I’m stuck in Florida. At least until my daughter is 18. I cannot imagine her father being alright with us moving away. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, because the job situation here in the schools is horrific. I suppose I thought it was like that everywhere.

It’s not. When I was up in WV visiting family, I took the time to check out postings in various counties. In the county where my dad lives there are already posting for at least 4 high school level special education teachers. In the town where a lot of my family lives and at least four of my relatives teach – they have already posted job openings for 5 high school level English teachers and 4 high school level special education teachers.

It’s enough to make me feel like drawing blood, I tell you. I want to pack it all up and just move to a place that actually has the money and desire to hire teachers. Instead, I am stuck in a district that has cut almost 1000 instructional and support jobs during the past two school years.

I know the courts like to see children living close to both parents, but at what point so they become sympathetic to the fact that the mother is struggling to support the child. Sheesh.

My boss is livid. When someone like me is let go to make room for someone else in the district that lost their position and has more seniority, the school gets no say at all in who is placed with them. She told me that the last two people they have been assigned to them have been useless. They are essentially dead weight in the department. Those of us who she has interviewed and hand picked end up picking up the slack. It’s good to know I was appreciated.

I went through the tears and panic over the weekend. Today I have been able to let off some steam with my co-workers. I feel a lot more ready to face the months ahead now. I may very well be placed quickly in another position. Or, there might be an instructional position out there for me. That is what I really want anyway. Still, I wanted to be the one that decided I was leaving for another position. I did not want to be forced out by circumstances and the fact that I am just a name on the list to the people at County.

Pray for me.

I’m taking the last half of my Christmas break off school to update my mystery shopping accounts. Most of them list my information from two moves ago. I’ve not mystery shopped in a couple of years, save for the occasional movie theater shop for one of my favorite shopping companies. But, with a summer on my horizon that will likely be spent NOT working fulltime, I am eager to do a few fun shops.

The mystery shopping community is a highly secretive, highly competitive group of people. I am not talking about the mystery shopping companies, but rather those who mystery shop. All you need to do is spend even a little bit of time on any of the mystery shopping forums online to see how hostile some people get if anyone asks a question like which mystery shopping company has an account for Disney or Ruby Tuesdays or Sprint – or any other account. I suppose the major reason for this is that shoppers feel like the more people in their area who know about particular job information, the less work they might get.

I’ve always shared information freely with my friends, both local and distant. I can only hope that one day someone will share as freely with me. After being out of the circuit for two years, I am finding that some of the companies I worked with are not longer in business, that other no longer have jobs in my area, and that some of the jobs I liked doing the best must now have their accounts with alternate companies.

Domain names are the first step on setting up your website. You have to get your hands on a great domain name that reflects either the name or the nature of your business, before you can go about putting your website files online with your webhost.

The internet grows exponentially each year and as time goes on,. It seems like there are less and less available domain names. If you find that the domain name you want is available, register it now – even if you are not ready to put your site online. That same domain name could be gone by the time you actually feel ready to use it. Snap it up now and it’s yours for as long as you pay the registration fees for it.

GoDaddy.com is the world’s leading domain name registrar. They also offer web hosting, site creation tools, and e-commerce and security solutions. On top of their solid reputation for on-target customer service, they offer very low prices – especially compared to other companies with similarly good reputations. Plus, right now you can use the coupon code BLOGGER799 to get your .COM domain for just $7.99 at GoDaddy.com. And yes, .COM is still the best choice for your domain’s small business – as opposed to .net, etc.

So, if you have a domain name in mind and find out that it is available – buy it today!

The bidding is up to $27.94 (shipping is free) and the auction has nearly two days left. The same seller old a box of Lucky Charms for $36 and a wad of crumpled newspaper for $26.09, so I am assuming I really am missing something. Either way, it seems like anything goes on eBay and you can always find a buyer.

My problem is more with finding the time to ready the items and prepare the auctions. I have bins and bins of Gymboree clothes I meant to sell on eBay and finally ended up giving away before my last move. I love I missed out on a LOT of money and I wish now I had just walked the bins into the iSold It store up in Palm Harbor. They do the whole thing for you for a fee. You just drop off the items along with some info about your expectation for the auction content and you are good to go. They will let you know when you have a check ready to claim. If you have items that will turn a tidy profit and no time to deal with getting them online, this is the handiest solution.

Independent trucks, though, say they are not being paid any more than they have in the past to transport the goods we are all pay more for. Yesterday in Tampa, around 45 independent truckers staged a protest near Tampa’s port in response to this issue. It was just one of many similar gatherings across the nation. They say that although diesel is up 42 percent from a year ago, their pay has stayed the same.

Who is profiting? The middlemen who hire independent truckers are adding fuel surcharges to their customers’ bills, but those extra fees are staying with the middlemen.

One trucker gave an example: he hauled a load of fabric from Tampa’s port to Lake Wales. His carrier paid him $160, but he used $100 worth of diesel fuel. Diesel can consume up 80 percent or more of an independent trucker’s pay, and then there are still costs for oil changes, tires, and general upkeep.

I think it is deplorable. In what world is it OK for a hauling company to collect a fuel surcharge, make an even bigger profit, and then expect the actual trucker to make a lower net profit? Either the surcharge should be eliminated or passed entirely to the trucker. While there are some freight companies that do pass the surcharged onto the truckers, they are the minority.

I have no idea what go into my daughter, but a couple of days ago she came to me saying the pen would not work. She showed me how it would no longer trigger responses when touching the green Go button and otherwise. I looked at the unit, checked the connection of the tape and then looked closely at the pen. It was frayed, for lack of a better word, at the cord near the pen itself. My daughter informed me she had chewed on it.

