Toek's Musings

Let the face stuffing begin!
That time of year is upon us again. The “Season of the Feast”. Yes, for the next couple of months we Americans fortunate enough to afford to feast,… will. It started today in grand tradition across the nation with a meal so satisfying that you’re not supposed to want to eat anymore,… at least not for another 2 hours. And it will end with the festive celebration of the Super Bowl.

This year at Toek’s Place for Thanksgiving we decided to switch from deep frying turkey’s in peanut oil to using an oil-less cooker. Don’t get me wrong, deep fried Turkey is great, but, there is a better, easier, safer, healthier way. My wife and I decided to get The Big Easy by CharBroil. And really, it should be called “The No Brainer”. It’s so much easier, safer and cleaner than oil frying that it’s hard to believe! And the turkey turns out fantastic. It will also cook a wide variety of meats to perfection.

Here’s a video of the “The No Brainer”,… er, I mean “The Big Easy”

My better half really had things on the ball with the meal. Everything was delicious and the turkey was superb. We had my brother in law, with his wife and kids, over. Along with our two grown kids. (heh, “grown kids” that’s funny) I guess the next big feast will be Xmas at Henry’s, my brother in law’s place. If it’s going to be anything like the last 2 years, we’ll have to be wheeled away from the table in a wheel barrow! Again!

Build your list, and I don’t mean holiday shopping list!
Starting off in online marketing is tough, if truth be told. But, start off by building your list and it will be one of the smartest things you will ever do for your business. It will be one of the most beneficial assets and ROI (return on investment) that you will acquire or make for it.

A list means money, a larger, more dependable income. List building is a basic skill all newbie internet marketers should learn and become proficient at. It doesn’t take much to start a list. You need an autoresponder account like Aweber. Their startup accounts are $20 a month. Sometimes they have a 1 dollar special running. Get your first month for 1 dollar. Pretty good deal I’d say.

Besides the Aweber account, you will also need a web page that you can embed your Aweber list signup code in. That’s the code for the forms you see that ask for your name and email address.

Now, to get people to give you their permission to send to their email address you’ll probably have more success by giving them something in exchange. There are lot’s of things you could offer them. An ebook or some reworked PLR stuff, services, software, but whatever it is it should be of value to the persons you are trying to build your list with. I’ll have more on this building a list subject in future posts.

Til next time, take it easy and don’t eat your food greasy!
Toek

Toek | Daily Drippings, Mo' Money, Video Blog | 11 26th, 2010 | 2 Comments »

Well golly Gee. Just how many months has it been since I’ve updated this blog? Well, this is my update. Recently I bought Dragon: Naturally Speaking software. With more knowledge I have acquired about marketing online it seems that there will be a lot of article writing and other types of advertisement marketing and traffic strategies that will require a lot of typing. This voice recognition software certainly does make a difference. Whereas before I would only be able to type 15-20 words per minute with the software I’m able to dictate up to 120 words per minute! That equals a fantastic savings of time. And yes I’m a terrible typist.

I’m hoping that this software will make it much easier to do blog updates also, hooray! So if you’re out there doing any type of online marketing and you need to write a lot of articles, most definitely look into voice recognition software. Besides taking dictation this software also allows you to operate your computer verbally. It works well with Windows and Windows applications and many others too. Check it out at: , Dragon: Naturally Speaking voice recognition software

Anyway, using the software is very easy and I think it will go a long ways towards trimming time off of your work. The more you use it, the better it gets. I’m thinking that once I get used to the software I will be able to edit PLR articles with ease and in much less time than it would take me to type it out.

For those of you out there wondering how Tyson,( our boxer dog) is getting along, he just celebrated his first birthday back at the beginning of the month. Happy Birthday Tyson! I’ll post a picture of him with his birthday hat on, as you can see he wasn’t very happy about posing for the picture. He has turned out to be an exceptional dog, a real pleasure to have around. I’ll try to get some more videos posted of them here in the near future.

Happy Birthday Tyson!

That’s about it for the update this time. I’ll try to get back on track and post more.

Toek

Toek | Daily Drippings, Mo' Money, Tyson | 10 28th, 2010 | No Comments »

Yes time for another blog entry. A few people have been after me to post some recent pictures of Tyson so I have a few pictures of Tyson that I took today posted below. He’s eight months old now and growing into a very handsome boy, being his Daddy I might be a little partial. ? Also, I uploaded a new YouTube video of me giving him some hotdogs as treats. I tried to get him to balance a piece on his nose but he was too anxious. He does it well with doggie treats, I guess the hotdogs overwhelm him. We’ll work on it.

We had a house warming party finally. We made some punch that was really good. We made 15 gallons and it turned out great. Here is the link to the recipe, KICK ASS Wopatui Party Punch Very good and Very strong! The weather put a slight damper on things, it rained enough to keep some people from coming. We had plenty to eat; marinated grilled chicken breasts, spiced shrimp (my brother inlaw cooks the best spiced shrimp) some hotdogs, butter beans, baked beans, macaroni salad and some other stuff. I wanted to get some pictures taken but as it turned out being the host doesn’t leave much time for that sort of thing. All in all it turned out nice and everyone had a good time. Later this year, late summer or fall we would like to throw another party, we’ll have some more punch for sure.

