Since this was potentially our last Thanksgiving in Hawaii, we decided to go down to the beach for a quick family picture. Unfortunately, the “best” time to get everybody together was right in the middle of the day, so the lighting wasn’t very good … but Ana still liked the way it turned out.

Keep havin FuN!
Todd

p.s. hopefully this summer after we’re back in the mainland, I’ll be able to get a picture with everybody in it … including Haley and Jordan who currently live with their mom in NC.

November 25, 2008 - Good tutorial on building a custom 404 page. I need to something a little more fun on this blog, so I will be utilizing a few of these tips here in the near future.

While browsing my friend Julie Andrews’ blog, I think I found the answer … a “thank you box” which Julie wrote about in her post on Cultivating the Attitude of Gratitude.

One tradition we have in our family at Thanksgiving is the “Thank You” box. We write down anonymously the things we are most grateful for and put them in the box. Then, after we have stuffed ourselves with turkey, pie, etc we read these. There is always something unexpected; I wonder what will be said this year? Especially when the focus as of late has been on LACK rather than the simple ABUNDANCE that is all around us….hmm…

This sounds like a great idea Julie … I hope you mind if we “steal” it.

Have a great holiday! I’ll talk to you again soon,
Todd

p.s. what are some other unique family traditions that people do to celebrate the holiday?

Do You Follow People That Don’t Respond To You and Don’t Follow You Back?

I said that I don’t think it matters. I never check to see if someone I decide to follow, follows me back. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t always automatically follow those people who’ve chosen sign up to read my tweets.

Might I be violating some sort of unwritten online etiquette rule?

I follow people who I think I might like to learn more about. I usually take a pass on those who appear primarily interested in trying to sell me something. Ironic, I know, since I’m a marketer myself.

But fair or unfair, that’s my take on it.

I hope that those who are following me get something positive out of it … and if not, I really do hope they unfollow at some point.

Todd

… is it possible that it’s just become “too big”, period?

Am I some sort of socialist for even having this thought?

Todd

We call this the Knipe workout (named after SMSgt Knipe who was the superintendent of the 25 ASOS when I first got there). It’s also affectionately known the ab killer. You’ll definitely feel it the next day. For each of the exercises, I’ll try to find a good link or two that gives directions on how to do it.

• We pretty much always start the morning with a 3-6 mile run (or 45 minutes, which ever comes first). Once we meet back up and get a little water, we have 10 minutes or so of stretching, either individually, or as a group.

After we’re done stretching, it’s on to the fun stuff; 20-30 minutes of strength exercises …

• The first exercise on the PT field is always the Push-Up … we do 10 by the 4 count (it’s a military thing, all exercises are 4 count, so basically you always do twice as many). This video shows 4 count push-ups:
  
• Crunches - 20x4 (link also shows technique for reverse crunch below)
• Reverse Crunch - 20x4
• Bicycles - 20x4
• Diamond Push-Ups - 10x4
• Regular Push-Ups - 10x4
• Wide Grip Push-Ups - 10x4 (hands wider than shoulder width apart)
• Kickouts - 10x4 in each direction (front, right, left, front)
• Oblique Crunch - 20x4 on each side
• Flutter Kicks - 30x4
• Arm Rotations - 30x4, front and back
• Mountain Climbers - 20x4
• 8 Count Ranger Body Builders - 10x8
• Side Crunches - 20x4 each side
• V-Ups - 15x4
• Scissors (aka “Hello Dolly’s) - 20x4
• Last exercise on the PT field - Push-Ups - 10x4

More water, shower, and off to work. And I’m not joking when I say you’ll feel this the next day. Go ahead, give it a try if you don’t believe me.

Keep havin FuN!
Todd

November 23, 2008 - I read quite a few SEO blogs … guess it wouldn’t make any sense not to also get the word straight from the proverbial “horses mouth” as well.

November 23, 2008 - I contributed to his dollar haul … ended up buying the website flipping report he was marketing at the warrior forum.

November 22, 2008 - Some good twitter and facebook resources. I read another article earlier about TweetLater … think I’m gonna try it.

November 22, 2008 - Looks like Court has a new blog … I subscribed.

