Revival of my Baby Boomer Blog

I thought I'd try to revive this blog. I originally created Baby Boomer Davy's Locker as a learning experiment after my corporate job of 22 years ended in 2008. As a creative person who found creativity basically shut down for most of those 22 years, when that job ended, I continued my persuit of what the Internet was doing, especially in the beginnings of social media and blogging. I began by setting up a blog, using blogger.com. To my amazement, I discovered I loved creative writing. I loved sharing stories of my view of the Baby Boomer Generation and the journey of my family.

During the time from 2008 through 2009, I was also exploring and wondering what I was going to do for a career and earning a living until my retirement years. My journey led me to realize that we Baby Boomers were probably not going to have what we saw our parents of the Greatest Generation enjoy as typical retirement. We were going to have to work longer but we also realized that working longer may be the key to living longer. Many of we Boomers saw our parents pass away not long after they stopped working those long hard work weeks of more than 40 hours. Stopping may not be a good thing. I spent the next year beginning the journey that would become what I do for my retirement years.

----- continued now on March 24, 2016 - I have successfully created a thriving small business, a music school named David's Music House in the Pittsburgh, PA area. Started on 10.10.10 - October, 10, 2010, I have now passed the 5 year anniversary, growing from 3 music teachers and 40 students to 17 music teachers and over 200 students. The school has become a staple of the community as area schools are sending students to us. This is a dream that started as a seed in my father's mind and heart and was born into me, through his support of my musical efforts. I feel and know that he is at my side, every day, enjoying what this dream has become. We are so much more than a place to learn how to learn about music. The mission is from my heart and mind to support the growth of kindness of the heart, in humbly, through the soulful connecting tool of music.

Look for more ongoing articles on this blog as I continue trying to show my mistakes and learning and growing of a Baby Boomer member, going through this thing we all call LIFE!

Peace & Love,

David

OK...so....I'm backkkk....again.

It has been May since I posted to this blog.  I have been overwhelmed with running my business, David's Music House, Inc. for the last two years and in these economic times, it has been a spectrum of highs and lows. This is the first business I have ever attempted and I knew it would have to be something that was connected to my passion and love of music, to get me through any difficulties. When a new business is started, it is often said that it will take 3 to even 5 years to see success. The idea is unique, the model is good and being tweaked and developed all the time but it is longevity and resources that are the critical piece. I continue, month to month, looking for ways to keep costs as low as possible while looking for new revenue sources and so far, I have been able to keep things going due to the support and help of a good many people!

In the meantime, I am going to try to amp up my posts on this blog. There's was just too much time spent on it and it has a good foundation to keep building upon to let it go of.  I began blogging to become knowledgeable about social media while discovering that I loved to write so I need to continue developing those skills.

The Baby Boomer Generation is not going away.... yet, that is. We are getting older, to be sure. I was just realizing that I am finding more people who I graduated with who are passing away! I can remember my parents and their friends talking about the fact that they felt that all they were doing is going to funerals of friends.

As I have stated in previous posts about my small business venture and it being something I, as many Boomers are doing, am doing to be my "extended pre-retirement working years". Boomers have been told by financial advisers for quite a few years now, that we will not be enjoying the same type of "retirement" as our parents did. We will be working past 62 or 65 and beyond. I began thinking about this about ten years ago and knew that I really wanted to do something that I was more passionate about, which is music.

With Boomers being the largest segment of the population, whatever they do....is indeed, a factor that has a domino effect on many aspects of the country, with the main one being financial. As we Boomers age, all the aspects of aging will effect everyone in this country. What remains to be seen is how will the younger generation feel, react and care for their parents as we age.  However Boomer children behave and react to their aging parents can not be blamed on how the Boomers raised their children anymore than the Boomers can blame on their parents, the Greatest Generation. We are each responsible for our own actions in our lives and responsible for the decisions we make.

It has been quite a while…

If any readers of this blog have seen my other articles about what I have been doing lately, you may realize why I haven’t been active for quite a while on this blog, especially if any of you own or have ever owned your own business. The saying, “if it were easy, everyone would do it” is as true as true can be!

The purpose of this article will be to speak to why I haven’t been writing for a while and to bring my passion of sharing issues and raising awareness of The Baby Boomer Generation.

The short story from 2008 is that my job of 22+ years was outsourced at the beginnings of our country’s second biggest depression. I was unemployed for two years, while trying to look for a job and also deciding what else I could do. In 2009, I began my journey to create my own business, beginning with a “How to start a small business” course at a local community college, talking to my local SCORE representative and many other business mentors I either knew or just reached out to. I opened my business, David’s Music House, Inc. on October, 10, 2010 (10.10.10) I have now been open for 18 months and it has indeed been a journey of highs and lows! What I have learned is exactly what I was told in the beginning by all my mentors….it would be hard, it would take 3 to 5 years to see success and you can only succeed IF you don’t quit. The key to not quitting is continuing growth and searching for solutions for the dollars to last until success. It is indeed a FACT, that no one can succeed by quitting.

