TALKIN’ ‘BOUT TREE TOP

Just this last Saturday, we had a reunion for a lot of  people who used to lived at the Tree Top  apartment complex in south Charlotte. Most of us who attended lived there during the 70's. What made this reunion so  special? Well, back in those days,  Charlotte really had no club/bar or social scene of  any real significance, and your apartment complex friends were your social family. We all  had other friends, of course, but Tree Top was the first really all singles complex in that part of Charlotte, and it became the mecca (if you will) for young, single working adults, people who liked to socialize and party without having to drive home. The  Tree Top clubhouse and pool area WERE the place to gather socially.

During the evening of our special reunion, one of  our founding residents, Emily, had composed and read out to all of us there, a special poem that summarizes a lot of  everything that symbolized that special time in our lives. It's copied here with her permission (I hope):

"         TALKIN’ ‘BOUT TREE  TOP  

Thank you old neighbors and friends for coming to this Tree Top Reunion in 2011.

Who but us could remember living off Nations Ford Rd as a little slice of heaven.

It was the 70’s when love was in the air along with the sweet smell of marijuana.

You could say no to getting high but if you inhaled at Tree Top…well, you were gonna.

When I told other friends about this reunion they gave me that “I don’t get it” stare.

Is it a high school, college or family reunion?  No, it’s Tree Top…you just had to be there.

There’s no explaining Tree Top.  We had no common ground other than being young and loving life.

There were only parties and more parties and suffering hangovers was our biggest strife.

Do you remember the parties at the Clubhouse?  I can still smell the popcorn and the beer.

It was like Cheers where everyone was welcome and you just walked home…no DUI fear. 

We somehow dragged ourselves to work each weekday for whatever jobs we had.    Disco’d Friday night in Charlotte.  Drove to Myrtle Beach Saturday for shagging at the Pad.

The patriarch of Tree Top was the beloved and truly unforgettable Joe Galyan.

He can be a man of few words but has the heart and spirit of a true stallion.

But you had to guard things around Joe because if he could see it, touch it or smell it

He would back up the Truck of Fortune, load it up and drive somewhere to sell it.

And then there were the beach trips.  Sabbash over Easter and Gotcha over Labor Day.

Thank you Chief Gotcha Dick Hale!  We still talk about those trips to this very day.

If you walked down a certain hallway at Tree Top and heard the sexy sounds of Barry White

You could be certain that Jack Lemons was entertaining some lovely lady in the night.

Or perhaps the melody you heard on that same hallway was the sultry Donna Summer

Which could only mean Charlie Lavene’s evening was not going to be a bummer!

Many great love stories began at Tree Top and the couples are still together and strong.                            Frank and Sissy deserve a prize for something.  They finally got married…..but they dated for SO LONG!!

And then there were Charlotte Knight’s nights with Dan Pfeifer and they were just the cutest pair in town.

But so were Pete and Myra and all these years later they are still making the “Rounds”.

Gladys and Mike Vaughan were such a sweet couple and they are still sweethearts today. Mimi and Charlie Crisp….how they used to make me laugh with all the funny things they would say.  

My first roommate at Tree Top was the cute Mary Hinson who will always have a special place in my heart.

My last roommate at Tree Top was the floozy Donna Reeves, a special friend and I hope we’re never far apart.

I never dated many guys at Tree Top  because I was “in love” with  Barry Porter …the  bad boy with class.

Tucker told me years later he was her prom date….if I had known that then I would have knocked her on her ass.

E-Rack was always a cutie but the atmosphere in his apartment was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Now I know that he was simply a very spiritual person and enjoyed being high on life.

Jill Kinney…I heard she had a party once and had a horse brought in. That girl had class!

I always wondered Jill…was it really a horse or just a horse’s ass?

And sweet Martha Bailey and Linda Tyler were always the parties’ loveliest belles.

We Southern girls say “Bless your heart” so sweetly when we really mean “Just go to Hell”.

