Monthly Archives: August 2022

Planning for Disneyland in 2022

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After COVID shutdown the Happiest Place on Earth, the Disney Company had to make some changes to how people visited in order to reopen. Gone are the days when you could show up to the park like Captain EO – uninvited and unannounced. When planning for Disneyland in 2022, reservations are required along with a valid entry ticket.

Planning for Disneyland 2022

As much as I like planning things (sarcasm), I probably should have left the chore to my friend Lynn Barron at ConciEARS. Lynn is the co-host of The Sweep Spot and he worked as a custodian at Disneyland for a number of years. His co-authored book “Cleaning the Kingdom” explores the way the Disney clean-up crew worked and played at Disneyland. Lynn likely would’ve made the whole thing so much easier. He even says that using him to plan your vacation doesn’t cost you anything extra.

However, if I had gone that route, I would’ve written a different blog post and not experienced the new way of doing things at the park.

A Ticket and a Reservation

Walt may have come to Southern California with a suitcase and a dream, but that won’t get you into Disneyland. You need to purchase a ticket and then make a reservation to the park you want to visit. This takes all the spontaneity out of a trip because you have to know what park you want to visit on what day. The choice during the holiday season may seem pretty obvious if you can’t get into the night party. If Disney California Adventure closes early because of an Oogie Boogie Bash Halloween Party on Wednesday, you probably should reserve your space at Disneyland, so you can go for the entire time the park should be open, instead of having to leave at 6pm.

On the positive side, it does allow Disney to limit the number of people coming into the park, which should provide smaller crowds and better customer service. We can always wish upon a star, that it holds true.

Restaurants and Reservations

If you want to have a special dining experience, you need to reserve your spot in advance. We were unable to get into the Blue Bayou, the Carthay Circle, or the Plaza Inn for a character breakfast. I suppose something could open up on the morning of our arrival, but I’m not sure we’re going to try to get there. Other experiences that require reservations were also booked full.

Bring the Smartphone

Most people have a smartphone. It’s just assumed that everyone does. I do not. I don’t want one. I don’t like them. And you can get off my lawn! That means that I’m going to miss out on a number of things in the park. I’m decently certain you need a smartphone to take advantage of Genie Service and Lightning Lane. I also think there are games to play in the park using a smartphone. I’d like to keep my flip phone, but this trip has me rethinking my stance on technological cra(p)ck.

A Package Deal

It used to be you could find a cheap hotel and get tickets separately to make the vacation less expensive. That no longer seems to be the case. Five days at the parks is $380 per person. Two people are $760. That made the Good Neighbor Hotel a bargain to stay at.

We’ll have updates as we get closer and after our trip. (Lynn Barron and ConciEARS are not responsible for the content herein. The endorsement is based on my knowledge of him and his past work. No funds or trade was remitted for this article. The link to Sweeping the Kingdom is an Amazon affiliate link.)

My Golden Hearts Journey So Far

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I joined Golden Hearts through InboxDollars (referral link) because InboxDollars said they would give me $15 if I donated $10 to a charity through the Golden Hearts website. I thought I would take a chance because getting 50% interest over a month is loan shark-type money. There were a couple of other conditions I had to meet to qualify for the $15, but I don’t remember them now. At any rate, I satisfied the conditions and got my $15, which means they paid me $5 to give me the coins I used at Golden Hearts!

What Is Golden Hearts?

Golden Hearts (referral link to Golden Hearts; use the one for InboxDollars instead) is an online casino where you can donate money to a charity listed on their site and get coins to play their games, including several varieties of slots, bingo, and Jacks or Better. I made my $10 donation to International Penguin & Marine Mammal Foundation Inc. Then I played Jacks or Better.

Jacks or Better

I chose Jacks or Better because I basically understand how the game is played, and it gives me a feeling of control. I get to decide which cards I throw away and which I keep. (Once, when I was rushing through the play, I threw away two pairs. My bad.) Slots and Bingo don’t allow you any sort of control, you just get to watch numbers come up on the screen.

In the beginning, it went really well. I was winning a lot of small prizes. In fact, with my first $10, I won over $10, which means the $10 I donated to charity turned into $25 total for me. The site charges a 50-cent fee to redeem any winnings under $25, so I decided to let it ride. I was going for that $25. After all, I had done really well, so far.

