Oh, February, give me strength!

 Here we be. Friday again. Tomorrow is Christmas in February! The kids are coming, finally, now that COVID numbers are down. We will celebrate my 65th, as well as Josephine's 14th birthday from December, too. 

The news is still horrid. Twas ever thus. Canada has a lot of Ukranians, and people of Ukranian descent, many with loved ones there. Our Prime Minister was joined by Deputy Minister Chrystia Freeland, Defence Minister Anita Ananda, and Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly to announce a second tranche of sanctions. During the press conference Trudeau and our three female ministers said that we were with the Ukranian people. Minister Freeland, with a B.A. in Russian history (Harvard), also has her Master's in slavonic studies from Oxford. She speaks 5 languages, including Ukranian. She said some comforting words in that language to the people. 

One person on Twitter wrote:

"Putin just got told off by three Canadian women and a leader better looking than him."

Here is advice from author and trauma survivor, Julie Lalonde, a woman who was stalked for 10 years. 

That said, things are bad in Texas, where their governor is having an all-out war on gay and trans people (Tweet). Abbott is all about charging parents of trans kids with child abuse. He wants teachers, doctors, and caregivers to snitch on them. This is 2022, right? 

⛄⛄⛄⛄⛄⛄⛄⛄⛄⛄⛄⛄⛄

Things have been active here. Lots of birds. They know a storm is coming, I think! Today, more snow. 

🎾 JB has been watching tennis. Happy man. 

I've been watching some other things. For Black History Month, I decided to PVR the Women of the Movement (2022) series (6 episodes) that has been on W channel. It is an atrocious story, but one white people must watch to understand a piece of black history. It tells the story of Emmett Till, a young black kid murdered in the south by racists in 1955. His mother was empowered to make change in those horrid times of Jack Crow. She helped spur the Civil Rights Movement. We don't know how much freedom we have, we white people.

💘I've been balancing that emotional story with the February RomComs. This one, Mix up in the Mediterranean (2021), is a light plot, a competition by chefs, filmed in Malta. The scenery is grand! Nice to see beaches from this frozen north.

🧊Going to fetch the mail, the ice accretion sparkles in the sun. The trees are happier in the sunshine, although you can hear them creaking and clacking as the wind blows. 

It is crusty snow cover, but the land is covered which is important for the flora and fauna in these temperatures and freeze-thaw cycles. The mailbox had a goodly amount of ice on it. I couldn't bash off the ice at the back. It'll melt. Someday.

The sidewalk is icy, since the warmth of the February sun melted the snow and ice rain. I put some salt down for safety.

I had a plan with the bird bath. I ordered a replacement heater, but they were out of stock. I recalled that John gave me a heated bird bath he wasn't using. (Thank you, John, I couldn't find the right place for it till now.) Anyway, we'll give this a try for now. It's -13 C. this morning, and despite the sun I don't want to fool around too long with the water. 

📱Has anyone been totally bothered by ridiculous phone calls? I had three Wednesday, and another Thursday. Most of them don't engage, and hang up. The one told me there were bad charges on my credit card, press 1 to get them cancelled, 2 you accept these charges. Both numbers are blocked.

I hope you have a descent day. I have some house cleaning to do, although I did bathroom and kitchen floors, there is more to be done with actual family coming! 

I'm getting $2.5 million!

Federal Bureau Of Investigation
Headquarters Washington Dc.
Building 935 Pennsylvania Ave.
NW WASHINGTON, D.C. 20535-0001
E-Mail: fbi.gov0012@usa.com

                                                 NOTICE OF ONGOING INVESTIGATION

Attn Recipient:

This is agent Josh, we were sent by the Acting Director of Federal Bureau of Investigation (Andrew G. McCabe), and we are currently in Africa as an FBI / United States delegate that have been delegated to investigate foreign transactions going on in Africa.
Be informed that during our investigations we found out that there is a total amount of $2.5 Million dollars that has been assigned in your name as the beneficiary but the office who are in position to remit your fund seized it for their own selfish interest, they are fraudsters who’s interest is to extort money from you in the name of the transfer, We have to inform you that we have arrested some men in respect of this delayed overdue fund. We have limited time to stay here so we advise your urgent response
Do not disclose this development to anyone to avoid jeopardizing with our investigation because we want to arrest most of these fraudsters and bring them to law.

I will be expecting your swift respond as we have instructed the bank where your fund was deposited to issue a certified check once we reconfirm your full details to them; you are to reply back with below details.
Full Name:
Address:
Country:
State:
Zip code:
Cell Phone:
Age:
Occupation:
In future if you receive any email/text massage or if you are already in communication with any person in regard to this kindly forward their details to us for proper investigation.

In case if found this message in spam folder, it could be due to your Internet Service Provider, ISP. So kindly move to your inbox before replying.

