Green Flamingobecause I said so

I have to say, usually from a vacation, I am glad to be back home again, to a normal life, and not worrying about much. But not this time sadly. I still wish I was in Washington, and not in Pennsylvania. I came back to a messy house and a lot of work.

The flight yesterday was ok, watched a movie and did have something to eat. We got in late local time, about 11:30. Though it was only 8:30 Washington time, I was still very tired.

It took me a while to get used to the humidity here in Pennsylvania and live it, but now is it horrible. My bike is too small and there aren’t that many great places to ride, so it will be a little different outdoors.

Anyway, if I look on the bright side, I can STILL blog about cars, and also places I would like to be and travel too. Though my time is cut down a little I will still be able to manage.

So I will start with the cars here in PA compared to Washington.

Pennsylvania – Not many people here have what I would call a good car. In autoblogging terms you might almost call them clunkers. Since there are no supercars here or anything, you may wonder if there are a lot of hybrids, and everyone here is very environmental. The answer to that is NO. There are a lot of  Toyotas, but not prius.There are a few decent cars here, an occasional Audi A8 maybe, BMW, and next door they have two Mustang GTs, but overall not that great.

Washington – In Washington I would say there is a variety of cars. There are a lot of hybrids, people are environmental there, and there are many good cars there too. I had a few listed in previous posts but to sum it up I saw a lot of good Audi’s, BMW’s, Mercedes Benz, Porsche’s, etc.

Well that about does it for me tonight, I am a bit tired still from my flight, But I’ll be back again soon, and this post also sums up my vacation pretty much.

I am sure many of you have noticed, part of the problem I have with this blog is the posting frequency. It happens that I am very motiviated on the weekends, I get many good ideas, and I am ready for the whole week.

Then the week comes and I do not have time to blog, time to get anything out there. I try, and it stays in the back of my mind, but I always put it off, and therefore get nothing done.

You might wonder why it is such a big deal that I can only post on weekends, not on weekdays, but it is because all the other posts go out on weekdays. Most people are busy on weekends and they go places – I do to, but I still have more time overall than I do on weekdays. So if I do not post when others are here blogging, they might not see my post and no traffic will come. At all. So that is my problem.

So I know I have to write more, I will see how it goes this next week.

Earlier today, I woke up at five o’clock, and I decided that I would blog when I got up in the morning. However, I had to realize again when I woke up, that the other bloggers are not active, and really there won’t be much for me to do. In this case, it makes it hard for my world to go round, of good things and bad things, and I end up extremely bored with nothing to do.

This seems to be one of the biggest problems blogging has faced, everybody is tired and nothing is happening. It is just like the economy of the US, if consumers don’t buy because they don’t want to risk the money, then businesses will go bankrupt and there will be a broken country. It is the same within blogging. Nobody blogs, so the motive to continue is low, and the profits of continuing are even lower, which hurts everyone.

Over the summer I used to be able to see action online all day, everywhere it was bustling with competition, and even though I did not win, I got by, and I liked it. I could keep going on and I would always improve, keeping that hope that there was still room for success. But now that the blogging world is empty, then I am suffering, and I cannot keep on much longer.

I wish that an effort could be made to bring blogging back to life, because that is where it is fun, and how everyone continues to prosper. But now it seems like it is all at rest, and nothing can happen.

If you are asking me what can be done about this, I just have to tell you that you can’t control what other bloggers do, and what they have time for, and that you will just have to be patient sometimes. I do understand that is it a weekend, and blogging is not super busy on weekends, but still it shouldn’t feel like a graveyard.

I am just hoping that things will come out successful again and everyone will continue to prosper like before.

In your website, please please please do not be bland, and do not act like everybody else. It is not that I hate that, but I would there be diversity in all the blogs. Sometimes your website just needs that “piece of you” to be so great. Just the small unique detail that is like a texture on a fabric.

Your own piece of you could be almost anything on your blog. It could be your great writing style, pictures, a complex theme, a simplistic theme, a creative essence, a signature, and widget, a chatbox – what ever you want. What ever is needed, just be you.

I know you are told all the time that you should follow how a blogger does this, or how another person does that, and down to the very bone you could be the same website with different skin on the outside. And I know, you think you should be following all the things the millions of other bloggers taught you, not what I am telling you right now, but think about it.

I am assuming you spent at least 5 seconds of your busy blogging life thinking. And maybe you realized that you can do both. You can follow all the special steps you have learned, for they are important too, and I have used many techniques other bloggers have taught me. But you can also be creative, and add that little piece of you, so that you know that what is created from your hands is yours, no matter who you give it to.

Blogging is not just a way to make money, or to share your ideas, but it is more like an art.

Blogging masters have to learn and study, and experiment in the art of blogging before they become that master. Some have to learn it all, or some are a born natural, but all have to work to blog successfully.