The Gambler’s Story

This is where the typical gambling story takes a turn for the worst. Winning streaks come to an end; doesn’t that mean losing streaks do, too? I knew I could win with Jacks or Better, so I kept playing and I started losing. I’ve gone five days without a win.

The good news is that my cash balance hasn’t declined; it continues to sit above $12. How is this possible?

The Golden Hearts Bonus

Every day, Golden Hearts gives its players a free spin on its bonus wheel. The coins come out from 75 to 2500, and they don’t cost anything. I’ve been using only these to play games on Golden Hearts. When they’re gone, I go back to my other Internet activities. I have to be disciplined and not fall for the winning streak trap; as long as I do, I’m playing with house money.

Know When to Fold Them

I don’t know how long it will take me to reach $25, but even if I quit right now, I will have made $17 profit – $5 from InboxDollars and $12 from Golden Hearts (as of August 10, 2022). If gambling online is something you choose to do, I recommend going through InboxDollars to get to Golden Hearts. Just remember to never bet more than you can afford to lose.

 “The National Council on Problem Gambling operates the National Problem Gambling Helpline Network (1-800-522-4700). The network is a single national access point to local resources for those seeking help for a gambling problem. The network consists of 28 call centers that provide resources and referrals for all 50 states, Canada, and the US Virgin Islands. Help is available 24/7 and is 100% confidential.”

https://www.ncpgambling.org/help-treatment/national-helpline-1-800-522-4700/

This article contains referral links to InboxDollars, where you can make money online. (Check out this article to learn more.) All information presented was true at the time of writing to the best of my knowledge.

What I Would Do at D23 Expo 2022 if I Could Go?

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By the time I shuttered Lincoln City Archery, D23 Expo 2022 tickets were sold out, which is probably just as well because at the time I didn’t think I could afford much of anything. Still, now that I know what I am doing with my finances, I could have made it to D23. (We’ll just have to settle for a trip to Disneyland.) So, what would I do if I had a ticket to D23? Here is my suggested itinerary. (Note: This was written on August 10, 2022. My ideas about what to do could change based on new announcements or flights of fancy.)

Day One

Most people will gravitate toward the Disney Legends Induction Ceremony, which is understandable. The Legends ceremony features some of the most iconic people involved with the creation of the Disney Company. Personally, I would likely head over to the Archives Stage. At 10, the panel is “Sounds Delightful.” It will focus on vintage recordings with LPs at the heart of the conversation. Music is an underrated part of the Disney experience. This is the panel I would want to be at.

If, for some reason, I couldn’t make that panel, I would head over to the Backlot Stage for an “Inside Look at the Society of Explorers and Adventurers.” I don’t even know what this is, but the description mentions books, and that’s good enough for me. (I should probably do some research; there’s a wiki for everything.)

At 11:45, the Hyperion stage features “traceback,” a look at the women and people of color that worked at the Disney studios. I suspect Floyd Norman would make an appearance, but that’s not guaranteed. This panel seems like a nice way to learn about Disney history from another point of view.

If I couldn’t make that presentation, I would hit up the “Who Has a Window on Main Street, U.S.A.?” panel back on the Archives Stage.

The next panel on the Archives Stage is about the Mickey Mouse Club from 1989. This is the version that launched the careers of Keri Russell, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, Ryan Gosling, and Britney Spears. I wasn’t a big fan of this reboot, but the star power is undeniable. It’s also not likely many of them will show up. Still, it would be a good time, especially if everyone came in mouse ears.

There is a very good chance that I would go ahead and skip anything structured at this time. Instead, I would get something to eat and spend an hour or so walking the exhibition hall. It’d be a good time to look at what the Indie Authors and other artists are selling as well as what exhibits have come from the Disney Archives themselves.

It might also give me an edge to get into the next panel at the Archives Stage: Disney Legends in Conversation. We don’t know for sure yet who is going to be inducted as a Disney Legend, but this is the panel, everyone should want to get into. There are few people left with a connection to Walt, and some of them should be on this panel. This would be the one panel of the day I wouldn’t want to miss.

The last panel of the day is a toss up between “Walt’s Plane” on the Archive Stage and “Here for the Laughs” on the Backlot Stage. I would probably opt for Walt’s Plane unless the line seemed overly long. Then I would take my time, adventure through the hall and get to “Here for the Laughs.”

