Grim Notion’s Blog

Adwords & 5th Wheel Update

I’m impressed with what’s happened with my minimal investment in AdWords. It’s been running 7 days now and I have 5609 impressions and 20 clicks to visit my site. I would think the odds are such that I would need a lot more traffic to generate sales, however, yesterday a new customer signed up and ordered product. So far I’ve spent $12.26 for my advertising campaign, not a bad investment!

I believe this has potential. A way to generate income that is passive and requires nothing of me other than to maintain the website. The orders all go through the Amsoil Corporate website with my number in the referral and I get credit for the sale. I am working on a new look for it and have added the blog but something else always seems to be in demand of my time. I think as unemployment rises and the economy suffers, more people are going to look at self-employment opportunities and the better multilevel marketing companies make it pretty easy if you follow their plans.

Speaking of time, I am going to take the 5th Wheel I’ve been trying sell to a consignment lot on SE 82nd in Portland that thinks they can move it in a week. I’m very nervous about maneuvering that behmoth around in traffic but I guess I’ll manage. I’ve got the price down to $29,000 for truck and trailer and getting little action. I don’t have a place I can put without it blocking the driveway and few want to come out this far and look at it, so I think this will be the best. The truck alone shouldn’t be too hard to move, I’d think.

Anyway, I’ll keep the updates coming on the advertising.

A Fool And His Back

I know the saying goes a little different and talks about money, but it seemed appropriate. We have all kinds of wood piles on the property left over from the logging that was too small to sell to the mills but still would make good firewood. So yesterday I decided to cut some up. It seemed to go pretty well but by 3 pm or so my back was quite aggitated. I stacked the wood in an old loafing shed that is still here from when the people we bought the property from had their horses here and then jumped into the hot-tub. Things seemed okay until this morning. Damn, what a stupid thing to do!

Cutting wood always seems kind of spiritual to me. Like I feel more connected to the land and how it helps us live. I guess I’d do it again, as letting that wood rot would seem like a sin against Nature, however, I think I’ll look for someone who wants some firewood and let them cut it and take it if they leave me some. Stacked.

Roman Holiday and Alube Blog

I haven’t posted any writing in a long time so I thought I’d post this non-fiction piece I’m working on to submit to an online magazine.

I also wanted to announce that I started a blog for my Amsoil business and you can see it http://alube.us/wordpress. It will obviously focus on Amsoil products and synthetic lubricant news and information.

