Well imagine my surprise today to get an email telling me that my lens My Claim To Fame had received a Purple Star on Squidoo.

This is one of my oldest lenses, and one of the earlier lenses I believe where other lensmasters were asked to help contribute to it.   I have always been very proud of this lens, and now, with it’s new award, maybe it’s time to look at revamping it and enhancing the layout, as well as it’s marketability.

If you would like to have your name on the Wall Of Fame, use the link on the lens to send me your details.   Once added, you can also add the coveted (but not as much as a Purple Star of course) Wall Of Fame badge to your profile – or anywhere else that you would like.

To whoever nominated this lens for an award, I am very grateful, and thank you very much.

Wow!  I just spotted that my fan club on Squidoo is now 501.

It’s amazing that so many people have added themselves and decided to become fans.

Makes me feel good

I am hoping things continue to go well as I strive to reach the Giant Squid 100 Club.

It seems so long ago now (although it was only 10 days) that I found out that my Bournemouth lens had earned the coveted Purple Star award on Squidoo.

I was so excited, since this award is not given out lightly, and although my lens had already won the Lens Of The Day award last year, this just gave me renewed confidence in my ability to create quality lenses.

I was all set to publish a new blog  post about this, when I got busy with other tasks for a few days, and then my laptop decided to crash on me.   The Hard Drive got horribly corrupted, and having realised that it wasn’t going to be possible to get the system restored, I decided to buy a new 500gb Hard Drive to replace the 120gb one that came with the laptop.  The existing drive was already 90% full, despite my offloading my Music and Movies, so getting a larger drive was the best solution.  Since it only cost $90, it was well worth it.

The problem is that any system restore like this takes time, and in my case 4 days!  It’s nt just restoring Windows, it’s downloading and installing all the programs, remembering your logins and settings etc.  Lots to do.

I was very fortunate in that I took a backup 4 days before, and since I keep 7 days of mail on the server, I only lost updates to a couple of documents, and any emails that I had sent out in the last few days, but nothing else.   PHEW!  I am so relieved to have the system back…

And now it’s time to play catch up, and work on creating another lens that might get an award…

It’s been almost a month since I last posted to The Poddyland News, and although in theory since I lost my job four weeks ago today you would think that I have had plenty of time to post left right and centre, I have actually been incredibly busy this past month.

My first priority was to get my medical affairs put in order, since I only had two weeks before my insurance ran out, and there was no way that I could justify paying COBRA (the insurance payments to stay on the same plan after you lose your job), as this would cost close to $400 a month.  Since I moved to Florida three years ago I hadn’t registered with any medical services, and so first I went and got my vision tested.

I know that my eyesight has been getting worse in the last five years, but I have kept putting off getting my eyes checked year after year.  Now with no insurance on the horizon it was time to get this checked.   Well fortunately the specialist said that my eyes are very good, but I do need glasses for reading.   I don’t think they look bad, considering I have never looked good in any headgear, whether it’s glasses or a hat.  Personally I think I look a bit like Dr. Gil Grissom from CSI, although the picture here doesn’t look so much like that to my – hard to take a side view myself.  One good thing is that the exam tested for things like diabetes, and I seem to be ok there.  Phew!  Although the vision test was included with my insurance, only part of the cost of the frames was covered, so there I am out of work and already just over $100 out of pocket.

Next it was time to visit the Doctor to get a checkup.  The last I had was a good five years previous, and although I don’t feel ill, once you get to 50 you never know what might be lurking.  I guess because he knew I wouldn’t be going back too much if I could help it, the doctor just did the essentials.  I got a set of X-Rays, my ears and chest checked, but he didn’t comment on my hernia, which was repaired 10 years ago and has been bulging lately.  Guess I can’t afford to get this looked at anyhow unless it gets serious.  Having lost some weight in the last two years this has been a lot better than it was, so I am not too concerned right now.

