1. I got sloshed last night and actually closed a 4am bar… it has been a while since I have done that, and although it was fun while it was happening, I "paid the piper" today.

2. Some dickhead stole another one of our sites, word for word and is now buying the same traffic we were previously buying. He is paying more for the traffic, or has a better CTR which is pretty weak. One good thing about this is the asshole made a better, cleaner looking design. Of course I will steal it from him and use it as needed in the future. Fuck you buddy.

3. Two dickheads mugged 2 people very close to me at gun point the other night… luckily they are fine other then some bruises. The outcome could have different, so I am thankful that they are okay.

4. My grandma fell, shattered her hip, and broke her shoulder… her hip has been reconstructed (4 pins), not sure on the shoulder. I am still waiting to see how she is doing. I will see my grandpa in a few hrs and go to the hospital on Xmas day.

Anyhow that is a quick, fucked up-date for my faithful readers. I hope your holidays are going smoother then mine and that you and your loved ones are safe this holiday season.

Aaron Wall is probably one of the most popular SEO bloggers (perhaps the only SEO Poet?) out there and he puts tons of passion and hard work into keep his blog/book/tools etc up to date, and “link worthy”. His SEM Glossary is no exception. I talked to Aaron while he was working on this and it took him a long time to “throw” that together. We are talking weeks here, and the hard work has paid off.

Most importantly is the fact that this is the MOST COMPLETE search engine marketing glossary out there. It is all original content, unlike some of the recycled glossaries that every other SEO company throws up there, including some of the places I have worked in the past.

That being said there are a few things I would like to see changed:

1. I agree with GrayWolf, and actually believe I suggested to Awall that he add ^top links to send you back to the top.
2. I would add the A-Z at every letter, to allow further navigation within the glossary
3. I would probably create a sweet plugin for my blog (or others) that would put a “definition of the day” in my sidebar, just to keep my readers learning…as well as for linking ops from elsewhere on the interwebs.
4. Where is “super affiliate”, “shave”, “consoles”, “tgp”, “werty”?
5. Add the “suggest a definition” to the bottom of the page as well.

One of the last complaints is that the page is huge. I would almost like to see this broken out into smaller sections… maybe one letter per page? I am guessing a project of this scope could be a standalone site and perhaps he did not want to take the focus off of his core product… the SEO Book.

Also I think it would be cool to have experts in the industry define some of the “hotter topics”. The PPC part of the glossary is kind of weak and there are some pros out there who would probably help out with that in exchange for some link love.

Version 1 this is great, but I am interested to see what you do with it beyond just the definitions. I think there is a lot of interest in the subject and I would like to see what would happen if you made it a standalone site and used some more of the web2.0 community approach to it and opened it up for feedback/wiki-style control of the entire thing.

So there is a game of tag that is going around the "seo blog" network and I was tagged on it. The path went like this:

Jeff > Dave > Avinash > Andy Beal > Shoemoney > SEO BOOK – Unique anchor text SEO information > THE TROSE

Now in order to participate in this I need to give 5 facts about myself:

1. I am the last Male in my bloodline. This means at some point I need to start working it like Johnny Appleseed
2. I actually went to college for welding at a point in my life and am an amazing welder. Preferring the control of TIG (tungsten inert gas), to MIG, Stick, or Oxy Acetylene.
3. Although I am supposedly a "kick ass PPC guy", art is one of my passions and I am told I should paint (art not houses) for a living.
4. The rumor floating around is that my middle name is Wertrose, it is actually STANTON.
5. I am actually the THIRD George Kepnick. Gramps > Pops > Trose. If a woman ever gives birth to a "trose original" I do not know if I am passing the name.

Here is where I link to 5 people I would like to know more about:

1. Caveman – I <3 Caveman
2. Darren Dalasta – Go hang a salami, I’m a lasagna hog
3. Phil – Fix you www. issue and that was swwet domain kiting writeup
4. Caishnah - Learn to drive*, come to the US, ROAD TRIP. (*optional)
5. SEO Loser. Enjoy the sweet 1.3 referrals a day you will get from this site. And say hello at the next conference.

