Zemanta Ready for Blogging Prime time in 2011?
Several years back I was introduced to Zemanta while I was attending Blogworld. I think it might’ve been in 2007 or 2008. At the time I thought it was a great application especially since it had a plug-in for WordPress and a plug-in for LiveWriter.
UPDATE – While my initial new impressions were negative, things got a little better later. (see troubleshooting at bottom of article)
There were a couple downsides to the program. Often times when you used an image from Zemanta, that image was hosted on someone else’s website. This meant that the load time of your website was contingent on someone else’s website. If they deleted the image, that could be problematic as well.
There were only a few options on how large the image could appear. This created some formatting issues. Plus there was often a border or margin around these images that made things float in weird ways. Combine all those things together and far too often you would end up with a blog post that have a lot of errors on it if something went wrong with that picture. These were errors that you had little if any control over and most of the time your only option was to delete the Zemanta section with the image all together.
Zemanta has made a number of improvements since then, and today I wanted to test and see if it was up to snuff and ready for prime time.
Here are a few things that I have noticed using Zemanta today:
- When I turn the plugin on and start writing a blog article, it tells me I must write in the WordPress Visual Mode. When I switch to that mode, I get a bug, the display of menu options for both visual and html at the same time.
- Zemanta seems to make my browser slow down noticeably.
- Even though it claims that it needs 140 words to analyze text, after I have written 298 words here about Zemanta itself, I do not see a good selection of Zemanta images! The only image that is close is a partial logo, that doesn’t work when I embed it.
The Related Articles seem to work fine as far as I can tell. (better than the related images).- Of course the Related Articles ‘seem’ to work fine. Yes they do suggest some, yes they seem to be close targets, although they seem to be heavily reliant on the keywords in the Title as opposed to the content of the article, such as the article that was recommended by Zemanta titled ‘Smart blogging with Zemanta’ from http://iipalbanjary.net/smart-blogging-with-zemanta/ As articles go, this one wouldn’t be my first choice to describe much about Zemanta short of a rewrite of a description about what they do. It doesn’t really seem to have much to do with smart blogging at all.
- I was completely unable to get Zemanta to actually include the links to those articles in my text! No title auto inserted, no link on that title, nothing. Seemed to be a general fail there and while it came up with better options to choose from as compared to images, this seemed to be a whole lot worse when it came to actually inserting them into the article.
After I made it this far, I was just about ready to write Zemanta off for another 3-4 years, but I thought I’d be as fair as possible and do a little user trouble shooting on Zemanta.
I tried updating my Zemanta settings. They still had my account and remembered me from years back. That was nice. 
I then saved a draft version of my blog article (that Zemanta wasn’t working in) and reloaded it. This time, when I switched to Visual mode, it did not give me all three menu systems (html menu, visual basic menu and the visual kitchen sink line).
OK, so hoping things might be better…
In addition, I was seeing some in-text links (like I had seen in the latest intro video from Zemanta, but couldn’t see originally.
I tried clicking on a few of these, I could select them, but couldn’t figure out how to get them into the actual article??? Further more the Apply All function did select them all, but there was not a ‘unselect all’ option. (bummer)
This time when I clicked the Related Articles items, it did insert them (bottom of the post as opposed to right in the post) (half bummer)
Image via CrunchBase
When I attempted to load that same Zemanta logo image that had been suggested, it loaded it in, floated to the right per my global (all blogs) zemanta settings. Would be nice if I could edit where that goes in this blog. It didn’t crop the image down to something that wasn’t recognizable like it did last time.
The image placement options were just downright weird though. I left it in above, but if this weren’t an article about Zemanta, that just would not be something that was ready for primetime at all.
The Zemanta media library image is not loaded into my own media library. As such it is not possible to use one of these as a featured image. Most of my sites, blogs etc and 95% of my client’s sites use featured images heavily. One of the advantages of using Zemanta is access to royalty free images, but apparently that won’t help if you need a featured image too.
