Personal
Flight Over Florida [Video]
This weekend, my wife and I went up to visit my Dad in central Florida. He lives close by the Villages (yeah, you probably remember that corny song from the TV commercials). As you can see from my last post, he lives in an airport community. Well, later that day, we decided to take a quick flight out over the Villages. I took my Flip Video with me so I could share it with you guys:
Flight Over Florida from David Risley on Vimeo.
Almost makes me think of a cool idea for a traveling blogger. If you’re a private pilot with a plane, you could do some really cool video blogging. Especially if you fly quite a bit.
Park Your Plane In a Garage
Airport Community from David Risley on Vimeo.
Tomorrow, I will post a video of a flight we took in my Dad’s plane. Fun stuff.
We can’t blog all the time. Sometimes you gotta have a life. 
The Day After, Saying Hello to President Obama
Well, he did it. Not that it was a surprise. Obama has won and most of us saw it coming from a mile away. As my readers know, I did not vote for the guy. I think his policies are exactly the wrong way to take the country. But, this is a historic victory in many ways.
Obama is obviously the first African American to go to the White House. A ceiling shattered and that is a good thing.
And anybody interested in making money online and in marketing in general has a lot to study with regard to the Obama campaign. I touched on it today over on PCMech.
But, where does this Obama victory leave us? What does the future hold?
My hope is that Obama will live up to his victory speech last night and govern from the center. A truly pragmatic and moderate leader can do this country very well. Obama is very pragmatic and likable. He is one of the best communicators I’ve seen in the game. But, whether he’ll be a moderate or not has yet to be seen. His record shows it may be a longshot.
If Obama governs from the hard-left, I believe the country is in for a world of hurt. Hard-left policies applied to our economy will kill it and send us into a multi-year depression. This very reason is why I didn’t vote for Obama.
The left is going to spin this as a mandate for leftist change. That is a lie. Obama got just over 62 million votes. Well, so did George W. Bush when he won and the left said he had no mandate. Just as the left said Bush had to be a moderate, the same is true for Obama. But, a lot of people voted for McCain who didn’t really like the guy – me included. McCain was a fairly crappy candidate for the GOP. Obama had to move to the center to get the support he did.
This is not a left-wing country. Obama made that clear by trying so damn hard to distance himself from cries that he was the most liberal Senator.
If Obama runs the country from the hard-left, we’ll get change all right. Pocket change – because that’s all you’re going to be able to afford. And as the political pendulum swings yet again, people will be looking for a change of a different variety.
Obama, don’t let us down. You’ve got a chance to be a truly great President. You’ve got the skill and the emotional support from the country. Don’t blow it by lurching to the left. It will do our country a huge disservice.
But, where do we go from here?
Forward. The country will be watching this man to see how he leads. I am hopeful, but wary. In the meantime, I move forward with my goals to show you and others how to increase their incomes and be more self-sufficient financially. It could well be that the things I talk about, and others in this business, will be more applicable in the years to come as any time before. People will be looking to make more money because the Internet is going to stand up as the equal opportunity income generation platform that it is.
So, stay tuned.
I Voted
I voted this morning. In and out in less than half an hour. Can’t complain.
Went with the wife and baby. They said Elyana was too young to vote. Damn.
In all seriousness, these are the days which make the United States a great country. Regardless of who wins this election, the fact that so many of us get up off our butt and go vote is a great thing. Another great thing is that we will have a peaceful transition of power to another President – again, no matter who wins.
It will be nice to get all this politics behind us. I’m tired of people turning negative simply because you’re voting for somebody different. I’m tired of the constant barrage of TV commercials. I’m tired of the social media sites being littered with political talking points.
Oh, and one more thing. A lot of people are scared of the outcome of this election – on both sides. Or at least it seems that way. Don’t be. Realize that your destiny is in your hands, not those of the President. The President is a figurehead on top of a VERY large bureaucracy. It isn’t as if everything just changes as soon as the man at the top changes. Sure, they can have an impact. But, step back, look at the big picture, and work for your own success. Anybody who looks to the President to improve their lives is placing their eggs in the wrong basket.
BTW, if you vote, you can get a free Starbucks coffee today.
The Power of My Blog
My last post went into my reasons why I plan to vote for John McCain for President. The post has gotten a lot of commentary. But, did it generate so much buzz that it could throw the election to McCain? Is this video a look into our future?
OK, obviously this is a joke. And, I thought it was funny. Thanks to one of my readers (Tim) for sending it to me. And yes, the video was produced by MoveOn.org, a group which can generally kiss my ass. But, I give them props for this viral video. Great marketing concept here, too, for those who keep an eye on such things.
Why I Simply Cannot Vote For Barack Obama
This is not a political blog, however with a pretty historic election coming up, I wanted to write up my opinion at least somewhere. I’ve been a champ (for the most part) of keeping politics off of my Twitter profile. So, at least I can vent on my own blog at least once. Here I go…
<politics>
I will be voting for John McCain for President.
It isn’t because he’s my favorite guy. He isn’t. But, it is because Barack Obama scares me.
Obama is clearly a nice guy. I really do like the man. I wish he weren’t so extremely liberal in his views on government because then I probably would vote for the guy.
Politically, I am fairly liberal when it comes to social issues. No, put more accurately, I am pretty libertarian when it comes to social issues. I say get the government off your back and let people figure it out for themselves. I see it as a testament to the fact that government is too large that we even have to worry about a politician’s views on social issues.
When it comes to fiscal issues, I am a true conservative. I believe in small government. I believe in a government that ensures the right to pursue happiness, but doesn’t guarantee it. I am a believer in personal responsibility.
