Seems google updated the PR (Google page rank) across sites and my main two here and the Portland Bill blog have been dropped a place, largely due to me not being so active the last two months or so, rather than anything else, no biggie, it will go back up soon enough but PR is largely irellevant if you don’t regularly add content, as it’s content that gets readers, not PR.

By the way, a few people mentioned they wanted updates as they happen, best way is to subscribe using RSS and the icon is on the top right of the sidebar >> over there.

People come for content, not to see what ya PR is and that is what counts.

If you have been effected, just don’t panic and worry over it, who cares really? If google are doing what they say they are, cleaning up the sewers as splork (of lost ball in high weeds) calls it, then I am sure many of the crappy sites that were hindering yours, mine whatever are being dumped so to speak, so if anything we gain in some respects. Not all negative this shit you know.

The main thing being the content being unique itself, that’s not a problem here or on my other blogs as I do write it all myself, that will always be a good thing.

Had a shitty few months I have, mind you the last two or three weeks were just crap, so it can only get better from here, can’t it?

Plenty of crap pissing me off at the moment but can’t do much other than roll with it. One thing is there are a few people who have pushed me a little too far and they will regret that, assholes.

So, at least I am now back online having had to get a new connection, not great timing but that’s sods law!

I am looking forward as it’s all I can do. Else I’ll go nuts!

Hope life is being better to you.

Back to the grindstone for me. Plenty of stuff to do.

While I had no connection I started drawing again, and even given painting a go. which I never really tried in all honesty, it’s a release and if the pics are crap, I can always do more.

Just where I’m at at the moment.

You what?

Been quiet of late… apt picture too then!

Everyone knows what that sign is I would guess… am I right?

Shitty ears, aka being deaf…

Well, it could always be worse. It does have it’s plus points too.

For me things are getting worse, sadly, been a crappy few weeks really which explains my lack of being busy anywhere… as friends have noticed.

Seems my ears are getting a bit worse, having dropped a bit the last 5 or 6 weeks, the problem is I have less hearing to lose, so I have more to lose if that makes sense?

I know my friend Serena will berate me, saying “sign of getting old” … I hear ya Serena! … pardon the pun!

It probably IS age related. Oh well. I’ll get by, always have.

But for the first time …

I am at the stage where I am in need of help in some cases, it’s got to the point I can’t hear the damn doorbell at times.

I never been one to let my crap ears beat me, as anyone who knows me knows, I have never been out the the “hearing world”, that IS my world, I grew up just like anyone else, getting on with it and I felt no different in many senses than any of my mates.

I insisted on talking using my mouth and not my hands!

Nothing wrong with signing, it was just something I never did and right from an early age I just “fitted in” you could say … I made it clear at 5 years old where I stood.

Lip-reading and talking was just swell for me.

The “deaf world” as they call it was never part of my world, I was never part of theirs. Just the way it was, is.

My mum just let me get on and she did the right thing too in my mind, she has always wanted me to be just like anyone else and getting on with it, being “normal” in a sense…. thanks mum!

Neither good nor bad, just how life has been for me, mum never joined me up to RNID or anything like that so I never really saw deaf people or their world.

Being part of an island community no doubt helped, the fact we have ONE senior school meant everyone knew me and I knew everyone else and we all knew what the crack was … the ears never really came into it, only the few idiots made it anything.

But … with age comes it’s own issues!

Rewinding back to when I was 25, I woke up one morning and slapped the hearing aid in, on … nothing!

WTF! … scared me big time, I was sharing a house in north Dorset with a friend and working in Yeovil at the time, so anyway, I told my mate and then set off for work, driving in silence was eerie!

Getting to work and not hearing the yards normal noises hit it home for me… I told my boss and left to go to get checked out at the ENT (ear, nose, throat) dept of the hospital …

I was never the same after that.

I had scans and tests at the Southampton university for weeks on end… my hearing had permanently dropped some, and I just had to get used to what it was…

Funnily enough, when I had the brain and ear scan I fell asleep in that bloody great noisy scanning machine they have at hospitals… the guy told me it had never happened before… sigh, it was so quiet and I had to be so still.

Nothing was found wrong with me (stop sniggering at the back!) and the path seemed to be leading to having a cochlea implant …

I decided not to in the end, guessing correctly that hearing aids would improve, three years later I got digital ones. Also at the time of considering it, there were little kids behind me in the waiting list and I felt my chance would be better given to one of them.

