He was a great little dog and a good friend.  He was good company for me and that is important when you live alone as I do.

He was also a good influence on me to get out and get more exercise.  He loved to walk through the forests and along the beaches.  He loved to fetch his tennis balls in the back yard.

He barked like crazy when the mailman came.  That always drove me nuts and I used to scold him for it but now I miss it.  Now I find that it is a nuisance to have to go out and check to see if the mail has come.

Here is a recent picture of Patrick in his favorite “look out” spot on the sofa where he kept watch for the mailman.  (That is Ollie and Shadow behind him.)

A while back I wrote a post about him  here and there are some pictures of him here.

I have another little dog, Waldo, a Shitzu mix that I took in as a stray last summer.  Waldo is a sweetie but he is very quiet and very small, almost like another cat.  Waldo doesn’t bark or fetch and he’s not really much for the outdoors.  Also, he doesn’t look at me the way Patrick used to and he is too small to really hug.  I miss hugging Patrick so much already…

Even the cats loved to cuddle up to Patrick!  Here is a picture taken a few weeks ago of my cat Ollie snuggling up to Patrick.

You can see how woolly Patrick was.  I always let his fur grow out during the winter for warmth and then get it clipped short in the spring .  But even with it clipped short, his fur was like Velcro and it could take hours to pick all the burrs and leaves and stuff out of his coat after a hike.  It was just part of taking him out…  I would get a cup of hot tea or a glass of iced tea, depending on the season, and sit down with him and comb or cut all the scratchy little bits out of his fur.

So I am thinking about him a lot and really missing him today.  Good bye little friend.

Of course there would be nothing that would make me happier than to have Favre play another 10 years!

Here are some funny out-takes.

Brett Favre Injury Photo

Brett Favre Injury Photo

Click to see extra large close-ups of Favre’s thigh injury photo and Favre’s and Favre’s ankle injury photo.

These photos come from Brett Favre’s agent, Bus Cook, who shared them with Rick Cleveland of the Clarion-Ledger.

Looking at the extent of the injuries certainly gives you some insight into Favre’s fateful end-of-the-4th-quarter decision not to run the ball and go for the pass instead.

I am such a die-hard Favre fan that I can’t think clearly about him.  What I love about watching him goes beyond appreciation of his talent.  I love watching his passion for the game and watching how his enthusiasm energizes the whole team.

If he had stayed out of the game after his ankle injury he would have gone out a hero.  If he had hung onto the ball instead of passing the Vikings might have made the field goal and won the game. 

But the part of Farve that made him get back into the game and made him go for the pass is what people like me love most about him. 

In this life how many chances do we get to see pure passion expressed so openly and joyfully?

I know that posting these photos won’t even begin to silence his detractors but I am hoping that they will help his fans understand what happened at the end of the playoff game.

This link to your Twitter page will be DOFOLLOW! (If you don’t know what that means, don’t worry about it.  It is a good thing.)

As always, this is a DOFOLLOW blog and you get link juice with your comments, but this new enhancement means that you can now get TWO DOFOLLOW links from your comments: one from your signature and one from your Twitter username.   I think that is so neat and such a nice way to say “thanks” to everyone who follows this blog!   I will continue to moderate the comments but I will make a point to keep a close eye so your comment should be approved promptly.

I think this sounds like a lot of fun so I’ll leave it up for a while and see how it works.  If it is flaky or it slows things down or acts up somehow I will get rid of it.

I am going to try it out and I invite you to try it out too!

Here it is:

see more Celeb Look-A-Likes

I live in the Green Bay area where most people still really love Brett Favre and root for him no matter who he plays for.

I really don’t care about the Vikings and only followed them because Favre seemed happy there.

Obviously the best outcome of the Viking Saints game would have been for Favre to shine and the Vikings to win but if I had to choose I would rather that Favre had a good game and the Vikings lost than for the Vikings to win despite a poor performance by Favre.

Of course the outcome was the worst thing possible:  the Vikings lost because of a mistake by Favre.  He made a very stupid pass which was intercepted and prevented the Vikings from kicking a very doable field goal to win the game.  It was in some ways a gruesome re-enactment of the end of Favre’s last game with the Packers.

