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The End of a Very Long Era: In Memory of my Dog

  • Posted on June 15, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Keebler Alf

Keebler Alf

My little dog, Keebler Alf,  died on Friday and I’m still not over the shock of it all. Yes, he was old, probably 18 (he was a young adult dog when I found him dodging traffic in Denver in 1992) but……… he was in great shape with no apparent health problems whatsoever and I’m honestly in shock that he’s gone. Sudden loss is always difficult. This is the first time in many, many years I have no little charges to take care of (be they feline, canine, avian or human) and it’s feeling incredibly awful, and yet, awfully incredible, all at the same time. Confusing.

Certainly part of me wants to run out and immediately fill the void with a new puppy, and yet, I can’t do that. Not now. Not at this stage of my life. Not while I’m still grieving Keebler’s loss. It would be a totally selfish motive and unfair to whatever new little critter I adopted. And besides, it may just be time for me to be free of the responsibility of another’s care, something I haven’t experienced for so long.  In some strange way, it’s a frightening feeling, rather like the rug has been yanked from beneath my feet and I haven’t hit the ground yet. Hopefully, I’ll land on my feet, without injury.

Twice today someone has knocked at my door and there was no bark alerting me. How very strange. I no longer have to schedule my trips to insure I’ll be home in time to let the dog out. I no longer have to spend ridiculous amounts of money on the special food he needed due to his food allergy. There’ll be no more scooping poop from the back yard. No more vacuuming up hair or mopping up muddy paw prints in the kitchen. I can now walk away from my lunch and not worry about it being gone when I return. Wouldn’t it seem all this freedom would feel great? It doesn’t. Not yet. And if the truth were to be known, it’s freakin’ me out.

As uncomfortable as this is, all I know to do is wait. Let some time pass and try out this new lifestyle. Perhaps a month from now it will feel more “right”. And… maybe it won’t. I won’t know till I get there. I feel guilty for even entertaining the notion that I’ll enjoy this new freedom he’s given me.

Good bye, my little buddy. I miss you horribly.

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Ranting about the Power of Advertising

  • Posted on June 4, 2009 at 3:12 pm

dumb-ads-for-web-21I’ve decided I’m not going to watch tv any longer, but that has nothing to do with the subject of this rant; stupid, stupid advertisements! I am somewhat insulted that whoever created these ads thinks I’m gonna purchase their product because some cute, talking animal (or worse, piece of cereal) delivers the message. Oh but wait……. there’s a method to their madness.

It’s called branding!

Just think about this for a minute. When you see a gecko now, what company automatically comes to your mind? Or what restaurant chain comes to mind when you see a ball with a triangle on top of it? Or how ’bout the waddling, talking duck?

It’s the power of association, I think. Doesn’t matter how stupid the image may seem on the surface, as long as it’s driven deep into your brain with repeated messaging, bingo! Mission accomplished.

So ok, maybe I shouldn’t be insulted, but instead learn to use the same technique to develop my own line of products, let’s say the Zanny Rants notecards! The trick is to find an image that is used on every single item, posting, t-shirt……whatever…. that is IMMEDIATELY associated with snarky Zanny.  I’m thinking maybe the image below speaks volumes. Anyone care to share your thoughts? I’m starving for some feedback.

Zanny Rants

Zanny Rants

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Ranting about Special Needs Pets

  • Posted on June 3, 2009 at 12:33 pm

Yesterday my daughter called quite upset. One of her customers showed up with a small, curly puppy that he couldn’t keep. The story was he “found” it on the street. “Oh, mom, he’s soooooooo cute and so sweet. I think he must be an Old English sheepdog mix, but I can’t know for sure. He’s very curly and cuddly. But,  mom, he has no eyes!”  HUH? What do you mean he has no eyes??? She went on to explain that where eyes should be were just sunken in depressions!

We’ve been through this before…. her customers showing up with puppies they can’t (or don’t want to) keep any longer. Our combined efforts have found homes for a schnauzer, a bishon friese, and a maltese, just to name a few. Those were all purebred dogs, though, and with no obvious health issues. But this little guy? Wow, what to do?

Because I am, and have always been, an animal advocate and rescuer, the first thing I said to my daughter was “Please, whatever you do, DO NOT let him take that puppy to the local animal shelter!”  The reasons are obvious. Far too many “adoptable” dogs already occupy the local shelters, and unfortunately, even many of them never find their way out except in the very sad solution of euthanasia (cough, cough, sputter, sputter!). There would be no question about this particular puppy’s fate if turned in to a regular animal shelter.

I got on the phone and began calling friends, and the responses I got were quite interesting. Most of them said “Oh, how said. Perhaps the kindest thing to do would be to put the poor thing to sleep!” Then I spoke to my dear friend, Diane, who founded PAALS (People And Animals Living Synergistically), a “no-kill” animal sanctuary located on a gorgeous 160 acre ranch in Colorado. Her response, unsurprisingly, was quite different. Even though her sanctuary is struggling through these difficult economic times with an influx of animals and a decrease in donations, like so many across the country, she immediately, without hesitation, said  enthusiastically, “Let’s find some way to get him to me! We could make this puppy a star for all special needs animals, you know, like Faith, the famous dog born with no front legs! Call your local news/media outlets and suggest it as a story.” Amazing, the difference in attitude.

This morning I called my daughter to tell her the good news. Unfortunately, she has no contact information for the man who had the puppy and unless he shows up again, asking for help, we’re at a standstill for this little guy. In the meantime, I’ll keep my fingers, toes and eyeballs crossed he does show up with puppy in hand.

