Posts Tagged ‘terri’
Sony Mommy Blogger Event
I am so bad. I have been so busy since I got back, I am finally now writing about this awesome event. I was contacted about this the day before my birthday (I know, what a great birthday present!!!). Sony wanted to talk to 15 mommy bloggers and give us some cameras (I didn’t know this last part till the day before I left for the trip!). All expenses paid trip, how could I say no?
I flew out on April 16th to San Diego. They got me an a flight through Midway (which I seriously needed since Midway is only 15 minutes away and Ohare is about an hour). Sitting in the airport always sucks, but I made due. My plane flight there sucked. A little girl screamed the whole way. This is why I don’t fly with my kids. I am terrified that is going to be me. The mom was by herself, and she walked up and down the aisle for the four and half hour flight. I felt so bad for her.
We then got to San Diego and I had a limo driver waiting for me. He had my name on a sign. It was super cool. I know I’ll never see that again. He took me to the La Valencia Hotel in La Jolla (it was about a half hour drive). The hotel was awesome (I’ll be writing about it on my travel blog, so I won’t go into too many details here). Sony had boxes set up in our room (to use to Fed Ex our cameras back). They also had left us headphones for our kids, a rose, and two chocolate candy bars. They obviously know the way to a woman’s heart. We were on our own for Wednesday night (though we did have a $50 certificate to use at the restaurant). I met up with Deanna and Anne Marie , and we went to dinner. I had filet mignon. It was super yummy. It was one of those steaks that you didn’t even have to chew it — it just melted in your mouth.
The next day we had to be at breakfast at 9:00. We had a buffet breakfast (which was awesome). This is the view we had from the room we were in. Beautiful, isn’t it? We spent the first two hours after that introducing ourselves. We then had lunch out in the beautiful sunshine. We were only out there for about an hour eating some of the best food ever and I got sunburned!!! Here’s a list of all the awesome ladies who were there (if you have more blogs that I haven’t listed, let me know and I’ll get them added):
- Ciaran from MommiesWithStyle.com, Celebrity-Babies.com, CarandCaboodle.com
- Jenny from Momminitup.com
- Stacy from MomCentral.com, MomCentralConsulting.com and Mother-Talk.com
- Deanna from DomesticChicky.com, Apronista.com and HappyHousewivesClub.com/hotmama.html
- Kim from InAShoe.com
- Tracey from Sweetney.com, MamaPop.com and RocknRompBaltimore.com
- Erika from PlainJaneMom.com and emomsathome.com
- Heather from TheDomesticDiva.org and idivalicious.com
- Anne-Marie from AMamasRant.com, MyReadableFeast.com, ThisMamacooks.com, The-Write-Spot.com
- Christina from GeekGirlfriends.com and Tynanwood.com
- Amy from Amalah.com, MamaPop.com and Advice Smackdown on AlphaMom.com
- Laura from PaulnLaura.com
- Janice from 5minutesformom.com
After lunch, we got to learn about Sony and the impact of women on their business (Let me tell you, we have a huge impact!!!). We then got to start playing with the cameras we got. Oh wait, I didn’t show you the cameras yet —-
Camera #1: Sony Cybershot
Camera #2: Sony DSLR-A300K
Camera #3 – Handycam HDR-SR10
Yes, Sony gave us all three cameras! They also set aside time for us to work with their trainers so we could learn how to use them!
We then got instruction from photography expert Me Ra Koh. She gave us shooting instruction and tips of how to get specific results. She was really nice and she’s a blogger too!
We then got to go out to the beach and play with the cameras!
We then got a little bit of time to run up to our room and get ready for dinner. I took these pictures from my room!
We then met up with Sony and went to dinner at the Azul Restaurant. I got back to the hotel between 10 – 11 and went to bed.
On Friday, (April 18th), we met again for breakfast. Me Ra took some of our photos and critiqued them for us. She told us how to make our photos better. We then had a presentation from Rocket XL (the advertising agency who helped pull this all together). Us mommy bloggers ended up taking over that session with our opinions and thoughts.
After this session, we were able to do whatever we wanted till we caught our plane. Sony also gave us certificates for the spa, so I went and had a deep tissue massage. I then ate lunch and then had to get on my plane.
And that was my trip to San Diego!
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IzeaRanks
Since the Google Smackdown of ’07 happened, page rank definitely does not mean what it once did. Webmasters are now running afraid since sites that did not even have paid links on them got smacked down to a zero. They are starting to no follow all their links since they are running scared. However, by doing this, they are really messing up google’s ability to have a quality search engine. Anyway, what does google page rank tell you? Not much. Supposibly it is the authority your site has. The higher page rank the better the site is suppose to be. Well, I cannot be the only one who has seen terrible sites that have been ranked high. Heck, I have seen splogs (blogs that steal others content through their RSS feeds) that I have high page rank. Please, tell me how that ranking is telling me anything.
IZEARanks.com is attempting to solve that problem for you. Right now, the only way to monitor traffic is through companies like Compete and Alexa. The problem with compete is that it only follows unique monthly hits and alexa only works if the person viewing your site has the alexa tool bar. Izea Ranks is a measure of your traffic against all the other people who have the tracking code on their blogs. It is a much better way to track your traffic. You don’t have to expect your readers to do the work. They can do what they always do, just come and read your blog. If you are afraid of google, have no fear. IzeaRank uses a different code than Pay Per Post. You are able to see your rank, your uniques hits, and your pageviews. They are even giving away $1000 each week in February to the blog with the #1 RealRank. I know that won’t be me — however, if any of you win it I’d like a finders fee! LOL
Takeoff
I actually typed this up on Wednesday morning before I left for Miami. My WiFi connection was not great there and didn’t work most of the time, so I am finally posting this now.
It’s about 9 am and I have been up since 5:30 am. I am at O’hare (even though this won’t publish until I am already in Miami since I refuse to pay $6.95 for wifi for the thirty minutes or so I’ll actually have time to blog). I am amazed at the amount of kids that will be on my flight. Not all are so little. There is one little one that I am terrified is going to be sitting next to me. I left my kids home for a reason. I do not want to be sitting next to them. I know that sounds really bad since the kid looks to be a little older than Will. I should be more understanding because I have kids. However, the grandmother is currently chasing the little one around the concourse right now. Every time she makes him sit down, he screams. Please keep your fingers crossed for me. Otherwise, this is going to be a really, really, really long flight.
After the bad weather last night (50 mph winds and snow), I am amazed that my flight is even going to leave on time. O’hare is known for delays, so I was happily surprised that there were no delays. Woo hoo!!! The crazy part of this trip is that with the wind chill it is -25 degrees. Currently, it is 71 in Miami.
I started feeling guilty last night already. I spend 24/7 with my kids so I do like the break. However, with that, I feel incredibly guilty that I am leaving for 3 days. I know they are perfectly fine with my mother in law. However, the mom guilt always gets you.
I did have a funny moment happen at the airport. This may be lack of sleep though and only funny to me. I was walking around looking for a bathroom. They had a sign for a drinking fountain which basically is a person who is bent over drinking. Well, at first glance, it looked like somebody throwing up. I literally stopped and did a double take. I realized what it really was and laughed to myself (don’t want to laugh out loud by myself at the airport – they make think I am crazy lol).
At this point, we are waiting for the flight attendants so we can board the plane. The plane is here, the pilots are here, however, we have no flight attendants. I think they said they were running late. The plane is not suppose to take off for another 25 minutes, so as long as everyone boards quickly, we should still take off on time (in theory).
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