After I got my word count up to 895 I attempted to see if Zemanta could find anything useful in My Sources. No luck there, it showed me an image of myself running on the evening news and another of a cat at the top of a set of stairs.
Zemanta’s tag suggestion system only supplied 1 useful hit ‘Zemantta’ for this article. WordPress was a distant possibility, but tweetexchange, and crunchbase (the source of the zemanta image) and some others wasn’t on target at all.
For the record, when I tried running Scribe Seo on this same blog article, it took a dump as well. That service is normally rock solid, so I have to wonder if there is an incompatibility issue between Scribe SEO and Zemanta. If so, Zemanta will have to hit the road.
Keywords found from Scribe
php programming language, world wide web, html menus, prime time, visual basic, menu options, blog software, internet, computing, blog, wordpress, primed, images, articles, ready, loads, finally
Might as well throw in a WTF on that too!
I took the dash out of the original blog title and reran Scribe and came up with something more in the ball park
content management systems, php programming language, world wide web, html menus, weblog software, prime time, blog software, visual basic, blogging, blogs, internet, computing, images, ready, primed, wordpress, blog, articles, finally
Wondering if it might have been my title that hossed up Zemanta and Scribe, I hit the update button on Zemanta (after getting the more normal results from Scribe) but the list of articles and images was exactly the same, off base.
Troubleshooting Zemanta
I found that Zemanta worked better in Chrome than Firefox 6. Personally I generally prefer Firefox to Chrome, but Firefox is slowly turning to crap and this might be an example. When I worked in Chrome I did not notice a conflict between Zemanta and ScribeSEO. I also worked with a topic about Ducks in that example, hoping to give Zemanta something of a softball pitch. That did help, although I find it ironic that Zemanta can not come up with good articles about Zemanta itself!
One positive thing, years back when I used Zemanta it would occasionally serve up porn images that had likely been named incorrectly (ergo lets say a naked person and the image was named duck so the image of the nake person would come up in the Zemanta media gallery even though I was writing about ducks, not naked people). This was awful when I was doing client demonstrations or lecturing at a conference, it was the primary reason why I dropped Zemanta years back. Can’t serve up porn images to clients nor at a conference!
Articles Zemanta Believes are Related articles (Visitor Beware! I have no idea and less confidence after the above items)
- Smart blogging with Zemanta (iipalbanjary.net)
- Getting started with Zemanta (blogofreflections.wordpress.com)
- Zemanta (kinkajouwebdesign.wordpress.com)
- Using Zemanta with Blogger (peterbijkerk.blogspot.com)
- Zemanta For Blogger ?! (sedatkurtulus.blogspot.com)
- Zemanta Summer HackDay – Part II Report (zemanta.com)
- Zemanta @ BlogWorld NY 2011: (Re)Introducing Zemanta (zemanta.com)
- Zemanta, Are You Listening? (stoweboyd.com)
- Featured user: LiveCrunch (zemanta.com)
- Tutorial: using filter function with Zemanta (zemanta.com)
Winning Despite Failure – Thanks Jim Kukral for the Timely Perspective
Yesterday, I found myself sitting in bankruptcy court, definitely, a first for me. Long story short, business has been good, but my personal finances went into a tail spin when Wells Fargo foreclosed on my home in the middle of an Obama plan refinance. BoA didn’t help the situation eith
er by jacking my interest rates up to 30% even though I hadn’t ever missed any payments at the time.
So after months of work reorganizing my personal finances, things came to a head when my wife and I went to court and asked for a discharge of debt, aka we went bankrupt filing chapter 7.
Not happy about it, but as I was thumbing through the book, Internet Marketing from the Real Experts by Shawn Collins and Missy Ward of Affiliate Summit fame, I came upon the 3 minute lesson from Jim Kukral, whom I’ve had the good fortune to have known for a few years now.
The chapter was his famous ‘Are you a Loser or a Failure?’ topic.