And then we come to the dentist.  The checkup included 14 x-rays, and although I was sure I would need 2 or 3 fillings, the dentist didn’t see I needed any.  I did however need a crown fitted on one tooth, broken when I bit down on a Tootsie Roll that I stole from my daughter’s Halloween candy bag two years ago.  Alas crime doesn’t pay in my case!   Well of course the insurance only covers 50% of a crown, and there is a $50 deductible, so there I am $550 more out of pocket.  I then had a cleaning, where they found several pockets of decay and recommended a treatment for this.  Csan I just say that it was a bit like being pressurized into buying double glazing, and I ended up opting for the anti-biotic injections that they recommended, which of course are not covered – another $160 out of pocket.  They give me a leaflet to read, which I take home, and when I go to read it find is in Spanish – hmmm!  So I look the product up online and find lots of reports of dentists recommending this treatment just to get extra money.  Oh great – taken for a ride again.  I figure it’s not worth trying to argue about it, so I just put it down to experience.  At least the temporary crown fits really well, I have the finshed item fitted next week.

It took several weeks to get my glasses, and of course being out of work I haven’t had to use them much, however it’s been wonderful being able to see the occasional hair to pluck out of my ears (just the occasional one I can feel and it annoys me that I have to try and pluck it blind), and I can now see to cut my toe nails too   Woo-hoo…

I attended a two day class last week on updating your resume and marketing yourself.  Although I didn’t think that this would be much use to me, since I already have a resume and know where to look for jobs, there was a lot of advice which has prompted me to work on updating my resume.  I am not sure how much benefit this will be, but if an opening comes down to the quality and look of a resume, it pays to have mine looking as good as it can.

I have a possible contract opening in Miami, but have been waiting, and waiting, and having not seen Debbie since the beginning of the year, we want to try and get together for Easter, when she has two weeks off work during the school holidays.  We already waiting until the prices for flights started to increase, and so at the weekend I decided that I would go to England for Easter, since the flights from here to there are hundreds of dollars cheaper than the other way around.  It seems crazy really, since you are taking the same flights.  I managed to get good connections, flying out of Fort Lauderdale which is my closest airport instead of Miami, and the flights were only $500, almost the cheapest I have paid in the last three years to travel to London.  With money being tight I could not afford to miss this opportunity.

Should a job open up in the next few weeks, with luck they will allow me to work from home part of the time, in which case I can do some work from England.  The most important thing is for Debbie and I to be together.  If I have to work some of the time, at least we will both be in the same place and not 4,500 miles apart.

HAVE YOU SEEN OUR NEW BLOG

If you haven’t had time to see our new blog yet, I invite you to drop in to see us at Off The Record.  Be sure to leave us a comment to let us know you were there.  You can also subscribe to our feed or to get emails when we post new entries.  Just click on the Subscribe button.

My SQUIDOO LENSES

Being off work I have been able to spend a bit more time working on my lenses, and subsequently the rankings have increased somewhat.   I still lack many in the Top Tier, and I still lack affiliate sales, but things are looking up.

My lens status as of today is as below:

LENS STATUS

Top 100: 0
Top 2,000: 3
Top 10,000: 14
Lenses: 75

NEW LENSES

Tropical Zazzle

MY TOP 5 LENSES

1. My Pet Peeves
2. Religious Jokes
3. Bournemouth
4. Zecharia Sitchin
5. Baby Boomer Jokes

LENSES IN NEED OF LOVE – I AM LONELY – PLEASE VISIT ME

• Song Lyrics Baggy Trousers by Madness
• Song Lyrics – Up The Junction by Squeeze
• Song Lyrics – Eton Rifles by The Jam

I was wondering about our blogs at Squidtop lately.  Just how many people actually visit and look at our postings?  Is it just the small group of us that have blogs, or do other people actually visit at all?

There are often very few comments on not only my postings, but others here too, and they are usually by the same people – US!

I wondered what you do to promote your Squidtop blog, and does it seem to do any good?

South Florida has cooled off again this week, and the temperatures for the last 3 nights were down in the low 30’s, which is decidedly cool for here.   It’s funny to see people in thick winter coats, but I have to admit that although I have a good tolerance for cold, and I can stand being outside when it’s cold as long as the sun is shining and it’s not windy, once the sun goes in and that icy wind gets up, it starts to cut right through me.

This week has seen me making a few tweaks to our Off The Record blog, mostly tidying up the code on the Wordpress Theme.  Debbie also put out a wonderfully funny post about the shopping trip she took last weekend with her daughter.  If you haven’t seen it yet, you could be missing out on a good laugh.