November 22, 2008 - I love it when people write articles just for me

November 22, 2008 - Seth Godin always has a way of cutting right to the bones of the issue.

November 22, 2008 - LOL, oh no … somebody just spilled the “secret” of every “expert” on yahoo answers.

November 22, 2008 - My white wolf liked this story …

November 22, 2008 - Good explanation of hosting options. I still use shared hosting, but am actually looking forward to the day that I will need to upgrade to VPS.

If you’ve been thinking you might enjoy getting our candles delivered to your door every month, but weren’t quite prepared to commit the money to it, I may be able to help.

I’m looking for one or two people (preferably people I already know and am friendly with) who would like to try out our candle of the month club on a two month trial basis. (at no cost)

If you’re interested, drop me a line via the contact form (or in the comments) with a good time and way for me to get in touch with you.

If we have a chat, and everything feels right, I’ll send you (via paypal) the money to cover two months of the candle club. Come January, if you don’t feel that continuing to get our candle would be a good value for Your Own money, you can just cancel … with no hard feelings, I promise.

Don’t know if anyone will actually take me up on this … but figured I’d throw it out there as a potentially nice gesture

Hope you all have an enjoyable weekend,
Todd

So, I’m moving my blog yet again. I liked the candlemonkey domain, but for some reason, that particular blog has been strangely attractive to hackers almost from the day I installed wordpress. I’ve since changed the passwords and user names … heck, I even moved it to a totally different webhosting account. But it looks like they found me anyway.

I’ve noticed about a month ago in my google webmasters tools account that quite a few of links pointing at my site were for porn keywords. I thought it was kind of odd, but since I know I don’t have porn on that site, I didn’t think too much more of it. Then even more recently, I started getting many more comments and user registrations for nonsensical names, and russian .ru addresses. Then finally this morning, I got this comment from a guy calling himself “blackhat millionaire”:

Comment:
Glad I just found your wordpress blog through Google.

Found just what I was looking for, thanks =)

Btw, wat plugins are you using??

The thing is, it was a comment on a page that I didn’t write, and couldn’t find from my admin panel … one where the url is something like http://domainname.com/?attachement ID-

Obviously someone has access to something in my database that they shouldn’t.

Unfortunately, I’m not smart enough to know what to look for … and even if I was, I’m not sure I’d have time to fix it.

So, here we are back at SuccessWithTodd.com

I have a few more things to clean up, but within the next 2 or 3 days, wordpress will be wiped out, the database deleted, and a single web page put up at candlemonkey.

For those of you who have followed me on my several moves over the past few months, I appreciate you, and hope this latest adventure doesn’t cause you any inconvenience.

Catch up with you again soon,
Todd

A couple of months back, I wrote that the Air Force decided we needed to leave Hawaii. Well, a couple of weeks ago, I found out that our new home, as of April 2009, will be Fort Hood Texas.

I’m not sure you could call us “excited” about it … but, in the grand scheme of things, there are definitely plenty of worse places they could have decided I needed to be. At least it’s warm most of the year in that part of Texas. And as a self-confessed “weather geek”, I think I’ve just about convinced my step-son Johnathan that tornado chasing will be just about the funnest way possible to spend a spring day.

We should be getting there right in the beginning of April. I’ll be part of the 3rd Weather Squadron. Not sure yet what exactly my job will be … but something tells me I should probably plan on spending next Christmas in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

Oh well, this will most likely be my last assignment (I hit 19 years next month), so might as well make an adventure out of it.

One last thing …

I know that a few military people occasionally read this blog. If any of you know of anybody who owns a nice 4+ bedroom house in the Ft. Hood area, who might be interested in renting to a responsible senior NCO, starting in the early April timeframe, please have them drop me a line.

Thanks in advance … catch up with you again soon,
Todd

This weekend I had the opportunity to get out with my workmates at Bellows. We all met in the late morning for nice BBQ, and to enjoy a few Hawaiian Beach activities. Of course I brought my camera along (taking pictures is by far my favorite beach activity).

I took quite a few pictures, and I’m still in the process of editing them, but the one above of a couple of friends kayaking is one of my favorites so far. Since it’s been a while since I’ve posted a Hawaii Picture of the Day, I figured it might be nice to share.

I hope you enjoy … Aloha til next time.

Todd