The Poddyland News

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 just got home from taking Debbie to the airport, so there ends our wonderful 9 1/2 weeks together, and we have just over 9 weeks until we can be together again.   I don’t think I have to say that for both of us it was the best time of our lives.  We are just so good together - no arguments, we both enjoy the same things, both come up with the same ideas at the same time, and when we are together things are practically perfect.

So she is headed home, due to land in London about the time my alarm goes off in the morning.  The next week for her will consist of a trip to the US Embassy in London, and hopefully this time it will result in a visa, without which she will not be able to return here.  Then moving into her new house the following day, starting work the next week, she will be very busy, and I hope this will help the time to pass quickly.

I hope to keep myself busy by catching up with some lens maintenance, creation of new lenses, and getting back on track with promoting lenses as well as my other web sites.  Since work is also very busy, I know it’s going to be hard, but hopefully everything will pay off by the time that Christmas comes around.

I will get back on track with my lens status reports in the next few days, but the current status is nothing to shout about unfortunately.  My lenses just keep dropping in rank, and I expect for October to be earning the same as I did 6 months ago, which is pitiful.  Still, I have some ideas for making more money, which I hope will work.

Well things have been busy here in Poddyland, with work being hectic, lots of things to do, and writing to my blog has been given a lower priority, so it’s almost a week since my last entry.

Today doesn’t look much better, so I’m taking 10 minutes to just get a quick posting out…

I was hoping to get home for lunch so I could take Debbie to the beach and pick her up after work, since she is stuck indoors all day apart from going to the pool. She can’t go out if it’s raining, or if it gets too hot (which being South Florida…), so the beach is a good option. But I got stuck at work, so she has had to make do with the pool today, and I am hoping to get off work early today so we can head down to catch the sun for a couple of hours.

We are both enjoying Tagfoot, since as well as having another means to promote our lenses etc, there are some good people on there and some funny threads. They just added a feature for creating notes last night, and that has generated some really good and funny feedback.

Hoping you all have a great weekend.

As long as it doesn’t rain, our plans are to drive to the West coast of Florida on Sunday to Sanibel and Captiva Islands, where apparently the beaches are loaded with some of the best shells in the world. It will be good to see - as long as it’s not a wet day! Still, it will be a day out… We might even get some great photos and be able to create a lens out of it. Even better if we can take some good photos for use on Zazzle designs…

My lens status as of today is as below:

LENS STATUS
Top 100: 0
Top 2,000: 5
Top 10,000: 6
Lenses: 67

NEW LENSES
The Daily Joke September 2008
New York City Break

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

Well I wouldn’t call this weekend a really exciting one, but it was a good one.

Friday evening after a frustrating day at work, we went out to a local Greek run American restaurant that does good breakfasts, just to see what their evening meals were like. Both of us had had a frustrating day, with my brain about to explode because of work and not having been able to get home for lunch either. We had a good meal, and then went out for a walk along the beach.

It was still fairly crowded down there, it being a nice evening, and we hadn’t gone far when a crowd were gathering on the shore to see something. It was a baby octopus that had been washed up, only about 6-8 inches across, and it looked like it was attached to a clam shaped shell that was about 6 inches across. At least it appeared to be attached to it somehow. Still need to look that up on the internet. The ONE time we go down and don’t take the camera with us!

We walked for a good mile along the waters edge, dodging the odd jellyfish that had also been washed up, and watching surfers try out their skills as there were some good waves coming in. It was fairly dark when we got back, and the city of Deerfield Beach was giving a free concert down where we park, a Blues band, who were ok. There was a good sized crowd, and we just got out chairs out of the car and listened to the music while people watching, one of our favorite pastimes. There were a few small children dancing along to the music, and a few old folks too, plus couples walking along to the rhythm - all good fun.

Saturday I took my youngest daughter roller skating as a treat for her 4th birthday which was last week. She wanted her sister to go along, which was nice, so I had an 8 year old and 4 year old in tow. We went out to breakfast first, then to the roller rink, which fortunately wasn’t crowded at all - only a dozen people there. Well, by the time I got the skates on for the three of us my back was out! Trying to do all those laces while bending over pretty much did me in! Then of course my youngest couldn’t hardly stand on the carpet in her skates, let alone on the rink, and I haven’t skated since I was about 8, and I couldn’t then either, so it was tough trying to get her around the floor. Since she couldn’t stay upright, I had to hold her all the time, with my hand up high, which killed my back and had me straining a lot. It took about 30 minutes to complete a lap of the arena, by which time I was soaked in sweat and sore. She did improve a bit by the end though, and her older sister did pretty good too. Then I took them out for a snowball (shaved ice cone) and home to their Mom, before heading back home and down to the beach with my Princess.

The ocean was quite rough on Saturday, and whereas the water is quite shallow with a sandbar normally, this time the water was deeper. It was still fun in the ocean, but by the end of the day my back was really stiff. We went home, cooked a meal, then went and did some grocery shopping, home and to play catch up on lens maintenance.

