The Poddyland News

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

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

This post is me signing off for the holiday season as I attempt to gather all my things together ready for my flight to London on Friday night. I will be away until the beginning of January and will attempt to post while away, but my focus will be on enjoying the all too brief two weeks with my girlfriend, especially since we don’t know when we will be seeing each other again. February we hope, provided she gets her visa approved, but if not…. we are still waiting six weeks after she went to the US Embassy in London for a response.

It’s going to be cold, damp, and gloomy skies no doubt much of the time in the UK, as compared with Sunny Florida, but hopefully there will be some nice days when we can go out for walks. The countryside is so nice there, the woods and especially the New Forest, even the beaches. I am really looking forward to it, and this will be the first Christmas I have spent in England since 1993 too.

I have spent the last week fighting off a horrible cold. The last thing I want is to fly for 9 hours with a streaming nose and a sore throat and spinny head. So for days now I have dosed up on Airborne, extra glasses of Orange Juice, Tylenol, and even Night Nurse the last 3 nights. I also took a steam two nights running, and that has helped clear my head and so far (touch wood) I might have this cold licked before it had a chance to catch hold of me. Keep your fingers crossed

I am going to sign off by wishing you all a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR. I hope Santa brings you lots of nice things – however old you are, and that you have time to spend with family and friends.

Until 2009, this is me signing off…..

PS: Please feel free to share this blog with your friends, and to visit my lenses if you have a chance.

Oops – nearly forgot – I updated my Song Lyrics – Walking On The Moon by The Police lens to change the way that the lyrics are displayed. I would be interested in your comments. I got the idea from one of the lenses by Jaguar Julie and I hope you like it. I think there is still room for improvement, and then I will probably clone out the new format to all my other Song Lyric lenses.

If you are in need of some Christmas laughter, I sincerely recommend my Christmas Jokes pages which have been getting lots of traffic since I updated them to add new pictures and also put Adsense on them. Also my Funny Christmas Pictures lens, which I updated to add several videos of amusing Christmas songs that I thought were cute.

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.

My lens status as of today is as below:

LENS STATUS
Top 100: 0
Top 2,000: 3
Top 10,000: 10
Lenses: 73

NEW LENSES
The Daily Joke December 2008

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

LENSES IN NEED OF LOVE – I AM LONELY – PLEASE VISIT ME
Premiata Forneria Marconi
Song Lyrics – Madness – Baggy Trousers
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

Busy As A Bee is a good way to describe my last couple of weeks, and I have spent a lot of spare time either creating or updating web pages and lenses, as well as propping them up with different promotions. Poddyland has ended up taking 2nd place, but to me at least the blog here is important, and I like to think that I have a growing audience among both Squidoo Lensmasters and other friends from around the world.

We are coming up to the halfway point between when my girlfriend headed back to her home in England and when I go over for Christmas, which is wonderful! Having spent 9 1/2 weeks together it’s hard having to spend 2 months apart. And so being 4,500 miles apart, the weekends are still somewhat lonely, despite us both having webcams and phone calls being cheap these days, there is no substitute for being together.

The weekend as always went by far too quickly…

Friday as usual I finished work early, and as it was still nice, I headed down to the pool to get a quick workout before the sun went down. Then it was time to grab a bit to eat, and log into NASA TV in preparation for the Shuttle Launch. This is something special for Debbie and I, since we spent several days up at Cape Canaveral last October to watch a launch, and the experience is amazing. Well Friday night the skies were completely clear, and as I live on the 7th floor of a condo building and the balcony faces north, we are lined up for a great view, even though Cape Canaveral is 150 miles away. The internet feed must have been about 30 seconds behind, since the countdown from 10 down to Lift Off had only just begun when we could see the bright red glow of the rockets propelling the craft up into the skies. You could also just about make out the separation too, before it became just a shooting star and disappeared behind a cloud as it headed over the ocean. Then it was time to take a walk, which was really nice on a warm evening, strolling along the fairways of the golf course around which the condos are built. You are away from the lights and trees a bit more, so the stars shine brighter, and it’s very peaceful.

