Learning internet marketing with the 30 day challenge

When people ask what I do for a living I tell them I work for an Internet marketing company. Most of my work is focused on the technical side and I don’t really spend all that much time on the marketing side of things. I’m quite interested in the marketing side as I know that with a bit of work, there is great money to be made. I’ve made several efforts over the past couple years to do my own thing and none of them have really produced any great results. I had a one site that got to be really popular in a niche market for a few months and made me some cash, but overall, I haven’t been real successful. Hopefully, that’s about to change.

I was introduced to a site a week or so back called the ThirtyDayChallenge. Basically, during the month of August they run a course where they teach you how to go about making money on the Internet. The challenge is to earn $10 during the month of August using their techniques. I should mention that the site is free to sign up, the challenge is free, the training is free and all the tools that you will use during the Thirty Day Challenge are, you guessed it, free.

If you are at all interested in making money through Internet marketing, you would be silly to pass up this opportunity to learn from a group of Been-There-Done-That guys who already make a living in this field. That they are passing on their knowledge and techniques is awesome and should be taken advantage of. Not to mention the huge forum that is available on the site that already has over 2000 posts. If you are a Facebook user, check out the Thirty Day Challenge group, too.

If you decide take part in the challenge, find me on Facebook and add me as a friend so we can keep in touch on our progress in the challenge!

Best of luck!

The race to finish Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

After nearly 10 years from when it all started, the final book in the Harry Potter series was released this past weekend and I, like so many others, had my copy delivered that first day. My plan was simple: read the book as quickly as possible before hearing too many spoilers (Snape Kills Dumbledore) from every news source on the planet. This includes blogs, forums, myspace, youtube and the sometimes loudmouthed coworkers who read faster than I do but can’t help talking about the book within earshot.

Well, I can gladly say that I have made it through to the end of the
book and had avoided hearing too many secrets the book had in store! However, James from my office had downloaded and read (prior to release day) a fake version of the book. Today, while giving him a ride home he recounted how the fake was different than the real book (which he scanned, but did not read fully) and then proceeded to tell me some details of the fake version. As I was closing in on the end of the story, some of the details he talked about were happening in the book. While they were some really minor points, they started to mount up and I was certain that I was going to have to greet him Monday morning when he returns from vacation with a swift kick to the nuts. Had that become necessary he would have gladly accepted the punishment as it had been clearly stated that this would have been the price for spilling the beans prior to me having finished the book on my own.

The book is quite good and I don’t think any of the Harry Potter fans out there are going to be disappointed by it.J.K. Rowling says this will be the last book in the Harry Potter series, but if you simply can not get your fill, you can always go the route of Fan Fiction.

Running uphill is difficult stuff!

This past weekend Chris and I took part in a little race called the Notch Run. Imagine, if you will, driving to the top of Mount Charleston (a little higher than 8000 feet elevation), parking your car and being bussed 4 miles back down the mountain. Now, get out of the bus (willingly) and now you have to get back to your car… on foot.

The mountain and scenery was absolutely beautiful. I took a couple photos (1, 2, 3, 4), but my camera battery was zapped so after only 4 shots, it had had enough. The weather was great, too. When we got there bright and early, it was right around 50 degrees. A little chilly for just standing around, but once we started the run, with the sun at our back, the weather proved to be perfect.

As for the race itself, it was quite difficult. The entire race was uphill with varying degrees of incline ranging from just a little uphill to a metric shit ton of incline. And of course, the largest amount of incline was nestled between the mile 3 and mile 4 markers making for a fantastically slow finish on my part.

I am happy to report that I finished the race a full 4 minutes faster than I projected. I had assumed it would take me 1 hour to make it up the hill. 55:59:98 was the official time I crossed the line. I was quite pleased with that considering it wasn’t just an every day 4 mile run, there was also 1200 feet of vertical climb thrown in for fun.

After we got home from the run, I had a poker tournament to go play in. I lasted about 2 hours before I foolishly gave all my chips away. By the time I was done with poker, my energy was completely gone. I came home and dozed on the couch the rest of the afternoon/evening before it was finally time to give up the fight and go upstairs and hit the sack properly.

