Friday, December 4, 2009

The Kids and My Father's Presence

Hey there. My pops passed away when I was 9 years old. I grew up without really having a father figure in my life and it was pretty tough. My mother was rarely home so my brother and I practically raised ourselves. I guess that's why my brother and I have a pretty close relationship. Anyways, I always told myself that I would try to be the best dad I could. I am now the dad of 4 and I do my best to provide the best I can. But sometimes... I feel like I'm getting a little help from my pops.

There have been some pretty strange occurrences involving my brother and my kids. First off, when my dad first passed away, my brother would say that he would see him in his dreams. Mind you, my brother was 4 years old when my dad passed, so it's not like he would be making stuff up like that. I'm sure that he was too young to really know what was going on. Then, when our oldest son was born, more weird occurrences started happening. My son would be in his swing, and the swing would inexplicably move on it's own, the TV would turn on and off on it's own, and we would hear some pretty weird noises coming out of a radio that wasn't even plugged in. When our oldest daughter was born, more of the same went on. The same with the swing and I started to hear voices. It never really freaked me out, but it did raise my curiosity.

With our youngest daughter, we didn't have much in that kind of activity, but we did have one huge one. My wife set our daughter down on the couch and she went off to the kitchen. My brother in law was in his room, my wife in the kitchen, and our daughter in the living. Then, my wife hears the sound of someone giving someone a huge kiss. You know, that puckering sound. So she goes over to the living room, thinking that it was my brother in law kissing our daughter. Nope, he was in his room, semi-asleep. My wife freaked. She's never really dealt with anything of that sort so to hear "someone" kiss our baby frightened her. The other night, as we were having dinner, my daughter says to me that she remembers seeing "little daddy" when she was born. I asked her who that was and she said that it was my dad, that she likes calling him "little daddy." It threw me in for a loop but I continued along with her to see what else she would say. She says she remembers seeing him when she was born and that now she misses him. My wife and weren't sure what to make of it. We were not talking about my father so it was extremely odd that she would just throw that idea out there. Now, things are happening with our youngest son.

We find that our son loves to stare at my pop's picture. I have a picture (drawing) of my father in the living room. When we sit on the couch holding our son, we see him stare at the picture and then laugh and coo. Another instance involved footsteps. I was at the store and my wife was sitting with my baby son on the couch. Again, he looked at my father's picture and laughed and cooed and smiled. Then, my wife heard footsteps in the hallway. She freaked. She called me to ask me to hurry home. I check it out and the kids were asleep and I as I stand in the living room, talking to her, we both hear the footsteps again. Pretty intense stuff. And that leads me to the bouncer. Our son loves his bouncer and we believe to have found out why. When we place our son it, we snuggles with his blanket and then drifts asleep. Nothing weird, right? WRONG! That is until you see that the bouncer is rocking itself, even though it's off! It's happened on more than one occasion and I point it out to my wife each time I see it happening. So what are we make out of this?

I say, it's my pops helping me out. It's always happening around our kids, and it's usually when we're trying to rock them or soothe them. I joke around with my wife and tell her that it's my pops doing all the crazy things around the house. The corona bottle, Odin, and since the kids' birth, them. Just the other night, I placed our son in his bouncer and as I was walking away, my wife noticed that the swing was pushed by no one. Yup, it was swinging on it's own. We both just looked at it and said, "Dad, he's in the bouncer." I smiled at wife and she still looked a little freaked out by it. Well, at least we know that my pops is still around, helping out. And if one of the kids start to complain that their head hurts, I'll know it's him... giving them a noogie. lol Later!

Thursday, December 3, 2009

The All in One LG Chocolate Touch

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of LG Chocolate Touch. All opinions are 100% mine.

Hey there friends. As many of you know, I've been having some major issues issues with my phone. It's just not happening anymore. I cannot open my web browser without it overloading the phone, causing it to crash. Even receiving picture mail is beginning to be a hassle. When I'm receiving the picture, if I have not cleared up enough memory for it, the phone will crash and when I restart it, it shows that I never received the picture. And you can forget about playing videos. It's simply a nightmare to view a video. It's a constant struggle just to do mundane operations on my phone now. What I need a great all in one phone, such as the new LG Chocolate Touch.

The LG Chocolate Touch is more than able to handle the tasks of a person such as myself. No more will I not be able to post a tweet because my phone is freezing up. Since I just joined Facebook, the LG Touch's One-touch Social Network Message Key would be welcomed so that I can further familiarize myself with facebook and other social media sites with a touch of a button. It's also a great mobile media center, offering top of the line picture, video messaging, and Dolby mobile tech for a high quality sound. Another great quality is the 3.2 MP digital camera. Why bother with a $150 digital camera when you can take great shots with your phone? It happened on more that one occasion where I forget our digital camera at home so I don't get to take pictures while we are at events. But you know what, we never forget our phones. I don't dare take photos with the crappy 1 MP camera phone that I have now. The quality is just poor. If I had a LG Chocolate Touch, my only problem would be making sure that I have enough memory for all the pictures I plan on taking!

And the absolute best part? Ciara herself will fall out of the sky to play her songs whenever I listen to her music on my phone! Oh wait... that was just the commercial. lol But because the phone has such high quality sound, it will be AS IF Ciara herself is singing right there and you won't miss a beat, once you activate the rhythmical beat option, causing you phone to dance, I mean, vibrate with the music.

