Business Decisions
I’ve been running this website for some time. In some ways it is like a business. There are expenses. It costs to register and host a domain from a provider. I pay for software to keep spammers at bay in the comments. However unlike a business there is no income. Five years ago I had a sweet deal as an Amazon Affiliate. I would add links to the Amazon catalog and receive a percentage of sale if someone used the link. I almost made enough in commissions to pay for the hosting fees. However I fell out of favor with them by promoting the links. My sister did promos for the site for Black Friday and I made it a point to tell everyone I knew to use my links. Jeff Bezos was pretty pissed. I got an email informing me I was in violation of the terms of service. I was banned for life from the program.
At this point I decided to add advertising to my site from Google. The idea might work out for busy sites. Google would place ads on my site and I would receive revenue for clicks and sales. Imagine my disappointment when my revenue was measured in pennies. They paid me when I reached the $100 threshold. The ads were annoying. They appeared all over the page and even obscured the menu. I wanted to get rid of them but my balance was getting just shy of the payout. It took years to get there.
Donations
Amazon was out, Adsense was annoying so why not just ask people for money? I didn’t want to be pushy so I softened the pitch a bit by stating that you would be buying me a cup of coffee. Seems friendly doesn’t it? I do like coffee.
Donations never came (until one did)
The donations never came. I was so proud of my QR venmo code and my floating coffee cup icons but the tip jar was empty. I turned the advertisements back on and they came back with a vengeance. They floated on the page like gnats blocking out menus. Then out of the blue came a donation from my cousin Terry, bless his heart. I was so elated that I killed the advertising. Readers should thank Terry for that.
Boston Post Cane Presentation
This was not a very eventful week but the town did renew a New England town tradition by awarding and Boston Post Cane to the oldest town resident, Roland Coates. It was a nice ceremony and I managed to take a few photos.
I’m Walking in the Air
I’ve been having some fun playing guitar using the app Chordify. It is a clever piece of software that analyzes YouTube music videos and produces a running display of the chord changes. I cannot read music and rely on song sheets with chord notations. The problem with these is that the chord changes are usually in the wrong location. I can usually “hear” where the change is supposed to occur but it is nice to get a visual cue, especially on instrumental tunes.
This song haunted me since I first heard it years ago on the soundtrack of the animated film “The Snowman”. I associate it with Christmas but love the melody and lyrics. Years later I heard this version of it which is more approachable on the guitar.
Daily Picture Themes
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Can we talk?
I have removed AdSense advertising from my site. The ads were annoying and cluttered up the page. However it does cost money (and time) to publish this website. If you enjoy the content, why not become a supporter? Think of iit as buying me a “virtual cup of coffee”. FYI the average cost of a cup of coffee in 2024 is $3.08.
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