You Like Names that Are Retro and Fashionable

You like names that are from the past but becoming modern again. Names with a strong history are very appealing to you. You’re a big believer in giving children very adult sounding names. You’re not a fan of nicknames or newfangled spellings. Some female names you might like: Audrey, Emma, Fiona, Georgia, Isabelle, Naomi, Rosemary, and Veronica Some male names you might like: Brendan, Colin, Ethan, Jared, Kenneth, Martin, and Nathaniel

I could have told you that… I mean after all, we have Grace Elizabeth and Emma Rose.

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Wild fires start with a simple spark. Whether or not its from a match, a lightning strike, an unattended campfire or a cigarette butt, it takes one little spark to set the world ablaze. Saint Catherine of Siena said that “If you are what you should be, You will set the World ablaze”. Izea, the folks who brought payperpost and paid posting to the forefront of the blogging world, hope you’ll become a prolific blogger with a myriad of topics from their SocialSpark system.

SocialSpark is the next revolution of blogging services. Besides being a ginormous marketing platform for bloggers and advertisers alike, its aiming to become a leader in social networking for blogging and seems to be well on its way.

Anyone looking to monetize their blog, make friends, find new and interesting reads or just develop a growing reader base should take a look at the new marketing trend SocialSpark is creating.

In addition to many “for pay” opportunities ranging from simple posts to full blown video/audio masterpieces, SocialSpark allows almost anyone to reach people by asking for help promoting items, posts, sites for virtually nothing more than a link in return. One of the nice things Spark is working to do is prevent the massive google spank many paid bloggers received last year.

SocialSpark unlike many of its predicessors is Search Engine Friendly. They include the nofollow tags in the links you use (which many engines are looking for these days). They’ve also got a pretty good code of ethics and like PPP pay on a fairly regular basis as well. There has been some negative feed back about some of the options for advertising (such as some embedded flash) but for the most part SocialSpark has been received pretty well.

If you’ve been looking for a good way to make some extra cash on the side (and these days, who hasn’t) don’t look too much further than SocialSpark. You might just set the world ablaze.

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During the summer months all you hear about on the radio are the cool summer concert series going on in your area. Here in Atlanta, there’s the Summer Series @ the botanical gardens, chastain, Lakewood and other venues around town. Some are really cool (anyone want to go see the B-52’s or the ASO?) others, not so much.

One I wish would come our way is the Radio Disney series at Morey’s Piers in New Jersey. We could actually take the girls to that one as well as find other things to do in NJ. I imagine that the piers is something like the boardwalk in ocean city, MD.

But anyway, the Radio Disney series would be one to take the girls to. Grace loves Hannaha Montanna, the Jonas Brothers and a ton of the other Radio Disney stars. Most days when I pick the girls up from Daycare, the XM radio is on XM Kids or Radio Disney and we all sing along and they have some cool concerts going on every weekend in July.

The coolest would be the last one of the series where Raven-Symone from Cosby and Thats So Raven as well as Mitchel Musso from Hannaha Montanna will be performing. There are also a ton of other cool stars on the list to be there. Whether you’re checking out Wildwood nj motels or you live in the area, if you go, let me know how is was and see if you can find me a Rico’s T-shirt.

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I’ve installed Fedora 9 preview on a boxen here at the HQ and so far, outside of some SEL issues preventing me from accessing the net I’m pretty impressed. Whats more impressive is that Linux is taking more news from the mainstream media.

For instance, this week in eWeek, there was a fairly decent write up on the latest release from Ubuntu. Actually extolling the goodness that is Ubuntu and how well they’ve done in coming up with a friendly, easy to use product that could be a viable alternative to Windows.

Previously, such articles were reserved for wisened old nix gurus in specialty mags, but the fact that Ubuntu earned a two page spread in eWeek (a fairly MS biased trade publication) is something to be excited about… now if only they’d switch their color schemes to something more friendly….

