This year, I decided I wanted a little more of a traditional turkey kind of Thanksgiving meal. You see, I have been creating meals for this lovely holiday for years and often try to throw a few curve balls in there, just to keep it lively. I might make duck, or ham, or ostrich or something other than turkey – but sometimes, a good old fashioned treatment is all that is needed…or wanted.

And there was at least one thing I had never done to a turkey before that I kept seeing mentioned, and that was brining it. Brine was an alien thing to me until I read up on it a little, and then it made perfect sense – so I made my family the guinea pigs this year as I brined my first bird.

What is Brine?

Brine is a solution where there is a lot of salt. Kind of like salt water/stock on steroids. The salt-to-stock content is over 50 parts per thousand, so this is a thickly salty solution.

Why Make Brine?

They used to used brine to preserve food, but we have better ways to do that today.  Brine is used today primarily to enhance flavors and cooking or pickling techniques. Making your own gives you control over flavors more than anything else, in my opinion. If you make it, you can depend on how it behaves (or should). And the magic words: it is easy.

For me, I wanted a way to keep my bird moist through cooking for a long time in the oven, while infusing a little flavor. The things I read about brining made me think it was a smarter way to prep a large bird. I have basted many of them in the past with great success – they truly look like champs, but the meat is often very dry. I saw brine as a way to get deeper to the meat in preparation for a long day spent in the oven.

My Approach to Brining the Turkey

Once I decided on brine, I had to learn how to do it. Essentially, you make a saltwater boil – dissolving a lot of salt into the fluid. I am sure there are measurements somewhere, but I eyeballed it, and just dumped most of a new shaker full of Kosher salt into a pot of boiling stock – (I used beef, vegetable and chicken stock…mostly vegetable). A shaker here means something similar to a shaker of Parmesan cheese size…about a cup an a half to every gallon of stock. Just remember this brine needs to be more than 50 parts salt per every thousand.

The salt is what permeates the skin and opens up the flavor options. So I added a bunch of stuff to my brine to kick it up, like a quartered apple, a bunch of allspice berries and some star of anise, some cayenne pepper, honey, brown sugar, black and pink peppercorns, and other “darker” flavors. Chucked in a half bottle of Napa Valley red, just to be fair. I was going for a specific taste, so built on the allspice swirl with cinnamon sticks and coarsely ground nutmeg. I knew most of this nuance is lost in the process, but figured what the hell.

I brought the brine to a boil, then simmered it for about a half hour to mix it all and blend really well. I kept adding stuff too – like a kid and his chemistry set. It smelled like a warm winter’s drink. I cursed my lack of ginger root…but it still came together. Looked like spiced soup.

I killed the heat and brought it down to room temp. Once at room temp, I put the whole pot in the freezer for a little while, to create a chill for it.

When it was chilled, it was done.

The Ice Bath

One point of brining that I learned was you need to do it very cold to avoid bacteria. This is why I needed to put the brine in the freezer to chill it, and this is why I needed to complete the process with an ice bath.

I took my thawed turkey, removed the neck and giblets, rinsed and dried it, and put it in a new Tupperware 10 gallon storage thing I bought at the store. I poured on my chilled brine. I then took all of the ice from the freezer, and added about 2-3 gallons of water, to make the turkey float. I said goodnight, set an alarm for 5 hours and left it in the garage overnight like this.

Ice cubes all over my 18 pound turkey

The ice bath was a key to letting me simply drop it and go, too. I liked the idea that the meat would be fine, that bugs and bacteria were both repulsed by the cold and that it stayed easy.

I did have to buy a new Tupperware thingy to hold this, but that was a small price to pay for the technique being clean and simple.

You can’t tell by the picture, but the turkey was floating here – just enough fluid to keep it off the sides and bottom. The ratio of water to brine was about 70/30 in favor of the brine. I did have more salt, just in case – but I figured the kosher stuff I added to the brine would be fine.

I flipped this bird in its icy brine bath about halfway through – 5 hours in. I added a little more ice, and some salt…just handfuls of each.

After I woke-up on turkey day, I went down, removed it from the brine, patted it dry, and put it in the refrigerator. It had been there about 12-13 hours – it was an 18-pound bird.

Keys for Cooking a Turkey: First, Don’t Stuff It

I learned that stuffing a turkey slows down the cooking time as well as introducing the potential for salmonella. So instead of looking at the turkey’s empty cavity as a dutch oven to cram full of stuff (which I usually did), I used it for the space in creating aromatic/taste infusions. I cut a bunch of fresh herbs from my garden (sage, rosemary, thyme, tarragon, etc.) and layered them with sliced apples and oranges, leaving most of it open (it was a big bird). A little more than halfway with the layers.

Sliced apples, oranges, and fresh herbs

Next, Don’t Prolong It

The other thing that I now see as a mistake I made for years, was to cook the turkey too long.  By extending the time in the oven, the potential to dry out the meat increases greatly. So my older way of doing this, might be to put the turkey in there on a relatively low heat (350-375F), opening the oven every 30 minutes to baste. But what I did not realize, was this constant opening the door, and the loss of heat simply made everything take longer.

