My ATV quad runner sure makes life easier
I was outside feeding my horses tonight and listening to the purring of my atv quad engine as a traveled across the pasture to feed another herd of horses. Night and morning I crank up the quad throw two 125 pound bales of hay in the John Deere trailer hooked to the quad and take the trail out through the woods, to the pastures outback. With horses I try to keep the herd down to a dozen, so I have at least three herds and assorted singles in pens to feed all tolled, about 400 pounds a feeding.
I do have some carts and little wagons I can manually move hay with, but I tried doing without a atv, when I sold my other farm I had to let my atv go with the farm in order to close the deal, so I did do without for a while, but I have gained an appreciation for what an atv can do on a farm, just today I threw all my fencing tools, wire, posts in the trailer and did some fence work. I then drove the quad back to the barn to get the fence tester I had forgotten then back out to the job and tested the fence all within 3 min. it would have taken 15 min. otherwise.
For the past five years I have used an atv on my horse farm for feeding, hauling, horse herding, logging, and once in a while I just motor through the woods for the fun of it, don’t tell the missus as she thinks I only “work” it. I had a Polaris 350cc quad and now I have a Baja motorsports 230 cc. It is small but that is what I like as I can drive it right through tight spots in the barn or in the woods. They got them about the size of a Jeep if you want but those are too big for my use. An ATV can sure lighten up the workload for you.
Dale
Who’s been using my credit card?
I got a very disturbing phone call from my credit card company this afternoon. The call was from the creditcard fraud division asking me about some recent purchases charged to my account, some of them were mine but a few where not even familiar sounding names and a $197 charge from an online footwear store really started the bells going off in my head. I told the customer service person I was sure that I had not charged those but I wanted to make sure my wife had not used my card.
After confirming that my wife had indeed not used the card, I called the number the representative had given me, I got what I call a barely English speaking person who asked me for my credit card number, the alarm bells started ringing again, just did not feel right to me so I hung up and called the number on the back of my credit card. This meant going through the whole full meal deal, push 1 for this and 2 for that and 0 if you are lost, that’s usually my escape route as after a ten minuet wait I got a person, who I had to repeat the story to and he eventually just canceled my credit card, said it would be a week or more before I got a new one, done, great, now what do I do?
What a pain this was going to be. I like a lot of entrepreneurs use a credit card for online purchases and even subscriptions to monthly newsletters, products and membership sites. OK the fun begins, I call the first company per their how to cancel instructions and listen to a phone message tell me they can’t do carp for me and to try online at www.xyz….com a half hour later after applying for a help center account, username, password, I log in and cancel, great at this rate I might be done by midnight.
The next account was even more fun it was through 2checkout.com, it was not easy to find out how to cancel and then the same “help desk” fun and games, I just checked my email and after 3 hours, I just got notice of being actually canceled.
Gee only 6 more accounts to go, they were all on paypal, I did have to go in and add a different credit card to my account and then go to each subscription and change the card, but all and all I was very impressed with the ease of doing all this and I am now done. I did apply for a credit card through paypal and got it approved within 30 seconds, even gave me $1000 immediate online credit till my card arrives. I sure am going to make an effort to buy through paypal, whenever I can, I also sell through them, You might consider the same as I just find their system easy to use.
Need a little extra money for Christmas?
I was prowling around in my documents on my computer and found this little eBook, not sure when I bought it, apparently I paid $7 for it at one time and then forgot about it. I do that sometimes as what seems like a must have, really neat thing at 2am is often forgotten about the next day.
This is an eBook about setting up a Blogger blog, for yourself, your business or about any topic you wish. Tracey Edwards does a nice job of explaining at lot of stuff in only 35 pages, no fluff here. Included are things like:
- How to set up the blogger blog
- What you might choose to write about
- Getting keywords related to your topic
- How much to write
- How to monetize your blog with adsense,
affiliate programs, clickbank, ebay, amazon and more - Writing structure for easy reading and appeal
- Adding pictures and videos
- How to get traffic to your blog
There is a whole lot going on here in just 35 pages, Tracey has a nice easy writing style so I found it an easy read with enough information to get up and running without boring me into apathy on doing the project. Some of it I knew but sure had forgotten even those and picked up some real nice ideas to put together some cash for Christmas.
Take a look (click here) it might financially help you through the holidays.
Dale
The lure of a good system
I just realized that I really like, no make that love, a good system. I have been developing systems my whole life and never realized that is just the way I am programed or maybe even hardwired. I think it all started on the farm, I was expected to work everyday even at 6 years of age. There was a lot of work to do so I learned early that if I could organize my work, it got done better and faster, so I could play a bit with the neighbor kid.
