I just looked out my window and saw big flakes floating down. The grass is white. The trees are covered in snow.

Winter is here.

I put up a new blog a while ago, and I’m just about ready to bring it to life. The problem is, I want to add adsense.

This doesn’t sound like a problem yet, does it?

Hang on a sec, and I’ll tell you what I did wrong.

I put the word “blog” in the address of the new blog. As in “blog.html” as the file name.

Mind you, it only shows up on the index page, not the sub-pages, but that’s all it took to kill my chances of getting Adsense ads directly in my niche on the front page.

All the category pages and permalink pages show nice, wonderful, relevant ads. My blog index shows stuff like, “start your own blog”, “make money blogging”, blog, blog, blog, blog.

So, now I’m going to relink the blog away from blog.html to mynichename.html, and do a redirect from blog.html so I won’t lose any traffic to 404 pages.

Still, it sucks to make such a lame mistake.

Speaking of which, what do you think this post is going to do to the adsense ads on THIS blog?

Not that I care. This blog seems incapable of earning more than 50 cents a day, no matter WHAT ads are showing.

Credit cards expire. It happens all the time. One of mine expired at the beginning of this month.

Do you have a way for your customers to update their billing info? Not likely, if my experience is typical.

I am searching through the sites of all the membership sites I pay to belong to, and I’m finding this problem with startling regularity.

Membership site managers complain that about 30% of credit cards are rejected each month. But how easy is it to keep your information current? IF there’s no link, and slow response from a help desk, maybe it’s just easier to see how on-the-ball the site owners are, and let things go as they will until they get around to noticing that you’re not paying any more.

So, here’s a message to all you membership site owners. Provide a link. To a secure server. Provide email confirmation that the change is underway or complete.

Don’t make me ask. Don’t make me search. And don’t make me test your system to see if you’ll actually be organized enough to purge your member list of non-payers each month.

Walking past the local antique/junk shop today, I saw an old Spong mincer that looked like it was in great condition. I walked in and, after hearing it would cost less than $10, I bought it.

Then, I remembered my mom’s old french bean slicer, I asked if they had seen something similar.

And, sure enough, they had one in stock.

The owner, however, had no idea what it was, and she had thought it was some sort of cutter for cigarettes.

It isn’t in as good shape as the mincer, but it’s easy to take apart, sharpen the blade, clean and grease the mechanism and the handle. I’ll have it back in business by the time broad beans come back in season, for sure.

The mincer came with three different blades (one is missing), the guarantee, label and instructions included… though a little worse for wear:

To tie it all in to the Internet, hmmm, well, the domain old-kitchen-gadgets.com is available. So is vintagekitchengadgets.com. And taking a look through the related categories on eBay, it’s definitely a niche worth looking into.

I just got the latest Lee Valley Tools catalog, and what catches my eye but a set of Tiddly Winks! I have fond memories of hours and hours laying on the floor playing Tiddly Winks with friends and family. I was never great at it, but the simplicity of the concept and the history bewhind the game appeals to the nostalgic side of me, so I picked up a set to play with my son.

And then, while I was surfing their site anyway, I bought two “build your own kaleidescope” kits, on special for less than three bucks each, a traditional shortbread pan, some Bag Balm for my mom, and a few other kitchen gadgets. I actually removed a few things from my basket before proceeding that I may end up getting on a later order, including ice lantern molds which look totally amazing, but I don’t have the walkway to make good use of them.

And to think, I wouldn’t have bought anything at all if I hadn’t seen a $10 tin of Tiddly Winks.