Five hours later, this was the result – a dozen new yard signs for the studio:

Oh, and here’s a better picture of my assistant, Lynzy, with her wild I-stayed-up-till-midnight hair:

Tonight, I’ve been laying out a preliminary curriculum for a series of half-day classes geared towards area merchants and small business owners.  The ultimate goal is to offer 1 to 2 classes per month, priced at $50 to $125 each, with clear, defined objectives and time allocated to individual assistance with each person’s own projects.  I’d like to teach these classes on rotation – this is what I have as a preliminary list:

• Setting up your website using WordPress
• Adding eCommerce capability to your WordPress site
• Analyzing website traffic
• Social media: marketing on a budget of $0
• Paid online advertising

Of course, this is dependent upon interest and content development, but so far it seems to be a reasonable goal.  I’m also considering specific courses on eBay, Amazon.com, Etsy, and similar sites as I gain expertise in those areas.

Feel free to let me know if you’re interested in a class or have an idea for one that I’ve not thought of yet.

Whenever my daughter, Lynzy, comes out of our dance studio, she always walks over to a little clump of grass growing from a hole in the sidewalk that used to be used to place a flagpole.  Today, she went to do that, and I asked if she wanted me to pull out the grass.  She nodded, and I did — and came up with this monster.  The roots from that little tuft of grass held the entire column of dirt together and it all came out at once!

As time allows, I’ll design and launch the new site and get things cleaned up a bit around here.  Until then, please bear with me as I take care of the most pressing issues first.

I’m looking for personal tales of armed self-defense from the perspective of those involved, first and foremost.  Beyond that, I’ll also be posting news articles on a daily basis that I find throughout the web.

In addition, this is my first attempt at creating a site that is entirely supported by ads.  Google AdSense is providing them at this point, but as the site’s traffic grows, I plan to see about being sponsored.

My rear end pulled to the right, which caused me to drift into the opposing lane — right into the path of a Tyson truck.  I let off my brakes, got back in my lane, and re-applied.  They locked up again, and this time, I didn’t have enough room to stop.  Instead of taking out the back of the patrol car, I went for the ditch instead, thinking that I would tear up the passenger’s side of the truck and hit the culvert about 15′ in front of where I was aiming.

When I hit the ditch, I was going about 20-25 MPH, and my front right wheel caught on a boulder that flanked a culvert, flipped my truck front-wise into the ditch.

I wasn’t hurt at all, and was able to get out right away.  I think I made a couple of kids’ day that were waiting at the bus stop across the street.  As someone once told me, “Save the skin, then the tin” – as soon as my brakes locked the second time, I knew I was going to crash, and did my best to limit the damage.  I think I made the best choices available to me at the time, so no regrets.

I also learned that full coverage insurance is freaking awesome.  Instead of bumming rides to work, I’m shopping for a new vehicle.

Please contact me directly for pricing and specifics for your school – due to differences in the difficulty of creating decals, pricing is established on a case-by-case basis.  Stock designs are available for virtually all sports, mascots, and activities, and custom graphics are available.

Check back with this site in the future to keep up with me – every time I launch a new site or start a new side project, I’ll talk about it and link to it from here.