Mar05

Trying to Get My Slice of the Pie

by misheel on March 5th, 2011 at 8:26 pm
Posted In: Marketing, Motivational, Online Marketing

I want to make money online.

I realize that more people are online every single day. More importantly, more people are buying something online everyday.  After all, just visiting a site creates money for the site owners because somewhere, someone pays for that traffic to sell something. It’s like getting paid for handing out business cards, except that the conversion from lead to sales could be instantaneous because online, getting to another website is as fast as teleporting would be I imagine.

So… I need a way to get in on this superhighway of wealth, just floating trains of gold and goods beneath my fingertips…It’s modern day Silk Road!

I have a 4 month old son that looks at me with a smile, fighting for attention… he’s my motivation. I would like to be able to give him 100% of myself, my attention, my time! How? I gotta stop delivering Chinese food in the evenings. Granted, I make more money in tips thanks to generous hungry hordes (about $25-35/hr) than I ever did working as a paralegal for the law firm or in the totally inconsistent and rough world of sales as a real estate agent, insurance agent, and loan officer. In the past, I’ve also been one of those stupid gullible people who really believed in multilevel marketing and tried several models of it. All of my trial runs ended with a faster depreciation of both my wealth and rolodex contacts, than the value of a new car driven off of a lot. (Arslan thought that was funny. I’m reading out loud as I type.)

Anyway, this quest got me asking one of my best friends to be my partner in building an online income stream of some sort together. See? I can still sell someone on an idea. haha

So 2 weeks ago, I talked to her about sending her what I thought we should first do, but I didn’t want her to waste her time. (I’m fine with wasting my own time, see?) I told her I would try things out and come back to her and tell her where I’m at.

–
Today, I wrote to Nora:

How are you? I wanted to let you know that I haven’t forgotten our conversation a couple of weeks ago about starting an online business for ourselves, and doing it together. I had a lot of ideas I had to go through before I could legitimately come to you and say, “Let’s do AB.. and Z.” Now, since our conversation, I’ve spent some money on buying domain names, comparing hosting packages, bought hosting, researched overseas suppliers, hired a blogger on a topic I wanted to specialize in, looked online for programs that teach you step by step how to make money online with affiliate marketing and building websites, signed up with various affiliate marketing websites like Clickbank, Google Adsense, tried to become an “associate” with Amazon (they don’t do Colorado), and even bought 3 already up and running information product websites from a 23-year old whiz kid in Georgia. The information products aren’t best in kind, but hey, there always seem to be someone out there willing to buy, because spending money is sometimes the only way we can engage in our dreams.

I have learned so far what kind of money I was leaving on the table with my blogs I had been on and off doing since 2009. It’s a learning curve that I must continue following, if I’m to get to my goal of doing the work in advance, and reaping the rewards thereafter, forever. So far, I haven’t found “the holy grail” yet. First result on google on a keyword. That would be it.

I’ve been disappointed in a number of ways. The websites I bought on Flippa.com from the whiz kid in Georgia aren’t going to do what I want after all. For example–the money generated in the last two months were from a forum, which means it was a one-time deal. I have to figure out a way to convert the products into cash and get my money back as soon as possible. On the other hand, it was tremendously educational to talk to Ryan Rice, who is willing to help me get there and believes I can easily reap the $500 I just spent buying her sites, within a month or two. The biggest boost here though, is knowing that if she can do it, I can do it. He-he. Even if that’s my ego talking, I figure that we all suck at doing something new, and we could use an “oomph” every now and then, even if it’s from our massive self-inflating ego. Well, you didn’t know I had such a big ego, did ya? I hide it… very well. He-he.

Anyways, I figure that I’ll have a lot more to tell you in a couple of weeks so stay tuned.

Love,

Misheel.
–

Why am I letting you know everything? Because I imagine there are a lot of “me”s out there. I figure I’ll just let it all out as I go, so more people get an idea of how a beginner like me might fail/succeed through various obstacles. I believe that the Internet is the elephant in the room for a lot of people out there. They know the fat piggy (elephant-y) bank is there, but can’t figure out how to open it. It’s like 1000 mazes and crosswords and sudoku puzzles to do in advance before you break the secret code, and even then, you don’t know how much exactly is in it.

Well, my friends… I’m attempting these 1000 mazes and crosswords so wish me well. At least Arslan and Nora does. That’s enough.