Saturday I had to get up early, and headed off to the Toyota dealership to take my car back in – 3rd Saturday in a row! The previous week they had replaced a part in the rack and pinion on my car, which cost me close to $1,200 (ouch) but led to the car making clonking noises as I trned the wheel. They took hours trying to locate the problem, and now tell me it needs new shock absorbers and engine mountings. Another $1,000, but luckily I shouldn’t have to do this for a few months, however the noises are still there every time I turn a corner, which is not good. While the car was being looked at, I took my daughters out for breakfast, then to the park, where it rained a bit, but they were having fun on the swings in the rain. However taking them back to their Mother I got into trouble for getting their clothes damp, which would cause her extra work getting them ready to go to the theater in the afternoon. Well she still had to get them changed and showered, it wasn’t going to be any extra, but as usual she has to find a reason to find fault, it’s her way… Headed back home, via Wallyworld (Walmart) to do my groceries, filled up the car ($2.13 a gallon which I am very grateful for), then hit the pool, the sauna, the pool again, and another long walk before bed.

Sunday I woke up really tired. Sometimes the sauna will do that to me, I fel sleep coming on Saturday night, but forced myself to watch the end of a football game and got overtired, subsequently I had trouble sleeping. I wish I wouldn’t do that! It’s so much better to just get a good night’s sleep. However, between watching the end of the game and trying to keep up with all my messages at Tagfoot I overdid it, and subsequently regretted it. So Sunday I didn’t do a lot until lunchtime, other than grab a bite for breakfast, washed the car, chatted with Debbie on the webcam for a while, did some promotion of my new lens I’ve Been There and also Debbies lens on Christmas Crackers, and then since the skies were blue and it was a lovely day I headed off to the beach.

The skies were blue, that’s true, but there was a coo breeze, and the temperatures were in the low 60’s. However there were quite a few people down at the beach, ranging from girls in bikinis to people wrapped up in sweaters and hoods. It’s amazing when the weather cools off how some people feel the cold and others don’t. I went from where I usually park, north up to where there is an inlet to the intracoastal waterway, somewhat over a mile, walking along the waters edge all the way, watching a few people playing frisbee, and some surfers trying out on the waves. Walked there and back, which took just over an hour, and then decided to be one of the people who were brave enough to take a dip, you could count them on the fingers of one hand… There were some good waves coming in, the tide was way out, so the water surged in strongly, great for body surfing. A bit of an undertow as well, but not strong enough for dangerous rips. I did some good body surfing (well I think I am good, but since I haven’t seen a video of myself I have no reason to think otherwise, and I have yet to hear cries of Thar She Blows which is a good thing…) Of course it was nice in the water, but the cold wind made it a little chilly getting out… Well back home, a bite to eat, watched one of my favorite shows, The Amazing Race, more attempts to catch up with my email and messages on Tagfoot, and off to bed.

Well that was my seemingly eventful weekend. I hope yours was as good or better.

SQUIDOO STATUS AND LENS UPDATES

In the last week I have been working on a new lens, the concept for came to me suddenly and so far it’s doing pretty well. The lens is I’ve Been There and it’s about some of the places that I have travveled to around the world, through Squidoo lenses. I don’t have my own lenses on everywhere, so I am hunting around to find other good lenses that fit in. Well that’s the first part of the lens, the second part is where you come in…

Other lensmasters are invited to tell the story of some of the places that they have been to, and to then submit up to 5 lenses about those places, either their lenses or from other lensmasters.

For each submission, I am creating a Text Module for the story, and a Featured Lens Module for the lenses. If you want to get fancy, send me the text/html for your module, complete with formatting, pictures, whatever, and I will be happy to add that.

I think it’s a pretty unique lens and I am hoping it takes off well. So far it looks like it might, but it’s early days yet. If you know of a lensmaster who has lenses on travel and places around the world and isn’t on the lens yet, please let them know that this lens exists. I would appreciate it. Plus, if you have some of your lenses listed, the better my lens does, the more exposure your lenses are going to get as well.

