OH NO, THE TRAVESTY!

SOMETIMES THAT'S JUST THE WAY IT IS. Well, allow me to elaborate just a bit if you will. About 6 or 7 months ago I quit smoking for probably the third time in my life—why I started back up about 4 years ago after having quit for better than 10 years is beyond me—and instead of the old cold turkey I opted for back then, I instead opted for taking up the vape life.

Vaping is not unlike the whole smoking thing, really, when you get down to the PARAPHERNALIA of the whole thing. I mean, when I smoked you had to make sure you always had a steady supply of cigarettes, matches, lighters, back up lighters, back up cigarettes...

AND THE LIST GOES ON.

With vaping I have to have all of my appropriate "supplies." Mods, back up mods, tanks and back up tanks, coils and back up coils, batteries and back up batteries, chargers and back up chargers.

It can be quite daunting really.

But that's just the way it is. I still use nicotine, and I am still ADDICTED apparently to nicotine, and so it is impossible to NOT be able to vape lest I scale the walls and hang from the ceiling with bugged out eyeballs and a very creepy look on my face.

Well, here I am on a business trip with my primary mod's batteries having to take a dump, and so I am relying on two of my back up mods. A SMOK V8 STICK and a VAPORESSO TAROT NANOT. But I am also cheap, and that just means I have a website I go to, Vista Vapors, for all, or most of my supplies, and that has to be shipped to me. So, I am without proper batteries for my primary mod.

Luckily I DO INDEED have my V8 Stick and Vaporesso Tarot Nanot handy. But they require a bit more charging. But it IS a bit of a momentary frustration.

I happen to only have a couple bottles of juice left too.

We'll just have to see how it goes.

New Year's Day In and Out

IS IT JUST ME OR IS IT LIKE WE DON'T ACTUALLY GET ANY TIME OFF DURING THE HOLIDAYS? I mean, of course you get a few extended weekends between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day. But truth is, it's just a lot of running around, family gatherings, friend gatherings...

And all that time spent in the damn stores too, right?

By the time you get past the 1st of the month I think most of us are just about spent—and pretty much done with the whole thing. 

Last night the wifey and I of course stayed home and avoided the usual New Year's Eve crowds, but tonight will be a bit different. We have some friends coming into town from Nebraska we haven't seen in a couple of years and so we'll head over to my sister and brother-in-law's place for some food and drink and some happy conversation.

TRAVELING ON BUSINESS TOMORROW TO WISCONSIN so I think we will still keep everything low key and on an even kiel. But it should be fun. Yesterday was a relaxing enough day so I suppose we can get off our lazy butts tonight and do a little something.

A Quiet New Year's Eve 2017

SO, MY WIFE ARE JUST SIMPLE PEOPLE. When we were younger we used to go out on New Year's Eve just like so many other of the crazies. These days we tend to enjoy just having a nice dinner at home and kicking our feet up watching a little bit of TV. Besides, isn't the whole "let's go out and get hammered" thing that is so typical of so many New Year's festivities just a little bit overrated?

I tend to think so.

So we watched a little bit of Austin Powers, and then settled into some episodes of Blindspot on the DVR that we were a bit behind on. We did watch the ball drop...well, something like that as we are in the central time zone. They dropped something in New Orleans.

Not the same anyway these days without old Dick Clark is it?

So, what was for dinner? Made up some delicious corned beef brisket, and made up a batch of chopped potatoes and carrots cooked up in a mixture of broth and Worcestershire sauce.

IT WAS DELICIOUS AS USUAL TO SAY THE LEAST.

Of course, yesterday I did spend quite a bit of time earlier in the day doing some writing for my primary blog, The Springboard, and made a decision while doing that to change things up a bit for the coming year on all things I do with my blogs.

Not a resolution per se, but I suppose you could call it a change in plans for how my blogs will be dealt with in 2018. 

Now just hoping I have the winning MegaMillions or Powerball tickets in hand. There's a little bit of money going on right there right now isn't there? Wowsers. What I could do if I could get a piece of that.

Until the next entry onward and upward and Happy New Year to anyone who happens along my little corner of the web.

Totally Crazy Thought of the Day 01/01/2018

EVERYONE LIKES TO HAVE A NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION RIGHT? Well, I can tell you that I am not usually one to try to make any resolutions for the new year simply because I am all too well aware my follow through is usually not all that great.