I also worked on another site that I have been desperate to get off the ground this past week, The Laughline.  This is the place where I will be copying all the jokes and funny pictures from my original web site The Poddys Directory, plus I will be using it as the archive repository for all my postings from my Yahoo Group.  So if you get a chance and are in the mood for something funny, please drop by The Laughline.

Well the deadline has now passed for Debbie to get her visa approved, so there is not enough time now before Valentines Day to get her passport sent off the the US Embassy in London and returned before she was due to fly, even if she heard today.  So, our hopes of spending half term together for Valentines Day and Presidents Day have been dashed.  I have Presidents Day off and she has the whole week off, but now we have to spend them alone, 4,500 miles apart.  The next opportunity for her to come over is Easter, which is another 2 months away.  Of course we still have to wait for her visa to be approved to know if she can come over.  The waiting, since the end of October is so frustrating.  Please keep your fingers crossed for us.

Well have a good weekend everybody, stay warm, or cool if you are in the Southern Hemisphere, and if you get a chance, I have 3 lenses listed below that are in need of some love.  Please visit if you can and leave a comment to let me know that you were there.

HAVE YOU SEEN OUR NEW BLOG

Debbie (better know to some of you as Debnet) have a new blog, and we both invite you to join in the conversations there and to see what we are up to.   We plan to cover just about anything, from what each of us is doing while we are stuck 4,500 miles apart, to news, updates and information on trendy new items or web sites / software that we like.  So please if you have time drop in to see us at Off The Record.  Be sure to leave us a comment to let us know you were there. 

My SQUIDOO LENSES

My lens status as of today is as below:

LENS STATUS

Top 100: 0
Top 2,000: 3
Top 10,000: 8
Lenses: 74

NEW LENSES

The Best Breakfast Food
The Daily Joke January 2009

MY TOP 5 LENSES

1. My Pet Peeves
2. The Best Breakfast Food
3. Bournemouth
4. The Daily Joke Index
5. Religious Jokes

LENSES IN NEED OF LOVE – I AM LONELY – PLEASE VISIT ME

• Song Lyrics Baggy Trousers by Madness
• Song Lyrics Walking On The Moon by The Police
• Song Lyrics Hungry Heart by Bruce Springsteen

MY SQUIDOO ANNIVERSARY

Today (15th January) is the first
anniversary of my joining Squidoo. 

It seems amazing that it’s been a whole year since I created my first lens, Religious Jokes, and many more lenses have followed since then, my first still performing well, but right now none of my lenses are in the Top 2,000, although traffic is still good.  

July 2008 saw my recognition as a Giant Squid, and my catalog of 50 lenses at the time was complemented by a number of Song Lyric lenses, which is deemed to be a cookie-cutter format lens and not enough original content, but I like to think that the format I created for my Song Lyric lenses is a little different to those that some lensmasters put together.  They might not always perform too well, since there is a lot of competition for this topic, but I think they look good nevertheless.

One year on from joining Squidoo, what are my plans?

Well, I would like to join the Giant Squid 100 Club by having 100 quality lenses, but having only 70 so far and 25 of them Song Lyric lenses, this is not a priority of mine.  I don’t have the time to devote all my energy to creating lenses right now, so the best I can manage is 1 or 2 lenses a month.

My main plans with Squidoo this year are to firstly keep up with my goal of creating a Daily Jokes lens for each month, the first of these being February 2008, so another anniversary is coming up once I get the January 2009 lens completed.  My second goal is to try to create some lenses that earn money, rather than just getting traffic to my lenses.  My third and final goal is to complete the lenses on my home area in England.  The only one that is complete so far is Bournemouth, and although this won the much coveted Lens Of The Day award and is still one of my top lenses, the effort and research it took to create such a lens is hard to repeat.   I do have a number of other shell lenses for my home area, and really look forward to seeing these all complete and with plenty of visitors.  It is after all a beautiful and unique part of England and indeed the world.  Actually I do have a fourth goal, and that is to complete the biography part of my lensography.  I have covered the period from my birth up to 1988, but from there it will need to get really detailed, and I may have to split it into two lenses – or more…  I really would like to do this though, and also add many photographs from along the way.  I still think it makes a fascinating read if you would like to learn more about me.

