Τhe Ѕtevo onϲe braved thе frozen tundra of northern Canada аs a reporter аnd photographer. Ηe now ϲalls southern Сhina homе аnd enjoys thе humіd ϲlime morе thаn thе bonе-numbing ϲold of hіs native lаnd. Ηe misses little of Νorth America: Riding іn thе bаck of a Canadian аir forϲe transport plаne аnd crossing a Chinese street both hold thе ѕame lеvel of danger аnd excitement.
Αfter traveling extensively іn ѕouth-еast Сhina hе hаs plаns to ѕee аnd photograph morе of Αsia. Whеn not shooting photographs or writing аbout Сhina travel hе workѕ аs аn ΕSL educator аnd administrator аt a private school.
Fіnd Οut Μore
Ѕteve іs a regular reader of Untwisted Vortex аnd onе of thе “Friends of thе Vortex”. Υou ϲan fіnd out morе аbout Ѕteve on hіs “Αsian Ramblings | bіo” pаge.
Αbout Μy “Αbout People” Series
Rather thаn repeat whаt doеsn’t nеed to bе repeated, ϳust cruise ovеr to mу “Αbout People” pаge аnd уou’ll ѕee thе method behind mу madness.Similar Ρosts:
- Αbout People: Ρaul LaMach аnd LaMach Wеb Ѕite Design
- Αbout People: Bonnie Ηicks аnd DataPlus
- Αbout People: Dаy Јob Νuker
- Αbout People: Сyril аnd Ηis ‘Golden Dagger: Сebu Imaginations’
- Αbout People: Kouiji аnd hіs Ηaiku Poetry
50 Comments
Is this a blog about weight loss or is it about something more specific? Only a review can tell.
What is “Weight Loss Weapons” all about?
According to Steve’s “About Me” page, he has struggled with his weight for years. He’s tried fad diets, read countless weight loss books and purchased far too many useless exercise machines, which all led to one simple conclusion: “The only way to lose that weight is to be conscious of what I’m eating and get my ass moving.”
This is what he, through his blog, will try to teach, promote and inspire others to do.
Site Design
I ignored the theme this time because it’s a typical WordPress theme, the type of which is favored by bloggers: two right sidebars. Besides, there was nothing obvious I could find wrong with it.
The header, as well as the tagline, is where the action’s at. I like it a lot. “Arming you one post at a time” is the perfect tagline to go with “Weight Loss Weapons”. Seriously, I couldn’t have thought of anything better if I tried.
Article Content
I don’t have a real problem with my weight. I’m hovering between 200 and 220, which is average for someone at 5 feet, 10 inches quickly approaching the age of 50. I’m not gaining weight; I’m actually losing a pound or two per month without trying. The biggest reason, I believe, is because I don’t snack between meals and I don’t eat junk food (except maybe once a month around payday).
When it comes to maintaining your weight at a normal level or losing weight to get there, Steve’s latest article tells you NOT to do it for yourself. People tend to procrastinate when they do things, that aren’t any fun, for themselves. Doing it for someone else is a much stronger incentive.
My Overall Opinion
Being overweight is a problem that plagues Americans more than any other country. I blame fast food, video games, television, and convenience for the problem. You can hop in your car, hit the drive-through for just about any fast-food chain in minutes, return home and plop down on the couch in front of the boob tube, or hook up with your favorite video game, all within an hour.
That’s a stark contrast to other countries where it can take an hour just to navigate through all the traffic (especially in Asia). Also in other countries, people tend to walk more than they do in the US. That alone keeps them healthier on the average.
Read what Steve has to say. There’s some good advice on his blog. You only need to heed it.
Would you like a Review?
My reviews are simple, including at least one link to an article as well as a link to the blog or website. They’re also absolutely free. Make sure your blog is ready to be reviewed and then submit it on my “Request A Blog Review” page and I’ll try to do my best to give you a fair review, without being overly critical.
Similar Posts:
Blog Review: The World according to Verity
Blog Review: The Hawaiian Life
Blog Review: The Sports Dollar
Blog Review: StupidRanger.com
Blog Review: Asian Ramblings
I currently bank with the Philippine National Bank (PNB) in Olongapo City. PNB is the oldest of the banks in the Philippines. It was established in 1916, became the first universal bank in the Philippines in 1980 and was privatized in 1989. PNB currently has over 100 branches throughout Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America. I’m going to provide a little information on the local branches.
Dollar Accounts
Dollar accounts can be opened at both branches, but direct deposit accounts are handled only by the Olongapo City branch.
If you need to wire a lot of money to a dollar account, and you’re in the US, it’s best to open an account at either of the Los Angeles or New York City branches. Here are the bank codes:
LOS ANGELES BRANCH
Wire Routing Transit Number (RTN): 122038756
Swift Code: PNBMPHMM
Address:
3345 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 200
Los Angeles, CA 90010
Telephone Number: (323) 802-8000
Telefax Number: (323) 802-8001
NEW YORK CITY BRANCH
Routing Transit Number (RTN): 026003007
Swift Code: PNBMPHMM
Address (Changed on 2008-05-12):
30 Broad Street, 36th Floor,
New York, NY 10004
Telephone Number: (212) 790-9600
Toll Free: (866) 922-9975
Telefax: (212) 382-2238
Email Address: pnbnyc@pnbnewyork.com
I have my monthly direct deposit payment going to the New York City Branch. Please be aware that these direct deposit payments are processed like remittances and allotments. There is currently a $7.00 (in US dollars) fee per deposit. The type of account required is a dollar savings account.
Local Branches
The Olongapo City branch is almost always crowded and parking is usually only available in the rear. There is plenty of parking at the Subic Bay branch.
OLONGAPO CITY BRANCH
Philippine National Bank
2440 Rizal Avenue
East Bajac-Bajac, Olongapo City
Philippines 2200
Telephone numbers: 63-47-222-8343 and 63-47-223-4989
Telefax number: Same as second number
Email Address: olongapo@pnb.com.ph
SUBIC BAY BRANCH
Lot 5, Retail 2, Times Square Mall
Sta. Rita Road
Subic Bay Freeport Zone
Olongapo City, Philippines 2220
Telephone Number: 63-47-252-7963
Telefax Number 63-252-7964
Email Address: subic@pnb.com.ph
For more information, visit the official website: Philippine National Bank
Similar Posts:
Banking in the Philippines with US Dollars
Payday Loan Quotes
Economic Stimulus Payments for Social Security Recipients
Special One-Time Tax Credit
My Last Tax Return
At one time, recently, I thought I might be crazy. If you read the first article I wrote about Jack Hunter, you could certainly come to that conclusion. I’m not crazy, though, and I can tell you why. Within the last 20 plus days (After September 10th), I have experienced what I would call the strangest communications that I can imagine. The bad part about it is that I can’t prove anything happened.
The Lucid Dream
The first lucid dream I mentioned was only the beginning of several related dreams, but they weren’t lucid. There were images similar to the first and images of places I don’t think I’ve ever been to.
I still have dreams, but they’re unrelated, so the dream sequences have stopped, or at least I think they’ve stopped.
Vanishing Email
I have thousands of email messages stored in folders (retrieved from Gmail and stored with Thunderbirdl). I periodically clear out batches of email I know I’ll never need to see again, but I’m slow at doing it.
After the last dream that I can remember, and while my wife was still here on her Philippines vacation (don’t ask), I received an email message from a person who called himself Jack Hunter and in the message he told me who and what he was. I wanted to show my wife the message, or even my son, but the message disappeared along with the reply I sent. Up until about a week ago, he sent me at least one message per day.
I’m no dummy and I can check email headers and where the email is supposed to have originated from. I checked each one. In each message, he had used a different name in the “From” line. One message came from China, one from the US and one from Canada and I stopped checking after that. He must have been using proxies. Always, shortly after reading them, the messages disappeared. I have no idea how he did that.
Parallel Worlds
During the lucid dream sequence, Jack briefly told me about the shadow people. In the email messages that followed he told me so many things that I can barely remember them all. He told me he came through a portal, located inside of a steel shed, on a farm in Iowa (US) in 1933. The image was presented in one of my dreams and it looked like any other shed, unremarkable except that it wasn’t painted. He said it was new at the time, but that there’s rust and corrosion on the outside of it now.
If you’re in Iowa, or know someone in Iowa, perhaps you’ve seen this shed or could look for it.
Jack explained about his age, which would have to be about 100-years old. He says he still looks like he’s 25-years old because the people of his world live to be in their late hundreds, just like Earth people did thousands of years ago. His people look just like us — they’re human too, only way more advanced technologically.
If this sounds like something straight out of fiction, it’s because it was intended that way. Jack’s people, according to Jack, have been mentally influencing writers for at least two generations. I asked him to expound on that, but he refused.
UFOs and Near-Death Experiences
People have been seeing UFOs since the 1940s. Jack said the sightings go back much further and that they just haven’t been documented. He explained that they weren’t aliens from another planet; they’re from here, just from another parallel world. He also briefly mentioned that the multiverse theory was “horse shit”. His words, not mine.
When people have near-death experiences, most recall seeing a bright light, or traveling through a tunnel towards a bright light. Jack said the bright light is from the parallel world furthest from our own. Again, I asked him to explain it in more detail, but he refused.
Our Missions
Jack explained something to me that didn’t make sense. After talking to my mother-in-law and my wife, just this evening, I don’t know what to think of it.
Jack said that each person born has a single mission in life. That person will not die until that mission has been completed. It doesn’t matter if the person ends up in an institution or is incapacitated in some way, that person will not die until that mission has been completed.
As I was speaking to my mother-in-law about it, she told me about her father-in-law. She said that he had spoken about the mission many times before he died. About an hour ago, my wife called from the US and I asked her about her grandfather, on her mother’s side. She told me that he was from the island of Luzon (this island) but was in the navy (but didn’t know what navy) when he was young. This was prior to 1933, the year of her father’s birth. Did the Philippines have a navy back then? Did the US have Filipinos in the US Navy back then? I don’t know the answer, but I intend to find out.
According to my wife, her grandfather had met her grandmother on Mindanao while he was in the navy. Her grandmother and her father were Muslims, but her grandfather was not.
More Shadow People
I haven’t seen any odd shadows in more than three weeks, but two days ago, my oldest sister-in-law saw a shadow in the kitchen/dining room while she was cooking. She cooks breakfast and dinner for me and my son frequently and we call her ate since she’s the oldest of my wife’s five sisters, but her name’s Florian.
Florian and my wife and I, so far, are the only people who’ve actually seen these mysterious shadows. Florian was afraid to cook in my house for the past couple of days because of her encounter. She took the food to her house, cooked it there, and brought it back here.