I think it is like that for a good many of us. All good intentions, but then reality and the real life kick in.

But this is a bit different for me since it revolves directly around money and something I already like to do. Write.

What I have essentially decided to do is to change the format of my Springboard blog...not this one, but what I consider to be my primary blog. The format change is really about how I write it. It's more of a style change really than a format change. Content will still typically be the kind of content it has always been. But I also intend to add some content that I may have otherwise included somewhere else.

NOT SURE WHY I HAVE NOT DONE THAT BEFORE. Truth is, any content like writing about Bee Farmer's losing their bees certainly falls under the "random thought" category. But the idea is to increase revenue from Google ads that appear, improve my click thru rates and my overall traffic, and increase revenue from things like my Amazon affiliation and Commission Junction affiliations.

All can be done.

Essentially in doing this all of my blogs, including this one, will get a bit of an overhaul. The key here really is keeping them fresh—that is, adding new content often. Those updates will help to drive in new traffic and get eyeballs on the ads and other revenue generating things incorporated into the pages.

INCLUDING SELLING MY MUSIC!

Yes. I think my corny style of music has a place in the world as even nominal sales numbers would suggest. I can use my blog platforms as a way to better get that stuff out to the listening masses as well.

And of course I have a stupid YouTube channel as well, and I can incorporate some of that content into the blog pages as well.

Am I eyeballing a new Ferrari? Not hardly. Although you never know. 

What the real aim here is, is simply to keep the pen moving, keep the content flowing, and to increase all of the revenue that can be generated using these platforms. It's a totally crazy thought, but not so far removed from reality. A lot of people make a lot of money doing far crazier things.

BESIDES. EVEN THOUGH I AM USING A START-STOP AND BREAK METHOD OF WRITING, I can still at least write well enough to keep it all as tongue in cheek as I like, interesting, whimsical, and of course FUN!

I suppose I will use THIS blog page to update on how it all goes. Should be interesting.

September Rent Cometh On Schedule

Lo and behold my wife and I did in fact receive the September rent check from the tenants—or should I say the money order since that was what we established as the new policy for payment based on the most recent kerfuffle. It was on time and for the full amount, so that was definitely a plus. Now, all we can hope for is that the problem has been solved, and we will now receive the rent payments on a regular schedule. If nothing else, all I can do is keep my fingers crossed, and of course keep my 5-Day Pay or Quit notices and 14-Days To Vacate notices handy in the event I need to pursue that course of action.

HOPING FOR SEPTEMBER RENT

So last month turned out to be more than a bit of a hiccup as my wife and I got the rent from the tenants, and lo and behold the checks bounced. I wound up having to send them, via certified mail, a 5-Day Pay or Quit notice which basically says, "Pay up or get out." Normally I would not so quickly resort to such a thing, but it happened that since they moved in about four months ago they've been consistently late with the rent.

Okay. Let me back up just a bit here.

They paid their rent "on time," only to get a phone call a couple days later to inform me that they spent the rent, and if I could wait to cash the checks that would be great. But, last month there was no call and the checks bounced.

They did send me money orders for August rent after they received the 5-Day Pay or Quit, so that at least fixed the problem for me and for them short term. But now the question is whether or not they will be on time and make good come September rent time.

By the way, the rule is now to use money orders each and every time for rent. This way no matter what the money is good and I don't have to worry about whether or not the checks have been written, submitted, but can't be cashed because the tenants happen to be idiots and can't manage their money properly.

Right now we're looking into selling the property soon. It's been a long time owning it, and these days I don't think the money adds up to a whole heck of a lot when all is said and done. 15 years and counting and I am sure I have lost more money than I have made. But that's for another day. There's a lot of back story here that I may share as time goes on. This is only the first post here, so just doing my deed to get some content up, and get this new blog up and running.

By the way, what is this new blog? I explain it here in more detail. But in a nutshell it is simply a blog about nothing and everything in the daily life of me. I think it should be fun and interesting to post in even if at the end of the day I wind up feeling like old Jonny Fever on that wonderfully funny show back in the day, WKRP In Cincinnati. We'll see how it goes.

Onward and upward folks, and away we go.