I can do one more thing…..appeal to you to make a donation to Diane’s sanctuary (www.paalsforlife.com) or a no-kill animal organization in your area. They all need our help desperately right now. So many lives depend on it. PAALS has a new documentary, if you’d like to see the ranch, on youtube at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aflfi_gkFQ

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More on Blogging as a Business Venture

  • Posted on June 2, 2009 at 1:33 pm

It’s occurred to me you might find some of the “mentors” I’ve come across  helpful in your own blogging experience, so I’ve compiled a list of all the websites where I’ve found useful and/or valuable information in some way. A word of caution, however. Be certain you know what you’re signing up for prior to adding your coveted email address to ANY “offer”. DO READ ANY FINE PRINT to avoid monthly surprises on your PayPal or credit card account. Also, I’ve found there’s much to be learned by reading the comments sections of these sites. Sometimes the questions asked are ones I wouldn’t even have known to ask! That’s pathetic, but true. I’m not recommending any one of them, simply providing information for you to check out yourself, based on my own experience (and lack of expertise!)

Caroline Middlebrook ~ www.caroline-middlebrook.com    

Yaro Starak ~ www.blogmastermind.com

Josh Spaulding ~ www.josh-recommends.com

Andrew Hansen ~ www.nichemarketingoncrack.com

Listed below are some names of folks geared to the internet/network marketing angle of this process. They’re goal is to make BIG money online, and honestly, after studying this stuff for awhile now, I’m  even more aware of all there is to learn! OMG! Please keep in mind many of these gurus are wanting you to purchase their training courses, manuals,  e-books, etc., but I don’t think that’s necessarily bad. Education costs. Guess it just depends on your goals and aspirations, dedication and current financial position to determine the value of each program.

Howie Schwartz ~ www.conversationdomination.com

Jeff Johnson ~ www.undergroundconfessions.com

(There are many free videos by this man on youtube! Very informative, and for me,  somewhat overwhelming.  Info overload!)

Mike Dillard ~ www.magneticsponsoring.com

Brian Fanale ~ www.black-belt-marketing.com

(Mike and Brian work together and are aggressively promoting their own products, but it may work for you. Definitely worth checking out if you want to develop an internet marketing business.)

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So You Wanna Make Money Blogging?

  • Posted on June 2, 2009 at 1:46 am

I was so very naive! This post, along with more to follow, is for anyone still contemplating blogging, or internet marketing, as a stream of income. Don’t kid yourself, there is an amazing amount to learn, especially if you’re starting from scratch, as I did. Hopefully, by sharing my year long journey, some other “newbie” (assuming there are still some left) will avoid mistakes I made along the way.

This whole thing started last year about this time when I saw an interview with Heather Armstrong, known as the “mommy blogger”, on Nightline. She is very talented and entertaining, and hugely successful with her blog, (http://www.dooce.com) to the point that the blog now supports her entire family! So, naive and delusional me thought “well, hell…..I’ll become the granny blogger!” and I launched myself into the blogging world. Keep in mind, prior to that interview, I don’t think I’d ever even heard the term blog before, just to give you some idea how incredibly newbie-ish I was.

The first thing was to decide on a name for my blog, which is important. I ended up with Zanny Rants, but really, if I’d known how impactful your blog’s name is, I probably would not have gone with that name. Until this blog has a huge following (yes, I remain hopeful), no one is going to be searching for the term “zanny”, and only a few for the word “rants”. But with no knowledge of keywords, it sounded good to me. I am Zanny, and yes, I rant.

The next thing was to register the domain name and get hosting. By this time I had found a “mentor” online and went with her recommended hosting company. That didn’t turn out so well, and I now know she earned some $60 when I signed up.  Using the hosting company’s c-panel, combined with many, many phone calls to their support team, I managed to get my WordPress blog all set up, installing the theme correctly, and I even managed to get Google AdSense ads placed on my site. So exciting! I felt I’d accomplished something great and of course, couldn’t keep my mouth shut. I went bragging to my friends and neighbors (I know better! Anytime you give yourself a big A+, the universe will find a way to knock you down a peg or three!) about my progress. Well, in case you don’t know this, Google takes things very seriously and when my equally naive friends and neighbors went clicking repeatedly on the Google ads, thinking they were helping me earn a living, Google said “see ya!” and disabled my account for fraudulent activity! It wasn’t meant as fraud, and really, at that time all of maybe 10 people in the world even knew the blog existed. I appealed to Google, explaining the situation. Nothing. I appealed again several months later. Again, nothing. I was very disappointed and discouraged. And to this day, I have no clue how to fix this situation, which is even more frustrating now then it was back when it happened. There are people earning some big bucks with Adsense and if anyone has any idea on resolving this, PLEASE let me know.

In the meantime, I went and purchased the book WordPress for Dummies, but found much of the information in the book no longer pertained to what WordPress is today. I think, because it’s an open source platform, with many contributors improving it, it just changes too often for a publication written several years ago to be very relevant or accurate. It does, however, explain some key basics that were helpful, understanding the foundations and all.

At the same time I set up this blog, I also started two others for my artwork. One focuses on my graphite pencil drawings, the other on my paintings. I even developed the Zanny Rants illustrations, many of which are still on earlier posts. However, I had to abandon the notion of Zanny Rant illustrations in lieu of a drawing a day I do for http://www.graphitegoddess.com. There simply weren’t enough hours in the day. “Graphite Goddess” is a better name because you at least have some idea what the blog is all about from the name, yet it still wasn’t the best choice I could have made. Really, do some research on keywords before you pick a name for your blog. It does matter!

I’ll continue my story later today, as it’s already going on 2 AM. Really gotta get some sleep for now.

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