A few weeks ago I decided to open imovie and put together a few short movies! So I loaded imovie full of my pics and started to edit way!At first I was impressed by easy of use and in no time had figured out how to use all the features! I discovered that there are some cool effects but the audio mixing is very limited!After making the 2 videos I began to notice that the text was looking crappy and blurry! So at first thought I figured it was the way I was saving the file! So I ran off did some internet research and found a better way to save my file!I tried it and it looked a little better but still crappy! I jumped back on the net and found a bunch of forums with imovie complaints! Ahh I found the truth, Imovie sucks! The way imovie renders text is bad and there is no work around!The best advice I found was use final Cut or basically any other software! So off I go on my video editing software hunt! Sometimes I regret buying a Mac and have found that the pc is a lot cheaper!Oh yeah I have version 6.0.3 and Mac duo 2 GHz!Beware of evil imovie! Maybe one day they will allow everyone to create great work straight out of the Mac box! Yall have a good one!
Well it is the day before Christmas and all the through the house! It was packed with all the people fighting trying clean out the Isles!That was the way I saw it anyway!I made the annual day before Christmas Wally World Trip! Let me tell the store was full of people going mad trying to find the perfect gift for Cousin Joe!
It is like clock-work, every year all the Country Folks Flee from the hills getting that last minute Christmas Gift! They all arrive at Wally World speeding and trying to get the best spot by going on the wrong way! No matter how fat you are going, someone wants to get there faster! I call it World War Wal-mart!
I got to the store at 4 and walked around for awhile. I was lost in crowd of hundreds just trying to find that last minute gift.The first place I went was Electronics! Man let me tell you, they did not have enough stuff! I bet there were 20 people looking at just the Cameras!I saw maybe 15 people checking out there TV selection! So I walked over to the Computer section and looked around and I was shocked they had some decent stuff!They also have some nice televisions!
Well it was time to head to the toy section and find my three nieces some toys!As I walked and looked at all cheesy toys they had , all I could think is how most of the Toys came from china! I wondered how many had some lead paint or were just dangerously cheaply made! You know it’s all you see on the news these days! “Today more lead paint was found in a xxxxx toys product!” IT is a crazy world and then after not finding anything decent I suddenly got depressed.
This time I got depressed cause all these people were gone mad shopping!That is when it hit me!I have been one of these people for years now and U figured that I have became comfortable standing in line spending another dollar, year after year!!
This is where I had to pause and think about this for a minute! Breathe Johnny breath!I was a Wally World junky the same as all the others! So now I decided to walk over to the book and magazine section. Ok once again I was disappointed, where are the good magazines? (And Not the Dirty ones, they will carry them one day, wait and see!) I was meaning where are the marketing and internet mags? They really didn’t have much to choose from! I found a 100 start-ups for less than $500 dollars. HUmm interesting! So I opened it up and checked it out! It was full of a bunch fluff and a few cool things to sell and make profit! I was disappointed that they didn’t have a decent internet marketing books or Mags?I was mad at this point so I walked over and grabbed some of that dried fruit that they are so yummy!Dried Apricots is some really good stuff! Then I walked over to one of the check out lines and was so shocked!Through all the madness I walked up and found an empty line! The first time I didn’t have to wait in line!
Well as I was driving down the road I stuffing my mouth full of those yummy Apricots and started thinking back! IT was two weeks ago and I had to make a late trip to Wal-mart to get some plugs and plug-wires! My car started cutting out and I figured it was a fowled plug! So I was about to change my plugs and wires! So I go into the Parts section and spend about 15 minutes looking for wires! So finally I saw someone working and asked her where the wires were! Guess what she said, we don’t carry wires! My mouth dropped open and I was shock, I asked her when this happened?She said they just stopped carrying them! I was like what in the world that is crazY!
After spending my whole life getting my Wire and Plug Needs, they decide to stop carrying them! So I think after this last go around, I may stop my relationship. Well everyone I hope you watch out for those late last minute crazy shoppers! Merry Christmas!
About a month ago something started digging through the trash and we thought it was a dog! A few weeks go by and no problems! Then the other night I heard a loud noise in the garage! I quickly went out there to find the bandit! He is a possum and thinks he likes it here!
For the past few weeks I have been hearing noises under the house. I thought it was a cat or a dog! It was that darn possum! When I came up to him he didn’t even know I was there! He had his body in the trash just having a great time! I had to kick the trash can a few times before he realized that he was caught!
When he saw me looking at him he wasn’t in no big hurry to leave! I tried to run him off and looked at me like I was crazy! Well I went inside and waited a few minutes and went back out! He was into the night! I noticed that he comes around when it gets real cold or when it rains! Which is pretty often up here on the mountain! I do believe I have made a new friend! Anyone else have possum problems like me? Keep an eye out for the end of the possum returns!