Day Two

People will likely flock to the Studio Showcase in the morning. I don’t know why people like sneak previews of upcoming movies and shows; I’d rather be surprised. Opposite the Studio Showcase will be “the Making of Disney100: The Exhibition” on the Backlot Stage and “A Peek Behind the Curtain at Walt Disney Imagineering’s Illusions and Special Effects Development Lab” with a mention of Yale Gracey and the Haunted Mansion. Since I wrote “The Haunted Mansion Is Creativity,” I’d headed over to the Archives Stage, and if I could, I’d likely stay all day there.

The next presentation at the Archives Stage will be “Uncovering Treasures from the Marty Sklar Collection.” Marty Sklar was an integral part of early Disneyland development and an amazing author in his own right.

After that, the Archives Stage will host “A Century of Storytelling at Walt Disney Animation Studios.” Storytelling is one of the things Disney does best; this panel is one to see to glean pointers on what it takes to be a better storyteller.

At 3:45, the Hyperion Stage will have “ABC’s On The Red Carpet’s Storytellers Spotlight,” and at 4pm, the Archives Stage will have Author Ridley Pearson. Maybe this is the time I try to grab something to eat and check out the floor for today. Either of those presentations would be good, but we got to eat at some point.

The last panel of the day will either be the Premiere Stage’s “The Santa Clauses” or the Archives Stage’s “Building Walt’s Florida Project: Walt Disney World from Dream to Reality.” I’m leaning toward the Santa Clauses, even with Tim Allen’s conservative politics. Allen might not even show up, but it’s a tough call.

Day Three

Hall of D23 is where almost everyone is going to be on Sunday – myself included – for “A Boundless Future: Disney Parks, Experiences and Products.” Disney magic isn’t just about entertainment; it’s also about moving forward. Imagineers have created more than one world changing invention. We could see a whole new world open up during this presentation. It starts at 10:30, but in all likelihood, you’re going to want to be in line early. I would miss out on the Hyperion Stage’s “Revisiting Yesterday’s Tomorrow: Disney’s Magical Mid-Century” and the Backlot Stage’s “Back to the Grid: 40 Years of Tron Presented by Enterprise.” Still, “A Boundless Future” is the place to be.

Since the preceding panel ends at noon, it may be difficult to get to the next panel, which starts at 1pm, on the Premiere Stage – “Walt Disney Imagineering: 70 Years of Making the Impossible, Possible.” This is another show stopping panel that I would love to see. Since this panel goes until 2:30, I would miss out on “100 Years of Treasures from the Walt Disney Animation Research Library” on the Backlot Stage.

At 4pm, the Archives Stage will feature “The Disney Parks Through the Decades: A Disney Ambassador Perspective.” I may end with that depending on how I felt. Three days of convention life can be pretty tiring. But there are two other presentations that could convince me to stay to the very end.

The Archives Stage has “Memories of Walt Disney World: Framing A Portrait of 50 Magical Years.” The Premiere Stage hosts “Conversations with Disney Character Voices.”

The Best Things

One of the best things about D23 Expos is the people who attend. There are amazing cosplayers, incredible Disney fans, and if you’re lucky, your family. Standing in line is amazing because you’ll meet people who have the exact same interests as you, who know more about Disney than you, and who love talking about Disney just as much as you. When you’re with your family, you can enjoy the atmosphere and the happiness of everyone who attends. It’s palpable.

This article uses affiliate links. If you click on a link and it takes you to an Amazon page, when you buy something we get a portion of the sale that comes from Amazon, not you or the author/artist.

Word Game for Disney Fans: Kuzco and Mickeyrdle

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Every once in a while, I’ll head over to Mickeyvisit.com to play their Wordle-inspired Mickeyrdle game. Like the original Wordle, you have six moves to guess the five-letter word. The twist here is that this is a word game for Disney fans, so it uses Disney characters and other related vocabulary. There is only one puzzle released every day, so it makes it a little difficult to get excited about getting one word right, especially if you get it in two or three tries. My idea was to use the Mickeyrdle as a mine for writing ideas. Sometimes, the word revealed is a little obscure.

A couple of days ago, when I wanted to try this new idea out, I started with an “o” in the second place being a right letter wrong place. No other letters were in the word. I tried “Manor,” and the “o” was still in the wrong place. In the three guesses, I had eliminated “e” and “i” leaving only the “u.” Sometimes, they get tricky and like to use double letters; still when I put the “o” in the third place, it was still wrong, and I hadn’t found any other letters. That meant the “O” was likely in the last place. “Baloo” wouldn’t work because I had already eliminated the “a.” I tried to think of some words where the “O” was the first letter, but couldn’t come up with anything. Then it hit me: “Kuzco.”

