My Blog Earned 75 Cents Today!

My blog made 75 cents today in clickable google ads!

I applied to adsense and installed the ads in the lower right hand column (under the links to other blogs etc) a few months ago and totally forgot about it. Something reminded me of it today so I went and checked it out and so far I haven't got too rich off of it... in fact I have only made money 5 days since I've installed it :(

Monday, February 28, 2005 41 pageviews 6 clicks $0.75

Wednesday, February 9, 2005 25 pageviews 2 clicks $0.35

Saturday, December 18, 2004 101 pageviews 1 click $0.34

Monday, September 13, 2004 12 pageviews 3 clicks $0.32

Wednesday, December 29, 2004 128 pageviews 1 click $0.03

Saturday, October 9, 2004 7 pageviews 1 click $0.03

The good news is that I made the most money of all today! I clicked on three ads at home and two at work and I think someone else may have clicked out there as well (it says 6). I think it tracks how many clicks come from the same computer at the same times etc so you can't just sit at your computer all day and click away.

It says I get a cheque when I reach $100 and I am currently at $1.82...

I'm gonna try to remember to click from each computer twice a day to help me get to that goal... and would love help from anyone else out there willing to click for me to raise my clickrate!!!

(This is kind of fun.. I am actually clicking everyone else's google ads when I see them as well... it's like playing secret angel or something)

Rejected Crayon Color

This is my Rejected Crayon Color...

What Rejected Crayon Are You?

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

It's been a strange weekend...

I fell asleep on the couch Friday night at about 11pm, which is kind of early for me... which led to me waking up by about 7am on Saturday morning. Since I was on the couch I just kind of rolled over and turned on the TV and VCR to start watching the television programs I taped all week... I watched for a few hours and then fell back to sleep for a couple of hours.

This became a pattern... I woke up and my sister visited for about an hour and then... I turned my VCR tape on again and fell asleep watching my shows, I woke up at about 8pm and thought I really need to get up so I walked to the grocery store and got a few things and then came home, I had a snack, rewound my tape and began watching again... sure enough I fell asleep again for a few hours.

I woke up and was quite alert. I thought it was about 11pm, so I turned on my tape again, watched for an hour and then checked the time... it was 4AM and I was wide awake. I just stayed up, cleaned the house a little bit and finished my shows finally WITHOUT falling asleep. I dozed off again by about 7am and just got up at about 11am this morning.

I literally have pretty much slept my weekend away. I must have needed to catch up on the sleep or something. I'm going to stay up and force myself to go to bed by about midnight so I can get off this crazy schedule I have gotten myself on!

What A Wonderful World

I had an interesting conversation at work today, and on the drive home I began to think about it once again...

A co-worker and I were sitting on the couches in the phone room at work looking at the paper when he turned to me and asked me what I thought about Peter Jennings. I responded that I thought he was a popular news reporter. He asked if I thought he was a respectable news reporter, so I said I thought he was just a news reporter.

He then pointed out an advertisement that Petter Jennings would be talking about the increase of UFO sightings tonight. I have seen it reported that there is actually a 40% increase in the reported sitings of UFO's in the last year which is substantial so I told him that it didn't surprise me... but it really surprised him that Peter Jennings would do a story like that... if fact he said but it's Peter Jennings not Geraldo or Oprah.

That conversation led into a conversation about whether we believed in UFO's and if they were here. We agreed that if they were here they are obviously not hostile since they would have already destroyed us... but he believed that an advanced civilization would have no interest in us therefore there were no UFO's here... I told him that I did believe in UFO's and that I thought that they probably were here, and that they would be interested in us not for our knowledge and wise ways but maybe for other reasons that have nothing to do with science or advancement... that is where we left the conversation.

On the way home I got to thinking about it again and about how we would really look to an outside civilization looking in... I think they would shake their head at our Governments and how we have organized ourselves, I think they would shake their head at our wars and the meanings behind why we argue and fight, I think they would shake their heads at our greed, the hoarding of goods, homelessness, starvation, and alot of the other things that go on...

Then I started to wonder why we don't do better, or at least try to do things differently... no one is super happy with how things work but we continue to do the same things over and over and over again... We say that we don't agree with corruption but we expect it of our politicians, we excuse it when it benefits us. It was depressing...

Then almost like someone wanted to answer me back Louie Armstrong came on the radio to remind me that while there is alot of crap in this world there is some good stuff and hope for better things as well...

