A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

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Contests, contests, contests!

Contests are coming to a ‘lil HooHaa.

Over the past several months, I’ve been putting aside things I knew I could give away in contests. They might be things I’ve picked up elsewhere, won at events or something else. Some people have donated things to me, knowing I’d be having some giveaways.

Some of the items I will be giving away might include:

  • Geocoins
  • Pathtags
  • T-shirts
  • Disc golf items
  • Autographed/game-used baseball cards
  • Signed photos (mainly mine)
  • Author-signed books
  • Geocache containers (such as micros etc.)

I am working on other things, too. I might get some gift cards for things like iTunes or something else. I believe I have a couple of DVDs I have put aside, too. I am working on a few other things.

The reality is, many of these items will be random and can be of interest to a wide variety of people. So I hope, no matter what the prize, you, the readers, will get into these contests and join them.

The best part for you? It’s free!

There will be several ways to enter and win. Many will include working the social media (twitter, Facebook, your own blog) or commenting on my posts. Some might require doing something else — though none will be too hard. I don’t want to scare people away. I want to attract new and old readers to visit my blog on a regular basis. There will usually be a small task to do to enter the contest (usually something in the comments section), but after that there will be easy ways to earn more entries into the contest.

I am going to aim to to a contest once every two or three weeks (depends on my supply of things to give away!). The rules will be quite simple. The time frame will be from noon on a Sunday (the post will be published at noon) and will run until the following Sunday at 12:01 a.m. (In other words, just after midnight!) That gives me time to figure the winner (and any runner-ups if there is more than one prize) and have a blog post ready by noon on Sunday to announce the winner.

The times will be strictly enforced. People will have a full week to do whatever they need to do. I would encourage you to do things early, however, so you don’t forget!

Once the contest ends, I will have use a random way of selecting the winner (it might be a video of me pulling a name out of the hat or it might be me using something such as Random.org, which allows one to put a lot of names in and it randomly picks the winner.

Some notes:

  • If you are someone who would like to donate something to the contests, I would love the donation. It can be anything. If you have ideas on the contest to go with the item, I would be more than happy to listen to the idea.
  • I will be paying for all shipping charges. Some of the smaller things (geocoins, pathtags etc.) will be open to everyone and anywhere. But if I have larger items, I might make it for the United States and Canada only, just because it might be cheaper on the wallet and worries.
  • Full rules will be in EACH contest post. I might change little things, pending on the contest. So make sure to look at the rules!

The first contest will be announced this Sunday. Make sure to check back here. Better yet, like the blog on Facebook to get updates! (There is a Facebook “like” button on the right side of the page, toward the top).

I am also always taking ideas for these contests. With a lot of things to give away, I’d like to make sure I have some cool contests. Keep checking back for your chance to win!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook by clicking the button on the right side of the page!

HooHaa Photo blog returns Monday!

I know I’ve said it before — my photo blog is coming back.

As some of you may know, I have had a photo blog for a long time. I used to update it daily. I also spent a bunch of time going to other people’s photo blogs (which I still do at times as I really like the work of a lot of fellow photo bloggers).

Then I got into Flickr.

Doing Flickr, my photo blog and my regular blog became to be tedious. I don’t make money off any of them, so I had to choose. Flickr was the winner, with this blog getting as much attention as I could give it.

It’s remained that way, but every once in a while I get a new comment on the photo blog. And it made me realize that I love that blog, if not for the reason that it’s one photo per day.

So, what I’ve done recently is go through photos I’ve taken over the past six or seven months. Most have been on Flickr, but a lot of people don’t check out my Flickr stream, so it will be new to most. I’ve found more than 100 photos and I’ve started uploading them to my blog. That will give me more than 100 straight days of new photos on the blog.

Yes, I know I’ve done this before. And I know when those photos have run out, I’ve let the blog kind of get stagnant again.

My goal is not to let that happen again.

See, I always tried to make the photo blog timely. You know, get photos up soon after I took them. I’m not so worried about that anymore. The reason is because it’s a photo blog, not a current events blog.

