Freewrite - No Idea Where This Goes
It's one of those days where I have an urge to post yet am not sure what to post about. I stared at my screen for a solid 15 minutes deep in thought about what to write and nothing...So it's time for a freewrite.
The last week has been kind of crazy for me. I turned 41, 2 of my best friends back to high school turned 40, I've been prepping for what typically is my biggest toy show of the year, and I've been trying to keep the house warm with frost cold nights with our boiler out until it can be replaced on the 30th. All of this has kept me from being on steemit much and has kept me from taking time to start outlining future posts which keeps me from sitting down with writers block.
My Birthday
I remember last year when I turned 40 it was a big deal. Not sure why I cared so much about it, but honestly growing up I wasn't sure I'd ever live to 40. Had more then my fair share of friends who died along the way and honestly most of them were nearly as stupid as I was back then. This year turning 41 wasn't a big deal, but it was a nice break from an overly stressful week.
Heat issues
My family has been dealing with living without heat due to our boiler crapping out. It's a major project and besides needing time to find a way to pay the $13k cost the soonest a company could get this project done is Oct 30th. Most years this really wouldn't matter as our "average" high should be around 60 degrees, but we have had a string of highs in the upper 40s with heavy frost on the ground each morning. With all of our electric heaters running it's still getting cold in the house at night. It's one of those annoying things that we deal with and one day down the road will look back on and realize it wasn't that big of a deal...but for right now it's a stress point for me. Can't wait for the boiler to be installed and still trying to sort out how to pay for it by the time the 30th comes around.
More Birthdays
Last night was another break in the stress as two of my friends who where both groomsmen in my wedding and I in theirs celebrated turning 40. A large group of us hung out for the night drinking and swapping some stories that people didn't know about. They did a fun quiz and it spurred all sorts of conversations about past craziness. Made me realize how intertwined our lives were and still are. Pretty amazing to stand there talking with a group friends who have all been friends for 25+ years.
Real World Work
Today was back to reality and getting ready for my biggest toy show of the year. Have been loading up on great inventory for this show and truly feel this will be my best show ever. The timing of this will be great as the show is next weekend and only 2 days before I need to pay for the boiler. Sometimes things happen for a reason and I've been on a great streak of finding high quality vintage toys. Was thinking it was going to allow me to get ahead a little, but instead it looks like it will bail my butt out from the massive expense of the boiler and electrical work that has been deemed required by the city. Now hopefully the show will get the traffic it normally does.
Here are a couple photos of some of the inventory I priced today:
Sorry that looks like a mess, but spending a ton of time formatting would mess with my freewrite...onward I go.
My business has reached a point that it's running smoothly and we are constantly reaping the rewards of past seeds that were planted sometimes years ago. The next week will be all about preparing for the Chicago Toy Show which is one of the largest straight toy shows in the world (even with that website...oh how I would love to get my hands on their social media marketing). It's a show I would travel across country for if needed, but luckily is only about an hour from home. This gives me a huge advantage over some of the vendors who come from out of town and can't bring different/more inventory on Sunday if Saturday goes really well. Add in that all my regulars come to this show and know where to find me it makes what is already a really good show become great. Will try to remember to take a few photos of how crazy my booth gets next Sunday.
Testing Steem Forever
@knircky is the creator of @steem-bounty which is a great program designed to allow bloggers to reward those who engage on their posts (also a witness who has my vote). He resteemed Steem-Bounty's Post that they needed beta testers. Took a look and it was for a program that I spoke to @knircky on the phone about maybe a month ago. He is trying to make it so we can earn past 7 days and our votes count past 7 days. So you will notice the couple posts of mine that I linked to above used the steem-bounty.com domain as that is what hosts Steem Forever. The process was so simple, I just copied the URL from the address bar for my post and pasted it into the bar on Steem Forever and then clicked the little button that looks like 2 pieces of paper with folded corners and it converted the domain name for me, then click the same button and it will copy the link to your clipboard for easy pasting into a post.
