jeffpollard.net

Nonstop Action! Thrills! Chills!

Work the past week or so has been absolutely crazy each and every single day. But, I can't complain too much. It is what I love and what I'm good at (besides underwater basket weaving).

Most days this week, I come in, set my bag down on my desk, and the phone starts ringing immediately. It's not unusual lately to not have time to check my email until 12:30 or 1PM. It's just been one thing after another.

After work (isn't that usually FREE time?) has been busy, too. I had house calls Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week, and an XMUG board meeting last night. I think Olivia's starting to think that I don't want to come home.

I recently made the stunning discovery that it's almost a month until Christmas and I haven't even begun my Christmas shopping. It's a good thing that Amazon.com makes shopping for people with wish lists so easy. Which reminds me....I have a favor to ask of all of you who shop on Amazon.com: You see, I'm (well, CustomTacos.com is) participating in Amazon.com's affiliate program. This is a program where I put links to Amazon.com merchandise on CustomTacos.com and when people click through to Amazon, I get a percentage of anything they buy. You, as the customer, get the exact same prices you'd get any other way, but it's a way for me to make up a little more for the expenses of running the site. So, how does it work, Jeff? It's easy and you'll be instanly transported to Amazon.com with my referral ID. Anything you purchase during that session will be "credited" to my affiliate account. Feel free to buy lots of computers, TVs, and other expensive items. The more you buy, the more I benefit. Oh, and did ya hear? You can now purchase clothes through Amazon.com! They've partnered with Eddie Bauer, Guess, Gap, and a bunch of other retailers to provide this service. I swear, they're taking over the world.

Who wants to die?

"Iraq parliament rejects resolution"

Do they really think they're in much of a position to reject the United Nations' resolution? Think again. Do they really want this to happen to them again?

Time Flies

Wow, time has really gotten away from me. But doesn't it always?

Things have been busy busy busy lately. Yes, folks, that's THREE busys.

Work has been hectic with our installing new computer for folks and our current batch of leased machines getting ready to go back. On top of that, our new business head honcho wants me to design a website that potential clients (and other people) will visit when they receive an email from him. He came up with the idea that he wanted the emails that he sends to be richer (in other words, HTML-formatted with pretty graphics and links). So, the website that I am creating is the site that users will go to when they click any of the links in any of his emails. The site will contain samples of our work and give additional contact info. The new website will be http://info.martinagency.com. I've promised a completion date of "two weeks". I enjoy setting deadlines for myself. It makes me kick myself in the ass and get moving.

For those of you watching the calendar, CustomTacos is getting ready to come up on it's one-year birthday. I knew the time was close, but what's really cool is that a few of the users on the site did some research and started a thread about that. They noticed that the regisration date for my account on the site was November 10th, 2001 at 4:something A.M. I can still remember that long, historic night. Brian and I stayed up all night testing the site and making sure that everything was working properly. And then, at around 5 or 6 AM, I sent out the announcement email. And the rest, as they say, is history. What a dumb cliche'.

But seriously, it's difficult sometimes for me to judge the sucess of the site. Some days I sit back and look at it and wonder if it's really worth doing. And then other days, the site really makes me feel good. It's so interesting to watch the people on there interact. The site definitely has had it's share of drama lately, which has caused some users to raise some concerns. My response? Bring on the drama. Because drama is something that will keep my folks coming back for more. And, now that bandwidth isn't a problem with the new server, I'm all about people living on the site all the time. It's funny, for a few months there when bandwidth was tight, I was somewhat hoping for a lull in site usage. I was almost hoping that some people would become bored with the site so that I wouldn't be killed with the bandwidth charges. But, it's all betta now. In fact, I only used 25gigs out of a possible 50gigs last month. Not bad. Its nice to not have to stress out over that anymore. That allows me more time to stress out over other stuff.

Like the new site features I'm getting ready to roll out. My plan is to celebrate the 1 year birthday of the site by offering my users even more site features. But, if they want the additional features, they'll need to fork over a little cash. There will be 3 levels of membership, just as there are 3 grades of gas that you can choose from at the gas pump: Regular, Plus, and Premium. I've designed a creative little page outlining the benefits of each membership level with a button below each level to purchase the upgrade.

I'm not sure how many users will be willing to pay for these additional features, but I guess I'll find out soon. In addition, I just closed the deal this morning for new CustomTacos.com window stickers. The new stickers will hav e the actual site logo, which should make many users want to purchase a new one (or two). I plan on including a free sticker in their "Membership Pack" that they will receive as a plus or premium member.

And finally, I'm finalizing the deal for new CustomTacos merchandise (t-shirts, mousepads, etc.) with one of my moderators. I've been pretty unimpressed with the quality of the merchandise that Cafe Press has provided me and my users, not to mention that I haven't made much profit from them. This new deal will give my users lower prices, better quality, and more profit for me. It's a win-win-win situation.

I'm getting ready to take another day off from work so that I can spend time working on CustomTacos tomorrow. I took last Friday off and had a very productive work day. You know it's bad when you have to take a vacation day off from WORK so that you can WORK on other ventures.

We're still cleaning up things at the house. It feels like it's never going to end, but it's definitely getting better.

Well, that's all for now. I guess I should fix my webcam. It stopped uploading new images to the server when the power went out last week...or was it the week before that?