I am currently working on a page to sell ham radio embroidery items such as hats, shirts, and the like. We can do almost anything using your designs or ours. This is a hobby of my wife's that can be a bonus to my hobby of ham radio, since we "ham operators" just love telling everyone who we are (we are just a bunch of electronic or computer nerds at heart). I have been a Ham Radio operator since I was a "wee one" at the age of 15 and have been around the hobby ever since. The hobby can be as simple or complicated as you would like to make it. I am more of what is referred to as a DX'er, as I prefer the long distance communications around the world, but there are so many facets to this hobby, I would go nuts trying to list them all here. A few common ones though are: Microwave and Satellite operations, UHF/VHF repeaters, Slow and fast scan TV (yes television), Emergency communications like ARES (amateur radio emergency services) and RACES, to name a few. "Hams" played a very important role in providing communications during hurricane Katrina and were recognized for their efforts in assisting local and national agencies with making contact with the proper authorities when all other forms of communication from the area had collapsed. You can learn more about Ham Radio from my site (www.wm8c.com) and a visit to the ARRL website (www.arrl.org). If you want a hat like the one above, just send a email to (mailto:astrid@wm8c.com) to inquire about pricing. I will have a page put together by mid-June and you can go there, which will be www.wm8c.com/ham_radio_embroidery.htm for a quote as well or go to http://www.wm8c.com/ham_caps.htm to order now!ham radio embroidery
I just spent the money on Joel Comm's new book "The Adsense Code" and I'm waiting for it to arrive. I have gobbled up all the free adsense stuff I could find and I have done all the recommended page optimizations and consequently have seen pleasant results in click through rates since doing that. I went from penny's per day to $ per day but it's a pittance of what the possibilities I think could be. I'm in the process of finding ways increase traffic to my site and that so far is slow going, so I'm concentrating my efforts on that.
Tip: Follow the guidelines laid out by Google and the many free ebooks on how to blend and place your adsense adds. It does work.
Luckily, I had quite a bit of content on the site to begin with so I am just adding to the content as I go, looking for things to write about that fits the theme of my site and soliciting articles from others that have something to share. I am going to keep my content as new and original as possible, and I want to avoid becoming one of the search results that displays the same articles over and over. I do see an advantage to taking someone else's ezine article and making it my own if I get stuck for an idea to write about but we'll see how that goes.
Tip: Set a goal to write an article a week for you site or blog and if you reach that goal, move to two a week, and so on. I you can write one a day, you'll be amazed how fast you will add content that hopefully someone is looking for. Have a goal.
I have come across a number of TOS violations in my search for ideas so I'm constantly trying to make sure that between this blog and my website at www.wm8c.com , that I am very careful not to violate anything as I don't want my account revoked. I'm looking at this as a long term investment and not a get rich quick scheme so I want my account to stay active and in compliance.
Tip: Don't cheat the system. You will probably get caught. I think you can make a respectable income from this by just following the rules. Many would laugh at me for this but I feel honesty is still the best policy.
I have so much to learn about all this and I'm constantly looking for fresh ideas and things to learn, so I hope that continues to happen.
Tip: Ask for help from the experienced people doing this like I'm doing right now :O)
adsense
It's Turkey time! Mom turkey and the gobbler chicks decided to visit the back yard recently. Being a hunter, you already know that I would have preferred to add a turkey to the freezer but also being a amateur photograpy buff, it's sometimes just as much fun to "shoot" them with a camera for a more permanent memory. I like to look for any opportunity to take pictures and that means having your camera near by at all times to be able to do that. You never know when that next opportunity is going to present itself, just like this one did. When you are taking photos of nature, they don't tend to folow any scripts so it's a must that you are ready at all times. Tip: Always remember to keep your memory cards emptied and your batteries fully charged too. I learned that one the hard way one day, when an opportunity presented itself with some deer that would have made some fantasic shots and unfortunately my batteries died. I had been using the camera the day before to take some heavy duty flash photos and I was so used to the battery in my Sony F707 lasting a long time that I didn't check it after words. Needless to say, I now have no pictures of the deer I wanted to shoot with the camera. You only get one chance so don't be caught with a full flash card or dead batteries! Till next time...photography
Well not really but we had a great time and I learned in a very "prickly" way where the Morel mushrooms wanted to hide tonight. We looked in the woods by my sons house where we had found about thirty the other night but we found some very nice sized ones tonight and many were 6 inches in size and more. You can see in this picture the base was about the size of a 50 cent piece. We had a blast and ended up finding about 30 in all again, with about 10 of those the very large ones. We found the biggest ones by dead and all but rotted elm trees that were covered all around with wild rose bushes (ouch). They seemd to love that setup for growing large. Another thing I learned about Morel mushroom hunting tonight is that the bigger ones love to harbor many, and I repeat many ants! I think the buggers got into everything when we were cutting and soaking the mushrooms. I'm glad we did it outside! http://wm8c.com/morel_mushrooms.htm for more information.