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself,
what a wonderful world

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

The colours of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shakin' hands, sayin' "How do you do?"
They're really saying "I love you"

I hear babies cryin', I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
Yes, I think to myself, what a wonderful world

Jack May Be Gone :(

I have my suspicions that my favorite blog in the whole wide world may have come to an end today... Jack is a narcotics officer in Texas, who has some really interesting things to say some days, and some of the greatest life stories I have ever read...

It's hard to tell you exactly what it is about Jack's blog that makes it so great, but it is the first site that I check every time I sit at the computer, just to see what issue or event he is ranting about for the day... somedays I agree with him, and others I disagree, but I understand why he feels the way he does (for example Jack hates cats... and I understand why HE would... but I could never imagine ever experiencing what he has with cats and I love them... maybe we have different cats here in Canada... and we don't have cat fever!)

Jack was worried that someone may stumble on his blog at work and that he would be reprimanded for having it. I really hope that didn't happen... and if it did I REALLY hope that he doesn't suffer for it. He really shouldn't because he has always been really respectful and careful not to use real names or facts or breached confidentiality. It really sucks that you can actually be fired or reprimanded for having a place on the net to vent your thoughts and tell your stories. I TOTALLY think that you should be 100% responsible and liable for those things you do write (especially if you decide to write cruel or vindictive things about an individual)... but it should not be frowned upon just for having a blog.

Luckily I have been quite open and honest about my blog at work right from the get go... I often pull it up at work and even force most of my co-workers to visit it... including my supervisor and management. I just can't help it since I feel the need to show off my pictures and posts!

I really hope that this is not the last we hear of you Jack you are truly an American Hero, one of the most honorable Americans I have ever (kind of) met. I was so excited the day I noticed my blog up on the link section of your blog! If it is the end of your blog I do hope that we see the occasional comment here and there so we know you are old there fighting crime and doing good... This really really really really really SUCKS... we're losing all the really great ones!

A Test For The Cadets

I wrote up an exam for the level one cadets last week and have been procrastinating typing it up and making up the "other" multiple choice options. It is a test on general cadet knowledge so I was checking out other website to see if I could find some other squadrons GCK test and also to get pictures and logos for my test.

I would show you the final result but for some strange reason my photoshop has decided to no longer work and this REALLY upsets me! It loads about half way and then *disappears*... I have uninstalled and reinstalled the program but still the same thing. It really sucks because I really like using photoshop to fix up and manipulate photos!

Anyways...I found this really cool picture of cadets training from the Canadian Air Cadet Magazine back in 1941.

I thought it was kind of cute... when I was a cadet we were still in the green uniforms, but our greens looked almost identical to the current blue uniforms. I thought the pictures were cool and thought I would share the rest of the magazine is available her at Blast From The Past.

Family Day

Alberta Family Day: "Alberta Family Day is celebrated on the third Monday of February. It is a statutory holiday in Alberta.
Alberta Family Day was declared to recognize the values held by the pioneers who built Alberta and the values of home and family."

So today is Family day here in Alberta which means that it is a holiday for most people. My sister had to work because for some reason the phone company is not Albertan so they don't have to honor it or something.

I didn't see my family today but I've thought about them if that count's for anything...

My neighbor has cat traps out since he is sick of the neighborhood cats sitting on his fence killing "his birds". I think it's dumb... they are nature's birds not really his and while I do think it sucks that my cats are sometimes the offenders of the bird killings, I think it sucks more that I am expected to not let my cats ever run or lay around in the sun.

Maxx and Jaike were outside for a bit this morning but after only about 20 minutes they headed over towards "the neighbor's" fence so I brought them in for the day... it really sucks because they both have cabin fever and have been attacking each other all day... but kind of nice since they have ben around for family day.

That's all that's happening in my life today :)

Non-Eventful

It is clean up day and so far the dishes are done and the living room is tidy but not vacuumed. The cats went out for a bit this morning and just came back in.. this is how impressed Maxx is about that!

I graduated a training group yesterday which is always a pretty good day. It is actually my favorite day of the training which seems bad since it is the last day but we have a pot luck and it's just a real feel good kind of day. We do the last of the training, have a great lunch, and get everyone ready to go on the lines. I only have one week between this training and the next one so I'm going to blink and be back in the classroom this time. The crappiest thing about training is I end up working six day weeks but the good thing is that I collect lieu time that I will take when this damb snow melts and it is nice outside again.

