The Most Expensive Flowers I Ever Bought

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Jenya, my wife, likes to get flowers. When we started dating, she said she didn’t really like cut flowers because they would be dead in a few days. That’s changed. She likes the beauty that fresh flowers can bring to a home, and they elevate her mood. I was working one of part-time, on-call jobs at Fred Meyer when I saw that they had flowers in the bargain bin.

$2.64, to make my wife happier? That’s easy. I picked them up, realized I didn’t know if they would be cat-friendly, and decided to get them anyway. Surely, Jenya would know.

I brought them home. Jenya enjoyed them. Sima ate some parts of them, not a lot, but she’s a cat. That’s what cats do. They sat on our counter overnight.

The next morning, Sima got up with us but then went back to bed. She slept most of the day. It was overcast. I blamed the weather.

The next day, she vomited and went to the bathroom five times in one hour. Even though she was in the bathroom, she was only leaving little balls of mucus, and only one or two at a time.

The third day, she vomited again. For the briefest of moments, I thought about waiting until I pre-arranged appointment a week from this incident. But I decided that I didn’t know enough about anything to make that decision. I called the vet to see if we could get her in.

We went to the vet the next morning. Sima was running and jumping and behaving normally, but I had scheduled the appointment. Sima didn’t want to go, and she told us loudly that she was fine. We went anyway.

The vet examined Sima and looked at a photo of the flowers. “What are those?” We didn’t know, but the vet tech used her phone to google the types of flowers. “They’re lilies. They could be Peruvian or they could be white. It’s hard to tell. Let’s go ahead and do some bloodwork on Sima, check her kidneys. Some lilies cause renal failure. Some aren’t that bad. I’ll go look up the flower.”

The vet went to look up the flower, and the tech took Sima to do the bloodwork. When they returned, the vet said it was difficult to say which flower was in the picture. We’d need to wait 15 minutes for the blood results. When she returned again, she said everything looked normal, except for her renal measures, which were a little elevated. The vet wasn’t too worried. We’d arrived too late to provide any mitigating treatment, anyway. So, we would need to come back in a week’s time to do some follow up testing.

$447.74 for the vet visit. Those are the most expensive flowers I ever bought. When I messaged my sister, the first thing she asked was if I needed money.

To have to reduce this situation to the monetary stress it caused sickens me, even if I’m trying to make light of it. I had to take my kitty in to get help. Now, rather than rejoicing that she’s likely to be okay, I have to hope that I’ll have a job within the next month, so I have the money to pay the bill.

Bring out the Facebook Troll or Be Kind

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Almost every session of me scrolling through Facebook ends with some sort of negative experience. Sure, politics are a big part of that, even when comedians are the ones joking about it. (I mean, I guess you can either laugh or cry, maybe both.) However, what really bothers me is the need for people to rip on others for their appearance, and let’s face it, it’s usually men ripping on women. It’s disgusting and sad. Most often, it’s not true. These men are just trying to say something they think is funny and criticizing someone’s appearance is one of the easiest ways to do that.

Sometimes, it makes me wonder if I should harness the child I was in middle school. That kid put everyone down. He made adults cry. As he got older, he learned how to insult people in such a way that he didn’t need profanity. A subtle barb would fester in the room waiting for the wounded person to realize what had just happened, leaving others in stitches. Release that kid on the Internet, and man, Facebook would be responsible for a lot more emotional issues than it has already caused (sometimes on purpose). But that attitude and those words were a part of growing up Gen X. You had to be tough on the street, and if you weren’t big, you better make sure your words were cutting enough to earn the respect of the bullies. Sticks and stones could break your bones, but words would leave you crushed, despite the saying to the contrary.

At some point, my freshman year of college, I decided I didn’t want to be that person anymore. I had just verbally destroyed someone at lunch. Everyone was laughing, but I didn’t feel good about it. I didn’t want to hurt people anymore. It didn’t seem right.

Yet, now it seems that Facebook is full of those type of people – trolls trying to cause anguish to garner views and likes. Someone might even say, “it takes a troll to hunt a troll,” and part of me thinks I could do some good by doing some bad.

But I look at the other Gen Xers that are posting about their childhoods and what they loved about growing up Gen X. They all say pretty much the same things: in before the streetlights come on, forced to be outside during the day, drinking from the garden hose… rarely do they mention the war of words that was a part of childhood then. Sure, they’ll talk about “You’re mama,” but that’s as far as they go. When confronted with a troll, they don’t call on their inner 12 year old and load that troll down with harsh words. Instead, they’re reliving their fondest memories. They’re reliving the best parts of a life that is so far gone, and they’re reliving parts of that life they didn’t get to live when it was happening.

And then there are the people who are trying to make Facebook better: a song, “It’s to be kind,” the aforementioned Gen Xers, the folks at Mr. Rogers, Levar Burton… These are the people that are trying to create a healthier social media ecosystem, and there are hundreds more.