The link was to this site called Violent Acres and I have been reading through it for the last 45 minutes or so and find it great.

She has a series of writings about how to save money and become financially independent. It is pretty great. It also stroked my ego because it made me realize that I actually financially independent which I always take for granted.

The first part of the series is called: Is Your Job Ruining Your Life?. Do yourself a favor and read it. If you are going to do one thing today you should read this article, then go into work tomorrow and quit your fucking job.

Today I actually worked a full day which is a damn rare thing. Every day I work I probably add about $1-5 to my pocket, every day, for the next few years, maybe even longer. The internet is an amazing place which allows you to build something successful, and as long as you do it right, you can reap the benifits of your work for years to come.

The other day I checked my CJ account and saw that I made 3 sales from things I setup years ago. 2 were worth about $50 and another was from a site that has not been updated for about 4 years. To sum it up again, that was about $75 this month from something I did maybe 4 years ago! I wish I would have made a few hundred more sites back then instead of working for other people along the way to my new found freedom.

This week was bitter cold and I did not feel like leaving my house at all, but I made myself go to the post office a few times, and the grocery store once… I am a TRUE HERO! Anyhow, at some point I think I either got sick, food poisoning, or my body or brain decided enough was enough. I somehow managed to go to bed between 9pm and 11:30pm each and every night. This was a new record for me. I probably have not gone to bed at that hour since I was like 9 years old. What is even stranger is that I woke up before the sun came up a few of those mornings. What may be the STRANGEST part of this tale is that I have 2 other friends who shared similar schedule changes in the last week too. Something is going on.

I missed going to SES Chicago pretty much the whole time, but was forced to go out on Weds night by Mr Stuntdubl, and I am glad he called me out. I got to meet a bunch of cool dudes including Neil and Cameron from Pronet Advertising, and got to see Rand, Todd and Lee.

It was "colder than a witches tit" as my dad would say that wed night and I had the worlds worst cab driver, either that or he was just a prick. Regardless I froze my face off walking to find the street I thought he dropped me off on. DIE CABBIE.

Sat. I wrote amazing testimonials for some friends on linkedin and watched a shitty movie.

This weeked was pretty slow until today (sunday), which was action packed. I ate lunch with the family, including Suhail (working link coming soon). Lunch was pretty awesome. I got to see the whole family and got to eat amazing cornbread. The worst part about it was the fire alarm that started going off from the omelets being made. Holy shit it was loud. We were on the 3rd floor of the nursing home and about 12-14 alarms went off on that floor. So we went down to see if we needed to evacuate, and dealt with another 20 on the way down.

From there I went to the Renegade Craft Fair. It was really crowded and the layout was pretyt poorly set up, but there were some awesome things to be seen. I picked up one cool item for a friend.

After this I went and looked at some pretty cool artist work/live space that was for sale. More or less just to see what it was like and then became interested in purchasing… It was pretty neat. It was an artist co-op who converted a warehouse into live/work space. It was in a pretty sweet location and close to the blue line… in addition to that the price was WAY below market value. I have not considered buying anything in a while so this kinda came as a suprise. I mainly went because Suhail was interested in getting some practice space.

The fun did not stop there, after the lofts we hit up the Christkindl Market in downtown Chicago. It is a German Xmas event which we went to a few years back. It was a blast. I ate numerous meats and drank warm spiced wine out of a boot shaped mug. One more of those and I would have "been in the place".

Then I took the train back home and reflected upon the days happenings and took some self portraits.

I look like a complete angry creep in the photo and I think it is great.

On the way back from the train I was still feeling the wine, and I looked up and saw an amazing spiral of light.

I was pretty happy to see the spiral of lights, I was just walking and saw them go around the tree in one strand and shot it in an "upskirt" fashion. Later when I reviewed it I liked how it is kind of hard to tell what it is, like the shapes and light, and the composition.

To finish the weekend off right, we hired a new programmer tonight, so that is pretty awesome

What do you think of the pics and how was your weekend?