That's all my news... what's up with everyone else out there?

Leave a comment and let me know!

Happy Love Day...

Almost Free

I am at work just waiting for the training groups to complete their role plays for the day.

After they are done I just need to debrief with my leadership volunteers and then I will be done for the day and off to enjoy the rest of the weekend. I'm going to see if anyone is interested in going out for a few beverages tonight (even though everyone went out last night). If so I will have to drag out the camera and get some pictures!

The groups are getting out so I'm off to debrief!!! :)

Insanity

I fell asleep after work at about 8:30pm until about 11:30pm and now I CANNOT sleep. It is making me insane because I HAVE to sleep. I am training tomorrow and it is my earliest day... I have to BE THERE at 8am!

I just keep rolling around in bed, every crease in the sheets are bugging me, every position is uncomfortable, thoughts keep racing in my mind, crappy thoughts, crap I don't even want to think about, then I get myself upset and trying to sleep is even more useless...

so I got up... thought I would post this miserable post to vent (and since I havent updated all week) and then I think I will read a couple of other blogs, try to get a bit tired... and go back to sleep.

It's nights like this that I think I may just be the most insane person in the city... too bad I can't call the crisis line :)

Cadet Tour

I had cadets tonight and we took the first year cadets over to the police interpretive centre for a tour.

It was pretty cool... they had a bunch of displays set up and the kids got to sit in the front end of a police car and make the lights light up, sit on a motorcycle, and walk thru a drug display and a display about domestic violence, there was a bunch of other stuff for them as well.

We ended the evening with the kids watching a movie about the TAC team and me and the administration officer Debbie discovering the prison log for the Calgary Police from 1911. It was pretty cool!

Update Long Past Due

I have not updated in awhile... I have wrote the beginning of a few posts but never actually ended up finishing them or posting them so here is one big update for you all!

The picture above is a picture of me and my group of volunteers taken at the volunteer banquet a few weeks ago. The pictures came in a little late because the camera at work has gone missing so we used my camera to take the pictures at the banquet and the photographer borrowed my memory card in order to burn a CD of all the pictures... I got the memory card back and am finally able to share these wonderful pictures with you!

Other than that life has been busy but not with anything in particular... I did quit smoking and am still quit which is nice. I really wanted to quit before I turned thirty one so I am glad that it may actually happen. I have tried to quit a few times before but have never really gone more than two days so hopefully this will be it! (Thanks Bruce for the lovely message of encouragement the other day it was really nice to hear!).

I started a new training group of crisis line volunteers at work so I have gone back to a late schedule which is good in some ways like I get to sleep in, but not so nice in other ways, like I now work while everyone is off work and having fun... oh well at least I get some variety!

I am taking the cadets on an interactive police tour tonight that should be semi interesting for them, and I am signed up and all geared up to take them on a survival campout weekend the first weekend in April so lots of fun and exciting pictures to come soon!

Other than that, nothing is new... I really need to have something exciting happen in my life to inspire new pictures and new stories to tell...

The War On Iraq

I was trying to clean up some space on my computer this morning and I found this old flash movie that I made the day the Iraq war began (click on the picture above). I loaded the file on the backend of the Radius site so I could share it with you today. Check it out quickly as it is a pretty big file and I probably won't leave it up for too long. I thought it was an appropriate time to remember that day as Iraq has recently completed their first free election.

Enjoy :)

This Pun Made Me Giggle

A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption.
One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named "Ahmal." The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him "Juan." Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, "They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."

Chinook

There was a really cool chinook arch in the sky tonight during my drive home.

I pulled off the road and took a bunch of pictures to capture it forever. The chinooks are one of the coolest things ever about living in Calgary...

It gets cold and we get tons of snow during the winter but just when you think you can't take it anymore the chinook arch will return and the snow will all melt away for a few days until the snow dumps once again.

The arch is one of the most beautiful things... and when I see it I know that I am home.

73 Hours and Counting!!!

Within 72 hours of ending all nicotine use your blood will be 100% nicotine clean and 90% of nicotine's metabolites will have passed via your urine. It is then when chemical withdrawal symptoms normally peak in intensity and then begin to gradually decline.

I made it and it isn't really bothering me too bad. I have had a few cravings today but nothing really overwhelming... and the hard part is over now, from here it should just get easier... it's good to have made it this far (my last longest period was just under 72 hours!) and really nice that it looks like I can keep the promise I made to myself to be smoke free before I turned 31.