No idea how this will work out for payouts, of if that is even working yet, but the concept of getting paid over the long haul for posts that are made to stand the test of time has real appeal to me. Really hoping that this idea takes off and we see some of the great resources that are available around steemit get the lifetime earnings they deserve. This project is very forward thinking and I'm sure @knircky would appreciate a few more beta testers if you have time to try it out.
That's a wrap
For thinking I didn't have anything to talk about that turned into a pretty long post. Funny how once you get started sometimes it keeps flowing. If your still reading...thanks and sorry for any grammatical errors or spelling as in true freewrite spirit I'm not fixing anything...oh how I love that about freewriting...lol.
All photos were taken by @thedarkhorse and all rights reserved
My two cents on the payout period is that it should be 7 days from the vote that a vote gets paid out, not from a post, which should be able to get votes forever.
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I agree 100%. Actually have had some large votes on old posts and seeing $0.00 from someone that gave a 100% upvote worth a few dollars really sucks.
Have you ever considered moving somewhere warmer?
We have talked about it many times and my Wife really wants to move. Our state sucks as it's run by liberal idiots that think you can give everything away for free and just tax the crap out of those who work. If you want to see what the long term effects of a liberal agenda look like just review Chicago and Illinois.
My problem is that my business is at a point that would take at least 5 years to get back to if I move and maybe more as no matter where I go it won't be the density of the Chicagoland area. I have a nearly endless supply of inventory here as I've made the contacts and giving that up isn't ideal.
Sounds like you've got your roots well and truly dug in!
Good luck with your show; I hope it's a very successful one! And not just to help with the boiler costs either :)
That's interesting about steembounty and posts continually paying out. Do you know why there's a 7-day payout here? Why they ever developed it in that manner?
Thank you!
As for the payout, it used to be a 7 day and 30 day I think, or maybe it was just 30 days. Feel like I was told it was a 2 tier payout which is really Cool IMO. I'd be happy with a 7 day and a 3 month even and then remove the upvote button once nothing will go to the author so there is no confusion.
That would be great; 7 days just really isn't very long. I even find judging the contest, when I wait until near Sunday (which has been known to happen:), some are already past post payout.
Might help to break up the work load during the week instead of waiting until the last minute...lol.
That's what I tell myself every week, and then suddenly it's Saturday or Sunday again. Shite, it's already Thursday night, isn't it?! :)
Hey, @thedarkhorse.
I'm glad you have at least a potential line on how to pay for your boiler and electrical repair. I'm guessing you have a boiler because a) it's an older home, or b) it's so dang cold that a regular furnace won't work.
At any rate, I know all about the wanting to move but not really finding somewhere that's going to be better without some kind of set backs.
And I also know about living in state that never saw a tax it didn't like, and would impose more of them if it could get away with it (it's a miracle we don't have a sales tax—still can't figure that out). They also haven't found a regulation they didn't like either, and they have enough votes throughout the urban areas to make sure that we are continually fueled by likeminded politicians for quite some time.
re: payment
I'm surprised there's not some kind of payment plan a company would work out with you. Not all offer such a thing, but we've had some work done and it's generally offered. Haven't had to fix the furnace yet, so I'm not sure how that would work, but anyway. Back up plans to back up plans in case the first plan needs help.
re: steem forever
I thought I read something about a comment will be placed on the old post and that comment will be upvoted. OR something like that. I'm not sure if I actually understood how it worked.
However, why it's not available as unlimited now doesn't make much sense to me. Things seem to be based on a seven week period, which is fine, but you can just pay what's been upvoted at that time, clear things out, and payout again in the next seven days. It must be harder than I think it is. :)
1925 Craftsman Style Bungalow, so yeah it's a little on the old side...lol.
The taxes and regulations kill you here. A huge chunk of my bill is going to be mandated extra electrical work that has nothing to do with the boiler.
As for a payment plan, they have them but I'm a cash and carry type of person. I am approved for credit beyond what it will cost but I really don't want to use it. It's there as a last option, but only as a last option.