What does that mean for the blog?

It’s simple.

You might see snowshoeing photos in July. Or you might see s pool photo in January. There’s not really going to be rhyme nor reason to when things are posted. I’m going to also keep things split up. So if I have four or five wrestling photos, I’m not going to put them back-to-back-to-back-to-back. I am going to get other things in there so the same subject isn’t always featured.

From there, my goal will to be keep adding on photos at the end of the list. Hopefully that will make it so I won’t have any lapses or have the blog go stagnant.

The first photo I put on that blog came on April 29, 2006. I don’t want to let that blog go to rest without a fight. And I take enough photos where it should be easy enough to maintain it.

I won’t be turning my back on Flickr or this blog. I’m just finding a way to do all three as I like having all of them.

What can you expect?

One photo per day. I am going to make it so the new photo publishes at about 1 a.m. each day. There won’t be a lot of explanation in the photo description. Maybe a who, what, when, where, why sort of thing, but more than likely it will be a who/what and that’s about it.

I’ve been uploading images for a few days and will continue to do so this weekend. Once 1 a.m. August 1 hits, the first of many new images will show up on the blog. I hope you’ll visit daily and enjoy the photos.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com.

 

Notes from my noodle: March 16 edition

It’s funny, a year ago today I was looking forward to my trip to Ireland and was gainfully employed.

A year later, I’m searching and applying for jobs and wishing I was back in Ireland! How fun would it be to be in downtown Dublin for St. Patrick’s Day? Wow. I couldn’t imagine the fun.

And the Guinness. Oh my!

I’m having problems writing cover letters. I don’t know why. I’ve spent so many years of my life writing about other people. Why can’t I write about myself to sell a potential employer on what I can do for them? I can’t figure it out. I’ve gotten decent feedback from people who have read my covers who said they are pretty good. But, I’m not getting calls. I don’t know if it’s a time thing. Or the cover. Or my resume. Or something else.

<sigh>

I’ll keep plugging along. I am close to getting one application out today. I have several jobs printed out and want to have covers and resumes sent to each one by the end of the week.

But these covers… ugh.

***

So I’ve slacked on the Couch-to-5K program.

That’s one of the reasons I didn’t set a certain date for finishing or a certain 5K I wanted to run. Instead, I kept it in my head that I just wanted to be able to run 5K and maybe do one by the end of the summer.

I still think that’s doable.

But the reality is, I can’t be doing this C25K on a treadmill, which is what I’ve been doing. It’s boring. It hurts my feet. I get annoyed and I start counting down the times that I’m on there.

The gym, for now on for me, will be used to use the elliptical machines, maybe a warmup on the treadmill and lifting.

Running has to be taken outdoors.

So as soon as the weather changes for good for the better, I’m going to start taking the C25K outdoors and hope I can complete the program. I might do a couple of the things on the treadmill between now and the better weather, but not the three times a week. It just kills. I know if I do it outside, it’s a lot different.

Speaking of cardio stuff, I’m taking my bike over to the shop sometime this week to get a tuneup. I imagine I’ll get it back in a week or so and then I’m going to get riding it several times a week. I want to get a bike computer (I found a pretty good Schwinn one for about 15 bucks on Amazon) to keep mileage and such like that, so I’ll be looking into that.

***

Turns out something is up with my domains.

I got an e-mail today from the company I host several of my websites through. Apparently one of the domains, of which I haven’t done anything with in a long time (it was for our caching group in this area, but nobody ever really went to it) had somehow been hacked and was being used for spam.

So they sent an e-mail of a warning.

Then shut me off.

I had to go through a bunch of e-mail exchanges and such to try and get my site back. In the end, they lifted the suspension and I deleted the said domain and everything else off my account. I was going to let the site expire soon enough anyway, so no biggie.

I just hope I don’t have to deal with that again.

***

I think I’m going to cut this one short right now. Just not into it tonight. Had a few other things come up and my mind is all over the place.

More later!