Damien at the Speed of Life – DATSOL

Me 1989 at 19

Me 2009 at 39

I’m celebrating my 40th birthday today.  Here’s a few words on how I feel about it.  American media shows us that it’s better to be young than old. I am not saying I’m old, but when I first heard the words “You’re turning 40″ I began to think about what it might mean to me. Some countries and nationalities, like Native Americans for example, see the value in wisdom that comes through age. I agree with that notion and I’ve always respected what my elders had to say to me. Have you noticed the way older Native Americans are always so at peace in pictures? I think I’m beginning to know why. They’ve seen life pass by in cycles of thankfulness. “Will we have corn?” The angels brought corn. “Will we have horses, the wind brought horses.” “Will we have the wisdom to know what to do?” The full moon brought the wisdom.

When I was younger I had a lot of anxiety about what I would end up being be and who I would be. My 20’s were just utter craziness finishing college and trying to “be someone.” My 30’s were a time of growing into my own skin. It was through my 30’s I learned the value of defining and avoided distorted thinking. To this day, those ideas of modern psychology by Albert Ellis still help me stay thankful for all I have. “Overgeneralizing,” “I must do this or else …” All the stuff he has defined as negative energy. I have become a life-long student of psychology and I will always respect what it is for people. Also in my 30’s I met my lovely wife Sarah.

She was a waitress and a teaching student at the local community college. Those were pretty neat things, but the fact that she was a freckle-faced cutie quickly won me over all the way. Seriously though, Sarah has so many talents that keep the Rileys going, it would astound you if you saw them all. Just one example is this party.  everything from booking the place, to inviting all of you, to the slide show, it’s all her.  Thank you honey for making my birthday awesome.

I am so lucky to be sharing my 40th with her. If you know her, you know what I mean about her giftedness. I became a somewhat instant Dad and Brandon has taught me a lot about being a good member of a family and being a good person. As for teaching me to be a better dad? I don’t know how much better I get but we keep trying and we never give up trying to do better.  I love you son.

My baby girls Isabella and Julianna are 2 other of my delights. What man could ask for more than to hear his name screamed with joy every time he walks in the door from work? They have both shown me signs of nothing less than genius through their speech and drawing and sense of humor skills. We have been blessed with so much which the pictures tell a story of. I came up here for a job interview where it all began in August of 2002. Now, I am a lead teacher in my District. For me, it doesn’t get any better than that. I worked a long time to get there so I will say I am an example that if you stay true to what you want and give it your best shot, you will make it.  It doesn’t have to depend on your ancestry dna. Last, like the peaceful Indian … getting older is cool because you see that everything is going to be okay.  Just hang in there.

40 is great … every decade is great … it just gets better.  Thank you all for coming … cheers!

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VPS Hosting has gained a lot of ground in past years. It’s a hosting plan that is well sought after. That’s why I’m taking the opportunity today to recommend a VPS Hosting company I use: 4Domains. They offer personal and business hosting as well as domain registrar. In fact, they are an ICANN registered domain provider. There are so many reasons people like yourself would use this company but one might be to make the jump from a free hosting provider such as “blogger” to your own self-hosted site with software like Wordpress. This is the format I have used for my blogging since Dec. of 2006. I feel it has a lot more to offer you than the free hosted blogs. Having said that, hosting at 4Domains is quite affordable. Check out their prices.

Just a couple of the noteworthy qualities of this service are:

• Open source control panel: This means you have added access to your account files.  You can make tweaks here that aren’t available on some other hosting servers.
• You can host unlimited domains: Most companies put a cap on this.  At first when you’re hosting you might think you don’t need many of these but as you start to see the income of hosting multiple domains, this feature becomes quite attractive.
• Other attractive features include: rebootable server, and a dedicated IP address for VPS.

It’s an excellent service, try for your hosting needs.

We live in a microwave society where we want everything done FAST! From a speed-dating service to fat burner pill, we want it effective and fast. I’m seeing this for more and more services. I ran across this amazing resource for you college students out there writing research papers.  When I was in  college, I used to put all my sources on 3×5 cards and shuffle them around to get them included and then listed correctly in the MLA or APA format.  This makes all that so much easier.  With CiteFast, the “Works Cited” page virtually automated and all you have to do is place the quotations in your paper.  My advice is to bookmark this tool!  Click on the image to go to the site.