So, let’s try to aspire to their level of kindness, joy and wonder, and not sink to place of trolls. It may not be easy to be kind, it may not garner as many views or comments, but it’s better for you.

Author’s Note: I have not included any links to Facebook because it’s probably better for us to not be on it. However, as long as it’s the easiest platform to use to reach my friends, family and new readers, I’m still going to be posting. Please like, comment, and share. Also, feel free to leave a comment on my blog post, maybe we can build a better social media without the trolls…

The Paradox of Choice and Me in April 2025

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This article contains affiliate links. If you click on a link and it takes you to Amazon or InboxDollars and you order something or sign up through that link, I will get a small finder’s fee. Whatever you order will not cost you more than what you normally would’ve paid. Not all the links will go to Amazon. Some will go to pages that are a part of our online footprint, including Etsy and Patreon.

Read more: The Paradox of Choice and Me in April 2025

It’s been a while since I read The Paradox of Choice, and the book is packed away somewhere, so I’m not going to get the exact statistics and examples right, but they will be close enough. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz looks at scientific studies involving work insurance offerings. The scientists found that when a workplace offered a few choices in insurance, people would sign up. When the business offered lots of choices, people were less likely to sign up. Businesses would offer 100 different insurance options and a high percentage of people wouldn’t choose any of them, even though the insurance was supposed to be a part of their compensation package. The business saved money this way, and people were left without insurance because they couldn’t process enough information to make a good choice.

Paralysis in Decision Making

One factor in the paralysis in decision making comes from the fear of making the wrong choice. You choose an insurance with a high deductible because it also covers overnight ER visits for free, but you never end up in the ER while have to cover the deductible because of other medical issues. You can’t know what’s going to happen in the future, and many people would rather not make a decision than make a wrong decision.

Everyday Choices

The medical side of it is sort of an extreme example because this paradox of choice occurs any time there are choices to be made, and we make choices from the moment we get up, and sometimes before. Am I going to hit the snooze button? Am I going to hit the snooze button again? What should I wear? What am I going to have for breakfast?

When we go to the store we are faced with an aisle of cereal choices, soup choices, and other food choices. What are we going to get? Will it be the best deal? Do we decide based on per ounce cost or gross cost? Most of us develop routines to avoid having to make all of the decisions all the time. We run on autopilot. We have favorite brands because we refuse to deviate from them, even if another brand would be a better value or offer a better experience. I have my clothes set up, so I can grab the first thing available in the drawer and wear it. I tell myself, no one cares what I’m wearing, why should I?

How Do I Make Money?

However, the one place where I have problems every day is in the decision on what to do. For those who haven’t been following along, I got laid off in January. I had moved to Eugene, December 16, for a job promotion. I was always taught you move to where the job is. I paid the moving expenses, maxing out my credit cards and depleting my savings, and signed a 12-month lease. On January 16, my job told me my position was eliminated. SURPRISE! Now, I have to scramble to figure out how to make money to pay my bills.

The question I’m faced with every moment of every day is “What can I do right now to make money?” There are a lot of options. Unfortunately, they all seem relatively equal in how much I will make and the amount of effort and time they take.

Previous Experience

I have had previous experience in having to make this type of decision back when I had chosen to be a freelancer. At that time, however, I had a steady income from an SEO writing gig that I could do whenever articles were available, and they were available a lot. I paid a lot of bills through that job because I knew I needed to average eight articles a day to meet my financial obligations. I didn’t have insurance or retirement benefits, but I was younger and toward the end I lived in a country where everyone had insurance, citizen or not. Once I had those eight articles written, I could do whatever I wanted, and I didn’t have any monetary pressure on me. They changed their business model during COVID, and now, I don’t have that cash cow anymore.

What Are My Choices?

Here is a quick list, in no particular order, of what I could choose to do to make money today:

These are all things I could work on to theoretically improve my financial standings. Let’s break each choice down.

InboxDollars

Earlier this year, I published an article about InboxDollars and how to use it. Since then, they have changed the way they payout their cash option. It used to be you could cash out every $10 through Paypal. Now, there is a 30-cent fee. It’s hard to make 30 cents at InboxDollars when you’re just doing the minimum. The 30-cent fee doesn’t change if you cash out at higher levels, but you might just want to get a gift card of some sort and avoid the fee altogether. Waiting until you have accumulated $100 to cashout seems like an eternity. In 2024, it took me about six months to make $100 with InboxDollars.

I have found some deals to speed up the process. They offered $50 if I deposited $20 into a Sofi account. The payout isn’t immediate, but it’s better than double my money. I chose Disney stock for my Sofi account, so it’s not like I spent it (unless Disney stock goes below $0).