On Sunday morning I got up at 4:45 am and headed out to our weekly meeting with the Las Vegas RoadRunners for a nice 5 mile run. I was a little sore from the previous day’s race, but once I got going, I felt pretty good and ended up running pretty strong. I averaged the exact same pace throughout the 5 mile run as I had the previous week when we only ran 4 miles and not having run the day before. This was certainly a good sign.

Once again it was proven to me that running with a partner is way better than running alone. On Sunday Justin and I kicked some ass on the road. However, on Monday, with nobody at my side to keep me going, I gave in to the power of my normal lazyness (and the oppressive humidity) and cut my morning run short, considerably. This morning I was able to keep myself motivated and ran my full 30 minutes at a satisfying pace. I can definitely feel the progress.

Who doesn’t like free stuff?

My sister kicks ass when it comes to using coupons. I can’t tell you how many times she’s gone in to a store, filled up her basket with hundreds of dollars worth of products and walked out paying pennies on the dollar. It’s nuts. To coupon at the level she’s at certainly takes hard work. You have to do your homework, read a lot of fine print and sometimes you have to drive to 3 or 4 stores to get the goods. But, the savings can be substantial.

I realize I will NEVER be on the same level as she is when it comes to couponing, but, that doesn’t mean I can’t use a few of the easier ones to save a few bucks here and there. This sorta hit home with me over this past weekend when Chris and I went to a matinee movie and paid $10.00 each to see Harry Potter. Free movie tickets are pretty easy to come by. If you have never used the Entertainment Coupon Book, you don’t know what you are missing. The book has literally hundreds of coupons for discounts at restaurants, local businesses, concert tickets, hotels and yes, free movie tickets. They have specific books for just about every major metro area in the country. They put out a new book each November. I just found out that if you reserve your 2008 book right now, they will send you a 2007 book free. If you do NOTHING but order the free movie tickets, you will have save at least fifty bucks and get both books essentially free.

The only other coupons I use on a regular basis are those from restaurant.com. Sign up with them (free) and then search out restaurants in your area that you want to try out. You can then buy a $25 gift certificate for $10. That’s $15 in free food, no questions asked. Ahh, but that’s not all. The nice folks at restaurant.com send out emails about 2 or 3 times per month. They have promo codes listed that let you get 40%, 50% or up to 60% off the price of the coupon. So we’ve paid as little as $4.00 for a $25 gift certificate. There are, of course, a couple catches. There is typically a minimum on how much you have to spend. It’s usually $50.00. But, with 2 people having dinner and an appetizer, it’s not usually a problem hitting that number. Alcohol and tip do not count towards that $50.00 in most locations. You also can’t use a coupon for the same place more than once in a calendar month. So, no loading up on coupons for your favorite place and hitting them up 5 nights a week. But still, a cool deal.

WSOP and the Gaming Life Expo

Well, we are a day away from the final table of the 2007 World Series of Poker. It’s been a pretty exciting year. Phil Hellmuth wins his 11th bracelet and a good many poker pros took home hardware as well. Sadly, I didn’t get to play in any events this year, but there’s always next year!

I have a side bet riding on the main event this year that the winner of the main event would be an existing bracelet winner. They don’t have to be a main event winner, just any old WSOP bracelet will do. I’ve been watching closely and when they got down to the final 36 players Saturday night, I still had 5 bracelet winners in the field. Honestly, I really like my odds at that point. 5 guys who have been-there-done-that this late in a tourney… you gotta like my odds. Sadly, 4 of my guys failed to make the final table and I’m down to just 1 horse left in the race; Lee Watkinson. But, what a story this will be if he ends up winning. Not just because I stand to make $100.00, but because of what Lee stands to make.

As it turns out, Lee won his seat on FullTiltPoker.com (FTP). FTP has had a standing offer the past few years that if you won your seat to the main event on FTP and then won the main event, they would pay you an ADDITIONAL 10 million dollars. So, not only do you become the new face of poker for the next 12 months and win 8 million in prize money, but throw in an extra 10 million to keep you company. So, good luck, Lee. For your sake more than mine, I hope you take it down.