My hearing had dropped alot, from that morning of nothing some gradually come back over the months, but never at the same level again. Music changed forever.

Now, it’s happened again… got a hearing test in December… not that I need it myself to know what the reality is, it’s mainly to assess the drop.

Shit times!

Could be worse though!

Always someone who got it worse out there.

But the lack of real support in many cases out there for deaf is shocking. Of all the sense losses and disabilities we seem to be pretty low down on the support list.

I have been in touch with RNID but you know you gotta pay to be a member?

That’s not right in my view, and it’s just my view, it should be free!

Anyway, that’s how things lie with me at the moment, been a crap few weeks and not looking great in the long term considering it gets worse with age.

See what happens, nothing is gonna be the way it was.

So, that’s partly why I have been quiet lately, just not been up to any of this.

wtf?

Browsing yesterday I thought I’d go check out the gobby, witty and amusing brit on Techcrunch… aka Paul Carr and thought the fastest way would be to click the “staff” link which is at the bottom of the site… up popped this!!

Right click open in new tab for bigger picture.

Not quite what I expected from the so called “biggest tech blog” out there, techcrunch is bad for your interwebz lol… I am not linking to the site itself … for obvious reasons!

Well, it also say’s on there what site is hosting it … if they see this post… don’t attack me, chrome showed me this! Go tell the big G!

Glad chrome spots this sort of thing and stops you before you get hit.

Looking forward to seeing their OS come out, which should be soon-ish.

On a serious note, it shows how any site can be effected in a nasty way. Shame.

Ooops! Solid foundations?

The most important part of any building process? …

Most of you will agree that laying the foundations is the key to a safe solid building, without that we all know what happens.

Same as work, training is the foundation… No different with internet marketing or blogging any other endeavour online, possibly freelance work is a good place to start for anyone new, gotta say I am baffled when people expect it all to be so easy, so straightforward, so quick to success!

I got news, it isn’t… it never was, never will be either.

Sorry to burst any bubbles there, but hey ho, it’s the truth.

Not all is lost though…

There are alot of good tip sites out there to learn from yet the best way to learn is just to dive in, is it not?

Freelance work is a good way to build solid foundations I reckon and freelance work covers just about anything, online it could be writing, images and photos, web design and graphics, marketing, and so on…

If freelance work is suitable for you, you tried it and liked it, felt you could then go forth and build upon it… I think the best asset you can then sort out for yourself is your own site, showcase your work and then what you learn as you grow can also be applied to building other sites in whatever niche you do well with… OR helping others to build up their sites…

You also then have a better chance of also becoming sought after, which means your work is worth more… better income too!

Think of any freelance work as self education.

We learn more than we realise if you ask me, I forget what I know and I am sure that applies to everyone else too… right?

There are no limits other than what you put there.
So..what’s stopping you?

Or are you succeeding with freelance work and have anything to share? Please feel free to comment…

What's your focus on?

The foreground, the background?

The past, future?

The positive, the negative?

The good, the crap?

Do we even think about it half the time, even though they are all clearly there?

I thought about it when I stepped off the hamster wheel for a while, taking that breather from doing all this at times bloody frustrating stuff, need a break now and again don’t we to see the wood for the trees.

I needed to really think about it without the distractions…

… far too many things!

One was do I have an agenda, on here?

Everyone has got an agenda with everything they do, even if they are reluctant to acknowledge it, it’s there somewhere and it matters, to me at least… but I thought alot about it and realised something important but also easily enough misplaced.

Giving, what, where and how

The only thing that really counts is what we give and we do give, just by writing and putting effort into something and doing all the other crap that’s needed… promoting etc, yeah it’s enjoyable but that don’t pay it’s way, alone!

We give all on what we do, we help whenever we can, whoever we can help, however we can do that and we hope that the rewards of whatever type come back, we give in all places by promoting and hoping others help spread the word, rinse repeat…

There is no magic pill or solution to that situation other then hard work and effort, continuously no matter what people say… get behind their doors and see what they also do and you see what I say will be the truth.

But… hard work, effort, stress, mental energy!

Giving…

Where’s the getting? … ah the agenda?

I’ll have a beer please!   >>>>>>>>>>   Thanks!!  >>>>>>>>>>

On a serious note it’s not just a one way street like people assume it to be and that’s why I see more people sticking paywalls up, meaning private post and content only for those that pay (give instead of get)  thus moving away from everything being freely available from the writer (giving) and struggling with the “get”part.

