John Dilbeck And Friends

I’m not going to lie about it.

2009 has been a very difficult year for me, but it could have been much worse.

My home is not the home of my dreams, but it gives me a place to live until I can earn enough to buy or build the home I dream of.

This old house is where my parents retired in the early 1970s. They left Atlanta and moved to Murphy, NC. They loved living here, even when times were tough.

Pop died in the summer of 1991 and Mom died last year, just before Thanksgiving.

Both of them have been on my mind a lot this month.

Mom’s birthday was November 6; their anniversary was November 25; Thanksgiving was a couple of days ago. It’s been a month of memories and being thoughtful about what is important in life.

Both of them worked hard all their lives and were quite a bit healthier and stronger in their latter years than I am now. It gives me something to work towards - better health.

Both of them had serious health problems earlier in their lives and they still managed to mostly overcome them over time.

Pop broke his back when he fell off a crane onto a truck’s roof. For years he could do very little. Still, many years later, he could easily outwork me.

Mom had trouble with her legs for most of her life, but that didn’t stop her from doing what she wanted, until her cancer surgery caused nerve damage and she was no longer able to walk unassisted.

So, I can look back on my illness earlier this year and think “poor me” all I want, or I can continue to do what I can to get around and rebuild my strength.

Sometimes life just isn’t easy. It’s the challenges that make us stronger and help us develop real character.

So, maybe that’s what I’m working on now - character.

Money is tight, but I’ve managed to find something to eat for over 57 years while fending off everything that tried to eat me, so I guess that’s some measure of success.

(I’m not sure who said that originally, but I read it some time back and liked it enough to paraphrase it for myself.)

I love living here in Murphy. Sometimes it’s hard to earn a living here, but other people in other areas have had it tough, too. We do what we have to do to survive.

I’ve decided that I want to help others as I help myself and that’s why I’ve dedicated myself to building the best marketing system for locally-owned small businesses in Murphy, NC. You can see the start of it at Murphy Gold and Murphy Connections. Over time, it will get better and better and I look forward to helping small business owners in our little mountain town market their businesses to a wider audience.

While I may not have all I need right now, I do have a plan and I’m working on that plan every day. It gives me something to work towards and that’s important.

Thanksgiving was an interesting day. I spent the day alone, but I still had contact with family and friends online and over the phone.

Several friends called to see how I was doing and to wish me a happy holiday.

I was in touch with family even though I didn’t see them in person.

I was alone, but not lonely. Memories of past holidays gave me good feelings and I smiled quite a bit during the day.

Even though I may not be able to visit my brother and his family this year, I’ll think of them often.

I’m looking forward to Christmas breakfast at my daughter’s house and spending time with that branch of my family. Christmas will be here before we have a chance to turn around a few times.

Would I have enjoyed a house full of people and a table loaded with traditional Thanksgiving food this year? Of course, I would.

But, I’ve done that many times over the last few decades, so missing it now and then really isn’t such a big deal.

I’m grateful for all I have and I intend to redouble my efforts to rebuild my marketing business to where I’ll be enjoying prosperity instead of mere survival.

As we enter into this major winter holiday season, I hope you’ll reflect on all that you have and all the good memories of times and people who have helped shape your life.

We all have a lot to be thankful for.

All the best,

JD

It’s October and fall is here in Murphy, NC.

The nights are getting cooler and the days are more comfortable. Before long, all the mountains will be covered by trees showing off their best fall colors.

New Businesses

I’d like to welcome three businesses to Murphy Gold this month:

(The complete list is in our Local Business Directory.)

Advertising - Direct Mail Print Advertising: The Green Sheets, owned by Audrey and Tom.

Auto Towing and Wrecker Service: Timco Transportation, owned by Tim Dockery.

Movie Theater: Henn Theatre, owned by Bill Grove.

New Special Offers

You’re invited to take advantage of these new special offers:

Advertising - Direct Mail Print Advertising

Audrey and Tom, owners and operators of The Green Sheets, are happy to offer merchants this special offer: 10% off your first advertisement!

Movie Theater

Bill Grove, owner and operator of the Henn Theatre, is pleased to offer you a Free upsize on any drink or popcorn (get a large for medium price, medium for small price).

We hope you’ll take advantage of these and all the other Murphy Gold Special Offers. You get more for your money by asking for these special offers when you purchase at a Murphy Gold Business. Just tell them you heard about them at Murphy Gold, or, if you prefer, print out the coupon and take it with you to the Murphy Gold business of your choice.

Get the rest of the news.

Go read Murphy Gold News, Issue 2, hot off the presses:

Murphy Gold News, Issue #002 — October, 2009 — More new businesses and special offers for you!

All the best,

JD

I’m going to preface this by saying that since I was a teenager in high school I was very opposed to the war in Vietnam. I still hold that view.

Even so, I’ve never been one of those people who took it out on the people who served in the military in Vietnam.