I haven’t been doing anything lately as far as my online money making plan, never fear though, I will be soon. I’m always on the lookout for keywords to use for a profitable niche. If you are into that, which if you have anything to do with online marketing you are,.then you may want to check out this great keyword research tool, Micro Niche Finder. It’s a great tool for finding money making keywords and phrases to use for marketing niche sites. I’ve been watching some training videos but it kind of sucs because I don’t have a high speed internet connection to download and upload with. The YouTube video in this post took me over eight hours to upload the 126 mb file. Not having high speed internet kinda sucs, it’s really hard to work with large files.

On to the media…….Enjoy!
Till next time,
Toek

Tyson at 8 months old

Tyson at 8 months old, teeth, tongue and all

Tyson at 8 months old taking it all in

Toek | Daily Drippings, Tyson, Video Blog | 06 9th, 2010 | No Comments »

Another sparse update from Toek’s Place. Actually I’ve been pretty busy around here, cutting grass (got a new mower for cutting the front field). Had new windows installed in the house. Window World gave us a great price and the installer was top notch. We had 21 windows installed. The windows we got are garuanteed to save us at least 30% on our energy bills. Plus, we get the $1500 federal tax credit and another $1500 Virginia state energy credit thingy.

I’ve spent the last 4 days staining our porch. Two days by myself and my wife and I just spent all day Saturday and today staining. The rails, posts and pickets alone took over 5 gallons! We got it all finished today except for the floor, I’ll do that tomorrow. We were using some stuff called “Flood”. It’s supposed to be really good stuff. I hope so, I don’t want to do this again for a long, long time. My wife is a real sweetheart, because if she hadn’t helped me, I’d be staining everyday this upcoming week!

I’ll have to get some recent photos of Tyson and post up here. He’s doing fine and has calmed down a little bit. Meanwhile I have a couple of photos from our 4 wheeler outing last month. I’ve posted these and some others in Toek’s Photo Gallery. Be sure to check them out too.

Stuck in the mud at Chickahominy River

Winching out at Chickahominy River

That’s all for now. Til next time,… be good.
Toek

Toek | Daily Drippings | 05 10th, 2010 | 3 Comments »

Hey, a quick post. Nothing special just a short video climbing hills with an ATV, a Honda Rubicon to be exact. And a couple of seconds of Tyson. He’s 6 months old now. He goes to the vet to get “snipped” Thurs.

Enjoy the video!

Toek | Daily Drippings, Tyson, Video Blog | 04 5th, 2010 | 2 Comments »

One of the biggest problems most inexperienced internet marketers will face is “Information Overload”. It starts when the novice entrepreneur subscribes to their first email list from some offer giving them the most guarded marketing secrets that, when implemented, will propel them to the life of the rich and famous. We’ve all done it, if for no other reason than curiosity. Besides we think, “It may just work!”

And then the next thing you know, you sign up for other offers, and they all sound so easy and simple, your inbox is chock, stocked full of the newest, greatest things to happen to marketing and making money. After reading through the emails your head starts swirling with thoughts of making a fortune. Thoughts and ideas turn into more thoughts and ideas. With that comes the questions, “How do I do that?”, that turns into “I can’t do that, I don’t know how”, “It’s to hard”, or, “I can’t afford to do that”. And that leads to the dreaded “Paralysis By Analysis” syndrome. This is a very common situation, and, an easy one to correct by staying focused and taking action.

Answer me this Batman;”How do you eat an elephant?” Give up? Okay here’s the answer; “One bite at a time.” And what does that have to do with making money you ask? Well, as I said, taking action. Take that first bite. What I am going to try to accomplish here within these postings is to give the reader a clear, easy to understand blueprint to make money using the internet. Then it will be up to the reader to contemplate the newly acquired information presented here and apply that knowledge, by taking action, to produce a successful result. One step at a time.

So, the first bite I’m going take by doing some research and find out what people are buying and searching for and assist them with their purchase. First things first though. I’m going to have to find out what people are searching to buy on Google and what keywords or phrases they are using to search with. Keyword research is VERY important.

Google has a free keyword research tool that you can use here. It works fairly well but it takes a long time to do research, very time consuming. If you want to drastically reduce the time it takes you to find profitable keywords and phrases consider getting a copy of James Jones’s Micro Niche Finder. It’s the best keyword and phrase finder on the market, hands down. These keywords you find will become the cornerstone of the marketing/money making system we are going to use. After I settle on some keyword ideas I’ll start on my second bite; finding a product.

So there you have it. One of the first steps towards making money online, finding good keywords to use. Shortly after I find some good keywords I’ll make another post to review the first step and explain how to accomplish step two. Until then be thinking of some keywords and phrases that people use when searching to buy products and services that you could possibly sell.