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Did we even have a weekend, because if we did I missed it. Between the Premier Designs Jewelery party at our house on Friday night, Grace’s Dance class and the gymnastics exhibition on Saturday and the Hawks Playoff game (does anyone believe they actually won that one??) and cleaning the guest room for grandma’s pending visit this weekend I feel like I had hardly any time to do anything. Amy’s a little out of sorts with her grandmother coming to town on Sunday. Next Tuesday, Amy, Grace and Grandma fly to NYC to catch the Little Mermaid on Broadway.

I know its a stretch for the 4 yr old to go see a Broadway play, but she’s in to TLM right now and amy is afraid that by the time it begins touring, she might not be. Besides, it will be good for the G to experience things like that. How many other four year olds can say they’ve been to a broadway play??

The following week Amy and I head to Vegas for a week. No. Its not a completely fun trip, while amy is sleeping in and lounging by the pool, I’ll be in training classes and usergroup meetings. WooHoo! Luckily, there’s nothing else big planned until November. Maybe we’ll get some time to slow down this summer and I can get some stuff done around the yard….

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So I came across a new way to get in touch with people I haven’t (or didn’t want to) talk to in years. No, not myspace, facebook or any number of other social networking sites but a new breed. One that if they can work the kinks out (like the fact that it kept refreshing in firefox) might become the best way to reach out to friends you thought had been abducted by aliens.

PeekYou’s People Search is the latest (and greatest??) web 2.0 way to find people you haven’t heard from. They claim to have over 125 million people listed on their network, and when I searched for a friend from college, I came up with three possible answers, all of which could be the guy, because they’re listed in places I know he’s lived. So Which one is it? And if I message him, will he answer? Who knows. One nice feature is the ability to “track” a person and get updated whenever their information changes. Kind of a digital stalking really.

For S&G (Shoots and Giggles) I decided to plug my name in to the peeker and low and behold, there are at least 10 other Mark Angeli’s with a web presence, however, only one has the avatar I do and all the tags I have entered. It looks like Peek You scours the social network for any information it can glean on you. The things listed for me are all the items I have on my facebook and linkedin profiles, so really, all this does is provide one central place to get the information.

With the numerous sites out there for people to log on to, there does seem to be a need for a “phone book” of sorts and peek you appears to be working on doing that. The site is pretty ajaxy (my new word of the week) and very smoothly laid out (read: web 2.0ish) and like I said outside of the refresh problem making the site almost useless in Firefox (the site is ok in Opera and IE 7) its a pretty cool tool and one I have already bookmarked for future use….

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So Amy was strolling through Youtube the other night and we came across the videos of this one poster. Some made me laugh rather hard. Some not so much. Here are a couple I thought you’d enjoy…..

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There was a point in time where I was posting multiple postings in one day. Some times, as many as 6. Of course, there has also been a time when I’ve posted as often as once a month, and then again, there have been times where this site has not often been online for one reason or another. I’ve noticed here (and on other blogs as well) that blogging, like everything else has an evolutionary cycle that is followed, sometimes more closely than others.

Blogs, it seems, start out like many other “loves” in our lives. At first, the need to populate their pages with witty banter is great. Bloggers seldom go longer than 12 or 24 hours between posts (many may fire off a rapid succession of posts in a shorter amount of time. Whether or not these posts are of the caliber needed in the blogosphere is another debate for another day). Like young lovers in a new relationship, the new blogger mostly gets a sense of belonging from posting the menu from their lunch, what they think about the bitch in the cubicle next to them or what funny thing the odd looking man did on the subway this morning on their way in to work. Its almost as if blogging gives their lives meaning. A reason to exist online and try to connect with others.

Many new bloggers feel that the work their doing is important. As if Marty Kline in Podunk, IA (thats Iowa) really cares about the street musician in San Fransisco. But the truth is he doesn’t and after months of posting and checking PR and Alexa and god knows what other rankings, the new blogger is often let down.