Sunday we got up, made some breakfast, then wandered down to the beach late morning. I have neved seen the surge like it there, with the waves crashing in and water piling up the beach. Of course we like most people expected the tide to start going out, but instead the waves surged stronger at times, catching people unawares and they had to scramble as water poured all over where they were sitting.

The lifeguards were kept constantly busy with so many people letting their children play near the rocks, and even adults were being swept off their feet as the waves surged in. It was a wonder that nobody got hurt! Luckily we picked a patch of beach behind some low rocks, and although we caught a few sprays of water from time to time, the sand was higher on our part and we never once had water come where we were sitting. Once it was a near miss, but I ended up making a small wall of sand to stop any others hitting us, and the ocean took the hint and didn’t even bother. I felt a bit like King Canute, with most of the people on the beach sitting much further back than we were. We just picked the right spot! I had a great time in the water being washed around by the waves, while my Princess worked on her tan.

After the beach, we headed home, cleaned up, then I fixed us some chicken and salad which was yummy. We wandered out for the evening to Delray Beach, about 15 miles to the north of us, which looked like it had a street with some fancy shops and restaurants. I had only driven down it once before, and unfortunately last night there wasn’t too much going on, but we did look in some shop windows at some curios, and pass some good cooking smells, and best of all there was a Kilwins there. This is an ice-creamery and fudgery chain from Michigan, which now has quite a few stores in Florida as well. So we naturally of course stopped for an ice cream, had a nice walk, then home to the lenses…

My Princess did a bit more work on our joint New York lens, which is now published, but still needs some finishing touches to it. I finally got around to creating my Daily Jokes for September lens (which gives you an idea of how far behind I am). It’s almost complete, and I will give you a run down of that, plus the New York lens very soon. The Lensrank took so long to update yesterday that I’m only now publishing this, and the Daily Jokes lens is complete.

It’s funny watching us working on our lenses, 2 pillows propped up behind us, both lying on the bed, computers on our laps. It’s very productive though at times.

If you haven’t registered with Tagfoot yet, it’s a great place to make new friends and to promote your lenses. You can also earn money with Adsense on Tagfoot which is great.

My lens status as of today is as below:

LENS STATUS
Top 100: 0
Top 2,000: 7
Top 10,000: 6
Lenses: 67

NEW LENSES
The Daily Joke September 2008

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

Just a quick update for today as I am busy…

The lens rankings took until about 2pm (EST) to update, some surprises as about a dozen of my lenses have had better than normal traffic in the last 2 days, but not all of them went up in rank.  I think traffic outside of Squidoo doesn’t always count as high as traffic from inside.  But over half of my Top 40 lenses went up rather than down at least.

I now have 2 lenses perched to leap into the Top 2,000, and several about to reach the Top 10,000, so things aren’t looking too shabby, definitely better than they were a few days ago.  I think an angel might be responsible for one of the lenses rising, not sure about the rest though.  But blessings are always welcomed here

In the Lounge my thread on the Agonies of waiting for the lensrank to update has taken off today, with lots of silly song lyrics coming in, as well as photos.  So don’t forget to check there in the Chatter Room and come up with some entries yourself.

LENS STATUS
Top 100       0
Top 2,000    9
Top 10,000   5
Lenses 66

Debnet (Debbie) lives in the south of England & works in education.   She had planned to take a year off  to spend in Florida, but the plan has now changed, so she can only stay for two and a half months until the end of October.

She enjoys writing about the funny things that kids say and do and about her experiences of working in schools.  However, she keeps having brain wave ideas for different lenses and hasn’t got round to those yet.

Debbie is hoping eventually to have a mix of lenses, some more serious tied to education issues and others more light hearted.

She enjoys watching F1 Grand Prix racing, most kinds of music, watching tv, especially Big Brother, researching her family tree, spending time at the beach, food and so much more.

I hope you will find time to visit her lenses.   These are her top performing lenses, one of which made Lens Of The Day several weeks ago.

Fish And Chips
Selective Mutism
Sacred Spirit
Cornish Pasties
Social Stories
The Worst Gifts I Ever Received
Only Fools And Horses
Wonderbra

What a busy week!   Not just work, but going out with my girlfriend, booking a long weekend in New York, and of course spending time at the beach over the weekend.

Friday evening I got my hair cut, and for the first time in 15 years I didn’t color it, so now I have sides that are silvery with still some streaks of brown, but by the time the next cut comes around I might look like a short haired Santa.  Oh well… At least I still have my hair…

Unlike last weekend, which saw Tropical Storm Fay approaching, this weekend was gorgeous.  Saturday there was a whispy high cloud cover that kept the brightness of the sun down a bit and also the temperature, and the occasional darker cloud that blew past and cooled things off for a few minutes, so almost perfect at the beach.   

Sunday the weather was practically perfect too, with almost no clouds, a very calm sea, and the beach was really busy.    Both of us love to people watch, and there is always someone doing something to attract your attention. 