What do you think?

Also lets see what yours would look like.

Here is a link to the website that lets you make south park characters.

In the meantime I just wanted to say I was able to meet a few of the people I set out to meet including the following:

Rand Fishkin, Michael Gray, Patrick Gavin, Dan Boberg, Greg Hartnett. I also met JasonD and Giovanna.

I did not get a chance to meet Ted Leonsis, maybe next year.

Here are some perks of this setup: no second line needed, no re-occuring monthly fees, the ability to send faxes from any computer in the world (as long as you have your documents with you), ability to view a fax from anywhere in the world as long as you have the software installed.

And the possible negative aspects: no real fax machine, may take a bit more time to use. Probably not the best solution if you send many faxes or have an office with more than a few people in it. You need a computer, scanner, and printer to use it.

Here is how it works:

1. Recieving Faxes – Sign up for Efax – www.efax.com they have different services available, but offer a free version that ONLY allows you to accept incoming faxes. This converts them to a electronic document, and allows you to print, or view them on the monitor. They will send you spam once a month begging you to sign up for their premium service, but their basic service is free, and you get some weird number out of the local area. I am in 630/773 and my fax is 435.xxx.8181, pretty awesome actually that my last number is the same as my home phone! Cost = Free

2. Sending faxes. I shopped around and found a great service to send faxes from. Efax wants 9.95 a month to be able to send faxes, I send maybe 1-2 a month which would be like $5 a fax…. I found a cheaper service that allows you to prepay at $10 and only use 11 cents of credit (or similar) per page that you send. No monthly fees, or other BS. You send my emailing the telephone number @ a certain domain and it will either send the body as the fax, or you can send attachments and it will make the body the cover letter and the attachments are the other pages. The place I use is called: Interfax. l again avoid anything other than the prepaid sending fax package…otherwise you are paying a monthly fee for recieving faxes. Cost = $10 per every 91 pages you send, and the credit stays good for a year.

3. Scanning a Document to Fax: I use an all in one printer and scan things in as full size jpg images. All in one printers are dirt cheap these days and they have numerous models available. I have a HP 3210 all in one, which is a higher end photo printer which prints great looking photos, it also allows me to scan slides or film. Cost = Free if you have it around $99+ if you don't.

A standard fax process would be like this:

1. A company either sends me a fax (to my efax number), or emails me a document that I need to fill out
2. I print the form out and sign it (printer/all in one)
3. I scan the form into my computer (scanner/all in one)
4. I use interfax to send the fax (interfax)
5. I go on with my day. (wooo wooo)

In summary I urge you to use technology and give the finger to your phone company and any company trying to charge you monthly fees for sending or recieving faxes. Again use the following:

Efax – free fax recieving
Interfax – 11 cents per page to send a fax, $10 prepaid card required.
Printer and Scanner or All-in-one – to do the printing and scanning

What fax solution do you use and how many faxes do you send per month?

Rand Fishkin, Michael Gray, Nick W, Incredibill, Patrick Gavin, Mike Mackin, Dan Boberg, Greg Hartnett, Barry Schwartz, any webmasterworld mod I have not yet met, any of the guys who own the casinos, people on certain spammy email lists, and of course, young beautiful co-eds.

I think if my friends actually gave introductions I would have met pretty much all of these people. I probably have also met 1/2 of those people above but have known to be "blackout drunk" at times which leads to strange/broken memories.

Obviously this list does not include all of the people I already have met and am looking forward to seeing. It seems like an awfully long time since I have seen these people, and I am not sure if it is the new "bath rober" lifestyle that makes it feel this way or if it really has been that long. Either way I am looking forward to catching up and hanging out with all the people I do not get to see nearly enough.

Lastly about pubcon… I was asked to speak last week on the microsite/one page wonders topic… I have 5/6 days to write the presentation… what do you want to see on it, or what would you like to learn?

pubcon2006

I thought it was kind of weird. What do you think?

It also made me try and think of some new sort of playlist for the gym… we will see what comes out of it.