You Can Call Me Crazy
Yes, you definitely can. I have more information, but I’ve spent too much time writing this much today and have other tasks to complete before heading to bed. I may be crazy, or someone may just be messing with me, but I’ll let you think about it until the next time I write about Jack Hunter.
Similar Posts:
Lucid Dreams: Who is Jack Hunter?
Weird Dreams
Do You Believe In Ghosts?
An Uninvited Guest
Okay, I Am Officially Weirded Out
Comment spammers are getting very good at writing content that passes the filters. It’s getting harder and harder to tell the comment spam from the legitimate comments.
Therefore, the time has come to draw the line.
Comment spammers (the automated type) haven’t figured out KeywordLuv yet and they probably won’t mess with it until it becomes really widespread. I am now requiring the “YourName@YourKeywords” format in the name field on two of my blogs. Two of my other blogs will be operating the exact same way when I get done with them.
If you’re only using your name, you can continue to do so. Only people using keywords are affected. I’ve placed an “Important Note” above the comment form to make my new policy as obvious as possible. Similar words are also contained within my “Comments Policy” in the “Policies and Statements” sidebar widget.
Unlike the author of the plugin, who simply removes the link if the rules aren’t followed, I will delete the comments without hesitation. If you can read this, you can read the policy before you get to the comment form.
I hate to create and enforce strict rules, but it’s either do it this way, or turn comment moderation on. I’d much rather make it as easy as possible for both you and I to keep the comments section free of spam.Similar Posts:
Policies and Statements for Untwisted Vortex
I Made Some Radical Adjustments
Sidebar Clean Up Test
The Global Translator is Back on My Blog
Saying Goodbye To My JavaScript Widgets
Before I tell you what I’m referring to when I say “my gilded cage in the Philippines”, I need to tell you exactly what “gild” and the phrases “gilded cage” and “gild the lily” mean. You can click on the picture to get a larger view. The frame still needs to be repainted.
According to what I read in a couple of dictionaries, “gild” means to decorate the outside of something, usually unnecessarily. The phrase “gild the lily” (referring to the flower, of course) means adding ornamentation to something that already looks nice. Finally, “gilded cage” means a cage that’s decorated and the cage is not necessarily to keep something in, but to keep something out.
My Gilded Cage
As you can see when you look at the picture closely, or when you enlarge it, it’s a sliding door with a heavy duty lock to keep it in place. It’s the only windowed door on the first floor and the only one in which the iron bars can be moved out of place. The rest of the windows on the first floor have bars, but they can’t be removed without tools and a lot of time. They all sort of look like this one (click to enlarge):
Why the Cage?
Ever since I foiled a burglary last year, I’ve had to remain awake during the hours of the night when burglars are most likely to strike. I waited until my wife came home on her Philippines vacation (you’ll have to read why it was like a vacation and not a homecoming in other posts) to have the bars installed.
Filipinos with little or no income live in shoddy houses of all kinds and most aren’t even painted on the outside. A house that looks nice, painted and especially with more than one floor is usually what’s targeted by burglars. They think foreigners have more than anyone else. How could I possibly let them know that my in-laws have more than I do, other than the house itself (and our car, of course)?
Recently, a nice house a few blocks from here was burglarized and it happened while my wife was here for the month. I’m sure, that if I didn’t have bars on my lower windows, my house would be their next target.
Until the bars went in, I hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep. My sleep cycle was completely opposite from what it should be. Now, I sleep every night for at least six hours. I only sleep longer if I’ve actually done something physically tiring during the day. Because my wife is still suffering from jet lag, I’m calling her as soon as I wake up to make sure she’s up early enough to head to her second-shift job.
Other Gild References
According to an entry at Bartleby.com, to be like “a bird in a gilded cage” is to live in luxury but without freedom.
The world “gild” is what the word “guild” is based on, which is usually an association formed for the protection or support of its members. Some historical guilds later became government entities in some countries, like England.
So, in my final thoughts on the matter, I truly do live in a gilded cage.
Similar Posts:
Live in Hawaii? Nope, Never Again
Americans Own Nothing!
Married means MARRIED
Privacy and Respect - Where Do YOU Draw The Line?
Sabbath
he’s getting older
wiser? don’t know about that
maybe more wrinkled
—-
he didn’t really have a full fledged ‘about’ page on his blog, so he thought he’d try to make up for it a bit by churning out that ‘about’ post.
—-
well, he’s a guy. he still feels young, even if he’s no longer that young anymore. and his knees sometimes feel a little creaky.
Find Out More
You can read more about Kouji at his haiku poem blog and if you comment, perhaps he’ll write some haiku poetry about you.
About My “About People” Series
Rather than repeat what doesn’t need to be repeated, just cruise over to my “About People” page and you’ll see the method behind my madness.Similar Posts:
About People: Cyril and His ‘Golden Dagger: Cebu Imaginations’
About People: Day Job Nuker
About People: Tim & Ernie of the Redneck Bar & Grill
About People: Bonnie Hicks and DataPlus
About People: Paul LaMach and LaMach Web Site Design
The first of two blogs I’m reviewing for Bob Richards, this one contains daily posts for professionals involved in off-line sales and marketing.
What is the “Financial Advisor Blog” all about?
Well, it’s about financial marketing, obviously. What it includes are tips to improve lead generation for more and better prospects in order to convert a higher percentage to clients and earn more from each relationship.
The main focus is for and on professionals in the financial services industry like insurance agents, investment advisers and financial advisers.
Site Design
Who says you have to have an image at the top? For an informational blog, the focus is on the content. As long as the layout looks decent, it works. I’m inclined to do the exact same thing on new blogs because it takes a while to come up with a unique header image.
The colors are fine and the size of the sidebar is great. It works well in both fixed and fluid widths of 1024×768 and higher.
Article Content
I’ll be honest and say up front that I’m not into financial marketing. I don’t even like to do Internet marketing and only do it when I have to, and that includes link building.
If I wanted to pick a good article as an example of what to expect, “Three-Step Transition from Financial Sales Person to Financial Advisor” would be perfect. It’s fairly complete. The only problem I have with it, as well as some of the other articles I’ve viewed, is that (in my opinion only) they need to be broken up more. Shorter paragraphs and more subheadings would make them more readable by the average person.
My Overall Opinion
As a blog supporting his “Javelin Marketing” website, it does what Bob designed it to do and that’s really what counts. It’s not a blog that I’ll be returning to, simply because I don’t have any desire to pursue marketing. This is geared for the offline world and it wouldn’t work in my neighborhood (the Philippines) anyway.
Would you like a Review?
My reviews are simple, including at least one link to an article as well as a link to the blog or website. They’re also absolutely free. Make sure your blog is ready to be reviewed and then submit it on my “Request A Blog Review” page and I’ll try to do my best to give you a fair review, without being overly critical.
Similar Posts:
Blog Review: Tampa Real Estate News Blog
Blog Review: EightBiz
Blog Review: Diaries of a Blogger
Blog Review: laptopmanpaul.co.uk
Blog Review: Poke Farm
After spending hours checking backlinks and backlink sources, I must say that the number and type of backlinks to this blog suck more than a vacuum cleaner or a vampire. Oh, I have more than 40,000 backlinks pointing to this blog, but there’s a problem. The majority of them point to the home page. Very few point to the inner pages. Of the ones that do, the majority of those are “nofollow”. There has to be a good way to get decent backlinks without working so damn hard. Let’s examine some options, shall we?
[Update 2008-12-04: The network is established.]
Backlinking Options
I’ll probably leave something out. I usually do. Anyway, off the top of my head, here are some options that I know about:
Commenting on blogs.
Leaving bookmarks at bookmarking sites (including scuttle sites).
Requesting link exchanges.
Submitting articles to the article repositories.
Buying links.
Regardless of any existing method, it can be time-consuming, frustrating, and/or expensive. Buying software to automate the process can be a win or lose situation, depending on how you use it and how much money you invest.
While it’s a good idea to pursue links that are “dofollow” (DF), a healthy mix of both dofollow and “nofollow” (NF) links won’t hurt anyone. The dofollow links help your Google search engine rankings much more than the nofollow links while the other search engines don’t seem to differentiate between the two.
In my opinion, if you’re going to work on building your backlinks, you want to use the DF links as your base and not the NF links. After all, Google is the biggest player on the field.
I purposely left out the social sites such as StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, and BloggingZoom. These kinds of sites generate traffic, but not much more. If you’re trying to apply SEO to your site, you’re much better off spending your time building links using other methods.
My Backlink Network Idea
There are a couple of heavy-hitters who’ve started up private backlink networks and they’re good, but they’re not free. They face a minimal risk of getting found out (and I won’t get into that unless you specifically ask me via my contact form/email) and I think a free and private backlink network would eliminate that risk completely.
The easiest way to generate backlinks is to create backlinks in posts. If you have a lot of people doing it at the same time, hundreds or even thousands of backlinks can be generated for everyone involved. How do you control it and how do you keep everyone who’s involved honest?
Well, you need a central point (me) to collect the anchor text and backlink URLs, compile them into something coherent, and send them out to each individual in the network. The recipients would then create new posts with the targeted links embedded in them or edit old posts to include the targeted links. These would be targeted, one-way links.
Checking backlinks is easy with this online tool: Link Checker v2.0. Yes, I know it’s a beta service. It works well as it is, but it can only get better as more people contribute bandwidth.
Not Specifically for Niche Sites
I need to emphasize this part. This will work for any kind of site, not just the niche sites. The more topics your blog covers, the easier it would be to participate. Is this something that might interest you?
Putting Out The Feelers
I’m sorry, but I’m not popular enough to draw people in like a magnet. I’m not an expert butt-kisser. This idea won’t be worth pursuing unless I can get enough people involved to make a difference. I’m not talking about thousands of people. I’d say anywhere between 20 and a hundred would work. Of course, the more the merrier. So… it’s up to you to help me out and pass the word somehow. I don’t need a link to this page unless that’s the easiest way for you to do it.
If enough people show interest, I’ll jump in head first. If not, I’ll continue to build backlinks the way I’ve been doing, using a slow and tedious method. It’s all up to you, the reader.
The only real question I have for you is, “Are you game?” Please use the contact form and drop me a private message if you are.
Similar Posts:
The UV SEO Series - Part Six - Backlink Format
The UV SEO Series - Part Seven - Backlink Sources
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for WordPress, Part 2
The UV SEO Series - Part Three - Internal Linking
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for WordPress, Part 1
Before I tell you how to reduce AdSense impressions while improving the click-through rate (CTR) at the same time, I have to admit I dropped the ball on this one. Back in July, I published “Reducing AdSense Impressions from Robots”, and then later inserted an update message saying I wasn’t doing it that way. I meant to do a follow-up after testing, but I got sidetracked by real-world events.
