Hello Readers,
Recently I had an opportunity to travel to Las Vegas, Nevada. I found an opportunity to attend the BlogWorld Expo 2008, and in exchange for my volunteering of my videography services, recording twenty presentations in two and one-half days, I was given a pass to the entire weekends activites. BlogWorld Expo was a gathering of the 'thought-leaders' in blogging and Affiliate Marketing on the internet. The conference ran for three days, beginning on a Friday, continuing on Saturday and finishing on a Sunday during September 2008.
Affiliate Marketing OverviewCommissions are paid to advertisers (Affiliates) by ad networks that negotiate deals with service providers or product manufacturers. Commissions are paid when someone responds to an advertisement on Google's, Microsoft's, or Yahoo's 'search results', marketing programs.
Those little text-ads you see down the side of Google's search results pages are ads placed there by companies, ('Sponsored-search') or Affiliate Marketers. ( 'Paid-search'). Anyway I am trying to make money on-line by 'monetizing' blogs like this one, to see if I can do it too!
Trip PreparationsIn my haste to load my vehicle with the required equipment, I was lifting a heavy box, reaching way out beyond my toes, and overstretched or overextended my right calf and felt a strange pulling and a small snap in my calf, followed by a sensation of a tiny curling sensation in my upper calf.
To my chagrin I could not walk without extreme pain in the area, and I feared that I had pulled and snapped my hamstring muscle! And on the night before a very important four-hundred mile drive for work to begin the following morning in Las Vegas! I immediatly got off of my feet, and started the heat-pack and ice-pack rotation technique, ten to fifteen minutes of each method, to see if this was merely a cramp or 'charley-horse' type of injury.
I can say with assurance, it was painful! Finally at 12:00-midnight, I took some pain-relievers and went to bed. The next morning, my mother-in-law brought over some pads treated with lydocaine, and stated that these had worked for her. I went out to my car to see if I could still press on the brake pedal with enough force to stop my vehicle. Having some success there we decided to travel to Las Vegas. I applied the pad to the affected area of my calf, and hoped that this would help.
I had not finished the packing process the previous evening, so I did this with a slower pace than usual, as my leg was still tender and needed to be 'favored' a bit, to avoid aggrivating the injury.
We finally got on the road around 10:00 AM and the drive was easy, Thursday morning traffic was light, and we finally hit Highway 5 heading for the Bakersfield turnoff. We made it to Las Vegas in good time, only stopping for gas and lunch. By the time we reached the outskirts of Las Vegas, the sun had gone down, and coming over Baker's Pass we were treated to the full effect of the brilliant lights of that city.
Needless to say, I was on my feet for the next three days, from 5:00 AM until 6:00 PM, videotaping presentations from 'thought-leaders' in the web-blogging and Affiliate Marketing businesses. It was fascinating information for me as I had recently jumped in full-time in July of 2008 to see if I could make a living 'on-line'. I won a dinner with the premiere bloggers on the web, at an exclusive five-star steakhouse, private dining room and lobster macaroni, kobe beef, chocolate decadence cake, and lots of photos with the rock-stars of Affiliate Marketing! I briefly forgot about my leg injury during this exciting event!
This videotaping task diminished the pain in my leg, as my mind was in 'sponge-mode' soaking up every tidbit of information on how to be successful in my on-line marketing projects. The people I met were John Chow, Jeremy Shoemaker, Darren Rowse, Chris Brogan, Zac Johnson, Patrick O'Keefe and Jim Kukral, all highly successful entrepreneurs and web marketers. They all shared how long it took for their success to come, and I was encouraged by how kind they all were in giving their time to others just starting out.
I returned home with all of the videos from the weekend, and I wanted to watch them undistracted by all of the work I was doing during recording. I made copies for myself and prepared to send the master copies to the BlogWorld Expo management.
Excercise Program Put on 'Hold'Needless to say, I halted my exercise and exercycling program until I was assured that my leg was healed. I never did go to the doctor to see if I had torn my hamstring, although I suspect I may have severed one tiny thread of it, as that weird 'curling' sensation made me believe.
Now it's October 20, and after mowing my lawn this afternoon, I am going to slowly ramp-up my exer-cycling again, starting with three miles the first day, gradually adding a mile per day until I am back up to fifteen miles per day on Monday through Friday. I rest on the weekends, and let my leg muscles restore and prepare for the next week's exercise. I have also been walking an additional forty minutes per day in order to use different leg muscles than the pedaling ones.
One good result of the trip and work in Las Vegas was that I lost two and one-half pounds as a result of all of the walking and lack of large meals except the steak dinner of course. When I returned home I was pleased to see the results were positive, just with constant activity in replacement of the exer-cycling process.
Let me know if you enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed writing it!
Please leave me a comment below, and I will respond.
Respectfully, Nicholas
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