Now, I have been lucky enough to here Jim speak more than a half dozen times. In fact, one winter, I heard him give his presentation ‘Are you a loser or a Failure’ three or four times in a week. It’s a good presentation, but by about the 2nd or 3rd time, well, I had heard that one before. Lesson learned, internalized, filed away, and appreciated.
Context is Everything
Then yesterday while I’m sitting in bankruptcy court with dozens of other people in the same situation, I came across this familiar topic again.
Well, even though I could just about give this speech myself from memory, it sank in on a new level.
The general point of the topic is that Losers give up and quit and people that are failures, learn from their mistakes and try again.
That pretty much sums me up. The downward spiral of my personal finances can be traced back to my corporate accounting days when I made $100k per year. Salary was great, but to support that salary and stay on the fast track, I had to relocate every couple years. That led me to rack up a lot of debt, which I could maintain when I was making $100k, but then the Chinese Mafia got involved (literally).
One day I found my division at Motorola transferred and sold to the Chinese Mafia. That’s not the type of thing they tell you during the HR employee transition meeting unfortunately. They just give you the name of the most visible corporate shell owned by the mafia, aka your new bosses.
So to keep my long story short, once I found out who I was working for, I turned those assholes in to the Feds as fast as I could, lost my corporate accounting job, but saved my life and the lives of my family. Who needs a $100k per year salary when you are dead or ‘disappeared’?
For the next 5 years, I worked to build my own business, and looking back, I have done pretty damned good. I just didn’t grow it to the point where I was profiting $100k a year, this that and another thing, and before you know it, I’m seeking bankruptcy protection and REALLY starting over.
But not starting over completely. Because I’ve got 5 years of lessons learned, a growing business built on my reputation and results (but not physical assets hence the chptr 7).
I wasn’t feeling down or negative yesterday, the low point of this whole mess was last March when I learned that I had been foreclosed on 
without any written notification. That blindsided action was depressing a bit, but there’s only so much you can do in that situation.
But it was definitely a boost to internalize Jim’s message again yesterday, especially in the middle of a week, when I’m working like crazy on projects for my clients. The future looks very good, business is looking good, I’m not only working from a clean slate financially, but I’m working from a clean slate with a lot of great experience.
Icing on the Cake
Now today, the day after bankruptcy, Amazon just delivered Jim’s new book “Attention This Book will Make you Money – How to Use Attention Getting online marketing to increase your revenue”
I’m expecting big things out of the future.
Vibram Five Finger Injuries – Lessons Learned about Avoiding Barefoot Injuries
I’ve been running in Vibram’s since September, that is up until about 2 weeks ago.
I ramped up through the learning training curve last fall and things were going fantastic. Loved the results, loved the feel, loved the new strength in my feet and legs after getting trained up, even started to love running for the first time in 37 years, despite always being naturally ‘good at running’. I just read this article about “The Dangers of barefooting – How to Start Off on the Right Foot” by Al Gauthier.
The Problem – My Vibram Five Finger Toe Injury
So a couple weeks back I was running, I had been building up to longer and longer distances thinking about attempting my first marathon (I was just getting to the half marathon distance.
But I live in BF NC where there are mostly 2 lane roads, and no running conducive areas. The paper has an article at least every month about a runner or bicyclist that has been run down by a car, typically because the driver didn’t see them, didn’t allow enough space or because they were drunk, but also because there is no shoulder on most of these roads, so even a driver paying attention is not going to have a lot of room to make space, let alone time to react if they are coming around a corner at the posted speed limit.
So as I trek out to build up my distance, this is the environment I have to run in.
Sure I have a nice life insurance policy, or at least nice enough to cover college for the kids and pay off our debts, but not much more.
That said, I don’t plan on running in the clouds anytime soon, so I started trying to learn how to run through the grass and ditches along the side of the road, especially through those dangerous areas of blind curves.
Running in grass in Vibrams is like getting a foot massage. It feels great!
But running on a softer surface, like grass, or lately spongy rain soaked turf and soil, requires a lot more muscle and concentration, both to power through the distances trudging through a resistance like environment, but also to avoid injury from twists.
