Sailing Destinations - Gippsland Lakes
As far as
sailing destinations
go, Gippsland Lakes is just terrific. It's just
a few
hours easy drive from Melbourne. This makes it
a perfect long weekend
sailing destination and
the opportunities for diverse interests are absolutely wonderful.
Hiring a yacht or cruiser from Riviera Nautic
at Metung is a breeze. Friday night on board is
free so it's
well worth making
the effort
to leave as soon as
the week is
over and settling
in before bedtime. By Saturday morning you feel like you've already had half a weekend relaxation at one of my favorite sailing destinations.
The pre-departure
briefing is
excellent and tailored
to meet
your particular desires.
Whether you want action or nature, or anything in between,
the shore crew
will ensure you know exactly where to go. You're then set
free to revel, relax & recharge in your own way, peacefully alone or with a few
friends. The on-board charts are excellent and a little navigation is required if you wish to
avoid running aground.
For a bit of activity, Paynesville is a leisurely day's sail away and an excellent sailing destination. Tucked in between
the mainland & Raymond Island this makes for a perfectly protected mooring and berthing is easy to find. The town is quite quaint & has everything you could want including a jetty-side restaurant which serves a
great meal or a pint so you
can unwind as you watch
the passing parade. If you
time it
right, you'll be there for
the jazz festival - meander from venue to venue and savor not only the talent
but the local wines too. It's a terrific spot to hole up
after a day's sailing.
For those who prefer a more nature-based adventure, head south to one of the several
jetties, take an easy stroll over the sand dunes and experience the
most beautiful,
deserted, unending Ninety Mile Beach.
You'll be forgiven for thinking you're the only person on earth as you eye runs as far as it can see along the
untouched beauty of the deserted seascape.
One cannot help but be awestruck by the amazing bird life here. Two national parks border the lakes. One of the few
mainland-based Pelican rookeries is quite easily accessed and so close you can virtually pull their tail feathers. The variety of bird life is extremely wide so you'll never be bored, constantly finding another of the 140 species in the area. You'll also find kangaroos, koalas and other native animals if you look hard enough.
If you're just after peace & tranquility, well, there's nothing much to beat one of the many tiny, secluded, romantic bays like Boxes Creek or Duck Arm. When the day is done, you can't help but soak up the fresh air and refresh your soul.
For anyone who has a bit more time to spare, Gippsland Lakes is definitely one of the most restful and interesting
places to spend a sailing vacation. With more time you'll be able to visit
Johnsonville & Swan Reach and explore further west beyond McLennan's Strait. The marina crew will advise you on suggested itineraries for up to 7 glorious days.
No matter what you like to fill your weekend with, Gippsland Lakes will definitely delight. Awake from a perfectly calm night's sleep in a sheltered cove to amazing bird life or arise to a hot shower at the marina after a great night out ashore - the choice is
yours and it's all here. Gippsland Lakes is certainly a gem.
Kerry Goodbrand is a
qualified skipper who has raced
extensively off-shore and represented his country at Windsurfer World Championships. These
days he prefers cruising and relaxing in tranquil calm coves with a few good friends. He is the founder & CEO of
http://www.sailing-destinations.com.
Ultimate Money Maker or Ultimate Scam? My review of Ultimate Wealth Package
So youve
heard about
Mark Warrens Ultimate Wealth Package and
you want
to know if it can
make you money.
Most likely, the reason why youre here
is to receive an opinion from someone who
has used
this product.
Before you
get started, you should know that you will not make money overnight.
Ultimate Wealth Package is not
a get
rich quick scheme and they dont claim to be. Success
with package will take time and effort. There is
a learning curve to this system and
your success will depend on how hard you work
at it.
Lets start
with the good points:
Ultimate Wealth Package offers in-depth insight into the world
of affiliate marketing. It covers everything from creating ad campaigns and maintaining customer loyalty through
opt-in lists. For those who are just entering the field, Ultimate Wealth Package is an information gold mine. The package shows you step by step how to build
up your online business. They
even include
a free website with their package.
As an added bonus, Ultimate Wealth Package packs a ton of extra goodies, especially
for those who opt for the VIP package. Among these bonuses are over 100 extra e-books
(covering a wide variety of topics on how to make money online),
software packages, and audio
interviews with marketing experts. UWP even offers 24 hour, toll-free phone support, a feature that I have not seen with any other wealth package.
Unfortunately, UWP is far from perfect:
While Ultimate Wealth Package offers a free website, its only for
beginners. The site is ill-suited for applying Mark Warrens more advanced strategies and you drop it once youre ready to go to the next level.
Probably the worst part of Ultimate Wealth Package is the expectations. Mark Warren has really shot himself in foot with this one folks. He pads
his website with tons of stories of
people making lots of money quick. This wont
happen for most people.
Dont be
surprised if it takes a while for you to start earning an income. As I said earlier, success will take time and effort.
So
what's the verdict?
Ultimate Wealth Package receives my
full recommendation. The strategies it preaches can be used by
both novices and experts. After using this product, you might realize that you dont like internet marketing. If thats the case, simply exercise UWPs 60 day money-back guarantee.