Did you know that many Traval writers didn’t even have an idea that one day they would be writers!Many would be so involved with their career that they would soon realize that they were living the Dream, much like me! You can say I woke up one day and realized I had been a lot of places and saw a lot of people through my Musical Career!Only I wished I would have been wiser through my Travels and invested more time and money! Who has Time for more Time?I can’t even count the # of times that I saw the perfect sunset or the perfect sunrise!If only I would have had a camera! For awhile I had a nice Pentex and then sold it to fund a move to NashvilleTn. Maybe one day I will get another nice one.Is it I really odd the more I think of! For many years I always had the tools to be a web publisher and never had the desire. I always had a Laptop and one day I bought a cheap $70 digital camera and started taking pictures, and then I soon started writing. I have been on a writing kick for years now and I am starting to enjoy the process.
I have been playing on the net for years and never really realized the potential of the virtual world! Humm I could be a Travel Writer! I already Travel, i just need to write! I started off selling things on EBay and discovered that there was too much competition to make a dollar! Even buying thing at wholesale and trying to flip them, someone out there was always selling cheaper! So like most people I gave up and didn’t try to sell anymore on EBay! I did use the drop-shipping method and it was pretty easy but the shipping was killing me with all the high gas prices and that was few years ago. Imagine how high they are now!
So about a year ago I decided to build a few web sites and put ad sense on them and waited! Well guess what? I sat and sat and waited longer. For months I waited for people to come and they never came. So I started reading and researching (all the info is on the net by the way!)After awhile I gave up on my sites and never really tried to develop them any more. Well a few months passed and I started to research again!
I told myself “You can do this!” Well with my brother’s help and a lot of reading I finally figured out how the net works. Let me tell you, it is whole lot of work! Pretty much every free minute everyday I work and tweak and tweak some more! And guess what? I made my first 12 cents on Adsense the other day!
So I guess you ask yourself, what does my net story have to do with Writing?Well that is the secret to the net! Write, write, and write some more, you have to be a content machine! I am sure you have heard the term Blog to the Bank! Well years ago people figured that you could blog and make money. There are many ways to publish your thought and they all will work in different ways for your purpose. Most of the time I write when I have down time and feel like blowing off some pressure. You just have to find you niche marketand go toward it!I know a few people who copy other people articles and republish them! Well guess what? You are waisting your time. The search ingines are looking for unique content and if your article is out they will just rank you lower and lower and lower. You get it!If you do a little research you will find that being a writer can pay off and be profitable as well. Don’t expect to make alot at first, cause it takes a lot of time to build up your empire.
So next time you are on that Smoky mountain vacation or you are working in Cali, start writing and savingyour thought! One day you will have written a whole library ofyour life and how you saw it! You never know , you may a be legend one day for publishing the way you see. Writing is one of those things you can do anywhere at any time, as long as you have something to write about. So next time you get bored start writing and if you are lucky you may never stop! You may make a great life out Travel Writing and Net Pushlishing. Well until next time…happy holidays!…………………………………….Johnny C
Opps I did again! A few weeks ago I was driving down the road on my way back home from Wal-Mart when I decided to stop in the local junk store! Well I went in and did my usual round and right before I stepped out the door I went back into the electronics room one more time and there sat a pile of gold!
Well she really didn’t know what she had and sold me the piece for $20.Well if your wondering I found a Hartke HA500 bass head.I have been playing music for years so I knew the head was worth a lot. Well I snagged the head and headed back home and looked on EBay to see what they were selling for.It looked like they were going for around $550 new and if I was lucky I might get a few hundred bucks out of it!
The amp head was in great shape but it was making a little noise. So I opened it up and it was missing one of the pre amp tubes. So I made a trip to the local music store and snagged a tube for $10.So at this point I have$30 bucks in the amp.Well a few days later I decided to list it on EBay. I put it on a 5-day auction and sat and waited and waited.
Well it got down to the last hour and my main bidder mailed me and decided he wanted to withdraw his bid! So I mailed him back and told him not to bid on and someone else would beat his bid. In my reply I explained how the head was awesome sounding and how he was getting a super deal!Guess what he did?He got in a bidding war with this other guy and won!
Take a gander and guess what the head went for? It went for $315, so I made a $295 profit from the Hartke.Oh yeah I forgot that I did lose $20 bucks on my shipping! I guessed that it weighed 25lbs and it really weighed 35. On a3 day trip to Alabama to California that can get pricey! So always weigh what you are selling so you don’t lose money.After all though I came away with $275 from the item!
If you are wondering, I am from a little town near Fort Payne Alabama and there isn’t much to do here but hit all the junk stores that you can hit.If you keep your eyes open and know what you are looking for you can make money. Most of the people that run thrift stores and junk stores just want to move stuff and make a little money. I would say that Junk flipping is a new hobby I have taken a liken to.Just be aware that shipping is at a super high right now, them darn gas prices!