As I continue to search for ways to search for ways to make my business grow, I am also quite aware that I am still moving on the path of extending work years, or delay of retirement. I planned my business to be one that I not only have a passion for but also would be able to continue working beyond what were once considered retirement years. Being a member of the Baby Boomer Generation brings me to think about these actions that I and all of us Boomers are currently going through.

Only time and history will tell the true story of what effect the Baby Boomer Generation has had on our civilization, but there is no doubt that the Boomers effect our country by their sheer numbers. This applies for what this largest segment of the population is going through as we approach the retirement years. Retirement has been re-defined by occurrences of the last decade. Healthcare and new medical advances are continually extending the lifespan. While is definitely a good thing, from the perspective of us Boomers, what we do and go through has a profound effect on the course of all others as well.

Baby Boomers have been caring and dealing with their aging parents while we hit our 4th and 5th decades of life and we well know and wonder how our children will deal with the same issues. Will they even be able to deal with the impact of Boomers aging? One thing is certain and that is that we Boomers should be doing as much as we can to lessen the impact of what our children have to deal with….such as homes not cared for, estates not properly and legally planned, how to make decisions without living wills and legal documents to guide them.

I went into this segway of Boomers aging as that is what I am currently thinking about…..what do I need to do to deal with aging? How can I make it easier for my children to deal with my aging? One thing my wife and I have done is to create all the legal documentation, such as wills, living wills that clearly state and therefore take the decision and issues out of the hands of our children. We are also downsizing our home to one that we can more easily care for, is less of a financial burden for us rather than continue living in a home too large to care for so that they someday have to deal with their homes as well as ours.

It is important for us Boomers to do the same things we have been doing for our children since they were born…and that is everything we can to make them better people, follow the golden rule, try to make the planet better for them by recycling and paying attention to supporting better ways of energy consumption and prepare and clean up our lives so that they don’t have to do it. We are always parents, as long as we are on this planet, even if we don’t have children….all who remain after the Boomer Generation is gone are all of our children and they will benefit or not based on our actions.

My Blog has been redesigned!

Welcome to my newly designed site! I will be adding some of the widgets and features that I had previously in the next few days, such as my music player with some of my songs from my CD.

If you have any thoughts about the new design, please feel free to leave a comment. The site design is from eblogtemplates.com. They have a lot of good tips and help with Blogger and Word Press.

Also, please click to join and receive Enews and Updates and enter your email address as well. Let me know if you experience any issues as well.

Thank you!

Why Blog???

Initially, I wanted to find out what is blogging. I have been curious and have been researching blogging and social networking for a couple of years now due to my job as a Sr. Technical Analyst. It is pretty obvious to us all that this technology has been growing in popularity, exponentially. The last two presidential elections brought blogging into the mainstream media as a journalist tool. That made sense to the general public as it seemed logical that the news and journalist world would want to use this new method of reaching millions of readers. Most of the public left it at that.

The younger, video gamer, cell phone texters started using the social networking tool, myspace and using it in a huge way! Parents more of less dismissed it as just another phase but worried about how their children were using it. Then the news started telling us stories of sexual predators preying on children causing parents to become horrified by this 'evil internet'.

The more these technologies were being discussed by mainstream media, the fears of the public lessened somewhat. It seems as though over the recent months, the word blogging is about as common as the word aspirin. I watched the Regis and Kelly show the other day and when Regis Philbin starts blogging....(although he has little idea of what it is or why he would want to blog :-), blogging has become a new way of life for all of us.

Actually, there are quite a lot of new internet technologies coming out every day. These newer methods of collaboration over the internet can be more or less grouped together in another technology term that has been getting more press recently, called Web 2.0. (click link for Wikipedia explanation of Web 2.0)

As I gain experience in social networking, I am now concentrating on how I can earn income from blogging. This brings an interesting aspect to blogging. Bloggers must balance the increasing interest of marketing companies wanting to use bloggers for advertising and the altruistic purpose of providing quality content, advice and help to their readers. There is a fine line where blogging for income can overshadow the original purpose for blogging. There is a good mix of those who understand that earning from advertising on your blog is accepted as they want to do the same and those who want to insure that the original intent of content is keep as the primary goal.

How this will proceed in the future is yet to be determined but more than likely, the pressure of marketing will undoubtedly increase. It is up to the best bloggers to maintain the balance of earning and learning. I hope I am so fortunate as to have a serious problem trying to not earn too much money! :-)

My introduction to PayPerPost!

