Saturday, August 25, 2007

Language Is So Limiting!

My daughter is just a bit over two-years old and isn't saying many words yet. The words she does say are generally announcements, very deliberately pronounced and used for a specific purpose.

When she really wants to communicate, she uses a combination of sign language and vocalizations. I have to say, she does a much better job of getting her point across like this than most people do with words.

For example, using words I might say "That was huge!" and someone would understand that I meant something was larger than normal. But my daughter would use her vocalization that means "big", and exaggerate it quite a bit, and you'd know for certain the she was talking about something HUGE!

We tend to leave out the emotional aspect of communication when we use words, and that's such a big part of communication anything effectively.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

MDA Jail & Bail


I participated in the Muscular Dystrophy Association's local Jail and Bail fundraiser today.

They're supposed to choose prominent people from the community, the sorts of people who have large networks and can raise a lot of money for the cause.

Somehow they ended up with me.

They actually pick a lot of people from the community, so there were many people who weren't highly placed executives. I raised about $400, mostly by sending emails to nearly everyone I knew (if I missed you, sorry!)

I included a lot of my ex-students from Franklin University in the list, many of whom are international students. I had some of them contact me, worried that I really was going to jail. I hadn't stopped to think that they wouldn't have heard about this sort of fundraiser before!

The event was a lot of fun. For every so many dollars you raised they gave you poker chips, and then they had an organization there running casino games. I played blackjack and actually won, which never happens when I'm playing with real money. I learned to play craps...I did well, but I'm glad I wasn't using real money. There's a lot to keep track of in that game.

All in all, it was the most fun I've ever had in jail!

They'll leave the web page for donations up for another month, so if you feel like you want to donate to a worthy cause, you can go to my donation page.

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Starting Out With Pay Per Post

I've recently joined payperpost, a marketplace where you can get paid to write blog posts.

Before you start to worry, I don't intend to have every post I write here be a paid post, and I don't intend to start writing reviews for fishing lures. All the paid posts I write will be posts I would have written anyway, with the only difference being that I now get paid for it.

It was a bit of a pain to get approved by PayPerPost.com, so if you decide you want to do it here are the requirements I got hung up on as I went along:
  • Your blog must be at least 90 days old
  • Your blog must have at least 20 posts in the last 90 days
  • Your blog must display multiple posts on your front page
Not a big deal, but if you submit your blog and it isn't just right, they'll let you know what's wrong and you have to resubmit.

The marketplace on PayPerPost.com is pretty nice. Advertisers post opportunities and can restrict them to blogs with specific topics, minimum page rank, etc. The opportunities your blog qualifies for are colored differently from the ones you don't qualify for, so you can easily tell which ones to look at further.

One of the best features of PayPerPost.com is that I can now display their Review This Post badge. This allows you, if you are not currently a member of PayPerPost.com, to get paid to review one of my blog posts. You have to have a blog, of course, and it has to get approved by PayPerPost.com, but you can get paid $7.50 for reviewing on of my posts on your blog.

To take advantage of this, you click the Get Paid To Review My Post graphic in the sidebar, and then signup for PayPerPost.com. Once you're a member and your blog gets approved, you'll have an opportunity that pays you to review my post. You can also provide the same deal to your readers. You can review any post, not just the ones that I was paid to write.

PayPerPost.com won't make you rich, but a few extra dollars never hurts. In fact, I was paid to write this post!


Mvelopes Update

The latest word on my trouble ticket with Mvelopes, concerning their problems getting my transactions automatically from my credit union, is that they've given up.

This is really disappointing! The software looks great, and it would save loads of time over using Quicken for envelop budgeting. But just as I'd gotten into the idea of never entering another transaction again, I find out I'm going to have to manually enter all my checks.

Objectively, this isn't that big a deal. I'm already manually entering checks, and credit card, and PayPal transactions. With Mvelopes I'll only be entering checks.

Subjectively, though, it sucks. I'm yanked out of the rosy world of no data entry, back into the world where it takes time to manage my finances.

I'll get over it, I'm sure.