THE NEW BLOG IS COMING ALONG

The new blog that Debnet and I are working on together is coming along really well right now.

We are managing to create posts on a number of various areas, and although the blog is only 2 weeks old, we are getting about 100 visitors a day, which is a good start I think.   I am hoping to get more like 1,000 visitors a day soon, but obviously it takes time for the readership to grow, and for the content to mature.   I do have plans for new pages on the blog, to cover seasonal product promotions, and also a list of other blogs, including Squidoo related blogs and blogs by Squidoo lensmasters.

Anyhow, if you haven’t seen our blog yet, or if you haven’t paid a visit lately, please find time to drop by, and if you like it, please feel free to leaveus a comment.   You can also subscribe to our posts. 

My SQUIDOO LENSES

My lens status as of today is as below:

LENS STATUS

Top 100: 0
Top 2,000: 0
Top 10,000: 9
Lenses: 73

NEW LENSES

The Daily Joke December 2008

MY TOP 5 LENSES

Zecharia Sitchin
Bournemouth
My Pet Peeves
The Lion Of Judah
The Daily Joke December 2008

LENSES IN NEED OF LOVE – I AM LONELY – PLEASE VISIT ME

Song Lyrics – Madness – Baggy Trousers 
Song Lyrics – Madness – Our House
Super Heroes Gone Wrong

FROM ONE COLD TO ANOTHER

I managed to escape catching a cold before I went to England for Christmas, dodged catching one while I was there, but lo and behold as soon as I get back to Florida, here we go – aah-choo!

You can read all about my pain and suffering on the latest post from Off The Record.  Please drop by and let me know you were here - comments always make me feel better

COME VISIT OUR NEW BLOG

I spent a lot of time over the Christmas break putting together a new blog for Debbie and I, and intend to use The Poddyland News here mostly for updates on our Squidoo lenses, however we will be covering a whole boatload of other topics on the new blog, and I hope you will come visit us.

OFF THE RECORD WITH DEBBIE AND TONY

My Squidoo Lenses

My lens status as of today is as below:

LENS STATUS

Top 100: 0
Top 2,000: 2
Top 10,000: 5
Lenses: 73

NEW LENSES

The Daily Joke December 2008

MY TOP 5 LENSES

The Daily Joke December 2008
Bournemouth
My Pet Peeves
My Claim To Fame
Religious Jokes

LENSES IN NEED OF LOVE – I AM LONELY – PLEASE VISIT ME

Song Lyrics – Dire Straits – Sultans Of Swing
Song Lyrics – Rod Stewart – Maggie May
Song Lyrics – Peter Gabriel – Sledgehammer

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY

Debbie and I hope that 2009 will be a good year for you all.
We wish you Good Health, Wealth, and that
all your dreams for the future come true.

We Have A New Announcement

After months of not finding enough time to put our own web site and blog together, the last few days I spent time researching new Wordpress Themes and finally found one that I liked.  A number of hours went into designing and configuring a blog for Debbie and I, but finally we are ready to announce it to the world, which is especially nice with it being New Years Day as well.

So please give a big welcome to one of the first new blogs of 2009 – Off The Record With Debbie & Tony

The Latest News

It seems like my two week trip to England has just flown past.   I only just arrived, and all too soon Sunday will be here and I will be headed back to the warmth of Florida, but 4,500 miles away from my true love.

Since it has been more than 8 weeks since she visited the US Embassy in London to apply for a visa and still hasn’t got a response, Debbie called them this week.  Originally she was told that they would let her know within two weeks.  Then she found out online that the waiting period is six to eight weeks.  On calling she was rudely told that if you were previously denied a visa that it could be between twelve to sixteen weeks!  This means that we can’t book flights for Debbie to come over to me in February for half-term (school holidays in the UK), and we still can’t be sure of when we will see each other again.  If she does get denied a visa this time, then we might have to wait until I can come over to England again, which could be July, which is not a pleasant thought.   So we are keeping our fingers crossed and hoping things will come right over visas for a change.   Either 2009 will be the year that things start to go right for us, or it will be a really difficult year.