Sunday we got down to the beach when the tide was at it’s lowest, so it was interesting to watch people come and lay out chairs, towels, coolers etc on the flat area close to the ocean, when we knew within a couple of hours the waves would be gradually coming closer, and it only takes a boat to go past for a bigger wave to surge in and send people into panic mode.  We must have spend over an hour watching various groups of people struggle to salvage flip-flops as they kept attempting to go on boat trips, it was a good time.

Saturday night we went out to a Brazilian restaurant, where they being the meat to the table on skewers and it just keeps coming.  The restaurant was great, but my girlfriend doesn’t handle red meat too well.  She does as long as it’s not red - but the sight of blood soon had her feeling queasy.  Shame, as it was a good meal otherwise, and the appetizer/salad bar was also very good.

Well I did manage to find time to make some minor tweaks to my lenses, and the benefits have paid off a bit, with several of them now back into the top tier.  But I am still short of 10 hours a week that I need to spend on them to really turn things around. 

It gets frustrating at times, and I am sure I am not the only one to think this, but I see some Lenses Of The Day and think to myself “I have lenses as good as that”, and in some cases the lenses haven’t had a lot of content either.  Maybe my time will come, but for now I think I will have to be content with having a few in the top 2,000…  Money is more important right now than fame…

I am still struggling to earn a lot, other than through Adsense.  My earnings for the month are now close to my all time high, but in real terms this is only averaging $1.50 a day - not enough to get me very far!  But it’s progress at least.  I hope September and october see a continued improvement in the earnings.

Well here is my sad lens status… 
Hopefully I can improve on this next week.

LENS STATUS
Top 100         0
Top 2,000      8
Top 10,000    6
Lenses         60

Tropical Storm Fay is now on it’s way north from us thankfully.  We managed to take the afternoon off work yesterday, and didn’t have to be in until 10am this morning, but it really didn’t turn out to be much more than some blustery wind and heavy squalls of rain.  I’m quite thankful for that, but it would have been nice to spend the day at home today too.  My girlfriend is really trapped inside - it’s not nice enough to go out, so she didn’t leave the condo yesterday and probably won’t today either.  Might have to take a walk or something tonight if the weather clears up enough.

Well my lenses didn’t get much attention yesterday either.  I caught up on some of my email backlog, but I didn’t work on the lenses, and the rankings reflect that.  Other than a couple of them, the rankings dropped again.  I am now 3 lenses below my target for the Top Tier, so I will have to work on promoting them as we are getting close to monthend.

I was made aware also that some of the You Tube videos are not working, so I will have to go in and edit the lenses to fix that problem.  All time consuming… The more lenses you get, the more you are faced with the decision of whether to work on new lenses or on promoting existing ones.  Almost need to turn it into a business, and delegate some of the work…

Well that’s my updates for the day - all safe and sound after the storm, and with lenses in need of some TLC…

LENS STATUS
Top     100        0
Top  2,000        7
Top 10,000       8

Today is hopefully going to be a good one, but what is mostly on my mind is whether they allow my girlfriend into the country or not tonight.  She is already airborne, so I just have to wait…  It also would have been my Dad’s birthday today (he passed away almost 2 years ago), so I am hoping that the stars are on our side.

I was in a discussion about good and bad traffic yesterday, and checked my stats this morning to find that someone on Stumbleupon had reviewed my Daily Jokes For April lens, and suddenly it has had more than 50 visitors yesterday alone.  Quite a few people on Stumbleupon have given it a Thumbs Up, so somehow it got onto the list of newly rated sites and off it took.  Should be good for a couple of days at least, and it made a difference in the rankings today - it went up 443 places and is now in the Top 2,000 again.

The Daily Joke for August is still doing well, although traffic has slowed sooner than I expected and I will have to do some more promotion. 

I decided to backup my laptop last night, started later than I had hoped, and then it took a lot longer than expected, so I didn’t get anything much done until 11pm, by which time it was too late to do any lens updates.  I just caught up with some mail, and visited 4 lenses that I had bookmarked yesterday.  Left a dozen or more lenses I had marked yesterday still on the list, probably now close to 30 on there.  I will get to them eventually though.

With my The Daily Jokes for August rising up yesterday, and also my Daily Jokes For February, I now have 2 more lenses in the Top 2,000.  One of the top ones dropped 400 places though, so I have to work on that to give it a boost. 

LENS STATUS
Top     100       0
Top  2,000      11
Top 10,000      5

I should note maybe that I have a total of 16 lenses in the Top 10,000, not 11 + 16, although I wish I did!  I changed the way I report them to only show the ones in that ranking, not accumulative.

I thought it was time to get a new lens out, and I hope you get some laughs out of this one.
Some people are born to look like a Super Hero, some will never make it and shouldn’t even try.
This lens is dedicated to those who tried but failed miserably.
I hope you enjoy Super Heroes Gone Wrong, and don’t forget to vote for your favorite.