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Feb21

Hoarding Food

by misheel on February 21st, 2011 at 6:55 pm
Posted In: Social Issues, Uncategorized

I once had a roommate whose garage was full of nonperishable foods and fresh water, stocked up to the ceiling. He was proud to show me, and said, he would share with me because he cared about me. But he implored me not to tell people, “because you never know who will be willing to kill you for your food and supplies, when that day comes.” What day?

He believed that there would be a time in his life (never mind he’s 60-something claiming to be 43), where chaos would reign, governments would fail, and food would be scarce.

Hoarding Food – Crazy? Not in a Time of Food Insecurity

I lived in Communist Mongolia, where for a while in 1991 and 1992, there were shortages suddenly, in Ulaanbaatar. I saw an 8-year old die in a milk line where I stood 3 hours to receive our rationed bit of watered down milk. (Well at least it wasn’t made with hormone-fed cows, homogenized and pasteurized to give people milk allergies, diabetes, or cancer, though… but that’s another gripe).

Now, living in the US, where grocery stores are stocked always with food, it is difficult to imagine what my roommate was talking about. I mean, we do have our video footage of New Orleans grocery stores empty and places being looted. But all in all, in our safely subsidized, corn-syrup doused food industry combined with our complacency-bubble that makes us hit snooze button 3 or 4 times every morning, it’s hard to imagine.

Well here’s something that brings it closer to home. Climate Change.

How extreme weather could create a global food crisis

Maybe my crazy old roomie (who always corrected me that we’re “housemates since we don’t share a room”) is onto something.

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Jan22

The Baby Story

by misheel on January 22nd, 2011 at 9:51 pm
Posted In: Personal

If you’re family/friend, you may have heard that I had a “difficult time” going for my natural home birth that I wanted.  Well, it’s all relative, I suppose, considering some women labor for a whole month. Thank goodness mine was only 3 days.

Long before I was pregnant, I watched “The Business of Being Born,” a documentary co-produced by Ricki Lake, who was concerned that not all of the options were being accurately presented to pregnant women in America today.  After doing more homework when pregnant, I was convinced that a natural home birth would be the best way to go for me, unless there was a medical emergency.

Well, everything with my pregnancy was going smoothly except for one caveat–if I was overdue by more than 14 days, I had to go to the hospital, because at that point I would become a “high risk” pregnancy and my midwife would risk losing her CNM license. “But,” my midwife assured me, “I’ve never had a lady go into the hospital because of being that overdue.”

I tried spicy foods, pineapple, Asian, and all sorts of diet changes to encourage the baby when my due date came and went. We then tried black and blue cohosh, acupressure massage, shaman, chiropractor, breast pumping, acupuncture, castor oil, other homeopathics, walking miles everyday…

Finally, on the day before we had to go to the hospital–on Tuesday, I labored all day through castor oil-induced  diarrhea, hemorrhoids, wretching painfully wrought dribbles of what little broth I had in my stomach, on the toilet, in between strong contractions and mostly walking around since it was too painful to sit or lay down. It was a rude awakening to realize that the calm, natural homebirth was just not going to happen through all of the craziness on Tuesday, that going to the hospital ended up looking rather rosy to me. hehe I mean, with a little synthetic induction maybe the momentum of my natural body would kick in and I’d have a baby by the afternoon or at worst, evening. Women in my family have fast, 2-3 hour labors, I reasoned.

On Wednesday at the hospital, glad to be over the diarrhea and completely exhausted, I began labor there on pitocin, no pain-medication, thank you, at 5 cm dilated.  With painful back labor, the baby just not moving to the right position, things went slowly.

Around 5 AM on Thursday, I stalled at 7 cm, and 10 times the pitocin level they had started me on. I was so quiet and managing the pain so well that everyone there were surprised I didn’t have any pain management other than my breathing and hypnobirthing techniques. But the nurse midwife said it was time to intervene because it wasn’t progressing fast enough–either they turn up the pitocin or they put in an uterine monitor which was more accurate and less “subjective” than the external monitor. I opted for the latter, which turned out to be a mistake.

The process of putting in the uterine monitor knocked me off of my hypnobirthing and self-soothing methods and suddenly I was in a world of pain that I no longer could manage.  Then around 6 AM the nurse midwife said they needed the contractions to be stronger, 4 times stronger. I was in more pain than I could imagine and they wanted it 4 times stronger? I nearly passed out and started shaking–I think that’s when my fever began.