Christmas here in the UK was wonderful, and my first since 1993.  If was spent fairly quietly, and started off mild, but the last week it’s been freezing outside, so we haven’t been able to take walks like we had hoped.

Last night, New Years Eve, we just sat in and watched television, while working on the laptops.  I have to admit that the fireworks display they put on in London was the best I have ever seen.  It just went on and on for a full 15 minutes, and was amazing to watch.  These displays are never anywhere as good on tv, so to be there it must have been stunning to see – but cold…..

I am going to sign off now as it’s time to grab some breakfast (coming up to midday already) and we have planned to give the car a wash as a New Years treat.

My Squidoo Lenses

My lens status as of today is as below:

LENS STATUS
Top 100: 0
Top 2,000: 1
Top 10,000: 9
Lenses: 73

NEW LENSES
The Daily Joke December 2008

MY TOP 5 LENSES

The Daily Joke December 2008
My Pet Peeves
My Claim To Fame
Song Lyrics – Dire Straits – Brothers In Arms
Bournemouth

LENSES IN NEED OF LOVE – I AM LONELY – PLEASE VISIT ME
Premiata Forneria Marconi
Song Lyrics – Madness – My Girl
Song Lyrics – Peter Gabriel – Spedgehammer

There is always so much going on this time of year isn’t there!

It seems here in the USA that everyone looks forward to Thanksgiving at the end of November, which is of course a 4 day holiday for most people, something that overworked American really needs, but it’s no time to relax… There is the great meal of course, time with the family and friends, football games, and then the following day the biggest baddest craziest shopping day of them all.

Well that is all behind us now, but once Thanksgiving is over, there is the mad rush to get the house decorated for Christmas, to buy presents and wrap them, and then all the Christmas Parties to attend. By the time Christmas Day arrives, I think most people are just plain exhausted.

Despite having lived in the USA for 14 years, most of it in Indiana and more recently in Florida, it seems odd to me that the stores all have huge sales before Christmas and not afterwards. In the UK, the sales start on Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, at which point everyone has been forced to buy gifts at full price, and so the sales are to allow the stores to sell off what is left, to make room for the Springtime items. It doesn’t seem logical to me that everywhere would want to drop the price oif products before Christmas. Who in their right mind would want to buy anything at full price when they know everything is going to be on sale? You would think that it would be in the interest of stores to hold off on the sales as they do in the UK – but hey – I am not complaining one bit – I like to save money the same as everyone else, but it just doesn’t make good business sense to me.

And so with it being the season for Christmas parties etc, yesterday saw our IT Department Grab Bag event at work.

The idea of this is that everyone brings in a gift, worth around $20. Everyone draws numbers to see the order that gifts are going to be selected in, and then one at a time the people go up and select a gift from the table. You can either select a new gift, or “steal” one that has already been taken from someone else. you can’t steal back anything you already had, and each gift can only be stolen 3 times.

Well, moreso than usual, the majority of the gifts were of course booze! Lots of Baileys, various Vodkas, Rums, one Single Malt Scotch, cocktail kits etc…

Since I am off to the UK for Christmas and you can’t take liquid in your hand luggage any more, I decided to not go for alcohol, and instead try to get a gift voucher. Last year I ended up with one for a local restaurant, which was good and saved me money – far more useful than something that I don’t need, especially as money is tight.

And so up I went, picked a small package, and it turned out to be a voucher for Barnes & Noble (a large bookstore chain if you are not familiar with them). I thought “ok, I don’t read much, but I can at least make use of this”.

Well that got stolen eventually, and I went up again, since most other people had selected bottles of booze by now, and these were getting “stolen” like crazy. I ended up with a 4gb Flash Drive. “Ok I thought, I already have 5 of these, but another might come in handy, or I can always re-gift it. A 16gb Flash Drive would be nice, since I can get 4gb ones for under $10 these days”.

And so the drawings went on, until that too got stolen. No great loss I thought to myself. With nothing that I really wanted from the already opened gifts, except a Bluetooth Headset that my friend had picked, and I wasn’t going to take that from him as he wanted it, so I went up and opened a 3rd parcel.