I remember my 1st day alone as a pizza cook, normally there were at least two cooks on duty but the boss thought that since it was Sunday, it would be slow. Now I’d only had one day of training and so I was slow, slow, slow. Well the people started coming in and I ended up selling cooking and serving 109 pizzas that day, lucky one worker popped by and ran the pop and coffee bar a couple of hours for me. I developed a system of making five pizzas at a time instead of the usual one at a time, that “system” saved my butt.
When I started working in electronics, I learned how to understand and trouble shoot computer systems that are based on LOGIC, pretty cut and dried there. Using a few logic gates very complex systems were designed. I never did get a firm grasp on the internal workings of the components, but I was a very good trouble shooter and seemed to understand the system concepts better than most, actually able to see the forrest and the trees.
Simple logic gates produce big systems
The last five years I spent in electronics I set up a CAD system to layout schematics and printed circuit boards for automation systems designed for radio broadcasting. I did not realize this was just the start of putting into place viable systems to be more effective in my work and life in general.
Creating My Automatic System
An automatic system? What system might that be and how would it work? Those are the questions that come to my mind anyway, and perhaps to your mind as well. Most systems have an in and an out with some sort of feedback loop for control purposes. I cut my teeth on analyzing systems in Viet Nam. I was a crypto repairman in the 1st Infantry Division. My little black box was a very small part of the communication system, but if there was ever a problem, the operator, teletype repairman, radio repairman, or microwave repairman could just say; got to be the crypto box, and I’d have to prove otherwise. This propelled me into being quite good at trouble shooting systems and through the years I just got better at it.
1974 automation school
I even took a correspondence course on automation under the GI bill, and spent over 20 years as a customer service engineer for a radio station automation company. I forget these things as eventually the company fell on hard times and I opted to go into horseshoeing where I could be around horses and control my own destiny. Well that lasted 19 years before my body gave out so I now am looking at using my system skills again, this time on the Internet so I again can work for myself from the comfort of my own home.
So what I found an automated system to be, was simply take any process, measure results, provide feedback to adjust what is put in and rinse and repeat till the output is what you want. Naturally if you add systems together in a meaningful way, you can achieve a lot of sophisticated results, but sometime simple is the way to go as most profitable systems are by their nature at least simple to implement as long as you track results.
Simple or complex process
1908 Studebaker Horse Drawn Wagon
Well that shaft that broke on my post hole auger is $69 wholesale plus shipping up here to Whatcom County from Seattle and then there is going to be labor charges as there is a bearing and a press fir to a helical gear, and I don’t own a power press. So I am looking to sell something to pay this repair bill. I start getting mercenary and even my dog start looking leery. I got some extra saddle I could sell, but I really like them so I noticed this wagon in the corner of my barn that just might fit the bill for extra money, might even put me through Christmas.
Studebaker Horse Drawn Wagon for Sale
This is a 1908 Studebaker Wagon that was purchased at Sears & Roebuck right here in Whatcom County WA, by Carl Johnson, who used it on his farm just like we use a pickup today. Ray Sytes bought it in 1968, he saw the original invoice for like $360. Ray drove it in parades till his kids left home, then it sat in a shed for years till he put it up for auction at the Meridian Equipment auction last spring.
Now I needed that wagon like a hole in the head but it just looked so cool, I had to raise my hand. Well now I could really use the money I am going to consider selling this wagon. I am going to sell it on a you pickup basis only as I don’t know of a good way to ship an antique wagon like this. Open to any offers over $3750 give me a call if you are interested 360-398-1505.
Dale
Well that certainly was a step backwards
Ever have one of those days? This has been one of those, I had to take time away from my marketing efforts and build some fence for my horses. Tore out a stretch of old fence and cleared out a roadway around the perimeter. I was backing up my backhoe and wondered where did that log come from that I just ran over? Well that was no log, it was one of the wooden fence posts in my fence line, I try not to beat myself up too much when these things happen.
I went and got the tractor with the post-hole auger on it and drove up to redo that post. I looked back and the auger was on the ground, the shaft had simply fell apart, I went to the barn, got some tools and about 1/2 hour later had the casing apart and gear oil flowing across my workbench. Gee this shaft has bearings and splines and stuff I know nothing about, guess I know what I’ll spend the day doing tomorrow and the fence is on the back-burner for now. I quit drinking 24 years ago so that is one option I don’t have and let’s see I’d really like a cigarette, but I quit those 21 years ago. Maybe an apple fritter would smooth things over, oh! I almost forgot I’m on a diet, oh my.