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Roman Holiday

We were nearing the end of our two week vacation in Italy; the days seemed fleeting. For me it would be back to Camp Victory in Baghdad and the 72 hour work weeks filled with one emergency after another. My wife would be heading back to Washington state and our rural home in the southwest corner of the state where she runs her own accounting practice.
This was the first we’d been able to see each other since I left this time, back at the end of November, and those 5 months had not gone by as quickly as time seemed to go during my last contract. Last year, time seemed to fly and the group I worked for made me feel like a part of the team, even though my long gray hair was in stark contrast to their shaved or extremely short hair styles and the fact that the Army personnel were mostly a lot younger than I.
This was the day we’d decided to tour the Coliseum followed by the Roman Forum. After a quick buffet breakfast at the hotel’s dining room we had the maître d’ call a taxi to take us across the main city of Rome. Traffic looked challenging, especially with the myriad scooters so popular in Italy, and I was glad that we hadn’t rented a car as this kind of traffic would have irritated me and made my wife frantic knowing my lack of patience.
Within minutes we were admiring the ancient structure with so many other tourists. It was one of those days where when the clouds hide the Sun it’s chilly enough to where you want a jacket, but when the clouds part and the Sun’s rays shine through it’s too warm and you shed it. We signed up for a tour not only for the obvious benefit of having the features and history described to us, but the value add was that instead of having to wait in line for an hour to get tickets and get in, the tour guides could go directly to the front of the line and get us in. That was a service I’d gladly pay for!
I’d watched a lot of shows on the History Channel and such about the Coliseum, but it was so big when you’re right there looking at and walking within it. It truly was a great feat what the ancients had done in constructing this engineering marvel. The tour guide was hard to understand and it was crowded with tourists but we got the gist of what was being said and moved quickly through the mammoth structure, listening to the guide through the small radios they’d issued to each of us at the beginning. Soon it was time for us to wander about and explore on our own until the tour of the Roman Forum started and we were instructed where to meet if we wanted to participate in that. I had no great desire to go on the next tour, but my wife did and I wanted to be accommodating as our time together was so scarce.
With about 45 minutes to kill, we wandered about and shot numerous photographs and studied the displays of artifacts. It was awe-inspiring to think that we were standing in this infamous place where so much history had transpired. There were numerous pieces of stone with scenes sculpted into them that had been part of the structure at some point, now displayed in the vestibule circling the second level.
The Roman Forum tour was quite interesting too and our tour guide was easier to understand and had a great sense of humor. We learned about the aqueducts that fed the city and saw ruins of what was left of one of them. We also learned about the huge trees that line the ancient roadway, planted in an effort to produce shade that enabled the  Roman troops to march more hours during the day and increase the distance they could travel dramatically. It was a testimony as to how they thought about time and the enduring nature of their empire, as these trees took some 75 years to mature to the point where this was effective.
At the conclusion of the tour, our guide entertained questions and finally was ready to leave when no one had anything further to ask. I reached into the satchel I’d bought in Florence and brought out my wallet and gave him a tip, to which he was quite grateful. Seems the whole tipping thing is more of an American idea and most Europeans don’t expect it. Still, I was always taught to tip for good service and old habits die hard. I’d bought the satchel, or man-purse as I jokingly called it, because it always seemed I had my safari-style shirt’s many pockets jammed full of stuff: Pipe and tobacco pouch, sunglasses, cell phone, etc. It seemed like it would be a good way to carry the sundry items that you always seem to need accompanying you on an outing, and it was beautifully crafted italian leather piece that would remind our vacation.
We roamed around the grounds of this park overlooking the Forum for a bit and took some more pictures of places we had hurriedly visited during the tour. It was getting warm and I was ready to for something cold to drink so we made our way toward the Arch of Constantine where we could stroll around and find a pub or catch a taxi back to the hotel. There was a period actor dressed as a Roman Centurion down at the intersection we approached after leaving the gate of the park and we thought it would be fun to have our pictures made with him. He choreographed various pictures with his plastic sword and flowing red cape and we got some great shots… then I reached back into my satchel to retrieve my wallet. Only there was no wallet. I frantically checked my pants pocket to see if I had returned it to where I’d kept it for years but the pocket was empty. I dug through my purse again and cursed myself for getting it, thinking surely I would have felt it if someone would have tried to pick my pocket.
The actor, sensing my growing angst, said, “Are you looking for this?” As he quickly produced a wallet from the flourishes of his cape. At first my heart raced, but quickly sank as I realized it was not mine. It’s funny looking back, all I could think of was that I owed the Centurion for the posing and had no way to pay him, no way to go to the ATM and get more cash, no credit card with which to pay for the hotel or our next meal. I had my passport and that was about it, however, that was something I felt very fortunate to still have.
I know I snapped at my wife when she said something and immediately felt bad about it, but we went back to the park’s gate and inquired with hope against hope that I’d simply dropped it and someone had turned it in. Yeah, right. We finally found a couple Polizia and they informed us we’d need to go to the nearest station to file a report. So as we walked the several blocks to the station, we found an ATM and used my wife’s card to withdraw as much cash as we could. Luckily she had credit card that is in her name only too so we were in better shape that I had assumed when the pure panic came over me at the realization of what had happened.
The police station was in a neighborhood that didn’t look like you’d want to hang around there if you didn’t belong. There were lots of restaurants with tables on the sidewalks and many people standing around smoking cigarettes as we made our way down the last couple blocks to the station. It was hard to tell for sure we’d found our destination as it was behind an iron fence and gate that was locked. But they must have had a surveillance camera as the gate clicked and opened a crack. The brick building looked older and stately and had a generous yard area that was landscaped well with lots of bushes and shrubs that suited the building.
The man behind the desk spoke very little English and got someone else for us who took us into his office and began taking down information. At first he seemed to be suspicious of us and I felt uncomfortable at being the victim and being treated like I was the one trying to pull a fast one. But he came around and eventually seemed to trust our story. He said he’d need to enter this into the computer and we’d have to go to a different room to use the PC, which struck me funny that every office wouldn’t have a computer in this day an age. It was painful to watch him hunt and peck at the keyboard, obviously something he hadn’t spent a lot of time performing. Eventually we had the official police report with stamps of authentication and signatures, which turned out to be totally unnecessary as no one ever asked to see it, even to get a new military ID issued to me.
To this day, I don’t have any idea when or how someone got close enough to me to get into my satchel and retrieve my wallet without me being the least suspicious. I’d been warned about pick-pockets in Italy and thought I was being careful, but obviously not careful enough. I’ve told the story to  some and most believe it was the Centurion who relieved me of my identity, money, and other items that seems to define us, especially in that moment when you lose it and realize how helpless you are. But I don’t know, he did offer and started to look for the police with us.
Today when I think about it, the wallet seems like no big deal and I can laugh about it. I’ll always remember that day and how distraught I felt. But it was worth it and I’m glad I had a Roman Holiday to remember.

