This is my last post tonight, I don't want to get burnt out.
But I did want to share with you a few of the sites that I'm reading just to give you a little glimpse into my world, in typical cryptic blog-link fashion.
Great reviews of new tech
An intellectual gaming site
From Google
Formerly from Microsoft
Not as funny as the comic
Not my space, but I'm nostalgic
And I'll just toss out that I check my Gmail through my RSS reader. How cool am I :p
Thursday, June 15, 2006
I've decided to do a few posts tonight just cause I'm in the mood and So You Think You Can Dance is my alternative (besides playing games on the computer but I'm tired and don't want to start that up right now).
I want to talk a little bit about what I've been doing at work. For those of you that don't know I've jumped all over the Marketing space since I moved out to Boston.
Starting in public relations then moving onto direct mail production doing a brief stint as a resume editor and helping a college update their web site until I finally settled into a role that was going to include some search engine marketing at Snowbound.
And if you have ever done a search in Google or one of the other engines, like Yahoo! or MSN, and you see those little ads long the top, or along the side. Well, let me just tell you that they take a lot more work than you might think.
I've been taking over the program from an outside vendor that we were using, so I've had to familiarize myself with how the algorithms work (as much as an outsider can know), what keywords make the most sense for our business, and how to cram enough content into the ad copy to get people interested.
In fact, for the last 2 weeks I've been going through collecting information on every single keyword that we have in Google Adwords because this really hasn't been done since it was set up in 2003! Wow.
But, I've learned many things about how to market on this new thing call the Internet. And I tell you what, I think it's going to stick around for a while.
But, and the point that I intended to make with this post is that I've also had the opportunity to do more marketing writing. Which is what my entire goal was when I moved out here. Only took me 2.5 years to find a job where I could.
One of the first projects that I was given when I came onboard at Snowbound (over a year now) was control of the newsletter.
In fact, as I was going through the archives, we launched a new look and new content focus for the newsletter only 2 months after I arrived. It's amazing to think about that now.
The major difference from the old style to the new is that our newsletter feature is not based around the latest feature in our products anymore. We write a neutral, informative article that talks about some aspect of the imaging industry. We are then able to showcase one of our products that relates to the topic, but we don't hoc our wares in the feature.
If any of you have been around marketing, you may understand the uphill battle we have had in keeping our features neutral. The pressure and seduction of including yourself as the role-model for issues or answer to problems is great. However, a year into our experiment (and we have successfully avoided the temptation to revert) our executives been bringing back feedback from customers about how much they like our newsletter articles and that they pass them around to each other.
Wow! Pay off! Of course, that raises the bar for me because I write all of those articles. I have to say that the realization of our vision from last year is very satisfying.
And even more so when I read our competitor's newsletters and see they are still plodding away with the old "product news" based articles.
Coming up next month I'm also going to take over writing the press releases (at least for the rest of the summer) and content on our Web site. This is a good chance for me to put into practice the messages I've learned are important to us and further hone my writing skills.
I want to talk a little bit about what I've been doing at work. For those of you that don't know I've jumped all over the Marketing space since I moved out to Boston.
Starting in public relations then moving onto direct mail production doing a brief stint as a resume editor and helping a college update their web site until I finally settled into a role that was going to include some search engine marketing at Snowbound.
And if you have ever done a search in Google or one of the other engines, like Yahoo! or MSN, and you see those little ads long the top, or along the side. Well, let me just tell you that they take a lot more work than you might think.
I've been taking over the program from an outside vendor that we were using, so I've had to familiarize myself with how the algorithms work (as much as an outsider can know), what keywords make the most sense for our business, and how to cram enough content into the ad copy to get people interested.
In fact, for the last 2 weeks I've been going through collecting information on every single keyword that we have in Google Adwords because this really hasn't been done since it was set up in 2003! Wow.
But, I've learned many things about how to market on this new thing call the Internet. And I tell you what, I think it's going to stick around for a while.
But, and the point that I intended to make with this post is that I've also had the opportunity to do more marketing writing. Which is what my entire goal was when I moved out here. Only took me 2.5 years to find a job where I could.
One of the first projects that I was given when I came onboard at Snowbound (over a year now) was control of the newsletter.
In fact, as I was going through the archives, we launched a new look and new content focus for the newsletter only 2 months after I arrived. It's amazing to think about that now.
The major difference from the old style to the new is that our newsletter feature is not based around the latest feature in our products anymore. We write a neutral, informative article that talks about some aspect of the imaging industry. We are then able to showcase one of our products that relates to the topic, but we don't hoc our wares in the feature.
