Entries Tagged 'Clarkes Thoughts' ↓

I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately as I’ve been in the process of trying to build some profitable projects on the web to generate some passive income.  Over last year or so I’ve read several things that recommend that you find something that your’re good at and focus on it while building a business on the web.  Well I do agree with specialization to a point, but what about those those of us that are just starting out and don’t have the capital or resources to take care of the other aspects of the business they’re building?

No matter what your going to focus on, I still think that you must have a well rounded understanding of the other aspects of the business as well.  Unfortunately these are areas that you’re just going to have to spend some time learning initially.  Then once your projects begin to grow,  maybe you can afford to outsource some aspects of your business so that you can focus on the ones that you enjoy doing most.   Yes this does result in more things for you to learn initially, but if you think about it wouldn’t that be knowledge that your glad to have down the road?

So basically it’s all up to you and the amount of work that you want to put into your projects.   I don’t think that you can learn to much initially starting out, because in the end it’s ultimately what will separate you from those that didn’t put in the additional effort.  Just remember you get out of things what you put into them and you’re the only one you can really count on in the beginning.

Wow I’m glad that I didn’t get this cell phone bill for the new iPhone. Apparently the new iPhone updates email even when its turned off and can rack up some huge charges in other countries. It looks like this user took their iPhone on vacation and upon returning home they had a $4800 bill from AT&T for the all of the international charges.

Unfortunately for the user it looks like it states something in the terms and conditions of the agreement that international usage can result in huge charges. I’ve really never been good about reading terms and conditions for stuff I sign up for. Really when it comes down to it most people don’t have time to sit down and read a long agreement and most may not understand them anyway. Well the bottom line is that terms and conditions are put in place strictly for the companies benefit, however after reading this story I’m definitely going to examine service agreements that I sign alot closer.

Wow, I can’t believe that its almost September already. Next week I actually turn 27 years old and I can’t believe it, but I’m starting to feel old! Over the past few weeks I’ve been thinking quite a bit about some things that I want to accomplish by the end of this year. It seems as though I always think about alot of stuff but I never accomplish everything that I want to. So earlier this evening I sat down and wrote a list of 7 goals that I want to accomplish by the end of this year. I read a great post from Amit Mehta about setting your own goals and thinking about them everyday that ultimately made be decide to create my own list of goals.  So now moving forward here is my list of goals in no particular order that I’m going to print out and hang by my computer for me to look at each day. On New Years Eve of this year I’m going to write a post regarding what I’ve accomplished on this list and I sincerely hope that I’ve accomplished all of them to some degree.

• Grow My Affiliate Marketing Income - I’m setting my monthly income goal of at least $2,000 a month. Now I know that may seem very small compared to some, but I think that’s a great goal to set my sights on. Currently I don’t do as well as I’d like with this, but I’ve got a lot of great ideas and I think I can definitely reach this goal.

• Improve Upon My Web Design Skills - I really do enjoy web design and I’m going to work very hard to improve my skills over the next few months. Basically my main goal is to be able to design my layouts completely with CSS as opposed to using tables for my layouts. I’ll be the first to admit that once you get into the habit of using tables for overall layout, then it gets to be a very hard habit to break.

• Learn Some Application Development - Right now this is one of my weakest areas that I want to improve upon. I do a decent amount of Coldfusion work at my day job, but I really want to get into some PHP stuff as well. I’ve always been extremely interested in PHP, but I’ve just never taken the time to sit down and really learn it. Maybe I’ll have to check out one of the books in Anthony’s Bookstore.  If I get good enough and have the time I might even just develop my own Wordpress Theme as well.

• Increase My Knowledge of PPC and SEO - These are some areas that I can definitely benefit from having more knowledge in.  Its extremely important that I continue to gain knowledge in these areas as they are constantly changing each day.   I think most likely I’ll look into some professional pay per click certification programs from Google and Yahoo to complete.  On the SEO side of things I’m going to continue to read some of my favorite SEO blogs on a daily basis and will probably sign up for a SEOmoz premium membership.

• Attract More Readers and Subscribers to My Blog - I haven’t fully decided how I’m going to accomplish this one yet, but I’ve got some ideas so we’ll just have to see how they workout over the next few months!

• Get Back Into Physical Shape - Before this summer I was actually doing pretty well with this one, but then I got busy with busy with buying a house and other things and I’ve been slacking lately.  Well its apparent that I’m not getting any younger especially with my upcoming birthday and I really just want to take care of myself and eat better to make sure I’m in the best shape that I can be.  This should not be a problem to accomplish and I plan on being in the best shape of my life by the end of the year.

• Spend More Time with My Wife - Sometime this gets overlooked by both of us since we are busy, but I’m definitely going to make every attempt to spend as much quality time with her that I can.   You never know how much time you actually have with someone, so I’m going to work as hard as I can to make the most of all the time that I get to be with her.

Well that may seem like a big list with alot of stuff,  but I’ve got confidence in myself to get it done and I’m going to work at it each day.   If you haven’t set some goals for yourself, then I challenge you to create some and see how you end up at the end of the year like me!

I haven’t had a chance to post in awhile for several reasons.  Most importantly I actually just bought a house and just moved in this last weekend.  Now I remember why I hated moving so much as it is a ridiculous amount of work, but thats the last time I ever do it myself, because the next time it will be professionally done.  Anyways I really like my new house and I will post some pics up here in the next few days.

Now that I’m getting settled in and got my internet up, I can getting back to writing some quality blog posts.  I’ve got lots of stuff on my mind to talk about so I’m looking forward to getting back into the swing of things.