To fix this, and still get a nice crispy skin, I again kept it simple. I rubbed it down with some extra virgin olive oil. I made a little tinfoil cover for the breasts, knowing they would need it to keep from burning – and I set it aside (easier when the turkey is still cold). I set the oven for 500F and once it hit temp, I popped it in.

After 30 minutes, I dropped the heat to 350F (my oven cooks hot), put the tinfoil on it, and let it go. It still took me about 41/2 hours to cook it off from there – but that was considerably less time than it would take for a bird this size, if I did not start out really hot like that, I believe. No basting either – I allowed the heat and the olive oil to take care of that for me.

Yep - it was as good as it looks.

So I was pretty pleased with this – I waited for the little pop-up thing to go up, and I checked internal temps to make sure it was at least 160F. I let it rest and made a traditional gravy – in the roasting pan, using a simple butter and flour roux.  When I carved it up, I had the pleasure of finding it to be moist and perfectly cooked throughout -the brine left subtle flavors, but was more of a way to keep the texture and consistency stable while the bird cooked.

There were only six of us there to eat on the thing, so it is now 3 days later, and I am still eating it for every meal. We killed the white meat today – but thru it all, the brine was a champ – even on reheats, this turkey did NOT dry out at all – not even a little bit. I got my traditional bird flavors and textures, and learned more about a cool way to prep big pieces of meat.

I will be trying this with things other than turkeys – so watch out world. Listen for that dinner bell, and bring your appetites!

A while back, I wrote a post about how A Goliath Grouper is Like a Successful Marketing Plan. It ended with a threat about me getting amped on sharks – and look :: here we are.

I just back from a trip to Hilton Head island (on the South Carolina Coast) where a shark fishing morning clearly showed me that shark fishing is exactly like online marketing.

Really.

It has nothing at all to do with me wanting to talk more about shark fishing.

Gear-up for the Local Conditions

I live in Atlanta, so I don’t fish off the Atlantic coast too often. However, I have been there before, and it helped me know what gear I needed to bring this time.

Last time I went to Hilton Head, I didn’t know what I needed so brought a lot of tackle. Very touristy. I lugged my big tackle box down with me to the beach every day, but never really pulled anything out of it. I was actually only using the same basic set-up all day, and just throwing cut bait.

All the lugging did for me, was compromise all the lures and gear in my tackle box. I got sand in everything and the sun just beat down on it mercilessly every day, for no good reason. A lot of undue stress and wear-and-tear on stuff I wasn’t even using.

On this trip, I learned from my previous mistakes. I went through my tackle ahead of time, and pulled out only the weights, hooks and steel leaders I would need. I took a bait knife, to cut the squid. I took a pliers, to pull hooks from shark jaws. I even took WD40 this time because last year, my pliers got corroded in the salt air and made it tough to open them. I didn’t like the alternative, of using my hands to take the hook out, so keeping the pliers functional was a must. I put in a couple hand towels, because even without reaching into sharks’ mouths like a hero, it always gets really messy. Flashlights, sun block and bug spray and some extra line. I put all this stuff in two ziplock bags, then put the ziplocks in a nylon bag and left my tackle box at home.

I had one salt water rig (pole and reel), so I got new line for it (20 pound test) and oiled it up. Got it working well, with a full spool of new line to get me through the week.

In a word, I was prepared with specific gear for this specific trip. The kitchen sink stayed home.

Based on what I encountered before in Hilton Head, I knew this time around what I needed to increase my chances for success. I cut out the extra, and made sure my stuff-to-be-schlepped was efficiently considered. I hit the beach with only what I needed, all of it well protected from damage in the sun.

Use Experience to Reduce Investments

I knew from the last time I was fishing here that I could throw cut squid into the surf, and likely catch some sharks. I had learned how to cut the squid and get it to stay on the hook from a guide we hired on the last trip. I knew one bag of frozen squid would last us all week unless the fishing was crazy good. On the last trip, I bought way too much squid and had to give away bags of it when we left.

I also got some frozen shrimp this time, because I know from experience in Florida that shrimp are pretty much a go-to bait in any body of saltwater. I had never used them here, but figured they would be a decent bait to try if the squid was not being effective. Figured they might get us smaller fish we could use as cut bait.

I was able to use the money I saved on excess squid to pay for the shrimp, and still paid less overall than I did last year for bait, for fishing a couple more days this year with more people.

My experience allowed me to reduce the investment without affecting the number of casts I could throw. Actually, because they were headless, the shrimp proved to be harder to keep on the hook than the squid (plus, small fish nibbled them down)…so I had even more casts than I anticipated – but spent less to get them.

This year, I also knew a party boat would not give me the fishing experience I wanted. Last year, I hooked into a 6-7 foot shark on a party boat, but the gear on these boats is made for people who don’t fish – I found it frustrating, and pretty dopey. Like using a telephone pole and cables to reel in a car.

