taxes, income, incorporation, irs, report, state taxes, tax return
Categories: Blog Fog, Comic Relief
 
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One of my resolutions for this year was to make a major marketing push to bring my blog out of it Grade C status and into the ever enviable elite circle of… Grade B bloggers.

Personally, I give my blog a B+.

The simple truth here can’t be avoided though. Just as you would in any other business, if you want to make a living and make money, you have to be willing to invest in it. Up to this point I’ve invested a significant amount of my time and effort to build this blog to where it is today, enjoying a dedicated and massive following of over five readers (four if you discount me) and being linked to by thousands of scammers and spam sites from all over the world. Yesiree, the work to establish my presence online has been nothing short of magical.

But while I’ve invested time and energy, I haven’t invested any money (other than hosting costs) into the project, and I think the time has finally come for me put down some serious coinage to really get things going here. I now have an advertising manager to help run my marketing campaign, and beginning next week I will invest over $800-$1000 upfront to help finally get some respectable traffic going for this blog, and also set aside a budget of at least $250 a month to maintain the campaign. Oh Mommy…

Ah well, that’s one advantage to being single at least. Otherwise that $1000 would have gone to buying pearls for the missus or milk for the baby. Instead I get to spend it all on meeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I admit it is a lot to invest (for a blog at least), but I need to try, and if it doesn’t work out I can at least say I did pretty much all I could to bring in the traffic I needed to either supplement my income, or replace it altogether. Otherwise I’ll always wonder how far I could have gotten if I had just been a little bit more risky and daring.

After all, fortune favors the brave. Or is it the reckless?

Tags: advertising, blog, blogger, campaign, marketing, marketing campaign, money, readers, resolutions
Categories: Blog Fog
 
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What do we even call 2000-2009 anyway? The Zeros? The Single Digits? “The decade that just piled on with so much crap that not even the smelliest crap could have crapped as much crap as this crappy decade crapped on me?”

Well, whatever. Good riddance to 2009 and that whole era of loveless crapiness. I am sorely hoping that 2010 will accumulate in the fulfillment of all hopes and desires, or seriously, I’m just gonna start hitting people. Hard. With like, baseball bats and stuff.

I refuse to make any resolutions though, because I had already done that once on this blog for 2008, and well, let’s take a lookie-loo to see which ones I actually managed to accomplish:

1. Clear up my health problems and get strong again (vith ripplin’ mosscles to impress de vooomen.)

… … … BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!

2. Generate a stable income of at least $1250 a month via my blog.

BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!

3. Get out of my dead end job and find a new career, whether it’s with another agency or by becoming self employed.

BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!

4. Move somewhere else, either out of state, or to nowhere in particular, depending on how successful I am in earning a living off the Internet.

BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!

5. Meet the girl of my dreams.

BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

Yeah. How ’bout we try that again?

Nah, forget that. Instead, I’ll simply convey what I would like to happen in 2010 that might actually fall within the realm of scientific possibility.

For starters, as for working out, well ok, maybe looking to become the next Mr. Universe was a tad extreme. Not that I was aiming that high really, I just got tired and bored of the gym. There was like, people there, and worse yet, slut-like bimbos who either bounced around the gym with their boyfriends or claimed to be lesbians whenever I tried to talk to them. Ah well. This time I think I’ll invest in some free weights instead so I can do some light workouts by myself, anywhere I please.

As for getting toys: new upgrades on everything I have! That means a spanky new desktop PC, multifunction printer, MacBook Pro and a GPS addon for my iPod that I can use for both geocaching and geo-blogging. My income from the Internet has finally reached the point where investing in a home office makes sense now. Despite falling well short of my goal to make $1250 a month online for 2008, it’s now feasible that I could be making $1000 a month by this time next year. With that in mind, I’m planning to reinvest some of my earnings back into promoting my blog and establishing a permanent marketing budget. I’m lucky here, not everyone can say they can afford to spend a few hundred a month just to market their blog, so I do have an advantage. Let’s not kid ourselves though. I’ve crunched the numbers, and while $1000 a month is entirely feasible, maybe even up to $2500 a month, I would have to get around 50,000 to 60,000 visitors a DAY just to rake in enough income to justify quitting my job. It’s just not going to happen. Well… it COULD happen, if I somehow attracted corporate sponsors or got accepted into an elite advertising agency, but not bloody likely.

Still, $1000 a month would make me a happy dappy camper for the time being.

As for traveling, I have several trips planned, including a few more New England trips spanning New Hampshire and Maine, a trip into Boston, and maybe a few cities in Canada from Ottawa to Montreal. During the summer I might plan a getaway to Alaska or British Columbia, and originally I had wanted it to be an Alaskan cruise, but after reading up on cruises I decided the idea of being trapped on a ship with a few hundred drunken weenies didn’t really appeal to me, so I’m exploring alternative options.

Oh and of course, I’ll be making reservations later on in 2010 to go tornado chasing from Colorado to Montana. Don’t tell Mommy though, she’ll get very upset.

Finally, I have a major roadtrip planned for the midwest in October, from New York to Missouri/Arkansas and back. It will give me a chance to meet up with an old friend of mine for the first time, enjoy the gorgeous fall foliage from the Smoky mountains in Tennessee to the Ozarks in Missouri, and also, to find me a sweet country babe that I can take back home with me.

I’m kidding… well actually no, not really. It seems my best chance to find anyone decent is going to require me to travel many a mile far away from feminazi land to the heartland, and I’ll be honest, I’ve reached the end of my rope here. 2010 HAS to be the year this hellish drought finally ends, and I meet THE ONE, because I am crawling the walls and going out of my #$%^ing mind here. I swear on all my Yankee candles, if I do not meet a girl by this time next year, I am declaring war on mankind. You think I’m punking you? Wait.

So that’s pretty much what I have on the menu for 2010. This is all assuming of course that nobody drops a nuclear bomb somewhere, although if that did happen, more than likely I’ll probably be close to the blast zone, which in turn would give me PLENTY of things to blog about, at least until the radiation finished me off. See? There’s a silver lining in everything.

Happy New Year!

Tags: blog, blogging, country, decade, geocaching, getaway, girl of my dreams, health, new year, resolutions, travel, upgrade
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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Time and space precludes me from getting in touch with each and every one of you, but I wanted to wish all my readers and online friends a very wonderful and Merry Christmas! The most blessed present I could ever get would be you guys for continuing to read my site and for putting up with my incoherent nonsense. Because of your support I have enjoyed unparalleled success this year, and now what was once unthinkable (living off my blog exclusively) has now been pushed to the realm of the possible. Who knows what next year might bring?

Thank you all for your kindness, your encouragement, your friendship and most of all, for recognizing my supreme awesomeness.

God bless you all!

Tags: blog, Christmas, God, lighthouse, readers, support
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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