After a while (rather quickly if the blogger is only blogging for money and not for any real reason) the process of blogging becomes something of a chore. A “yes, I must update today, but I won’t over the weekend” attitude sets in. Posts become more mundane, regular and more of a job than anything else. Its this point of blogging that most bloggers fall in to and never seem to escape from. How many posts can you find about the pizza someone had for lunch on thursday? Or about the way their boss makes them feel unappreciated (not that its a boss’ job to make you feel appreciated). Too many.

This period is perhaps the most dangerous for a blogger. For its now that the act of blogging looses its fun. If something isn’t fun, your more likely not to do it. When blogging becomes a chore, when you’re searching for that next post instead of just freely typing to get what you want, you’re more likely to stop.

I’ve noticed, among the bigger, more popular blogs, that unless you have multiple authors or contributors writing for you, content updates are sporadic. Its not a fault of the blogger (well, some of it is) so much as the fact that blogging has become a job. Its like waking up in the morning and driving to work. Punching the clock and counting the hours until you get to go home, except that in this case, you’re keeping track of word count.

Anyone can fall in to the point where they lack the desire to blog (I think I went most of February with out posting), the hard part is finding a reason to blog again. This series is going to continue with several topics on maintaining that desire to blog. Don’t ask for a schedule of when I’m going to post them, because I just don’t know.

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The words Play ball will begin echoing around the country in a mere two weeks and it couldn’t be any sooner. Fans of MLB all over the country are getting their fantasy picks in gear and I came across the coolest site for fantasy baseball that I’ve seen (they ran football this past season and it was pretty cool as well).

What player is going to be hot? Who’s not? Who’s likely to be benched this season with injury after injury (Chipper )? Too many issues to think about when trying to figure out the key players to make up your line up. Fantasy Sports Prophet helps take out most of the guess work when it comes to picking a winning Fantasy Baseball team. They’ve done the math, crunched the numbers and figured out who the players to beat are this season and they want to help you maximize your game. Here are a few of the features of FSP:

• Web-based – access from anywhere
• Player rankings based on Predictive Modeling by PhD scientists
• Most advanced Draft assistance tool - all the data needed to make the right decision about any player
• Full season roster management including updated mid-season projections via artificial intelligence
• All stats, injury reports and major updates available from within software

If you really want to maximize your winnings this season, FSP is the tool to do it, and with the super secret code (BMC200) you can register with $10 off, so you’re already ahead on the track to some major league winnings.

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This weekend was a wild one in the ATL. For anyone who hasn’t looked at a TV or newspaper or um, anything of that sort, Atlanta and the surrounding area of Georgia was hit by barrage after barrage of severe thunderstorms and tornados this weekend. Friday night, a twister hit downtown Atlanta, striking in the core of the Tourism area (The GA Dome, CNN Center, Centennial Olympic Park…) causing major damage to the World Congress Center, the GA Dome, the park, CNN Center and surrounding downtown hotels and businesses. Several of the finer hotels in the area suffered damages as well loosing windows and more in the freak weather.

I happened to be lucky that night. I was up in the Hockey Press boxes at Phillips arena, getting ready to climb to the catwalk over the center of the arena floor to dismantle the propane used for the flame effects we were doing for the Atlanta Hawks (who won by the way). Not more than 100 yards away a tornado was busy destroying the GA dome, cnn center and other areas. Somehow, it managed to skip right by (over?) us and leave us unharmed. Lucky we were. Of course, it took a little longer to get home that night.

Saturday wasn’t much better, we were stuck in doors most of the day playing duck and cover every other hour as storm after storm blew through the area. Luckily no one in our area was hurt. Others weren’t so lucky. I heard on the news last night about a photograph, from a house in Rockmart, GA (where a man lost his life) that was found in Cornelia GA, 129 miles away from its home. Carried all that way by the wind. Can you imagine??

Atlanta will be rebuilding for a while, and while the economy will be hit in some areas, its good for those construction crews looking to keep their hammers going for a bit.