Fred Parker was a party animal at Tree Top and could often be quite the rascal

But he had the sweetest roommate by the name of Zissel….we just called him Pascal.

Did you know that Mecklenburg County Sheriff Chip Bailey was a Tree Topper?  Yes, he surely was.

In the midst of all the sinning and debauchery at Tree Top, there lived the future fuzz!

Who wins for the nicest guys at Tree Top?  Joe Moody, Larry Harmon and Sam Tyler…that’s a slam dunk!

I have never heard them say an unkind word about anyone but I have seen them all drunk.

Did you know that our very own Susan Ratledge was in a movie with George Clooney.

She really is a movie star although until I saw it, I thought she may be a little looney.

Tree Top without Charlie House would be like Santa Claus without his deer.      

You could always count on good old Charlie unless he met a floozy and she had beer.

Did you know that today is Elvis Presley’s 76^th birthday?   So a toast tonight to the King.

Joe Galyan took me to see Elvis in 1974 along with Shirley Stokes and Larry Springs.

We all moved away from those apartments on Farmhurst Drive & High Meadow Lane.

We moved on with our lives but somehow the Tree Top day memories still remain.

We have lost some dear friends but I think they are smiling down on this reunion from above.

Charlie, Ceil, Doug, Helen, Mike, Patsy, Ted and, Tommy….we celebrate your lives with love.

It’s easy to see tonight that we are all older, life is not as simple and certainly not as much fun.

But for a few years at Tree Top we were all together, we were all happy, we were all young.

If I had to compare those long ago days to something more poetic it would have to be Camelot.

“In short, there was simply not a more congenial spot for happily ever after than there at our Tree Top”.

Written by Emily Stephens Tadlock

for the 2011 Tree Top Reunion

Dilworth Billiards

Charlotte, N. C.

January 8, 2011

I agree with Emily, it was our  "Camelot" for the swingin' swingles 70's. May it, and the friends we made there, live in our hearts forever.

Hey you all, please leave a comment, and tell what you thought. This is a perfect venue for that kind of thing. AND, as Emily and Joe mentioned, we're planning an Oct 1-2 weekend Tree Top Reunion here @ the beach, so comment on that as well. That's the weekend after the end of Fall SOS.

TTFN,

Your ex-Chief Gotcha

BTW - whatever happened to Barry (fire-starter) Houston?

History of the Ebook Reader, or EReader

If you’re interested in any eBook reading device and the role it can play in your life, then you might also be interested in the way in which both the reader - and the eBooks they are designed to display - have evolved over time.

The Book’s Journey Into the Digital World

Books themselves are nothing new, with origins centuries back. However, they were something that most people did not have access to until the development of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century. Since then publishing has gone from strength to strength, and the book made its first appearance in the digital world in 1971, with a digital version of the Declaration of Independence: Project Gutenberg was launched (which now houses many free books available to download right to your reader!)

The First Readers Available on the Market

As the popularity of the eBook started to grow, the first eBook reading device was developed in 1998, and websites first begun selling popular books in eBook format. Though the popularity of downloading and sharing eBooks on the internet caught on, the eBook reader itself wasn’t so quick to follow suit, until recently.

The Evolution of Today’s eReader

When it comes to the modern form of the eBook reading device, Sony led the way with its first release in 2006 - being the first to make use of e-Ink technology. It was 2007 when Amazon launched its Kindle in the US, and popularity of the device began to grow at a rapid speed.

Modern eBook readers make use of technology similar to that employed within a computer, with the main difference being the e-Ink screen: designed for the most pleasant reading experience possible. These screens mean that we don’t experience glare as we would with a traditional computer screen or other handheld device.

The Future of the eBook Reader

Readers continue to evolve, bringing bigger and better features to book lovers. These features include larger screens, as seen in the Kindle DX, and will also, in future, involve color screens and perhaps a larger amount of applications and software added onto the main function of reading eBooks.

eBook readers have received some criticism from those who are worried that the book will lose its purpose. However, the popularity of the eBook reading device shows no signs of slowing down, prompting major manufacturers to get in on the act and release their own models.