I’ve been grinding at the games I can download to my smartphone. (I don’t have a plan; it connects to Internet.) The thing is: These are a grind. I can spend all day pushing my finger against the screen thousands of times and only be in the process of making money without having made any actual money. (And I have.)

Golden Hearts Games and Clubs Poker

These are two gambling sites I found at InboxDollars. If I deposited a certain amount of money, I would get more back. (I don’t recall the exact offer, but it was probably something like deposit $20, get $30 back.) I tried it on Golden Hearts Games first because I was relatively new to InboxDollars. I played the games required, got paid out at InboxDollars, and then got paid out at Golden Hearts Games. I go to Golden Hearts Games every day to get my free spin. I play that money on Old School Jacks or Better, and that’s it. When my counter fills up to $50, I get to redeem for cash. (It used to be $25.)

At Clubs Poker, I play the Great Pigsby. This site requires $100 in credits before it will payout. Again, I don’t spend any of my own money. They offer 50 cents a day for games. You have to play those coins before they can go in the redeem pile.

Both sites offer free coins to play with, too. However, if you have a gambling problem, these sites aren’t for you. Personally, I recommend you finding out if these two offers still exist on InboxDollars before signing up through the links I’ve given you.

Write for Penguinate.com

Penguinate.com is my own website and where this article was originally published. I make a few pennies every month from content I’ve already published. The website has never paid for itself, and I need to hit the $100 mark for my first payout. Currently, I am at $20.97, which includes my highest month of December 2021 at $1.06. Looking at these numbers, I should probably just stop writing, at least for my website. But there’s always the possibility that something I write will go viral. All I need is to serve about a million ads to make it to about $83… Still, I keep pulling that one-armed jack that is blog posting.

Publish on Patreon

I have a small and dedicated group of supporters on Patreon. If I wrote more and put it on Patreon would I be able to grow that audience? I’ve written various posts about Patreon. The quick version is: Patreon allows people to support their favorite artists and creators. I would write with the hope that people would want to support us monthly for my writing and Jenya’s plushie creations. I have already added a way for people to get a free month at the $1 to see what the future of Patreon and creativity look like (Valid until June 29, 2025). I will be releasing one post a month and I have them scheduled through June, but I could write more of them for future months.

Plushies on Etsy

Jenya is making some really incredible plushies and putting them on Etsy. There’s this beautiful, vintage-inspired bunny, some bears, and a penguin or two. Do I need to do more work on advertising that shop? The problem is that we can’t charge enough to cover Jenya’s time for her handmade plushies. The bunny took five days to knit and finish. You can’t charge $500 for it. Maybe we need to come up with something else, but that will mean investing time to learn the new thing and money to get the materials to make the new thing. Seriously, though, if you haven’t seen these new plushies, you should head to our Etsy shop now.

Amazon Affiliate

I am an Amazon Affiliate. I’m not going to rehash the information in the very first part of the post to explain what that means for you. What it means for me is that I could write a bunch of posts on products and use the affiliate link to sell those products. I don’t like doing it, but it may be the only way to get people to use those affiliate links. Right now, I use them for my books and some other odds and ends. My mom has been good about ordering things through the links, but it ends up being about $10 every three months.

Look for a Job

Looking for a job has changed, especially since I’m in a place where I don’t have any contacts. It used to be you could go from business to business, drop off a resume, and get an interview. Until recently, an interview was all I needed to get hired.

Now, you need a cover letter and resume for every job that matches the job description word for word. Businesses aren’t even reading them anymore. They run them through “AI,” and if AI is looking for “managed special events” and the resume says “organized fundraisers,” AI will say that the resume doesn’t match the job description and no human being will ever see the resume. (This is because AI isn’t AI; it’s a mathematical algorithm and a series or preprogrammed responses. AI is incredibly complicated, but it hasn’t mastered the learning part of intelligence.) This means that every resume needs to be done again for every job.

It takes me four hours to do this. That four hours does not include the time it takes to find a job on Indeed, where I have to sift through postings for nurses, physical therapists, mechanics, teachers, even though I told Indeed I do not have the qualifications for those jobs. I also have to sift through jobs that don’t offer benefits or don’t pay enough. I’m too old to take a job that doesn’t offer health insurance and retirement. If I take a job at $17 an hour, I’ll need to work 54 hours a week to make ends meet. In the words of Danny Glover, “I’m too old for this…” I have 20 years until I turn 73. I have $10,000 in my retirement account. There’s no way I can afford to take job that doesn’t offer some sort of 401k. Additionally, there’s no reason I should have to work 54 hours a week to afford food, rent, and a modicum of entertainment.

I know there are some people who are perfectly fine with me taking a job for $5 an hour. It’s a sacrifice they’re willing to make. However, those jobs only put me deeper in debt. We gotta do what we gotta do, but f…

Looking for a Job II

I’m sorry. I got distracted. I have had one face-to-face interview for the hours of work that I put into finding a job. There’s no guarantee that if I find and apply for a job that there will be any benefit at all. I will just have wasted my time.

