I enjoyed taking a day off

July 30, 2009 by JD · 2 Comments
Filed under: Musings 

Yesterday and today, I did something that I rarely do. I took a day off and enjoyed napping and watching Stargate SG-1 DVDs I rented from Netflix.

I’ve been working very hard for the last few weeks updating older websites, creating a new one, working with clients, and blogging now and then.

Yesterday, around noon, I got offline to call my daughter on the phone. I missed her, but we got together today.

I’d been working yesterday for about nine hours when I stopped to call her and I was tired. A new DVD from season one of Stargate SG-1 had arrived the day before, so I microwaved a couple of corndogs and sat in my favorite easy chair to watch an episode and relax.

I love that show. I used to think that Star Trek was, without a doubt my favorite show of all time, but, lately, Stargate has been giving it a run for its money.

Since I don’t have cable or satellite TV, I missed all the original episodes of Stargate on Showtime and the Sci-Fi channel. But, now, years later, I can watch the entire series in order by renting them from Netflix.

I don’t spend much time watching TV, especially after the analog to digital conversion, because I don’t get any digital signals where I live. Analog reception was not always good, but digital is non-existent.

It’s just as well, because I’ve been concentrating so much on work for the last month.

Yesterday, however, I was caught up with most of the items on my to-do list and decided to take a break. I intended to take a few hours off, take a nap, and go back to work, but it didn’t turn out that way.

After watching a couple of episodes and taking a short nap, I woke to an approaching thunderstorm. I went around the house inserting manual air gaps into the power connections to my computer and major appliances (i.e., I unplugged them).

I pulled out a book to read and just as I got settled, the power went out.

Seeing my opportunity, I changed clothes and headed into Murphy to pick up some groceries.

I used to hate rain and storms, but after living in the dessert in Arizona for a few years, I’ve loved rain ever since.

I enjoyed the drive into town. All the trees and other vegetation are in their full summer lushness, and you won’t find many places on Earth with more variety than we have here in the mountains of western North Carolina.

Even with the overcast, rain, and steam rising from the road, the beauty of this area can be almost breathtaking.

The rain stopped about the time I got to the grocery store, so I spent a few minutes there before heading back home.

Armed with a fresh supply of corn dogs (I think I’m addicted to these lately, but don’t really know why. It’s not something I normally like.), I was set for another episode of Stargate.

About that time, another thunderstorm approached, so I settled into another nap until it passed. That was pretty much the pattern for the rest of the day, all night, and half the day, today.

I finally woke up and was ready to go to work today about 1:00 pm. It’s now about 12 hours later (1:45 am), and I’m thinking a break and another Stargate episode sounds good.

In a couple of hours, it will be time to pull out my to-do list and start working on the most important thing on the list, but I’ve enjoyed taking a day off and doing nothing but enjoy living and napping.

I hope you get to do what you love doing.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Mitch Mitchell is asking good questions on his blog

July 30, 2009 by JD · 1 Comment
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Internet Marketing 

My friend, Mitch Mitchell, has been posting some excellent questions on his I’m Just Sharing blog over the last couple of days.

Now, that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t regularly write good posts, it just indicates that I’ve been thinking a lot about the questions he’s been asking recently, and still haven’t come up with complete answers for some deceptively deep questions.

It started with his Truth In Marketing? post.

He followed that up with Who Is Your Blog For? and Who Are The Affiliate Programs On Your Blog For?

I commend him for addressing these issues and asking these questions.

Do you have anything to add to the discussions on his blog?

Act on your dream!

JD

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-07-27

July 26, 2009 by JD · Comments Off
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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-07-19

July 19, 2009 by JD · Comments Off
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Working like crazy behind the scenes

July 13, 2009 by JD · 8 Comments
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Dilbeck Marketing, Internet Marketing, Murphy NC 28906, Murphy North Carolina, Products at Amazon, Site Build It 

If you look at the home page of this blog or read the RSS feed, it looks like I’ve been a lazy boy for the last month or so.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

I’ve been working behind the scenes to fix a major problem, update a large site, and bring a new site online.

My goal of bringing the new site online by July 1 was delayed about a week, but I’m making progress with it, again.

Dumped by Amazon

In the last week of June 2009, I received a notice from Amazon.com that they were terminating my affiliation with their associates program.

To say that I was surprised would be a huge understatement.

To top it off, it had nothing to do with me. I was dumped because I live in North Carolina and Amazon.com dumped all their associates in the entire state in one fell swoop.

This was done in anticipation of changes in the NC tax laws that had not been passed nor gone into effect!

I’ve been a proud associate of Amazon.com for about 13 years, but, after this, I’ll never recommend them to anyone and I won’t buy from them. I’m done with Amazon.com.

Rebuilding a large site

As a result of being dumped by Amazon.com, I have started to remove all links to their site. This is going to take me months to accomplish. I have links to their products on just about every page of most of my sites, and some of them have over 1,000 pages.

It’s a second-level priority, right behind building a new site, because I don’t want to send them any customers with no possibility of receiving a commission for my work.

I’ve removed links from most of my blogs, but modifying my static sites will take much longer.

Over the last couple of weeks, I completely rebuilt JohnDilbeck.com. This is one of my oldest and largest sites. In the process, I deleted several hundred pages that were out of date or no longer relevant.

Rebuilding the site was something that I’ve planned to do for a while, but being dumped by Amazon.com was the catalyst that motivated me to take action as quickly as I could.

My affiliate marketing business has taken a hit

After the world economic downturn last September, my marketing business has been hit hard by a big reduction in income.

This was not entirely unexpected, but the suddenness came as a surprise.

Since December, I’ve been making new plans to shift a part of my marketing efforts from affiliate marketing to helping locally-owned small businesses in Murphy, NC attract new customers and enticing existing customers to come back, again.

Murphy Gold is live

To do this, I worked for six months to plan how to accomplish these goals and started planning a new site.

Although there is still construction debris all around and parts of it still need a fresh coat of paint, Murphy Gold is now live.

I still have a lot to do on that site, but I’ve been working at it diligently. I’ve researched over 2,000 keyword phrase combinations and have been doing the initial traffic building work.

I’m not ready for a grand opening announcement, but I’m hoping that one will be forthcoming in a couple of weeks.

Back to my cave…

In the meantime, I’m going back to my cave in the mountains of western North Carolina and I’ll be working all hours of the day and night to get everything on my to-do list done as soon as possible.

One of these days, I’ll be able to write on this blog more frequently than I’ve been doing over the last several months.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-07-12

July 12, 2009 by JD · Comments Off
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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-07-05

July 5, 2009 by JD · Comments Off
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  • I always enjoy reading Seth Godin’s blog: The difference between strangers and friends. http://bit.ly/13Adr0 #
  • It’s time for a break. Later, gators. #
  • @Mitch_M You made me laugh when I read your comment about the FTC looking for live breasts and cussing! ;) #
  • Thank you, GypsyOwl. I’m really touched! Reading this: http://www.squidoo.com/birthdaytribute #
  • @KarenLKay Good morning, Karen. I had a great birthday yesterday. Thanks for the good wish. #
  • @SquidGypsyOwl Thanks for tweeting about my Site Build It lens! #
  • Good blog post by John Carlton: Death by Habit. Are your habits helping or hurting you? http://bit.ly/10MGx7 #

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