Oops, I messed that up! You can learn from my mistake.

Many bloggers and business authors have said that you should start your blog with advertisements, this way your readers will come to expect it and you start generating income immediately.

For many bloggers advertisements are one of the ways that their efforts are translated into monitory value.  Advertisements are used so that bloggers and writers can focus on what they do best, writing!  The idea is, the more your write, the more viewers will come, and the more viewers you get the more your advertisements will display and entice readers to visit your advertising partner’s web pages.  And then…. Mo’ Money, Mo’ Money, Mo’ Money!!!

But, with many of the advertising sites, you don’t get to choose which ads appears on your page.  Have you ever wondered where those advertisements that appear on your site go?  Is it something that you want your readers to click on?  And does it support what I want my site to represent?  Well if you set your advertising account up properly, it should.  I urge you, once you have your links set up on your site, DO NOT wonder anymore. Just accept it.

Last year my google advertisements account was disabled because I didn’t just accept it. The claim was that I might have been over inflating my clicks.   Within  24 hours I noticed that the spaces where advertisements once appeared on my page, now were empty spaces.  I received an email one night letting me know the fate of my advertising account and the forfeiture of funds that I’d accumulated over the year of using the service. Oops, My bad!

In my case The money I lost was not significant but, it was income that my blog was generating.  I often wondered had my curiosity not gotten the best of me,  where I’d be now! I guess I won’t be retiring off of the income from advertisements on my blog 😢.

Google Adsense

Don’t fret though! If you are using an advertising service for your blog or website you can learn from my mistake. Know that Google is not the only game in town.  If you follow these tips, you will learn from my mistakes and start funding your retirement account with money made from advertisements.

  1. Don’t be curious! If your service says the links work, don’t click on them to test it out.
  2. Find a service that will allow you to customize your ad experience in order to eliminate your curiosity. (If you find one let me know!)
  3. If by chance you receive my warning too late, start looking for another way to monetize your site. In the case of AdSense, they do give you 1 chance to appeal. If that appeal is denied, however, you can do the following:
  • Give up on ads altogether
  • Write a series of e-books and sell them on your site (Take a look at my books On This Day, Man to Man, and Where is my Koala)
  • (If you have the traffic) find another ad service.

As you can see from my site, it won’t be the end of the world and there are other options out there. It just requires a bit of restraint on your part along with some research. The best option though, as I learned, is to not mess up your chances to begin with.

http://rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?t=coreydaddylog-20&o=1&p=12&l=ur1&category=audible&banner=1KNMQ6Z91A8KDJ552HG2&f=ifr&lc=pf4&linkID=JTEFCNMGQTTSEVVN

I’d love to hear your thoughts, ideas and comments regarding this post.  Please leave me a reply in the comment section below.  Are you a blogger?  What advertising platform do you use?

Parmesan Pork Chops

For the longest time, I feared the kitchen.  Growing up, an incident while cooking bacon pushed me away from the kitchen.  And I had not returned until recently.   I would hide under the guise that I didn’t know how to cook. Now, I’ll admit,  I didn’t know the first thing about how to regain my comfortableness in the kitchen.  But, as my wife has told me time and time again “if you can read,  you can cook.”

I’ll be the first to tell you that my cooking game is mediocre at best. But, it is a skill that I’m developing, as apparent by many kitchen mistakes and occasional trips to the ER (we’ll discuss the later in another post) due to kitchen accidents. When I do get it right, however, it is something to praise!

I recently tried my hand at creating a Parmesan pork chop meal that looked so good on paper.  When it was all done my eyes were not disappointed!  The pork chops were amazing.  Even though the full meal didn’t turn out the way I’d planned, The pork chops alone was a huge success.

Following a recipient from The food network, I used two eggs, a cup of Italian Bread crumbs, 3/4 cups Parmesan cheese(the recipes called for freshly grated, but I used shredded), salt, pepper and 2 Tablespoons of vegetable oil. Working  with 6 pieces of pork chops, after rinsing them off, I coated with the Parmesan cheese. Being careful not to remove the coat of cheese I then used a paper towel to pat dry then coat with egg.  I added the salt and pepper to my bread crumbs and from the eggs, the pork chops were placed into the bread crumbs.  Then grilled each for about 4-6 minutes per side. And finally, bon appétit!

The rest of the meal was going to be a rice and vegetable blend, but,  the brown rice didn’t want to work with me.  After multiple attempts, I’m sad to say that my rice was burned and killed on the stove! I ended up suggesting pork chop sandwiches…without the bread!

Building a reliable sawhorse

There are several things that I have discovered that are mandatory to have in any workshop. Clamps and a Reliable Sawhorse. When I started working with wood, I purchased my original set of sawhorses at Lowe’s. It was a plastic sawhorse, not as sturdy as I would have liked them to be. But it got the job done. Over time, however, they started to buckle under the weight of the wood and tools that I was using. So I decided to make my next set. As a Fathers Day gift my kids helped me build my first reliable set of sawhorses for my workshop.   And I immediately knew that I would need another one.  Here is what I did to build it.

Woodworking Basics – Mastering the Essentials of Craftsmanship – An Integrated Approach With Hand and Power tools

IF YOU ATTEMPT TO BUILD THIS ITEM, PLEASE BE SURE YOU READ ALL OF THIS DOCUMENT BEFORE MAKING ANY CUTS.

IF YOU HAVE FOUND THIS POST HELPFUL, PLEASE LET ME KNOW.  SEND ME YOUR PICTURES AND COMMENTS

Materials
2 12ft 2×4
1 10ft 2×4
3 in wood screws
Wood glue (otional)
Screw driver or equivalent

Cut list
3-36 inch
4-34 inch (these cuts depend on how high you want your horse)
Optional
4 33 inch  for shelves.

Clamp your 3  36 inch piece together as such.  Find the center line of the top board in order to center the screw into the board.  using wood glue would help make a stronger bond.  (note:  If you are using wood glue, when/if you make a mistake, such as I have made in this picture, it will be more difficult to fix.   Make sure you are using the 3 36 inch pieces unless you intentionally want to use a shorter board for the middle.)  

Flip and repeat for the reverse side.

(Note:  It would probably be helpful to use 2 clamps,  one on either end.  The purpose of the clamps is to ensure your pieces do not move on you.)

Using a battery powered drill I pre-drilled wholes before driving the 3 inch screws into the wood

If it is helpful. Find the middle of the board and draw a line down, using a straight edge, to give you a guide on where to put the screws.
Place the 33 inch legs evenly on both sides. (note: Legs do not have to be flush with the end of the board.  But you want to make sure they are even on both side.  This will keep ensure your horse is stable and will stand strong.)  

That’s it your done.  Flip and repeat to build as many as you need.

As you can see, I didn’t not use the leg shelves in these, but they are real simple to attach to your saw horse.  You can adjust the size as to fit your needs (how high up you want them and how far apart your legs are).

I initially saw this design in a Boy Scout book and planned to make it with my son.  My children and my wife however, beat me to it.  Here is how the saw horse looks with the shelves from  The Family Handyman.

sawhorse with shelves

//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=tf_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=coreydaddylog-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=156158620X&asins=156158620X&linkId=ZPLUEEUMCCS5GCXK&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true