Scholarship Opportunity
College is expensive. That’s why scholarships are something you can never begin seeking too early on in your child’s life. I have some information about a very cool scholarship program for you right now.

It’s the $10,000 First Annual Create-A-Greeting-Card Scholarship Contest, sponsored by THE GALLERY COLLECTION ®. That’s right. I said $10,000. That will go a long way toward a college education today. Any high school, college or university student enrolled at any time during the latter half of 2007 can take part in the scholarship competition.
All you need to do is design your own greeting card. Enter your original photograph, painting, drawing, or even an electronic graphic you designed. The Gallery Collection is a business and personal greeting card company. The scholarship winner will not only get a great financial start toward an education, he or she will get to see their design added to the company’s collection.

Submissions for the Christmas cards scholarship contest are being accepted through January 15, 2008. If you know a college or high school student who you think should enter this competition, forward them the link to the scholarship details: www.gallerycollection.com/scholarship.htm. Get the word out. It would be foolish to pass on an opportunity like this.

When I worked as the head of the design department for a manufacturer some years ago, one of my privileges was picking out the annual Corporate Christmas cards. I can honestly say that if a design was offered that had been created by a student, it would have been one of my top picks. I love the idea of supporting new talent.

Marie Osmond is mourning her father’s death, dealing with her re-entry into the spotlight after joining the cast of this season’s Dancing with the Stars – and now she is defending the line of Magic Attic Club books she bought in 2001.

Here is Tampa, Patricia MacMartin discovered that the 800 number in the back of the now out-of-print series of children’s books now connects to a telephone sex line.

Ooops.

Her 9-year-old daughter asked to dial the 800 number in the back of her Magic Attic Club book and that is when they discovered just who they were calling. MacMartin notified library officials in Hillsborough County and when they didn’t remove the books, she checked out every Magic Attic book available from her local branch, the New Tampa Regional Library.

A spokesman for the Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative admits they “dropped the ball” and today Hillsborough County librarians spent a good part of the day tracking down the books.

The Magic Attic books include more than 30 titles aimed at girls from 9 and 12. It was launched in 1994, sold in 2001 to Marie Osmond, and went out of print in 2004.

Osmond’s spokeswoman maintains that their company is not responsible for the state of the phone number, as the books were discontinued four years ago and the phone number resold by the telephone company.

MacMartin said believes the publisher should hold some responsibility.

Local readers will still be able to enjoy the books. Librarians are simply going to remove the pages that contain the invalid phone number.

One of the fun things about having friends all over the country is that when I decide to run off for a weekend here or there, chances are I will have a friend in that city who I can stay with for the duration. In that past, when I have gone up to New York to see some Shakespeare in the Park or a Broadway show (and more often than not, off off Broadway) I have been able to stay with one of my girlfriends. I have nothing against sleeping on a couch or sharing a bed.

The last time I was in New York, I stretched things out a little more than was ideal. I stayed with a friend over in Jersey. It wasn’t conducive to the plans I had in the city. I’ll take convenience next time around.

Now that Gigi is getting old enough to travel with me on these short trips, I am more inclined to get a hotel room. New York Hotels are a tricky business. It can be hard to book the hotel you want in the right neighborhood and at a price you can stomach. Depending on what you are doing while you are in the city, you’ll want to plan your accommodations so they are convenient to what you are doing. I like the mapping tool the RealTravel website uses. You can see hotels on a map, along with their pricing. It makes looking for the right place a whole lot simpler. There is no reason for me to waste time checking out pricing for a hotel that’s all the way across town from the theaters or friends I want to drop in on while I’m there.

Of course, I’ll still bunk with buddies when I am traveling alone. One frugal, always frugal. Plus, I like the company.

For any of you who grew up with the Osmond Family in the spotlight, like I did, this next item will tug at your heart. George Osmond, father of the beloved singing Osmond family has died today at the age of 90.

As a child, I watched the Donny and Marie Show. The Osmond Brothers were superstars in my eyes. Donny Osmond has never really left the public spotlight and Marie has currently revived her star by appearing on Dancing with the Stars this season.