Ad Campaign

I decided to try Google Adwords yesterday for my Amsoil business. I’ve had the website up and running for quite a while and had one random person find it and place an order online where I earned a commission and I got to thinking that it’s possibly a way to generate income by doing nothing more than advertising and updating the site sometimes. I’m going to add a blog to it and try and freshen it up to attract more visitors to it as well.

Since turning Adwords on yesterday afternoon, I’ve had 1028 impressions and 3 clicks through to my site. I suppose I’ll want to watch the keywords and tweak them accordingly but I’m excited to see how this works.

Wireless Phones and eBay Knobs

I decided I wanted to move to an iPhone now that Fring has a version released for it that makes it SIP capable and it will integrate so much better with my Mac than the Nokia I have. I loaded Fring on my wife’s iPhone right after it was released and it’s been working great for her Skype and Gizmo accounts. Plus I’ve had too many occassions where Gizmo on the N95 won’t register through GPRS with a generic failure message. Fring always seems to reconnect automatically when I travel away from my Wifi area at home to an area where I need GPRS.

Looking around on eBay it looked like the Nokia N95 was still worth more than I had invested in it, since the company I used to work for reimbursed $200 of the cost of it. So I listed it on eBay with a reserve and Buy It Now price. It sold for $400 which was above my reserve and would allow me to get the iPhone I wanted and still have some left over.

But, as fate would have it, I got one of those knobs that likes to bid but not pay. So after reviewing his feedback, I see the transaction before last he never paid, communicated, etc. Great. I sent him a couple of invoices, an email telling him that I’d use the eBay Unpaying Bidder action but still no response. I have to wait 7 days before I can dispute his non-payment which galls me to no end. I’ll have to check it out and see if I can just cancel the transaction and start over (my first choice), or go through the hassle of the dispute resolution process.

I’m getting more and more disgusted with eBay and all the assholes out there that make it frustrating.

Meltdown Hoax

Perhaps the so called credit crisis is just another scam by our government. Read more here.

Before and After

As some of you know, I am going to be entering the insurance business. A unique opportunity came up for me and it’s too good to resist. I intend to continue with Atira Communications as a part-time business, as the VoIP arena is something I enjoy and like to be able save people money on their phone bills, but the insurance will be my primary focus.

I’m working on the required clock hours of education now and will take the appropriate tests to become licensed in Oregon to sell life, health, property and casualty. Wanting to maximize my chances for success, I figured the long hair needed to go, so I had my friend Jack at Hello Gorgeous work his magic on me. So these two photos were taken on the day I got my hair cut, and the day after.

Coins

I finally finished cataloging my father’s coin collection with 1012 rows in the spreadsheet! I didn’t bother with dimes and probably shouldn’t have gone through the work of what I did do. I think just selling the silver by the pound would have been about as good. I did learn a lot about grading coins, though, and got pretty quick at determining the condition of the coin.

Now I just have to find a buyer.

Credit Crisis

All I hear on the TV is how no credit is available, it’s all dried up and there’s no money to lend. I also heard that Macy’s is having this big sale on men’s clothes and since I need some new suits decided to go shopping. This is really quite a sale with prices 30-50% off for their 150 year anniversary. But wait, there’s more! If you apply for and charge the purchases to your new Macy’s revolving credit card, you get an additional 20% off that price.

I’ve been unemployed since I left Iraq at the end of August and at first quickly dismissed the thought of even trying for this additional promotion, but then I thought why not? So I grabbed an application and was about to put pen to paper when the clerk tells me there is no need to do that, it’s all online. She asks me for my drivers license then has me type in my social security number and we wait. She says she has to call in and I figure the jigs up but no, they approve it! No job, no income, but great credit score and I walk out of there with two suits, shirts, pants, etc. without paying a dime, and for 70% off the normal price!

From what the media has told me, this is impossible. It really makes me wonder how much of this “crisis” isn’t just a media event. I know that companies are going broke on the sub-prime mortgages, but there does seem to be credit out there.

Better Fuel Mileage, Guaranteed

Amsoil makes a product called P.i. (Performance Improver) for gasoline powered vehicles designed to increase fuel economy, reduce emissions and restore vehicle performance by dissolving and removing combustion chamber, intake valve and injector deposits. Average improvements range from 2.3 percent all the way up to 5.7 percent. Through December 31, 2008 if you try it for the first time in your vehicle and it doesn’t improve fuel economy in the subsequent tank, Amsoil will refund the purchase price of the product.

If you’re interested give me a call or shoot me an email, 360.450.5187 or steve(at)alube.us. For more detailed information, here’s a pdf.