Do you know this whale? I see him so much, then he goes away. Aaargh mateys.

In addition to posting my blog stats each week with tips, I also offer paid services in blog building, coaching, and freelance writing. To hire me visit my freelancing site. Let me explain how I review blogs. First, the acronym:

C: circulation (or Google backlinks)
A: analytics (# of visitors last month)
N: net Amount of dollars made on all blogs combined.

Now the review formula: I have put it in the form of a 3 question quiz.

1. The number of your Google backlinks is between: (tip: to get this number, type link:http://url into a Google search)

A. zero or unknown
B. 1 – 100
C. 101 – 200
D. 201 – 300
E. 301 – 400
F. 401 or higher

2. Your visitor count last month was between:

A. zero – 500
B. 500 – 15,000
C. 15,001 – 25,000
D. 25,001 – 35,000
E. 35,001 – 45,000
F. 45,001 or higher

3. The amount of money you made blogging on all your blogs combined:

A. zero – 100 dollars
B. 100 – 200 dollars
C. 201 – 300 dollars
D. 301 – 400 dollars
E. 401 – 500 dollars
F. 501 dollars or higher

Where A=0, B=1, C=2 and so on up to F=5 respectively, add up the total value of the three letters in your answers: ie; B,C,D would equal 1+2+3=6 Then divide by the total possible(15) to get your can percentage: 6/15= 40%

Then assign your percentage a CAN Blog rating based on this scale:

0 – 16%=CAN0
17 – 33%=CAN1
34 – 50%=CAN2
51 – 67%=CAN3
68 – 84%=CAN4
85 – 100%=CAN5

The example score of 40% is between 34 -50% so it earns a

After I show your CAN “grades,” I give you a few minor yet valuable notes on what I liked and what you might work on to improve your CAN rating.

Thanks for previewing my rating system. I recommend setting your own goals for your blog. These parameters work for me but certainly they are not universal. Since I started using them I have seen stats as skinny as as if it took a double dose of Solo Slim turn much fatter. If interested you can follow my own blogs’ CAN BLOG RATING progress.

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my FEED Thanks for visiting!

In this age of Facebook and MySpace, I regularly get friend requests from old friends who want to know what I have been up to.  The first few that asked several years ago, I wrote long emails to.  Since then my “catching up” emails have gotten progressively shorter.  Whether it’s the baby needing changing or just a flood of emails I have to return, there is usually no time to share what’s been happening with me since high school.  For that reason, I’ve written this post.  In a way it’s a bio … but more casual and more personal.

1987-1997
Since this is 20 years total, I’ll cut it into chapters … Part 1:
Ch. 1 Rock-n-Roll – I played in my band the 63 Lipless Fish until 1992 off and on.  In 1991 I approached Dave Sharp, guitarist of the 80’s alt rock band “The Alarm,” at a show he played at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano.  In that approach, I made him a business proposition to produce one of our songs.  In the next two years, he produced 2 with us and I hung out with him playing a coffee house and a few bars.  He was and still is one of my heroes.  That time was priceless for me.  My apologies go out to my faithful band, we never became famous as I had promised.

Ch. 2 Back to School – I begrudgingly gave up my rock dreams and enrolled in college at 22.  College fit me.  I had my Master’s in English from Cal State Fullerton by 1998.  This included a summer spent living in Mexico studying Spanish conversation at UAG.

Ch. 3 Fifth Grade Teacher – After that I subbed while looking into PhD programs.  I wanted to teach college writing.  Santa Ana Unified offerred me a contract teaching on an emergency credential and that began a long strange road of learning more than I ever thought I’d know about teaching.  It was sink or swim.  I sank at first, but somehow lived.  Actually, I thrived and started what would become my current long-term career.

Ch. 4 Night School – I spent countless hours at National University getting my credential cleared.

