so the other night this guy comes knocking on my door with a clip board… looking for my signature and a donation. i’m not one for handing over money just to get a solicitor off my porch, but the cause caught my interest… clean water. if you know anything about me you know i like my water. i like to bathe with it, drink it and use it for leisure activities (fishing & boating in particular). you like water right? it’s been a long time since i’ve had some tap water to drink and said ‘yummy’ so anyhow, i’m not saying this ‘Clean Water Action‘ organiztion is one that i completely recommend you make a financial donation to… however, it is an organization i hope you, like myself, will take a few minutes to research… especially if you’re a Texan… clean water in Texas would make me very happy.

if you’ve got kids or know somebody who does be sure to pass this around… i’ve never heard of Aqua Dots, but the toy is China-made and contains a chemical that can comatose children. the Aqua Dots, when metabolized, turn into GHB (the date-rape drug).

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im not one for playing the lotto… but by no means am i going to let several of the nice folks i work with win it without me… so im hedging my bets… haha. if you haven’t heard tonight the Texas Mega Millions lotto game is up to 370 Million Dollars… USD that is.

“one time texas lotto… ONE TIME!”

wanna see how bad all of our odds are >> http://www.txlottery.org/export/sites/default/Games/Mega_Millions/

Let Freedom Ring!!

I hope everybody had a safe and fun Independence Day. Despite our vast variant opinions regarding politics, religion, economics, the environment… and more… I hope we all agree that we live in the Greatest Nation in the World no matter how we got here our future is in OUR hands.

btw, next year i think i’m going to Houston for fireworks (if i can help it). they have one of the most expensive and high powered shows in the country… should’ve gone this year… but remembered too late… sniffle sniffle.

it’s going to be a while before i post again. i apologize to my friends that have enjoyed my ramblings up to this point. i’m fed up with trying to clean up spam. i’ve accidentally removed valid (and quality) comments in attempts to remove PURE SPAM.

the spammers haven’t won… since their goal is/was to get links on my blog pointing back to their spammy junk websites. they’ve just simply forced me to take extreme measures.

the blog will return… and will be improved.

cya

my brother, Shaun Collings, is putting together a demo reel for his various motion graphic design projects he’s worked on in the recent past. i’m hoping he can use it to find a job down here near Austin. right now he’s in Denver and has been contemplating moves to Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and other major cities where motion graphics jobs are more commonplace. he’s been busy in Denver doing freelance work but is thinking he might want to hire on to a company for the stability’s sake. he’s finally going to put a nice website design together and then i’m going to help him build it out.

he updated his new site with some recent clips if you want to check them out >> Motion Graphic Artist

victims of hurrican Katrina need our help. if u can afford it then please contribute (no amount is too small!): http://www.redcross.org/

OK here’s a blog out of the ordinary, but I have to mention this. The other day I was at the grocery store and was getting some lettuce for the occasional sandwich and I happen to notice a sign for hydroponic lettuce . I happen to know little bit about hydroponics, very little, but enough to know that hydroponic lettuce is kind of interesting. It didn’t look bad in fact it looked better than a regular ball of lettuce. It was a little bit more but maybe expensive, like 50¢ more but I decided that give it a shot.

I know a lot of people don’t even like lettuce , but if you are the eater such as myself you’ve got a try hydroponic lettuce . It is so much better than regular lettuce . It’s so much fresher , tastier and supposedly it last longer.

Just thought I’d mention it.

June is my favorite month of all! it has been since i was a little kid. my birthday is in June (same day as Benny in fact), but that’s not all. when i was a kid June marked the end of school for the summer, the beginning of steady warm weather and plenty of sunshine. June is when the lake water warms up i get the chance to splash around in it 🙂

thank goodness it’s June!

… and i hope everyone else is as happy to see it here as i am.

last night i read about LastMinute.com selling to Sabre Holdings (operators of Travelocity).

well i was just wondering… back in the day i built DiscountHotels.com… which now is one of the UGLIEST websites anyone could ever submit their credit card too. when i built it… it wasnt pretty… but it wasn’t that stinking ugly… and it was very optimized for search engine traffic. in fact shortly after launch it began climbing in bookings. with competition and no additional optimization done after launching it settled down to good (but not ever increasing) number of bookings. ahhh… i couldve turned it into a freaking monster… argh…

anyways i was just wondering what it’s booking now per day avg. so my OT buddies out there… can you give me a lil insight… just for curiousity sake. im sure its gotten worse… i’d bet at least 50% since the last time i was privledged to the numbers.

o and let this be KNOWN: Search Engine Optimization is an ONGOING BATTLE.. not a 1 time task.