I wonder if I can trade my old phone and get a LG Chocolate Touch. Considering that I need to check Email to get updates on all my social media sites, it would be great to have a phone that can do it all. And do it, without crashing. Later!

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A Little of This and A Little of That

Hey there. I've been tinkering with the site a little bit. I've removed some buttons and added 6 ad slots. I was recently upgraded to a Premium account in Paypal, which is great since I'll be receiving a PayPal debit card to use where ever I want AND receive cashback. I took advantage of this and added a "buy me button" for the ads that I am offering. 1 week, 2 weeks, or a full month are being offered at $1.75, $3.00 and $5.00 respectively. I removed the Mybloglog button. I figured it took a lot of space. I want to be able to condense my affiliates. I still need to mess with that.

The comment contest is going well. I've already seen a nice jump in comments and that's what I was shooting for. A site where my readers a little more engaged and I'm sure that a little cash incentive doesn't hurt. I think I'll let this be a monthly thing going forward from now on so here's the break down that I am going to give out.

Top commentator - $5
2nd and 3rd - $2.50 each

Not bad, right? So I'm devoting $10 a month on my readers and I don't think that's bad at all. If I can increase Metallman's Reverie's revenue (crazy alliteration!) then I'll increase the monthly prize. I'll definitely be mentioning the amount up for grabs once I announce the winners so make sure you check out the 1st of the month post since I'm not going to have that sticky post declaring the contest up forever.

So here's where I would like your opinion. Nothing is in stone just yet. I'm moving the buttons, pictures, changing prices, and anything else around. What would you like to see removed? Added? Or switched around? A quick comment with your thoughts and I'll take them all into consideration. I know my site looks messy and I want it to look it's best so I'm reaching our to you, friends, for some help. Many thanks! Later!

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Earn Your Master of Arts in Teaching Degree with the USC Rossier School of Education Program

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of USC. All opinions are 100% mine.


Hey there friends. The University of Southern California, it's name is synonymous with prestigious education, a top of line medical program, and of course the outstanding football program. A school of education which has been ranked #22 in the United States, and #9 among all private universities by US News and World Report, USC now introduces a ground breaking online institution. The USC Rossier School of Education’s MAT@USC program offers aspiring teachers and current teachers to not only join the Trojan family from their home states, but garner an opportunity to earn a Master of Arts in Teaching degree through a prestigious and well renown university. Learn in a virtual classroom from some of the best in the education field. And to make it a sweeter deal, it's an accelerated program so you can earn your degree in as little as a year. This is a no nonsense course, my friends. If you are serious in obtaining you Master of Arts in Teaching degree, then you need to get the program information and seriously consider enrolling in class.

Whether you're on campus or the virtual campus, once you are part of the USC family, you gain full USC student status & benefits. As a child, I was a part of USC's Med-Core program. I'd go to USC on a Saturday to learn math and medicine from some of the distinguished professors. I know that many of you are not in Southern California so this is a great opportunity to experience the essence that is USC. Later!

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Metallman's Reverie is Taking a Hit in the Rankings

Hey there. Ever since I changed the domain to Metallman.com, I have been tanking in the rankings. My Alexa rank is now in the millions (from 75K) with only 1 site linking in, I have no IZEA rank (from a respectable 750), google rank is 0 with little to no pages indexed, and I only have about 90 links to my site on Yahoo (compared to over 7,000). The plus side? I have my own domain AND MSN (Bing) finally indexed my site. It looks like Metallman's Reverie is starting from scratch. Ranking wise at least. I hope that it won't hinder my ability to take opportunities from the IZEA programs for the time being. I figured that the site may suffer at first, but will be beneficial in the long run. I've also had to resubmit my site to other services such as Blogexplosion. I'm still waiting for an approval there and I just got my blog url updated in SocialSpark. It's all good though. The only place to go from here is up! Later!

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Experience True Sound from your iPod with the Yamaha PDX-60 Speaker Dock

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Yamaha. All opinions are 100% mine.

Hey there friends. Are you still listening to your Ipod using the standard, white headphones? I'm pretty sure that everyone has seen the commercials that bring those headphones to icon status, but you know what? They are still standard headphones. Considering that the iPod is a multimedia machine, you owe it to yourself to experience it in true high quality sound.

Enter the Yamaha PDX-60, a power speaker system that will not only enhance your listening experience but change the way you see you Ipod. Music and movies will resonate across the room since the PDX-60 has some Bass-reflex speakers and since it's compatible with all things Ipod, your iPhone will definitely get a boost in sound while you're surfing Youtube videos.

Did I mention that the whole thing can be wireless? The Yamaha PDX-60 runs on Yamaha's original wireless technology, yAired, which is way more user friendly than Bluetooth.

Here at work, many of us gather around lunch room to catch The Office on my coworkers iPhone. It's tough for a group of 4 to really listen in on the iPhone's speaker system. If we were to have a PDX-60 in our office, we'd be able to listen with crystal clear sound all the jokes and comments that Jim throws at Dwight! Maybe the 4 of us can pitch in to get one, since this has become a ritual at work. AND... if more people start clamoring in to catch The Office on the iPhone, it would make perfect sense to get a high quality device to accommodate our office.

Check it out , friends. Get high quality sound for your iPhone or iPod. It's the only way to go if you are looking for the best in sound quality. Later!

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