These techniques require you to insert code which will set a condition. A condition of 0 will allow an AdSense block to be displayed while a condition of 1 will prevent it.
Blog Software Loops
The WordPress platform uses a loop to display posts and I’m sure other platforms do too. Any conditional code should be used before the loop starts. Unfortunately, in some cases it can’t be helped. Categories and tags have to be retrieved from within the loop for WordPress.
The first two batches of code can be used before the loop.
The MSN/Live Robots
Certain MSN/Live Robots are operating with JavaScript enabled and are therefore causing needless AdSense impressions. It won’t do you any good to try to block the log entries or block the robots, but you want to prevent them from causing the unnecessary impressions. This will create the prevention condition:
$skipadsense = 0;
$searchref = $_SERVER[’HTTP_REFERER’];
$live = array(’FORM=LVSP’, ‘FORM=LIVSOP’, ‘FORM=QBHP’, );
foreach ($live as $livesearch) {
if (stripos($searchref, $livesearch)) {
$skipadsense = 1;
break;
}
}
Search Terms
Those of us with experience know that bloggers and other types of visitors will never click on AdSense ads. If they’re searching for something that you know won’t result in a click, you want to set a prevention condition. You may laugh, but this applies to niche sites as well.
This is the code I use for the terms I’ve spotted. I’ve repeated the first line from the previous code block for the sake of completeness:
$skipadsense = 0;
$request_uri = $_SERVER[’REQUEST_URI’];
$noads = array(’site:www.untwistedvortex.com’, ’site:untwistedvortex.com’, ‘powered by wordpress’, ‘leave a comment’, ‘commentluv’, ‘keywordluv’, ‘dofollow’, ‘do follow’, ‘nofollow’, ‘no follow’, ‘blog’,);
foreach ($noads as $noad) {
$pos = stripos($request_uri,$noad);
if ($pos !== false) {
$skipadsense = 1;
break;
}
}
The Categories and Tags Arrays
You can set this up either before or right after the loop the starts (if you have a loop). In WordPress, the loop starts with something like “if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post();. You can combine two arrays into one, if the categories and tags are unique enough. I suggest using the slugs for the categories and tags instead of the names in case you edit the names later. This is a sample:
// categories:
$noads1 = array(’blogging’, ‘blog-reviews’, ‘website-reviews’,);
// tags:
$noads2 = array(’reviews’, ’seo’, ‘wordpress’,);
The Categories and Tags Code
In WordPress, these must come after the loop:
foreach (get_the_category() as $category) {
if (in_array($category->category_nicename,$noads1)) $skipadsense = 1;
}
$posttags = get_the_tags(); if ($posttags) {
foreach($posttags as $tag) {
if (in_array($tag->slug,$noads2)) $skipadsense = 1;
}
}
The reason you have to check for post tags and not categories is because WordPress requires at least one category (such as “Uncategorized”) while it doesn’t require any tags.
If you have a post that doesn’t fall within a particular category, but it shouldn’t show AdSense, you can either use an existing tag or you can create your own to insert. I use “noads” for that purpose, just in case I forgot to include a particular category or tag.
Before and After the AdSense Code or Plugin Function
Whether you put the raw AdSense block on your page, calling a plugin or within a plugin, the principle is the same. I call a plugin. Anyway, if you get a condition of 1 out of any of the above code, this code will prevent the AdSense block from appearing.
if (!$skipadsense) {
< !–insert adsense block or plugin code–>
}
Finishing Up
Remember to watch your PHP opening and closing tags and everything should work fine. You can use it on standard template pages that show posts (i.e. “index.php”, “page.php”, “archive.php”, etc.), but you can’t use it on template pages called unless you have AdSense blocks on those pages (i.e. “header.php”, “sidebar.php”, “footer.php”, etc.).
After I inserted this code on my “single.php” template page, my CTR doubled virtually overnight.
Disclaimer: Your mileage may vary. Slippery when wet. Objects are closer than they appear. If there are any errors in the documentation, blame someone else.
Similar Posts:
Blog Tip: Don’t Display Google AdSense Within Sponsored Posts On Your WordPress Blog
When Google AdSense Just Doesn’t Pay Enough
Use the Google AdSense Allowed Sites Publisher Whitelist
Reducing AdSense Impressions from Robots
Blog Tip: Comply With Google AdSense Restrictions On Your WordPress Index Page
On September 24th, I took the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx) to the Northern Luzon Expressway (NLEx) en route to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in Manila in order to drop my wife off for her flight on Philippine Airlines.
As you can see if you click to enlarge the image, it starts at the Tipo Junction on SBMA (Subic Bay Management Authority, more properly titled Subic Bay Freeport Zone) and heads northeast to the Clark Economic Zone. The length of that stretch is about 50 kilometers (about 31 miles). The speed limit on the expressway is 100 kph (about 62 mph), so it only takes about a half hour to traverse.
As of now, we have to travel northeast on SCTEx, then southeast on the spur road to connect to NLEx, which heads south to Manila. It appears there will be a spur road completed from the Dinalupihan interchange to NLEx, which would trim 100 kilometers from the trip.
SCTEx versus the National Highway
The National Highway runs along the coast and through central Luzon and it passes through almost every little town you can think of. From the coast to Olongapo City, it’s National Highway. While it runs through the city, it’s Rizal Avenue. It turns back into National Highway when it leaves, en route to the Pampanga and Bataan provinces.
The route from Olongapo City to San Fernando, Pampanga takes from an hour to an hour and a half depending on what time of day it is and how many jeepneys, tricycles and humans are in our path. San Fernando is where we used to get onto NLEx at. The SCTEx route has us taking the Clark Logistics exit, a spur road which goes past Dau and onto NLEx. That stretch of NLEx also bypasses San Fernando.
The 30 minute drive along SCTEx is like a dream come true compared to the National Highway. There are no obstacles to contend with and it doesn’t seem like the Philippine demolition derby every time we travel on it.
Pictures?
My driver, my bilas (Tagalog for sister-in-law’s husband, which is a brother-in-law in English) wouldn’t slow down enough for me to get a decent shot until it was too late. It started raining. I managed to squeeze off a shot of the toll gate area as I entered and the area approaching the Clark Economic Zone (and the nasty weather), but that was it:
If it’s any consolation, here’s a picture I snapped just before we left, looking out the back window of the spare bedroom:
Click to enlarge any image on this page.Similar Posts:
Fear and Loathing in Metro Manila, Philippines
Philippine Airlines: The Best Airlines for International Philippines Travel
Philippines Hotel and Resort Offerings - Olongapo City and Subic Bay
Olongapo City, Philippines - My Home
City Travel Guides
At first glance, this blog appears to be a sports blog masquerading as a make money online (MMO) blog, but I could be wrong and it could be the other way around.
What is “The Sports Dollar” really about?
There’s just way too much sports-related stuff on this blog to classify it as MMO blog, even if Kellex says it is. I wouldn’t even waste my time reviewing it if he was competing with the MMO niche. But he’s competing with sports blogs, not the MMO niche, so it’s okay with me.
Site Design
I’ve seen the layout before, but I can’t tell you who put the finishing touches on it because there aren’t any credits of any kind in the footer. All of the navigational items I’ve come to expect are right there, under the banner. Speaking of the banner, it doesn’t look like it should go with either a sports-oriented or MMO blog. It’s unusual, but it seems to work with the rest of the design.
At first I thought it was a WordPress theme because the content on the left and the two sidebars on the right are perfect. It’s not. It’s a custom theme being used with Blogger (blogspot.com). I had to look at the page source to spot that.
Article Content
I’m not into sports or MMO, so I had to pick an article that I didn’t deal with either really. I found “What Makes a Sports Blog Great?” on the second page (currently).
The interesting part of this article was about the “network”. I couldn’t agree more. Networking, without necessarily being extremely social, will get you a ton of backlinks.
My Overall Opinion
I like the blog. It’s not my cup of tea, so to speak, but I still like it. Maybe it’s because Kellex isn’t writing solely about sports on it. He’s not writing solely about making money either. It has a good mix of things that should appeal to the average blogger. It appeals to me, and I don’t consider myself average.
Would you like a Review?
My reviews are simple, including at least one link to an article as well as a link to the blog or website. They’re also absolutely free. Make sure your blog is ready to be reviewed and then submit it on my “Request A Blog Review” page and I’ll try to do my best to give you a fair review, without being overly critical.Similar Posts:
Blog Review: Juiced Sports Blog
Blog Review: Diaries of a Blogger
Blog Review: EightBiz
Blog Review: adamwhiles dot com
Blog Review: Syndicated Elitist v2.0
I just spent more than an entire day trying to track down why the retarded search engine crawlers were generating 404 errors on this blog. I went through everything, including the sitemap.xml file. I couldn’t find a single reason for the Googlebot to tack on words like “.More” (notice the period) or for the Yahoo Slurp bot to tack on the post title. What an incredible waste of time!
Redirections
I could have used the Redirection plugin to take care of this, but I’ve moved everything to my .htaccess file. Here’s the rule I used to get rid of the words like “.More” and “.Back”:
RewriteRule ^(.*)/\.(.*)$ http://www.untwistedvortex.com/1 [R=301,L]
Notice the escaped period. It wouldn’t work right otherwise since a period represents any single character with regular expression rules.
Here’s the rule I used to get rid of the tacked on post titles:
RewriteRule ^(.*)/(.*)\s(.*)/$ http://www.untwistedvortex.com/1 [R=301,L]
The 404 errors were displaying “%20″ which translated into a space character. I used “\s” to isolate the 404 URLs with one or more spaces in them.
Performance Improvements
Over the past month, I’ve taken steps to kill off the spambot and other retarded crawlers because they’ve done nothing but slow down the rendering of the blog pages and consume bandwidth. I was even able to fend off a malicious hack attack on one given day, although I don’t remember what day it was.
The point is, if you take the time to defeat the 404 errors, you’ll catch the retarded bots with their pants down, so to speak. Don’t wait until your site comes to a near stop to do something about it.
It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. Redirecting erroneous URLs to their correct locations can do nothing to hurt your site’s ranking in the search engines. It can only make the ranking what it should be or even help to improve it.Similar Posts:
Make Retarded Search Engines Work For You
The UV SEO Series - Part Two - One Website Address
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for WordPress, Part 1
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for WordPress, Part 3
The UV SEO Series - Part Five - Keywords
While my wife was here on her Philippines vacation, she had cable TV installed in our house. She didn’t just get an installation done; she had the installation done in three rooms: The living room, the master bedroom, and my son’s bedroom.
