Travel Blog

Both the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014 have seen a terribly cold winter so far. A new term has been brought into our understanding of the weather: a cold vortex encircling North America all the way down to Florida. It has bypassed the western states, with places like LA and Palm Springs staying relatively warm. The cold weather is being felt as far west as Texas and Arizona, especially in the south. We have had more snow this year. It began falling in early November and has never left.

Cold vortex in the North East

This will probably be one of the longest winters on record and break most temperature records. Most people just have to endure this cold and the snow that comes with it. Some of us head south for the winter to find warm weather and to get away from any hint of snow.

Well, this year is turning out to be more of a problem for many snowbirds because of the cold vortex that seems to be circulating around us. Many snowbirds heading to Florida and west to Mississippi and Louisiana are finding it very cold still. They may not have snow, but they are finding that there are still freezing temperatures. In fact, it has been reported that pipes are freezing in places that have not seen this before.

These poor people just do not know what to do. The best thing is stay warm, wear lots of clothes and make sure you heat your home safely.

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UP App for iPhone –  Weekly Summary Dec 30 – Jan 5 Last sync: Jan 6, 7:23am You’re a stellar sleeper, Paul. See how your daily sleep and step averages compare to the week of December 23. [image: Sleep] + 1 h 2 m /night [image: Move] – 1,383 steps/day. I do not use the UP App for iPhone any longer. The jawbone stopped working and I really would not recommend it to anyone. Do not buy the jawbone or install the UP App for iPhone.

You got the most sleep Monday 9 h 27 m This week’s average sleep 7 h 15 m You hit your goal 2 times Average bedtime 11:28 pm Uninterrupted Sleep 2 nights Average wake time 6:56 am Give your immune system a big old shot in the arm… Your body releases infection fighting proteins while you slumber. Sleep deprivation means fewer of these bug busting bad boys.

Your best day of steps Sunday 5,671 steps This week’s average steps 3,024 steps/day You hit your goal 0 times Idle watch You were most idle 2 pm – 3 pm Total distance 9.7 miles Having trouble reading this email? View it in your browser.

UP App for iPhone

Unfortunately my UP band stopped working and I no longer get any updates. This is the second time that the band has stopped working for me. Both times it was the battery that would not recharge properly. I decided to not purchase another one. The band itself is not very sturdy and easily damaged. The UP App for iPhone works really well and I am quite happy with the app itself.

I also recently heard that Jawbone is going out of business or at least being sold. Who wants to invest in something that may not be around very long. There are lots of devices around that can be considered. I guess I will wait until there is a clear leader before purchasing another one.

They cost quite a bit of money, over $100. While that may not seem like much to some people it is more than I want to spend. It only lasts less than a year so it is not worth it. I have had my watch for over 10 years. This is what consumers are looking for.

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The Jodi Arias Trial has gone on far too long. She is guilty of pre meditated manslaughter and deserved the death penalty! However we think she may even get away with time served because one juror and it only takes one is going to find her not guilty!

She planned this murder. From stealing the gun from her grandfather to finding a knife. She used  the same knife to murder him.  She used this knife to slash the tires. Hence this girl should never see the light of day. The Jodi Arias trial should end now and she should be locked up for ever.

Jodi Arias Trial – Guilty

If she gets out she will stalk someone else and probably murder them as well. Fortunately she was found guilty and will go to jail for a very long time. She will do well in jail, since she has the ability to connect with people and turn them in her favor. In addition she is actually quite intelligent. Hence it is a shame she could not turn her ability to more positive things.

Even after being found guilty, she was giving interviews and obtaining privileges that many other inmates dream about while in jail. She just seems to have a way of getting what she wants. I have no doubt there will be lots of men who will write to her or even visit her at her jail location. She does not have many friends or family who will visit. She will die a very lonely person in jail. In addition she will only have the other inmates to chum with and spend time with.

Many people hope she never sees the light of day outside jail. If she does she will find another gullible guy who will succumb to her. If he does not and she likes him, he could end up dead just like her former boyfriend.

What is your opinion?