One thing I’ve noticed with bare footing in Vibrams is that when your legs get tired, or you get tired, you are more prone to an injury because you don’t have the protective encasement of shoes to compensate for a slight miscalculation.
The Injury – Bend your big toe underneath your foot while you run and it will hurt!
So 2 weeks back I twisted something slightly in my left foot.
It wasn’t anything real bad and I stopped running for a few days. After about 5 days, I thought I was mostly better, and I headed out for a run.
I thought I would try some sprinting exercises, run full out for 100 m then jog super slow for 200-300 and repeat. After about 3 repetitions, I quickly realized that my foot wasn’t 100% yet, so I then switched into a casual run, planning to do about 3 miles, which would have normally been very easy for me even in Vibrams after running those distances for months.
Halfway through, I was limping, and headed back home.
I should have walked but didn’t think it was ‘too bad’.
Well the limping run actually made my legs and feet a little more tired, because I hadn’t trained in a limping gate. Shortly there after, I stumbled a bit on my bad foot, literally tripping over my big toe.
The toe stubbed on pavement, and knuckled under my foot.
A sharp burst of pain hit and went away. I looked down and had skinned the top of my toe slightly through both the Vibram mesh, the injinji toe socks and my skin.
My toe felt like it had either been jammed, slightly dislocated temporarily at the knuckle from a hyperextension, or possibly fractured (when I was younger 20 years ago, I had fractured both my big toes several times either during kick boxing, riding a three wheeler once and catching my foot between a tree and the back tire, and a half dozen other situations).
I was still a mile from home when this happened and slowly jogged home on the foot. (mistake again)
Lesson Learned – Avoiding Vibram Five Finger Toe Injuries
I’ve learned and re-learned several lessons over the last 7 months about running in Vibrams. Most of them involved taking things very slow, because even though I’ve been running for over 25 years, I’ve only been running in Vibrams for 6 months. I’M A NEWBIE!
Most of the lessons have been about my stride in Vibrams, my form, differences in stride and form when I’m running on different terrains and when I’m running fresh, or tired or stiff or in the cold etc. Every difference is a major new lesson that I have to learn.
I can’t run the same way every day in Vibrams if I’m running under a different set of circumstances, and as such I get stronger because my muscles are dealing with completely different circumstances (that’s the good thing).
But my chances of injury increase because I’m dealing with something I’ve never dealt with before and I DO NOT KNOW WHAT I’M DOING YET!
The swelling has gone away, my bruises on my toe are almost gone too. I REALLY want to go running and think I could, but I have to check myself with my brain.
Instead, I walked a half mile last night instead of running 3. This morning I woke up and had the feeling of a slight not under the ball of my foot just below my second toe. Its just a little swelling, but it goes to show I wasn’t ready to run last night.
Today, I’ll need to walk somemore, but probably no more than a mile.
Basically, I’m starting all over again with my Vibrams post injury. Sure, I’ll probably learn faster and move up the curve back to half marathon level faster, but it is still starting over.
This time, I’m also going to do some cross training, weight training to strengthen my feet and ankles. I’m still thinking about the types of exercise I will do, probably a lot of things involving inclines and soft spongy surfaces.
My Wife’s Vibram Injury
My wife has a pair of Vibram Sprints. She has only had them for about 3 months. The first or second week she had them, she tried to run a 2.5 mile stretch up a steep hilly mountain with a friend. She too suffered from a trip where her toe stubbed and went under her foot. She skinned up her toe worse than I did, but didn’t seem to suffer from the pull/jam/fracture that I went through. She was dumb and lucky.
She should have tried to go that far that fast and definitely not through a hilly area. She learned a hard lesson quick. I usually learn the hard lessons a lot slower than she does.
Applied for Job in Position of Ass Kissing Weasel at Nail Communications (recently sourced by Vibram to promote barefoot running)
Its been 10 years since I last applied for a job and in the space of about 14 hours, I have now applied for 2!.
