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Do you listen to music when you are blogging or surfing the web? I want to share an online radio that seems pretty cool, is free, and has a great selection of music. It is called Pandora, radio from the Music Genome Project. You can check it out at pandora.com. They’ve been putting this together since January 2000. I guess I am a late comer!

Their idea was to create the most comprehensive analysis of music. How did they do that? Here’s a quote from their about page:

We set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or “genes” into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It’s not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it’s about what each individual song sounds like.

You start with a simple registration process that does not ask you a bunch of personal questions. You then start building your channel based on your favorite bands, songs, genres. I started by entering a few artist’s names and I now have a great station I enjoy listening to while I blog. Check it out.

PHOENIX IS HEATING UP !@!

This past Friday’s paper reported on the front page that this summer is on track to match last year’s record number of days at or above 110 degrees. As of August 1st last year, the 110 degree or higher mark had been reached 22 times and by the end of summer 2007, the record of 32 days was set. August 1st this year will be the 22nd day of 110 degrees or higher. Even so, I can’t imagine the 100+ degree temps I am hearing about in the Mid-west and South WITH humidity over 90%. I’ll take the desert heat with our monsoon moisture.

40 DAY BETTER HEALTH UPDATE

I am almost half way through my forty days of focusing on living healthier. Here’s a summary of the “focus”:

• an increased intake of water (distilled is my preference)
• increase eating of raw type foods (fruits and vegetables)
• avoidance of sodas, fast food, caffeine, and sugar
• a colon cleanse program (by recommendation of a co-worker, we started the Dr. Natura program) This could be a possible humorous future blog post.
• have not begun the taking of the supplements
• still eating too many (bad) carbs!

Can’t say results are life changing yet, but I do think these are all positive changes in my diet. And I am hoping the focus factor will translate to a continued moving toward a healthier lifestyle after the forty days come to an end.

There’s another pool business in the Phoenix area, and its name is Summer Breeze, owned and operated by a young man named Billy Whitmore. It’s another pool business that offers a full range of services for your pool or spas. This includes specialization in repair, in-floor cleaning systems, salt systems, filter cleaning, acid washes and the like. It’s a new company in the Phoenix area and I’d highly recommend it. He has the experience and is highly dependable, but that is not why I am recommending it. I’m recommending it because of this next. Sometime, it’s the story behind the facts that is important.

Billy is a guy I met at North Phoenix Vineyard Church and he organizes a group of guys that get together to watch the UFC fights. I know what some of you are thinking — Christians that watch the UFC? Yeah, that is what I initially thought. But this isn’t about our legalistic opinions.

I saw this young guy as a standout person. Newly married, in his early 20s, good job, he seemed to be starting out in his life journey with his head on straight. So many his age are in pursuit of things based in such shallowness and are experiencing the painful results. A couple of months ago at one of the fight nights, Billy shared that he had “lost” his job. Anyone that has received that news knows how shocking and stressful that is.

He talked a bit about how he really, at that time, did not know what he was going to do. He was putting it out there and trusting God. As we all were listening and offering what support we could, I wondered what had happened. He said he had “lost” the job. I was thinking, what did he do? He seemed like such a good guy, and I was surprised that someone would fire him.

That night we did find that what he had done did indeed cost him his job. [Read the rest of this entry…]

Denver, Colorado has Red Rocks. Phoenix, Arizona has Celebrity Theater. Why the comparison? Red Rocks is the one of if not the best place in the world to see an outdoor concert, and Celebrity Theater is one of the most interesting and best places to go to an indoor concert. After hearing so much about the coolness of seeing a concert at Celebrity, I finally had a chance to go. It is a Phoenix historic landmark.

A friend of mine mentioned the day of the sold out Mercy Me concert about checking for tickets. I thought, right. But, it was her birthday. So I first called to verify if any tickets by chance were for sale. No luck. They confirmed that not only were the tickets gone, but for the past month you could not have gotten two seats together either. Checked ebay for a late auction. Not a chance. She mentioned Craig’s List. I had never used it before but knew many people that had. And what do you know! There was a guy selling TWO tickets for face value, in the second row from the stage! I called him and made a deal to meet half way. This was just four hours before the concert was set to begin.