My lens status as of today is as below:

LENS STATUS
Top 100: 0
Top 2,000: 4
Top 10,000: 8
Lenses: 70

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

MY TOP 5 LENSES
The Daily Joke October 2008
My Pet Peeves
I’ve Been There
The Daily Joke Lensography
Bournemouth

I haven’t posted for several weeks because I have been too busy catching up on things since Debbie went back home to England after her 9 1/2 week stay with me, and although I had made several postings in the last month, when I came to clone the format for this post I realized that it’s a month today since my last Daily entry. WOW!

As expected with the closing of October the nights started to get darker ealier here in South Florida, and of course the clocks changed last weekend, so now it’s REALLY dark soon after I get home from work.

The weather has also cooled off somewhat, and we had a few days in the last 2 weeks where the temperature dropped to below 50 degrees overnight, reducing the temptation to take a dip in the pool after work even more. I’m not that fond of taking a dip in the pool at night – well not on my own at least, but if I don’t have the sun shining down on me to counter the cold water, I really have to be in the mood.

However with it being cooler and me living on the 7th floor of a condo block, it’s been possible to turn the air conditioning off and to leave the balcony door open all day and night, which lets a nice cool breeze blow through, so much nicer than having the air artificially cooled. Although you never know what’s going to happen overnight! You might wake up to find the temperature plummeted and you are freezing, then again you might find the breeze has dropped and you wake up in a sweat.

Football season here is winding down, and although my team Notre Dame has done better than last season, last Saturday saw them lose narrowly to Pittsburgh after 4 overtimes. All 3 games they have lost, they should not have done, such a shame. There is always next year though…

Well my earnings with Squidoo are expected to be down for September and even worse for November, but my Adsense revenue shot up to over $80 in October which is a new record. This was partly due to the seasonal traffic on my Halloween Jokes pages, and as a result so far in November my earnings are down. All more incentive to work on completing the revamps to my Christmas Jokes pages to update the format and to include Adsense links.

Thanks very much to AJ2008 for giving sending me some excellent funny dog pictures that I was able to use in my Daily Jokes For October lens, and thanks also to Just Bon for cross linking with my Song Lyric lenses and my Music And The Arts page on The Poddys Directory. As a result I have a great new jokes lens for october, and my Song Lyrics lenses are showing increased traffic.

My lens status as of today is as below:

LENS STATUS
Top 100: 0
Top 2,000: 3
Top 10,000: 8
Lenses: 69

NEW LENSES
The Daily Joke October 2008
New York City Break

MY TOP 5 LENSES
My Pet Peeves
The Daily Joke October 2008
The Daily Joke Lensography
Bournemouth
My Claim To Fame

I am sitting her at 9am waiting for the rankings to update. My lens The Daily Joke September 2008 had 27 visitors 3 days ago, 147 the next day, and 93 yesterday. The lensrank yesterday was 1,137 so I’m anxiously waiting to see if it can get close to the Top 100 today. It was my 3rd place lens yesterday, I’m sure it will be my top ranked lens today, after just 4 days. Maybe, just maybe, it’s Lens Of The Day quality…

** SHOCK HORROR OMG **
It’s 10am and the lens rank updated, but not good news at all! Although the September Jokes went from 1,137 to 575 in rank, most of my other lense plummetted by up to 10,000 places. Despite an increase in traffic, my Daily Joke Lensography went down almost 1,200 places. They must have changed the formula for lens rank, and I’m not liking it at all. Yesterday I had 9 Top Tier and 5 Second Tier, today only 4 Top Tier and 8 Second Tier, and most of my top lenses have had increased traffic the last 2 days.

Yesterday was a tough one at work for me, and also hard on Debbie, since it rained on and off most of the day, and she was stuck in the condo. No going to the pool, no chatting to the old folks who have been residents for years and years, just stuck indoors on her lonesome. She can chat to family and friends back in England of course, has the internet and television for entertainment, but sometimes it’s not enough – you just need to get outside and be around other people.