The Cable TV Company
The name of the cable TV company here in Olongapo City is Colorview CATV, Inc. It’s the only cable company in the city. It was founded in 1972, and became operational in 1973, during the reign of President Ferdinand Marcos. The first CEO was Ramón Banzon Magsaysay, Jr. (son of former President Magsaysay — Magsaysay Drive in Olongapo City is named after the President). At the time Ramón was not involved in politics, although he’s now a senator in the Philippines.
Colorview CATV is an asset of the Asian Vision Cable Holdings Inc., its umbrella corporation.
Cable TV Installation Charges and Monthly Subscription Fees
The installation charges were minimal. I have only the invoice to go by, but it appears that the total cost of installation was 3,544 pesos (around $76.00 in US dollars). This includes the deposits on three converter boxes, splitters and advance payment for the monthly subscription fee for one month.
Each converter deposit is 500.00 pesos (around $11.00 in US dollars). The monthly subscription fee for the premium/full package, which includes HBO Asia, Cinemax Asia, and channels from other countries, is 1,325 pesos (around $29.00 in US dollars).
We are stuck with analog cable TV for now. The lead technician told me they expect to go digital next year, but I’m not holding my breath. My wife brought a single 19-inch widescreen TV with her from the US (I’ll try to mention it and put a picture in a later post). None of the signals are in widescreen yet, obviously. The TV is the same size as my computer monitor, but a lot more expensive. It must have something to do with all the doo-dads that can be plugged into it, along with being able to use it as either a primary or additional computer monitor.
Colorview and Cable Internet
Colorview CATV is also the company that provides broadband services by cable to most of the city. According to the lead technician, once again, cable Internet should be available in my area next year. A sister-in-law’s sister-in-law living on Gordon Avenue, just off Magsaysay and near the freeport zone, has cable Internet in her home and it rocks compared to the lousy DSL connection I suffer with.
Around these parts, next year usually means 2-5 years, so holding my breath is out of the question.
Colorview CATV, Inc.
I couldn’t find much by searching for the company on the Internet. I’m surprised it doesn’t have much of a web presence. I do, however, have their contact information:
Colorview CATV, Inc.
2298 Rizal Avenue, East Bajac-Bajac
Olongapo City
Philippines 2200
Phone 63-47-222-3185
There’s also an address at 62 Gordon Avenue (everything else would be the same), but I don’t know which address is correct — I have not been there. The phone number hasn’t changed, so I’ll find out from my mother-in-law (when she pays the bill for me at the beginning of October) what their actual location is.
Similar Posts:
Cell Phones in the Philippines
Cheap Calls to and from the Philippines
Thoughts on Piracy
Technology YOU Can’t Live Without
Barracuda Networks Becomes OIN Licensee
The term, “Overseas Filipino Worker” (OFW), is a broad term used to signify Filipinos who work overseas. While advertisements in the Philippines and some of the destination countries don’t mention it, a Filipino (non-US citizen) serving with the US military would also be classified as an overseas Filipino worker.
According to the Wikipedia page on Overseas Filipino, there are more than 11 million overseas Filipinos worldwide, equivalent to about 11% of the total population of the Philippines. The reason that number is so high can be attributed to the high unemployment rate here in the Philippines.
Overseas Filipino Workers in the US Military
At my first US Marine Corps duty station, MCRD San Diego, California, I worked with an OFW. That was in 1979 and 1980. His name was Juanchito Ugalde. I spoke to him over the phone when I was serving at the Marine Corps Recruiting Station in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1996 — he was serving as a personnel chief at the same duty station again. I’m pretty sure he retired a few months before I did and returned to his home in the Visayas.
In 1984, I worked with another OFW, at Marine Corps Base Hawaii (it was called “Marine Corps Air Station, Kaneohe” back then). His name was Cornell Munalem. I don’t remember what part of the Philippines he was from, but he spoke Tagalog. I haven’t been in contact with him since I left the island of Oahu.
The vast majority of Filipinos serving with the US military serve in the US Navy. Filipinos were recruited out of the Subic Bay Naval Station before it closed in the 90s. They’re currently being recruited out of Guam and other areas outside of the Philippines. I don’t know how it’s being done here in the Philippines now since there aren’t any US bases anymore.
Overseas Filipino Workers in Various Countries
There are Filipinos working as contract workers in the US, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Qatar, Singapore and a whole slew of places I can’t name off the top of my head right now. When I was in Saudi Arabia in 1990 and 1991 (operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm and Desert Calm as part of the first gulf war), I came into contact with several OFWs. They were working as cooks and store clerks.
One of my sisters-in-law has a fiancé (Alex) working at an Internet cafe in Qatar. Alex pointed the home pages on all the computer browsers at the cafe to the home page of this blog a couple of days ago. I then redirected them (from here) to my “Google Search - Qatar” page, created specifically for that reason. You can see it (currently) in my upper right sidebar. When Alex’s contract is over in Qatar, he’ll be moving to Dubai. I’m sure the person who takes his place will remove the blog from the home pages for the computer browsers in Qatar, but if Alex works at another Internet cafe in Dubai, he’ll do the same thing there.
I want to make one thing perfectly clear. I didn’t ask or pay Alex to do anything. We just happen to be friends. Next year, he’ll be a relative, somewhat removed.
I have a nephew (Michael), who finished a caregivers course last year. He currently works at a place called “Ocampos” in Olongapo City, but he’ll be working somewhere overseas (probably Canada) when he gets contracted as a caregiver. He lives with my mother-in-law, his grandmother, right now and he’s about the same as my son (Jonathan). They often “hang out” together here in the neighborhood.
Returning Overseas Filipino Workers
In November of 2006, I met a neighbor (Joel) who served with the US Seabees (the US Navy Construction Battalions). I didn’t know, until then, that his daughter (Candy) was one of Jonathan’s college classmates. In fact, she stopped by here just an hour or so ago to check out my blog. Anyway, Joel and his family speak very good English.
Joel is going to a different college for a second career in nursing and will return to the US when he gets his degree, and it’ll probably happen before Candy gets her degree.
Filipinos come and go as overseas contract workers and I don’t foresee it slowing down at all. I’m sure I’m going to be involved, over time, with more Filipinos seeking employment elsewhere. I can’t predict the future, but I plan to live here for a long, long time. The amazing thing, right now, is that I can remember names from more than 12 years ago. Not bad for someone who has CRS (can’t remember Shiitake) disease.
Similar Posts:
Subversive Filipinos Make Me Puke
Filipino Culture
Daniel Smith’s Appeal Decision is Rapidly Approaching
Greed
PinoyCentric - A Breath of Fresh Air
Golden Dagger is his Chinese name given by his grandfather in keeping with his ancestry’s descent and as a symbol of embracing their roots yet is living in this beautiful island of Cebu, Philippines.
He goes by the name of Cyril. A husband to a loving wife, a father to a wonderful son, a certified public accountant by profession, a good friend, a Cebuano ninja, a closet rock-star, a day-dreamer and a sleep-talker.
Find Out More
You can read more about Cyril and the things he writes about in connection with Cebu City travel on his blog, “Golden Dagger: Cebu Imaginations”.
About My “About People” Series
Rather than repeat what doesn’t need to be repeated, just cruise over to my “About People” page and you’ll see the method behind my madness.Similar Posts:
About People: Kouiji and his Haiku Poetry
About People: Tim & Ernie of the Redneck Bar & Grill
About People: Day Job Nuker
About People: Bonnie Hicks and DataPlus
About People: Paul LaMach and LaMach Web Site Design
This review is being pulled from the bottom of the queue, where I had stashed it when the site resolved without any blog appearing (only the website directory appeared). It was like that for more than a couple of weeks — I checked periodically. I’ll be updating the queue as soon as I’m done with this review.
What is “Ramblings from Paul Sanderson” all about?
The title says it all, even if it isn’t in the logo (it’s in the browser title). Despite it being labeled as “ramblings”, there’s a lot of good stuff if you look around a bit.
Site Design
I don’t remember what the blog originally looked like, but it looks really nice now. It appears to be a custom theme and it reflects a lot of design work being put into it.
The only element of the design that looks like it needs more work would be the footer. There’s a stray “Smashing Magazine” copyright notice stuck in the middle of the categories list. Also, the 3 images for the lists, designed to be the backgrounds for those lists, don’t extend far enough to cover them. I recommend changing those backgrounds to CSS boxes and repeated small images (except for the turned up flap), if only to save on server connections and download speed.
Article Content
As I said, there’s a lot of good stuff on the blog, and an item I found in the sidebar (featured) was good enough to steal my time away. I read “7 Websites No Website Developer Should Be Without” and then followed the link provided, read the article there and then followed another link and I was lost for about an hour.
This might not happen to you. I’m interested in design applications (because I’m redesigning the theme for this blog) and I was consumed with interest.
My Overall Opinion
The blog isn’t quite awesome yet, but it has the potential to be exactly that. I could go on and on, but if you visit the blog and look around a while, you’ll see exactly what I mean.
Would you like a Review?
My reviews are simple, including at least one link to an article as well as a link to the blog or website. They’re also absolutely free. Make sure your blog is ready to be reviewed and then submit it on my “Request A Blog Review” page and I’ll try to do my best to give you a fair review, without being overly critical.Similar Posts:
eBook Review: Secrets to a Healthy Life
My wife departed on Philippine Airlines flight number 102 last night at approximately 10 pm. She’s now at the Los Angeles domestic terminal for United Airlines, waiting on her flight to Phoenix.
While she was here, I found very little time to get onto the computer for writing purposes. I was able to keep up with spam maintenance and fix some other back-end issues, but that’s about it. Tomorrow morning (possibly later this evening), I’ll be picking up where I left off. More than that, I’m going to be posting non-stop until I get a lot of things out of the way that need to be completed, such as blog reviews, adding to the “dofollow” list and much, much more.
Out with the old and in with the new.
For your viewing pleasure, I started a new blog to incorporate stuff from other blogs that weren’t going anywhere. There’s still much more to be added to it and I’m way behind. It’s called “Oh, You See One!” I’ll be moving a few items over there from this blog as well. Don’t ask me what the title means — it’s just something I’ve said repeatedly while working with people over the phone and voice chat.
I’m in the process of moving posts from reviews.untwistedvortex.com (and I’ll be getting rid of that subdomain) and videotyme.com (which will be completely redone) and hope to get all that finished within a week.
I’ll be starting up another new blog, as yet unnamed and without a domain name, as soon as I get everything else pretty much caught up. I’ll give you a hint as to what it’ll be about: It’s my favorite hot beverage.
