Jerry Brown, blog ads, and weight gain : (

WELCOME to Cindi and Stumpy at RVly Every After!  Thanks for following along with Katie and me. I love your puppy photos, and am enjoying your new blog - especially your blogs about the RVs you're thinking about.  Maybe the same Small Class C type I'm going to be looking for.  Good luck to both of us - hope to see you both down the road. 

WELCOME to Wil Mosher - our new Follower!  Thanks for joining us, Will.  I hope you enjoy reading along as we prepare to sell everything this year, and hopefully purchase an RV to full-time in early 2012.  If you have a blog, let me know so I can follow along with you, too!

WELCOME also to the GYPSY G-MAS, Life on the Road!  I've followed your blog from the beginning and have always looked for your posts to pop up on my Blog List (no pressure!).  I really enjoy reading about your adventures.  I hope we meet up on the road some day; we can exchange "tree through the roof" stories. : )

We have a new Governor, Mr. Jerry Brown, in California.  I didn't vote for him, but have to admit I liked him the first time around, and have high hopes that he will do his best to fix all the problems in California.  I think that's how it should be:  no matter who you vote for or support, when the election is over, stand behind the winner.  I think we'd all benefit from that.  Especially at the national level.

  Governor and Mrs. Jerry Brown
39th Governor of California

Speaking of Jerry Brown, who ran against Meg Whitman, I did find out what happened to my Ad-Sense ads, and I think I know why I was dumped.  A reader who doesn't like Meg Whitman saw her ad on my blog and multiple clicked it a bunch of times, which was apparently picked up by Ad-Sense who investigated and canceled my account FOREVER.  Apparently if you are canceled due to invalid ad clicking, you can NEVER have an Ad-Sense account again.  That doesn't seem fair.  I didn't do anything wrong, and I am the one penalized.

I know that this person, who feels awful about the account being canceled, also made purchases by clicking on ads on my blog, and was just exercising a political opinion against Meg, who I actually supported.  This reader had no idea what the result of her clicking would be.  I was surprised to see a political ad on my blog, Meg Whitman was the only politician I saw advertising, but I guess she had so much money she was appearing everywhere.  Little good it did her, or me.

After seeing Tioga George's Income/Expense sheet, and seeing how much you can actually earn through blog ads, I may do some research to see if I can place ads another way. I know they can be a nuisance for my readers and apologize in advance if I do find a way.  I'd never earn what George earns, he has a HUGE following, but any extra income would be a help next year when I'm living on Social Security and probably little else. I just ignore the ads on blogs, unless it's for something of interest, then I do click. We'll see...

On that depressing note, I'll add another.  In 2010 I gained 8 pounds.  Ouch!  There was some discussion in the office today about weight gain last year.  There were four of us there, and we all gained from 8 to 20 pounds.  I know the fifth person in the next office, who remained silent on the subject, gained 15 pounds in the last months of 2010.  So, 5 for 5.  I sure hope 2011 is a year of better self control, less candy, and more exercising for me.

When Katie and I gained some weight three years ago, I put us both on a better eating plan, and we were walking a lot.  I lost my 20 pounds and she lost her 3 pounds.  Well, Katie is still thin and energetic and I'm not.  She gets two treats a day, maybe that would work for me?

Kind of a mish-mash blog today.  But, as I seem to be saying a lot lately, "It is what it is."

From Me and My Dog, Katie, have a great Monday evening, everyone! : )

AdSense - a rant...

WELCOME to three new followers! Wow!   Ellie and Jim, and Sue and Jeana. I've been following Ellie's blog for a while and enjoy reading about their adventures, but am a new Follower of Sue's blog and look forward to reading more.  Jeana is a brand new blogger and future full-timer - good luck, Jeana, with your Blog and welcome to downsizing. Thank you all for becoming Followers of Me and My Dog.  I hope you enjoy reading along as we plan our escape to full-timing.

And...Judy, I think you are right about my hummingbird.  I looked up all the hummers that are in San Diego, and the only one that looks close is Anna's.  Good for you!  I wish I had a prize for you. : )

 This is a bit blurry, but you can see the 

fluorescent color of his throat if you click on it.

OKAY, WARNING, WARNING...  RANT AHEAD!

Today I am going to write a post about AdSense, the Monetize tab on your Blogger Dashboard.  I hesitated to write about this, but decided I would, because it's really bothering me and I think it's information bloggers should have.

When I first started this blog, it was suggested I use Google AdSense to make a little money from the blog.  I had never heard of this, and did some research, and decided to try it.

For those of you (if there are any) who don't know what it is, this is what it says on the Monetize tab:  "AdSense enables you to earn money by placing targeted text and image ads on your blog."  That sounded like a good idea to me, and so I signed up and spent some time arranging where I wanted to ads to be, etc.

When readers click on the ads, somehow it's calculated and you earn money.  If a reader makes a purchase, you earn more.  I don't know how many clicks you need to make some money, or what percentage of the purchase you earn, but that's generally how I understand it to work.  The Blogger is not allowed to click on his or her own ads, for obvious reasons.  It think I mentioned this in one of  my previous posts.

Caaw, Caaw, Caaw

I'd check from time to time to see how much money I was making.  It was very little, sometimes nothing, sometimes cents a day, two days I had five or six dollars (must have been purchases).  You are paid once you have earned $100, after they verify it.  I was FAR from $100, but I felt if I got a check in 6 months or even a year, it was still money that I'd put in my RV fund, and I didn't have to do anything to earn it except provide the space on my Blog.

Suddenly one day last week, my ads were gone, and I received an e-mail that my account was suspended due to "invalid activity."  I had the option to appeal it, and I did, answering all their questions about my blog, it's activity, individual and page hits, my audience status, if I knew of anyone would use multiple clicks to enable me to earn money, etc.  I answered their questions honestly and waited for their reply.

I have no idea why my account was closed, the answer to my appeal was that "we're unable to reinstate your AdSense account."  No explanation except that if I had questions I should go to http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.

The information provided by following that link says,"Google treats invalid click activity very seriously, analyzing all clicks and impressions to determine whether they fit a pattern of use that may artificially drive up an advertiser's costs or a publisher's earnings. If we determine that an AdSense account may pose a risk to our AdWords advertisers, we may disable that account to protect our advertisers' interests."  So apparently someone was clicking a lot on my ads, and that caused me to be disqualified from the program.

Now, honestly, any of you using AdSense have to know it's not a big deal as far as the money goes.  But, my gosh!  I felt awful after receiving their e-mail, especially since they won't give me any information.  And I certainly didn't click even once on any of my ads!

After receiving the denial to my appeal, I sent AdSense an e-mail asking what happened.  Did I do something, did a reader of my blog do something?  I've not received an answer and I guess the link provided was all they will say.

So, be warned:  it happened to me, it could happen to you.  In fact, has this happened to anyone else?

Usually ranting makes me feel better.  This time it didn't.  I guess because I understand their position, but I'm the one penalized when I did nothing.  Kind of a lose-lose.

Last night's sunset.

Oh, well...  It's the weekend, and I'm gonna have some fun!  From me and Katie, have a great Saturday, everyone! : )