To see the full array of Ebook readers, or EReaders, visit:
http://jphvideoventures.com/ereaders/

Till we talk again,
The Beachmiser

Article Marketing - Answering the Three Big Questions

We are continuing our series on Internet Marketing, with ..... Article Marketing.

The Internet is crying out for content. There are billions of web pages with millions more being created every day. And every single one of them needs to have something to say - some content to attract visitors.

Article marketing is a branch of Internet marketing that focuses entirely on providing that content. Many people make good money online simply by writing a few articles on a regular basis.

So what is article marketing for, is it as easy as they say and what kind of results can you expect?

Big questions, but I'll do my best to answer them as comprehensively as possible.

What Does Article Marketing Entail?

Article marketing can be as simple as writing a series of articles to put on your own blog or website. If you've ever written a blog post that ran to more than a few hundred words, you've done it already. That is fine, as far as it goes, but why go to all that effort of writing something to only use it once?

Article marketing is about leveraging the effort you've put into creating an article in the first place and getting as much benefit from it as possible.

You do that by syndicating your article for other people to use, with the condition that every time they publish it on their website, they also include a resource box that you specify. That resource box will usually include a link back to a website, or product offering of your choice.

Syndication of your work is easy: there are hundreds of article directories on the Internet who are happy for you to post your work. EzineArticles is perhaps the biggest and best known, but there are many, many more that you can use. The article directories serve two purposes for article marketers: they are a central source for website builders to go to to find content, and they are also quickly indexed by search engines so you'll get backlinks even if nobody else uses your work.

Is Article Marketing as Easy as They Say?

For some people, writing articles is very easy, but for others it can be a chore. Fortunately, like any other skill you need to learn in Internet marketing, the more you practice, the easier it gets.

The trick is to discover what kind of articles are the easiest for you.

The best articles for beginners to write are how-to and tips articles. Both formats start out by identifying a commonly asked question, such as 'how can I stop my dog barking?' or 'what's the best way to make money online?' and provides an answer.

The how-to format is very straightforward - the article would start with a paragraph that expands on the question, move on to four or five paragraphs that explains the solution and ends with a paragraph that sums up both question and answer.

To write a tips article, on the other hand, you would first research 3 or 5 solutions and then, instead of the 4-5 paragraphs in the middle of the how-to article that explains just one solution, you'd have a separate paragraph - perhaps as bullet points - for each tip. The intro and finishing paragraphs would be very similar to the how-to ones.

Once you've written your article (allow anywhere from one to two hours for each one until you get more proficient) your main job is then to get it onto as many article directories as possible. Although you can do this by hand, it takes a lot of time so I would strongly recommend using one of the many article submission services who will do the job for you.

What Kind of Results Can Article Marketers Expect?

The answer to this question depends on how much work you are prepared to put into it.

Frankly, if all you do is write one article a month and submit it to just one or two directories, your results will be very poor.

Professional article marketers write a lot of articles and build up a big online presence for their body of work over time. That can bring them a huge number of backlinks to websites of their choice, a constant flow of traffic to their money sites and, most importantly, a stream of income that once started, is almost impossible to turn off.

In summary, article marketing is a very effective branch of online marketing that can bring excellent results for those who have the writing skills and the determination to build a big body of work online. It is unlikely that any individual article will make very much impact on its own, but 200 or more scattered over the Internet can bring many long term rewards.

To learn more about Article Marketing, especially as Netrepreneurs see it, read the Entrepreneurs Guide to Article Marketing!

To help you with your article writing and get over writer's block, use the Instant Article Creator for Article Marketing. 

And last but not least, here's a simple step-by-step system that will show you how to break the money code and build a massive list with article marketing. Curiously enough, it's called the Article Marketing Money Code.

Affiliate Marketing - Making Money Online Doesn't Get Much Easier

This is the start of a series of articles about the different facets of Internet Marketing. We start off with .......

