Poor Neglected Blog

Apparently I have neglected this blog so much that Google has deemed it no longer worthy of any rank. Thanks Google. Meanwhile some of my other blogs have had a good nod from Google and the PR fairy.

Summer is on the way and I promise more stuff coming for this blog.

On the Water Tracking

When I paddle I go places that I know, but there are times when I paddle alone. I know I should paddle with a group or at least one other person. I just love to get out there and do my own thing.

I was reading about a GPS car tracker and I thought, that would be a great thing to have in a kayak. Why? Well if you go paddling on your own like I do a GPS tracking device in the kayak and one on shore or one that you could track via the internet would give piece of mind to my family about where I was off paddling.

I could use a GPS device when I go out taking photos. I noticed that the trackers also record speeds as well as times. I don't have much use for speed when I am taking photos but it would be really cool to know how fast I was going while I was paddling. And with the software I could easily see all the places I went and use that information to write up detailed posts about my paddling locations.

Sure these trackers are mostly used to keep an eye on your fleet of cars, an elderly parent who insists on continuing to drive or maybe a rebellious teenager. But in the case of being a kayaker I think outside the box and can see many applications for these GPS devices for paddle sports.

Suppose you run a kayaking company, you rent boats and you want to keep track of where your boats have been. You could get a GPS Tracking Key from Rocky Mountain Tracking, Inc for each boat, install them and check them after each trip. The unit is water resistant so you'd have to put it in something to make it waterproof, but you certainly could do it and track all of your boats movements easily.

Looking at the different products on the site I also see the Smart Track, this unit in your boat could help you recover it if perchance it were ever stolen. With this item you could easily track the boat from your computer. If you were that GPS unit it in a car you could also attach a SmartTrackPLUS Starter Interrupter to disable your car starter. That sounds great. You could accurately tell the police where your car is if it was ever stolen.

Where did my files go....

This would be a great post to tie into an ad for online storage or somethign but it is not. This is a sad day for the Wired Kayaker indeed. I have been working on a video for IZEA. This video was an application to be part of the IZEA Fab 4 at IZEAFest 2008. I wanted to include some Wired Kayaker footage from the 1st 3 shows and the outtakes. I went searching through my hard drives, DVDs, CDs and both computers. The files are gone, wiped out no where to be found. I am so mad at myself for letting this happen.

I am going to buy another external hard drive to make sure that all the episodes I tape this summer never get lost like that. I can't believe that all the photos and the raw footage is toast.

I was able to convert a youtube video to a usable video in Adobe Premiere.

I did mine a long and convoluted way but you can grab youtube videos using KeepVid. It is free.

I was able to put a little Wired Kayaker video in this Fab Four Video Submission.

The Deadliest Catch: Captain's Call

Guest post from Lisa of My Thoughts, Ideas and Ramblings and Lisa Reviews.

Drew asked me to guest post this entry since I am a huge fan of Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel. He also allowed me to take his place on a conference call with two of the captains from there. Both Andy and John from the Time Bandit were on the call, and we got to ask them any questions that we wanted.

For those of you who don’t know, The Deadliest Catch shows what life is like on the crab boats. This is one of the most dangerous jobs there is out there. You can make a ton of money doing this, but if you ever fall into the Bering Sea, the chances of you coming out alive are slim. I personally think it is one of the best reality shows out there!

Some of the cool things that I learned is that Andy and John are actually 2 of 5 brothers. They take turns with what seasons they fish, so the other can get a break. Otherwise, they would be spending ten and a half months on the water. Amazingly, Andy has been married 23 years. In this line of work, that just doesn’t happen. They figure that 99% of the guys are divorced. They have never lost anybody overboard either. They have had broken arms and legs and lost fingers though.

The new season starts April 15th. There were a couple of things that they told us about it. First, you don’t want to miss the season premiere. The first five minutes will make the hair on your arms stand on end. Second, John’s son Scott joins the boat this year. The last thing they told us was that they played a pretty good prank on Phil. Of course, they couldn’t tell us what it was.

Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, our call got cut short. However, you can listen to the call here. The most awesome part of this call was the deal I get to tell you about. Any readers from here are able to take $10 off any one of the Deadliest Catch DVD sets (this includes the Ultimate Fan Collection – all three seasons and the pilot episode). The coupon code is DC10OFF and is good until Friday, April 11th.

I can’t wait for the new season to start! Hopefully, you’ll be watching the show with me.

Thanks very much for covering that phone call Lisa. And thanks for a great guest post!

I want to work from home...

One of my dreams is to live on a lake and have a kayak storage building with tons of different kayaks that I could use daily and review on this blog. While that is not happening any time too soon I can still do reviews on this blog. Some reviews I can even get paid for. I'm a member of SocialSpark and I make money blogging. This money has helped me supplement our family income so my wife can stay home with our baby girl.

There are many people who have work at home dreams. With SocialSpark you can help to finance those dreams a bit. There are many different ways in which you can earn money through SocialSpark. For one thing, you can write reviews and advertisements and earn money. You can also allow your blog to be sponsored in order to earn money.

I am hoping that my wife will work with SocialSpark as well because Social Spark is great for the mommy blogger. You make your own hours, choose what you want to blog about and there is also a social aspect to the service, hence the 'social' in SocialSpark. A job with flexibility, autonomy and a chance to flex those brain muscles each day is a perfect fit for someone who works from home. And you needn't worry about compromising your integrity on your blog and having to fool your readers that you are writing reviews for compensation because disclosure is required for each and every post through SocialSpark. What other online advertising option can say that?

Social Spark will be available to all very soon. Sign up to be one of the first to know when it is released.