First – a HUGE “Thank You!” to the many friends and colleagues who supported Evan’s 10th Birthday Benefit Party with such generous donations.

Evan and Mom

I can’t tell you enough how happy he was to see the outpouring of genourosity in his name.  The smile on his face, and in his heart, was priceless. 

(He brings it up to my wife and I every now and then, at random times, “how cool it was to see all those awesome people donating” on his behalf.)

So, here’s a recap:  The party was insane.

Honestly, I don’t know what the heck I was thinking by hosting the party at our house.  A $400 party at the local bounce house, chucky cheese, or whatever is definately worth every penny.  I know this now.

Why was it so crazy?

Well, having 35 nine and ten year old kids running amuck in your house is one thing.  But, loading them up on a steady stream of pure sugar is like throwing gasoline on a fire.

You see, last year, for Evan’s 9th birthday party, I rented a cotton candy machine from Detroit Popcorn Company.

Cotton Candy Mess!

The cotton candy was such a hit last year, that I would have been murdered by a mob of sugar-starved children, led by Evan, had I not repeated the event.

So, again, I got the cotton candy machine.  And, again, I set it on the front

porch since it made such a mess.  And, again – I was making cotton candy for hours at a time, feeding the addicted children with their much needed drug.  (What did I do wrong with this machine? Cotton Candy was flying everywhere!)

So, yeah – all the cotton candy made them a bit hyper.  (But, they had a blast.)

I should rewind.

It didn’t start out so crazy.  In fact, it was a little surreal when my wife and I walked into the family room to find every single child sitting down, silent, watching a DVD that I had made for Evan.  This DVD is sweet! I made it using iDVD on my Mac a few weeks earlier, with a bunch of songs and clips from a funny show I used to love on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim:  The Brak Show and Space Ghost Coast to Coast.

The kids laughed and sang along to various songs by Brak, like “I love you baby“, “I love beans” and “Driving down highway 40 in my big ol’ pick up truck“.  (These links let you download the videos if you want ‘em…)

This was the calm before the storm.

Evan played guitar in the "Talent Show" during the Party.

Okay, I am exaggerating a bit here.  The kids weren’t all that crazy, but, they were having a very good time and the entire neighborhood could hear the screams of kids playing and running around from inside my house.  (My ears are no longer ringing.)

So, we had cotton candy, cheesy popcorn, buttered popcorn, cake, pizza, games, videos, dancing, and a talent show.

Yep, a talent show.

Several kids wanted to sing, dance, or play guitar in front of their classmates, while I and a panel of 3 girls judged them, American Idol style.  (Everyone got positive remarks – nobody played Simon Cowell.)

And, when we were able to rope up the kids and keep them quiet for a moment, I had them all sitting in the living room floor, while I talked with them about the importance of philanthropy and how proud we were of Evan for donating his birthday to charity, and how proud we were of all of the kids for being so generous.

That was really cool.

The kids gave Evan a big round of applause, and a couple of them told me that they wanted to do the same thing for their birthday.  They were inspired by Evan to donate their birthday to charity as well.  (Freakin’ cool, eh?)

So, that’s it.

The house is back to normal, Evan is now officially 10 years old, and we delivered a car filled with quality groceries to the local food bank, plus $500 in cash.  Also, we made a $600 donation to the Haiti children fund.  Yep – his party brought in over $1,100.

Again – thank you for all of your help, support and encouragement for Evan.

Most of the kids at the party gathered for 2 minutes for this shot.

I’m beginning to use youtube much more recently for social media marketing, search marketing — and of course, to host videos.  My clients have found a lot of success with this, and my own company’s projects have, as well.

Before using YouTube as a strategic marketing tactic, I used it like most users do:  Watching videos, research, etc.

So, this morning, at 7 am, per usual, I get to my laptop to check statistics, email and the morning routine, which now includes checking in on my youtube videos.

How shocked I was to see that Youtube.com was down!

I had to check other websites to confirm that the problem wasn’t my internet connection, or my computer being banned or something crazy like that.  But, alas – everything checked out fine.  It was true:  YouTube.com was down.

That’s right – even huge companies like Google can have server issues.

The youtube.com outage was up and down for roughly an hour, and all seems well now.  But, it just goes to show you that downtime is sometimes unavoidable.

Error Message when trying to load youtube.com this morning.

I am so proud of my son.

Ever since he was born on Leap Day in 2000 (2/29/2000), he has always been a sweet, caring boy.  But, this goes above and beyond.

Let me explain.

His 10th Birthday is coming up this week — and we’re throwing him a fun party at our house.  We’re inviting all of his classmates, the neighbor kids, family friends and more.  (Yeah, that’s a LOT of kids in our house.  Yikes!)

Instead of gifts, he’s asking for donations to benefit charity.

Yep.  A 10 year old wants to forgo receiving any fun toys (like his favorite video games, MP3’s, electronic gadgets) and asks, instead, that his friends bring a donation for charity.

Can you believe that?

He honestly wants people to bring donations for charity, and not get any gifts, so the charity gets it all.

Again, I say:  I’m so proud of my son.