Wealth Redistribution
Both of these candidates are pretty big-government guys. But, it is clear to me that Obama is the worse of the two. Obama has an agenda that will result in huge expansions of government if he has his way. I think this whole “Joe the Plumber” issue does go right to the heart of Obama’s wealth redistribution mentality. Look, I understand that our progressive tax system is inherently wealth redistribution as it is right now. I know that. But, Obama is going to make it even more pronounced. And he even wants to now give tax rebates to people who never pay taxes in the first place. Click Here To Continue Reading »
Barcamp Tampa Bay Wrapup
This last weekend, I attended the first ever Barcamp in the Tampa Bay area. Now, for those not familiar with Barcamp, it is basically an open source conference. It is free to attend and the speakers are decided at the very last minute. It is based on the community and anybody who wishes to speak just puts themselves on the schedule. So, it is very informal and very community driven.
This was a two-day event and I attended both days. The first day was oriented towards developers and the second toward new media. We had some great speakers. It was held in the new College of Business building at the University of South Florida. Very nice building. I graduated from the business college at USF and that building wasn’t there when I graduated. That campus is changing rapidly.
I was also pleased to see quite a few people ride over from Orlando to attend. A lot of people I met at either Izeafest or BlogOrlando drove over. For me, this goes to show how Tampa and Orlando really share a common sense of community in the tech industry. Next time I hear about an Orlando Barcamp, I’ll most certainly ride over for it.
I wasn’t intimately connected to the organization of this BarCamp, so I might forget some names. But, I wanted to thank Peter Radizeski, Megan Hendricks, Brenda Young, Josh Carrico, Kevin Lyons, and Ken Evans. These guys did a lot of work to organize this event. Click Here To Continue Reading »
From Business Misery To A Solution
What follows is a bit of a personal story which happened yesterday, but one which led to a huge realization about my business.
Yesterday, I got some work done in the morning. By early afternoon, I was feeling burned out. Unenthusiastic. Just not happy. I was at Panera Bread working because it is nice to get out of the house sometimes. By the time I got back home and walked into my office, it was very clear I didn’t want to be there. Life sucked.
So, I want for a walk for about an hour. I took the Iphone with me and listened to a couple of podcast episodes of Internet Business Mastery. The two episodes spoke right to me. Episode #48 talked about lifestyle design (a term popularized by Tim Ferris). Jay and Sterling spoke of their various life goals and how they set up their business to make those things happen. Episode #49 talked about their big mistakes and what they would do differently if they were starting from scratch. In it, they talked about the importance of setting up systems. That is, systematizing all procedures in the business so that they were not personally trapped by it. It means documentation so that another could sit down and do the job.
After listening to these two episodes, I felt re-energized. But, by night, I was incredibly upset once again after my wife and I had a two-hour argument. It all started with the fact that I was on my laptop at night – again. I was on the Internet – not exactly working, but doing some stuff related to my line of work.
The truth is: I find myself defaulting BACK to work-related activities even when I’m not officially working. It leads to constant work, and not enough time with my wife and daughter. I really do enjoy what I do, but there is a definite lack of balance. Not good. Click Here To Continue Reading »
Bailout Bill: Speak Up. Contact Congress.
This is NOT a political website, however this isn’t about politics. I believe we have some tough times ahead for us economically. However, the bailout bill is going to perpetuate the problem more than you can imagine.
I’m not going to get into a long diatribe on economics because it’ll only bore the shit out of you. I do ask, though, that you look hard into this bailout and voice your opinion to your Congressman. Links are:
We don’t need a bunch of scare tactics from Congress to push an insanely bad bill onto our backs. This bill embarks us on a course which could lead us to a collapse. And I don’t use that word lightly.
I’m Conference Exhausted
Not sure if anyone noticed, but I haven’t posted anything to this blog in a week. For anybody who tries to make a living blogging, that isn’t a good idea. I’m not making any money with this particular site, but still, going a week between posts isn’t really a super idea for most blogs.
The reason for it is that I am conference exhausted. I knew it would happen. I went to Gnomedex in Seattle. After a little break, then I hit IzeaFest in Orlando, BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas, and I will be attending BlogOrlando in (you guessed it) Orlando this weekend. Gnomedex was different, but the other three all revolve around the same themes. Not only that, I start to see the same people at each event.
In addition to the conferences, I am also doing some local meetups. I’m doing a blogger meetup every month in Tampa. I’m doing Barcamp Tampa Bay in a couple weeks. I am also now part of two internet marketing groups: one private mastermind group and another a more general internet marketing meetup. We meet every couple weeks, and now we’re looking at sprinkling conference calls into that mix in the evenings.
It isn’t that I am so much tired of doing all this. It is more that when you pile that much together, it starts to really eat into my time in the office and with my family. And if I’m not in the office much, I can’t execute any of these ideas I’m coming up with. I can’t blog as much. Or I find that I have to forego some of that work-related stuff so that my daughter doesn’t forget who the hell I am.
I decided this year to get out of my cocoon and start really networking with my community. This is a very social business I’m in, and computer relationships can never replace real-world relationships. This is why I take the time and spend the money to meet up with people and fly around the country. I’m very happy I’ve done this and I’ve met a lot of great people.
BlogOrlando will be my last conference that I have to travel to – at least for a few months. Nothing else is on my schedule for the remainder of the year – at least right now. Of course, next year I’ll be making the rounds again.
I am looking forward to staying put and really putting the fire to some of these projects which have been stalled for the last several weeks.
This Friday night will be my last stay in a hotel room for at least a few months. And that I am looking forward to. I like traveling and networking, but when you can’t bring your family with you, it starts to suck.
I'm David Risley. I've been making my living as a blogger for over a decade. Blogging is my business and how I support my family. With this blog, I'm just gettin' REAL and telling you how this business works. 
