The Poddyland News

South Florida has warmed up nicely, thankfully, and it’s back to being a very pleasant time of year again.  It’s nice and cool at night, not cold, and during the day the temperatures are rising to the mid 70’s with plenty of sunshine and a light breeze.  No need to put the air conditioning on, open the windows to let the fresh air in, it’s practically perfect.

The weekend was fairly uneventful, with my seeing my daughters on Sunday morning for breakfast and to take them to the park, but most of the rest of the weekend I sat in and tried to work on updating lenses on Squidoo and catching up with correspondence.  

I didn’t create any new lenses this week, however I finally got around to completing my final Song Lyrics lens, YMCA by The Village People.   I created this in July 2008 but never had time to complete it, and although it had a number of blank modules, the song has done well with the search engines and I get enough traffic so that without any promotion it’s actually the best performing of my Song Lyrics lenses.  Well now I have finished it, and think I did a pretty good job, but what is the probability that Google now drops it’s position so the traffic disappears?    As well as completing the lens, I added it to more groups, lensrolled it, Stumbled it, Tagfooted it too, so you would think things would improve…   Got any lenses related to the 70’s or Party Songs?  I would be happy to add them as Featured Lenses here.   One thing I was disappointed in, is that I had wanted to add a Featured Lens Module to highlight other lenses about Greenwich Village in New York or artists that had come from there.  Could I really find anything?  Nope!  A few lenses that mentioned it, and a few really awful lenses that I didn’t feel happy with linking to.  Maybe something good will come along in the future.

Debbie and I have also been busy working on our blog (see below), and the traffic is increasing nicely, with lots of our friends from Squidoo and Tagfoot visiting.  We haven’t added many postings to the blog in the last week, but I have lots of ideas for posts and pages – just need the time to focus on them.   

One thing I have been thinking about is Google Adsense.  Sometimes a click is worth only 1 cent or fewer than 10 cents, but at other times it can be worth a dollar or even more.   I need to do some research on the keywords that pay best on Adsense, and to try to steer some postings towards those topics, hoping to target visitors who will click on the more profitable ads.   This way we might be able to go from one to five dollars a day to fifty to one hundred dollars a day.   Here’s hoping I can find the secret sometime soon and put some new ideas to work.

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: 4
Top 10,000: 9
Lenses: 74

NEW LENSES

The Best Breakfast Food
The Daily Joke January 2009

MY TOP 5 LENSES

1. The Best Breakfast Food
2. My Pet Peeves
3. Bournemouth
4. Zecharia Sitchin
5. The Daily Joke – February 2008

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

• Song Lyrics – The Jam Town Called Malice
• Song Lyrics – Squeeze – Up The Junction
• Song Lyrics – Madness – My Girl

It’s freezing cold here in South Florida today.  Well freezing is a relative term I know.  Put it this way, the temperature when I came to work this morning was 39 degrees.  If it was in the 40’s I could have just come to work in a short sleeved shirt as usual, but since it dipped into the 30’s, I decided to put a sweater on, mostly because of the cold wind.  

It was so funny sitting in traffic, watching people smoking like crazy as they often do on the way to work, cars all fogged up because they didn’t want to have to open their windows, and then some people wearing thick winter coats with hoods pulled up over their heads, trying to drive with just eyes and nose peeking out.  I mean it was barely below 40 degrees, not Minnesota or Canada.

It’s been an odd week really so far.   Last week was tough, with it being the second full week since I returned from England, but having Monday off for Martin Luther King day, and then spending time yesterday watching the inaugaration of President Obama, it just seemed different.   Maybe in some ways it’s a relief because I was dreading something happening during the ceremony, but all went ok and the man gave a fine speech.  I really hope he will prove to be a great president, one who not only cares about the USA as a nation, but about the people, and also the world that we live in.  From his stirring speech he certainly has dreams of making big changes, and I truly hope that he can succeed.

While on the subject of the President, I saw this morning that the WHITEHOUSE.GOV web site has been redesigned.  Gone is the stuffy old fashioned web site, and in has come a sweet looking new blog, with the first of many great articles to come.  Yes there certainly is a fresh feeling in The White House already.

As for the weekend, I took my daughters out to the park twice, and to the beach (just to the boardwalk of course as it was cold), and we had a great time together. 

I also managed to create two new lenses on Squidoo.   The first I created on Friday night, having had a thought while reading about the new Twitterstorm lens format.  So I put together a lens about The Best Breakfast Food and so far it’s done really well, soaring into the Top 1,000 in a matter of days.  makes a change for me.

Secondly I thought it was about time to start putting together The Daily Joke for January 2009.  This is the twelfth monthly Daily Joke lens that I have created, and the first in a few months that has had jokes and not funny pictures.   It’s hard to find really good jokes that I haven’t used before, but having had a break I am finding some, and with the gap since the last one I created I hope to be able to use some of my newly learned lensmaster skills to make it look better.

Both Debbie and I have also been busy working on our blog (see below), and the traffic is increasing nicely, with lots of our friends from Squidoo and Tagfoot visiting.