First, I sent off a message to Tony Post sking to pay him to let me work for Vibram USA. I sent off a introduction request through my Friend Michael Bayer of Utterli fame. He also worked in the venture capital industry in New England prior to Utterli.
Then I came across this quick press release in Adweek that a company called Nail Communications, a flash heavy marketing firm, had been sourced to create a micro site for Vibram FiveFinger shoes to spread the concept of barefoot running to the masses. So I did a quick search on Nail Communications to figure out who they were and found this very funny (saying that in a non kis ass way) job posting on LinkedIn.
At first glance, it looks like someone might have hacked their company linkedin account or something, but if you read the ‘But’ in the Job Description, you will see that they are actually trying to screen out Ass Hat weasels instead of hire them by the droves.
Sorry Social Media douche bags, they didn’t really want those kind of skills.
So of course, I applied.
I keep my LinkedIn profile up to date, but I don’t bother with a resume anymore. So being the prospective Weasel applying for this job, I didn’t include a resume. 
I’m basically looking for 3 things out of this
- I want to work with Vibram, directly, indirectly or whatever
- Any company with this wicked level of sarcasm has got to be a good company (probably a pitfall in there somewhere . . .)
- Who could pass up an opportunity to apply for this kind of job and still call themselves a blogger?
Here’s my cover letter for the job (don’t copy and paste it and apply yourself! It is now copyrighted by yours truly!
Greetings,
First I just wanted to say that your profile head shot is amazing! There are attractive people on LinkedIn and then there are people operating at a whole new level like yourself.
Second, I read a quick press release in Adweek mentioning that Nail Communications has landed the Vibram account. When I did a Google search on Nail Communications this job posting came up. My first impression is that Nail Communications must have a rogue ex-employee still operating the controls of the company Linkedin Profile. Then I realized that in actuality someone just had a good sense of humor.
Regardless, I want to work on the Vibram account. Just last night, around I sent a connection request through my friend Michael Bayer asking for an introduction to Tony Post. In the letter to Tony, I basically said that I wanted to help him in any capacity, money was no object, I’d pay anything!
I have been running in Vibram FiveFinger shoes since September, and I am sold on their functionality hook, line and sinker. I drove about 800 miles each way to buy my second pair at a store that stocked KSO Treks.
Over the years, I have worked in many fields including intelligence, sales, taxes, accounting, finance, contract management, process management, account management etc. My customers and accounts have included Verizon Wireless, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Dick’s Sporting Goods, The Sports Authority, Office Max, Office Depot and more.
In new media, social media and the blogosphere, I have worked as a writer, ghost writer and product evangelist for the last four years.
I have not been to Rhode Island before, but no my way around an airport and the interstate system. I work from a wifi dock office (fishing dock on a lake across the water from Charlotte, NC).
I would love to help on this project, because this product is rock solid and needs all the help it can get. It has great word of mouth momentum, but that type of momentum can rapidly turn against a brand or product if its not harnessed and managed quickly. There is some evidence that this could already be happening due to product shortages and slow responses on the facebook group among other things.
Best Regards,
Brett H. Bumeter, llm
OK, fun is over, now back to the daily grind of working by the lake…
seriously wish it would stop raining, I need to go running and put some miles on my toes…
What to do with All my Old Blogger Blogs? Created New Templates –> Maybe some Adsense Content too…
Years ago, I created a LOT of Blogger blogs. Some of you may recall 
that this particular site started out as a blogger blog too.
When I first set them up, I was basically just looking for an html playground to fool around and learn more about web design.
Then I started learning a great deal about blogging with them.
Before you know it, I had graduated to CMS based sites powered by WordPress and all of a sudden I found myself with all of these old Blogger blogs under my account.
Most of them are languishing, but they do prove useful from time to time when I need to use a shot gun approach to the long tail that still remains.
Well tonight, I took a very small first step in doing something with those old sites.
I started by doing what I always like to do best, Learn Something New.