Well it looks like Antbag tagged me with his “What I Would Look Like on South Park” post. If you haven’t seen it the site is pretty cool concept actually. It allows you to create a South Park character that resembles whatever you want and it gives you a ton of options to add to it. If you get a chance go take a look at South Park Studio and spend 5 minutes and design your own character for fun. So this is my interpretation of what I would look like on the show. I know it looks as though I need to get out and get some sun, but it doesn’t always work that well for me and usually it just ends up in a sunburn!

Well this was a fun break to take from redesigning my site here, but its time to get back to work.  If everything goes well I’m going to try and launch my new site design sometime this weekend, but I’ll just have to wait and see.

Ok, I know I’ve hardly been posting anything on here lately, but thats going to change in the coming weeks. I’ve been working on buying a house and I was busy most of this weekend with a friend’s wedding so my time has been limited this month. I’m shooting to have my new design for this blog up towards the end of this month, so be on the lookout for that.

Anyways on to the topic of this post. Earlier this year I saw several bloggers that wrote posts relating to “5 things you didn’t know about me”. After I read alot of these I thought that most were very interesting and I always planned on writing one myself, but I never got around to it until now. So here is my list of 5 Things You Didn’t Know About Me before reading this.

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When I was younger, I found myself thinking about this question quite often.  During that time approximately 5-10 years ago I’d have to say that the answer I always came up with was money.  Wow how my thoughts and priorities on that subject have changed over the past few years.  I think it all comes with growing up and the fact that I look at priorities in life and whats important to me drastically different than I used to.

Money is great and it does do alot for you,  but I wouldn’t trade where I’m at financially and personally in my life right for any amount of money.  Yes money still is a motivating factor for me, but I’ve got a great wife & dog, a job where I enjoy what I do each day, and great amount of friends and family.   So to answer my question, I think happiness is what motivates me at this point in my life.  Each one of the factors I listed above plays a key role in my happiness and how I motivate myself to approach life each day.  Ultimately when I look down the road  I’d like to be able to take care of my family and also be able to possibly help out those less fortunate than I’ve been in my life.

So what motivates you?

Well its been a long 3 years since my wife Amber started grad school, but last weekend she finally graduated.  She now has a Doctorate Degree in Physical Therapy from the University of Kansas Medical Center and has just started a new job here in the Kansas City area.  She only has one more hurdle to complete and that’s passing her state board exams in a couple months and I’m sure she will do great at that as well.

Anyways if you can’t already tell, I’m extremely proud of her and its definitely been a long stressful 3 years for the both of us, so this is definitely a huge accomplishment in my mind. We also had a lot of family and friends show up for the graduation celebration last weekend, so I would definitely like to say thanks to them as well because it meant a lot to both of us.   Once again, I would like to extend a congratulations to my wife Amber for the hard work and dedication she has put in over the last 3 years.

As I previously posted I was on vacation last week and it was definitely both long and relaxing. I guess that sounds kind of confusing, but I decided to do a write up of my entire vacation write here so I hope you enjoy.

Day 1 - Sunday May 13th
We had to catch a 7:25 flight out of Kansas City that morning and since we were both up late the night before I think I actually got about 1.5 hours of sleep before we had to get up. Once we got in to LAX we hopped on the shuttle to pick up our rental car from Budget. Now this is where I made the best investment on my entire vacation. Budget was offering Garmin GPS System to rent for $10.95 a day and I decided to do it as I really did not care to be lost in Los Angeles. I can tell you right now it was the best investment I made as I didn’t get lost once out there and I’m so impressed with them that I plan on getting a Garmin GPS System for myself down the road.

Once we got to the hotel in Irvine we were both pretty tired due to lack of sleep and the 2 hour time change, so we decided to lay down for awhile before dinner. We decided to try a restaurant called El Torito Grill for supper and it was some of the best Mexican food that I’ve had in a long time. After dinner we decided to check out South Coast Plaza for some shopping and of course my wife found another purse that she wanted.

Day 2 - Monday May 14 - Universal Studios Hollywood
On Monday we spent the day at Universal Studios Hollywood, it was quite a ways from our hotel but the Garmin GPS System got us there without any problems. This is the first time that either of us had been here and and we both really enjoyed it as we spent the entire day at the park, as it had a lot of great attractions and neat things to do and see. I posted some photos of some of my favorite parts of the park below.

Before you enter the park they have a city walk with some great shopping and food options.

Below is a photo of the set for the Waterworld show from the movie Waterworld. This was the best show at Universal studios and all of the actors did a fantastic show and the special effects were great as well.

The next photo of the cabin used from the John Candy movie The Great Outdoors was a highlight for me because I have been a big fan of this movie for a very long time.

If you want to see some more photos from my visit, I will post some more to my flickr gallery later in the week. Well that about wrapped up the day at Universal Studios Hollywood and the only thing I can recommend is if you go be sure to get there early because there is quite a bit of stuff to do and see in the park.

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I’m extremely excited because in the morning I’m flying to California to take a little vacation with my wife. We are heading to Los Angeles to just hang out and have a good time and celebrate our 3 year wedding anniversary on Tuesday. Next weekend she graduates with her Doctorate in Physical Therapy and as I’ve said before I’m extremely proud of her.

So I probably won’t post much over the next week, but I’m excited about some projects that I’m beginning to work on and I plan on really getting heavily in affiliate marketing once I get back from vacation and my new site design for this blog as the current one is really starting to get on my nerves.