Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Money Makes the World Go Around

Day 121
            When I was 10 or 11, I had quite a penchant for get rich quick schemes. My friend, Kelly, and I had carport sales regularly (we didn’t have a garage) featuring, among other odds and ends the homemade potholders kids of my day made. (Those kits are still around. We bought one for our daughter for her 12th Christmas. She was less than thrilled.) When people didn’t flock to our sales, we loaded everything on Kelly’s wagon and went door to door throughout the neighborhood selling our wares and performing various odd jobs. We actually made pretty good money. Eventually Kelly’s dad told him he wasn’t allowed to play with me anymore if all we were going to do is hit up people for money.
When I initially set up this blog, it was intended to give me the opportunity to write about my experiences trying to find a job at age 45 in this economy in a manner that was hopefully entertaining. If it turned out I was good at writing and had enough material, the blog might grow up someday to be a book. Best of all, it gave me something to do other than clean house and look for jobs. After setting up the blog, I discovered as I was tweaking the setting for the appearance of my site, that I could add ads and earn a little money. Earning money from the blog was never my primary, secondary or tertiary goal, but the prospect made my money making scheme 10-year-old come out to play.
 Yesterday I received an email from the folks that host the advertisements. They had reviewed their records and “determined that [my] … account poses a risk of generating invalid activity.” So, basically what this means is they disabled my account and seized its assets (meaning, the money it had generated from the ad clicks).
There is an appeal process, which I looked into. The process requires me to fill out a form with my user account number, which can be found on my account page, which I can’t access since they’ve disabled my account.
The only reason I’m really bothering to appeal is that it seems pretty drastic to shut down my account without any warning. Also, I think that, if they are so worried about fraud, they should have a feature built in that disregards multiple clicks by the same users on the same advertisement link (it’s not that complicated). Further, I don’t believe that the revenue my blog made was because all of my readers multi-clicked (I think there are about 40 of you). Some probably never clicked and I certainly NEVER clicked my own ads (it is strictly verboten in the contract). So, It only seems fair that I should be paid for the legitimate clicking (it might well only be $15 or $20 as opposed to the $110 that was in my account before they seized it, but every little bit helps). At least when Kelly and I were selling pot holders and doing chores, we got to keep our money when his dad shut down our entrepreneurship. Oh well, this is merely a bump in my path to be tripped over and then ignored.
So, I’ve been without a job for a day shy of 4 full months now. Crazy. Still can’t really account for all that spare time. Projects are still being put off until tomorrow and the days are flying past me. Today I met up with my weekly breakfast buddy for dining decadence and mimosas. This, of course meant no projects were getting done today. I found a recipe for Caribbean French Toast with homemade coconut syrup which I served with pineapple sausage and fresh cantaloupe. Pretty tasty, except that I had the heat up too high and the French toast was a little more well-done than I like it.
I have to mention that I went to the dentist today. In part because I want put in a plug for Dr. Kennedy in Davis, California. I think he is perhaps the best dentist I have ever gone to and his office staff rock!! I dumped the dentist I had out of shear frustration with their office and picked up Dr. Kennedy at the suggestion of my wife and our daughter. The other reason I wanted to mention the trip to the dentist is it leads into my closing story for today.
I was driving to the dentist’s office. Sarita had driven my car yesterday, so the radio was not on my usual station. I didn’t change the station, because I liked the song that was playing at the time and figured I’d switch if they started playing songs I didn’t like. The DJ announced a contest where callers were instructed to text the word “prize” to the number he gave for a chance to win $50 in scratchers (scratch off lottery cards). I was at a red light, so I figured it really wasn’t the same thing as texting while driving. At the next red light I checked to see if I got a text back from the radio station. Well, long story short (too late, I know) I was the correct texter and won! So, scratching lottery tickets with my wife tonight (yes, I’m actually waiting for her to get home) is my next “get rich quick” scheme. Wish me luck.

Caribbean French Toast - From the Mr. Breakfast.com Collection

For the syrup, take half a can of coconut milk and stir 2 tsp cornstarch in over medium heat until the cornstarch dissolves. Add 3/4 cup light corn syrup, 3 Tbsp sugar and 3 Tbsp shredded sweetened cocunut.

For the French Toast: In a large mixing bowl beat 2 eggs with 1/2 cup orange juice, 1/4 cup whipping cream, 2 Tbsp sugar, 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon and a dash of ground nutmeg. One by one take 6 slices of French bread (about an inch thick) and place them in the mixture for about 20 seconds per side to absorb the mixture. Cook each side in a buttered (or margarined) pan for a couple of minutes per side.

Serve with syrup warmed.

2 comments:

  1. Congratulations on winning the texting contest! But how do you make sausage out of pineapple? I hope it's nothing like Kopi Luwak. LOL!

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  2. Funny. No, it's just sausage I picked up at the store that has pineapple chunks in it.

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