Ch. 5 Coffee Houses and Bars – I stayed true to my wanderlust for places to play and sing in.  I remember them all fondly.  I played quite a few places in this decade.

1998-2009
Okay, now in pt. 2 we’re flash forward to 1998!
Ch. 6 High School and College Teacher – I taught one year of high school remedial English.  Some kids were great, others carved bad Mexican words in my door.  I also commuted and taught evening writing classes at Saddleback College.  I did that for one semester before burn out set it like I really shouldn’t try to explain.

Ch. 7 Pizza Enterprise – I decided to leave teaching and try and make huge bonuses as a Tricon manager for Pizza Hut.  I was the general manager in Dana Point from 2000-2002.  Some of you may have seen me :)  Guess what?  The first bonus was nice but the second was NOT.  By not, I mean NOT.  I missed teaching and started working back to it.

Ch. 8 Adelanto Move Forward to Teach – I got an email from EDjoin about a 5th grade teaching job in a place called “Adelanto, CA”  The word actually means “move forward” in Spanish.  I felt it was calling my name so I drove 80 miles to the interview and was hired the same day.  I had 5 other interviews scheduled in places like Long Beach, La Mirada, and Mission Viejo but I was done, I knew this would be my new home in the High Desert.

Ch. 9 High Desert Princess and Prince – I met my lovely high desert princess Sarah Youngs(Riley) on Yahoo! Personals.  She is a bit younger than me (9 year gap). I was looking for a friend in this new place as was she.  Her son was a Prince at 4 and almost instantly became my sidekick and son as well.  At time of writing this he is 10 now and our girls are 4 and 18 mos. They’re all peaches!

Ch 10. Online Enterprise – I’ve been blogging since December of 2006 and written down many of my thoughts about life.  I’ve also turned it into a business making upwards of $400 a month.  In that respect, my bonuses are even better than the second year at Pizza Hut :)

Believe it or not, that’s the short version.  I’d love to get in touch with my old friends from social networks.  please leave me a comment or an email and let me know what your journey has been!

Relevant Damien Riley Links:
http://www.postcardsfromthefunnyfarm.com/
http://www.damienriley.com/
http://www.dynamitelessonplan.com/
http://www.podcast.damienriley.com/
http://myspace.com/damienrileytunes

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my FEED Thanks for visiting!

This is a short but sweet review of Digsby. Though I have several other projects vying for my attention, this one takes precedence because Digsby has transformed my view of social media. I have to share the wealth, so to speak.

Before I tell you all about Digsby, have you ever heard of a paella pan? It is used for Mediterranean cooking which is fast catching on here in the States. It is delicious.  These pans are great to have around when doing this style of cooking.  I recommend acquiring one.

Back to the review. Check out the photo below cropped from their front page and then scroll down to read the rest of the post:

I want to thank my friend Justin for showing me this application a month or two ago. Digsby is just like a chat or IM client. If you’ve used AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ, or GTalk you’ll be at ease with the program. But the interface is where the similarities end. Digsby is like an IM client on steroids. It combines IM, Email, and the Social Networks together in one messaging/notification/composition source. No more “I wonder who’s on MySpace” while you’re on Facebook. You are logged in to both and chatting at the same time on both. Now add nearly every social network you can imagine to those two and you have the power of Digsby.

When I log on in the morning, I get notice of how many Gmails I have in a long window showing who they came from. I also see my Yahoo Mail right there at the same time. I can respond to emails right there or save them for later. I also see all my Facebook, Inlinked, Twitter, and Myspace activity. All in one place.

I’m not very skilled at doing tech reviews so I won’t try to be. I recommend you check Digsby out though and see if you agree it makes social media easier as well as life!

