Freedom

Is extremely grateful we live in a land of freedom. Where people --who believed in integrity, honesty, hard work, and KNEW that there was a power greater than any here on earth-- fought against oppressors, for the right to worship that Greater Power, according to their beliefs and disposition. Who set up a Constitution, and Bill of Rights, to provide the framework so those who believed and lived these same principles could improve upon them and this nation would be a haven for the weary, and oppressed. Where this freedom allowed for beliefs and knowledge, different from those present at the time they fought for freedom to be restored, and taught freely. So I could know now that families are Eternal. That all though I am sad, and feel downtrodden, and broken, that I can cling with the little faith I have in my heart that one day all will be made right, and me and my beautiful wife will be able to raise our child we were unable to in this life at a future day, when Christ reigns upon the earth and peace which no man (or woman) has known since we lived with our Father in Heaven is found upon the earth. When that happens, millions of people will lift up their voices and rejoice that there was a nation of freedom, and men of honor and values who fought for this nation to be established. Happy Independence Day!!!

Casting Call for Mom's in AZ

My company is looking for some moms to star in some videos here in AZ:

SheKnows in association with ChiKiiTV Productions is casting pregnant, single, stay at home and working moms for a new reality series focusing on how women make life work for them.SheKnows.com Corporate Blog, Jan 2009

You should read the whole article.

My Baby Doll's Birthday!

Tomorrow is my Baby Doll Autumn's B-Day. I am the luckiest man alive having her in my life. We are working on getting sealed and are submitting our paperwork hopefully this next week. She reminded me of a song tonight which I think is Perfect describing how I feel having her in my life.



Happy Birthday Baby!

Here are the lyrics so you can truly appreciate what is said.

Oh, thinking about our younger years
There was only you and me
We were young and wild and free
Now, nothing can take you away from me
We've been down that road before
But that's over now
You keep me coming back for more

-[CHORUS]-
Baby, you're all that I want
When you're lying here in my arms
I'm finding it hard to believe
We're in heaven
And love is all that I need
And I found it there in your heart
It isn't too hard to see
We're in heaven

Oh, once in your life
you find someone,who wil turn your world around
pick you up when your feeling down
Now, nothing can change what you mean to me
There's a lot that I could say
But just hold me now
'Cause our love will light the way

-[CHORUS]-
Baby, you're all that I want
When you're lying here in my arms
I'm finding it hard to believe
We're in heaven
And love is all that I need
And I found it there in your heart
It isn't too hard to see
We're in heaven

I've been waiting for someone
something to arrive
love to come along
Now our dreams are coming true
Through the good times
And the bad
I'll be standing there by you

Baby, you're all that I want
When you're lying here in my arms
I'm finding it hard to believe
We're in heaven
And love is all that I need
And I found it there in your heart
It isn't too hard to see
We're in heaven

Ohh, ohh, ohh
Ohh, ohh, ohh
We're in heaven

Our Deepest Fear is that we are Powerful Beyond Measure

This is a quote that Autumn and I found in a "Dream Home" we toured in Utah about 8 months ago. It is something that we just found again and I am planning on framing it in our house somewhere and will be a Mantra that I will start each day with.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are Powerful beyond measure! It is in our light not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask Ourselves, who am I to be Brilliant, Gorgeous, Talented, Fabulous? Actually who are you not to be? YOU ARE A CHILD OF GOD!

Hopefully as we move into the new year we will look into our light that lies within each of us and grab hold to it. That we will see our potential and move towards it this year.

Happy New Year!

A Tithe and Living below ones means.

Today I read an article on CNN Money located here. It talked about this family who has been saving and teaching their kids to save.

MOst of the comments on it were getting on them as how they defined Tithe as well as whether or not they should take out a HELOC when they have no debt what so ever. I love that they were getting on these people who are doing much better than most. Why do people have to nitpick whether he is paying a "FULL TITHE". The definition of a thithe is paying 10% of one's increase. Anciently it would have been 10% of the increase in one's flocks or harvest. Today it is an increase in what one makes or receives.

First of all it isn't saying exactly what he paid or his philosphy on it. The real point of this article is what people have been taught al along. Save a portion of your money. SPend less than you make. Most of us CAN do those things. We choose not to do that because we are not willing to lower our standard of living now in order to have a more secure higher standard of living down the road.

We live in the age of "On Demand", Microwaves, ITunes, Text messages and Black Berries. We expect to get what we want now not later. I will be the first to admit that I am an Impatient person. But I also believe that I would trade some of the luxuries we have now and live a lower "standard"(will get to that in a second) of living in order to retire earlier and in more comfort. To know that I had more money in the bank and less on a credit card or loan. I think a lot of the stress that we deal with comes from not being secure. Knowing that we are never secure that if we lost our J.O.B(just over broke) we would not be able to subside for even a month for most people without racking up debt.

To be continued.

Using the Second and Third Tier Search Engines.

Gordon Choi had an interesting post today about using second and third tier search engines. Most of his comments are really just common sense.

Choi said

Never expect the lower-tier PPC search engines to perform better or even similar to the top search engines. The best is to initially set lower expectations. The top tier PPC platforms are just too powerful regarding click volume and demographics, user experience (with platform functionalities), bid-gap reduction (or discounter), and click fraud protection.

Honestly if someone goes to a second or third tier search engine and believes that they are going to perform at the same level as a first tier search engine they are just flat out crazy! How can you expect a search engine(or contextual player) with siginificantly lower volume and reach could perform half as well as the market leaders?

When he said you shouldn't try 2nd and 3rd tier to begin with that isn't a bright assumption to begin with. I am glad he came back and changed his mind.

Some of the best 2nd tier players like Miva, and Marchex have decent quality traffic. Yes the bigger search players have better controls, optimization, and fraud detection... but don't we hear all the time that google could do more on those fronts as well?

If you are going to go test new CPC text display ads do it in an orderly fashion. MAke sure you monitor things closely and use all of the tools available. Adbrite just recently rolled out a BETA version of its keyword targeted CPC text ads which a user can buy in bulk through the uploading of a simple CSV file. On a side note if you go into Comscore and sort through the ad networks by sheer volume of impressions available monthly Adbrite is 3rd behind Google and Advertising.com. Now mind you it is in BETA so of course there are bugs to be fixed. but for example if a company (Adbrite or any other second tier engine) gives you the opportunity to pass through a numeric code which corresponds to each particular website you are getting traffic from why would you not use it? I have seen advertisers come in and say no we won't do that we will stay archaic and try to pass you back referral URL's instead which then have to be sorted through on each side. Does that make sense to anyone?

Cool new Search engine

OK so its not new but it is COOL! Redzee is a cool new search engine. It is family friendly (which all to many places on the net are not)and has some awesome new features which set it apart completely from any other search engine out there. Everyone is always making changes to their search engines but basically it is just a new feature on a very old platform of text links.

Check out their new visual search function. You ain't seen nothing like this.

Now of course there are some things it could do to tweak it. Some of the search results are a little off. But for a new concept it is definitely cool.

Go there and search, by clicking on the search 2.0 function.

Let me know what you think.... and feel free to email them they were very helpful in answering my questions and open to suggestions!