Blogging is not limited to one kind of art either. It is all. You can paint or sculpt your blog, shaping and depicting your blog. One new diea too, blogging is like the art of combat. You are up against the world, and your enemies are no more than your friends. You learn certain moves to react against the blows on you, no matter how hard something may strike. You always have to get up and try again, until you can win with success.

To perfect the art of blogging you have to work hard and learn well, and interceot what comes your way and make it help you. You just have to shape what comes your way, and the paint the picture yourself.

It can be agreed on by many that what everyone and everything need is change. But this is an opinion that can be pulled to either side, and the battle can rage on so long, that winners won’t prevail within the first match.

The world is changing, with the global climate escalating, and with the change of the overall well being of the earth, the world transformation becomes very apparent, and has much attention paid to it.

People are changing, the way they act, the things they do, the things they have, and their minds think new thoughts all the time. The rest of life changes in the same way, it expands, and develops new things.

And of course the world of blogging changes with everything else, what is blogged about, and what goes on in the blogosphere.

I have talked about change before. I am sure many others have as well. We all live by the concept of “change” and nothing can be done about that.

Many things happen through this transformation. The American president was elected for hope of change. New ideas circulate, new ways and behaviours circulate, new structures and physical beings circulate. Their is no determining whether change it good or bad. It just happens. And it has to be accepted that change just happens, nothing can prevent that.

Why Change IS Important To You

With everything around you changing, you have to make a transformation of your own, and keep up with the others. Falling behind in a race means you have to work harder to catch up, and to stay with the flow. But though others change, an effort does not need to be made to change. Sometimes what you call “an effort to change” is just natural, and will work no matter what. You do not need to work hard to change, but do not work hard to stay the same either. Just let things pass you one by one, and when opportunity strikes, reply in your usual combat manner. You do not need to go out of the ordinary borderline.

Bottom Line: Change WILL come. You must accept change, and keep going.

Coming up: combat blogging

-The Green Flamingo

In the blogosphere, when everyone starts to blog and new people create websites everyday,  when you get busier and your blog becomes less important on your list, blogging becomes much more difficult. Quality posts are harder to write, and you have less time to comment on other blogs and maintain your site.

There is more to it than explained above. Sometimes it is the little things that count, and the little things that you don’t have time for. When on a tight schedule, you will not have time to update your twitter, guide along your technorati, digg other blog posts, tweak your rss feed, add new gadgets to your site, explore new blogs, comment on old blogs, optimize your SEO, optimize your pagerank, etc. These little standards bring together some of the things that promote your blog, and some ways that people view the status of your blog. Though all these are really little, too be successful in many eyes of all kinds, some of the tidbits are important over a range so large.

And even when one needs most of those things to feel completely in control, posting regularly and commenting seems most important. Even so, you have to watch how you go about that. I have seen on some sites lately that they have slacked a little, the grammar may not be kept up, or an ordinarily well built post will simply have the outlines to it. I have been no exception, I could draw my posts out into something very well received. It just gets harder and harder to keep up the best work.

How To Make Things Easier

To make things easier for yourself and your blog you need a plan, a schedule, and you need to compact. You also need to take the same principles of ecology: reduce, reuse, recycle. You can reduce the fluff in your posts, and the time you spend dawdling off on unhelpful sites. You can reuse your knowledge, and space, even some content. You can recycle your old content too by making into something new, recycle other blog’s posts and resources that you find.

Incorporation is a big part of the process as well, which follows along timing and schedule. If you incorporate most of what you need to do in short, well put together pieces you can get a great amount done in optimal time. If you quickly make sure your site is all working before you post, then write and publish a quality blog post, that will be a start. Then you can twitter about that blog post, and start commenting on other blogs, which hopefully have comment luv and will track back to your most recent post. You can also submit your site to directories, and social bookmarking sites at this time. All that should fill your blogging time for a day, and can be completed within 1-2 hours, depending on how much time you spend with certain activities.

Besides the normal routine, you can create a waterfall of visitors with a new idea, program contest etc, that is new and that will promote extra traffic to your blog. These types of things really seem to help people have a burst in profit.

The bottom line is, with blogging times getting harder, and time for blogging decreasing, then you need to know how to create the best plan for your blog with whatever is available to you.

Beta Advertising Update: Because of a feedburner delay, the raffled advertiser has still yet to be drawn, so you can still enter. There are also two more spots up for grabs, just comment on the beta post and let me know.

Finally it has arrived! I present the beta advertising program! I have had this idea for a while now, and finally I can share it. I want to give my readers a chance to try out advertising on this site, and see how it works for them for the first month of February.

I will be giving out 4 advertising spots this month, and rotating weekly.

This week, the first three spots will be first come, first served, and the last will be raffled off to my trusty email subscribers. Click here to enter.

So the first three to comment on this post will recieve a spot, and tomorrow I will draw the last spot.

I hope everyone has had a successful week, and I hope to see another one ahead of us. I have spotted some outstanding posts, and I am sure success will continue to improve.

-The Green Flamingo

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.