One sided phone conversation with a new blogger:

Photo from: Coffee 2 Go

So you want to blog eh? Well, you’ve come to the right place. I love helping people start their semantic journey. It reminds me when I started making a personal website on Geocities way back in 1997. You had to do everything in HTML back then and the closest thing to a blog was a guestbook I suppose. It was still freagin fun! But let’s get back to you. I understand you are on Blogger. No, I don’t mean you smoked the ashes of someone who used to blog, I am referring to the free blog platform owned by Google called “Blogger.” You are? Oh ok great. Actually not great. Did you know most school and public institutions block that provider? Why? I don’t know, ask them. Maybe the word “chat” pops up too much who knows? Anyway, if you want a decent audience, that fact alone will cut back your chances considerably. Oh, and did you know you can’t really change the appearance much other than their small collection of templates? I know a format that will make your appearance choices virtually unlimited. Oh, one more thing, you should know that your Blogger account has the most obtrusive and difficult to fill out comment forms for your readers. You will have a lot of people turn away because it’s so complicated. The one I know of has a simple box at the bottom of each post. Oh last but not least, did you know your blog platform is not as SEO friendly as mine? This means the search engines will place you lower than Wordpress blog with the same topic. Ready to try something different? Ok then! Cool. What’s that? You say you can’t afford to pay? Hmmm. You can’t afford $8.95 a month? What if you made $100 a month on your blog? Something to think about.

If you are interested in making the jump to a self-hosted Wordpress blog, I’d be glad to help. Drop me a line.

Photo by Sarah Riley

The past couple days have been great. We got a snow day reprieve from work Wednesday and Thursday. I got to stay home with my lovely wife and three kids. We played in the snow in front of our house as I took pictures. I uploaded them to Facebook and Flickr. We took the car through snow that looked like cake all around us to the store to buy sundries to get us through the storm. From time to time when the satellite was blocked I had to use the pool net pole as a roof cleaner to get the signal working again.

Instead of working, I’ve been working at the perfect duraflame start, the perfect frozen pizza timing, the perfect tea party guest with Isabella. I think work will be better for me now that I’ve had my two snow days. I wish every occupation could get snow days … even unemployment. Maybe its because I’m a homebody but being snowed in is right up my alley filled with snow.

To make this surprise gift even better, I go in tomorrow for a short day with the kids then I have 23 days off for summer vacation.  Thanks to the snow for a great start of what should be a lot of family time and blogging … the stuff I live for.

((Update))

Just got the call tonight (Thursday) from the district that there is no school tomorrow.  That means no school until 2009! 26 days off to be exact.  I love teaching.

I got up this morning with a strong motivation to get the Christmas lights up on our new home (6 months old that is). My dutiful wife had all my lights ready along with her “vision” to put them up a certain way. I liked the idea. We have two peaks on the front of our home and she wanted them lined along the top. The lower one was not too bad, but the higher one required a tall ladder and a seasoned “handyman” type who isn’t afraid of heights … which I am not.

I have always thought this tradition was an “unnecessary foo foo” for homeowners.  You might even have said I was a Scrooge or a Grinch about it.  I even had a friend I sneered at when he bought so many pillar candles for his luminaries every year. This year, I changed my mind: putting up lights might be worth it.  This is the front of our house. You can see the two peaks.

Imagine the creak of the ladder as soundtrack

I started right up the ladder, nailing, twisting wire and hanging. It wasn’t a bad chore … in fact, I rather enjoyed the exercise and hammering of it. I felt like the homeowner I’ve always striven to be. But getting up to that second tier had my hands awfully sweaty.  I’ve been afraid of heights since I was a kid and I had to face those kid fears head on.  That’s my 10 year old son down below.  He’s wishing he could climb on ladders and have “fun” with Dad.  Oh son, when you’re older with fears and responsibilities of your own, you will get your turn to have “fun.” Trust me.

How I almost became an archive

Bear in mind these are pictures taken by my wife from the next-to-top rung of a fully extended ladder.  She was shaky taking the picture but she told me she knew I would want to blog about them later.  Of course I told her I probably wouldn’t blog them.  Looks like she knows me better than I do.  It really was quite scary being up there.  At one point I slipped a couple shingles down and thought for sure I was going to fall off the roof and break my neck. Thankfully, I did not.

One slip can make quite a difference

This picture is just before “the slip.”  Unfortunately Sarah was down with the camera when I almost died.  If you decorate up high this year, be extra careful.

In the end … it was all worth it

Well, I’m still in one piece and the lights look great.  Have a look at the final product below:

Peace on Earth, isn’t it lovely?