Contract Work

Luckily, I have two contract jobs I love and one I was trying to get away from. (When I took the bank promotion, I was happy with the idea that I would be able to cut down my workload to one job. I guess I should have been specific about which job.) The one job that I have that actually pays per hour is inconsistent, pays $17 per hour, and offers no benefits. The last two weeks, I had no hours. This coming week, I will have between eight and 12 hours. I’m glad I didn’t give it up when I moved, but it’s not a long-term solution, even if I do get my own regular assignment soon.

Working for Asgard Alaska is great. (You should sign up for their newsletter.) I’m helping friends realize their dreams for a Viking village. I’m learning tons about Viking life. The job is super flexible. As long as we have content for two posts a month, I can do the work I want. They pay well, too. It’s not an endless source of wealth, yet. There’s a limit to how much I can write in a year. Still, it’s nice work if you can get it, and I’m glad I have.

I have a new contract with Bearly Entertaining and their related YouTube channel, StudyFocusBeach. (You should subscribe to their YouTube channel.) Again, I’m going to be helping friends, who are helping me by sending work my way.

These three jobs add up to about 50 hours a month. I would need to find another 150 hours of work to start to feel comfortable financially again.

Write a Book

There are two parts to this, and they are very different. I could spend my time writing another book. I have several ideas. I even have a couple started through 4,000 words. I have one book formatted and ready, except it needs a cover. I have another book that needs formatting and a cover. It takes about a week to format. However, writing a book and getting a cover made (which may or may not have a cost, depending on how I do it), do not mean that the book is going to sell. The last book I published sold 10 copies.

I need to learn how to market my books. I do best when I’m able to sell them in person, but best means 10 books in six hours. There’s got to be something that I’m missing in my marketing piece until I find out what that is, I’m going to be stuck pulling the one-armed bandit lever that is book publishing.

DraftKings and FanDuel

I almost forgot about these two gambling sites. You don’t need to deposit any money, just participate in their free contests. They don’t work in all states. Some contests only offer bonus cash that you then need to use to gamble.

On DraftKings, I’m able to do their pools on Sportsbook and whatever they decide to do on their Fantasy site that’s free. On Fanduel, I will get bonus cash and then play their NBA “Everyone Wins” contest. If you have a gambling problem, these sites are not for you.

I haven’t followed any professional sports enough to know who’s going to be good. I do read the articles each site presents for the game I’m playing. It’s mostly like playing the lottery. You may or may not win. One weekend I wound up with $13. There have been several weekends where I ended up with $1. The payouts are almost immediate and go to my Paypal.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is that none of these options, outside of the contract work, is guaranteed to make me any money, and my current contract work isn’t enough to live on. Even if I were able to build enough contract work to make $4,000 a month, it wouldn’t be enough to cover health insurance or retirement. So, how do I choose amongst all these things?

Is Making Money the Only Thing?

Of course, another part of being unemployed at home is that I have other choices to make. Do I take out the trash? Do I sit with the cat? Do I go for a walk because it’s sunny out? Do I read the really interesting book that I want to finish? Do I need another cup of coffee? (Probably yes.) Do I help fold the laundry? (Also probably yes.) How much “work” do I have to do to justify spending time with Jenya, my wife? None of these things will make my bank account healthier. Will they help me destress or will I continue to stress because it appears I’m not making the effort to improve my situation? All of these activities break the flow of any other activity I might have been engaged in, but that’s part of the paradox of choice. Any other choice interferes with the choice you’ve currently made.

What about Stress?

Everything that I need to do takes motivation. There’s no habit built, yet, and that means stress can throw me out of planned day of anything. The news, the economy, what’s happening with immigrants, what’s happening with government employees and their unemployment, my vertigo, my cat gets sick, getting turned down for a job, anything that causes the day to go from okay to awful can make it almost impossible for me to write, to apply for jobs or to do much of anything but sit despondently in fear about the future. I can’t move forward on those days when I’m stuck in the Swamps of Sadness. Even on good days, I question if I’m moving forward at all.

What Choice Should I Make?

I don’t know the answer to that question. I can tell you what I generally do when I’m not wallowing in self-defeat and despair about the state of the world and its politicians. I get up, give my cat Greenies, go to my gaming phone, and start grinding for the next level. I get my casino games out of the way and set up my NBA games and pools if available. I go to InboxDollars and try to get my daily goal met. This could mean cycling through 10 or 15 surveys until I make $1 or maybe a little more. I look at Indeed for jobs and save the ones I’m slightly interested in. I have lunch with Jenya. We go for a walk. I come back and try to apply for jobs, but by this time, I’m usually out of motivation. I try to do something productive. I backslide, and it’s time for dinner and a movie. Between 8pm and 9pm, I come back to the laptop hoping for some good news. Between 9 and 10pm, I head for bed where I read. However, throughout the day, I am constantly second-guessing myself and that energy never returns.