If any of you have been around marketing, you may understand the uphill battle we have had in keeping our features neutral. The pressure and seduction of including yourself as the role-model for issues or answer to problems is great. However, a year into our experiment (and we have successfully avoided the temptation to revert) our executives been bringing back feedback from customers about how much they like our newsletter articles and that they pass them around to each other.
Wow! Pay off! Of course, that raises the bar for me because I write all of those articles. I have to say that the realization of our vision from last year is very satisfying.
And even more so when I read our competitor's newsletters and see they are still plodding away with the old "product news" based articles.
Coming up next month I'm also going to take over writing the press releases (at least for the rest of the summer) and content on our Web site. This is a good chance for me to put into practice the messages I've learned are important to us and further hone my writing skills.
So, I talked with my dad recently (read: more than a week ago) and he wanted to get an update on how the family out East is doing. So here it is.
We've been up and down. Mia got sick, so I came home early on Thursday to watch Ethan. But she also had to work this weekend, and that meant getting very little rest. The boy and I hung out Thursday through Sunday, for long streches of time.
Fortunately, my son loves to spend time with me. I'm not sure why but he doesn't ever seem to get tired of being around Dad. He has finally decided that when Mom is in the house he will go look for her and enjoy her company too, but mostly it's all about Dad still. Which is also good news since we hang out every weekend and in the evenings.
I, however, do get a little bit tired of the 13-hour marathons on the weekends. Even teaching primary to 4 year olds seems like a break. So on Saturady I was kind of burned out and we did more chilling than playing. Sunday was a good day though, and I got my groove back. Being in nursery helped because Ethan just wandered off to play with the other kids (or mostly alone) for about an hour and a half, they do a little lesson to begin.
Other than that episode we are gearing up for our trip to Cali and Colorado next week. I can't believe how quickly it seems to be coming up on us. We are really excited to see the family though and I hope they are all excited to see us too. It's been a while since we got out of the East. The furtherest we seem to make it these days is to Albany... which doesn't really count.
I am also looking forward to going to the beach. Mia took Ethan this week and she says that he loves to play in the water. I hope that is true when there are waves :)
We've been up and down. Mia got sick, so I came home early on Thursday to watch Ethan. But she also had to work this weekend, and that meant getting very little rest. The boy and I hung out Thursday through Sunday, for long streches of time.
Fortunately, my son loves to spend time with me. I'm not sure why but he doesn't ever seem to get tired of being around Dad. He has finally decided that when Mom is in the house he will go look for her and enjoy her company too, but mostly it's all about Dad still. Which is also good news since we hang out every weekend and in the evenings.
I, however, do get a little bit tired of the 13-hour marathons on the weekends. Even teaching primary to 4 year olds seems like a break. So on Saturady I was kind of burned out and we did more chilling than playing. Sunday was a good day though, and I got my groove back. Being in nursery helped because Ethan just wandered off to play with the other kids (or mostly alone) for about an hour and a half, they do a little lesson to begin.
Other than that episode we are gearing up for our trip to Cali and Colorado next week. I can't believe how quickly it seems to be coming up on us. We are really excited to see the family though and I hope they are all excited to see us too. It's been a while since we got out of the East. The furtherest we seem to make it these days is to Albany... which doesn't really count.
I am also looking forward to going to the beach. Mia took Ethan this week and she says that he loves to play in the water. I hope that is true when there are waves :)
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Monica has started blogging again. But if you haven't had kids yet, you might not be ready to read her "story"
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
We have been getting so much rain this spring. I don't think I have seen this much rain in the entire three years we have lived here. Ok, that's exagerating, but we really have been flooded.
Some places, to the north and east of us, have literally been flooded.
The major downside for us is that we can't take Ethan outside when it's raining. We can still go to the library (or swimming, but I'm still waiting cause his nose is still stuffy and I don't want him to get sick again) but our options are much more limited.
Fortunately, he's taking the trapped indoors thing pretty well. He loves to run around the house saying "Where's it" though not quite that clearly. And he also says "I see it" (which is new) and "Wheeee" when going down his slide.
Our boy is growing up so fast, but he's just so cute to watch as he does.
Some places, to the north and east of us, have literally been flooded.
The major downside for us is that we can't take Ethan outside when it's raining. We can still go to the library (or swimming, but I'm still waiting cause his nose is still stuffy and I don't want him to get sick again) but our options are much more limited.
