Due to the economy and the need to generate money quickly, I turned to blogging for money by writing regularly on green business matters in the Portland area. The problem with this sort of sideline is that is pays very little considering the amount of work that goes into preparing each article. There is the research, fact checking, interviewing, writing and posting to be done for each offering–not to mention the time spent trying to find appropriate photos that can be used without copyright violations.
The trap comes with the fact that the more you post the more money I earn, and so the time that I could be spnding on potentially more lucrative projects is not available.
November 12th, 2009
Now that green is “in” and everyone wants to do it and be a part of the revolution, the hucksters are out in force blasting us with information that can best be described as “the good, the bad and the ugly.” The good thing about the internet is that it provides us with access to a lot of good information and good ideas, but at the same time ovewhelms us with ideas that are in some cases just bad ideas, and in other cases just plan ugly ideas designed to fleece the unwary.
As a case in point, I recently ran across a press release from a “green energy” company touting a scheme to recover energy from the warm air exhaust streams from air conditioning systems. This is a scheme akin to perpetual motion in that work has to be done by the AC system to produce the cooling at the condenser and the flow of air carries away the waste heat. Capping that air stream to run turbin would create a back pressure that would cause the AC system to do more work for the same amount of cooling and the energy gained at the turbin would always be less than the extra energy to power the AC system.
A bad idea, but plastered all over the internet. The press release repeated over and over on site after site without any critical review. This company as far as I can tell (they’re not big on details) consists of the CEO, a patent attorney and a very good huckster.
September 29th, 2009
I just returned from a three day marathon of pitching, networking and attending workshops at the Willamette Writers annual conference. The pitches were moderately successful even though I had to pitch from the seat of my pants because the agents that were taking what I was prepared to pitch were not available (I registered rather late). The workshops were great for the most part, but by the end of the third day my eyes had glazed over and I was moving like a zombie.
It’s definitely an experience I would reccomend to any aspiring writer.
August 12th, 2009
I just completed a story on Examiner.com about a project to produce (under government sponsership) an autonomously ranging robot with sponsorship of the U. S. military, which refuels itself by foraging for suitable burnable materials. My take was that the proposed application is some sort of a mobile recon platform that doesn’t require the presense of a human operator…the original drones were just for recon and now they are weapons…I wonder how long before these things are armed?
I had a vision of herds of these things roaming through grasslands taking the grass for fuel sort of like a herd of bison. Just a dream?
July 10th, 2009
I hear a lot, off and on, about the expected magnitude nine-plus earthquake that is likely to happen sometime in the geological near future of the coast of Oregon. Such a quake and the resulting tsunami has all the makings of a disaster movie or book, and I’m now in the process of doingsome preliminary research. I’ll need engineering, architectural, seismic and geological info–sol it’s off to the races
June 1st, 2009
I’ve now been writing for Examiner.com for about a month and am just now feeling like Im beginning to get a handle on time management. There is the necessity to do research finding stories and checking them out as well as the actual writing. Then there is the marketing piece, i.e. getting the word out to a plethora of book marking sites, social networking sites etc. And, of course, finding available pictures to enhance the story. Until recently this has left little time to spend on the novel or on short stories. I think I’ve turned the corner on the time thing this week. Good way to approach the weekend.
May 29th, 2009
with remembering to post a blog on a regular basis is difficult
Continue Reading April 6th, 2009
In researching a short article on the ability of the U. S. auto industry to remake themselves into viable participants in the global industry, I came across hints that some connections may exist between high officials that served in the Bush administration, the oil industry and the auto industry. This is a rumor that makes some logical sense in the light of the industry’s bizzar reaction to California’s air quality requirements. I’m looking forward to doing some more investigting.
March 17th, 2009
It looks like Grover Norquist is still in charge of the Republican Party. No sooner was the stimulus put forward than Grover was all over Fox News and radical right-wing radio talk outlets spouting about tax cuts. Strangely, almost immediately, most (but encouragingly not all) congressional Republicans suddenly turned into reason-dead automatons intoning “tax cuts…more tax cuts…” in spite of the fact that the Bush era tax cuts more than wiped out Clinton’s budget surplus, and combined with two wars created one of the largest deficits in history–all this before the current economic collapse.
The Republican Party doesn’t seem to realize that tax cuts mean nothing to people without jobs, since they pay no taxes anyway. Grover seems to have the Party in his pocket as he continues his quest to eliminate taxes to the point where the Government is “starved” to death. It would be interesting to know how many of the congressional zombies have been breaking bread with Grover at the weekly strategy meetings at his K Street digs.
February 27th, 2009
Today my family and I, and dozens of others converged on Champoeg State Park to celebrate Oregon’s 150th year of statehood. All the visitors shared in a cake made specially for this comemoration and which was shaped like the state of Oregon, with topographic features rendered in icing. I also learned that the initial event that severed the dependance of the settled population on the Hudson Bay Company(British) was a vote to establish a provisional govenment. This proposition carried by only two votes, but set the stage for eventual statehood.
Point taken! Every vote counts.
February 15th, 2009
Previous Posts