Jen from her "Redhead Ranting" blog introduced PayPerPost to me as a easier way to make money from blogging. It took a few attempts for me to catch on to how to make it work, but once I got the idea of just following the instructions in the payperpost opp, it really is very easy and much more profitable than Adsense.

I am learning a lot about blogging and making money while doing it and I will continue to bring whatever help I can to my fellow Baby Boomers who would like to explore blogging and adding some additional income to their lives.

My first payperpost attempt

I am exploring the world of blogging as I leave my career of the past 23 years as a Technical Analyst for a major pharmaceutical corporation. I have been using Google's Adsense and it has been a struggle to make that work as a money making venture. A blogger friend of mine introduced me to PayPerPost where you write a post about someone's product or service on your own blog and get paid a much higher amount than with Adsense. I am hoping that this will be more productive as a money making venture.

If you would like to try PPP out, click the link PayPerPost, and follow the easy steps to start making some possibly serious extra money while just giving you opinion about someone's product... which we all know is not that difficult, especially for us Boomers... we love to give our opinions, even when they are not wanted... :-)

If you need any help, feel free to contact me. Although I'm certainly not an expert... I can act like one! After all, that's what this site is about.. Baby Boomers helping and sharing stories and experiences.

I will continue to post articles about my progress with PayPerPost for you fellow Boomers and bloggers and feel free, as well, to send me any suggestions you have on PayPerPost or blogging in general.

Pay Per Post Opportunities

Jen of the blog redheadranting.blogspot.com has introduced me to a new money making opportunity for us bloggers. This is "PayPerPost-Blogger" which gives bloggers the ability to review articles on various sites that have been associated with PayPerPost. Upon writing their own article of review on an approved payperpost site, you have the chance of making more than the typical adsense pennies per click. You can make dollars per review.

I am in the beginning stage of learning how this all works and I will continue to post more findings as I learn, on my blog, Davy's Locker.

Look for more on this in the future... and we'll all make some money together.

Thanks again to my blogger friend, Jen, for her clever help!

My Articles on The Bloogle - A Blogging Experience

The blogging site called The Bloogle (http://www.thebloogle.com/) is a great site to gain some added exposure to your writing. Here's a quote from their site - "Thebloogle.com has formed an alliance with writers and journalists and people who are experts in their own fields. These folks want to share their knowledge, expertise, and passion with others. They are enthusiastic about writing and are committed to bringing informative content to others." I have a couple of posts so far... one in the Family & Kids Blog and another in Everything Else Blog.

This is a really good idea to get a cross section of various kinds of writers all in one place.

Check the site out and let me know what you think........

Davy's Locker

I am changing my blog name to Davy's Locker. Basically, I am still sticking with the technical help and advice for my fellow baby boomers. Hopefully, we can all share our experiences and help each other through this phase in our lives dealing with keeping up with new technologies, aging parents, retirement, job changes and whatever we all go through. I will post the many issues that I face and how I've tried to deal with them and hopefully it will attract others who have had similar experiences and we can all learn from each other.

Learning more every day

My request for a Google Adsense account was finally approved and I am on my way to find out more about how to make money by adding ads to my blog. I found most of my learning info from http://www.problogger.com/. There is some really helpful bloggers there that will guide you to this new way of earning income. Of course, you need to be VERY realistic about this! Just consider this a learning experience or hobby and in the process, you may find your way to earning some nice extra cash..... someday! The biggest thing to learn and realize is that you can type your thoughts till your fingers bleed... but you still need to find a way to get your blog visible to not just a handful, but perhaps thousands of people. Then your subject matter needs to be something that people will WANT to read, let alone happen to click on an ad on the site. In other words, you would need thousands upon thousands of people to find your site, read it and happen to click on one of the ads. I don't know about you, but I can't even remember if I EVER clicked on an ad on a web page. If I want to buy something, I usually look for the site that sells it. If I clicked on any ad, it was probably something more along the lines of a software to download.

In any case... onward I go to read the guides and help on Adsense to understand more about how to use it effectively. Secondly, I am still struggling with how to get anyone to even read THIS STUFF!!! :-)

If you do happen to read my blog, which I also still not sure what to name it, as that needs to be something that would grab some one's interest and still apply to the content.... please feel free to comment or post your thoughts.

Here are some of the names I have tried so far...:

• This n That
• BBBlog
• The Common Sense Blog
• Davy's Boomer Advice and Tech Help Blog
• Sooner or Later

......(I'm still not sure about this... )

* Added this note on 02/10/08 - I finally chose "Davy's Locker".