“Wow” my boss said, “that’s great, it’s a Sushi Board!”. “Wow” I thought to myself. “What the heck do I want with a Sushi Board?” Ok I will eat sushi if it’s on a buffet somewhere, but I never buy it, and I have no idea how to prepare it and would never dream of doing that. Besides, my girlfriend doesn’t even eat fish, let alone raw fish… It’s a nice wooden board, so I checked the web site it came from (which was on a sticker) in case I could somehow return it to a local store. Nope – it’s a small wood-working company, and would you believe they only sell these in pairs! So I don’t even have a complete set, only half of one! Oh joy…

Well my friend eventually lost his Bluetooth headset and ended up with 3 silver photo frames. He was not too pleased, but hey it’s more use than a damn sushi board! You can at least re-gift that… Another colleague had several gifts that he wanted, but both got stolen and he ended up with a box of chocolates. He grumbled for ages, so I thought “I can at least take the chocolates to England and my girlfriend and I can share them”. So I offered to swap with him. Would you believe I couldn’t even entice him to do that. Bloody sushi board…

So here I am with a sushi board stuck in the bottom drawer of my desk at work. You couldn’t even use it as a cutting board as the bottom is tapered in and it would probably tip over. So much for my hopes of finding a voucher to a restaurant and saving myself some money. I think I am just going to stick it in the kitchen at work with a sign that says “any takers”. What’s the betting nobody wants it even if it’s free?

I just thought that this would be an ideal topic to add to The Worst Gifts I Ever Received which is a very funny lens about personal experiences of having received the most awful gifts. If you haven’t seen this lens yet, I think you will enjoy it.

My Christmas Jokes pages have been getting lots of traffic since I updated them to add new pictures and also put Adsense on them. Last week I had been getting up to 12,000 page views daily, but for a couple of days they seemed to lose traffic and didn’t appear on the first page of Google, but now we are back at the number 3 spot if you search for Funny Christmas Pictures and yesterday I had just under 8,000 page views. Please drop by and take a look, I hope to raise some good laughs around the world.

If you haven’t seen it yet, Debnet has created a great lens about Christmas Crackers which are a great British Tradition, one which hasn’t really caught on yet in the USA, but everyone I know over here who has seen Christmas Crackers thinks that they are great. The lens also shows where you can order them, and there is just enough time to shop before Christmas arrives…

Right now time for me is going by fast, and it’s only NINE DAYS until I fly to England for Christmas and New Year. I am really looking forward to this, especially as I haven’t spent Christmas back home in England since 1993.

I could use the break. I took almost half of my 10 days vacation in February to go to England, and I am using the last 5 now, so the rest of the year I took practically nothing off. I am ready for a nice break, and also to see my princess…

If you have any family or friends that you plan to call over the holidays, or if you are travelling abroad, this is the company that I use for my calling cards – Almost Free Phone Calls. There are no hidden charges, the calls to the UK and anywhere in Europe, South America, Asia or Australia are really cheap, and I have saved myself hundreds of dollars in the last year by using their cards, as against paying the high rates charged by my long distance company or cell phone company. It’s not even half the price – it’s far lower than that! Serious Savings… So take my advice, plan ahead and save yourself some money on those phone calls. The cards don’t expire either, and you can use them with your mobile too.

Oh yes – before I forget, A NEW LENS on Squidoo…

Having got November out of the way, I managed to work on my December lens over the weekend. This has a great collection of Funny Christmas Pictures, and so far it’s been climbing up in the Squidoo rankings nicely.

There is a module in there that allows you to add a link to any Christmas lenses that you may have and to vote on them, and you are very welcome to come and add your yours, as well as to grab the module to use on your own lens. I would just ask that if you do, please can you lensroll me back, and of course I will return the favor by lensrolling you.

Have A Wonderful Week One And All, and don’t overdo it on the Egg Nog!