Planned Articles
I have more stuff to publish than I can shake a stick at. Two articles will involve the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (abbreviated SCT or SCTEx) and overseas Filipino workers (abbreviated OFW). There’ll be some more information on Jack Hunter and why I’m sure I’m not crazy and in need of hospitalization for psychiatric services or surgery.
There will also be the blog reviews, of course, along with other link love type stuff going on as I progress. The point is, I’m going to be publishing articles as fast as I can complete them during all of my waking hours over the next few days. It should work out well, now that I’ve adjusted my sleeping cycle again and have iron bars on all my first-floor windows.
Smile. Give your face some exercise. The next few days are going to be awesome (at least for me) and are really going to suck for people subscribed to my feeds.
[Update: The Philippine Utility Department (PUD) decided that I had too much time on my hands and graced me with a brownout for 3 and 1/2 hours this morning, so I’m already behind in my plans.]Similar Posts:
I Made The Sidebar Changes
Goodbye Google Analytics and Clicky, Hello FireStats
Minimizing Social Bookmarking Plugins
10 Ways To Power Up My Blog
Sidebar Clean Up Test
I’ve been having problems with writing here as of late due to being overwhelmed by lucid dreams. After I published my article on an uninvited guest, I started having lucid dreams on a regular basis. After ignoring them and writing about shadow people in the Philippines, I started getting repeats of previous dreams. It was then that I started to keep extensive notes on what the dreams were about.
These dreams have been bothering me so much that I’ve been sleeping less and less. I try to stay awake as long as possible, hoping that even if I do dream, I won’t remember the dream when I wake up. It hasn’t worked so far. The dreams are long and vivid, even if I only sleep for a couple of hours.
Scientists have theories, and they’re only theories, about the meaning of dreams. Perhaps random dreams and such are created by chemical processes in the brain. Lucid dreams, however, can’t be explained away so easily. When you have full or partial control of your dreams, you are experiencing lucid dreaming.
Who is Jack Hunter?
The first lucid dream I experienced, and I can’t tell you the exact date (sometime between September 10th and today — it was one of the repeats), was like something straight out of science fiction and fantasy. The first part of it was a battle between a group of people and some kind of monster who was after someone called “Jack Hunter”, the leader of that group. That group appeared to me to be some kind of paramilitary organization. The monster appeared to be one of the monsters from the original Doom.
When I thought it was over and was going to wake up from something that I knew was a dream, I was interrupted by Jack. He explained to me that he used the images from my memories to build the fight sequence. It’s probably the reason he looked a lot like Richard Dean Anderson.
When I woke up, my first impulse (which I acted on) was to search for Jack Hunter on the Internet. One thing Jack had mentioned is that he was 25-years old in 1933. That would make him 100-years old! I found quite a few references to “Jack Hunter” on the net, but none of them were as old as this Jack is supposed to be. In other words, I wasted my time.
The Shadow People
Jack explained to me what the shadows I’ve been seeing actually are. They’re shadows indeed, but not shadows of people from our world. The reason I can’t see who or what is casting the shadows is because those people exist in a parallel world. I asked him why I and my family can see these shadows and why it isn’t a common occurrence.
Jack told me the reason has nothing to do with our location in the Philippines. It has to do with perception. Many people can perceive the shadows, but few will take the time to investigate. Most people attribute them to spiritual phenomena and continue on with their lives as normal. Jack said he was drawn to me because of what I was writing about and he believed I would pass on the information he’s giving to me over time.
He’s absolutely right.
Call Me Crazy
You can call me crazy, a complete nutjob, or whacko if you wish. I’m not going to tell you I believe in all of this. All I’m going to do is to write about the lucid dreams I continue to participate in.
I’ll continue with another article later on because this one is long enough as it is. I want to get back to writing the things I normally write about and get these crazy thoughts out of my head for at least a day or two.Similar Posts:
Parallel Worlds: Where is Jack Hunter?
Weird Dreams
An Uninvited Guest
Shadow People in the Philippines
Do You Believe In Ghosts?
What would you define as government and public services in the Philippines? The obvious answer would be things like water and electricity. The not-so-obvious answer would include residential telephone services and other services that are necessary for the majority of the public (and sometimes a minority of the public). Services do not have to be government-run or government-owned in order to be considered public services.
What follows are a few my experiences and observations while residing in Olongapo City, Philippines.
Electricity
When I was deployed here with the US military in the early 1980s, there were brownouts almost every day. Brownouts are still a fact of life here in the Philippines and rarely does a week go by without at least one brownout occurring. I read somewhere that the local power plant is considered modern. Modern by what standards?
The Philippine Utility Department (PUD) has shut off power for periods of a few minutes to hours at a time, without rhyme or reason. The short outages seem to be taken well by most residents, including me. Everyone complains, as they should, when they last for more than an hour. Any power outage for more than just a few minutes will usually result in a water outage as well. Even after the electricity service is restored, it can take another 30 minutes or more for the water supply to return to normal.
Water
The water distribution here is controlled by the Subic Water & Sewerage Company based at the Subic Bay Freeport Zone, adjacent to Olongapo City. They do the same thing as PUD, except with the water supply, by turning off water at any given time without rhyme or reason. This is in addition to the outages that coincide with the power outages.
Back in the 1980s, I noticed that most people shared community wells. I don’t see too many of them anymore — most people are relying on the municipal water supply. Of course, many complaints are lodged when unscheduled outages last 12 hours or more.
Mail
I don’t know anything about the local mail service (local to local mail) because I never receive any. The utility companies hand-deliver the monthly bills.
International mail is horrible. Regular 1st Class mail from outside of the country can take up to 3 months to arrive, if it arrives at all. Most of the people I know use FedEx and other services to receive mail from the US, even though it’s much more expensive. I haven’t heard of a lost FedEx letter in the time I’ve been here.
In the US, the regular mail service was privatized years ago. The service improved seemingly overnight. I wonder if privatization is even a viable option for the Philippines.
Residential Telephone Service
Residential telephone service is a public service required by people like me — people who have to have the service in order to have an Internet connection. In a lot of areas locally, DSL and prepaid dial-up cards are the only options available.
On two separate occasions, I suffered 24-hour periods in which I had no dial tone. A call to the telephone company’s trouble desk didn’t seem to speed up the restoration of service. Each time, they could not tell me why I lost the dial tone in the first place.
Internet Service
More and more people are getting connected at their homes instead of at Internet cafes. It’s only natural to consider Internet service as another necessary public service.
I’ve had my share of troubles with poor technical support and so have many others. In December of 2006, I had no broadband service for a period of time due to the earthquake near Taiwan. It’s probably the only time that a lack of service was justified. On another occasion, I didn’t have Internet service for 24 hours because someone cut through the fiber optic line in the city — and it took them 22 of those hours just to find the cut.
Transportation Services
There isn’t a lack of transportation services in Olongapo City, or anywhere in the Philippines that I know of. In fact, there are so many jeepneys, tricycles, buses and taxis (but no local taxis that I’ve seen) that it’s annoying. It’s sometimes impossible to pass them when they’re going extremely slow due to the heavy traffic coming from the opposite direction. Never mind the level of noise — it doesn’t decrease until you get out of the downtown areas.
Airline services continue to improve. Philippine Airlines by itself has more flights than it ever had before and they have daily flights to the US. Busing services are on the rise as well. I see buses all over the place.
Overcoming Deficiencies
I have to save for a few more months, but I plan to overcome at least a couple of the deficiencies I’ve mentioned. I plan to get a backup generator, automatic if possible, for the brownout periods and a gravity tank for water storage for the water outage periods.
I have a pressure tank for the water, which is useless, but I won’t get into that right now. A gravity tank is a much better idea.
I’ve been told by the cable company (Colorview) that cable Internet should be available in my area sometime next year. I’ve heard that song and dance before, but I’m being optimistic in believing them this time.
Final Thoughts
It may seem that I’m saying that the government and public services in the Philippines are poor all the time, but it’s simply not true. Weeks and even months can go by without anything unusual happening. It’s just that when it does, it seems to happen frequently for weeks at a time.
So… when the service is good, it’s really good and when the service is bad, it’s really bad. There isn’t any middle ground.
Similar Posts:
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
Daniel Smith’s Appeal Decision is Rapidly Approaching
Are we overdoing social networking?
US Imperialism in the Philippines, Really?
Privacy and Respect - Where Do YOU Draw The Line?
I’ve written about my experiences with shadow people here in the Philippines on more than one occasion. I was officially weirded out in April of 2007 and wrote about an uninvited guest a mere two weeks ago.
I hesitate to continue writing about these shadow people, but the story didn’t end two weeks ago. I don’t know how many of these “entities” are involved, but the appearances are becoming more and more commonplace.
Last Week
I think it was Wednesday night, but I can’t be sure. I’m not too good at keeping track of which day is which nowadays, being retired and not having any kind of schedule to follow.
I, my wife and my son had finished eating dinner. My son had just left the table to head upstairs and to his room. I was seated at the head of the table and Josie was seated to the right of me, facing the window. Beyond the other end of the table and off to the side is our stainless steel refrigerator.
While Josie and I were talking, I observed a shadow rising on the right front corner of the refrigerator. Josie turned her head to see what I was looking at, but didn’t say anything. After the shadow retreated, I started to ask her about it and she said, “Yes, I saw it too.” I had already mentioned my previous experience a couple of days prior to this event.
I walked around the room, interfering with light sources, and tried to create a shadow like that. I couldn’t.
This Week
Until a couple of days ago, I had only seen these shadows at night and not every night. Now, I’m seeing them in the daytime as well. Their appearances are random. There never is anything seeming to cast the shadows. It’s like the shadows themselves are independent entities.
My wife seems to think it’s the ghost of one of her deceased brothers (murdered in 2001) because neighbors have seen him since then. My mother-in-law says that it’s one or more “bound spirits”, whatever the heck that means.
I’m Curious, but Not Afraid
Before anyone makes a comment, this house has been blessed. There are Catholic religious symbols in various parts of the house (the wife is Catholic, not me) and even a cross hanging in the stairwell. Regardless, these shadows don’t seem to be demonic in nature. I don’t sense any hostility and negative vibes of any kind.
I’m curious as to what these “shadow people” actually are. When they appear, I definitely feel a presence in the room, but I don’t know what to make of it. People that talk about ghosts say they feel chills, but I haven’t noticed any changes in temperature or lighting.
I’m starting to think the Philippines is the paranormal epicenter of the world. I have heard so many stories about things that people have seen and experienced. Most of it I attribute to folklore, but when something like this starts happening, it makes me wonder.
I don’t know how these events are going to progress or for how long. I’ll be sure to write about it if anything changes.Similar Posts:
An Uninvited Guest
Lucid Dreams: Who is Jack Hunter?
Parallel Worlds: Where is Jack Hunter?
Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Okay, I Am Officially Weirded Out
The picture doesn’t do it justice. I took a picture of a plate of pork fried rice with my cell phone just before digging in. It’s not just any plate of pork fried rice. It’s a little different. Before I tell you what’s different, I’ll give you a little background on fried rice in general.
Fried Rice
According to the Wikipedia article on fried rice, “It is made from cold leftover rice fried with other leftover ingredients…There are dozens of varieties of fried rice, each with their own specific list of ingredients.” The two sentences conflict with each other.
Any specific variety of fried rice in the Philippines is not to be confused with fried rice in China or other Asian countries. Filipinos don’t normally add peas, bean sprouts, celery or carrots. That is, unless the family is of Chinese descent.
I’ve had my fair share of the different varieties of Filipino fried rice over the past 25 years and I can tell you first hand that Filipinos don’t use leftover rice. There usually is no such thing as leftover rice when it comes to Filipinos.
Pork Fried Rice
Pork fried rice is normally made with rice, other ingredients and, of course, pork. While no specific part of the pig is required, it’s normally the same parts as used for chops and such. What my wife does when regular pork pieces aren’t available is substitute wieners.
We call them wieners in the US, but they just call them hot dogs here. Americans know that the term “hot dog” includes the bun and the condiments, but what do you expect when one of the major suppliers of wieners in the Philippines, San Miguel Pure Foods, labels them as hot dogs. I have yet to see a package here with “wieners” on the label. Imported wieners from the US don’t count.
Preparation and Cooking
I observed my wife when she was cooking this batch of pork fried rice, but I still had to ask her for details because I’m not too good at paying attention. The ingredients she used were:
Rice (bigas/kanin) - 3 cups
Wieners - 4
Soy Sauce (toyo)
Garlic (bawang) - 3 cloves
Onion (sibuyas)- 1 medium
Eggs (itlog) - 4
Vegetable Oil
First, she cooked the rice in our rice cooker (which took about 30 minutes). Then she put a little vegetable oil in a deep skillet so that the rice would fry without burning. She cooked the rice, turning it frequently while adding soy sauce. She only added soy sauce until the rice turned golden brown. You may have heard the old saying, “too much sauce spoils the goose”. It’s the same thing with soy sauce and rice. The flavor of the soy sauce shouldn’t overwhelm everything else.
Before she started cooking, she pre-scrambled 4 eggs and fried them all together, and then cut up the result into little pieces. She also pre-cooked the wieners and cut them up into small pieces. She crushed the cloves of garlic and minced the onion as well.
As she cooked the fried rice, she added the ingredients one-by-one, the last being the fried eggs. The entire process took no more than an hour. She cooked enough for 4 or 5 people. Me and my son ate the pork fried rice on two different nights (the second time being the leftovers, of course).Similar Posts:
For the Love of Chicken and Rice
Corned Beef and Rice - A Staple of Mine
American Goulash is like Meow - it could be anything!
Ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible.
Jollibee: Another Philippines Success Story
What is “Poke Farm” all about?
This is a specialty blog where characters from the popular Pokemon series are bred, hatched and traded. Don’t ask me anything else about it, because I don’t know.
Site Design
The theme Steve picked for Poke Farm is perfect, in my opinion. Both the front page and the news page look like magazine-style layouts and they work well for this kind of blog. There’s also an active forum that I took a few minutes to scan.
All of the navigational items I’ve come to expect on any blog are there and working properly, which is more than I can say for some of the blogs I’ve come across recently. The colors work well for the topic, Pokemon, and that’s about all I can say about that because I’m not familiar with Pokemon other than watching my kids watch it on TV years ago.
Article Content
The latest article, “Pokemon Farming- Ash Kicking Pichu”, might as well be gibberish. I’m clueless about this topic. It appears to be well-written though and received quite a few comments.
My Overall Opinion
If you’re into video gaming, or Pokemon, this is a blog you might want to take a look at. It appears to receive a lot of traffic, if only based on how many comments it receives and how active the forum is.
As for me, I’m clueless. I can’t tell you even one of the character’s names without looking it up.
Would you like a Review?
My reviews are simple, including at least one link to an article as well as a link to the blog or website. They’re also absolutely free. Make sure your blog is ready to be reviewed and then submit it on my “Request A Blog Review” page and I’ll try to do my best to give you a fair review, without being overly critical.Similar Posts:
Blog Review: The Hawaiian Life
Blog Review: The Sports Dollar
Blog Review: The NFL Minute
Blog Review: Rome Uy dot com
Blog Review: Diaries of a Blogger
Everything in this world has an intrinsic value. That value, however, is dictated by needs and wants. If no one needs or wants what I have, then all I have is an empire of dirt. Everything starts as dirt and everything ends as dirt.
My House
The total cost, through a contractor, of building my house was 2.4 million pesos. That came out to something like $48,000 in US dollars. It only included the house and the driveway (and the garage-like storage area below it).
We have spent several thousand dollars on other items, such as our fence (including the fence gate) and “Americanizing” the kitchen and bedrooms as much as possible. The latest expenses have involved the “add on” rooms — the laundry room and dirty kitchen being added to the rear of the house. They’re now in a skeletal state and will be for another six months — the money we saved for it is depleted.
For me, the house is worth at least $100,000 in US dollars. That’s probably pretty close to the current real estate value of it. By the time everything is finished, it’ll probably be worth $150K. What difference does it make? None. I seriously doubt we could sell it for $50K unless the economy here improves in leaps and bounds. So… the value of my house is really whatever someone would be willing to pay for it. If no one is willing to buy it, it’s an empire of dirt.
My Blog
Out of curiosity, I checked four websites that give estimates of blog worth:
estibot: $11,000
dnScoop: $20,928
Website Outlook: $32952.20
Business Opportunities Weblog: $81,293.76
As you can see, the values range from a somewhat normal amount to a ridiculous amount. Regardless, if no one is willing to buy it, it’s an empire of dirt.
I’m Not Selling Anything
Regardless of the value of my house or the value of my blog, I’m not selling either one of them. I probably never will. There’s just way too much of me in both of them.
And since I’m not planning to sell either one of them, all I really have is an empire of dirt.Similar Posts:
Metal Cabinets in the Kitchen?
Why Am I Still Alive?
Building Our House in the Philippines
Google My House
Autobiography, Part 2
This is where they (Tim and Ernie) peel back the layers, and let you get to know the real them. You may or may not know of their previous home, Blue Beaver Beer (intentionally not linked to).
They drank a lot of beer and talked about various things (Ernie drank a lot more beer than Tim did!), but in the end they decided they needed more room. A local pub came to their attention. Situated in the world famous Horseguard Valley, this old pub was darn near a historic landmark. It was a little rundown, but nothing a little hard work wouldn’t fix. What better way to promote Blue Beaver Beer than to sell it! With the help of their friends they got the place back in business.
Find Out More
You can read more about Tim and Ernie on their “About | Redneck Bar & Grill” page, even if the thought repulses you just a little. We’re talking about rednecks, remember?
About My “About People” Series
Rather than repeat what doesn’t need to be repeated, just cruise over to my “About People” page and you’ll see the method behind my madness.Similar Posts:
About People: Bonnie Hicks and DataPlus
About People: Kouiji and his Haiku Poetry
About People: Day Job Nuker
About People: Steve and Asian Ramblings
About People: Paul LaMach and LaMach Web Site Design
What is “Cathy’s Capers” all about?
It’s a personal blog, written by Cathy at the foothills of the Dandenongs in Victoria, Australia. There really isn’t much more to say about it. It’s hard for me to write a review on a personal blog unless I’ve been reading it for a while.
Site Design
The blog uses one of the standard templates for “Blogger” (blogspot.com), so any criticism of the design would be a waste of time for both of us. I generally save my criticisms for those who self-host.
Article Content
I can’t pick any single article on a personal blog to pick on. Cathy is on vacation and won’t be back until later in the month, as she pointed out in “See you in September” and “Missing part”.
My Overall Opinion
Cathy’s posts are easy to read and that’s enough. She has quite a few commenters so she has to be doing something right on a blog that’s just a few months older than my own. She’s obviously not doing anything wrong with it. It’s not a monetized blog, so there really isn’t anything more to say about it.
This review, like some of my other short reviews, may appear to be hurried and pushed through without any thought. The truth is that I have difficulty criticizing any blog unless either positive or negative things stick out at me.
Would you like a Review?
My reviews are simple, including at least one link to an article as well as a link to the blog or website. They’re also absolutely free. Make sure your blog is ready to be reviewed and then submit it on my “Request A Blog Review” page and I’ll try to do my best to give you a fair review, without being overly critical.Similar Posts:
Blog Review: On the Horizon
Blog Review: EightBiz
Blog Review: Slyvisions
I’m joining the blog review bandwagon
Blog Review: Erika Jean
Unless you’re a Filipino or have close ties to Filipinos, you probably don’t have a clue what I’m talking about when I mention anything about a balikbayan box. The word “balikbayan” is actually a combination word coined in the 1970s. “Balik” means to go back and “bayan” means home town or home country. So “balikbayan” is someone going back to their home country, but it only pertains to people going back to the Philippines.
Since I’m an American living in the Philippines, I become a balikbayan when I return after a trip to the US.
Balikbayan Boxes
Balikbayans normally bring pasalubong (gifts) to friends and relatives on return flights, but the term “balikbayan box” also refers to boxes shipped via cargo containers.
With the recent 50 pound limitation introduced by most airlines (to reduce fuel costs), bringing balikbayan boxes back with the airlines becomes less and less attractive. If your box is a single pound over the limit, you can be charged $50 (in US dollars) or more. This happened to my wife when she came back for her Philippines vacation.
Shipping Freight
Shipping freight via well-known cargo companies is becoming more and more attractive as time progresses. The cost of shipping each box can range from $100 to $125 (in US dollars). The advantage, however, is that there isn’t a weight limit. You say you have a box that weighs 500 pounds? If they can get it on the truck that goes to the port, it isn’t a problem. I’m exaggerating of course, but it’s common to see boxes that weigh more than 100 pounds each headed to the ships.
In California, there are a lot of cargo companies. In Phoenix, there is only a handful. That handful includes Forex Cargo and Manila Forwarders. Some popular companies in southern California include those as well as LBC and Alpha Cargo.Similar Posts:
Philippine Airlines - Excellent Customer Service
Philippine Airlines: The Best Airlines for International Philippines Travel
Fear and Loathing in Metro Manila, Philippines
Olongapo City, Philippines - My Home
The Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway, Philippines
There are a few ways to save money and make cheap calls to and from the Philippines. Using the long distance service provided by your regular residential telephone service may be convenient, but it isn’t the cheapest route to take even if you manage to get a “preferred country” deal.