And get this — Evan has done this before.

In fact, this will be his second year in a row collecting donations instead of gifts for his birthday.  Last year, at his 9th birthday party, he asked for donations to benefit the local food bank.  In our economy here in Michigan, these charities are really hurt, and they really appreciated his help.  (I think he raised a little over $300 and a ton of groceries.)  He’s hoping to really grow the donations this time.

This year, the local food bank will, once again, be the primary focus of his donations.  However, he wanted to add another charity for this year’s “birthday benefit party”:  The Haiti Earthquake Victims.

A few weeks ago, after seeing the news coverage of the earthquake victims in Haiti, he immediately told me, “Dad, for my birthday party this year, I want to also get donations for the Haiti Earthquake Victims.”

So, Evan’s 10th Birthday will benefit two charities.  The local food bank and the Haiti Earthquake Victims.

Everyone who’s coming to the party will be bringing a donation.  Food or cash for the local food bank (the “Northville Civic Concern”) or a monetary donation for the “Save the Children” organization, where all donations will be earmarked for Haiti Relief.

And, for our out-of-state friends, we’d like to ask that you consider making a donation in his name.  It would really make him feel extra proud of what he’s doing to know that you have helped him in this endeavor.  (If you do, please be sure to email me, or make a comment below so he can see all that good that has come of this!)

Happy Birthday Evan!

I gotta say, before watching this video, I was quite uninformed of how the real world works. This is a long video, but, if you have 48 minutes, and a cup of coffee (or two), watch this video and inform yourself. (Thanks to Tim Storm for posting this to his blog – otherwise, I may have never encountered it.)

My good friend and colleague, Jim Kukral just launched his well-earned new biz:  http://www.thebizwebcoach.com/

Jim Kukral has been building his brand for years in the internet marketing space.  He’s been a pioneer in Affiliate Marketing and Social Marketing and is an impressive speaker.

Jim is genuine and wants to help businesses — people.  He’s a great person, and I’m supporting him.  You should too.  (And, if you are a business that could use access to an impressive Business Web-Coach, then, Jim Kukral is your man.  For $47 / month, how can you go wrong?)

About the launch.

I am impressed with Jim’s launch strategy.  He used Social Media to PRE-ANNOUNCE his launch, and then on the very day of launch, he (and everyone who knew from the pre-launch) announced on Twitter (etc.) to watch Jim LIVE on his webcam and have a discussion.  Over 150 people (that I saw) were watching Jim Kukral live, and discussing his new biz.

This is a screen capture of Jim on a LIVE broadcast and live chatroom of his followers and friends where he’s announcing his new business of offering business web coaching, his new branding of Jim Kukral, new book that invites us all to participate — and everyone here was discussing it.

It was great — every person in the chat room who had a question or a comment, Jim acknowledged them LIVE and in public, on the air.  Very cool.

Congratulations Jim.

I will definately join.

Okay, so this has NOTHING to do with internet marketing.  But I had to share this.

Well, in a way, I guess this has “something” to do with internet marketing.

In this video, she is showing how “in the know” she is, and how “connected” she is with her fans.  This may be considered a little glimpse into the real, personal life of this famous and gorgeous actress.

I love Jessica Alba.

I shall encapsulate the video below in a single word:  “Wow”

Jessica Alba Staring Contest – Watch more free videos

This may expose a little too much of myself — my extremely goofy self.

I have a new-found addiction to a funny show called “Robot Chicken”.  (Apparently, it’s not a show that many women find as funny as I do.  I sat next to my good friend Connie Berg on a plane ride to San Diego for the Share A Sale “Think Tank”, and was cracking up as I watched a couple episodes on my iPhone.  She was not amused.  Sorry, Connie.)

In the video below, I simply setup my webcam on my MAC to focus on the plasma TV in my family room, and used iMovie to clip and re-order the funny few things that I saw on the first episode of Robot Chicken that I had ever seen.  (This was the origin of my love for this crazy show.)

Yes, all the captions are my creative — very creative — work, and all rights are reserved.

As I watched the bit with “the Bush sisters” with “the Corey’s”, I thought of my good friend Karyn — as she has some similar quirky party qualities of the “Bush sisters” as seen on this show.

Karyn, I dedicate this to you, my dear.

I have this friend.

Her name is Angie.

She probably doesn’t want you to know this….. But, she took the test for the “Dharma Initiative”, and it took her more than 29 seconds. She was very disappointed in her results. (“I’m such a loser”, she said to me.)

Yep, Angie. You’re right.

You associate with me! I feel for you. But, if you want some killer Affiliate Management, she may be somewhat decent.

http://70.32.117.22/site/index.php#/choose

This is a pretty top secret link. So, don’t go tellin’ everyone, eh?

Okay, I admit – it took me 2 listens to really appreciate this song.   Why?  Because the whole song develops over the… well..  song.  It’s okay to be slightly annoyed at the repetition at first.  I was.  Just let it run through — and then listen a second time.  Damn.

Oh yeah – thanks to Linda Woods, from PartnerCentric for sharing this with me on facebook.