Makes sense as people can’t just keep on giving and giving without any of the get, no matter what the giving or getting is… more money, readers, subscribers, fans, whatever!

Every post has an agenda, not just the blog as a whole and it’s something more of us could do better to remember, me included.

If I get ONE beer, I’ll have succeed and will cool down in the heat.

There is a great place to sit and enjoy a pint! >>sidebar!

Happy new year…

to all my readers, family, friends and strangers!

Hoping 2010 (twenty ten) is a great year for you all, remembering also those lost in 2009.

Happy new decade!

So what a decade that was, the relentless speed and growth of technology in our lives has made the “00′s” and astonishing decade, a decade that changed so much, a decade that also gave a voice to everyone, a voice that will be heard.

Most of the real change in my lifetime has come in the last decade, as a 70′s child (71) who started with a black and white tv, then when we could a colour, along came the artari game console and started the whole ride off.

Look at them now, and tv’s too, which are no fatter than the war and peace book!

It really does seem astonishing what the last decade has given us in terms of technology changes.

Today’s youngsters are so unaware of the impact, seeing as they are growing up with it all around them, they would find it hard to image the world without mobile phones!

What does the next decade have in store for us?

Whatever it is, we would be guessing wrong whatever we guessed, no doubt!

Exciting times ahead in that respect.

Last but NOT least…

Happy 80th birthday to my fantastic nan.

One in a million, no doubt about that, hoping nan is having a great time in the USA for her birthday and new year.

Love you always nan. x

Hoping everyone has a great day, time with loved ones, friends, time to be cherished.

The very best of luck in everything you do throughout 2010.

Guy Fawkes, are we not misunderstood with this man?
Having been vilified every year on bonfires all over the country for the powder plot and each generation keeping up these traditions half blindly, even sharing the moment with our kids as a celebration but never really saying why or even if they agree with it.

Have you with your kids?

Knowing what we know about those who work in that same building and what they have done to the country and indeed also having an influence on worldwide politics in some way or other, what they have done to the people, their values and what it meant to be British.

Have these people betrayed our past generations who fought, died and lived after losing loved ones to keep Britain from the clutches of outside rule?

Knowing what a shower of traitors who work in that building don’t you feel Guy was onto something?

Have those people and they are a “type” (always the higher class, ie snobs) really changed much from Guy’s time?

Did he know something we don’t?

Or have we chosen not to see it?

Turn a blind eye?

If you are going to burn a guy on the bonfire try and stick this mask on top of it…he sold us down the river with the EU, if you can’t find his mask, Blair’s will do, same agenda from both, same lack of respect for the people of the UK.

The last person to leave the UK…will you please turn out the lights!

Anchors, useful things when used the right way and that goes for all types of anchor.

Types?

The one above we obviously know and know what it’s use is, to hold steady a ship, the “anchoring” of the ship to one place.

Seems appropriate that when you consider the other types of anchoring and their meaning…
Most of will even if unknowingly have used the mental anchoring as used in NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) which is a powerful thing, you may have seen Derren Brown using it.

One way you will have experienced this anchoring is through memories.

When you suddenly smell something that reminds you of your childhood, in a sense that’s anchored in the moment of the childhood, unknowingly too, the smell takes you back, the smell IS the anchor.

It’s something I have been conscience of trying to improve over the last few months.

You can try anchoring but one thing I have to say, this NLP stuff is powerful and DOES get used for bad as well as good even if the person doing bad doesn’t realise it.

How can you try it then?

Some good information on the link above and worth reading, one simple way to try this is to see it work on another person, maybe your better half or one of your friends.

A common way to try this I read about is when you talk to someone else and get them talking about something that makes them happy, when they are visibly happy do something they see, for instance rub your chin, pinch your earlobe.

This will be the anchor and if it worked that person should feel happy if they see you pinch your earlobe, rub chin whatever the anchor was.

They may not know why they feel that way and have no idea you know why. )

Like I say, it should be used for good.

Doing it for yourself may be a little different but can be great if you get it right.

Funny enough, what I did was think of a time when I was really upbeat, feeling good and then put my hands on my forehead and rub both hands back along my hair… you know it makes me smile each time I do it.

Have you tried anchoring?

Did it work for you, or do you have any tips to share?