Hello Adventure Monkey fans! It’s Monday and I am on my last week of 12 hour days at the plant. I have been working 60 hours a week since the beginning of October to help with the refueling outage at the nuclear power plant. I am the media specialist, and during the outage I also work in the Chemistry group. If everything goes right, I should be back to 10 hour days with Fridays off next week!
It was cold and rainy yesterday and my Sunday ride was cancelled. Total bummer. I am still a newbie and don’t have rain gear to ride in. If it was warm, I would’ve gone out, but yesterday was too cold and today it is a combination of rain and snow. I won’t have another chance to ride until next Sunday. That will be two weeks without a ride, two weeks without medication.
So here’s what’s going on at the Adventure Monkey Headquarters:
- The website will be changing to theadventuremonkey.com soon. I will let you know when it is going to change. Hopefully it won’t mess too many things up, but I want to get the name changed. That will be the end of E & J Photojournalism.
- The Adventure Monkey Etsy store has launched. I sell prints on the portfolio side of this site, but I thought the Etsy store may make it easier to network and market prints, gifts and Adventure Monkey apparel. I want to offer cards, journals, and Adventure Monkey shirts soon.
- One more paycheck until THIS happens.
- Bicycle touring plans:
- I want to do THIS two day (see route) ride sometime next year. We will camp at El Dorado Lake and ride back the next morning. It will be a somewhat supported ride. I want to have an RV at the lake that could carry supplies and food for us, but we will have to bring enough water and human fuel on our bikes to get there and then get back. It would be nice to do this for charity and if there is enough interest I could make cool shirts or jerseys commemorating the first Adventure Monkey Flint Hills tour! (sweet!)
- Bike across Kansas. I would like to ride this next June, but I don’t have plans set yet because there are some things I want to do next summer.
- Weekend rides. I want to plan some short 3 day tours to prepare myself for the Transamerica ride in the summer of 2012 with my son Alex. I need to start practicing and deciding on gear. I currently have no ultralight camping gear. I know if I don’t practice and have a real plan 2012 will just be another year. I am not sure how I will get off the time at work yet (hopefully through social networking and internet marketing, the Adventure Monkey store will be a success by then!).
NEW SITE FINDS
I have been looking into ways to bring people here and to my Etsy site. I have been learning as much about social networking, Etsy.com, and internet marketing beyond Facebook and Twitter from the following interesting sites (check them out):
http://www.howtomakemyblog.com/stumbleupon/10-simple-steps-to-increase-blog-traffic-via-stumbleupon/ How to use stumbleupon.com
http://www.wonderthinking.com/ Tips on how to sell with etsy.com
http://etsyselling.com/ Tips on how to sell with etsy.com
http://www.thecreativepenn.com/ Thinking of writing a book? This is a great site for information.
other cool finds:
http://www.thenextchallenge.org/ Looking for some more adventure? Find some here.
http://www.stumbleupon.com A very cool site to help you find cool sites recommened be others for your interests – worth the visit.
Of course, don’t forget to visit the Adventure Monkey etsy store! I am going to be posting one new print everyday. I am sure you will see something you like and if not, let me know what I can do for you! Original art for the holidays? Definitely a win-win. I will be creating cards and other photo gifts with an inspirational cycling saying on them. Once again, let me know if you want me to create something customized just for you or your loved ones. I will be selling photographic prints and canvases too (I love those!) Check out the new prints HERE.
Not to let you down, here is a shot from last summer. I have this hanging in my living room as a canvas print. It is awesome! With the snow and cold, wet weather, this puts me back in my happy place. Want to know how I get these juicy colors? Tutorial coming soon.
Sunflowers at Sunset
I didn’t ride this weekend, but I figured out how to do a stop motion video. I want to do one for a sunset or a bike ride or something. On the Mac it was easy and I just love it. I will be creating something for you very soon.
Our stop motion video made from 294 images; click here
may be a little large and load a bit slow – still experimenting.
Gotta go post a print on Etsy. Don’t forget to feed your Monkey – maybe a bicycle ride in the snow!
–EB
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