You don’t always win though! Sometime you will buy something thinking it will sell great and it won’t sell at all.I wouldn’t bank on making a living junk Flipping, but it is a great way to make an X-tra buck every once in awhile. Give Junk Flipping a try and enjoy the new hobby I have found.
It never fails I was heading off to hills to to listen to some new tunes and as I drive through the turning leaves of the SmokyMountains. Cruising down a hollow I drive by some cabins on my way to my mountain cabin rental. I saw all kinds of wild animalsas entered the mountain cove.
I would guess that I saw more deer than anything else. I was about to drive by an old cabin when I saw 8 deer standing through the fog from me. It looked like they were eating something bright green grass , maybe clovers! I was really shocked the closer I got to them, they didn’t look at me twice. Here is North Alabama if you see a deer, he is gone running like a bolt of lightning. Except for at LakeGuntersville, they seem to be pretty tame from the all the campers that feed them everyday. They have somevery pretty lake cabins on the Tennessesee river in Guntersville. Ihave stayed in them a few times over the years.
I stopping my car beside the old Chalet and watched the deer for a good 5 minutes and then an 18-wheeler drove by and scared them off into the dark holler. I was on my way on down the road when I saw some kind of cat. I figured it was a mountain lion. It seemed to be 2-3 times larger than your average house cat. It didn’t even give me enough time to get good look at him.Well a few minutes later I arrived at my Mountain Cabin Rental and when I opened the door I was surprised.I walked in and it had a hot tub the size of my car and they built it where you could watch TV and chill at the same time. The floors were super awesome and you could tell someone built this baby with pride. They had every detail of Rental Villa down to the core.I have traveled a lot in my life and never seen a cleaner place. The walls of the Rental Cabin were logs and the cement they used looked awesome. It made me want to build me one just like it. I looked out my window and I could see several other Cabins within a rocks throw. IT didn’t matter though as I was happy with that super hottub to keep me busy.I soon started to bring in my stuff and decided to leave my cooler outside by the cabin door. It was pretty cool that day, the high only being around 40, so I figured it would be all right outside.Well that night I fell asleep around midnight and woke up to a horrible noise. I jumped up turned on the light and looked and it was a big old mountain coon just smiling at me. He had managed to rip off the top of the cooler and eat most of my food!He sat there and looked at me for just a min, enough time to see hi blackbands.
I yelled at him and he ran off into the darkness. I put the lid on the cooler and found some heavy logs on top and went back to bed. Well it wasn’t 30 minutes later that I heard him again. So I cut the light on and once again ran between two Cabin Rentals and disappeared into the night.He had managed to get in there again. I could not believe how strong he was to get inside.
Well the next day I went to Wally world and bought some bunjies. I figured this would so the trick. Well that night flew by with no problems but sometime after I left he came back and managed to break one strap. He didn’t get in, he must have gotten tired or someone scared him real good.Through my experience I found that a plastic cooler isn’t too much competition for those crazy Smoky Mountain Coons. If I were you I would buy a metal or aluminum cooler with a locking handle.That would be tough enough to keep the beers out as well. Well maybe!If you are in the mountains in the winter they are hibernating until spring. But you never know these days with the weather being crazy like it gets. The perfect Vacation Rentals always come with a fridge, but just in case always carry a sturdy cooler with you. I have heard stories of hungry bear ripping apart cheap plastic coolers. So when you rent your Mountain Chalet be sure to ask for the amenities they have. Ihave a friend that told me about this story one time He said he found a Cabin site on-line that was advertising Hunting Rental Cabins and the price was right so he took it. Well about a month runs by and he is on his way to this Alabama Cabin and when he arrives he had the shock of his life. It was really a Primitive Hunting Lodge and didn’t even have a fridge in to. He laughed though; he said it had a microwave and no stove. So there goes to prove that you never know what your going to get till you get it.If you are looking to get closer to nature a Smoky Mountain Cabin is just about as close as your gonna get. There are a lot of good Directories out there with mountain cabin rentals from all over. Some people call them Mountain Cabins, Chalets, Rental Villa,or just lodge. Whatever tickles your fancy call them, there is always a Mountain Cabin Rental perfect for your dream vacation. By ariver or on top of the Mountain it is best way to getaway for a peaceful experience with a little action. Oh yeah I couldn’t figure out what that crazy Mountain Coon was tryingget to but he sure didn’t want to pass it up. Sometimes I think he was trying to find more peanut butter sandwiches.So if you see a Cabin coon with peanut butter face you better watch your cooler and keep it locked up in your rental villa. Coming soon. Don’t feed the bears beer!Until next time.Johnny C
