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the only difference between men and boys is the size of their toys ... I love gadgets and gizzmos and the noisier the better. Found this YouTube vid of an old WWII jet engine that was rescued from a scrapheap and restored - what a fantastic thing to have to play with ! So what stuff do you have or lust after?

The start of a new year is a time of reflecting. I've been doing a lot of reflecting lately. I'm in the process of searching for a new employer so that I can move. We're coming up on three years since dad passed away. I've more than quadrupled my visits to mom since then. Most of the summer and fall, it was every weekend. It's not a horrible drive, but I'm tired of it. Mom wants me to move back in with her and I'm good with that. It would let me take care of the stuff she needs and let her take care of her parents. (Grandpa is 86, Grandma is 83). My career is flexible enough, in theory, to move and get a new job and with the economy going finally, this should work in theory. But I am getting rather sick of working for other people. When you step back in look... there are 168 hours in a week. Scratch 50 hours for sleep. Scratch 60 hours for work, going to work or getting ready for work. Scratch another 10 hours for chores/bills/other requirements of life. That leaves 48 total hours in the week. then GA. figure 4 hours a day averaged out for what I do. That leaves 20 hours. chances are good that not more an 2 or 3 of those hours are consecutively available. And by the time all that is done, I don't want to be on the computer anymore. I usually read or occasionally I'll get time up in gaming. This pattern has been pretty much the same for 10 years. So, I'm working on breaking that pattern a bit and get into a pattern of writing more. Some of this is the blogs. I'm now handling three site blogs per week. Some of them are fairly simple, but the Tech Tuesday blog is a lot more involved. I'm also thinking of doing just a general sort personal blog, like this one, once a week. I'm also looking more into alternative revenue sources for the site. One of those options is what they call affiliate marketing. That is, we link to products that other people are selling and we get a small fee if you buy after clicking on our links. Since I'm a gadget kind of guy, I've thought about talking about some of the gadgets I get in my blog and putting up an Amazon link to it so that if you decide you want to try it too, the site can get a cut. Also thinking of doing the same with books and movies. Writing and posting blogs regularly keeps me in the writing mood and helps prompt me to write more in other areas. I'm currently reviewing my Harry Potter and Parliament of Dreams story so I can finally complete it and then focus on new stuff that is wholly my own. I'm also targeting the anthologies this year. Slowly but surely I want to get myself back into a regular writing habit. Time will tell! Let me know what you think.