Residential Long Distance Service
The best deal I ever received using my residential long distance service in the US was 21 cents per minute for calls to the Philippines as part of their “preferred country” plan. Without that plan, multiply that amount by 10. Either way, they weren’t exactly cheap calls.
For a long time, it was the only option I had. After I obtained phone service in the Philippines, I found the local long distance service charged 40 cents per minute for calls to the US. Sure it’s an international call, but it’s highway robbery for the people that live on local wages.
Phone Cards
Phone cards, some specifically designed for Asia, are a fairly cheap route to take. Cards can be purchased in amounts of $5.00 and $10.00 (and possibly more). The rate adds up to something between 10 and 12 cents per minute.
In my opinion, phone cards aren’t reliable enough. If you get a bad connection, you lose money quickly when you hang up and dial again and no longer getting cheap calls.
Text Messaging
While text messaging isn’t voice (duh), it’s incredibly cheap if you get a monthly plan going along with your cell phone service plan. My wife was paying $7.50 per month for unlimited texting.
While a plan like that’s cheap, using Skype (for voice) is even cheaper.
Skype and Skype Out
Skype has a few different options, but I only use “Skype Out” for calls to and from the US and the Philippines. I even have a local Phoenix (US) number so friends don’t have to use long distance. In my opinion, this is the best way (right now) to keep an open line of communication going between the US and the Philippines.
Some people may call me crazy, but after an initial investment of around $500.00 (in US dollars) and a monthly cost of about $75, calls to and from the Philippines are virtually unlimited. That investment includes a cheap computer and the most expensive monthly Internet service. If a family member in the Philippines already has an Internet connection set up, the additional cost of the Skype Out service is less than $7.00 in US dollars.
The Absolute Cheapest Calls
Internet cafes are all over the place here in the Philippines and currently cost anywhere from 15 to 25 pesos per hour (or 33 to 55 cents in US dollars). Using a Skype Out account and a computer at an internet cafe is the cheapest route when only one end is using a computer (and the other end is using a residential or cell phone).
The cheapest call is made using an instant messenger with voice from computer to computer. The only charges are those of the Internet connection itself, or the hourly charges at the Internet cafes.
Changes in Technology
The cheapest and best way today may not be cheapest and best way tomorrow. It makes sense to pay attention to advertisements concerning telephone service and news items about telephone technology.
There will always be some direct or indirect costs associated with any kind of telephone service. Telephone service, as cheap as it is or may become, will never be completely free. You don’t, however, need to pay more than is absolutely necessary.Similar Posts:
Cell Phones in the Philippines
Colorview Cable TV in Olongapo City, Philippines
Text Messaging Causes Illiteracy and Death
Technology YOU Can’t Live Without
Thoughts on Piracy
While I was writing my previous two articles, I noticed I had an uninvited guest in my house. Perhaps he or she is welcome, but it’s impossible to determine that when I can’t see him or her.
You could say that I’m seeing things out of the corner of my eye, as is discussed on the Wikipedia page about shadow people. You could say it, but you’d be wrong.
Strange Encounters
Back in April of 2007, I wrote about being weirded out. A couple of days later, one of my mysteries was solved.
Aside from the unknown source of light, which wasn’t unnatural in any way, I had been seeing shadows in my right-side peripheral vision. After a couple of weeks, those shadows stopped appearing and I no longer saw anything that freaked me out.
What I’ve seen this evening is only similar in that I’m seeing shadows. But I’m NOT seeing them out of my peripheral vision. I was watching a gecko scurrying in the hallway and saw a shadow of a person on the floor, just like I would see if my son had walked out of his bedroom to go to the bathroom. At this late hour, and considering he has school tomorrow, I walked into the hallway to check up on him. He wasn’t there! I opened his bedroom door and he was fast asleep. The shadow hadn’t been cast by him!
I have been seeing random shadows like this for the past three hours. They’re clearly shadows of people, but I can’t see who or what is casting the shadows.
Addressing the Unknown
I’m not easily frightened. I’ve seen enough bloodshed and death in my lifetime, both in and out of the military, to say that it doesn’t have much effect on me. I’m desensitized to fear and violence, which in my opinion isn’t a good thing. We should always be afraid of something because fear is a normal, protective, human emotion.
I’ve been seeing these shadows clearly enough (I have a light on in the hallway as well as my bedroom) to know they aren’t products of my imagination. A minute ago, I watched a shadow moving down the hallway (like a person walking) until it disappeared at the opposite end. I’m confident that I have one or more visitors who I can’t see, but he/she/they cast shadows. I’ve spoken out loud, asking why I’m being annoyed.
I have yet to receive a response.Similar Posts:
Shadow People in the Philippines
One Mystery Solved
Okay, I Am Officially Weirded Out
Parallel Worlds: Where is Jack Hunter?
Lucid Dreams: Who is Jack Hunter?
The Stevo once braved the frozen tundra of northern Canada as a reporter and photographer. He now calls southern China home and enjoys the humid clime more than the bone-numbing cold of his native land. He misses little of North America: Riding in the back of a Canadian air force transport plane and crossing a Chinese street both hold the same level of danger and excitement.
After traveling extensively in south-east China he has plans to see and photograph more of Asia. When not shooting photographs or writing about China travel he works as an ESL educator and administrator at a private school.
Find Out More
Steve is a regular reader of Untwisted Vortex and one of the “Friends of the Vortex”. You can find out more about Steve on his “Asian Ramblings | bio” page.
About My “About People” Series
Rather than repeat what doesn’t need to be repeated, just cruise over to my “About People” page and you’ll see the method behind my madness.Similar Posts:
About People: Paul LaMach and LaMach Web Site Design
About People: Bonnie Hicks and DataPlus
About People: Day Job Nuker
About People: Cyril and His ‘Golden Dagger: Cebu Imaginations’
About People: Kouiji and his Haiku Poetry
This is a Blogger (blogspot.com) blog masquerading as a non-Blogger blog. It’s not a bad thing, I assure you.
What is “Syndicated Elitist v2.0″ all about?
Without an “about” page to refer to, I was left with the first post in November of 2007 to look at.
According to Benjamin, Syndicated Elitist was relaunched after being dead for 3 years. In his words, “SyndicatedElitist.com is the Official Blog of Benjamin Kerensa and his Official Web Presence and his blog will contain posts on a variety of subjects and his style of writing will come from a personal standpoint.”
Site Design
As I mentioned at the beginning, this is a Blogger blog. Benjamin pointed it to his own domain name and did away with the Blogger dashboard, so it looks like any other self-hosted blog. With domain names as cheap as $7 per year (or less), this is an excellent route to take if you’re willing to put up with some of the restrictions. You can save a few bucks per year on web hosting costs.
Article Content
While I would like to spend time reading more than I have, I just don’t have the time right now. That probably sounds worse than it is, but I have a few other details in my life taking priority — I still wanted to take a look at Benjamin’s blog and see what he had to offer.
There are some interesting articles to read, judging solely by the headlines. I picked “AOL Spammer recieves 30 month federal prison sentence” because I hate spammers with a passion. It’s an information-type article and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s easy to read and I enjoyed it. Tremendously.
My Overall Opinion
It’s a personal blog and there’s no doubt about that. It could be better, but only if Benjamin wants to spend more time with it. I would recommend adding an “about” page and doing away with some of the useless sidebar widgets (and I’m sure he knows which ones I’m talking about).
I don’t like or dislike this blog. It’s really hard to form any kind of opinion on a personal blog, especially one that isn’t updated frequently.
Would you like a Review?
My reviews are simple, including at least one link to an article as well as a link to the blog or website. They’re also absolutely free. Make sure your blog is ready to be reviewed and then submit it on my “Request A Blog Review” page and I’ll try to do my best to give you a fair review, without being overly critical.Similar Posts:
Blog Review: About Every Little Thing
Blog Review: Cathy’s Capers
Blog Review: Human Psyche
Blog Review: Marketing Tools Review
Blog Review: Asian Ramblings
My wife (Josie) missed her connection to her Philippine Airlines flight at LAX but because Philippine Airlines has excellent customer service, she was re-booked for the next flight with minimal problems.
A Sudden Storm
Josie’s flight out of Phoenix was supposed to depart at 7:32 pm on the 25th of August and arrive at LAX at 8:57 pm. The Philippine Airlines flight was scheduled to depart at 10:35 pm. There would have been plenty of time for getting from the domestic terminal to the international terminal, check in and make that flight.
A “microburst” hit the airport area of Phoenix when boarding on her United Airlines flight was supposed to take place. Microbursts are extremely dangerous to airlines during takeoff and landing. The flight ended up being delayed about an hour and a half. When Josie arrived at LAX, the Philippine Airlines flight had already departed. She is stuck in Los Angeles for 24 hours.
She has relatives in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have any of their numbers in her cell phone address book and they’re not listed in the local phone books. She is spending her 24 hours at the LAX international terminal.
Philippine Airlines Customer Service
I called the Philippine Airlines 800 number via Skype (800-435-9725) because I don’t have national long distance on my residential telephone line. I explained the situation to the customer service representative and she re-booked the flight and told me that Josie needed to head back to United Airlines to get some kind of re-something in order to avoid paying any re-booking fee.
As I write this, Josie is headed to the United Airline ticket counter. It’s a good thing she won’t have to pay any fees because she spent her last $50 (in US dollars) paying for a 1 pound overage on one of her bags. One lousy pound! That wouldn’t have happened if the baggage weight restriction hadn’t been reduced from 70 to 50 pounds due to the increase in fuel costs.
A Vacation Delayed
Yes, Josie’s Philippines vacation is being delayed for 24 hours. LAX doesn’t count as part of it. She’ll be extremely tired upon arrival, both because of being stuck at the terminal and because she can’t sleep on airline flights.
I moved her party from Wednesday (naturally, since she won’t be arriving until Thursday) to Friday so that she can get some rest before getting tore up from the floor up. I went to the Royal Subic store earlier and picked up two more bottles of Jose Cuervo tequila and two bottles of Tanduay dark rum. I’m going to get tore up from the floor up as well.
Similar Posts:
Philippine Airlines: The Best Airlines for International Philippines Travel
Kauai Vacation Rentals
Balikbayan Boxes and Shipping Freight to the Philippines
The Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway, Philippines
Philippines Hotel and Resort Offerings - Olongapo City and Subic Bay
It’s time for a reality check. You can make money online with a blog, but you’re probably not going to make a whole lot of money with ONE BLOG. Of course, your definition of “a whole lot” may be different than mine.