Just to let you know, prepare to
learn a lot. Ultimate Wealth Package gave me my start in affiliate marketing and 2 days after buying it, I felt like my brain was going to explode. There was just so
much information!! My advice to novices: dont get overwhelmed and discouraged. Just continue to practice Mark Warrens
techniques and
eventually, youll get the hang of it.
Besides working part-time in affiliate marketing,
Daniel Gruda is also an IT professional who recently returned from
Britain after teaching Information Technology. If you interested on any of the products,
he reviews, you can access them on
http://www.daniel-gruda-online.com (this is temporary website). He can also be
reached at
danny.gruda@gmail.com if you have any questions.
What Writers Must Know about Internet Commerce
Let's assume you're
a writer
and you want to make
money by writing. In
the olden days
(last year, maybe) you would think up an article idea, hammer
a few paragraphs out, and then check
with some editors if they were interested
in buying a finished product.
If you were lucky, you sold it. If you were not exactly unlucky, the
editor rejected
your idea but paid you to go out and write something else. And the most common response was a great big bunch of nothing. No response. No answer. No sale.
You
have probably
heard that a writer can make
money on the Internet, but you're probably thinking, "How on earth is that possible?" After all, just
about every job offer that comes to writers
for Internet type stuff pays less than even a skinflint magazine editor would have paid ten years ago for the same material. The big difference is that the Internet publishers seeking writing support want their
content virtually overnight and the old-fashioned editors did not mind giving you a few weeks.
There are two ways to make money on the Internet and they mirror the ways
people make money in the brick-and-mortar business world. First, you can sell something. Whether
it's ceiling fans or candles or airline tickets, you can make money if you have a product that you can trade to
people for cash.
The other way you can make money online is by selling advertising. The best models for this include TV programs, magazines, and newspapers. Take a TV program; it's
content that is offered for free to people who want to see it. A newspaper isn't exactly free, but it contains a lot of high-value
content from around the
world and it's offered at a very nominal fee (less than it costs to print it, I
bet) to just about anyone who wants it. They'll even bring it to
your house every morning! Who else will deliver for a product that does not even cost a dollar-for no extra shipping and handling fee?
Then there are magazines. They cost more but they're still a great buy considering the content you get, the articles, the pictures, and the sheer volume of printed pages.
So
how do these enterprises make
money? They do it by offering content that people want and then selling advertisement. TV shows make money because they sell some of their viewing time to
advertisers who offer commercials. Newspapers and magazines do take in some subscription money, but the thing that keeps them in business is ad revenue.
And how do advertisers manage to survive?
Smart businesses know the best opportunities for their particular type of advertisements. There's a whole science to that. If a well-placed
smart commercial on a certain TV show increases sales, then everybody wins. The company earns money because the ad draws customers; the TV show earns money because it sells time (and eyeballs) to the advertiser.
You can build a website that features lots of top-quality content and then sell advertising on that site.
Now you
can't just throw up any old site (and the operative word here is "throw up") and figure that advertising will work.
You need a quality product.
You also have to offer something of value.
That's where the good
news comes in: you're a writer.
You can create
your own online magazine of sorts. The goal is to attract people interested in the same subject to look at your site. There's a whole science to that, too. But if you do it right, people on your site may be interested in ads on related subjects.
The Internet is all about niches. Let's say you want to write about dogs. Bad idea. It's too broad for the Internet. With the Internet you have to think narrow. You could write about
dog training. Or adopting poodles from the pound. Or photographing dogs.
The idea is that your highly
targeted information will resonate with a particular
subset of readers. With billions of Internet search a year, you don't need to have broad appeal to get a big audience.
Then you sell advertising. Now in the traditional business model, that meant pounding the pavement, talking to potential advertisers, and
often working with them to get an ad finalized. Then you had to hound them for payment.
On the Internet, you can sign up with search providers to put ads on your site. These ads (offered by the big search engines) use electronic algorithms to
automatically match ads by content to your site so that your dog training site won't offer ads for gastric bypass surgery. You don't sell a single
ad: you merely clear some room for Google or Yahoo to put ads on your site. They match the ads to your content.
In the print world of our ancient ancestors, an advertiser paid if his ad ran, regardless of whether anyone responded. Internat ads work on a different model; they run for free and the advertiser pays only when somebody clicks on them. This is
what is meant when they say advertisers pay for clicks.
The good news is that you can find qualified advertisers and start generating ad revenues from a website pretty quickly without ever having direct contact with your advertisers.
You can also get advertisers the old-fashioned way by selling space on your site to individual vendors. Those arrangements are worked out individually.
Savvy Internet entrepreneurs can make money
either selling products (including electronic products like e-books or online courses and now even online audios) or selling advertising or a
bit of both. There are strategies for what to use and how, but those are the basics.
So what exactly does this mean for
us writers? Writers need to start thinking about what they write not just in terms of how to tell the
story, but how to best position the content in the marketplace.
If you can set up a wholesale arrangement with local or even international vendors, you can sell products using a "shopping cart" type website, lots of photos, and some cool product descriptions.