Here’s a pic of our seats:

Built in 1963, Celebrity has a capacity of 2,665 seats and none are more than 75 feet from the stage. The revolving stage! This is very cool. While the group plays, the stage turns, at a top speed of a half rotation per minute. Every so often it will stop and change direction.

Mercy Me put on a great show at Celebrity. They played their numerous top hits, shared many of the stories behind them, and sang a new one I really liked called Finally Home. One of the best moments of the concert was the band stepping out of character so to speak (in a good way) and playing a Tom Petty tune. Being a Petty fan and having seen him live twice, they were as good as the Heartbreakers!

Go to the next page to check out a Mercy Me video — [Read the rest of this entry…]

Last Sunday, the day ended on this note here in Arizona,

Can you really make money, let alone big money, with a blog? I’ve recently ran across two eye opening stories I want to share with you that could get you thinking in new ways about blogging.

First, let me mention that there is a lot of ignorance in the world regarding blogs and blogging. I think blogs and blogging are very much misunderstood in the same manner that marketing with the internet and the use of cutting edge technology is. Blogging is not just journaling any more. Communication and quality information is found increasingly on blogs. The software being used for blogging is becoming the most powerful interface for websites and sharing information. New websites now can be designed very effectively with a blog platform such as WordPress and for a fraction of the cost.

Yet, there are many still, especially those in the old guard, academia, and simply uninformed that continue to respond to the subject of blogging as if it were damaged goods, untrustworthy, and a plain joke. How foolish.

I read recently in the New York Times about the founder of MacRumors.com deciding this month to go into being a full time blogger. He, by the way, was an M.D. What began eight years ago as his hobby, is now a full blown six-figure a year business and a blog valued well into seven figures. His story contains some great pointers for those of us studying the how to of this medium and creating an income from it.

Don’t miss this next one. Yaro Starak posted an interview just the other day on his blog, Entrepreneurs-Journey, (click this link to read it). It is about this guy who just under two years ago started out writing about his passion and today is one of the top sites for his niche. I read the PDF transcript and will follow-up listening to the MP3 of it as I think it is that good. There is a sense of unpretentiousness in the information. Often, what you find is just hype. In this report, there was very specific information.

I encourage you to take a look at these articles. While they seem to be the example of the needle in the haystack, what might happen if more actually did it their way? I find the similarities of these two success stories very basic. Here’s my summary:

• They focused on a personal interest that was also an interest to a large audience. This is very important. Traffic, the bottom line to a blog’s marketability, will never develop from a small source.
• There was a DAILY commitment to their subject. This kept the information relevant and timely.
• The big secret to relevant search engine traffic was the wording of the post’s Title and then including some kind of originality (opinion) in the post. Interestingly, this is not the first time I have read this. This is a great future topic/discussion to have.
• Initial design was NOT important. The sites were not really attractive when they got started. It seems that the information found there was the draw. Information that was honest and opinion based.

Read them for yourselves. I would be interested in your thoughts.

Cindy Cruse Ratcliff, a worship leader at Lakewood Church, sings Sweeter, one of my current favorite songs. It’s upbeat and has a catchy sound, one of those that is sometimes hard to “get out of your head.” Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

This past March I read with interest about a couple trying to give away their Colorado Red Feather Lakes home for $100 and the best essay! I wrote about it in a blog post HERE. I have been periodically checking in on the progress of the contest. Today, I found out the contest is over.

According to the Ft. Collins Coloradoan, the contest fell short by 750 essays of the original goal of 2000. When I wrote about the content in March, there were about 500 entries. I predicted then that I thought it would fall short and the $100 entry fees returned. The owners announced this past week that they were closing the contest, returning the fees, and putting the home back on the market.

I am impressed that they came so close. I am sure it was no easy task to market the contest. Actually, with all the attention the contest brought to the property, I wouldn’t be surprised if a buyer was found this time around. People from all over the country now know about it.

What to do with the essays has not been determined. I have a cool idea about them and maybe I’ll contact the owners about it. It would be interesting.

Despite this contest falling short, I found there are plenty of creative offers by others trying to sell their homes in today’s market. One is offering to make the buyer of his home the beneficiary of a 10-year, $500,000 life insurance policy. Another offers a free vacation. Very interesting is a woman in her 40s that with the purchase of her home gives you a shot at marrying her. What?!

I now am interested in seeing if and when the Red Feather Lakes finally sells. Let me know if you hear about it.