An Iowa Garden

I've recently been asked why I don't sign up my blog for AdSense, and watch the checks for ad revenue roll in every month... well, actually it was one person who asked, and he was trying to sell me a book on how to get rich doing it. Now, on good days, when I've actually got something pertinent to say, I might get a hundred people on here. On other days, when I've got nothing to say, and I don't care who knows it, and when even the kittens are in a pissant mood, so I can't come up with any desperation "cute kitty" pictures... on those days you could swing a dead skunk around in this blog and not hit anyone. I figure I might clear about 13 cents a day advertising. Mind you, since I'm retired now, that's nothing to sneeze at; ostensibly we're partly living on my retirement savings, but Guido, my investment director, has stopped even pretending he's going to return my calls. I guess he's run out of reasons my oil drilling investment went kaput, considering oil prices have tripled. I know part of the reason I'm a little doubtful that I'd generate much ad revenue, is that this blog seems a little like a bus station... some people come here for a reason, but others seem like they might just be cutting through here to get to the post office, or to get out of the rain. Then there are those poor souls who end up here by googling for something perfectly logical, like how to keep mice out of the attic, and somehow end up here. I always picture them looking sort of like people coming out of a theater in the middle of the afternoon, squinting, and kind of disoriented. Of course then there are those googling for something like "smelly pirate's feet". They deserve to end up here. I hadn't realized what a hot topic this whole blog advertising thing was, until I recently went looking for a reason that Google had again screwed up my blog, and I ran across all of these people trying to get rich from their blog. There are all kinds of stories about people making $15,000 a day, but I wonder. It kind of reminds me of the people who used to think they were going to get rich growing fishing worms. This was quite popular at one time... at least twice a year our little local paper would have a story about some young fellow who was going to make millions this way. It always seemed the guy was somebody who never quite had the nerve or the tools to hop out of his parent's nest, if you know what I mean. Anyway, there would always be a grainy picture of the lad, down in his folk's basement, looking at a box of worms. I don't recall ever seeing anybody suddenly driving around in a Cadillac from all of this; they just sank without a trace. So, I guess I'm not going to get rich from my blog... maybe I'll go see what the kittens are up to.