That took the wind out of my sails because I didn’t want to write about The Emperor’s New Groove. Sure, the movie has arguably one of the best casts, from a star power perspective, of any Disney animated film. David Spade, John Goodman, Patrick Warburton and the iconic Eartha Kitt are pretty amazing. Tom Jones puts in an appearance singing the theme song at the beginning of the film, and well-known voice actors, Rob Paulsen and Jess Harnell took small parts. Eartha Kitt by herself has to be considered a coup for the casting director.

But New Groove is my least favorite Disney animated feature, even counting the disaster that is “The Black Cauldron.” It might be funny, but Spade is annoying, and it’s not warm at all. Maybe, that’s how it’s supposed to be, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Support and Disclaimers

We use affiliate links. When a link takes you to Amazon and you buy a product, we get a finder’s fee. It doesn’t cost you anything, and it helps us write more great articles.

If you’d like more articles about Disneyland and the Disney Company, check out www.penguinate.weebly.com. I have also written books available at Amazon and on this website.

If you’d like to support us directly, my wife and I have a Patreon page. Thanks.

A New Princess Ride-Through, TBA, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure

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In their press release touting the change from Snow White’s Scary Adventure to Snow White’s Enchanted Wish, one of the items noted that the attraction, which has been around since 1955, was the only one at Disneyland to feature a princess ride-through. In 2024, that will no longer be the case. Splash Mountain’s makeover will feature Tiana and her crew making her attraction the second princess ride-through at Walt’s original park. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, or TBA (Are the imagineers trolling us?), will take guests on a water-soaked tour replacing the Song of the South theme.

Disney celebrated the announcement of the new theme with “a $50,000 donation “to the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA), a regional, pre-professional arts training center that offers students intensive instruction in culinary arts, dance, media arts, classical instrumental music, jazz instrumental music, classical vocal music, drama, musical theatre, theatre design, visual arts and creative writing.”

TBA follows a recent naming convention that is a little tiresome. The Indiana Jones’ Adventure, The Little Mermaid – Ariel’s Undersea Adventure, and Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure all have someone’s name followed by “adventure.” (We’re giving a pass to the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh” because it took its name form the movie.)

Because Disney is no stranger to synergy, Tiana fans can look forward to a series featuring the princess in 2023. The Disney+ offering will feature Tiana in her princess role but assures fans that New Orleans will also be involved.

By removing the stigma of “Song of the South” and replacing it with Disney’s first African-American princess in Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, Disney has the ability to continue to use its developed intellectual property to form bonds between its television, streaming, movie, and theme park offerings. This will increase the company’s sales revenue for an IP that people have been supportive of.

Support and Disclaimers

We use affiliate links. When a link takes you to Amazon and you buy a product, we get a finder’s fee. It doesn’t cost you anything, and it helps us write more great articles.

If you’d like more articles about Disneyland and the Disney Company, check out www.penguinate.weebly.com. On Medium, I wrote about why Disney should reimagine Splash Mountain. I have also written books available at Amazon and on this website.

If you’d like to support us directly, my wife and I have a Patreon page. Thanks.

What Happened to Lincoln City Archery: The Short Version

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If you’ve been following us on social media or at this blog, you know that we opened up an archery range and shop in Lincoln City, Oregon. You probably also know by now that we have since closed the shop. But why did we close?

We had numerous people tell us Lincoln City needed something for the kids to do and for tourists to do when the weather didn’t cooperate with beach plans. Many people told us the idea was cool and unique (even though I took it from Malta Archery and Armin Hirmer). Anyone who used our range was happy with the instruction and learning how to shoot traditionally. People walked in the door, looked around, and wished us well in our pursuit. They hoped we would make it. I’m pretty sure their thoughts and prayers were with us if they had any to give. And we still had to close.

Nothing ever happens for one reason. There are a lot of moving parts to any decision, and so it went with Lincoln City Archery. Sure, the economy tanked as gas prices rose. We lost a store that was good at bringing people to our side of the mall, and I may have made a few mistakes in forecasting and calculating.