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Ottawa Topcharts (@otta_twopcharts) 4/5/13, 11:07 AM Your Topcharts stats for March. New followers: 41, new tweets: 134. Check your ranking here: http://t.co/zaGiaAHPt8 Ottawa Topcharts (@otta_topcharts) 3/5/13, 12:10 PM Your Topcharts stats for February. The point of this post is that you can follow how much traffic you are getting from Twitter, how many tweets you send, how many followers, etc. I still have not figured out if this information is actually useful or not and whether it is worthwhile even having this post. Appreciate any comments you might have on this subject or whether Ottawa Twopcharts provides a good service or not.

Ottawa Topcharts

New followers: 23, new tweets: 117. Check your ranking here: http://t.co/zaGiaAHPt8 Ottawa Topcharts (@otta_topcharts) 2/5/13, 12:10 PM You have gained 15 new followers and finished #2,945 in January in the Ottawa Topcharts.

Check it out here: http://t.co/rouzwn9 Ottawa Topcharts (@otta_topcharts) 1/21/13, 11:10 AM Your mid-month stats in the Ottawa Topcharts: new followers: 11, new tweets: 73, position #2,805: http://t.co/rouzwn9 Sent with Twitter for iPhone

They used to send this tweet every week, however, in the past month, the tweets have stopped. I guess the guy decided that he was not making any money off the business and decided to stop the service. How do you make money on Twitter is a big question which I have not figured out.

The only way it can be useful is if you tweet links to your website posts and then people see this and come to your site for information. Otherwise, the stats are not useful at all. I regularly tweet a link to posts randomly selected from this blog to Twitter and I get a few likes, links, and retweets. does this do any good or does it bring in any revenue? It is difficult to tell from the stats that I have at the moment. Will have to dig into this more before I spend any more money on this.

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Is it just me or is the news negative all of the time. Every time you read the headlines in the paper(for those of you who still read the paper), the online news or on TV. It does not matter what channel you go to. The main news channels or the cable news channels, the news is always bad.  Every once in a while they do add a cute story about a cat or dog, . Or something a good Samaritan has done. But these are far and few between.

Why is there such a preoccupation with bad news. Why do the networks continuously feed us this stuff?  Some people feel that if we do not know about it, we really have our heads in the sand. We should be aware of what is going on in the world and those things that can and do affect us directly.

Categories of Negative News

The negative news can be separated into several categories, some we can ignore because there is nothing that we can do about it, while with others we need to pay attention. Here is our list and the category of what we should pay attention to:

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Have you ever noticed discarded shopping carts along the road. Or perhaps in a parking lot a long way from any store that might even offer shopping carts? Most people take a car to the store. When they are finished with the cart, put it in the designated space. A few really lazy people will just leave the cart in an open spot beside their car and drive off. These are despicable lazy people. Who will probably die of a heart attack because they do not get any exercise. They cannot even push a cart a few steps to the curb or to the return area.

Discarded Shopping Carts at the Curb

But wait there are worse people. Now at least when a shopper does not return the cart to the store or to designated areas in the parking lot, the store owner still gets his cart back. He has paid a lot of money for these carts. This cost works its way into the cost of the goods we purchase at his store. If a cart is damaged or is taken away from the store then the store owner has lost this investment.

I can understand that if you do not have a car to transport your groceries, that you might want to borrow the cart. Perhaps you do not have enough money for a taxi. You are trying to save every cent that you can. Use the cart to get your groceries home. Then take the time to return the cart. The exercise will do you good and you will reduce the cost to all of us who shop at that store. Instead what many people do is leave these carts in the entry way of apartments. Or worse on the street or on the sidewalk or worse in the ditch.
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Writing about interesting news items of interest  is something I have wanted to do for some time. That is write about current events and news that is sweeping the world and even some that are local as well. Many items are picked up by the main line news media and they jump to conclusions and avoid contrary views. They Work it to death until some other story comes a long and then they move on to that. CNN and HLN are particularly bad for this style of news items.

This site will be following the news and posting articles that summarize the issue and provide our own views of what is going on. Sometimes we will agree with the talking heads of the big news reporting agencies and sometimes we will not. This is our right to free speech and to our own opinion.

We will not engage any kind of hate mongering, anything that would be considered in bad taste and no discrimination. If we do by accident tell us about it. We also will not tolerate any comments that engage in this sort of thing either. Some people might say this is blocking free speech and I suppose it is, however we own this blog and we are not lowering ourselves to this kind of communication.