Salem Craft and Vendor Show Goers and You!

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Short Version:

  • One month free at the $1 level at our Patreon.
  • Use this link.

Longer Version:

As part of our visit to the Salem Craft and Vendor Show on March, 29, 2025, I thought I would invite everyone who saw us at the show, who was not a member of our Patreon, a chance to see what we offer. Then I asked why should I limit it to just people at the show. So, if you wanted to see what happens with our Patreon every month but you just haven’t had the courage or spare dollar to join, use this link to get one month free at the $1 level.

What Do You Get?

It’s a dollar, so we’re not giving you the world. However, the $1 level allows you to access all of our posts and almost all of our past freebies. I say “almost” because I’m not sure if it is actually “all.” Generally, I think if you’re willing to support us monetarily, you should get access to everything, but there may have been a time when I thought something was more important for those who subscribe for more. You’ll see the posts for Advent Calendars and Penguin Christmas Train.

Every month I try to write a post about what happened the last month. However, for the next three months, I have creativity posts written, including The Eureka Moment, the Myth of the Muse, and Where Do Ideas Come From? More may follow as I have time.

Every Patreon member at the dollar level or higher gets their name in my latest book if they are a member when that book is uploaded to Amazon.

What Do You Have to Lose?

Nothing as far as I can tell. You help us move forward creatively. You get access to exclusive content, like the Advance Reader Copy of my next book. And if you don’t like what you see on our Patreon, it didn’t cost you anything. We hope you’ll stick around. But in order to stick around, you have to take that first step and join our Patreon. Thank you.

Fine Print: Limited to the first 300 people who sign up. Current Penguinators are ineligible for this promotion; however, we would love for you to comment on why you support us at Patreon. Without you, we couldn’t do half of what we do.

‘Spellsinger’ Weaves Novel Song of Creativity

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Editor’s Note: This article uses affiliate links. If you click them and buy something, our website gets a small amount from each sale. It will not cost you anything extra.

I found a copies of the first two books in the Spellsinger series and got caught up in it. An American college student, who takes the name Jon-Tom, finds himself transported into a fantasy world. The animals dress in clothes, talk and form the basis of society. There are some humans, too, but (at least in the first two books) almost every being is smaller than the over six-foot tall man. Humans typically top out at about five feet tall. There’s a dragon. There’s magic; that’s how he got there after all. There is also some adult words and situations. I’ve been reading about 50 pages a day in the series.

The best part of the story is that Jon-Tom is a Spellsinger, which means he can only cast spells through his music. These spells rarely turn out the way he thinks they should, especially since modern concepts, like cars, need to be translated into the place and time where he is. While reading, I keep thinking about all the songs that he could use for certain situations.

When I’m not reading the book, I often think about what songs would do what if they triggered magic. Of course, I take my cues from the book. A song about the aforementioned car summoned a snake to ride on.

Jon-Tom’s troubles include not being able to control the magic. He is a newbie after all. More importantly, he often can’t think of what songs to sing. His music tastes before arriving in this new world were heavy metal though he knows other genres as well.

Jon-Tom is told several times that the lyrics aren’t necessarily important. He needs to concentrate on what he wants from the magic. Of course, that’s easier said than done.

If it were me, once I finally had time, I would write down the lyrics to the songs I knew and study them for possible effects. Disco Inferno seems like it would be a good song for burning things down, or you could go with Burning down the House. We Didn’t Start the Fire would be interesting. It could keep people from starting fires; it could summon some of the things it mentions. I fear Elvis’ Burnin’ Love would create the wrong kind of conflagration.

Money is always an issue, and most songs are about how it’s bad. Money Makes the World Go ‘Round might be one to use. If you needed nickels, you might be able to go with Playground in My Mind. Weird Al’s Eat It should be enough to conjure a feast, and his Fat might help in a fighting scenario.

I’d probably have to rely heavily on Huey Lewis and the News, Disney, and Golden Oldies. It’s the possibilities that make the Spellsinger series so intriguing.

What would you do if you found yourself in the same situation? Which songs would be you goto music? Leave a comment below.

Blog Posts and Web Consultations: How Can I Help You?

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Are you a small business that has difficulty keeping its web content up to date? Are you looking for someone you can trust to help you mold your web presence into something better? I offer blog posts and web consultations to help move you to the next level in Internet presence.

Blog Posts

Everyone talks about AI, and people are using it to build their web footprint. However, this may not be the best way to go about getting your blogs seen. Some sources say that Google prioritizes good content regardless of how it was written. Others have said that search engines demote AI-written blog posts and prefer organic written posts. Either way, I can help.

You likely don’t have the time to commit to writing your own blog posts on a timely basis. To keep your audience engaged, you need to have a schedule that you can follow. Posting the same day on a weekly or bi-weekly basis will keep your blog relevant and in front of your audience. I can help with that. I can write one post or several throughout the year.

