Green Flamingobecause I said so

Or should I say…supereco blogging? Have you found yourself wishing you were part of the “Green” effort, just sometimes you don’t know the easy ways to participate? Well now there is a place to go.

Supereco is a new site launched by Crowd Fusion, the previous owners of Engadget. Realted to anything and everything green, it bursts out of a hidden shell and is becoming a major site.

Whether talking about all the celebs that are “green” or green tech, you can go to supereco to learn how you can help balance a planet in turmoil. It is really something worth checking out!

Sometimes in blogging, and sometimes in life, you will learn that you have to plan ahead and look ahead.

• If you know there is going to be a blizzard a few hours away, there are things you will have to plan for.

• If you know your internet service will be terminated in a few hours you will have to plan ahead and work ahead just like for the blizzard.

• If you buy food, charge your phone, make sure your heat works…

• If you write posts, automate your ads, and check up on your emails…

…You should be good for a few situations thrown at you.

Last week I knew my mom was coming, and I had started up my blog again. A week ago I found out that there was but one internet connection here where we would be staying. However, I did not take enough time to plan ahead and write posts, to get my blog off the ground so that through this week it would glide smoothly on autopilot.

Early today it started snowing, as we set out to visit my older sister in her in a town near here. Little did we know at the time it would take us and hour to two to get back. We looked for something to eat, and drove 15 minutes in the direction of my real house to eat and ate at a pizzeria. After that, as we started back, we had to turn around and wait because we were slipping and sliding in a cruddy rental car that could not resist a little ice, and going up and down a few hills from there to here did not sound like a good plan. When we finally set out again, the route was slow, up and down the hills, for the little crappy drivers of Pennsylvania don’t know how the hell to drive in the snow. As we watched a pickup truck do fishtails in the snow and sat there for an hour waiting in the snow we realized we should have planned ahead a little.

Two fatal flaws can also make you realize that planning ahead is crucial to precision of whatever you do. Though it works to go with the flow, you also need to have some sort of plan.

So, though I could tell a few success stories about what planning ahead can do for you, but sometimes the negatives really show you what a power can do.

So for some motivation…

Get out there and make a schedule for yourself, plan out the next 5 posts you are going to write, make a goal for yourself that you can hard to live up to, instead of saying you will do what comes your way and only accomplish and overcome what falls in your path. It take more than that to be a success, it takes more to fulfill your life, and sometime you have to show that you know to live for yourself and that in some way, you can control whatever challenge is place before you.

Getting Back To Blogging

I know that many bloggers have to postpone blogging career, but then often they wish to come back. This could turn out to be a little hard if they are not up to date or  do not seem cut out for more blogging. I know there are a fair amount that have this desire, and I hope I can help.

Section 1: pre-launch                                                                                                                      1.  1. One of the first things you want to do is to figure out why you couldn’t blog before, and fix that  problem. It could be because of time, content, stress, or any other reason that would prevent you from being able to blog on a normal schedule.

If it is due to a time problem, you might want to free time or “shape” the time that you have to make room for blogging. Because if you don’t have time, then there is really no way you can get all the necessary pieces to keep the blog running.                                                                              Regardless of the reason, you still need a solution. For some of you, this might be the hard part, but there is always a time to take the jump and go.

2. The next thing you need to do is optimize your theme and clarify the stature of your blog. The first part of this of course, is to find a theme that is up to date, and a style that is up to date. You can quickly check on other sites similar to yours as samples if you need some.                                          If you continue with your previous theme, and think it is up to date and modern, there is not much to be done. When finding a new theme, then you should make sure the title is yours and the RSS section directs readers to your feed. Other optimizations such as added promotions, gadgets, colors, site statistics, etc. can be added to your theme as well.

Once that is complete then you should clarify your previous content, organize posts, categories and tags, edit pages, so that your blog is current and ready for the public.

3. The third thing you should do is to write new content, as far as posts and pages. You do not need to wait a week before your new launch, but you should have one or two posts that are current for your readers to browse as they visit. The posts should be modern ideas and helpful information, probably not a “sorry I left but I’m back” 100 word post that you scrambled up in 10 minutes, but more like a half hour long, well written, well composed post that is thorough and new, showing readers that you care, and making then want to come back. It could also be thoughtful, and display some sort of message, if informative is not your type.

Section 2

4. Now it is time to relaunch your reborn blog! If you do not have a huge launch plan set up, then there are simpler ways to get your site back on the market. The way I like best if to visit other’s blogs and leave lots of comments. First of all, by reading your colleagues post’s, then you learn what is going on, more news, and if you have previously established a name for yourself the chances of recognition will be higher. You can travel to old sites, new sites, different sites and blue sites. All kinds of places you can promote the relaunch of your blog by just leaving a peace of your mind.                                                                                      If you feel like going all out, then you can throw in advertising, forum activity, and other ways of promoting your site, but really you only need to comment and your blog will start to grow back.

