fairy folk?

When we talk about little people, we usually think of the Leprechauns of Ireland or the Brownies of England.   Well, how about San Francisco?  I came across this article on ABC News about a tree in Golden Gate Park where somebody installed a tiny door over a small hole in the trunk of the tree.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/03/itty-bitty-park-door-opens-to-a-world-of-mystery/

It seems that people stroll through the park looking for the door, and sometimes they leave notes inside for whatever creature lives there.

It all started with a blog.  Somebody sent a photo of the little door to the blogger, and the rest is history.

http://richmondsfblog.com/

They aren't telling the exact location of the tree, so people strolling through the park can have fun looking for it.

(Image Credit: Erica Reh / RichmondSFBlog.com) 

how an author really makes money

Authors do not get rich, unless they hit that lucky jackpot of a best seller or a Hollywood deal.  Even then, most successful writers go through that money in a year or two.  It simply is not as much as you think it is, and it is all that you will ever see, unless you happen to be Stephen King.

My books, all of them together, make about $25 in a good month.  So I write articles for Examiner and review products and services for Epinions.  I also pick up coins, cans and bottles from the roadside.  Every little bit helps to pay the bills.

So how do authors really make money?  Most do it with a day job.  Some live off the benevolence of a spouse or other family member.

And then there is the Internet.  I have signed up for countless paid to surf, paid to click and paid to read sites, as well as a few survey sites.  I have wasted my time on some and found a trickle of rewards on others.    Some sites never pay, while others are faithful.

I have lots of fun on Swagbucks, which has several ways to make money.  They have a search engine, video clips, surveys, a daily poll, shopping, coupons and more.  I usually get an Amazon gift certificate because it takes more points to get cash.  Like many sites, they send cash by Paypal.

If you want to make money online, Paypal is safe and reliable, and almost certainly a necessity.  Paypal allows you not only to get paid online, but also to transfer funds to and from your bank account.  I even have a Paypal debit card that I can swipe at stores and ATMs to spend my Paypal balance,

Of the survey sites, I have done okay with Vindale, Opinion Outpost and ClixSense.  I'm trying Survey Savvy, but I have't qualified for any surveys yet.  The most interesting survey site is PollBuzzer.  They send you a single question that you answer by clicking a link in the email, and they send you a dollar by -- you guessed it -- Paypal.

I also use MyPoints, which has paid to click emails, shopping, search, coupons and more, and they just sent me $25 by Paypal.

If you would like to join any of these sites, I will try to come up with my referral links.  They must be around here somewhere, buried among my notes, shopping lists (consisting mostly of cat food) and manuscripts.

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why grammar is important

When I was teaching English, I used to pose this question to my students:

In Dr. Seuss' book Green Eggs And Ham, what color is the ham?  We know that the egg are green, but what about the ham?  Is it also green?

If you understand grammar, or if you look at the pictures on the cover of the book, then you know that the ham is also green.  If it were not, then the phrase would be "ham and green eggs".

You see, grammar is composed of a set of rules that help us to communicate with each other, so when we use poor grammar, we communicate poorly.  Grammar is also the means for thinking clearly.

In the Trivium, the three basic areas of knowledge that Aristotle taught, grammar is the first.  Grammar gives you the building blocks from which you learn logic.  Grammar and logic together form the basis for the third area, rhetoric.

Grammar helps us to communicate clearly, logic helps us to form cogent ideas, and rhetoric presents those ideas to others.

As the first and most basic area of the Trivium, grammar is important.

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Testing a new revenue source

If this works, then my sites and my novels will get some support from advertisers.

It's a new way of helping advertisers, bloggers and others with web sites to support our efforts online and off.

If you like the works of Philip K. Dick, and if you like my work, then this will provide an easy way to make sure that the bills get paid.  The more secure I am, financially, the more I can write about my husband's work and the topics that he explored.

Here's an example of the kind of ad that will appear from time to time in my articles here:

http://www.donationpickupservices.com

This will help me ton continue updating you on world events that pertain to the Black Iron Prison, the world beyond the veil and other high strangeness.

For example, the Bigfoot DNA has been shown to come from a hybrid creature with a human mother,but the father is an unknown primate.

Meteors Falasha through the sky over Russia, San Francisco and other parts of the world while amateur astronomers were watching the skies for a near Earth asteroid that was due to pass close by

Sink holes are forming all over the Southeast, and a man in Florida died when a sinkhole suddenly swallowed his bed while he was in it.

Various Internet news sites and radio shows are covering high strangeness, and I need the time and financial stability to post more about it here.

So let's hope that this new advertising will earn a few bucks to support my work.

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