I think that part that sheared is around $200 if I can get it local, guess I better put my Internet business on turbo power, as my social security check hardly buys food and gas. So I read some of my monthly Internet marketing magazines that I get mailed to me in hard-copy as I like to read them that way sometimes, as I can make notes in the margins and stack them in a pile where I know how to find them later.
This points out to me one more reason it was good to get John Thornhills new course on converting ebooks into books. Especially after a day like today I like sitting in my easy chair and reading in the comfort of the living-room, rather that starring at the monitor. Get to thinking about it that book sitting there starring at me sort of commands me to pick it up. It can show up on the coffee table, in the pickup, in the bathroom, you name it That information is available almost anywhere, check out ebook2book now.
Just easier to read
Hauling my Horses Home
Tomorrow is roundup day, I am hauling home 10 horses in the morning that will make 35 horses here at home, oh boy, I got my hands full. Most of these horses are quarterhorses I have raised from my Stallion Blue Canal Fisher, and a few select broodmares. I saw the handwriting on the wall last year and castrated Blue so I shut down the factory so to speak but I still got inventory. I am in the process of setting up a horse inventory reduction sale, sort of like afiresale without the fire.
I have sold some of my horses over the Internet for years now, but they are real difficult to download. With the high cost of fuel, it is getting more difficult to sell horses out of state because of high transportation costs. Got to get innovative here, sell the sizzle not the steak.
Dale
Learning How to Publish My Books
I spent part of my day, working my way through a course by John Thornhill on publishing my own book. There are 14 videos and I am just finished with #7 video. I have to admit that I got sidetracked with all the possibilities that open up to me. John asks: “Do you have PLR material sitting on your hard drive or have you written an eBook?” I admit it I am a plr junkie, private label rights are available in almost any field you want to mention and come in many forms, article, ebooks, reports, audio, video, you name it. Right now I am talking about the written word, because I have a whole boat load of plr ebooks clogging up my hard drive.
John got me to thinking about all the subjects I can publish books on:
- My hobbies
- My wife’s hobby
- My friend’s hobbies
- Horse shoeing
- Horse training
- How to sell horses
- How to build a good fence
- How to build a barn
- How to pour concrete
- How to sell a farm
- How to travel with horses
- All that plr sitting on my hard drive
Let’s take one idea like my wife’s hobby which is quilting, she has been doing it over 20 years and has actually had some of here quilts published in national magazine publications, even on the cover. She has a lot of quilts and let’s say I wanted to just make a gift of a book of her quilts to her for Christmas. I could easily photograph and document them and have them published is a few days, wow! Here is one of here quilts
Merry Christmas
Great idea huh!, there is real bonus here too as once I publish a book for her and I note at this time that is all I have to publish is one, as there is no minimum order, then I can sell more on my website, amazon, or eBay.
Now John is promoting low cost ways to publish your books so be thinking in terms of black and white as color publishing is more expensive but for the right market there is some great possibilities. I am going to the low cost end for my plr content and most of my how to information and be readily communicated in black and white. Take a look at how to publish your electronic books to paperbacks fast.
Dale
Quick Publishing take your eBooks to the Dirt World 1 Hour
Have you ever thought of turning your eBooks into physical books?
If the thought has never crossed your mind you should think about it. Here are some advantages of converting your eBooks to books.
# You Gain More Credibility. Yes, as a book author you instantly gain more credibility as you are seen as an expert.
# You Get More Exposure. Your book can be seen on the worlds leading online bookstores such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble. This gives your name, and therefore your business more exposure.
# You Have Another Product To Sell On eBay. With the current eBay rules you cannot sell an eBook as a digitally delivered item. However, if you convert your eBook to a book you instantly have another product to sell on eBay.
# You Have Another Way To Generate Traffic. You can still add links to your existing products in your book, just as you would with an eBook.
# You Have Another Way To Generate An Affiliate Income. Yes, you can still generate an affiliate income from your book and I will show you exactly how to do it.
# You Have Another Autopilot Business. If you choose not to sell on eBay and from your website you can still sell from websites such as Amazon and the whole process is 100% automated.
I’m guessing you may be thinking that the book publishing process is hard work. Well once you see what John Thornhill has created you will think differently. John has created a video series showing you how you can turn an eBook you have rights to into a bokk in under an hour.
But the real beauty is John figured a way to sell via online bookstores such as Amazon. And John doesn’t have to lift a finger because when a book is sold they are printed and distrubuted automatically. In fact all John has to do is spend the money he earns from the book sales.
Just visit the link below to find out more.
http://quick-publishing.trainingtip.com
Regards,
Dale Anderson