During the first couple days of the main event, there is a convention that goes on at the Rio called the Gaming Life Expo. It’s got a couple hundred dealers all trotting out their wears. Lots of freebies to be had, but nothing all THAT exciting when you get right down to it. This was the first year I went to the expo and I have to say I was rather disappointed. There was some fantastic HIGH END goodies that were way out of the “normal guy” price range, but all the t-shirt vendors looked like they would do just as well selling their goodies off of CafePress. No offense to CafePress or it’s sellers, but let’s be honest, these guys spend thousands to have a booth at this show. Bring the good stuff, why don’tcha?

Here’s a bit of a recap of some stuff I found. Some cool, some not so cool. But, you be the judge.

playpokerpro.com and playhardgaming.com - these guys offer an electronic poker table with 11 screens (one in the middle and 10 individual stations) where you can run a cash game our tournament and never once have to shuffle or deal. It’s all done automatically. But, $15,000 is a bit out of my price range. They do have a heads up version for only $5,000… :-/ - check out the demo at playhardgaming. it’s pretty sweet. The only thing I have to say is, “Get your drinks off my electronic poker table!!”

Under The Gun - This is a pretty cool “magazine”. It’s smaller than a normal magazine (about 5×7) and only has about 30 pages in it (mostly ads for online poker sites) but it comes with most of the content on a free DVD stored inside the front flap. I haven’t yet watched all the DVD content, but it’s a pretty cool idea. (sorry, no URL could be found)

casinohost.com - This is a service I’m certainly not in need of, but I like the idea. It’s a company that helps you get comped around Vegas. They have a TON of info on their site, but truthfully, I read very little of it. Like the idea, just don’t need it myself.

pokeracrossamerica.com - traveling and looking for a cash game, tournament or poker league? This site will help you find it!

lonestarpokertables.com - by far the nicest product we saw at the show. This company makes custom poker tables. The one on display at the show was called the Widowmaker. I’m sure it got it’s name from the fact that if the husband buys it, the wife is gonna kill him. $6,000 is a bit pricey for a table, but holy crap it was nice! It had a pull out drawer for all the cards and chips to be stored when not in use. Pull out drink holders so there was never any drinks sitting ON your table. Top notch all the way.

On top of all that, I got to take a photo with poker pro, Phil Laak. He was quite gracious even though he had only minutes before gotten knocked out of the main event early on day one. As well as being a poker pro, Phil also hosts a TV show called I Bet You (all available online for your enjoyment). It is one of my favorite shows and I hope they make plenty more of them. Check ‘em out on YouTube.

Here’s the shot of me and Phil.

Phil Laak & me

Yes, I can even geek up running

My wife asks me, “Do you have to geek up everything?” The answer to that should be obvious to her by now, you’d think…

Our marathon training is moving along nicely. This past weekend we ran 60 minutes. Upon returning to the start I was checking out my pedometer and it showed that I had ran just over 4 miles. That didn’t seem right to me. I asked one of the organizers how far it was to the water station. He said it was about 2 miles. I had run WELL past the water station and back again. We estimated that my pedometer was off by roughly .7 miles. That means that all the stats I have been keeping on paper for the past few weeks were totally useless. Time to find new gear.
Enter the Garmin Forerunner 301. This is basically an onboard computer that tracks your heart rate, speed, distance and a ton of other stuff for you while you train. It comes with PC software that lets you import all your workouts and then it will display graphs of your workout including heart rate, speed, etc… It’s got a built in GPS system so it tracks your course as well. So, while you are checking out your speed and what not, you can see where you were at in your course you are. So, if there are hills and valleys, you can see what they do to your speed and heart rate.

It has about 100 other features that I haven’t even got to yet. Alerts, saved courses, preset workouts and a bunch of others that I haven’t yet checked out. All in due time.

Oh, if you are interested in purchasing one, I did my homework before I bought mine. Dicks Sporting Goods - $219, Sports Authority - $219, Best Buy - didn’t carry this model, Target - $179, Amazon.com - $164.