Let’s put aside for the moment that she will be five next week and should be well past chewing on her toys. I know that. Let’s skip to yesterday when I went about the task of getting a new pen to fix the Leap Pad unit.

First, I called the Leap Pad Company and made sure a new pen included the full length of cord, because in our case it was the cord that was damaged. I was assured the new pen would indeed be a new pen with a new cord and the whole thing affixes to the Leap Pad near the battery case. Good enough.

I went back to the toll free number; because I remembered how difficult it was to get past the automated operator once you tell the system you are after a new pen or stylus. I kept asking and asking to talk to a live person and the system would acknowledge that I wanted to speak with an operator, but tell me that I should just stick around and order my new pen through the system.

It took me nearly random pushing of tens of buttons to get the operator in the first place, so this offer for a free new pen was burned in my head now. I thought my second call would be a breeze.

I called and started through the automated system to order the replacement pen. There was no problem when I put in my credit card number to pay for shipping. The problem happened when I had top speak my address. My street has a super unusual speaking and the system would not let me spell it out. It just kept registering a garbled name. So, I completed the process, thinking I could just call back with my confirmation number and speak, to a live person to get it corrected.

No dice.

When I called back and gave another operator my confirmation number, which I had written down twice, it pulled up another person’s order. The girl informed me she had no way whatsoever to get into the system for the automated orders to try and find my order and that I should just wait for the pen to arrive. Arrive WHERE? – I asked her. I was going to be charged for a pen that would inevitably be shipped to another person or returned to sender. She suggested I order a second pen thought her (for which she wanted to charge me more than the automated system charged me) and just call later and dispute one of the charges. WHAT!

I asked to speak to her supervisor. She informed me, tersely, that it would do me no good. They cannot find my order for me.

So, at this point I just have the one pen on order, though I have no idea where it will be delivered. I will NEVER use the Leap Frog automated system again. And, I still need to get a new pen for my daughter’s Leap Pad.

I suppose I am back at square one, plus the added aggravation of a charge on my credit card I need to dispute.

Marketbright is conducting a Webinar that will showcase:

• Fundamentals of landing page creation and design
• Optimization of Google for landing pages
• Tips and strategies for optimizing landing pages for maximum click-through

Register for the webinar now.

::: ::: :::

 Press Release:

SAN BRUNO, CA–(Marketwire – January 22, 2008) – Marketbright, the only on-demand integrated online marketing and web content management platform, will host a Webinar on Thursday, January 31st, on Landing Pages 101. Landing Pages have quickly become the 30-second commercial spot of digital marketing, and their importance in tracking pay-per-click (PPC) return on investment and capturing critical lead information cannot be understated.

Members of the public are invited to attend the Webinar. Attendees will learn:

– Fundamentals of landing page creation and design

– Optimization of Google for landing pages

– Tips and strategies for optimizing landing pages for maximum click-through

WHO: Kevin Miller – Director, Client & Business Development

WHAT: Landing Pages 101 – Best Practices for Leveraging Landing Pages

WHEN: Thursday, January 31st, 2008, at 11:00am PT, 2:00pm ET

WHERE: To register to attend the Webinar, please visit:
http://www.marketbright.com/pages/partners/mktb/jan-31-2008-webinar/index.html?Campaign_Id=11781&Activity_Id=9701

A replay of the Webinar will also be available after January 31st at
http://www.marketbright.com/pages/partners/mktb/jan-31-2008-webinar/index.html?Campaign_Id=11781&Activity_Id=9701

About Marketbright
Marketbright provides an on demand marketing automation solution which allows companies to implement self-service campaign execution and demand generation, automate lead scoring and nurturing, and to gain visibility into closed-loop campaign-to-cash metrics via real-time dashboards. The integrated marketing platform results in a full 360-degree view of your customers’ interactions, and this information is used to route only valuable, qualified leads into your sales CRM. Marketbright’s customers include Business Objects, Varonis and EVault. Marketbright is headquartered in San Bruno, CA. For more information, visit the company’s Web site at www.marketbright.com.

If you are looking for a way to monetize your website, blog, or social networking page, think about giving over some time to investigate the use of audio ads. You add a bit of code to each page where you want the ads to appear and a short 5-second audio clip then pays up on page load. Instead of only getting paid if a customer clicks on an ad or performs an action, you get paid for 100% of your traffic.

The rush people are in to get signed up is because there is an affiliate program that is open for all who sign up through February 1. After that, you can still enroll in the program and host the ads. Since I am already signed up, I am by default part of the affiliate program. I’m not pushing for sign ups yet, but if the program turns out to be a big money maker, I will certainly shout it from the rooftops, so to speak.

Downtime was the least of the worries endured by DreamHost customers in recent months. Lately, customers have had their accounts hacked, files “accidentally” deleted, seen DNS numbers disappear, and had their credit cards billed for excessive amounts multiple times. One customer said his card was hit for $150 four times in a row one night. Another said he was hit four times for $500 each! In the end, reports are saying there is $7.5 million in erroneous credit card charges.

What in the world!?

DreamHost’s team chalked it up to a casual mistake and tried to laugh off that they attempted to bill all of their customers for the entire year of 2008 and sometimes 2009 ahead of time, without notice.

And in the midst of all this, DreamHost does not have phone support. Take it from me: if you are going to pay good money for a web hosting account you need to make sure you can get a hold of customer service and tech support 24/7.

In a direct response Lunarpages has issued a coupon code, which gives you $40 off hosting with Lunarpages. They will buy off to 9 months of a prepaid contract with DH. You can get the package deal here: Lunarpages Offer for DreamHost Customers.

Lunarpages has a basic hosting account with 15,000GB of transfer, 500GB of storage, afree domain name, and 10 add-on domains for $6.95 a month. They also allow their customers to earn affiliate commissions on hosting plans they sell.