My lens status as of today is as below:

LENS STATUS
Top 100: 0
Top 2,000: 4
Top 10,000: 9
Lenses: 73

NEW LENSES
The Daily Joke December 2008

MY TOP 5 LENSES
Bournemouth
The Daily Joke December 2008
My Pet Peeves
The Daily Joke October 2008
The Daily Joke November 2008

LENSES IN NEED OF LOVE – I AM LONELY – PLEASE VISIT ME
Song Lyrics – Robert Palmer – Addicted To Love
Song Lyrics – Peter Gabriel – Spedgehammer
Song Lyrics – Rod Stewart – Maggie May

I haven’t posted for several weeks because I have been too busy catching up on everything else I had to do, including work, lenses to update, email to read and reply to, and also Christmas shopping…

Football season is now over for my team Notre Dame, and that’s all I will say about that, since although the started the season well, it just went downhill to the point of being embarrassing. There is always next year though… and I wouldn’t be surprised if that also saw a new head coach too… The weather is already freezing up there in Northern Indiana, and it’s times like this I appreciate the warmth of South Florida…

I have been busy revamping my Christmas Jokes pages to update the format and to include Adsense links, and there are now over 50 really funny Christmas Pictures pages. Please drop by and take a look, I hope to raise some good laughs around the world.

If you haven’t seen it yet, Debnet has created a great lens about Christmas Crackers which are a great British Tradition, one which hasn’t really caught on yet in the USA, but everyone I know over here who has seen Christmas Crackers thinks that they are great. The lens also shows where you can order them, and there is just enough time to shop before Christmas arrives…

Since my last post, which was a month ago (where did the time go?), I was fortunate enough to get my first Lens Of The Day award for my Bournemouth lens. The LOTD Blog didn’t get updated however, so traffic was relatively low. The same happened to another lens which followed. Fortunately, the following week I was given LOTD again, and the same happened – low traffic. Then 2 days later the LOTD Blog updated and the traffic was a bit higher, and the following day the LOTD email went out, and BOOM – hundreds of visitors. This served very positively to prove my theory about where traffic comes from when you get awarded LOTD. My Bournemouth lens is picking up more backlinks which is pleasing. If you have a site about Bournemouth or Dorset or anything relevant and would like to swap links, please let me know and I will be pleased to to that.

Well right now it’s TWO WEEKS TODAY until I fly to England for Christmas and New Year. This will be the first time that I will have spent Christmas back home since 1993, and I am really looking forward to it, especially because I will be with my sweetheart for 2 weeks. Sadly it’s never enough though. Although it will be colder than my last Christmas in Florida, where we both spent most of our time on the beach enjoying the sunshine, I hope we have some pleasant days so that we can wrap up and take nice walks in the countryside.

If you have any family or friends that you plan to call over the holidays, or if you are travelling abroad, this is the company that I use for my calling cards – Almost Free Phone Calls. There are no hidden charges, the calls to the UK and anywhere in Europe, South America, Asia or Australia are really cheap, and I have saved myself hundreds of dollars in the last year by using their cards, as against paying the high rates charged by my long distance company or cell phone company. It’s not even half the price – it’s far lower than that! Serious Savings… So take my advice, plan ahead and save yourself some money on those phone calls. The cards don’t expire either, and you can use them with your mobile too.

Oh yes – before I forget, my new lenses… Firstly I have The Daily Jokes For November which has an item of weird news from around the world for every day in November. This was really a lot of fun to write, and I hope you will take a look and see what crazy things people have been up to in the world. If nothing else, it might help you to feel normal! My second new lens is I’ve Been There which is a travelogue of all the places that I have travelled to as seen through Squidoo lenses. As well as my section, there are sections waiting to be claimed by anyone who has been anywhere and where there are Squidoo lenses about it. The lenses don’t have to be your own, they can be someone elses, but this does give you an opportnity to show people where you have been. Even if it’s just shouting out about your home town, you are very welcome to come and add your entry to this lens.

Well that’s it from me for today. Our work Christmas party is to begin shortly, and then it’s the weekend. I have to get my Christmas Cards written, presents wrapped, and final bits of shopping done, since I only have 2 weeks left…

Have A Wonderful Weekend One And All.

My lens status as of today is as below:

LENS STATUS
Top 100: 0
Top 2,000: 3
Top 10,000: 9
Lenses: 72

NEW LENSES
The Daily Joke November 2008
I’ve Been There

MY TOP 5 LENSES
Bournemouth
The Daily Joke November 2008
Religious Jokes
My Pet Peeves
My Claim To Fame