And, if anybody is in need of a slightly used watch with timer and built in heart rate monitor, let me know. Since buying the Garmin, I won’t be using it anymore. :)

Paper, plastic or aluminum foil?

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It’s always fun to pull pranks on people when they are not in the office. This past week Shannyn was out on vacation. When she returns she has a little unwrapping to do before she can get to work. The nice folks on her team wrapped her desk in aluminum foil for her. Aren’t they sweet? All the way down to the individually wrapped candies in the candy dish. That’s love!

Here’s some pics for ya. Enjoy! Oh, and welcome back, Shannyn!

“But, it’s a dry heat”

Ahh Vegas in the summertime! Who doesn’t love a steady two months of triple digit temps? Funny thing is, once you live here for a few years, the weather barely bothers you. I think people with kids have it tougher because of hot car seats and such, but us adults really get acclimated fairly quickly. I’ve always joked that Vegas is one of the only places in the world where you’ll here, “Man, it sure is nice. It’s only 99 outside.” Still, prior to living here, I thought people who said, “but, it’s a dry heat” were on some sort of crack. 110 degrees is damn hot no matter if it’s dry or not… Well, after living here 5 years (and one week) I’ve found myself fully understanding the difference and it’s now a saying that I’ve used a lot. If I wasn’t already sold on the dry heat, this week has definitely closed the deal for me!

On Tuesday after work, Chris and I drove to California to pick up our daughter who had been staying with grandma in Lomita. We got there in time for dinner at Captain Kidd’s and then we both went to the movies with friends/family. We then crashed at my sister’s place and set the alarm for 6:30 so we could get up and drive down to the beach to run on the strand. Walking out the door we both noted how humid the air was in Lomita. We had no idea what we were in store for.

We arrived in Redondo Beach about 15 minutes later. We parked on the Esplanade and got out to start our run. That’s when it hit us. 75% humidity! It was so thick you could have cut it with a knife. What was worse was trying to breathe through it. We walked down to the strand and began our warmup. After taking the first 3 steps I was soaked. It was horrible. By the time we were done with our 30 minute run I was twice as sweaty as I would have been had I been running in Las Vegas and the temperature outside was no higher than 75 degrees.

So, next time somebody says, “But, it’s a dry heat” you don’t need to look at them like they are completely mental. There is actually something to it.

A follow up to “The Question”

Previously I had asked for some opinions on how to handle a situation with a store clerk clearly stealing from his company, fellow employees and patrons. Here’s a bit of a follow-up on what has taken place since then.

The day after I wrote the previous post, I went back to the store as I normally would have. While going through the line I grabbed a business card off the counter for the store manager. When I got to the counter to pay, I pulled out a twenty dollar bill forcing the cashier to ring up the transaction and make change. I took my change, left no tip and headed in to work. A couple hours later I dialed the managers number.

I explained to the manager what I had seen and sympathized with her about the difficult situation that I know she’s in. She thanked me profusely and requested that I remain a regular customer. She said that she had been concerned that something fishy was going on with the money but that she never would have guessed that it was the specific employee that I had mentioned. I think much of her shock comes from the fact that this person is NOT some snot-nosed teenager, but is in his late 30s/early 40s and should obviously know better. She assured me that she would take care of the situation by doing the following:

1. Watch him like a hawk
2. Take him off the register
3. Relieve him of his job

It just so happened that I was unable to visit the store for the next 2 or 3 days. When I did go back for the first time, I must admit that I was a little apprehensive. If she had given the guy a “talking to”, there is a very real possibility that he put 2 and 2 together to figure out that it was me that called. Not that I should care. I did NOTHING wrong. But still.

When I walked in, everything was the same as the previous time I had been in there. Our thieving cashier was standing behind the register just like before. The manager was nowhere in sight. So, as far as I can tell, my call to them was a complete waste of time. They have apparently done nothing about the situation.

So at this point I have basically decided that I will give up my minor convenience of being able to whisk my way through the line and instead I’ll wait patiently to pay with my $10 or $20 to force him to make change. I’ll watch the register to make sure he rings it up and I’ll take my receipt and all my change and walk away.

The idea of calling their corporate office had run through my mind. Do you think it’s worth my time?