These posts will be informative, researched, and optimized for search engines. I have written thousands of SEO posts over the years, and now, I am ready to provide that expertise to you. If you would like to see some samples of my writing, check out the archive at Asgard Alaska. The articles with Ivar in the by-line are the ones I wrote.

Web Consultations

If you have several websites or social media that you use, and you want to improve their synergistic performance, I can help with that. Sometimes, it’s as simple as building links between your YouTube channel and your website. Sometimes, it’s a little more complicated.

I have worked with Paul Draper and Armin Hirmer to improve their web footprints. Let’s see how I can help you with your web metrics.

Not a Quick Fix

Blog posts and web consultations aren’t a quick fix. Instead, they offer a way to slowly grow your business while presenting a better face to the public. If you want organic traffic that builds on your pay-per-click ads, you need to have great content. That’s where I can help.

Contact Info

Contact me if you’re interested in moving forward with blog posts or web consultations. Leave a comment below. Thank you. If you aren’t looking for a writer or web consultant, find out how you can help us. (This article has been optimized for the words “blog posts and web consultations.”)

How Can You Help Us?

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Since I got laid off one month after paying to relocate for a “promotion,” people have asked how they can help. I don’t have a real answer for that because I’m still in the middle of trying to figure out what the hell happened. I have a couple of smaller answers that could help, though.

Contacts in Eugene, Oregon

If you know a business owner or a hiring manager for a business in Eugene, put them in touch with me. I’m not sure that any of my friends live I Eugene, but if you do, or you have in the past, and you still have contacts, now is the time to help me network. My last two jobs came because I knew someone who knew someone who worked there.

Outside of Oregon

Alternatively, if you know of a job that is remote or would be willing to pay moving expenses, I would be willing to consider that as well. I already have a couple of people step up and offer me remote writing jobs for blog posts and website organization. For physical locations, we’d prefer some place with a beach, and possibly, some place outside the U.S.

Purchase from Amazon through Penguinate

If you’re already buying from Amazon, use one of our affiliate links to make the purchase. It doesn’t cost you anything other than a little additional time, and it could make a huge difference depending on how many people make their purchases through the links on our website.

Join Our Patreon

Mom said I should think about setting up a GoFundMe, but Patreon is my version thereof. We currently have 10 members! When you join at any paid level, you get some benefits – the most recent instructions on how to fold a cootie catcher and a Viking Cootie Catcher template. The last two Decembers, I’ve done Virtual Advent Calendars, though this year’s calendar did have a physical component for those of my members who requested one. Other benefits include 10% off any purchase at our live events. The next one is scheduled for Mar. 29, 2025 in Salem, Oregon.

Adopt a Penguin or Bear

We have a lot of penguins and a couple of bears for adoption. They are available at Etsy, or send me a message. They will also be available at our Salem gig in March 2025.

Buy a Book

I’ve written 15 books. If you haven’t completed your collection, now would be a fantastic time. If you have Kindle Unlimited, you can even read them for free and I still get a little bit of a boost.

Join and Use InboxDollars

A couple of people I know have joined InboxDollars using one of my links, but they never actually used the site. The thing is, we get 10% of whatever you earn. It doesn’t come out of your earnings, so you still get the full amount. I wrote a handy little guide to try to get the most of the program. In January 2025, I was hitting it hard, and I made $40.

Bookmark, Visit and Share Penguinate.com

The mere act of you showing up and reading this page is helpful. I have monetized the content as well as I can, given my resources. If I get a lot of people reading articles, making comments and sharing content, it would help improve the viability of this website as a possible revenue stream. I also write for Asgard Alaska; a visit to the website and share of their Viking content would be greatly appreciated.

I appreciate everyone and the outpouring of support on Facebook and through other contact points. I am sorry I don’t have a better way for you to help at the moment, but maybe, if we all pull together, we can help each other by changing the system that allows people to be thrown away like used trash any time a company isn’t making “enough” of a profit. I have been trying to come up with a story that would illustrate such a society, but there’s no conflict or profit in utopian literature unless I can somehow juxtapose it with the current reality while still showing that utopia could be attainable. Of course, we don’t have to go full utopia, just moving toward a more caring society that doesn’t allow bullies, sociopaths and idiots to run things would be an improvement.

False Wisdom: Teach Man to Fish

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One of the items that was damaged in the move was our toaster. If we want to toast anything, we have to hold the toaster handle down until the item is the right degree of toasted. It’s not convenient, but it works.

One Saturday, a little while ago, I told Jenya we could go get donuts from Cal’s, we could try Black Rock Coffee Bar, or we could get a toaster. We opted for Black Rock Coffee Bar and spent the last of our credit reserves. The coffee was good, but the total for drinks, breakfast sandwiches, and tip was close to $30. A toaster would’ve been $35 at Bi-Mart.