I wanted to catch, fight and feel the power of a big fish – that was why I liked catching these things. Spending the extra money to get out a bit (like party boats) certainly increased my chances of catching some different things (and we did) – but I was content to stick to surf casting this year, using gear I knew would offer me a richer experience should it prove effective. The extra money saved from the party boat was spent on a couple dinners in some nice restaurants. And cupcakes – found a place that made only cupcakes: amazingly wonderful. I swear the éclair one they served as a Thursday special was like making-out with Heaven.

Overall, I spent considerably less money to be fishing much more often on this trip than I did on last year’s, with more people. Used the savings to increase more fishing opportunities and also to enjoy other, non-fishing vacation fun…let me repeat: they made ONLY cupcakes.

Be Willing to Adapt

Last year, when we were throwing squid out into the surf we caught little black tip shark pups – lots of them. It was on almost every cast for a while – just lots of little shark action over the whole trip.

This year, we didn’t catch any. Didn’t see that coming at all, and it took us all by surprise. No telling why – but there just weren’t bunches of little shark pups waiting to be caught  this time, even though we were prepared. Despite the numbers and data to support otherwise, squid was falling flat.

The shrimp allowed us to catch some Whiting – which are little fish common on the shore – but even these were few and far between. Personally, I didn’t catch one, but my son and his friend Trey did. On the third one they landed, we used my bait knife to throw out pieces of the Whiting as cut bait. One piece I pitched out there got a decent hit, but nothing noteworthy.

As I stood there in the surf not catching anything but a tan, a man came down the beach and asked how I was doing. He said a guy down a ways had caught some huge Cobia over the last couple days. He was also surf casting like me and the boys, but he was taking the Whiting he caught, re-hooking them as bait and throwing them back out, live and whole. He said the Cobia came in an hour or two, every time…they always just grabbed the bait and ran and jumped and thrashed and eventually broke off – but it made me want one, real bad. All that running and jumping and thrashing sounded like exactly what we were after.

We had not been using the Whiting like this, and my cut bait approach was not getting results though it always worked in the past. Neither was the squid, even though last year, I couldn’t miss with pieces of cut squid. Nature: 2; previous experience: 0. The shrimp was working for the boys to catch Whiting though, so the next one Trey caught, he re-hooked like the guy suggested and threw it back out.

And in a little less than a hour, he yelled as the rod doubled over, and a 5-6 foot shark rolled. The shark jumped and thrashed violently, and the line broke. It was really exciting, but short-lived. Luckily, we all saw his fish, too, which made it better.

Let’s review here: none of the things I thought would work, worked. It did not make us stop fishing or anything, but it made us adjust what we were doing to increase the likelihood of success. Trey hooking into that monster was great – it made the day really exciting, and the fishing adrenaline go to full-boil.

But most importantly for me, there was now a method I could see that worked. Unfortunately, it seemed to require Trey or my son catching a Whiting for me since my fat, cupcake-filled butt couldn’t seem to catch anything at all. Even here though, I was willing to adapt.

Patience, Grasshopper…

We were on the island for a week, and fished almost every day there. This did not stop me from never catching anything – but I didn’t mind. I like fishing as much or sometimes even more than catching, so it works out well for me. And there were cupcakes.

But despite the achieved Zen and the delectable butter-creme frosting, on our last day, I secretly hoped I could do better. Little did I know, I would soon do much better than I had hoped.

We packed stuff, and then returned to the beach for one last morning before heading back to Atlanta. We spent a lovely morning there – but nary a nibble for hours on end.

Trey gave me a Whiting he eventually caught as our time wound down – turned out to be the only one of the day. We were running out of opportunities yet he was gracious enough to give me the lone baitfish so I might catch something. I was not too proud to accept it, either.

I put on a slightly longer steel leader (because Trey’s shark had broke-off on a smaller one) and a larger hook for the Whiting. I threw it out in the water, and went back to stand on the shore, hoping for something to end the week with. I thought Cobia, but was fine with anything.

In about 30 minutes, I felt the Whiting wake up, and start to swim frantically. I told the boys to watch, and reeled down the slack, lowering the tip of the rod. I yanked up to set the hook, hard. The rod doubled over, and I felt the weight of a very powerful fish as I tried to turn it around under water.

And it was on.

For the next 45 minutes or so, I wrestled with this big fish (safely from shore, of course).

He broke the surface more than a few times (so we saw it was a shark), but mostly just drove out. I would reel him back in, and he’d do it again, reel screaming-out line, the drag (and me) frantically holding on.

The rod I had made this really fun – as did the fact I had 20 pound test, while trying to land a fish easily over 90 pounds. If I tried too hard, I would lose it. I needed to keep playing it, gently, or the line would snap.

However, I did not count on my reel being grossly outmatched here – it took the brunt of the stress, and ended-up conking-out on me. I think the gears wore down in it – I got to a point at the end, and simply could not use it anymore…but it held.