One major reason we closed was time. We live on the Oregon Coast, but for all the time I spent in the shop, I would never know it. Working from 10 to 7 everyday, and being excited because Sunday was 10 to 6, is too much for anyone. And after hearing my grandma talk about why she worked overtime and what that did for us as grandchildren, I realized that I wasn’t getting any benefit from working 70 hours a week or more.

Work shouldn’t be the focus of anyone’s life. Automation and time-saving devices were supposed to give us time to become fully human. Instead, we’ve become smaller cogs in a machine that will grind us up and wear us out if we let it. Any great small business owner will realize that they own the small business and it shouldn’t be the other way around.

If you’re interested in the full breakdown of how things broke down, join our Patreon and check out my post there. If you have a small business, it may help you avoid some of the pitfalls we found.

Snow White’s Enchanted Wish Replaces Snow White’s Scary Adventures

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When Walt Disney opened Disneyland in 1955, he included the “Snow White Ride-Thru” as seen in the guidebook “The Story of Disneyland.” Guests boarded a mine car and went on Snow White’s adventures, but many guests were disappointed. They never saw Snow White in the attraction, and they wondered why. Where was Snow White?

The missing princess wasn’t the only problem parents had with the attraction, which took them and their children on a 3D ride through the 1937 movie story line. The witch shows up numerous times, threatening, changing into the old apple peddler, and the mine cars head through the castle dungeon and into the scary forest, which in the film is a figment of Snow White’s imagination. This attraction was terrifying for some of the younger audience.

According to “The Disneyland Encyclopedia,” the attraction changed to make clear what was going on. Snow White was added to the interior, and “scary was added to the official attraction name. But why wasn’t Snow White in the original plan?

“The park achieved a kind of reality. Like these virtual reality games the children are playing with. I told them we were doing this 40 years ago! Disneyland is virtual reality.” – John Hench

www.wisesayings.com/disneyland-quotes/?sm=107073#107073

The attraction developers wanted people to experience the attraction as if they were Snow White. This may be one of the earliest examples of first-person shooters if you don’t count the Frontierland and other shooting galleries themselves. It was a way for Disneyland to immerse its guests in the films they loved, but for some this proved too traumatic, and even through 2019, Snow White’s Scary Adventures were, well, scary.

When Disneyland reopened after the COVID pandemic on April 30, 2021, the Snow White attraction changed names. It is now called Snow White’s Enchanted Wish. Disneyland Resort Creative Executive for Walt Disney Imagineering Kim Irvine said:

“The Snow White attraction has such a rich history. We wanted to take into account the beautiful scenic work that has always existed and retell the story in a special way. We believe guests will enjoy this sweet story line in a stunning experience.”

https://disneylandnews.com/2021/04/27/disneyland-park-reopens-with-new-magic-at-a-classic-attraction-snow-whites-enchanted-wish-celebrates-a-timeless-fairytale-in-fantasyland/

The Snow White Ride-Thru has been a part of the park since the beginning, and like the park, it was meant to change and grow. This latest incarnation reminds us of Walt Disney’s words, “Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.” It also shows us that scary things can become less scary when we use our imagination to create new solutions.

Support and Disclaimers

We use affiliate links. When a link takes you to Amazon and you buy a product, we get a finder’s fee. It doesn’t cost you anything, and it helps us write more great articles.

If you’d like more articles about Disneyland and the Disney Company, check out www.penguinate.weebly.com. I have also written books available at Amazon and on this website.

If you’d like to support us directly, my wife and I have a Patreon page. Thanks.

Blog Returns to Positive Creativity

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We have several people who signed up for this blog while we were using it for Lincoln City Archery. The posts that are up will remain up, as will the videos on YouTube (for however long YouTube allows). Our blog, on the other hand, will be reverting back to its earlier form. We will be looking at positive creativity and relying on creative principles to help you feel empowered enough to create something to make the world, your world, or the world of someone you love, better. This doesn’t mean that we will be eliminating archery altogether. It just means there will be more diversity. What does that look like?

Travel Blogs

You don’t have to travel to write a travel blog. Books can take you to places that you never knew existed, that may not have ever existed, except in someone’s imagination. They can also take you to places that exist but that you can’t get to. (My “Adventures on the Amur” books are meant to take you to Blagoveshchensk, Russia; it’s a real place, even if the stories are fictional.)

