The Life of Riley is a weekly post that details my activities since I ended a thirteen year career as a corporate drone. These posts are usually long, personal, and geared more for my own memory than the reader’s entertainment.

Sunday (Day 105)

Attended the Endless Summer Festival in Hull. Saw an Irish band, The “So Fresh” hiphop dance crew, and a classic rock band who belted out a rendition of AC/DC’s “Highway to Hull“, which I tried to film on my camera phone, but it came out too poorly to be of any use. Afterward, we went to dinner with my sister and parents.

Monday (Day 106)

Wrote all day. Helped Mo-licious with her virus/spyware issues by offering free tech support. Helped Michelle to connect her laptop to her TV so that she could watch Netflix Watch Now Movies on the big screen.

Tuesday(Day 107)

Wrote all day and constructed a privacy policy as is required by some affiliate programs. I’m not out to get anyone, so I feel a little stupid about having a privacy policy. It seems like something guilty people write. I applied to a bunch of affiliate programs and worked on ad placement. I’m trying to set it up so the ads aren’t annoying, but do provide value to my readers. I sift through the advertisers to find certain companies because I want the ads to be something you can use rather than a distraction.

For the first time, one of my affiliates dropped me a coupon code to pass on, which I thought was pretty cool. If you’re in the market for some new music gear, you can save $20 off any purchase of $200 or more at Musician’s Friend with code: AF20 The coupon expires 9/27/2007 and is good for in stock items only.

Wednesday (Day 108)

Went shopping with my sister for my mom’s birthday. Does shopping for your parents on holidays suck? It doesn’t for me. It took 15 years, but I turned both my parents into hand-held gamers. They have had at least a couple of generations of Game Boys, and this year, I upgraded them both to Nintendo DS Lites. Birthday shopping means I get to wander around the video game sections of my favorite electronics stores, which is so easy that it just seems like cheating.

Thursday (Day 109)

I changed my Wordpress template to have only partial posts on my front page. I had thought about this before, but never implemented it because I alway thought that partial posts would annoy my readers with a second click. Brian pointed out that because I write rather long posts, it’s difficult for him to skim the page to find the information that he wants. I have to admit that I never really thought of that, so I implemented it while keeping the RSS feed as full posts. I think it neatened up the front page, but do you think it was a good idea?

At night we went to my parents, played games, ate chinese food and gave my Mom her birthday gifts. My mom got Brain Age 2 and Jewel Quest Expeditions for her Pink Nintedo DS Lite. I was ordered to give her the games as her last present so that she would pay attention to the rest of her more expensive gifts. Yes, I’m serious.

Friday (Day 110)

Thanks to this week’s Facebook posts (Getting Started with Facebook and Why Aren’t You On Facebook Yet, Grampy?), I connected with a few more of my favorite readers. I think it’s a great tool to stay connected with them in smaller, more constant ways.

#1GF! went to visit her sister, so I caught up on all my blogs and SEO articles. My sister came by and I taught her both how to use Wordpress and how to build custom Google maps for a project she is working on. I ended up at the computer for 11 hours and eventually just ordered out for pizza. I introduced my sister to Ninja Warrior, which she loved as much as #1GF! does. Even after a couple hours of TV, I had trouble falling asleep because of all the things that I felt that I hadn’t finished on the web.

Saturday (Day 111)

I swore I wasn’t going to work on this site seven days a week, but #1GF! was still visiting her sister due to a dead alternator, and my sister was off having breakfast with her friends, so I wrote. My sister asked me what I would like to do more than anything, and my snap answer was “Writing. I don’t care what the subject is, but this is what I would rather spend most of my time on.” I really need to set up some boundaries before writing is all I do.

Once my sister got home from breakfast, we went to the beach, and afterward, she went out to a cookout. I started writing again when I should have been showering. After #1GF! and my sister both got home, we went out to dinner. At one point during the dinner I was joking around and started including the waitress. I looked away for a second and then looked back and caught the tail end of an expression that suggested that the waitress was merely tolerating me rather than actually amused. It stopped me cold, and I instantly felt like I was 92 years old.

That feeling lasted until we got home, when my sister and I broke out the Playstation, and I played my first video game since I quit my job. We played Guitar Hero II in cooperative mode, and blazed through a few tracks that ended with us playing lead and rhythm on Freebird. You think that dueling solo is long when you hear it? Try playing it. It’ll make you feel young again.

What I Learned

• All I want to do is write.
• I like to teach technical things to non-technical people.
• Facebook is still pretty awesome.
• As corny as a live performance of “Highway to Hull” sounds, it cracked me up.
• I learned more about PHP by working with my Wordpress templates.
• This site might need to be pulled back a bit because it eats too many brain cycles.
• I learned more about advertising and SEO, but I still don’t know what kinds of ads my readers are really interested in.
• Playing video games without a job doesn’t make you a hobo if you’re working hard at something all day.
• I forgot what good games Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II are.
• Sometimes girls smile at you just for the money.

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Posted in Leisure