How to Make $100 Per YEAR with a Blog
Back in March of 2007, I wrote two articles. The first was titled “How To Make 100 Dollars Per Year Blogging”. In that article, I wrote about how I’d made $100 (in US dollars obviously) in my first year of blogging without really trying. All I had to do was put Google AdSense on my blog.
A hundred dollars in a year isn’t a whole lot of money, in my opinion. Even poor people in my neck of the woods, the Philippines, make more than that in a month.
The point is that you can make a hundred dollars per year simply by writing on a continuous basis. You don’t need to focus on any specific topics and you don’t need to practice SEO (search engine optimization).
How to Make $100 Per MONTH with a Blog
A few days after I wrote the previous article, I wrote “How To Make 100 Dollars Per MONTH Blogging” after I hit $100 per month for the first time. In that article, I emphasized good, quality content as a way to increase readers.
A hundred dollars per month still isn’t a whole lot of money. Unskilled Filipino laborers can easily make that much in a month and it’s barely enough to live on.
Again, you don’t need to practice SEO to get to this point. You just have to focus a little more on specific topics.
Beyond $100 Per Month
More than a year later, I can honestly say that I make more than $100 per month from Google AdSense alone. I won’t tell you how much I make — just start multiplying by 2 and 3 and 4 and keep on going.
Many bloggers are relying on social website traffic to make money online. While that’s fine and good, it isn’t consistent unless YOU are very good at drawing the visitors. Search engine traffic, on the other hand, becomes consistent as long as you practice SEO and write about things that people are searching for.
Doing the “make money online” thing with one blog is hard work. It really is. It’s much easier to use one blog as your starting point and then branch out from there. You can call it your flagship blog or whatever, but it’s not the website that’s going to make you the most money even though it may be the website you put the most effort into.
Recycling Posts
This isn’t a secret. I recycle and republish frequently, using articles that are more than a year old. As this blog ages, some of those articles are stretching beyond two years.
I’m recycling them because I wrote them while I was an inexperienced blogger. Most of the articles I’m talking about get looked at maybe once every other month. Really. While they may have some minute historical value, I see them more as fodder for more up-to-date information.
Recycling old blog posts may be something you might want to consider if you’re starting to practice SEO and attempting to increase your ability to make money online.
Similar Posts:
How to Make Money Online
How to Get Screaming Traffic
Stay Focused and Get Lots and Lots of Traffic
How to Climb the SERPS Quickly
Word Hugger, A New Web Startup
You can find many kinds of cell phones in the Philippines, but I can’t tell you what’s used where, other than what I’ve seen here in Olongapo City. I can’t tell you exactly what’s used in Manila, although I’ve heard they support the Apple iPhones there along with every other major brand. Here in Olongapo City, I’ve only seen three brands of cell phones and no Apple anything (iPods don’t count).
Motorola and Smart Communications
My wife sent me a Motorola cell phone last year and I can’t tell you the model without taking it apart and I really don’t feel like doing that. It’s an older flip phone with a lousy camera.
I didn’t find out until AFTER I changed the SIM card to be compatible with Globe Telecom that Motorola cell phones work better with Smart Communications. I don’t know why that is, but it’s true.
Since I don’t use the cell phone, it sits fully-charged without any service. In a few days, my wife will be bringing me a Motorola RAZR V3 - the cell phone she’s been using for a year. She recently bought another, later version of the Motorola RAZR V3 for a second year with her cell phone service provider. The cell phone she’s bringing me takes excellent pictures and I plan to use it for local picture taking instead of lugging around my video camera.
Nokia and Globe Telecom
From what I’ve seen, all of the Nokia models of cell phones work better with Globe Telecom. Again, I don’t know why that is.
Most of my in-laws have Nokia cell phones. They don’t have regular jobs, but they have cell phones! Text messaging is dirt cheap “in network” and costs one peso per message unless they get unlimited text messaging for X number of days, in which event it’s even cheaper. One peso is a little over 2 cents (in US dollars) right now.
Sony Erickson and What?
I have an in-law of an in-law (but not my in-law) that uses a Sony Erickson model of some kind. I don’t know what service she uses, but I suspect it’s Smart Communications.
It’s the only one I’ve ever seen here, so I can’t say any more about it.
Monthly Service Versus Prepaid “Loads”
Most people in the Philippines, not counting the businesses, use prepaid “loads” instead of having monthly service. Monthly service requires a monthly income. While I could get a monthly service, the area I live in doesn’t support text messaging well enough to justify the cost.
Loads can be purchased in increments of 20, 50, 100 or more pesos. I don’t recommend the large purchases because loads get “zapped” sometimes for no apparent reason. I hate to see people waste money, no matter how little they spend.
Voice loads can be purchased as well as text loads, but I can’t tell you tell you the cost. I’ve never attempted voice service with any cell phones here. I use a residential telephone line and DSL (using Skype and Yahoo Instant Messenger) for my voice needs.Similar Posts:
Cheap Calls to and from the Philippines
Text Messaging Causes Illiteracy and Death
Resonate This, MIT
Colorview Cable TV in Olongapo City, Philippines
Technology YOU Can’t Live Without
Bonnie is the Owner/President of DataPlus, which has been in operation since 1992.
DataPlus is a small and successful data processing company located in Georgia and Bonnie hires contractors for “work at home” typing from time to time. She actually started the business more than 20 years ago in order to be a stay-at-home mother and raise her own children while working. Both of her sons are now grown and happily married.
Find Out More
Bonnie is a daily reader of Untwisted Vortex and one of the “Friends of the Vortex”. You can find out more about how Bonnie got started in her business, as well as other personal things, at her personal blog: My Work from Home Experience.
About My “About People” Series
Rather than repeat what doesn’t need to be repeated, just cruise over to my “About People” page and you’ll see the method behind my madness.Similar Posts:
About People: Paul LaMach and LaMach Web Site Design
About People: Steve and Asian Ramblings
About People: Day Job Nuker
About People: Tim & Ernie of the Redneck Bar & Grill
About People: Kouiji and his Haiku Poetry
A blog containing news, tips, hints, ideas and freebies for people building websites or blogs (stolen from the tagline).
What is “laptopmanpaul.co.uk” all about?
It’s a blog that oriented towards information technology of all kinds. It’s actually an “off-shoot” of webcumbria.co.uk, the main portal for all of his personal websites and his website construction business (some of that was stolen from his “about” page).
Site Design
This blog is using one of those themes that doesn’t use quite all of the available screen real estate the 1024×768 resolution (still the most widely-used resolution) has to offer. Most people don’t realize how much more scrolling is required when the theme is just an inch narrower than it could be.
I noticed the tag cloud in the sidebar, but I couldn’t find his list of categories anywhere. Besides being an almost a standard on blogs, categories count as additional pages. Perhaps Paul doesn’t feel it’s necessary to display categories because they’d just be lumped into one, but I see the potential to for several categories.
I found it odd that there’s only one article displayed on the front page. This is the first time I’ve seen that and I’m not sure what to make of it. Each of the archives pages only displays one article at time also. This makes looking for past articles very cumbersome.
Article Content
The latest article, “Selling your blog for $10k - surely not?”, talks about buying and selling blogs at sitepoint.com. I suppose buying and selling of purely informational-type blogs is a worthwhile pursuit, but I can’t see it for blogs with personality.
I found most of the articles easy to read, except for one small detail: The justified text. On some lines it’s just excruciating to try and read the complete sentence naturally.
My Overall Opinion
The blog appears to be about 4 months old and there isn’t a great deal of content. Since Paul maintains many blogs at the same time, I don’t expect the content to grow in volume quickly. In this kind of situation, I’m sure quality will prevail over quantity.
Due to the low publishing frequency, this blog should have feeds by email enabled (but doesn’t as far as I can tell).
Would you like a Review?
My reviews are simple, including at least one link to an article as well as a link to the blog or website. They’re also absolutely free. Make sure your blog is ready to be reviewed and then submit it on my “Request A Blog Review” page and I’ll try to do my best to give you a fair review, without being overly critical.Similar Posts:
Blog Review: Blog About Your Blog
Blog Review: PopTherapy.com
Blog Review: Marketing Tools Review
Blog Review: adamwhiles dot com
Blog Review: Rome Uy dot com
My wife (Josie) will be arriving for a month-long Philippines vacation on the 27th of August, her birthday. After she returns to the US, the plan is to stay no longer than six months. Her next arrival in the Philippines should be permanent.
Our Reliance on DSL
One of the problems with DSL is that it requires an active telephone line. Some companies in the US don’t require regular telephone service, but they do here in the Philippines.
At 3 pm yesterday, my dial tone disappeared and didn’t return. I had to head to a neighbor’s house to call PLDT (Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company) and make a trouble call. My mother-in-law went to their office this morning to follow up. My telephone service was restored more than 24 hours later.
Needless to say, Josie freaked out when she couldn’t reach me. She calls me via Yahoo Instant Messenger during the day and Skype at night. When she couldn’t get through to me either way, she tried to call my phone and got some vague recording about my number not being active. She then called the cell phone of one of my in-laws. Luckily, all of my in-laws knew what was going on.
I haven’t spoken to Josie since the dial tone returned, which is okay since she’s asleep. I’m 15 hours ahead of her, and it will be at least four or five hours before she sees my Yahoo message on her cell phone.
Her Arrival
Josie’s Philippines Vacation starts at approximately 6 am on the 27th of August, when she arrives at NAIA’s (Ninoy Aquino International Airport) terminal 3 in Manila via Philippine Airlines.
Her Birthday Party
We’ve made it clear to the in-laws that no outsiders except invited guests would be allowed into our compound for her birthday party, which is going to be as simple as we can make it. There will be plenty of food and drink for everyone that way. Some of our other relatives make it a habit to just show up and then eat and run. We’re going to have:
Lots of Rice
Kaldereta Kambing (Goat Caldereta or Stew)
Roasted Lapu-Lapu (a grouper fish named after Lapu-Lapu of course.)
Langka (Jackfruit)
Lechón Baboy (roasted pig)
Barbecued Chicken and Chicken Adobo
Different kinds of Pancit (noodles and meat)
Jose Cuervo Tequila (along with a couple of other brands)
Emperador Brandy
Red Horse and San Miguel Beers
and More!
Her Departure
She’ll be departing the same way she’s arriving, but obviously in reverse, on the 24th of September (I believe - I don’t have the ticket information handy). I don’t like traveling in Manila, Philippines, but at least the route to the city will be easier to travel since the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway is finished.
If you can understand what I mean, I’m hoping this will be the first and last of Josie’s Philippines vacations.Similar Posts:
Happy Birthday, Jonathan!
North To Alaska
Happy Birthday, Joseph!
My Wife Is Leaving Me!
A Nursing School in the Philippines and Necessary Equipment