You know what the brightest moment of the game was for me?  It sounds crazy but I felt really good when Favre was injured and it looked like he might not come back to the game.

He would have gone out a hero.   That is all I wanted out of this game.

But he will always be a hero to me.

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future’s sakes.

Work has certainly not been play for me lately. I am not happy with multi-level marketing. (see previous post)  I am bored with all the nit-picky detail work involved with affiliate marketing.  The final deciding factor is that I have come to the realization that I no longer enjoy working from home.

I started working from home when my kids were little so I could stay home and take care of them.  Then when my kids got older my parents got sick and I brought them to live with me.  So for a long time working from home was a real blessing in my life, allowing me to be there for the people I love most.  But now my kids are grown and my parents have passed away.  It has gradually dawned on me that I am really sick of working alone at home by myself!

So now I am taking some classes to prepare me for a second career.  I want to have coworkers again and I want to be able to “punch out” and just walk away from work.  Until you have had your own home business you cannot begin to imagine how much it takes over your life!

I am not going to give up my online multi-level marketing and affiliate marketing businesses.  It would be crazy for me to drop them and walk away.  But I am looking forward starting something new in the real world!

Wish me luck…

I had high hopes for My Harvest America but they seem to be having some serious product delivery problems. Their decision to launch three days before Christmas only to be unable to deliver product really worries me. I have heard of some people getting their groceries but I haven’t gotten mine and no one I actually know has gotten theirs. My grocery order that I placed on Jan 4 is finally showing as “shipped” as of today. The tracking number that is displayed does not link to anything and is not valid in the FedEx tracking system so I have no idea what is going on with it.

And instead of addressing these problems openly with their distributors, they are sending out emails warning distributors about compliance issues!  I think they might want to consider apologizing for the delivery mess before they start going after us about logos and disclaimers.

I’ve been through a lot of launches and I realize that there are always some glitches.  It is not the glitches that disturb me, it is what appears to me to be poor decision making.

I just can’t go through it again, trying to build in a company with half-baked owners! I need to see some smart decisions from My Harvest America before I promote it. I am not going to drop out of it but I am not encouraging anyone to get into it at this point and I am not building any websites or doing any advertising.

Am I going to “miss out” by waiting? I don’t think so. One of the reasons I liked My Harvest America to begin with is that it looks like a genuine non-MLMer’s MLM.

Most MLMs are full of veteran networkers who go from one company to another trying to build something that will last. It’s always the same people over and over again.

Most non-MLM people think MLM is a scam. Most non-MLM people have no interest in buying overpriced fadddish nutritional products, especially from their friends or relatives.   It is usually very difficult to get someone with no MLM experience into an MLM.  (That is one reason genealogy lists are so popular.)

But My Harvest America is really something different and (if they can get it together) actually does have the potential to be a breakthrough business. My Harvest America could be the first MLM to bring in a huge crowd of people who have no experience in MLM and no interest in the business and just want to order the product.

(Yes, there are a few old-school MLMs that have had some success in branding themselves with high priced high quality products but, especially in these economic times, most people do not want to pay inflated prices – no matter how great the products are.  My Harvest America has the potential to be something much much bigger than anything else out there!)

My Harvest America has the potential to appeal to almost everyone in the country. The only people I can think of who would NOT benefit from it would be single people who eat most of their meals at restaurants.

The point is that in other MLM launches, you have to scramble at the beginning to get the attention of the MLM community because you know that experienced MLMers are going to make up the bulk of your business. You need to contact your list ASAP before somebody else grabs them. I think My Harvest America is going to be different. If My Harvest America gets it together, I think that a year from now, when we look at our downlines we are going to see that the vast majority are people who have no interest in or experience with MLM.

So there is no rush.

I am advising everyone to take their time and wait to see how this plays out. If My Harvest America is able to resolve the delivery problems and smooth out the ordering process and the other issues then they will be a great home business opportunity for many years to come.

Don’t let anyone push you into joining until you are satisfied that My Harvest America has their act together.

Scams are the only kind of opportunity that’s only good if you “get in at the top.” A reputable business is a good opportunity any time.

Here is my website if you want to take a look at My Harvest America.

If you have any questions about My Harvest America call me at 715-330-3306.