lifeinflux

There are a few times in my life where I’ve had to eat my words.  My mom would say there were many times I’ve had to eat a little crow.  And she’d then tell you about my Corporate America speech circa ’92, or the “no fast or processed food in my child” speech of ’99.    Just for kickers she might tell you about the four months I swore off all animal products and tried going vegan during the Mad Cow scare of ’02.   My mom has a mind like a steel trap and the memory of an elephant.   Thank god she loves me.  Also, I am never running for public office.   Because she loves me, Mom loves to talk about me (naturally).  Because she loves to talk about me, at some point, one of the crazy things I did back in the 90s would come to light and then…. scandal.   And to Drue who might read this someday, no I did not have sex, do drugs or end up in jail… except when I married your father and we’ve already covered that.   And those drugs were doctor approved.  Just sayin’.

Back in the 90s when the Internet was still young and you could find as many educational sites as you could porn, I created a little website.   Ah, Mosaic… remember the days?   This was before a blog was anything than an information reel on a website.   Those were the good old days.   Anyway, this led to creating bigger and better websites – ah, embedded tables – and somewhere around the time Geocities created their “click two buttons and have your own website” site, I became a purist and declared that I would always code my own sites.   A few years later I was introduced to PHP and became even more of a purist.    Then, I went management track and forgot half my skills.   But that’s a different post for another day.     I discovered Drupal and WordPress and I’ve happily allowed others to create templates for my sites and do not miss the days of writing include files for my personal sites.   In 2005 or thereabouts, I saw ads popping up on some of my favorite blogs and said – quite loudly – that I would never, ever place ads on any site of mine.

Well, if you are here and reading this, you know I’ve placed ads on my site.   I’ve also become an affiliate for Barnes & Noble and Amazon, two sites I spend a great quantity of time on as well as my hard-earned cash.   Why have I done this?   Well, for a few reasons, actually.   First and foremost, I’d like the time I spend on this site to generate some form of income.   Since starting my company, I think of all my time in dollars per quarter hour.   And while I blog here for me – and hopefully amuse and/or inspire some of you – I argue daily with myself about the time I spend here when I could be spending it in other, more profitable ways.    Second, I like the idea of the affiliate programs.   You come here, you read, you click on a link.   And I’ve tried to make it easy with Amazon by incorporating a nifty slide show of best selling products and downloadable MP3s.    You watch the slide show, see something you have to have to have or have to buy for someone, you click, you order and boom!   You’re done.   Or you check out the deals below the slide show.  Or you click through to Barnes & Noble and shop your little heart out on books.   Or you ignore their presence and think “those darn ads mean Lifeinflux now takes seven seconds to load.  H8!”

So while this site is not my bread and butter – which is great, because then I’d starve and get in loads of trouble with my Mom – it is a time glut for me when I’m not sitting in bed hacking my lungs out.   And so I’d like it to be a justifiable and viable waste use of my time.   Because I love writing here and posting pictures here.   And hopefully this site is a little reminder out there on the Internet that walking away from a profitable albeit unfulfilling career is not a bad thing and that getting on track to living your life YOUR way is a great thing.  Also, I have to say that there are a few ads that have popped up that have me intrigued.  Because I call my dog “The Bear” I occasionally get ads for “Hot Bear Spray”.  Now, I’m not allowed to click on my own ads, so I have no idea if this spray works on hot bears – you know, as opposed to those ugly bears – or merely overheated bears.  I really hope the “hot” in this case means overheated, since I have no idea what is considered good looking in the bear world.  And getting the bear overheated is really no problem because the bear will have to chase my ass down in order to get close enough for me to spray it.

Anyway, my point is, ignore the ads or don’t.   Ignore the affiliate links or don’t.   All I ask is that you understand the reasons behind it and not stop reading because they are present on this site.   Oh, there are two things you could do for me next time you see me.  First, if by chance you happen to click on an ad for “Hot Bear Spray”,  give me the scoop because I am DYING to know.  And second, pass me the Tabasco sauce when you get a chance.  It makes the crow go down easy.