This time, I was learning how to design Blogger Templates (like a wordpress theme) using my preferred design software, Artisteer. (If you want a 5% discount on it, follow me on twitter @brettbum and shoot me an @message and I will send you a code for a discount, which can save you about $5 – $10 off of a license.
Anyway, I started making Blogger Templates and updating 2-3 of the blogs that are still loaded up with content. (Some of the content I just deleted or consolidated into other sites, like this one.)
It was kind of fun.
Now, I’m even thinking about quickly creating unique blogger templates for all of my old Blogger Bogs and maybe refreshing some of the content there for a simple, basic adsense play. Nothing grand, but if it buys me a free dinner once a year and continues to enable me to blast the long tail shotgun from time to time too, well that’s just icing on the cake.
Just a quick note, I took some screen video of the process making these templates which I will share soon.
Flying through the Holidays – January Conferences
I’m wrapping up what has been a pretty good week all in all. All week, I’ve been working to provide free upgrades for my clients sites from last year. I haven’t hit them all yet, but I’ve hit most of them. Upgrading their WordPress installations and any plugins that are out of date. I’m doing this free, and not expecting anything for it. I mention it for other WP designers out there.
Consider, you could charge for this service, you could charge a maintenance type of contract even. You could also charge your clients an arm and a leg if their site gets hacked because they were running an out of date version of WordPress or using a plugin that has a security vulnerability in it.
All those situations however, hing upon the concept of your customers experiencing a problem and you fixing it. Ergo, they have to experience some level of pain, and then make the association of you with that pain, even if you are the cure.
I’m not big on codependence, creating it, fostering it etc. I am big on helping people, and helping them avoid pain and problems. So I’m helping my clients avoid this issue going forward.
Plus, honestly, it is a little self serving. Yes, I could make some decent money charging to clean up a hacked account, but that type of work is really a pain in the ass, not very fun, and every one involved (client, designer, hosting company and more) all go through the process reluctantly.
Who needs that type of hassle? That goes double during the holidays!
So happy holidays to everyone, and I hope you update your WordPress intallations and plugins too! The tighter your installation and security the safer the web is for everyone.
Travel and Conferences
I’ve been working on getting ready for January travel and conferences after the holidays. In this area, I’m really looking forward to my third Affiliate Summit. I’m covering the show again this winter, and something about this show gets me jazzed everytime it comes around.
It is not an easy nut to crack. Even though I’ve been covering, writing, even working in the affiliate world myself for several years now, there are a large number of disciplines to understand deeply. This is not a get rich over night scheme. It involves a large number of professionals that work on the web and have been honing their craft and skills and tools since the earliest days of the internet. When Yahoo! was still trying to figure out how to build a revenue component into their business plan, the affiliate marketing industry was already profitable.
This time around, I’m again going to be focusing on any tips I can pick up in understanding analytics and PPC management. I’m also going to be VERY focused on trying to find affiliate networks that provide products or services through their network that play well in the realm of content that has entertainment value. Anything from Blogs to podcasts to video casts to movies and tv shows online. I see a big future here for a number of reasons, and I’m looking for ways to make this work.
I will also keep my eye out for anyone that builds in better integration with WordPress or other CMS systems.
This will be my third show and I think as a blog marketer, WordPress CMS web designers, I could offer back some useful insights to this community as well. To this end, I’m hoping to discuss this more with Shawn Collins and Missy Ward. I haven’t gotten a good bead on how or where I might be able to give back to this industry that has taught me quite a bit already, but I think there is an opportunity there.
I’m also trying to figure out how to juggle in CES, Atlanta WordCamp, Boston WordCamp and Indiana Barcamp this next month.