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: 4
Top 10,000: 7
Lenses: 74

NEW LENSES

The Best Breakfast Food
The Daily Joke January 2009

MY TOP 5 LENSES

1. The Best Breakfast Food
2. My Pet Peeves
3. Bournemouth
4. Zecharia Sitchin
5. The Daily Joke – February 2008

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

• Song Lyrics – Dire Straits – Money For Nothing
• Song Lyrics – Donna Summer – Bad Girls
• Song Lyrics – The Police – Walking On The Moon

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 couldn’t believe it when I saw the rankings just now. 2 days ago after I first published it, The Daily Joke September 2008 was ranked 119,461. Yesterday it was 6,509, and today it’s 1,137! It’s now my 3rd place lens in just 3 days!

I hope you will pay a visit to this lens, if you haven’t already, and if you have any lenses related to dogs, please feel free to add them to the lens. Why dogs you ask? Well the lens is full of funny dog pictures, some of which have never been published before. So drop by please and take a peek (no not a “peke” dear – we aren’t giving away free dogs…).

This lens has had almost 200 visitors since it was published, partly due to my friends at Tagfoot, partly due to more at Stumbleupon, but largely to the members of my Laughline mailing list at Yahoo, which I have had for the last 8 years. There are some great people on this list, who would probably enjoy Squidoo a lot, since they enjoy reading about people’s lives and writing back. The Squidoo forums would suite them just fine.

It just goes to prove that blogging really does help your traffic, but it’s not just writing about your lenses or other promotions, I find that people enjoy reading about the things that are going on around you, even if it’s nothing important, just the silly daily things. That I believe is what makes a blog popular.

Well last night was one of those silly not much happening evenings, and yet it was eventful for the two of us. I came home, dinner was all ready (I have her well trained – well no not really – my girlfriend had the meal ready so that we could go out straight after), so we ate and then went out for a walk. As it common in many parts of the USA, roads are not designed to facilitate walking from one place to another, either there are no sidewalks, or like the community we live in, the buildings are surrounded by a golf course and beyond that a solid wall with no gates through it.

We decided last night to walk down the road to the local strip mall to see what was there. It’s only a small strip mall (row of shops set back from the main road for those of you not familiar with the USA), and hard to see exactly what is there by driving along. The only path through the gold course is for the golf carts to take, so we had to walk the long way around the buildings and down the main driveway. Then we walked along the shops and several medical offices, a deli and a local bar, past a run down movie theater, then stopped at a Checkers (drive-thru fast food place) and got banana milk shakes. I don’t know what it is, but in England banana shakes are very popular, but you hardly see them over here. Anyhow, we then walked through another mall section, and you couldn’t help but notice that half the shops were either closed down or had obviously very little business. There was a Thai restaurant and also a Chinese, both set back, hard to see. There was one couple in the Thai one, and nobody in the Chinese. Rather sad really. So we walked back, sneakily cut across a fairway to the buildings, half expecting the sprinklers to start up, got home and then watched tv while working on lenses and catching up on email.

Well there you are, not a particularly exciting evening in the scheme of things, but it’s often fun walking through somewhere that you haven’t been before. You see so much more when you walk, whether it’s shops or a park. We both really enjoy it.

My lens status as of today is as below:

LENS STATUS
Top 100: 0
Top 2,000: 9
Top 10,000: 5
Lenses: 67

NEW LENSES
The Daily Joke September 2008

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

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

If you haven’t registered with Tagfoot yet, this is taking off really well.  It’s a lot faster than Digg, which just seems to be getting impossibly slow these days, and a lot nicer, plus all your friends are signing up too.  People are posting some great articles on there this week.  You can also earn money with Adsense on Tagfoot which is great.

Work was very busy yesterday, so when I got home dinner was ready, and we headed off down the beach for a walk as the sun went down, then watched the full moon rise from the water.  It’s very relaxing walking along the water’s edge in the moonlight, very romantic too, except the recent storms had washed up lots of seaweed and this was washing back and forth, so you had to constantly watch where you were walking.  Lots of coral had been washed up too.

My girlfriend is now ploughing ahead with her lenses having got a new laptop over the weekend.  That means we aren’t fighting for mine in the evening or at the weekend, which is nice.  So we should now be able to both work on lenses at the same time, as well as not having to wait for each other.  I’m hoping I can now start to catch up a bit.

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 girlfriend and I are both still working on our joint New York lens, which is coming along nicely, but I think it’s going to be a monster. We have so much material to add yet, lots of photos, descriptions, advice on what to do and what to see, plus our own observations. I hope it will be a hit when it’s published.

My Pet Peeves
Poddys Lensography
My Claim To Fame
Religious Jokes
Bournemouth

If you haven’t taken a look at Tagfoot yet, drop by and see what’s happening.

Tagfoot is a bit like Digg, except it’s a lot faster and has a sweet interface too.

Lots of your fellow Squids are there already – I have a feeling that Tagfoot will be a great success once it comes out of Beta.