It has been a long time since I really thought about the Vietnam War and that all changed this week.

The Cherokee Scout ran a series of articles about local people who served in the war and I was moved enough by one of them that I called him and thanked him for what he did. We had a pleasant conversation for the next 20 minutes. I already respected him a lot, but, now, even more.

(I won’t mention any names. This was between him and me.)

I was never in the military, but I worried about the draft all through high school.

Unlike many of my friends, I was not drafted, but they were and quite a few of them went to Vietnam.

On Friday, October 9, 2009, I went to see The Moving Wall in Murphy, NC.

(I uploaded some photos of The Moving Wall in Murphy, NC on MurphyConnections.com.)

Every volunteer I saw was friendly and helpful.

After walking down the flag-bedecked path to the Wall, located right next to the River Walk, we arrived at the booth where all guests were asked to sign the register.

I think one of my cousins was killed in the war, but he was not a close cousin and I didn’t know his name. When one of the volunteers asked if I was looking for anyone in particular, I told him my cousin’s last name. He looked in the huge book and found a number of people with that same name, but none of them were from the Atlanta area. So, I wasn’t going to look for a particular name on the wall.

(After talking with my brother this afternoon, I realized I was thinking of the wrong branch of the family. He told me the name of our cousin who died in Vietnam. I’m going to try to get back to the Moving Wall before they leave and see if I can find his name.)

I spent a few minutes just standing there looking at it.

The Moving Wall is longer than I thought, but only half as long as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC.

I started walking down the Wall and looking at the names. At first, there are only a few names on each panel, but as you approach the center of the memorial, there are more and more names until the panels are full.

It affected me more than I thought it would. Even though I didn’t know anyone whose name was on that memorial, I had to stop along the way and read a few of the names and realize that these were real people who served and died in Vietnam.

Every now and then, someone would leave something stuck between two of the panels or something at the foot of the monument. There were photos of the people who had died, a few flowers, and even a pair of boots.

By the time I reached the end of The Moving Wall, I had tears in my eyes. I had to sit on one of the River Walk benches and let it all sink in.

At that moment, I had an entirely new way to look at the Vietnam War, and this time it was personalized by the names I read on that wall. Now, I understand the photos I’ve seen of people who visited the actual memorial in Washington.

I don’t know anyone on that wall, but others have friends, relatives, and people they served with memorialized there.

I felt a level of empathy for not just the names on the wall, but for the real people those names represent and for all the people who knew them.

It’s not just 58,000+ names, it’s hundreds of thousands of people who were personally affected by the war and the tragedy of so many lives cut short.

As I left, I stopped and thanked each volunteer I saw for helping to bring The Moving Wall to Murphy.

I realized that I was lucky and so were my friends. Of all the people I know who served in the Vietnam War, all of them came home alive. Some were radically changed and others were seriously wounded, but none of them died there.

Not everyone was that fortunate.

These words do not really represent how deeply I was moved by visiting the memorial, but they’re the best I can do.

I want to thank the Marine Corps League #1011, all the volunteers, and the sponsors, individuals, and businesses that contributed to bring The Moving Wall to Murphy.

If you haven’t visited, yet, you still have a couple more days.

All the best,

JD

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

On Saturday, September 5, 2009, Heritage Partners of Cherokee County will host the Ninth Annual Heritage Walk and Festival in Konehete Part, Murphy, NC.

Local area artists and crafters are invited to visit the Heritage Walk and Festival website and download an application form in PDF format. (See the left column right next to “Arts & Crafts Show” for the link.)

Original artwork, hand-made items only. No imports or commercial goods will be approved.

No electrical service will be provided.

$25 application fee.

Your completed application form and check must be received by the August 8, 2009 deadline.

Today, I have spent some time pondering this question:

Is buying local a form of protectionism or is it something that is truly good for our community?

I can argue for both sides of the question, but I’m coming to believe more strongly that buying local is truly good for our communities.

I was reading several blogs on the topic this morning and was going to write a post with my thoughts on the topic on this blog, but decided it would be more suitable as the start of a discussion on the Murphy NC 28906 social networking forum.

So, instead of writing it here, I’ve created the new forum topic: Why are local businesses important?

I’m specifically wanting to discuss this with people interested in our Murphy, NC community, but others who have constructive thoughts on the topic are welcome to join our discussion either there or by commenting here.

More and more, as time passes, I’m becoming concerned with the economic health of our towns and cities and feel drawn to do whatever I can to help local business owners learn to use the new tools that are coming available to help them promote themselves and their businesses.

In doing so, we’ll also be promoting our towns, local organizations, and people who are working hard to make a difference.

What do you think?

Act on your dream!

JD

Do you know about Vflyer.com?

I’ve been watching this site as it has developed over the last couple of years and opened a free account in 2007, but never did much with it. I created a test flyer, but never published it.

I think Vflyer.com is ideally suited for people who sell products and who want to create flyers with text and photos using templates that are pretty well designed.

