View From the Balcony

Writers Block

2005-11-22

Happy Thanksgiving To All My American Friends

History has a way of repeating itself, and when it comes to Thanksgiving celebrations, there is a need to know how it started so that the wonder is never forgotten. these links will take you on a wonder filled journey from origin to recipes. Read and enjoy.

The timeline is 1620 - 1621 when the Pilgrims sailed from Plymouth, England on the Mayflower to an unkown land with an unknown history. There, they would make their own history with the help of the Wampanoag.

Take yourself and your children on a date with history and enjoy the reasons that begat your history with Thanksgiving.

Did you know the Pilgrims never celebrated or called their first feast of their gleanings from the new land Thanksgiving?

As you gather with your family to celebrate Thanksgiving for your good fortune of health and prosperity, do not forget to tell the story that history created so that it is never just another holiday.

May you and yours be blessed with much happiness and success in the
coming year.

2005-11-18

Resell Rights or Shame on You Sham?

This is not a rant. But count on it, I am fed up to the teeth
of sales copy hitting my accounts full of resell offers that are
not worth the effort to send.

On that note, I decided to check out the great $977 value of
each of these resell rights that would make me soooo much
money if I just contributed to their efforts- and become an
overnight success and rich to boot. I think not! Ebook
internet marketing is the rage but it is not for the timid or the
inexperienced. Even the experienced online marketer would
have to admit ebooks sales are not a slam dunk.

What's Google Say?

Funny you should mention it, but yes, I did a google search
on those items. The first one valued at $977 actually sold for
a mere $37.95. What happened to revalue it to create such an
extreme price? Nada- just sales copy.

On to the second one. Weird but google brings up $3.95 for
that one. Gimme a break here. Let's do an advanced google
search.

Hmm I can save over $40 on the resell rights to this one. How
much for those resell rights? After the savings, $10. It is this
sort of information that will supply you with a truer picture on
book value vs book sales.

This is fun. Let's try the next one.

Okay, the book value on this one according to google is $39.97
and is often given away as free stuff - as a bonus to other
product purchases.

Let's be fair here. None of these books are going to make
any one of us rich if the original book prices listed in my
google search are correct. So why hype them up as a sudden
get rich scheme whereby they will save you a fortune if you
shell out a couple hundred bucks?

Hey now, they say it's the rage to package information ebooks
that have seen their day. [They do not say these books have
seen their day at all - but why else put them into a great
supposedly valuable package?]

Lots of people, probably green to the gills, and no where near
smart enough to investigate beyond the $$ signs that light up
their eyes, are buying them up like hotcakes - IF you believe
their sales marketing strategy.

When I have to pour through three to four pages of sales copy
to get to the meat of mindboggling 'you better get this now' pitch
to find out what it is I will be selling to become the next famous
overnight success, one heck of a lot of red flags better grab me
and quick.

Going through the sales material will bring up a lot of serious
questions to the experienced marketer. If the value is in the
product you are expecting to resell, then why offset it with
something like the cost to set you up as well as various items
that are included?

I am sure the new or inexperienced online marketer will not
see so much as one red flag or even question what they might
be getting into. And if they do ask questions? Count on it -
the followup response will be geared to softening their concerns.
Once you are in, then those questions become a moot point.

All right, if you still buy into this sort of thing, I have a real
deal for you. How about buying the rights to a piece of history
in the Okefenokee swamp? Never mind that it is protected
property and the best you can do is visit there once in a while.
Just think about the money you can make with resell rights to
your stories of your adventures with the crocodiles and wild
pigs? At least it will make interesting reading. Besides,
Georgia has such sweet peaches if all else fails.

2005-11-11

November 11th - Lest We Forget

"Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;"

High Flight - Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr

On December 11, 1941 his Spitfire collided with another plane
over England and Magee, only 19 years of age, crashed to his death.

An Era Comes To An End For Many

Pte. Ernest Alvia Smith - May 1914 – 3 August 2005- was the last surviving holder of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He was the last living Canadian recipient of the Victoria Cross.
"Smokey" Smith was appointed a member of the Order of Canada in November 1995.

He was buried in Victoria BC after being granted the honor of the only
non-politician or Statesman to lie in state in Ottawa.

The "Bomber Boys - The Fighting Lancaster"

"They say it is the young who fight the old men's wars."

- the veterans who flew into the night skies over Occupied Europe to fight in some of the most significant battles of the war. While the brave men who were the 'Bomber Boys' of WW1 are part of a latter history, it was their descendants who added to the long list of the fallen.

Well over 12,800 died in the European theatre bombings over Germany and Belgium in the last days before the Armistice was signed declaring peace. Some 800 of those were young Canadian men barely 19 years of age.

The cemetaries bear witness to their sacrifice as most of these were WWWII 'Bomber Boys" fighting a war they did not ask for and paid the ulitmate price that you and I might know peace.

Holland

Parades in Holland to commemorate their dedication to freeing the Dutch of the German hold of those terrible days is an eye opener for those of us who tend to forget the price paid.

Men in wheel chairs, marchers in their 80's, return this year as they do every five years to share with these people the memories they will never forget of the brave men who freed their country so many years before. Yet on every face in the large crowds there is pride and a smile and continuous clapping for these brave warriors.

Even their children, today, can tell you the history of the war and the part played by these soldiers to free them. "Something .." said one sad marcher, "Canadians tend to forget to tell their children. We fought so hard to be done with war. We gave so much."

From the Beaches of Normandy, to the Somme, Yap Yong, Dieppe, to Korea, to Afghanistan, to the Peacekeepers and our soldiers who fight yet in the corner of some foreign field, they continue to fall and be remembered in the name of peace.

The theatres of war were many and the stories of soldiers that came back a hundredfold, as much a gift of history as the museums springing up all over our countries to commemorate their sacrifice.

In these services, women weep and old men bow their heads and fight the moment they wish to shed a tear over as well. A lone piper adds to the solemnity of the moment and strong eyes yield to memory.

If you did not attend a service, if you did not give them their two minutes of silence at 11am, this day, then take that time as you read this to do so. Be very thankful for their sacrifice, for you enjoy the legacy they protected then and continue to protect now for you.

"In the going down of the sun, and in the morning ...
we shall remember them "

Lest We forget

In Memory of My Uncle Clarence Frauts, 27/01/1944 age 21 years
Royal Canadian Air Force
Buried: Rheinberg War Cemetery

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