Unfortunately for me, this was at a point when the shark was still a few hundred yards out in the surf. So I started backing up, pulling him into shore. I had to again move slowly, or I would accidentally break him off. But I had a clear path and it was low tide, so there was a bunch of beach behind me.

I ended up causing a bit of a fuss on the beach with all this commotion, and the Beach Patrol came to watch. I pulled the shark about 3 feet from shore (I was waaay back on the beach). He was exhausted, and I was too. But then I tried to yank him onto the sand, and I snapped the line.

People came up to me saying they were sorry  I lost him after such a long fight – but I did not want to land the thing, really – I had no way to deal with a shark. I left all my tackle at home, and even with it, I had nothing to make a monster like that submit. I wasn’t going to eat him or anything, or keep him. I had tried to get him on shore, but had no idea what I would have done once he was there, so it was better this way.

Totally fine with me – he ruined my reel, and I gave him a workout to remember – figured we were even.

Even free from my line, he was dazed and tired for a few minutes, before he flipped tail and went back out to sea. He was OK, and would live to eat more Whiting.

The Beach Patrol came over and told us we couldn’t fish anymore that day, which was fine – we were leaving anyway, now a bit later than we had planned. (They don’t want you to catch sharks, which I respect. Doesn’t stop them from being there though, and I am not trying to hurt them – just catch them for a little while if the Cobia are less willing to play.)

There was only about 10 yards left on the spent reel, which remain there today. I removed it, so it’s like a trophy for me. The rod held up like a champ so I’ll use it again, but I learned that next time, I need a stronger reel if I am going to go after these bigger fish.

Makes for a great memory anyway, and the trophy serves as proof. The reel was well worth the expense to me…and infinitely less expensive than even one seat on a party  boat would have been.

Let’s think of this a little like my metaphor should imply.

• I planned for success, based on something that had worked in the past. My plan did not work, despite being well budgeted and well implemented. Unwilling to bail, I adapted.
• Current situations changed the viable and known tactics, and had I not adapted, I would have left (clutching my data) skunked.
• I listened to what was happening around me, and acted on it.
• I used the help of others when I could not do it all myself.
• I traded the telephone pole and the cable deal for something more specific and meaningful, and ended-up with a fishing tale I will have forever. I pinpointed my approach, waited, and eventually connected in a very meaningful way.
• If you do land a big one, expect the Beach Patrol to come and shut you down (cough *G-word* cough).

I’ll probably get down to Florida soon, so I’ll likely be able to figure out how other fishing is just like something else. Until then, feel free to give me a call and get me out on the water for some business advice…who knows what we’ll catch.

There is a great post Geordie wrote a couple weeks ago on PPCblog.com about building lifetime customer value. (in case my link doesn’t work, go ahead and paste this: http://ppcblog.com/building-lifetime-customer-value/)

I have talked before about how much I like Geordie’s style of writing – he has a lot of great experience and knows how to get to the meat of making money, and staying profitable. Had the pleasure to co-write an article with him, and his technical deftness is also top-notch – but you’ll see that quickly.

This post comes soon after a huge shake-up for many online professionals, so I think it is particularly relevant and worth a read. When finding new customers is always going to present unique challenges, being able to serve more to the ones you already have is invaluable.

This post also shows you the kind of teaching/writing style Geordie uses. He is more personal inside the forums, but it is the same direct, no BS approach with suggestions you can really use. PPC is one online marketing oasis many webmasters are seeking as organic becomes even less predictable, so get on their membership waiting list. The community doesn’t appear to be accepting new members right now, but things always change. They maintain a limit, so it doesn’t get weak. I would put in your interest if this is something that appeals to you. I can talk from personal experience about how valuable I think this community is – in fact I have. Twice. 

image borrowed from http://www.purposeinc.com/pwp/geordie-carswell

]]> http://www.articulayers.com/2011/05/building-lifetime-customer-value/feed/ 0 http://www.articulayers.com/2011/04/trial-coverage-of-murderer-james-ray/ http://www.articulayers.com/2011/04/trial-coverage-of-murderer-james-ray/#comments Fri, 01 Apr 2011 04:36:38 +0000 marty http://www.articulayers.com/?p=643

Maybe you know about the trial happening right now for James Arthur Ray. He is on trial for 3 counts of manslaughter. Three people who believed in James Ray paid for it with their lives, and now it is time for the courts to decide if Ray is guilty.

I personally think James Arthur Ray is a cold-hearted manipulative monster, who actually led four people to die through his ignorance, greed and vanity…not just these three innocent victims (I will not forget what I see as his center role in the death of Colleen Conaway). I hope that justice is for once, swift, and this bastard pays with a life spent behind bars. It won’t even the score by any means – 4 good people will still be missing, and he won’t be – but I hope it does offer the families of his victims some form of relief, watching this beast get locked in the cage he deserves.