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This post is being made by the administrator to illustrate how posts can be added to the web site. This is  for Pablo’s Stories by sending an email to a specific email address. Posting like this is known as auto posting.  This address should be kept private and is not included in the text of this message since it would end up being posted on the web site for all readers. We would get far too many posts on the web site that had nothing to do with this topic or our content. There are just too many spam messages and comments so we do not leave an email in this post and will send it to you separately.

Auto Posting by Email

To make a post to your web site, all you need to do is send an email with the title in the subject line and add text in the body as you would normally do to send an email. You can even attach pictures to the email and they will be posted at the bottom of the post on your web site. It is pretty easy to send emails like this. I have done this several times to test the feature and it works fine.

Note, anything in the body of the email will be posted on your blog. So for example if you have an auto signature added to all email messages, this will be posted along with anything else. To avoid this simply add  :end at the end of your message. Do this at the point that you do not want anything beyond posted to your blog. The auto signature can also be deleted prior to sending the email.

Now you can make a post to your web site, while lounging by the pool. Use your iPod to compose the message. Once it is ready to go, just send it to the address I will give you and your post is live on the web. Of course you can sign on to your web site at a later date if you want to make any changes to your post at a later date. It is that easy. Hope you find this helpful.

Evaluate the Post before Publishing

We suggest that users go on the site once and a while to review their posts. Cean up any grammar and spelling issues and  enhance the quality of the posts. We also find that with a second or third reading there are small changes along with additional comments that many people like to make. It is well worth the time to update and make these improvements for your readers.

You can also use your PC to send an email with or without pictures attached. With Smart phones able to take pictures and add text now. This is really the best way to keep your blog active and current. We really like this approach to blogging. We will use this auto posting idea on several other blogs that we have. One thing to remember is that you need to keep it clean. Nothing you would not want your mother to see or read. Pretty simple really but we want to have good quality sites. We do not want to fun afoul of Googles policies either. They are very strict on this matter. They will cut a site off from their index if you do not meet their guidelines

Let me know if you have any questions.

Administrator

This is a post by the administrator advising that this blog is now fully operational  for the Pablos Travels  to begin posting on this blog. There will be many posts of the months and years and we look forward to hearing from our readers about these places and others that they have visited.

Pablos Travels – Instructions

All plug ins are installed, including counters and formatting of the page.  All you need to do now is log in, click on posts, click on “add  new” , and begin blogging. We suggest the following checklist –

• add title first
• write your post
• check your post for spelling and grammar
• add pictures into your post if you desired
• set the publish date on the top right hand side of this page
• add a new category if needed or check off an existing category
• add tag words  in the tag area. These are typically words which you feel that anyone searching for this post would enter into the search bar of a search engine to search for this post

When ready click the schedule button to post the post immediately or schedule the post on the date you have selected. Note that the post is already preformed, formatted  and meets all Google Adsense policies. This is important for publishers who are interested in making some money with their web site. Google will pay publishers who abide by the rules that are posted by Google. Publisher guidelines are very specific and if you do not meet these guidelines, Google can and will stop delivering Ads to your pages as they load.

Writers can also upload pictures as well which can be added to each page. we urge writers to place the picture in the upper left hand location of the post to avoid conflict with any Google Adsense advertising that is on the page. Google has strict polices on this issue as well as many other areas. Pictures should be tasteful and should not violate any common decency issues nor should they be used without the owners permission, unless they are in the public domain.

Revising Existing Posts

Note you can also revise an existing post that has already been posted. Make the changes and then click update. WordPress is a pretty neet and user friendly blog system to use. Many people all over the world are using this particular blog management system to manage their posts. They also earn Adsense revenue from their blogging activities. It is all managed by Google once you have an account. Publishers must obtain the Adsense code from Google. Then install this code on their web pages with out making any modifications to the code.

Why would you want to make changes. It is already formatted properly and ensures relevant ads will be delivered to your blog pages every time they load.

That’s it , your ready to begin blogging! Hope you enjoy! Learn about all sorts of subjects related to travel on this web site. for example, click here