Atlanta Wordcamp organizers sent me a request to send in a speaking proposal for that conference. They specifically asked for something, a topic, that hadn’t been used elsewhere before. So I took an extra few days to put something together, got it in by the deadline, then didn’t hear anything from them. I started seeing other speakers added to the list, covering some of the same exact topics I’ve heard them cover more than once elsewhere. (not saying there is anything wrong with that, but I kind of figured when Atlanta WordCamp asked for something unique they meant it. )
Guess that wasn’t really the case. lol
It looks like its going to be a good WordCamp if for no other reason than Scott from WordPress Pods is going to be presenting. I really hoped that he could have spoke at the Birmingham WordCamp but it didn’t happen. So I was glad to see him get on the docket for Atlanta.
Anyway, Atlanta WordCamp happens right at the same time that CES is taking place in Las Vegas. So I was looking at flying to Vegas, then taking the Red Eye back after the tweet up at the LV Hilton to make it to Atlanta WordCamp in time to speak.
That’s not necessary now as they lost my proposal in the pile, filled up the schedule with other great speakers, and decided they didn’t need me after all. That’s all fine and dandy. I was waiting on feedback on whether they needed me or not and got no response all week long.
So I finally was able to track down a Google voice number for one of the organizers (think there are a couple), and called. Nice guy, that I met in Birmingham (didn’t remember me lol even though he requested I send in a proposal in the first place ). So he told me that they didn’t have a spot for my topic (which is true, there are about 3-4 people presenting the same topic already, sans the tool that will enable people to actually walk out of the room with the ability to use the skill taught.
That’s all well and good, but when I went online to finally get my travel plans locked in stone, the airline rates have gone up by $400!
So essentially, submitting my speaking proposal, and then not backing out, and waiting for someone to follow up with me and confirm whether or not they really needed/wanted me to speak after they asked, just cost me $400.
Merry Christmas from WordCamp Atlanta!
Now, anyone that knows me, knows that I’m not rich or anything. I’ve got a home in Atlanta with an updside down mortgage. I’ve got other challenges stemming from my run in with the Chinese mafia when I used to be a corporate accountant for Motorola. I don’t really have $400 to spare, especially when I’m trying to do right by someone or some group.
I realize its the holidays. I realize December is a tough month. I realize that 99% of people that work in Social Media wouldn’t know how to return a phone call or follow up with someone in a meaningful (nonfollowfriday shout out) way unless you were threatening to decapitate Steve Jobs and put his head on a pike in the middle of the Microsoft Corporate Headquarter campus.
I know all that and my expectations are very very low. I’ve been working in this industry for 4 years now. Its par for the course.
But well, it is still annoying, especially when it takes money out of my bank account.
Sorry Bank of America, guess it took money out of your bank account too.
Fortunately, the week has been pretty good from a financial perspective. I had done a fair job of bringing in new business this month, and before this happened, it looked like I would be going into the holidays with all pluses on my tick sheet. So now I have a $400 set back, plus, not sure if I can make either the WordCamp in Atlanta nor CES! ($400 extra might blow my budget for that trip) I could go to Atlanta WordCamp if I don’t go to CES, but now I’m a little annoyed, and there’s really no room for politics or bad attitudes at WordCamps.
Its funny, over the years I’ve heard quite a few of the speakers that frequent WordCamps in the southeast, bitch moan and complain about the inherent politics that screws them out of grandeur. Other than empathizing with friends, I never really paid it much attention. I do my best to stay out of politics. If someone wants my help, I’m there. If they don’t, that’s cool too. I’m pretty easy going. So getting sucked in on this one, with the invite first, the stall second, and the blow off last even managed to get under my thick skin.
At least they weren’t threatening to kill me and my kids like the Chinese mafia in Buckhead were! Some things in Atlanta are getting better I guess.
…..
deep breath, btw , this IS a blog, in the diary sense of blogs. I write here to express myself and for therapy reasons these days. Nice cleansing feeling of getting this crap off my chest. After I hit publish, I won’t care about this any more.
OK, so its finally snowing here. The kids were let out on a snow day 5 hours ago, when there was not any snow or rain in the sky. (silly)
I’m going to get cleaned up then head over to a holiday party at some of our friends house. My wife and kids are already there. I’ve just been finishing a few things up before heading out. Trying to put in something of a full day.
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