Regards,
Jackson Josh
International Banking Unit
862 955-2836

Blogger beware- Google makes us stupid?

Just when I think I've read it all. I had an e-mail... me, retired teacher, blogger, senior health care & Hospice volunteer!

Jason Miller  to me

Hello, my name is Jason Miller and I am an internet marketing specialist. I was looking at websites under the keyword elementary lesson plans and came across your website http://www.jilks.com. I see that you're not ranked on the first page of Google for a elementary lesson plans search.

I'm not sure if you're aware of why you're ranked this low but more importantly how easily correctable this is.

There's no reason you can't have a top three ranking for the keyword elementary lesson plans based on your site structure and content. You have a very nice site.
[...]
I'm talking about getting you ranked for ALL your keywords. Adding new backlinks on a steady and consistent basis from high PR quality websites is what produces the rankings you are looking forhttp://www.jilks.com.

The right kind of links are very critical in getting top ranking....and I can hand deliver these quality links to you.
[...]
I didn't send this email out to very many people but I am currently reaching out to a list of your 'keyword competitors' as well. But I do favor your website because I can see your website monetizing the targeted website traffic the keyword elementary lesson plans can deliver. [Do YOU believe this?!]

I have your contact information and phone number. Is it ok if I give you a call? [NO!]
[...]

Sincerely,

Jason Miller
(480) 445-9297
www.linkstiger.com

P.S - If the tables were turned and somebody I didn't know came to me with a proposition, even one that was appealing, I would be hesitant because I would be wondering - what's the catch? What does this guy know that I don't.
[Buyer BEWARE!!!]

Now, my first instinct... Google it.
 I found experts  Spammers Still Hurting the Search Engine Optimization Industry
Who are telling us to watch out for spam. Not only is this wrong, but Bill Hartzer, recognized pro in the SEO field says,
"No wonder the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) industry has such as bad reputation. I am amazed that there are still so many SEO snake oil salesman out there spamming small businesses. Let me show you one prime example of some of the junk that people calling themselves “internet marketing specialists” and SEO specialists are spamming (sending unsolicited commercial email). "


As if I blog for money, traffic or fame! I blog for fun, to see what is going on in the world. I blog to see what people are interested in, to spread news, or to figure out if I should write a book about teaching. 


I refuse to use Google ads. They are making a fortune off of our blog ads, and our Google searches and becoming a monopoly. A US corporation making big profit off of our work and/or play. 
See also: Googleocracy or Googlearchy? (YouTube video)
Inverviews with university students and lecturers regarding the Google search engine's dominance of online research and services, whether or not Google's search methology leads to a reduction in information and cultural diversity, in other words, 'is google making us stupid'? Video also tackles such issues as censorship methods used by google and also individual usage of the search engine.


Jesse Hirsh,  "is an internet strategist, researcher, and broadcaster based in Toronto, Canada. He has a weekly nationally syndicated column on CBC radio explaining and analyzing the latest trends and developments in technology using language and examples that are meaningful and relevant to everyday life."

spam or not spam

Imagine my surprise when I went to my Sympatico mail server directly, rather than using my normal mail reader )Mail, for a Mac, others use different PC browsers, i.e., Mozilla) and found 3 or 4 message Sympatico considered 'junk mail', that would have been deleted in 10 days.

From time to time, not often, I expect a piece of mail but Sympatico's mail filters will cull out mail they think spam at the expense of mail I anticipate! I never thought until today, as I missed an e-mail I had expected that I was being overprotected. It is in your best interests to check your mail every 10 days, or so.

Sympatico's web site says,
"Messages more than 10 days old will be automatically deleted from the Junk E-Mail folder. Review the messages in this folder from time to time to ensure that it includes only mail you don't want in your Inbox. Tell the Junk E-Mail Filter which messages you'd prefer to have delivered to your Inbox by using the checkboxes and then clicking the 'Not Junk' button."

You have to be careful. The beauty of big, more sophisticated systems, like Sympatico, Rogers, etc., mean that you are protected from much of the spam and the viruses and mail hoaxes that proliferate our web. That said, anything similar, with wording that mimics typical spam, p3n1s enlargement offers, or v1agra offers, are usually caught. When I used a smaller satellite company I was inundated with such mail. My gmail account is much more sophisticated than it used to be. The mail they perceive as spam, with all of these familiar words, as well as potential viruses, wit in a spam account and are deleted as a matter of course.

Most servers allow you to set filters and control the mail you receive. For example, I have my browser set to filter anything that does not use my full last name. Also, anything that is sent to me by someone or something NOT in my address book, it goes right to the junk mail filter where I can choose to dump it before reading it, or cull it if it is a new contact. Often, when you sign on with a new company or a listserv they remind you to add them to your mailbox to prevent such issues.

Protect yourself by using filters, whether you use a mail browser or not, but also check your spam files periodically. It might protect you!