When we got home, Jenya said, “Rather than buying a fishing pole, we bought fish. Well, we don’t have any frozen waffles anyway.”

Wisdom of Our Ancestors

That got me to thinking about the wisdom of our ancestors, and I’m beginning to believe they were deliberately dense and obtuse or they preferred pithy sayings over the truth. In this case, “Give a man a fish and eats for a day; teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime” is demonstrably false.

First, you need to understand when the saying is generally employed. There’s some theoretical discussion about what to do with the hungry, as if they were a group made up of the same-type of individuals, and someone will say the best way to deal with them is to give them the means to feed themselves, which sounds great because “teach a man to fish and he eats for e lifetime.” Unfortunately, what sounds good and what works in reality are two different things.

It isn’t enough to learn to fish, the person must also learn to clean and prepare the fish. When people are hungry, they don’t learn as well. That’s why school food programs exist. Depending on the amount of time it takes for someone to learn how to fish before they actually catch a fish, they could starve to death.

Catching a fish requires resources. You must have a rod, reel, fishing line, hook, bait, bobbers, a fishing license, and a place to fish, often in the form of a boat, or waders to get into a river. These things aren’t free. Even if you reduce it to the bare minimum, you’ll still need a hook, line, and sinker (which inspired another pithy saying about gullibility). You can dig your own bait, find used dental floss left by some scofflaw camper, but you still need a hook.

There are other ways to catch fish, but they all involve getting wet: weave a Native American fish trap, tickle a fish into biting your hand, or just being fast enough to grab the fish and throw it on shore. These will still require proper clothing.

However, education isn’t enough. Even the most experienced fishers come up empty on their fishing trips. A man might eat for a lifetime after learning to fish, but he has to be in the right area – a place where there are fish all year round.  And he won’t eat reliably every day.

Compassion of Today

If you want people to not be hungry you have to do both: feed them when they are hungry and teach them the skills they need to feed themselves. Unfortunately, those skills are no longer the skills of our ancestors. Some people have had the skills to feed themselves, but circumstances have conspired against them. They were laid off, so their company could be more profitable. They had medical bills that bankrupted them. They went through a rough patch and were never able to recover. The list for hunger is infinite, but the cure is easy. After all, there’s a story about loaves and fishes that many people believe, and for those that do, that story should serve as the example of what to do with the hungry.

The Holiday Fix Up Movie

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On the Holiday Fix Up (affiliate link), Sam is the host of her own renovation television show, but a new face at her studio is taking the limelight of the yearly Christmas show. Sam’s producer tells her she needs to show her more personal side, and she can do so this Christmas while she has time off from her normal hosting duties. Sam doesn’t know what she should do, but news from her hometown brings her back to where the show started and where her heart was broken before she left for the big time. The news? The Inn where Sam grew up had a tree fall on it, and it won’t be able to hold the Harbor Fest this year. Unless Sam saves the day… and works with her ex.

Sam arrives in town with 10 days to complete the renovation. She goes to her friend’s bakery. She alienates the only other person working on the renovation (her ex). They participate in a snowball fight and a pie judging contest. I was concerned and a little stressed. When are they going to get the renovations done. Then they had an argument about whether they should use the “okay” builder’s material or whether they should use better materials that would take more time.

I’m no builder. I have no idea how long a job like that should have taken, and then they added on an arbor and a special made mantel piece while also talking about their past relationship I very emotional, walk away terms. Seriously, the only way this renovation could’ve been finished was with some Christmas magic and maybe some elves who worked while the humans were off doing human things.

Of course, the movie has some of its own ideas about what makes Christmas great – the connections that people when they put down their phones, but this gets undermined when they also make connections through their phones. Still, in spite of the stress, it was a fine Christmas romance as far as those types of movies are concerned.

Now, you’ve probably already judged me, and that’s okay. I can watch whatever movies I feel like whenever I want. If I want to watch “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on Easter, it’s well within my rights. But if it makes you feel better, Orthodox Christmas is on Jan. 7. We chose the Holiday Fix Up because it has Maria Menounos of Noovie fame, she plays the friend with the bakery.

How to Make Money with InboxDollars – 2025 Edition

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I looked at my most recent blog post on InboxDollars, and it was woefully out of date. This is an updated post with information that was correct as of Dec. 29, 2024.

InboxDollars is a website that pays its users based on what they do on the site. You can make money with games, magic receipt redemptions, surveys, offers, web searches, Bingo and other promotions. Through December 29, 2024, I had made $199.69. For the time I’ve been on InboxDollars, I made $1009.00. It’s not riches, but it’s not chump change. But how can you make the same or more than I have?