Fortunately, he's taking the trapped indoors thing pretty well. He loves to run around the house saying "Where's it" though not quite that clearly. And he also says "I see it" (which is new) and "Wheeee" when going down his slide.
Our boy is growing up so fast, but he's just so cute to watch as he does.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
9:30PM
1:00AM
4:30AM
7:00AM
For some reason last night seemed easier though. Either he's getting better or I'm learning to be more patient.
Oh, and I also fell asleep on the couch after the 1:00 and 4:30 incidents while waiting for Ethan to stop crying before I went back in to bed. I wasn't planning that, and even wanted to not do it the second time.
1:00AM
4:30AM
7:00AM
For some reason last night seemed easier though. Either he's getting better or I'm learning to be more patient.
Oh, and I also fell asleep on the couch after the 1:00 and 4:30 incidents while waiting for Ethan to stop crying before I went back in to bed. I wasn't planning that, and even wanted to not do it the second time.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Last night was not Ethan's best night, nor was it mine. Mia was at work, and Ethan was having a bit of a cough-y night. He didn't wake up, which surprised me, but did make noise a couple of times that made me nervous.
So, after Mia got home, which was later than I wanted to be up, we went to bed. Then, an hour later Ethan did wake up. Screaming. And coughing.
I was pretty annoyed because I had hoped that if he was going to do his nightly wake up, it would be before I went to bed. Waking up to take care of him after going to be is very disorienting and difficult because of the groginess and desire to get back into bed.
I made him a bottle with some medicine and went in. He didn't want the bottle. He didn't want to calm down either. Finally, he quieted (no bottle) and I put him into his crib. Then shortly, very shortly, afterwards he started screaming again.
So, this time Mia went in to try and give him the bottle. But he didn't want her, only me. I stormed into the room, and Mia took some time to calm me down before handing Ethan over and leaving.
I took some deep breaths and sat in our rocking chair. I kept putting the bottle in his hands, or up near his mouth until he finally drank some. After which he fell back asleep and I was able to put him down for good.
I know that I'm not capturing my real emotional state in this post, but I was pretty aggrevated. I can't say enough how grateful I am to my wife for helping me last night. Really, without her I would not be able to be a good father (well, if I had to I would try but wouldn't be anywhere near as successful).
We work well as a team.
So, after Mia got home, which was later than I wanted to be up, we went to bed. Then, an hour later Ethan did wake up. Screaming. And coughing.
I was pretty annoyed because I had hoped that if he was going to do his nightly wake up, it would be before I went to bed. Waking up to take care of him after going to be is very disorienting and difficult because of the groginess and desire to get back into bed.
I made him a bottle with some medicine and went in. He didn't want the bottle. He didn't want to calm down either. Finally, he quieted (no bottle) and I put him into his crib. Then shortly, very shortly, afterwards he started screaming again.
So, this time Mia went in to try and give him the bottle. But he didn't want her, only me. I stormed into the room, and Mia took some time to calm me down before handing Ethan over and leaving.
I took some deep breaths and sat in our rocking chair. I kept putting the bottle in his hands, or up near his mouth until he finally drank some. After which he fell back asleep and I was able to put him down for good.
I know that I'm not capturing my real emotional state in this post, but I was pretty aggrevated. I can't say enough how grateful I am to my wife for helping me last night. Really, without her I would not be able to be a good father (well, if I had to I would try but wouldn't be anywhere near as successful).
We work well as a team.
Monday, May 22, 2006
Friday, May 19, 2006
Congrats to Monica and Zack on the new baby girl. We are happy that both mom and baby are doing well.
It's a pretty exciting time when you hold your child for the first time. You realize that you are going to be connected with another life for a very long time, eternaly even.
And when they send you home from the hospital with the little tyke only 3 days old O_O
I'm sure they will make great parents.
It's a pretty exciting time when you hold your child for the first time. You realize that you are going to be connected with another life for a very long time, eternaly even.
And when they send you home from the hospital with the little tyke only 3 days old O_O
I'm sure they will make great parents.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
We have been getting crazy amounts of rain this week. The northern part of the state has flooded, along with parts of New Hampshire.
Fortunately, our area hasn't been hit all that hard. We've been wet but no flooding and not even much build-up in the puddles. That's a relief for us.
But it means that we've been cramped up in the house and are likely to stay inside for another few days. Hopefully next week will be better weather.
Fortunately, our area hasn't been hit all that hard. We've been wet but no flooding and not even much build-up in the puddles. That's a relief for us.
But it means that we've been cramped up in the house and are likely to stay inside for another few days. Hopefully next week will be better weather.
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