Morel
Well I finally did it. I found a patch of Morel mushrooms and was able to pick about 50 of them around the area that I found them, so I guess now I'm a "hooked" mushroom hunter. I have been loving my walks in the woods with the camera and hunting Morel mushrooms, and the walking is the best part of it all from a health standpoint anyway. I have spent a couple of hours reading all I could find on the net about where to look, where they grow, and asking veteran hunters for tips at work, and it paid off finally with some tatsy Morels to go with my steak! I think I have realized the hardest part is finding an area that hasn't already been picked over but understanding what types of forests to look for is important also. The yellow varieties are up now so we are coming to the end of th season and I'll be back out for my walk tonight. Hopefully I can find another Morel honey hole while I'm out. Need a relaxing way to excercise and enjoy walks in the woods? Try Morel mushroom hunting, it's a blast! Don't forget to stop by my website for some more fun topics too at http://wm8c.com/morel_mushrooms.htm.Morel
Well I added a new page to the web site on macine embroidery which my wife does as a hobby and a small business adventure. I added some exampels of her work on both quilts and embroidery, both of which she does with her Viking Designer 1+. She does really excellent work with this embroidery machine and I help her with the digitiziing for custom work. Stop by the site for a look at some of the things available. I added a few free patterns to give away so stop by the website for a visit and download a free pattern at http://wm8c.com/embroidery_designs.htm.Embroidery
One our neighbors peacocks decided to drop by for a visit today. He is a beautiful male but unfortunately he is not the dominant male in their group. He was out looking for his own mate but I'm afraid they are in short supply around here lol. They have a very unique call that is impossible to mistake for anything else and their plumage is just gorgeous as you can see. I couldn't get him to open his tail feathers for me but I got a nice close up shot anyway. He lives about a half mile from our house and comes over via the corn field that's between us and his home so he evidently doesn't mind the walk. We also got some rain the last two days so I hope that the morel mushroom hunting might perk up some over the next few days.birds
Spent some time today creating a new page using some of the photo's I've been taking to provide some nice high resolution (1024 x 768) nature backgrounds for your computer. Feel free to stop by the site and check these out and download them if you like. I have also provided for a full download of all 24 backgrounds for distribution from your own site as long as the watermarks and website address stays intact. Enjoy them and see you at my website!photography
Here in Michigan we have an abundant variety of birds around our area and all you really need to do to attract them is add some feeders with the appropriate seeds for the types of birds you are wanting to see. It doesn't take a long time for the birds to find your provided delights, but you will need a few different feeders to accommodate the various types of seeds needed in most cases. Some of the types of birds we try to attract are robins, cardinals, chickadees, sparrows, woodpeckers, finches, and hummingbirds. We have 5 different feeders up for these types of birds and you might need even more depending on what your needs are. Stop by the site for more pictures of nests with eggs in them...birds
Well I finally found one and I have the picture to prove it! I know this sounds like a little kid on Christmas morning but it kind of feels like it :O) We walked for quite a ways in the woods near my sons house and my daughter-in-law actually spied the the little critter and I got my long awaited photograph. This is so much fun and good excercise and I found something to go into the woods for in the spring!Morel
Well I spent another 4 hours traversing the woods only to discover no mushrooms, but I at least remembered to take the camera along and got some great shots of the srping woods in it's newly unveiling glory. I got a good walk out of the deal and some great nature photo's. You can see one of them here and the rest on my site at http://www.wm8c.com/walk_in_the_woods.htm so stop by for a visit!
Morel
If you live in Michigan, probably the second biggest activity next to deer hunting is mushroom hunting. We have just come into the month where this activity really heats up here. I was out for about 4 hours last night and didn't find that bumper harvest of morels that I was hoping for bit I will keep looking for the few weeks at least. I did find a couple here and there so I'm hoping it's just a bit early yet and we have been really dry in this area of the state for the last 3 weeks so that isn't helping but better weather is on the horizon to get the "fungus to start popping" quickly I hope. If nothing else, at least it gets me off my butt and away from the computer doing some excercise ,which I don't do enough of anyways and the nice thing about it, is that doesn't seem like your exercising this way! Stay tuned!Morel
Another of my favorite hobbies is water gardening. This past weekend I had to "slide" down (literally) on in to the pond so I could split and feed the water lilies. They are all growing out of their pots and if you want to have large and frequent blooms on your lilies, you need to feed them and keep them from getting totally root bound. If I've learned anything over the last seven years of this hobby, is never buy more plants than you need to get started because if you can keep them alive over the winter you will never run out. The two lilies I started with have now been split into 8 pots and if I do it again, I'll be throwing some away! Same thing goes for water hyacinths and water lettuce. Never buy more than a couple plants in the spring because believe me, once they get going you will be throwing them out by the wheel barrows full! I swear they sprout up over night. In the spring when the water is cool it will take a bit to get going but once they do, look out. They make great "veggie filters" too. The long roots they sprout will provide you fish a place to deposit their eggs and they just naturally filter the water keeping everything pretty and sparkling clean. They also act as sun screen for the fish and keep the algae growth under control too. You can see pictures of my ponds in their full summer growth on my website so check it out.water garden
I spent some time over the weekend taking some macro shot photo's of blossoms on the fruit trees in my front yard. I have a Sony F707 5MP DSLR and I love taking pictures with it. It's not as fancy as some of the new digital SLR cameras but I think it does a very nice job. I am adding a page to show off some the photos that I took so if you'd like to see them check the website soon. The photo I have attached here is from my peach tree and then I did a little work with Paint Shop Pro to enhance it and give it what I consider a "dreamy" feel. If you like to take pictures, make sure you take the time to "smell the flowers" and get some great shots before spring is gone!photography
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