Slap on the BBQ sauce, I’m cooked well-done. Spent all day yesterday in blistering heat watching our girls participate in the “Cliff Marshall Soccer Tournament”. It was very hot, humid and overall very uncomfortable. I can only imagine how hard it was for the girls on the field. Tehya and Indy both made it to the quarter finals with their teams, but lost their games and are not playing in the semis today. Coaching, ref calls and the heat contributed to their halt in the event. Well done ladies! Hopefully next year I can make the time and coach you guys to the overall championship.

Couple tips to leave you with…

Tip 1. Great Career Site.

I listened to an interview with Jack Humphrey and Eve Tahmincioglu earlier this morning and it led me to Eve Tahmincioglu’s website Careerdiva.net. I won’t bore you with why you should be tuning into what Eve writes in her blog. You can check it  for yourself at: Careerdiva.net

Tip 2. Making money online from affiliate programs.

Don’t be fooled by the idiotic pic (flava flav) when you get to the site (top right), this fella is the real deal. I was introduced to this blog a week back and I’m amazed at how much this guy is sharing with his readers. As I mentioned in previous posts, people who are successful in affiliate marketing are very secretive and never share anything worthwhile with anyone. Yea, they claim to do so on their blogs, but in reality they don’t.

Check out http://www.nickycakes.com. You can thank me later! Be sure to bookmark this site and dig through the tons of amazing content Cakes shares with his readers.

A special thanks to everyone who showed interest in our call for contributors to our work from home network. I’d like to introduce everyone to Shawnee Bowlin our latest freelance writer. You can learn more about Shawnee on our feautured writers page, or by visiting the work from home blog at WFHMarket.com where she’s already making a huge impact with her amazing writing skills.

Mentoring?

With all the emails I’ve been receiving lately, I’m seriously considering launching a monthly mentoring program. Where 1 lucky person will get to shadow me and all I do online for 30 days, but must be able to commit at least 2 hrs a day Mon - Fri for the full month. I’m putting things into place as I write this, to hopefully be able to launch this new mentoring program soon. I still have to decide what the basic requirements will be. Rest assured it will be 100% FREE!

And so it should be!

Ever since my post and many thousands online, the Canadian Olympic team is finally bringing home the metal! Last count this morning (after an exciting US vs Brazil soccer final) I checked the standings and noticed that Canada collected 14 medals to date. Well done! It’s about friggin time we stop hearing personal best and start seeing some real results.

Some pics from our recent day at Canada’s Wonderland…

Funnel cake - part of the park goers diet!

Ready to get soaked?

Tons of twisted steel makes up these massive roller coasters.

Hope you didn’t just have lunch..you’re going for a spin!

As you walk through the main entrance of the park. There’s a roller coaster that goes through that mountain and at certain times, there’s a team of divers that drive from the top to the pool below.

Well not really, but this work at home lifestyle means I can leave when I want and do what I want..when I say! While most people were busy heading off to work, we were making our way to spend the day at Canada’s Wonderland to test their latest coaster, Behemoth!

Though I’d like to say that the work at home lifestyle allows me full control over when I can do “stuff”, I still have to work with Caron’s schedule. She’s a 9-5er, plus she takes the 1 car we own to work, so we usually plan stuff on her days off.

Over the next few days I’ll try to post some pics… in the meantime, here’s a short video I made while on Behemoth.

Here are some quick stats for you coaster fans…

* Type: Steel — Sit Down
* Status: Open
* Date: April 2008
* Cost: $27M est.
* Manufacturer: Bolliger & Mabillard
* Model: Hypercoaster
* Height: 70 m (230 ft)
* Drop: 70 m (230 ft)
* Length: 1,620.9 m (5,318 ft)
* Top Speed: 125 km/h (77 mph)
* Duration: 3:10
* Capacity: 1,545 riders per hour
* Inversions: 0
* Elements: 75-degree drop, double helix, 5 camelback hills

I need some help answering an email I received last night in response to a recent post I made. In that post I spoke a bit about scams and not paying anyone to apply for a job. I still stick behind what I say, but as you read the email I received, you’ll notice that there are circumstances that do change the way we approach things.

In response to the questions from Cindy, I’d like for you to extend your comments regarding the fact that some employers WILL require money for background checks, although I wish this could be something that candidates could petition in the future because it greatly hurts those of us who do not have the finances to put forth every time we make an attempt to apply for a position.

For instance, in one week alone a friend seeking to work from home has paid out almost $150.00 simply to satisfy the needs of a small group of companies in question mandating a background check.  This is just about as bad as all the application fees renters pay out when looking for a home or apartment.  There’s got to be a better way……people are struggling to survive!

Families apply to work from home so that we can continue to put food on the table and take care of mounting bills, maintain a roof over our head and so forth.  If the fees were paid by the employer (don’t tell me they can’t afford it…headhunters “recruiters” are paid a fortune!), this would be a tremendous help to so many families.  Why hasn’t this been a major issue?  Can you help make sense of this question, please?

Tiffii

Tiffii, I’ve been away from the entire job-searching thing for a number of years now, so to be quite honest I didn’t realize that this was happening. The thing is, employers know how desperate a job seeker can be so they get away in passing the charges on to them. After all, the jobseekers will see it as a foot in the door and would beg and borrow if they to pay such fees.

You can’t tell me that Mr. Employer can’t afford to pay for such checks? I’m sure it will not break the bank!

I’d love to hear your comments on this. Leave me a comment!

After the post yesterday explaining to Cindy what some of the terms used online, in regards to working from home meant. I wanted to briefly touch on a very real and scarry subject. Email scams or phishing. This is when a spammer sends you an email that requires some sort of action by you. The goal is to get you to reveal a password, user name or any other account information.

How to tell if an e-mail message is fraudulent.

Here are a few phrases to look for if you think an e-mail message is a phishing scam.

“Verify your account.”

Businesses should not ask you to send passwords, login names, Social Security numbers, or other personal information through e-mail.

If you receive an e-mail asking you to update your credit card information, do not respond: this is a phishing scam.

“If you don’t respond within 48 hours, your account will be closed.”
These messages convey a sense of urgency so that you’ll respond immediately without thinking. Phishing e-mail message might even claim that your response is required because your account might have been compromised.

“Dear Valued Customer.”
Phishing e-mail messages are usually sent out in bulk and often do not contain your first or last name.

“Click the link below to gain access to your account.”

HTML-formatted messages can contain links or forms that you can fill out just as you’d fill out a form on a Web site. The links that you are urged to click may contain all or part of a real company’s name and are usually “masked,” meaning that the link you see does not take you to that address but somewhere different, usually a phony Web site.

I don’t want to scare you, but this is very REAL and daily thousands of unsuspecting individuals fall for these email scams.

Check out this pic I took this morning…

Kieana was busy in the kitchen last night, strange since she’s never in there. But I didn’t pay much attention to what she was doing. Afterall she’s grounded, so I figured she was bored and was trying to keep occupied. Well, seems she was busy leaving me a message. Not sure if you could read what’s written on the cupcakes.

Please

un

ground

me

Loveyou

Kinda creative, don’t you think?  So I switched around her letters and left her a message … “NO” Yup, I’m just as creative.