If you have the expertise (or can get it) and can write about how to beat a speeding ticket, land a job working on a cruise ship, or sell your home without a real estate agent, you can write electronic content (e-book, e-course, other materials that are delivered online including audios and videos) and sell that.
First, of course, you have to understand how these kinds of enterprises actually function. Even some off-the-wall business angles are good to study, because the same principles always apply. You target a specific niche market, develop content to attract visitors, and then sell either advertising, products, or both.
Jo Ann LeQuang writes for a living. If you would like to write for a living or write for a better living, find out more of what she has to say at
http://www.workingonlinewriter.com .
Animal Attacks On Children: What You Need To Know
Studies show that
children have
the best
chance of being
bitten. Before a child turns 15, an animal has bitten nearly half. The vast majority
of attacks happen
to kids less than
9 years of age. By examining canine tendencies,
most bites
can be thwarted. It is true that
most animals are safe, but some times dogs can have their
own agendas. It is
imperative that we educate our children
to be
on the look out
for situations they must avoid.
There is
rarely a good reason for a
dog biting a child, but
learning the mindset, from the animals' point of view, may be helpful in
evading aggressive animals. Here are some stats from a well-known university, which were based over a three-year period.
Of all
K9 bites
on children under four years of age, most were bitten in early May. Sixty percent were bitten
on the head, neck
and face, 90 percent were bitten in their own home,
40% were attacked by their own dog and 60 percent of the dogs had never bitten before.
Of all K9 bites on children over four years of age but less then 17 years old, most were bitten in early July. Eighteen percent were bitten on the head, neck and face, 38 percent were bitten in their own home, 18% were attacked by their own dog and 50 percent of the dogs had never bitten before.
This poses many questions...
All dogs are capable of
biting, but the majority
wont if you act accordingly.
Be sure to pay
attention to the body language of a dog. If a dog has an aggressive demeanor do not approach it. Often
you can tell an aggressive dog but the
following signs: Ears are stiff, body is tense, tall is high.
Dogs that have
assumed either a defensive or
offensive threat
posture frequently have a "critical zone".
A child is safe around this zone until entering the imaginary circle the dog has projected. The problem is that this zone varies
between dogs and can even be different for the same dog if the situation changes. So it's impossible for humans to accurately determine the critical zone. The shy or fearful dog adopts a defensive threat posture. It is hesitant, easily frightened, timid, tends to avoid certain persons or things. Frequently,
these traits are not noticed until the dog encounters a new situation. The dog might
assume elements of the defensive threat posture when frightened.
How do you stop
your child from being attacked?
- Avoid
pack dogs
- If confronted, do not run away or scream.
- Always
ask an owner if it's okay to pet their dog
- Always let a dog sniff your hand before petting them.
Animals and children are capable of living in harmony, but it's the parents job to teach their children. If you conform to the following information, you and your kids
will be safer!
Amber Rose Parodi write various
articles on animals and pets. Many of her articles can be
found at
http://www.pet-super-store.com. For more information please visit their website here: Discount Pet Supplies.
Internal Alarm Clock a time management tool?
Some of us
are blessed with
an internal alarm clock. A little voice that wakes
you up two
minutes before your alarm goes off. This may be a blessing if that little voice also alerts
you ten
minutes before your sons soccer game or before
the school bell rings. However
I dont have that
blessing. Of course
I have
the internal
ability to wake up 30 minutes BEFORE
I have
to wake up
after only five hours of
sleep. Unfortunately that alarm
doesnt seem to carry over into
the waking hours. A thirty minute heads up would be handy.
Not having that constant heads up, instead, I wear
the super mom cape as I leap over
shoes, bags
and the cat in a flurry of movement. Knowing
full well that the school bell is going to ring in ten minutes and the drive is a minimum of
11 minutes and three seconds if no
one is in the cross walk and that light isnt red. Of course, I will have to drive laps to locate a
place I can stop to let
my son in. All the parking spots are taken
by those nannies with an internal clock.
I thought I
had the alarm clock before I had children. As a professional
Nanny I was never
late for a soccer game, a
music lesson, or birthday party. It turns out there are two types of internal alarm
clocks. The one reserved for those of us who dont have children
under the age of 18. This one allows you to roll out of bed just before your alarm goes off after a night of 8 hours of restful sleep.
Then theres the other alarm clock. The one
called the mom alarm clock. This internal alarm wakes you up at three minutes before the
baby needs to be fed, or two minutes before your toddler
wets the bed, or 8 minutes before your five year old wakes up with growing pains. Sometimes these alarms are all in the same night. The mom alarm clock results in a pure hatred of the real alarm clock that wakes you up at 7 am as the children are peacefully sleeping telling you to start your day.
Luckily I have some other time management tips under my cape to keep me on time and organized as a mother.
Despite the internal mom alarm clock working against me at night, my children
make it to
their soccer games and birthday parties, usually with the present and
cleats in the bag. Was that the blue bag or the
red one?
Kay McFarlane is the designer of the printable mom planner and owner of
http://OrganizedFamilies.com.
Her time management skills and humor help her make through each week as the busy mom of three children, contractor, student, and business owner. That same humors and skills are
shared each week at her website for busy moms.