The trial started on March 1st, and is being offered in live video feeds and news streams. I was going to write something about it, but I am not as well informed as many people are on this matter – so I want you to go to them to learn more about it. My own thoughts on it are simple: guilty – lock him away forever. But there is of course, much more to it.

Visit the Salty Droid’s Blog

On the Salty Droid’s blog, Ray has been a topic of discussion since this whole thing started. Not only is the fake robot himself perpetually in a full-on attack to the monster known as “Death Ray,” but there are many very intelligent folks that have chimed-in along the way with additional background and evidence, as well as ongoing support for the victims’ families. These folks are now commenting on the trial and offering insight and links to help shed more light on it all. The comment thread is already over 650 strong, and it will continue growing as the trial continues.

The ‘droid has really created a great resource here for James Arthur Ray trial updates. Expect potty talk and lots of stirred-up passions. There are audio and video clips, he is doing  day-by-day summary updates, and like I mentioned – the comments have some really interesting stuff too – some of those offering opinions are really super-sharp folks.

I applaud ‘droid for his work here, and in hammering on other assholes that take advantage of innocent believers. We need more fake robots, willing to take a stand. In the meantime, go catch-up on the JAR trial.

And I am sincerely looking forward to you rotting in Hell, James Arthur Ray. Can’t wait to watch you pay for what you’ve done.

I admit, I have not spent a great deal of time wondering about the Attorney General of Utah, but the Salty Droid sure seems to think that Mark Shurtleff is Corrupt. He is offering a lot of often pointy words to talk about what is happening out there in Utah – and I would imagine people are getting a little upset about it. But the Salty Droid promises this category of posts will help you to better understand the man behind the media, as “it contains so much great information about Mark Shurtleff’s leg and his midlife crisis motorcycle accident”. Fake robots can be hard to argue with, so I would recommend checking it out.

As to why these references to Mark Shurtleff’s corruption are reaching outside of Utah (why should you care out there in Armchair America, right?), think of a roomful of very nice strangers, all of them on telephones meeting dialing quotas. Hammering on, pushing on new ways to erode people’s natural reluctance to pay for something that sounds too good to be true. Sweating and smoking. Dialing, and selling. Utopian dreams, cooed out soothingly, incessantly, looking for better ways to weasel into unsuspecting bank accounts. Now multiply that exponentially, and how long before they are calling your parents – your friends – and promising them Unicorns and Rainbows? Convincing them that for a low monthly rate, they can have their own Internet cash machines? Utah’s boiler rooms are at the root of some very bad businesses staying around longer than they should. And as the Salty Droid is pointing out, it is often through high-level corruption and protection that these systems stay in place.

I appreciate the Salty Droid’s willingness to point out things that often get him into trouble. He is a funny writer, and offers a truly unique style. Whether he’s talking about corrupt Attorney General Mark Shurleff, internet marketing scams, or the wispy sexlessness of Julian Assange, it’s usually a lot of fun over there.

If you’re like me, no matter what brought you, you stay for the pretty giraffes!

I was reading some favorite old posts today and came across this one, from all the way back in 2006 by Stuntdubl:  http://www.stuntdubl.com/2006/11/24/stunttrain/.

Mr. Malicoat offers a lot of good things in here, but the one that made me want to scribble was this:

9. Blackhat is lying to clients, customers, partners, or vendors.
Whitehat is proactively discussing risk tolerance, process, expectations, and contribution to a community instead of just bilking people into teaching you to think.

A lot of things have changed in search since he wrote that almost 5 years ago - but I think this point is more salient today than ever. Thankfully people aren’t talking about this as much as they used to…but some still insist on climbing on a soapbox, and pretending that there are altruistic means behind their sweeping statements and judgements.

Defining what you do by some broad-stroke term is limiting at best. But the argument between whitehat and blackhat SEO techniques has always been that – an ultimately limiting and self-defeating approach.

I should know:

Hi, my name is Marty. I am a recovering whitehat.

In my own case, my couple years of chest-thumping whitehattedness were eventually replaced by data, and logic. But while it had me, I really drank that kool-aid, hard.

Here are some of the many misconceptions it created:

• Buying links is bad, and will result in penalties. The truth is, buying links is commonplace and often results in success. Discretion.
• Automating is bad. Impersonal approaches to web development scared me I think, because I was building sites, and didn’t want to see it all go away. It did anyway – open source changed everything. And it only made me run faster to catch-up once I finally decided to get in the game. 
• Google is going to reward the best content.{Bwa-ha-haaaaaa-ha-ha-ha}
• Link spam gets punished. Truth is, sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. I’ve seen link spam work well, I’ve seen it (apparently) sink sites. Truth is, good sites get punished too.
• Good content is required to top the SERPs. Sigh. As much as I would love for this to be the case, no such luck.   

Now, believing in whitehat came from a good place. I wanted to only do what my clients wanted – things I could be proud of later. But I was not taking Stuntdubl’s approach, and simply understanding risk tolerance better. I couldn’t communicate it to my clients, because I was too busy shunning things, because they seemed “shady.”