For example, if I were a real estate salesman or sold cars, I’d be using this service on a regular basis.

Since I sell services, I haven’t found it to be all that useful for me, but I keep in touch with what they’re doing so I can pass it along to my consulting clients.

Today, however, when I was catching up on reading the blogs to which I subscribe, I ran across a very interesting post on the Vflyer blog:

New Feature! Post Links to Your Flyers to Your Facebook Profile.

That caught my attention!

I’m always looking for ways to leverage my advertising on social networking sites.

Since I hadn’t visited my Vflyer site in awhile, I went there and saw how pathetic it really was. Now that I was aware of it, I couldn’t leave it like that, so I spent a half-hour or so updating the information and creating a new flyer for my local marketing consulting.

Just as their blog indicated, it was extremely easy to post a link to my new flyer on my Facebook profile.

Not only that, Vflyer automatically posted the flyer to my Google Base account and could have posted to other sites, but, since this was mainly for testing, I chose not to do that.

Another nice thing about Vflyer is that it is easy to create a PDF of your flyer that you can print, email, or otherwise distribute, even if you know practically nothing about PDFs.

There are a few things I don’t like about the flyer I created.

At the top of the flyer, where I’m describing my service, it does not put a blank line between paragraphs, or even indent new paragraphs, and I think that is just bad form.

Otherwise, I’m pretty happy with the layout and the ease of creation of the flyer.

I could have done it myself using Pages or a word processor, but it would have taken much longer and probably would not have looked as nice.

The other thing I am not happy with is the wording in the attributes section of the flyer. I know that it should talk to my clients and should not be about me, so there are some things I will be changing before I start distributing it seriously.

Still, it’s not bad for a free service and about a half-hour of work.

If you’re my friend on Facebook, you can see the link to the flyer.

I know I don’t use enough photos on my blogs and other publications, and this flyer is no different. If I had more talent in that area, I’m sure I could have found a good photo, but I didn’t.

However, if you’re renting property, selling homes, selling cars, or running a service business that is more appropriate for photos, Vflyer makes it easy to add them.

As a free user, you obviously don’t have all the features that paid members enjoy, but it still does a very good job. Paid accounts start at less than $15 per month and I believe their service would easily be worth that amount if I sold high-end products, especially if I lived in a larger town that had a local Craigslist or Kijiji site.

All in all, this was an unexpected, yet very interesting diversion from what I had planned for my morning.

I already know of a couple of clients I’ll be advising to start using the services provided by Vflyer.

What do you think?

Act on your dream!

JD

I always enjoy creating something new and watching it grow. That’s what’s happening with our new online community for Murphy, NC - a website designed for business networking and social networking for people who live in our charming little mountain town or who are interested in the area.

Our Murphy, NC Social Networking Community is less than a month old and already we’re attracting visitors from four countries, including the United States, Canada, China, and Australia.

Over 17% of the visitors to the site are coming from the search engines, so that indicates that we’re getting indexed and found for both local and general searches.

Over time, as we get new members and increased participation, more visitors will find us and learn about what is taking place in Murphy, NC. I believe this community will be even more useful for the people who live here and join in the fun.

I am happy to do all I can to help promote our community, but I can’t do it all by myself, so I encourage you to join and participate.

Tell us what you are doing and keep us up to date on what’s happening with your business, organizations, churches, and other interests and activities.

When you join, you can customize your profile page with information about you and what you’re doing.

You have your very own blog there and can join in, or start, discussions in our forum.

I’ve been busy creating new groups to make it easy for people who share common interests to meet and interact with each other.

I don’t want to create too many groups, but I’m always listening to what you want, and if you want a new group created for your interests, just let me know.

The following groups are active and ready for you to join and participate in, and are presented in no particular order:

• Promote Your Business
• Music and Musicians
• Government and Politics
• New To Murphy
• Local Photography
• Murphy Small Business
• Murphy Real Estate
• Nonprofits and Volunteers
• Hunting and Fishing
• Gardening and Farming
• Arts and Crafts
• Merchant Circle Members
• Pet Lovers
• Murphy Dreamers

If you visit the groups page, you’ll see all the groups and a brief description of their purpose.

I am happy to do what I can to help promote Murphy, NC and the people who live here. I can cover a small part of the activities in our area, but your participation is required if our online community is to reach its potential.

Don’t be shy. Join in the fun and tell us what’s happening in your corner of the Murphy area.

Of course, it’s free!

I hope to see you there.

Act on your dream!

JD

In late December 2007, I created a new social networking site for Murphy NC 28906 on Ning.com.

If you live in, visit, or want to know more about Murphy, NC, come join us at the Murphy NC 28906 social networking site.

You can customize your profile, write a blog, discuss topics related to Murphy, NC in our forum, meet and get to know fellow residents, upload photos, and much more — all for free!

Anyone living in, visiting, or wanting to know more about Murphy, NC is welcome. Come join us today.