However, travel blogs are also great when they are about actual travel. In the short term, you may see articles about Lincoln City, Newport, or other areas close by. A staycation, when done correctly, is traveling to places you typically ignore right in your own (figurative, possibly literal) backyard. We are also going to take a trip to see my grandma and uncle and Disneyland. Longer term, the travel blogs may be few and far between. It just depends on how much support we get from our Patreon and this website.

Disney Blogs

As the author of “Disneyland Is Creativity,” and “The Haunted Mansion Is Creativity,” you might suspect that I am a huge Disney fan. You’d be right. Some of my most viewed articles have been on why certain movies were bad, like Maleficent 2. However, I also like to write about the joy and the creative principles that Disney uses in its production of intellectual property. I still have some amazing articles on my Weebly site that explore synergy and other aspects of the Disney company.

Book Blogs

Books help improve focus and concentration. They also improve creativity through the use of imagination and increasing working vocabulary. Plus, I like to read, and I hope you do to. Some of the book posts will be to showcase an Indie Author. Some of it will be to explore themes of a book. Some of it will just be to tell you about a book I love to read.

Penguin Blogs

You gotta love our stuffed penguins. Every stuffed penguin that gets adopted allows us to send a donation to the Royal Albatross Centre for their work with little penguins and other birds. From June 2021 to July 2022, we were able to donate over $130 to the New Zealand non-profit. Of course, we love real penguins, so having blog posts here only makes sense.

Positive Creativity Blogs

Creativity requires special and general knowledge. You need to be an expert at one subject, but then you need to know about another subject in order to make the connections that creativity requires. The guy who invented Velcro was an engineer (expert) and a hiker (generalist). When he became interested in how burrs attach themselves to, well, almost everything, he put his engineering knowledge to work. The curiosity linked the two things he knew to bring a third thing into being.

But here’s the thing most people miss, YOU DO NOT NEED TO MAKE MONEY WITH YOUR CREATIVITY. There are a lot of others things out there that require you to make money – your rent, medical bills, food… The figurative list is endless, even if this one only has three items. The entire capitalist system tells you that if you’re making something and not selling it than you are somehow losing. People want you to turn your positive creativity into your side-gig. Make a little extra cheddar because that’s better than making something just for the joy of it.

BAH! Meh! UGH! You can be creative, you can make something, and you don’t have to turn it into a cottage business. You don’t have to find a place to sell it. You can, and I won’t discourage you from sharing your creativity with the world. In fact, I want you to share your positive creativity with the world. But I also want you to know that sometimes, an artist creates something because he or she has to. Often, the world is not ready for that something.

It’s sad. It’s hard, and when you have bills to pay, it gets more difficult to justify that part of you. As a human being, it is important to recognize that your creativity is more of who you are than your job is… unless you’re making bank on your creativity, then good for you!

(One note: If someone asks you to use your creativity for them, you have every right to demand payment of some form. Too many artists, writers, and others are willing to give their creativity away for free or for exposure. This not only hurts the specific person giving the items away, but it also hurts everyone else who could’ve earned some sort of living from the creative endeavor. Don’t let anyone take advantage of you for your special gifts. This could be a blog post on its own, but I’ll let it go for now.)

Thank You

I want to thank each and everyone of you for being with us on our blog. We appreciate you and look forward to your positive creativity.

Get Darren Lamb’s, aka the Worst Buddhist, Books Today

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When Lincoln City Archery closed, we were left with a lot of books. I mean boxes of books, so many books… and sure, over 300 of them are copies of my books (which you can also find on Amazon at this affiliate link), but many of them are from other authors, some I know personally, some I know from the Internet, and some I don’t know, but the titles sounded cool and were likely archery related. One of the authors who was super helpful in getting our store stocked is Darren Lamb, who calls himself the Worst Buddhist. (This article will use affiliate links. When you but using an affiliate link, it doesn’t cost you or the author anything extra, and it helps support our blog and other activities.)

Darren’s Books

Darren writes a lot of cool stuff, usually with a Buddhist and/or Geek slant to them. His Sea of Sin trilogy is three books about friends, who experience horrible tragedies and how they deal with them. In the second book, a serial killer is on the loose. In the third, the venture into the sex-trafficking world of Thailand. These books are well written and engrossing.

“Rebirth: A Zombie Tale” takes place during the zombie apocalypse when a Buddhist monk must set out to find the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama.

“The Book of Benjamin” explores what happens if the mysteries of the universe are really found within a person or within every person.