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So I’ve had EntreCard on the site for a while (almost since they debuted) and I have to say, at first the quality of visitor and sites from entrecard was good, however, they appear to be going the way of the BlogRush rather quickly as more and more spammy blogs join the entrecard crush.

At one point, I was dropping the maximum number of cards in a day I could and i saw a marginal bump in the numbers. Nothing to be over excited about (Nothing like a good digg or sphinn) but still some quality traffic. Lately though, those numbers have been dwindling and as I’m looking to promote my blog, those sites I’d advertise on are now costing in the 500’s for a day and have wait times of two weeks (many of them are full!) making it near impossible to get a spot on them (and these are sites that I know have quality traffic and content) while many of the splogs are open for business with lower rates.

I think entrecard is still a good tool for promoting your blog, but blog owners need to begin doing more to police the system themselves. Make use of the Report this Site link when you come across a spammy or nonfunctioning blog. Help keep the EC Clean.

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Someone finally printed a shirt with al gore’s image on it that I wouldn’t mind wearing! I’ve known for a while now that Global Warming is a piece of fiction made up by the hate mongering left, but now I can proudly convince everyone else of it too. What a wonderful shirt!!

Also, the Great State of NY should be commended for their choice of Governor as well as their wonderful Government run schools, where two four year olds were handcuffed and threatened with prison for not taking naps. When my four year old refuses to take a nap, we threaten to throw away her toys not send her to the clink for as many years as she’s been alive. Now i know what I’m doing wrong.

The part of the story that I think really gets me is that the preschool (yes, for the little ones not even in elementary school yet) has a security officer. He apparently is allowed to carry handcuffs and scare four year olds with threats that they’ll never see their parents again. Talk about building a love for school early. Them new yorkers know how to do it!

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“There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Chuck Norris lives in Oklahoma.” Apparently, the only time there are WMD’s in Iraq is when Norris is visiting. According to an article sent to me by the Retarded Fish and Rice Roll Norris is somewhat of a god when it comes to the men and women protecting and fighting for us in the middle east. Which is fine with me, I’ve known for a while that “Chuck Norris is the reason why Waldo is hiding.” For more Chuck facts, check out Chucknorrisfacts.com.

In other news, I managed to score two lawn seats at Jimmy Buffett’s The Year of Still Here tour this June. How freaking awesome is that?!?!?!

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One of the best things you can invest in (according to almost everyone) is real estate. I’ve been hearing commercials on the radio for a while now about deep water access lots along the Georgia, South Carolina and Florida coasts and I’ll admit, I’ve been tempted. It’d be nice to have a piece of property along the coast where we could eventually build a nice little getaway. I have to be practical though, I can’t really afford that (and if I could I would probably look for somewhere in Jamaica or the Cayman Islands). However, it doesn’t hurt to look every once in a while.

I’d like to find something near Savannah or some Downtown Charleston Real Estate with some old south charm. Something that is out of Midnight in the Garden or Gone with the wind though maybe not that big. I don’t honestly know what Amy and I would do with an old south plantation home, but a Row home in the historic district of either city would be a fun little reprieve from the hustle and bustle of every day life wouldn’t it?

Almost the opposite of a cabin in the mountains, a nice little piece of Isles of Palm Real Estate would be a perfect little getaway.

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So there’s this talking gecko on tv trying to pimp insurance to you. He started out just with auto insurance, now he’s expanded to almost everything. Maybe he’ll be selling you insurance on your new HD LCD tv next, who knows. Personally I like the ads where he’s selling Motorcycle Insurance.

I don’t have one, but he does a good job of introducing it and it really makes me want to run out and buy a bike just to get the insurance. Well. Not really. But its nice to know that in todays day and age you can get quotes for virtually anything online. Amy and I went through and took out some good insurance last year (I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned it already) to cover both of us in case anything happens, and we’re covered on the house and the cars. As a good bonus, we get discounts on home owners for having an alarm system, the cars for our driving status, and everything because we have multiple policies with the company.

It really works out in our favor for making sure our family is protected. If you haven’t thought of protecting your family, maybe you should.

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