5. Now that you have gotten traffic back to your site, my last piece of advice is to keep up the blog, which like the first step, in solely your effort. You can make it grow bigger and bigger, and if you make money with it then you can hook up your programs and make money again once your site gets popular. So if you are able to post consistently, and visit others sites consistently, as well as leaving time for new things, then I think your blogging career will be very well back on track.

This post continues the “birthday time” trend set over a year ago on Green Flamingo. Today is my younger sister’s birthday, and she goes from 8 to 9. It is cool how you can always look at the year and know her age, for she was born on the millennium.

2008 has been a great year for her, she has really changed from who she was a year ago. She has new friends, acts differently, and has different interests. I think this will be another great year, we’ll she what it brings her!

We are having a little celebration in our cottage we are staying at for a week. Over the weekend she had a party, and saw all her friends, so today is a little more low-key. But there is nothing that can stop her from having a special feeling about her birthday.

In December, when I was not really blogging, then there were some holidays this blog skipped hearing about, but I will mention them now because today is a holiday for me and our family. The first of those holidays was my birthday, which means now I am 13, and of course my “about” page is incorrect (new edition coming soon: under construction). To give a quick recap, I had a great time. I got a haircut, (for my hair was getting long), I saw the movie “Yes Man” with my friend, and I got some great presents. I was sick during that week however, but I felt better then, plus school was canceled due to snow on my birthday which I felt happy about.

The second holiday was Christmas, which I also enjoyed. Though I thought we might not have such a great time as a family, we did anyway.

I did cover New Years briefly, and on New Years day we traveled to Washington DC.

So I think that says it all! Happy belated holidays!

I have heard some people talk about how there are already plenty of blogs that help newbie bloggers to learn, and to guide them through the first steps. Though there are already many blogs like that, the opinion is still wrong, there are ways to get some views in that topic.

1. Type of site:

Create a super-blog, with ALL the information newbies need and will use in their near future. It could be somewhat of a database, well organized so they can find the answer they are looking for with a few clicks of the mouse. A database will take a long time to create, but when you are finished you won’t have to update as often. If you want more a traditional blog, you can still post consistently and then store your database information on another page or a sub-domain.

2. Promoting the site:

To promote a site for newbies, you have to target sites where they will hang out. You can either comment a lot on other “newbie info” sites, attracting the people who know they want to get into blogging, but they don’t know how, or you can try to attract visitors by getting others interested in blogging.

Social bookmarking can be quite popular, like twitter, stumbleupon, digg, and sites of that sort. You can even go to AIM or youtube, depending really on what kind of visitors you want.

And you can even make a name for yourself locally, telling your friends about it, and spreading the word to the people you know.

If yu decide to advertise, target the same type of sites, with a catchy ad to interest someone in blogging.

3. Making it stand out:

Not only do you have to have all the content, all the creativity, and all the organization, but whatever you put out there has to be easy to follow and understand, and you can’t skip much of anything important.

So I think 1, 2, and 3 cover one way that you can successfully blog to newbies. If you have another genius idea, feel free to share!

In this world many things revolve around style, no matter where, when, and how it takes place. At the moment I am talking about cities that have style. Last week, I went on a little vacation…

To Washington DC, capitol of the United States. We were only a few hours away, and on New Years Day we set out on our journey.

What appears to be the style that stands out the most is the authenticity of the city, as a capitol, with grand buildings, though the “style” of those buildings seems old. But really, the city is quite modernized.

So our first day there we saw the Smithsonian museums, and later resided for the night at Andrews airforce base. The day we visited the zoo, the natural history museum, and then we went back to our now upgraded sweet at the base. And Saturday was our day of walking around, looking at monuments and memorials, before heading back home.

Now, even with all of that combined, I think the real reason we went was for the food, and the style. I will talk of our dining experience.

The first night we ate at a quaint little french restaurant in  george town, called La Madeline, which you may have heard of, and I had a very good chicken crepe, which was topped off with a sacher torte. The next morning we ate at IHOP, but for that chain they did well. In the evening we visited Union Station’s Pizzeria Uno, and enjoyed some of their deepdish pizza specialty. And Saturday night we ate at cracker barrel, and I had some spicy grilled catfish.

Now, the restaurants may not sound too exotic, and they were not, but the setting some restaurants had was great.

So really the style of food and dining is important everyone, and if you are in a place that distinguishes that style you are in good shape.

It is no longer December, and it is no longer 2008. We are now lingering on January 1st, of a new year. We welcome what will come in 2009, and expect great things. For a while, we will seem suprised by the year, like it is too new and fresh, but just as we are getting the hang of things it will already by 2010. I hope that we all have a successful blogging year!

Happy New Year Everyone!