Marathon Pictures

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marathon startMarathon finish

Here are a couple of pictures from the marathon I recently ran. The first picture is at the start when it was cold hence the ear band, gloves, and sleeves down. At the finish I was rather hot and had removed the ear band and gloves and pushed up my sleeves. That was about all I could do to acclimate to the weather. When you run as slow as me there can be pretty big changes in the weather from the start to the finish. Running a marathon isn’t as hard as most people believe but it ain’t easy either. It is more of a mental challenge than a physical one.

Do People Never Learn?

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Last week there was a news story stating that trucks outsold cars by the highest margin in five years in October. This is considered a sign that people are starting to spend again. If that is correct then I think it is an indication that people did not learn much from the recession.

Some people do actually need trucks for work or other reasons but my guess is that the vast majority of the people who own trucks do not actually need them. The fact that so many people are splurging on an unnecessary item might indicate that many people are going back to their free spending ways. It seems people have forgotten the high gas prices of just a few years ago. Gas prices will go up again but it seems that many people are in denial of that fact. Buying a new truck that you don’t actually need is not a financially or ecologically smart decision in my opinion.

The article states that personal savings rates decreased from a yearly high of 6.4 percent in June to 5.3 percent in September. Even at 6.4 percent personal savings rates were well below historical highs. I’m sure some people have learned to be more frugal due to the recession but my guess is that most people will ditch frugality as soon as they feel confident about the economy. What do you think?

Marathon Musings and Super Sales

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Can a 50 pounds overweight, 43 year old guy run a marathon with just two months of  lackluster training? Yes.  Should he? No!!

I did manage to finish the Bass Pro Marathon last Sunday with a time of 6:06:41 which placed me at 155 of 158 men in the marathon.  Hey, I wasn’t last and anyway my main goal was to finish.  I’ve now completed 5 marathons in 5 different states.   This marathon was tough.  I spent most of the last 10 miles walking rather than running.  The temperature was in the 40s when the race started but it was near 70 and sunny for the last half of the race.  This made it uncomfortably hot for me and I became a little dehydrated.  I also got a little sunburn and chapped lips.  Of course there were sore muscles after the race but they recovered after a couple of days.  This was the first time the muscles in my arms became sore as well.  I guess it was just from holding them up in a running position for most of the race.  I won’t be doing any more marathons until I lose some significant weight and am in much better shape.

I’ll post some marathon photos later.  I’ve managed to jack up the SD card slot in my laptop by accidentally putting the little protector piece of plastic in there sideways.  As soon the USB card reader I ordered arrives I’ll upload some of the marathon photos.

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It’s Just 35 Cents

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I was reading the comments on another site recently and a commenter complained about a customer holding up a line for 10 minutes because he had been overcharged 35 cents.  The commenter felt it was ridiculous to cause such a fuss for just 35 cents.  As you might expect from a tight-fisted miser I have a different view. My feeling is that if it is just 35 cents then it should not have been a big deal for the store to give the customer his money. As a matter of principle I would get my 35 cents.  I suspect that whether “it’s just 35 cents” varies somewhat depending on whether it is your 35 cents or somebody else’s 35 cents.  Also a feeling of “it’s just 35 cents” might lead to it’s just a dollar or five dollars or one hundred dollars.  You need to respect your money if you want to keep it.

That  being said there are situations in which I would not worry about 35 cents.  What do you think?

Online Income Report – October 2010

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Here is a breakdown of my online income for October 2010.

Google Adsense – $338.23

Affiliate Income – $750

Text Link Ads – $48.45

Direct Ads – $33.23

Ehow – $11.89

Total – $1181.80

My online income was over $1000 for the fourth month in a row.  This is great income, especially considering I haven’t done a lot of work on my sites the last couple of months.  My Adsense seems to have recovered from the summer doldrums.  It should remain strong through the winter.  The main source of my income in October was from affiliate income.  I prefer this to the direct ad sales since I think it is more sustainable.  However, the vast majority of this affiliate income was from one limited-time offer.  Whenever the affiliate ends the offer my income will likely nosedive.  This hasn’t happened yet so my November income should still be over $1000.   I’ve been turning down a lot of direct ad offers since I don’t think the money they are offering is worth the risk to my page rank.  My goal for the rest of the year is to diversify my affiliate income and develop my own product.