I’ve been spending all of my free time lately out on the lake. I completed the restoration of my fishing boat, and as promised, here are the images. I’ve been fishing every day since the boat was completed. There are several lakes around my house, I’ve tried two so far. We’ve caught bass, crappie, sunfish and bluegills. Still trying to find the elusive Northern Pike and Walleye.

The boat is kinda small, but works great and is easy to launch and load. I’ve found a killer website that shows all the lakes around here as well as lake maps, etc. Now I just need to convince the wife that I need to spend $200 more dollars on a fish/depth finder.

I live about 20 minutes north of Minneapolis. Luckily nobody in my family nor anyone I know was at the scene when the bridge collapsed. The scary thing is, I travel that highway all the time. I’ve crossed that bridge thousands of times. I can’t imagine the horror of the victims as it was happening. My prayers go out to all of the victims in this horrible tragedy.

This seems to be the summer of working hard. I’ve been extremely busy this summer, and the funny thing is, none of it is online.

I’ve been doing lots of manual labor type of things. First of all, I helped my brother-in-law install a privacy fence. This required a ton of heavy lifting as well as hours of hard work. I also have been helping my neighbor lay stone on the front of houses. I have been doing this just to learn how it is done. Not to mention, I get to use lots of tools and materials I haven’t used before. I love to learn new things.

Last but not least, in my free time I have been restoring an old boat. My step father gave my a 1967 Starcraft fishing boat before he passed away. I felt it was my duty to get it in the water. I’ve purchased a motor, trailer and everything else I need to get it afloat. I’ve also pulled all of the hardware out and have been priming and painting it. It’s starting to look really good, I’ll post images once I get it done.

I really enjoy having something to work on in the garage. I find I’m spending most of my time there, rather than being online.

It’s rare that I find sites that blow me away lately. But this site is great. I love the way it works, no clicking just hovering. It’s actually a great idea. I’m all for losing clicks.

Well I had the pleasure of breaking my nose today. It was pretty brutal. I was helping a buddy cut down a huge tree in his backyard. I had made the final cut and the tree began to fall. I jumped to get out of the way, I turned back because I thought the tree was falling my way, I turned back around and Wham I ran right into a different tree. Nose first.

Blood began gushing and I saw stars. My eyes were watering big time. My friend immediately took off his shirt and covered up my cut. He looked pretty concerned, which scared me. After going into the house and cleaning up all of my cuts, we could not stop the bleeding on the cut and inside of my nose.

I went to the emergency room, they stitched my cut and told me that my nose was broke and there’s nothing they can do. I just have to wait until it heals.

It hurts pretty bad. Plus I scraped up my face pretty good. Plus I have a huge gash on my nose. I look like I was in a fight…and lost.

I’m off to sunny San Diego California for the Prudential Real Estate Convention. I get to work the trade show and talk blogging with Realtors. I plan on stepping up my game and getting some contracts signed this time. My skills in Vegas needed some honing, I’ve done that. Look out, I’m getting into sales guy mode.

I’m looking forward to San Diego. I’ve been to California 3 or 4 times, but never SD. Should be cool. Wish I had more free time, I’d love to check out Sea World. I’ll post some photos and a follow up post when I get back on Wednesday.

I just got back from the Realty Executives convention in Las Vegas. I was there as a representative of Blogging Systems, I got to work the trade show floor. The convention was held at Caesar’s Palace. Very nice hotel, little big for my tastes. Plus the service was a little on the poor side. You’d think for a hotel like that, they’d have their ducks in a row…not the case.

It was a pretty decent convention, the trade show room seemed a little small. Didn’t seem like there were as many exhibitors as there should have been. It was especially nice getting out of the Minnesota weather and into the Vegas 85 degrees. Especially since we got almost 3 feet of snow right before I left. Ugh.

I didn’t really get to enjoy the weather as much as I would’ve liked. Spent most of my time working the convention. I played a little at night, walked the strip, shopped, gambled and drank a few beers, ate good food, etc. Nothing special. I’m not really that big on Las Vegas any how.

We talked blogging with realtors for three days. I was glad to be home. The weirdest part of the entire trip was when I was flying out. Who should I run into (on the plane) the owner’s son from my last company and another guy. Bit awkward, but it was nice to tell them I was flying to Vegas for “business.”

I get to go to San Diego in a few days for the Prudential convention. California, here I come!

I get the pleasure of going to Las Vegas for a few days on a business trip. I will be working at the Real Estate convention from March 3-7th. I get to stay at Cesar’s Palace and get away from the brutal Minnesota winter. I haven’t been to Las Vegas since I was seventeen. Too bad it’s for work, although, I’m hoping I’ll have some downtime and a chance to lose my money.

I get to talk with Real Estate agents all day about blogging. The sad thing is, nothing I’d rather do more than talk blogging. So…I’m into it. I’m a total geek. However, I think Real Estate agents are definitely a different breed. They can be very “interesting.”

I’ll letcha know how it was next week, when I get back.

I recently passed the Google Certified Adwords Professional exam. But part of the requirement to get your logo, is you have to manage an Adwords account for someone else with a balance higher than $1,000 a month. That’s easier said than done. Not too mention, I’d feel really guilty if I tanked someone’s campaign.

So my Adwords skills lately are going to waste. I’ve been trying to brainstorm and create an affiliate site and spend my own money, just so I can get more experience with Adwords. But haven’t had the time lately to pull the trigger…

Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time using Google Video Search and Youtube. You can find some really amazing things out there. They have videos for everything. I have recently decided that I’m going to start including Youtube and Google videos on my blogs. I found a plugin for WordPress called Extreme Video, you can download it here.

Extreme Video allows you to include all sorts of video formats right into your WordPress blog. So, I’ve been adding videos as much as I can to my blogs. Love it! This will really add excitement to all of my blogs.