His latest book, “The Happiness Program,” offers up advice to get you moving toward greater happiness.

If you’re traveling a spiritual journey by yourself, “Ronin Buddhism” is the book for you. Sure, it has “Buddhism” in the title, but anyone can take the geek-related wisdom and use it for their religion. It’s especially helpful for anyone feeling alone in their search for truth. Plus, it has a Batman Buddha on the cover. A related book is his “Little Book of Loving Kindness,” which focuses on Tonglen meditation and over 100 prayers to help you manifest a kinder, more loving life.

“The Worst Buddhist” is illustrated by Darren’s daughter. It features the comical adventures of the worst Buddhist in larger format and provides guidance for parents to help their children learn to quiet their minds.

(Full Disclosure: I have edited many, though not all, of Darren’s books.)

Darren and Lincoln City Archery

When we opened Lincoln City Archery, Darren asked if there was anything he could do. I told him I wanted to feature Indie Authors in my store and asked him what he could sell his books to us for. He refused to take any payment for the books and sent us three copies of each. When we closed, he made the same offer of help. We have the books mentioned above, in very limited numbers, just waiting to find a home. They can be yours for $5 each (plus shipping and handling). If you’re in Lincoln City, Oregon, I can bring them to you.

If you prefer, you can go to Amazon and order them or you can go to the theworstbuddhist.com and support Darren directly. Darren will also be at Salt Lake FanX 2022, where he will have his books, geek Buddhas, and other fun stuff. You can even get his autograph!

About Darren Lamb

Darren is a former Marine and former Buddhist monk. We met on Free Comic Book Day when he was sitting in a comic book shop selling his books. I got a copy, he posted a picture of us with his book on social media, and we became friends. Darren also did a forward for my book: “The Haunted Mansion Is Creativity.”

If you want more information about Darren’s books check out these articles:

Make Money Online with InboxDollars

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On May 31, 2022, I signed up to make money online with InboxDollars. On August 1, I had made $100 by doing surveys, playing (mostly) solitaire, receiving PaidEmails, using the InboxDollars search engine, and uploading some very small Magic Receipts. I took advantage of one offer to see how it worked. With my two referrals also earning money, it only took me a little over 63 days. That’s about $1.60 a day. It won’t pay the bills, but if I’m making that in my spare time, it’s not too shabby.

Referrals to Make Money Online with InboxDollars

When you sign up with my referral link, I get a 30% bonus based on your activity. If you make a dollar, I get 30 cents, and more importantly, you get your whole dollar. The money doesn’t come from your account. Obviously, I want you to make as much as possible, but even a couple cents a day goes in the pot and contributes to the $10 minimum withdrawal currently on my account. Once you’re signed up, you get your own referral link that you can send to family and friends. You’ll get a 30% bonus based on their activity. (I’ll get nothing but a percentage of what you earn through activity, at least as far as I understand it.) Referrals are obviously the easiest way to make money because once they’re signed up and working, you don’t have to do anything.

Using Offers

I’m always skeptical of offers that seem too good to be true. However, because I had a good experience so far, I thought I would try one out. One of my PaidEmails had an offer for Golden Hearts. The website has a small number of casino slots and other games to play. The offer was to donate $10 and you’d get $15 from InboxDollars. That’s Golden Heart’s shtick. The money goes to a charity of your choosing. Did I have $10 to lose? Education isn’t free, so I thought I could make it up on other activities if something went wrong, like I clicked on the wrong link. I got my $15 from InboxDollars about a week later, maybe a little longer. Even better, the coins I got from Golden Hearts had me at $10.82, which means I made my money back twice!

Golden Hearts offers its members the opportunity to spin, once every 24 hours, for more bonus coins. As long as you remember to visit the site once a day after the hour you first spun the wheel, you’ll be able to continue to play whatever casino game catches your fancy on the site and win more money. (If for some reason, you don’t want to sign up through InboxDolllars, use this referral link. But seriously, you should sign up through InboxDollars.)

Other Parts of InboxDollars

I’ve already covered a lot of the others to make money online with InboxDollars in a previous article. If you’re looking to supplement your income and have a little fun doing it, InboxDollars provides a way. In their July 2022 break down of site statistics, InboxDollars reports that the most made from surveys by one person was around $366. One member made over $2,000 through offers, and someone made $670 from referrals!

All the information I have written is true as far as my experience. This article contains referral links as explained above.