Flash forward a few years, and I don’t wear hats anymore – I now prefer scarves. Hardly gets cold enough in Atlanta for me to indulge, but I digress.

It may have taken me close to 5 years since I first read this post from Stuntdubl, but his last point is the one that now makes my bald head shine:

10. It’s all about the results

Yes it is…as long as those results are accompanied by the immaculately clear conscience that you are not screwing people over to get them. It is not by any means necessary – but it is by any reasonable means.

Bottom Line:

If you insist on actively defining yourself as either a blackhat or a whitehat SEO, chances are you are simply an asshat. Just do what is best to get the ranking you are after for you or your clients – and make it less about you. Remember what Stuntdubl said: It’s all about the results.

Late add: found another one, worth adding here. In the historical review of how this separation in the SEO industry devolves, I found another winner here: http://www.paydayloanaffiliate.com/blog/LateralVsTraditionalSEO.aspx and here: http://www.johnon.com/220/white-hat-sissies.html

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by creating splogs filled with spun content, wrapped shamelessly with AdSense until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch, surf the web and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life’s organic searches are made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second (and clicking thru her favorite ads), take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.

In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name “Mr. James Dillingham Young.”

The “Dillingham” had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week from the strength of his organic reach. Now, when 2010 updates have all been tallied and the income was shrunk to $20, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called “Jim” and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.

Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only earned $1.87 from her direct match domains with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn’t go far. Google AdWords expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent letting Eric Schmidt tell her what is best in planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling (no doubt, from an affiliate link) –something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.

There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.

Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she opened up her spread sheet of most valuable keywords and let it fall to its full length.

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim’s exact match domain that had been his father’s and his grandfather’s. The other was Della’s keyword list. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her keyword list be read aloud by local ruffians just to depreciate Her Majesty’s jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have mentioned his exact match domain and niche potential every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

So now Della’s beautiful keyword list was printed, and stacked in front of her. It reached above her knees. And then she gathered them up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.

Where she stopped the sign read: “Mne. Sofronie. Keywords of All Kinds.” One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the “Sofronie.”

“Will you buy my keywords?” asked Della.

“I buy keywords,” said Madame. “Take yer spread sheets and let’s have a sight at the looks of ‘em.”

Down rippled the spread sheets’ bounty.

“Twenty dollars,” said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.

“Give it to me quick,” said Della.

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim’s present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a Content Management System (CMS) simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation–as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Exact Match. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim’s. It was like him. Quietness and value–the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that CMS on his domain Jim might be properly anxious about the opportunity in any niche. Grand as the exact match was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the FrontPage holding page that he used in place of a proper site.

When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her long tail keyphrases and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends–a mammoth task.

Within forty minutes her AdWords account was covered with tiny longtail keyphrases that made it look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy had thrown it together. She looked at her ad copy in the ad groups, carefully, and critically.

“If Jim doesn’t kill me,” she said to herself, “before he takes a second look at these long tail keyphrases, he’ll say I bid like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do–oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?”

At 7 o’clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.

Jim was never late. Della opened up the user interface on her laptop and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: “Please God, make him think I am still shrewd enough to increase our potential earnings using inexpensive content development.”

The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two–and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della’s new longtail keyphrases, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.

Della wriggled off the table and went for him.

“Jim, darling,” she cried, “don’t look at me that way. I had my keyword list cannibalized and sold because I couldn’t have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. I’ll grow it out again–you won’t mind, will you? I just had to do it. My keyword research grows awfully fast. Say ‘Merry Christmas!’ Jim, and let’s be happy. You don’t know what a nice– what a beautiful, nice gift I’ve got for you.”

“You’ve purged your keyword lists?” asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.

“Cannibalized and sold them,” said Della. “Don’t you like me just as well, anyhow? I’m me without my keyword research, ain’t I?”

Jim looked about the room curiously.

“You say your keyword list is gone?” he said, with an air almost of idiocy.

“You needn’t look for it,” said Della. “It’s sold, I tell you–sold and gone, too. It’s Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the keywords proved profitable in my niche were numbered,” she went on with sudden serious sweetness, “but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?”

Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year–what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.

Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

“Don’t make any mistake, Dell,” he said, “about me. I don’t think there’s anything in the way of a manual penalty or a stuffed alt attribute or a spammy title tag that could make me like my girl any less. But if you’ll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first.”

White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

For there lay The Premium Content–the set of files, side and back, that Della had worshipped long on a Freelancer’s website. Beautiful content, pure link bait, with optimized meta data–just the way to benefit a researched list of keywords. They were expensive content pieces, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the keywords that should have benefitted from the coveted content were gone.

But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: “My keyword research grows so fast, Jim!”

And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, “Oh, oh!”

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held out her laptop to him eagerly upon her open palm. The CMS’s functionality seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

“Isn’t it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You’ll have to look at the niche potential a hundred times a day now. Give me your DNS for the exact match. I want to see how it looks on it.”

Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

“Dell,” said he, “let’s put our Christmas presents away and keep ‘em a while. They’re too nice to use just at present. I sold the exact match to get the money to buy your premium content. And now suppose you put the chops on.”

The magi, as you know, were Page and Brin–wonderfully wise men–who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving non-Evil Christmas presents. Being wise and willing to sort the cesspool, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their online portfolios. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive profitable SERP positions, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

Ok, I’ll confess: I am writing this, simply so I can put up the fish pictures. Guilty.

But I did come up with a decent enough running metaphor about this fishing trip. Let’s call it an online marketing plan. Just substitute it.

Work with me, here.

Step One: Find a Seasoned Guide

The first thing about catching a fish like this, is to have a seasoned guide know where they are, and how to catch them. There are million fish out there, and lots of ways to catch different types.

This guy is a wonderfully healthy Goliath Grouper or “Jewfish” if you are working blue.  (They are catch and release too, so I let him go soon after this picture, in case you’re worried.)

But I wanted to catch big fish, so I connected with my friend Darin. Darin fishes around Sanibel Island and the waters off Ft. Myers all the time, so he knows where to find fish, and how to catch them. He is an experienced guide, someone I can trust.

We were targeting big grouper – so this picture shows Darin is a good friend to know when seeking this kind of thing.

You can catch plenty of different kinds of fish with or without help, but if you want the really big ones on purpose, you usually need help from someone who does it regularly.

Step Two: Use the Right Bait, Even When It Is Unconventional

I am going to give away a secret bait:  Ballyhoo. These little cigar-like fish are the best bait I have fished with, I think. Everything hits them, in the same way that everything hits a shrimp-however, the types of fish, and potential for big ones is infinitely better with Ballyhoo, in my experience. Could be where we are fishing. But I have caught so many different species using them, I am convinced they are a great hidden secret.

Darin told me, he started using them because he was finding them consistently in the stomachs of big fish he cleaned. Most guides and captains will use baitfish like shiners and pinfish, but Ballyhoo are unique. Why? Because they are not the easiest baits to find and catch.

Darin came up with a unique system, where he stands on the front of the boat with a dip net he made (“All the store-bought ones kept breaking,” he explained). I shine the light on the water’s surface, and he scoops the baits. We do it slowly like this, by hand, and it can take a long time sometimes depending on the conditions.

Sometimes, we chase the bait around trying to find them. Sometimes, they seem to be everywhere. And different fish mean different baits. If we were going after Tarpon (more on this later), we’d have been catching Ladyfish. Ladyfish are munched by really big Tarpons, so it makes sense. Ballyhoo are munched by Grouper – so we went after them with the dip net. It was painstaking – but with purpose.

The key to successful saltwater fishing, is to know what the fish you want to catch will eat. Using that as bait only makes sense, even when you need to figure out a unique way to capture the baits that work.

Step Three: Fish In the Right Place

Not to be coy, but the Gulf of Mexico is a big body of water. Knowing where to fish in it to actually catch something on purpose takes a long time, and lots of effort (see qualified guide, above). However, with the help of a qualified guide, finding fish is not so difficult. And once you know where the bigger ones are, you can become selective in which ones you go after.

A guy like Darin knows where structure is under the waves, and other common water markers both above and below the water’s surface. He also knows how the tides move, how fish behave, and even the general layout of what look to me like repetitive, nondescript clumpings of mangrove trees.

Darin takes us to the right place, quickly, and with purpose. We don’t mess around when we go out – usually on the bait within 30 minutes of hitting the water, and fishing about 30 minutes after collecting them.

But once we have bait, we don’t throw it indiscriminately wherever we end up, and hope a big fish happens by. Sure it could happen, and sometimes does – but there are better ways to target when you allow experience to guide it.

We were after big Grouper here, so we went to a place where they hung out, armed with plenty of delicious Ballyhoo. We increased our odds exponentially – based purely on Darin’s experience in the area, and my willingness to trust it.

Step Four: Be Patient, Persistent and Determined

Landing this guy took a long time. He hit, and then ran and wrapped under a bridge piling (they are smart like that). I fought him for a long time, and then was convinced he was not coming up. I never let go, though – I never let slack get in the line, so he could flip off.

I handed the pole to Darin, to see if he could pull him out from the snag. He did, and we landed him a little while later. The old guy was tired, and reeling him up became pretty easy, once we moved him back into open water.

When we pulled him up, Darin stopped, and got out a pliers. He found a couple leaders and hooks tangled-up in this guy’s mouth – so Darin cut and pulled it all out of his way, to make it easier for him to swim, and to breathe.

We laughed at how many times the old codger had bested attempts to catch him…we saw the proof. He was a grizzled, gilled, salty old pro – but he surely bit, again, for us.

And we didn’t give-up on catching him – we kept on him no matter what, and we got him in the boat.