I offer my best to the entire family during this difficult time. What a blessing that he lived such a long life.

George Osmond married his wife, Olive, on December 1, 1944. She died in 2004.

Contextual advertising is absolutely what’s hot in the world of online advertising. Contextual meaning that an advertiser’s ads appear on websites or within text that is pertinent or related to the ad copy – in context. It’s what works.

One of the biggest bits of misinformation about contextual advertising is that can you just sign up for an account, zip through the details, and then sit back and watch your campaign bring you highly targeted traffic. If you are going to use tools like Google Adwords (the biggest PPC ad network online today), you need to know how to make a it work to your benefit.

You have to go into an Adwords campaign fully loaded with knowledge. There are several ways to accomplish this. You can:

• Spend countless hours online reading forums and blogs and attempting to cull the gems out of the endless mounds of information available.
• Hire a company to manage your campaigns for you.
• Get your hands on a concise guide written by a PPC professional on the subject who has already found the “gems” through trial and error and then do it yourself.

Steve Baker, an expert in the industry, as developed a free guide on using Google Adwords. His website also features his blog, case studies, and additional resources like his popular Google Adwords ebook AdWords Agency Secrets Revealed! His input will help you manage your own Adwords account, which means more profit for you and 100% control over your own campaign.

Before you go rushing into your next ad campaign, check out Steve’s site.

Bloggers love bullet points. In fact, those who blog about blogging have been singing the praises of the bullet point a lot lately. All the cool kids are doing it, right? They love their lists, their tasty tidbits of info. And, I’m all for whatever it takes to make a blog entry more readable. There are bloggers out there who have such a convoluted writing style that I nearly sign in relief when they finally slow down and break things down in neat bullet statements.

Bullet points are not always a simple task, though. You have to do it right. So, without further fanfare, here are some bullet points about Bullet Points (savor the irony):

• If you use complete sentences in at least one bullet point, then you need to use complete sentences for the entire list.
• Use the same verb tense in all bullet points.
• Ensure all bullet points in the same list are related in theme or topic.
• Make your bullet points concise. Your bullet list is not the right place for a full paragraph.
• Keep your list brief. Including more than 7 or 8 points destroys the validity of presenting an easy to digest grouping of information.

Now, go forth and bullet!

I have a tradition every year where I send flowers to celebrate my dad’s birthday and his wife’s birthday and their wedding anniversary – all of which come in three consecutive days. They call it The Birthaversary. I usually send an elaborate Christmas arrangement they can use throughout the holidays.

It’s a little trickier this year. They will be in Israel visiting her parents during the Birthaversary. I can’t just put in a call to the florist by their house that I like so much. I’ll have to employ a little extra planning.

Looking online, I found Flora2000.com. They are an international floral delivery company and among the over 150 countries to which thy can deliver, Israel is one. I’d say that’s a pretty good start on the extra planning I thought I was going to have to do. This may in fact me simpler that I anticipated. I won’t have to make any phone calls, since the site uses an online ordering system.

To make it even better, the prices look like they are just about what I would pay here in the U.S.

Here is a picture of dad and Gigi and my nephew that I took when we saw him in September. . It’ll be odd not being able to fly up for the holidays, but we can get online and chat with our web cams and eh can show us the flowers when they arrive.

Today is picture day at Gigi’s school.

Let my story be a lesson to all parents who share custody of their kids. You need to communicate!

Gigi’s dad picks her up every other Thursday from school and I do not see her again until I pick her up the following Monday afternoon. Apparently, the school sent home picture day information Thursday. I did not hear about it until I went though her backpack last night. By the time I had a few minutes to sit down and sort through her papers, it was really time for me to get Gigi into bed. Even if I had found a hair salon open, it would have been a rush. I also would have pulled out some of her nicer fall outfits and done some ironing. As it stands, I was lucky to find a new long-sleeve t-shirt and pants set my dad gave her for Christmas last year.

Poor kid. I thought she looked tidy and nice, but she was decidedly more casual than the other kids. The teacher in the room across the hall gave me a knowing look as we walked in this morning and said sympathetically, “for got it was picture day?”

*sigh*