So last night we went out to eat at one of our favorite places, Sweet Tomatoes. For those of you who don’t have one of these locally, it’s a buffet restaurant with a huge (and I mean humongous) salad bar, with just about every type of vegetable you can imagine. They also have 8 types of soup, all home made, home baked breads and focaccia, pasta, baked potatoes and sweet potatoes, rice, and the best muffins ever, not to mention chocolate lava cake… Also fresh fruit, frozen yoghurt etc… With a buy 1 with 2 drinks and get 1 free coupon, the whole meal the the two of us cost just $15.09. The quality of the food is excellent, and since we both love soup and salads, it’s a great place for us to eat.

We then drove to another local outdoor mall and wandered around the Dollar Store for a while. Not so much to actually shop, but to see what’s there. Although a lot of the merchandise in Dollar Stores is low quality, sometimes you find a gem of an item, and last night it was Christmas Gift Bags. Really nice bags, large ones too, for just $1 each. So Debbie was happy, managed to get a few of these, and we got a bit of a walk in to work our meal off (because the chocolate lava cake is magical – it calls to you… and so do the muffins…).

Back then to the condo, where we spent a couple of hours catching up on email and tweaking lenses. I added some more photos to our joint New York City Break lens, which although it has been published for close to a week has only had 4 vsitors so far, and 2 of them have been US! It’s still not completed, might take another week for me to add all of my sections, and to add other links etc, but we both think it’s starting to look pretty good and we hope it makes a good read. Well there it is – out of wraps now, the link is there if you would like to take a sneak peek!

Today looks like a wet one as well, so more lens work no doubt, but tonight is also the start of one of my favorite shows, Survivor, so we may have to spend an hour tonight glued to the television for a change. My two favorite shows, Survivor and The Amazing Race will be on as from this week, and I usually try not to miss an episode, but with Debbie only here for 4 more weeks, television will be playing second fiddle this season. Fortunately she likes the shows too, and they don’t show them in England any more.

My lens status as of today is as below:

LENS STATUS
Top 100: 0
Top 2,000: 4
Top 10,000: 8
Lenses: 67

NEW LENSES
The Daily Joke September 2008

MY TOP 5 LENSES
My Pet Peeves
The Daily Joke September 2008
My Lensography
Bournemouth
Religious Jokes

September 11th is an odd day for me these days. It’s often a quiet one, reflecting back on the events of 7 years ago, for not only was this a very emotional day for the whole world, it was my son’s 21st birthday. So now every year the opportunity for him to celebrate his special day gets dampened by the remembrance of that awful day.

I was lucky this morning and managed to find him at home in England when I called on the way to work here in Florida. We had a long chat which was nice. He is usually impossible to get hold of, since he works shifts and when he is not working he is usually either out or sleeping.

My girlfriend started on our new venture yesterday, a joint lens on New York, and I am looking forward to adding my sections to this. We had such a wonderful time there, I can’t wait to see our commentary together in the same lens. Since she has the same crazy sense of humour that I do, I hope it will be a really popular lens. For a change it should be a popular subject compared with some of the lenses that we have both created.

My lens status as of today is as below:

LENS STATUS
Top 100: 0
Top 2,000: 7
Top 10,000: 7
Lenses: 66

MY TOP 5 LENSES

My Pet Peeves had some more modules added to it yesterday, plus a Squdcast, and although this was late yesterday evening I guess it did the trick, moving the lens from 6th place to #1 as far as my lenses. Bournemouth also rose slightly due to imoroved traffic and more backlinks. I’m waiting for other changes to kick in still and have more lenses to update and promote on Stumbleupon.

My Pet Peeves
Poddys Lensography
Bournemouth
My Claim To Fame
The Daily Joke – April 2008

This is an extract today from the local newspaper in my home town of Bournemouth which I thought was pretty funny.

IT’S not the usual fish and chips, but one aquatic business in East Dorset has gone to great lengths to stop its goods being turned into a takeaway.

Greenmann Aquatics at Three Legged Cross has decided to microchip its prized Koi carp after an overnight raid in July, which saw 10 examples worth £1,000 stolen.

Staff at the centre chip the fish onsite at a cost of around £15 each – small fry when they are worth £200-£500 a time.

You can read the whole article and some funny comments at The Bournemouth Echo - a great local newspaper covering the news for the Bournemouth area.

This would make a good article to add to the Fish & Chips lens that was Lens Of The Day last week.