I begged for an epidural around 7 AM.  I was so exhausted and the baby was rather big-headed, stuck in the pelvis sunny-side up and couldn’t turn to descend. So through the epidural, I pretty much “willed” my lower body to move and we had several jiggling sessions with the help of the nurses and Gabriel, my baby’s daddy. Still, I labored 12 hours more through varying grades of low-medium fever and with maximum level of pitocin allowed (30 times the amount I started on) until I dilated to 9 cm. When the fever was at 103.6 and the labor stalled the nurse midwife drew the line–she said that my rising fever was indicative of possible infection, and I may have passed it to the baby… I needed to strongly consider C-Section since I was also exhausted.

It took 5 minutes of cutting.

So, at 7:59 PM, an 8 lb 9 oz baby boy, Arslan was born on November 4, through C-section, after having his mommy try every method there was to encourage him.

Of course it was worth it!!

Arslan!

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Dec24

Sleepy Wrap Review

by misheel on December 24th, 2010 at 2:11 am
Posted In: Product Review

I was thinking of ordering another Sleepy Wrap of a different color than the brown one I have from my baby shower. Needless to say, I LOVE this product.

This product is a deceptively simple, long, stretchy fabric that only an 8-foot-tall-man would be able to use without the fabric trailing on the ground.

That said, it is…

-true to description–SLEEPY wrap. My baby sleeps whenever he’s not hungry and in it, including right now. He’s 7 weeks and a super happy baby snuggled up to mom like this.

-comfortable–stretches and moves with me whatever I’m doing, so it allows for me to get things done like sewing cloth wipes… That’s what I was doing just now with my son in the sleepy wrap.

-attractive–looks cool and natural at once

-grows with baby–don’t you wish everything else did, too?

-flexible–baby can be positioned in so many ways (what other carrier allows horizontal, diagonal, vertical, facing in or out, nursing, etc. all at once, allowing repositioning without moving the baby out of the carrier? And without any belts, buckles, velcro and other bells and whistles that are just annoying)

Ok, before I sound like I’m from the company, hehe… I thought it was clever of the company to put the logo in front and center as a marker for people learning how to use the wrap. But I think it is the most clever of the company to make a product that does what it claims, so well so that a happy customer, like myself, becomes a marketer for them!

Kick-ass product so you should buy it. You’ll be happy you have it. Check it out at www.sleepywrap.com.

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Aug15

On Writing Blogs

by misheel on August 15th, 2010 at 11:34 pm
Posted In: Online Marketing, writing

Some people are good at writing. Others are good at criticizing bad writing. I’m the latter. :-)

Bad writings raise my hair in anguish and annoyance. So… about some of those bad blogs I read.
  1. Get to your point quickly. Don’t say, “Some relevant tips on writing good blogs include…” Just give the tip! Don’t talk about it.
  2. Sentences longer than 2 lines. Run-on sentences are favorites of academics and nincompoops alike. I need variety! Make sure 1 in every 3 sentences are only 4 words long and none of the sentences are longer than two lines. I hit my head against a philosophy book or two, but I don’t wanna work that hard on your blog.
  3. Check your grammar and spelling for unintentional mistakes. It’s deceptively simple and important… Save yourself a “doh!” and an “oops” moments of embarrassment. Most people online these days blog with pretty low standards, but your readers may not always have your low standards. Watch for your subject-verb agreement and your usage of “they’re” and “their,” etc. Believe me, your educated readers do mind these details no matter how brilliant your expressions are otherwise.
  4. Don’t use passive voice. For example, don’t write,
    “However, it is always recommended that generated site maps should be checked for accuracy.”
    Who is recommending? The writer, you are! So don’t hide behind those damn wordy lines.
    Instead, write:
    “However, generated site maps must be checked for accuracy.” OR “Check the generated site maps for accuracy.”
  5. Refer to your readers as “you” instead of describing them in third person, as “one must…” etc. Otherwise you sound like a pedantic preacher at best.
  6. Don’t give a list of disclaimers and qualifiers.  Like, “There can be a host of external reasons that influence the success of web sites but if we are to focus on technicalities then a few things that come to mind are…”
  7. For more personality, erase the blah words like “sometimes”, “might”, “thus”, “probably”, “perhaps”, “if you like”, “usually”, “should”, “that”, etc.  Those are academic words that have no place in a blog. They allow you to hide your personality in the academic world, where it’s important for you to appear “fair and correct. In the real world, they make you sound so damn boring and painful to read. It’s more important for you to have flair and be politically incorrect!

P.S. Ultimately, the reader should not have to work so hard. Especially to read a blog on the Internet with all its other distractions.

P.P.S. I love the sentence, “Avoid using unimaginative internal links like CLICK HERE or MORE.” It’s useful, direct, and has power.

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