Steem Forever is an interesting concept to me and think it could do some good. But it really should just be built into the system. I'm guessing part of the issue is this would really open up the floodgates for scammers. Picture being able to go back and upvote old content when nobody is watching. Drop a $10 vote on a 2 word comment and odds are places like steemflagrewards and others wouldn't even notice. This to me is likely is one of the issues. The other is think about how much "resources" they claim a post uses being open to rewards for 7 days. Can you imagine adding even 60 more days? You would probably need 100sp in your account to make a post...lol.
I understand completely about the payment plan and doing cash only, and hopefully you won't need the payment plan.
re: seven day payment
I guess what I was thinking was, clear for the payments, but retain who upvoted, so they can't do it again. Still doesn't seem that complicated, but I'm not a dev.
I haven't read about the resources needed to keep payment open on a post for seven days. There's literally hundreds of thousands of those on every post and comment. It would be a lot if it were 1000 RCs, but since everything seems to be in the hundred thousands or millions right now, I could see where it would be an issue.
The issue is actually real life resources as once a post is paid out there no longer is calculations needed. But if we had a long time frame for payout the resources required to track all the posts and comments for extended time frames would really add up. My solution to that would be to treat posts and comments differently. Comments have a 7 day window and posts a 7 and 60 day or some other extended time frame.
You have to remember that there is a lot of math that goes on behind the scene for the reward pool and how much gets paid out on posts based on total upvotes and so forth. It would be a nightmare as the first 60 day payouts started hitting. The reward pool would be so split up that we would see even lower vote values IMO. Right now all the votes on those old posts (and they happen) just go right back into the reward pool helping increase active members rewards.
Well, I've never been a fan of the reward pool as it is, nor the fact that we basically transact in SP. Which seems to be the issue. I understand there are other sites that are more evergreen in nature. Somehow they get around it. If the reward pool is the issue, then maybe we should be out in the public STEEM pool. I don't know. I know I don't have the specific answer, but not allowing for evergreen material, and not having a good way to find that material, regardless, are still issues, and some folks are trying to find ways around them. That's more or less where I'd like for any of this to be headed. Towards the solutions.
Completely agree on all fronts. The idea that great content only has earning potential and a shelf life of 7 days is crazy to me. It has made me rethink a few in depth posts as the effort vs reward just isn't there. To spend 4-6 hours in research, planning, and writing to have 7 days to maybe make $6-8 just doesn't make any sense.
Now if the post could earn that right away and then for the long term earn more I would chance doing a few of these types of posts. Hoping that they might pick up a couple larger natural votes for the short term too, but that long term they may be seen by people who can reward them.
now thats a pretty darn good freewrite! great weekend and what an inventory. very cool and i hope you get your heater working soon. sorry about the costs ouch. yay 40 :p
oh I can babble on about nothing for hours....lots of practice with a overly talkative girl (top photo) that loves to talk about nothing and everything at the same time. She will be going on about nothing and then slap you with a really important point which draws you in, then boom a joke with a straight face that makes you crack up all while she is back to talking about nothing again. But you better listen and respond all the way along as you never know when the important stuff is coming. Feel like that is all that a freewrite is, just talk and talk and hopefully something important comes up or you can make someone smile.
ya thats a great gift and beautiful babies you have :)
pretty much, depending on the mood and what comes out. ive written deep stuff in a fw, poems, suicide, domestic violence, crime, history, natural medicine, etc good stuff
I am loving that Steem Forever idea. Most of my posts I consider to be Bgrade. About once a month I make one that is really not bad at all. Sadly in a weeks time it is gone. I have been thinking lately that I should be finding a way to make those few good ones evergreen content.
I may have to click over and read on that some.
I am in awe of how much you manage to keep up with. Wishing you much success for the upcoming show.
Thank you about the show...fingers crossed!
Steem Forever is really interesting to me. Could be a great way to attract more content producers as this is one of the few places where a content producer earns for 7 days and then nothing after that.
You got a 18.34% upvote from @ocdb courtesy of @thedarkhorse!
I upvoted your post.
Keep steeming for a better tomorrow.
@Acknowledgement - God Bless
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