Till next time,
Toek

Toek | Mo' Money | 02 28th, 2010 | No Comments »

A quicky update,… We’re getting another major storm this weekend. I can’t remember a time that we’ve had as many snow storms with as much snow as we’ve had in the past month and a half. Usually we might get 6-8 inches once a year. This year, I guess we’ve had somewhere between 24-30 inches since Dec. So much for Global Warming. We all knew it was a farce anyway. Just another scam to make and keep common folk poor while enriching the greedy, murderous swine that control world finance, which also includes board sitters of mega corporations and even the people that are supposed to be representing us in D.C..
*sigh*
Let me go shovel some more snow and cool off,

Toek

Toek | Daily Drippings | 02 6th, 2010 | 2 Comments »

A quick post,… We had another snowstorm here this weekend and got about a foot of snow here at Toek’s Place. Today was a fun snow play day for Tyson. His little butt got worn slam out with all of the running and jumping. He’s steadily growing,.. he’s over 30 lbs. now and will be 4 months old on Feb. 2nd.

Tyson’s Latest Mug Shot

Till next time, take it easy,
Toek

Toek | Daily Drippings, Tyson, Video Blog | 02 1st, 2010 | No Comments »

The weather is fine here today at Toek’s Place. Sunny skies and temps in the 50’s. Finally the woodstove get’s a break. We bought a load of wood, about half of a cord, for $80 delivered. That should last us for awhile. The stove is a Buck Model 91 Free-standing Catalytic type. Big firebox, 4.4 cu. Ft., 50,000 BTU.

This is the most I’ve ever had to deal with a wood stove. It’s been a little bit of a learning experience. I found a manual online for it in PDF format, read through it and learned some stuff. This model stove is a Catalytic type, which means it has these ceramic blocks with small holes in them, installed in the top of the firebox. When the temperature of the blocks get between 600 and 1200 degrees F. it causes a chemical reaction in the little holes in the blocks, with the gases and fumes from the wood burning and “burns” up the creosote and other stuff. It’s a very efficient stove. Heats up to a 3200 sq. ft. house. Here’s a link here; to the Buck Stove website.

Tomorrow my brother in law and a friend of his are coming out to help me cut down a big oak tree that’s half dead. It will be a learning experience too. It’s about 60 feet tall and 2 ½ to 3 feet in diameter. It will be good wood for next winter. The trouble with a lot of wood that is for sale is that it isn’t seasoned, it’s mostly still green and doesn’t burn well. Wood needs to be seasoned for at least 6 months and more like 9-12 months to burn well in a wood stove.

Of course I have to mention Tyson and his development. He’s growing like a weed. House breaking is going extremely well. We’ve only had 3 mistakes in the past 2 weeks. He’s 14 weeks old now and about 24 lbs. The cats have pretty much gotten used to him. Ra, the male cat, has taken the role of senior male of the pack. He’s swatted Tyson a few times. Tula, the female, has been very understanding, no hisses, no swats so, Tyson and her might become good friends.

I made a short YouTube of Tyson performing two tricks I taught him over the past two weeks. He sits, which he did when we got him. He speaks (barks) and he shakes hands. Or, give you his paw, which ever you prefer.

Here is a video of him doing his first two tricks he has learned:

Til’ next time, take it easy,
Toek

Toek | Daily Drippings, Tyson, Video Blog | 01 15th, 2010 | No Comments »

With the New Year rolling in it brings more opportunities and choices to make in our lives. Hopefully 2010 will be a year for most everyone to remember as a joyous and prosperous one. This would entail drastic changes for the better being made in our society and not much of a chance of that happening; however I’m still hopeful that it could.

Since moving out here to Toek’s Place my wife and I decided that we would eventually get a dog. Well, over the holidays an opportunity presented itself to us to adopt a Boxer puppy. So we did. Tyson is his name; he’s 12 weeks old and pretty spunky.

Tyson’s mug shot-

Tyson taking a power nap-

The Boxer is the #6 dog breed(2007 AKC) in popularity in America. If you are familiar with the breed that should come as no surprise. Boxer’s are intelligent, loyal and determined among other positive traits. Here’s a little background information on them here > Boxer Breed Info.

I’m looking forward to watching Tyson grow up and boxer’s make such wonderful family pets, it will be a treat for everyone here at Toek’s Place.

Some other excitement we’ve had here, just last night actually, New Years Eve, my wife and I and the two kids were in the living room just standing / sitting around talking when “something” just flew across the room. Well, before it made a second round I saw what it was,… a bat! Cheez and rice! I couldn’t believe it. It flew out of the Christmas tree, around the room a couple of times and after a few minutes of searching for it, found it clinging to a shopping bag hanging on the front door. Meanwhile the wife is getting really upset that I wasn’t taking action fast enough. Her and the kids had all put on hoodies and hats, it was a funny site. So my wife had the camera out but wouldn’t get close enough to get a good picture. I got the camera and got a little closer and snapped one off.

Anyway after taking the picture and my wife all wiggy, I carefully picked the bag off of the doorknob, opened the door and set it outside the front door. We still haven’t figured out how it got in the house???

Maybe it’s a good sign to clear bats out of your house on New Years Eve, I hope so.

Have a great new year everyone!
Toek

Toek | Daily Drippings, Tyson | 01 1st, 2010 | No Comments »