Step Five: Know There are Always Bigger Fish to Catch, So Learn How

One of the types of fish we go after down there, are Tarpon. Tarpon are really beautiful fish that grow incredibly huge. The first thing a Tarpon does when he is hooked, is jump straight out of the water – so they are very exciting fish to catch for sure.

The night Darin and I were fishing for the big Grouper, there were about five or six big Tarpon rolling under a light. We actually intentionally fished around them – because we were after the Grouper.

At the end of the evening, it became clear the spot we were in was not productive. So Darin asked if I wanted to try one last spot, or catch a big Tarpon. I said, “Big Tarpon, please.”

Darin took one of our Ballyhoo rigs, removed the weights, and pitched it on the other side of the boat, where we could hear Ladyfishsplashing. He quickly landed a Ladyfish – took the hook from its mouth, and put it behind the back fin. He cast it back out, heaving the Ladyfish (about 16 inches long) into the waves.

Literally 3 minutes later, a HUGE Tarpon burst through the top of the water. Darin handed me the pole, and it was on.

He jumped a few more times, and I fought him for about an hour, I think. Strongest fish I have ever had on a pole – a simply awesome feeling for a fisherman. He was about 7-8 feet long (gets longer every time I remember him), and about 200 pounds.

At one point during the fight, I had him on the surface of the water. We pulled up anchor, and this Tarpon pulled the boat around for about 10 minutes. I was standing on the bow, and the pole was doubled over with this massive, beautiful creature just swimming slowly, about 6 inches below the surface, trying to get me off his back.

He surprised us more than once by playing possum and then taking off again, starting the fight all over. I almost knocked Darin into the gulf a couple times, almost crushed him when the fish ran under the boat and he was too close, and got really really sore after a little while fighting this fish.

We finally tired him out, and got him alongside the boat. He was amazingly beautiful. Darin gaffed him in the mouth, and we pulled him halfway out of the water – it was about all that was easy to do. We wanted to get a picture, but he was simply too big to get into the boat safely…so I was holding him by a gaff, over the side.

Darin got the camera off the console, and the fish suddenly wiggled with this full body shimmy - almost pulling me into the drink. His mouth came off the gaff in slow motion, and he slipped back down – vertically, and ever so slowly, fading down into the dark green waters of the gulf. Gone. But oh my – what a ride.

The point is, I could have stopped with the Goliath Grouper that night, and had an amazing story to share. But Darin gave me a fishing memory that trumped it – no less than an hour later. I went from huge, to huger. And huger still is out there – waiting for another day.

Since I didn’t get a picture of this guy, I modified one I swiped from online, so you can see what I mean by big fish…Tarpon are amazing creatures – I highly recommend catching them, at least once. Nothing like it.

So Recapping:

• Find a seasoned guide you can trust – someone who knows the waters
• Choose the right bait, and be willing to take the time to discover what actually works best and how to get it
• Allow your guide to bring you to the right place, and listen as they tell you how to cast and retrieve
• Be persistent and don’t allow a snag to make you stop – there could be a goliath at the other end of that line!
• Know that bigger fish are always there, and you can catch them too, with a slightly different approach and some experience
• Take Marty fishing more often…

I hope I have made it perfectly clear how an online marketing plan is exactly like fishing with my friend Darin for Goliath Grouper off Sanibel Island in Florida. Exactly, in every possible way. 

Just wait until I get all amped up talking about sharks…

I want to write a simple little post here, so forgive me if I verbally drool a bit in my zeal to say the right thing.

I am a little amped, because I am getting tired of idiots telling other people -  idiots in training if you will – that it is easy to make money online.

Wait – calling the victims (suckers? customers?) idiots is not fair. Good people get caught in bad people plans all the time. Sorry good people.

Many good people get horn-swaggled by the shiny things: simply believing they are buying something that propels them in some miraculous way that makes effort unnecessary.

It’s not easy, and there are no magic products that make it so. None.

Trust me on this – I have been building stuff online for about ten years. I work regularly with some of the most respected people on the internet, and believe me, there is no magic formula, there is no secret, there is no hidden tactic that will unlock anything, beyond access to bank accounts.

The people I know who are successful got there because they are shrewd, work hard, and are willing to take a CHANCE.

Are you? (Taking a chance does not mean throwing money at something, and praying it works).

Stop it. Easy is a Dream.

Stop believing in internet unicorns, money for nothing and marketing fairy tales. Stop believing there is a way you just start cashing checks, simply because you want to. Just stop it, and start doing stuff.

Realize that drive and desire alone do not supplant experience, creative ability, and an honest network of niche-specific, seasoned professionals. Be willing to sweat, or lose some sleep for a while to build something better than everything.

Shut up, and keep your head down. I believe in this a lot more than i practice it, BTW.

Keep selling and buying – or whatever makes sense to understand the nuances of your marketplace, but just keep learning. Trust in your own experiences. Grow them exponentially. Emulate those you admire, but carve your own way. Make a splash, use your voice.

But above all, be a good person, and work hard. Because then, and only then, does the rest come easy.