AFFILIATE MARKETING

The idea of one person selling products on behalf of someone else, and receiving a commission in return is nothing new. As a marketing method it has been around for probably thousands of years. The idea of affiliate marketing took a little longer to make it onto the Internet though.

The World Wide Web as we know it came into existence in 1990, but it was not until 1994 that the first company applied affiliate marketing methods to its sales strategy. That company was in the adult industry, which often seems to be at the forefront of marketing innovation. However, soon after that the online music store CDNow began to operate what is generally considered to be the first non-adult affiliate program.

A couple of years later, in 1996, Amazon launched their Associates Program and affiliate marketing really took off.

Affiliate marketing is an alluringly simple idea: you show an offer from a third party company to your website visitors or newsletter readers and if they click through and buy, you get an agreed commission. Those commissions can be anywhere from a few percent, right up to 100% of the products' sales price.

Yes, some vendors will give affiliates the full value of the sale because they know that the lifetime value of a new customer is worth far more to them in the long term.

Affiliate marketing can go under many different names: associate marketing, partners programs, joint ventures and revenue sharing. Some affiliate programs are open to anyone while others insist on pre-approving applicants. Still others are only available to people who have bought the product.

It is very possible to become an affiliate for an individual company or product vendor as many run their own affiliate programs. However, the majority are run through affiliate management companies. Possibly the best known of these for online marketers are ClickBank, who specialize in digitally downloadable products and Commission Junction who represent thousands of companies under one roof.

All affiliate programs have their pros and cons. ClickBank, for example, are blissfully simple to use. You pick a product from their marketplace and they instantly give you an affiliate link to use. You need to sign up with them to become a member, but that takes only a few moments and is free. Commissions are generally between 50% and 75%. The downside is that ClickBank make it almost too easy for customers to get refunds and there is always a question-mark over how efficient their link tracking mechanism is.

Despite the potential problems, many Internet marketers make a lot of money from selling ClickBank products.


Here's an example of a Clickbank affiliate link:
http://c13a0ru6vexnuia-lihgr88uf5.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=BLOG
Pretty ugly, no? That's why we recommend Cloaking your affiliate links.
(That which is underlined is a direct link to the article).
I also made a short video on the same subject: http://dickhale.com/videos/linkcloaker

Commission Junction is great for marketers who don't want to be part of the Internet marketing niche and prefer to sell real products from real world niches. The choice is huge at CJ, but you do have to apply to be an affiliate for each company individually.

As you also have to apply to be a member of CJ initially, the reapplication every time you find something you want to promote can be annoying, and very often the companies concerned will reject your application without giving any reason.

Commission levels at Commission Junction are usually much lower - a few percent of the price, but as the products are often in high demand, you can make up for the lower commissions by volume.

Amazon, as mentioned earlier, run their own affiliate, or as they call it, Associates Program. It is free to join and pays a sliding scale of commissions depending on the volume of sales you make. Expect to start out at around 4 or 5%.

The great beauty of Amazon is that once you've sent them a customer for a specific product, Amazon are experts at building up the value of the sale by offering all kinds of other products ('customers who bought this, also like that'). As you get commission on the entire value of the shopping basket, you can often end up with a lot more than you expected.

Many affiliate programs now offer recurring income products and services, so you could make a sale for, for example, a membership site, and receive a monthly commission payment for as long as your referral remains a member. These residual income streams, as they are known, can quickly mount up and provide you with a regular paycheck for months or even years to come.

If you have a website that gets a lot of traffic, a blog with a regular readership or have built up a mailing list with whom you've established a trusting relationship, affiliate marketing can be very easy money. You hold no stock. write no sales letters, deal with no customer service issues and generally avoid all the hassles that product owners and vendors have to face.

Making money online doesn't get much easier than affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketers simply make recommendations, or put up a few banner ads on their sites, and then sit back and take their cut. There need be no overheads to start and you could be earning commissions in minutes.



As a follow-up to all this, I have an article about how to take advantage of your Clickbank affiliate code called "Saving on Clickbank."  You need to read that as well.