The Daily List

The easiest way to make some small coins is to look at your daily list and complete it. I usually just made it through the first level of completion, which on some days included Answer and Learn, Add a Magic Receipts Deal, Deal of the Day, Daily Games, and Attempt a Survey. Some days, Daily Games is replaced by Earn from Offers. If you complete these five activities, you get the Scratch and Win boost from Answer and Learn, the attempt at a survey, and the Daily Games, and you get the two or three cent bonus from completing those first five objectives. It doesn’t take long to do these activities, and over the course of a month if you do these every day, you’ll have at least 60 cents if nothing else went right.

Answer and Learn is one, multiple choice poll question. Click on the appropriate bubble and you’re done. Click on Deal of the Day from the Daily List; visiting that page is all you have to do.

Magic Receipt Deal

The Magic Receipt Deal is also one click after you get to the appropriate page. Just select one of the deals, any one of the deals, and you’re done as far as the Daily List is concerned.

However, Magic Receipts can offer you much more than just the completion of your Daily List. If you save your receipts from places where you normally shop, you can earn cash back on the things you buy. The store has to be registered with InboxDollars, so most independent shops are out. However, chain grocery stores like Safeway are available.

You’ll need to take a picture of the receipt and upload it to the site. Look for the possible deals available, and choose them. Some deals are so good, you might be able to get the items for free. Just be sure to read the fine print. One year near Halloween, I got paid to get One Hundred Grand chocolate bars from Walgreens. Walgreens had them on sale and the redemption prize for two bars was about two cents more than the bars cost. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s nice when it does.

Daily and Free Games

I usually choose Solitaire for the Daily Games. They have some other choices, and they’re in the QuickPlay section on the Games page. Basically, you can play until the Scratch and Earn line has flashed and registered your play or until the game tells you that you’ve earned as much Scratch and Earn progress as you’re going to get that day. I usually stop in the shortest time possible, but I have played until I go the warning when I was trying to get through the Scratch and Earn faster.

The other games on this page will allow you to earn money, too. They are time sinks, so you’ll have to grind it out if you want to make any serious coin. Just make sure you’re choosing games that have a bonus with them and that you will enjoy. Also, watch for the time limits involving the various awards.

Earn from Offers

There are a lot of offers on this page, including the game offers. When I’m trying to make a quick cent, I go to the Content Discovery where I find something that allows me to look at an article for one cent. This is the easiest way to fulfill the Daily List requirement. It usually involves three or four clicks and a little time on the web page. Make sure to read the conditions and be ready to click on a second choice if the first one doesn’t pay out.

Attempt a Survey

The surveys are the bugaboo of the entire system because you never know what you’re going to get. Attempting a survey is easy. Find a survey you like and click on the link. The survey gets registered as attempted as soon as you get to the new website.

Completing a survey is much more difficult. You are likely to qualify for one in five surveys or fewer, which means that you’ve spent the time to look at four surveys and answer their preliminary questions only to get kicked back to the InboxDollars site. This will give you more Scratch and Win progress, but it will take up your time. Most surveys don’t pay minimum wage, so it’s important to understand how much time you’re willing to put into getting a $1 and whether 20 cents for five minutes is better than 75 cents for 20 minutes. If you’re just burning daylight, and can do them, it’s mostly no harm no foul.

Scratch and Earn

The Scratch and Win bar across the top is probably the most exciting thing about InboxDollars. As it progresses, it gives you the opportunity to win bonuses (not so great unless you use them) or up to $100. I haven’t won the $100, yet, but I have gotten 12 cents. It’s important not to miss this bar because it will only accumulate to the end, so you need to scratch the card before you earn more progress. I always let this fill up because it seems the best way to win $100. I haven’t done the math, though.

Billy Button

The Billy Button is a search engine add-on that will direct you to possible InboxDollars deals when you are on other web sites. I resisted adding this until a couple of days ago because I don’t want anyone tracking my wed browser history. But the Billy Button is needed if you’re going to complete your Daily task list to the fullest. It’s also useful for the Bingo game.

Web Searches

This is where I stack up the progress bar. There’s a limit to the number of searches you can do a day, but that’s okay. Searches not only fill up the Scratch and Win progress bar, they also can give you a bonus if you complete enough days in a row. If I need to search something, I go to InboxDollars first.

Bingo Game

Every month or so, InboxDollars has a Bingo game. It’s listed under the More tab. You’ll get a small amount of money for visiting sites from the InboxDollars Bingo board page and completing that line. You’ll get more money the more squares you fill. Another line is activating the Billy Button at certain websites. Completing a search, redeeming offers, and logging into the InboxDollars App are some of the other items that get listed.

Get Others to Join

Another way to earn money is to get others to join using your Refer Friends code. You’ll get a bonus if they make a certain amount of money in a short time frame, and you’ll get a 10 percent stipend based on what they make. Obviously, if you could 100 active people to make $10 a month, you’d get $100 a month. I haven’t gotten there, yet, but maybe you will!