One week before Easter I find myself reflecting on what I consider traditional religion. My mother taught us to never discuss politics and religion. This advice was before the existence of blogs and before she knew how opinionated I would become. So, against the advise of my Mother and my better judgment here I go…

I am not an expert of any religion yet I have very strong opinions on the subject. I do not go to Church, at least not normally. I will go to Church next week on Easter Sunday to please my wife. I will go and worship God in my own way among other friendly people that no doubt feel much differently than I.

Whether you practice Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism or another religion altogether I respect your belief. I even respect the irreligious and atheist’s rights to their beliefs. The key word is belief. I have no problem with one’s beliefs, it’s when our arrogance takes over and we begin to believe we have the answers that gets my blood pressure up.

My personal beliefs are very simple. Life is far too perfect to be an accident. No one is ever going to convince me the we are the product of amino acids and lightning strikes millions of years ago. With that said, no one is going to convince me that we are the only planet with abundant and intelligent life on it. How do I know? I don’t! That’s the point. No one knows what’s true, we simply have our beliefs. The next time some one walks up to me and asks me if I’ve heard the truth or the good news I have this post to direct them to.

Simply put, we are a small planet in a very small solar system. Our solar system is among billions of stars to make up our galaxy. Our galaxy is just a dot in the universe among countless billions of other galaxies. Certainly one capable of creating such a place is beyond our comprehension. I am content to believe there is a God and I can not begin to comprehend what that is or what it means. Why is that so hard for so many to accept?

To understand just how small we are I highly recommend this video:
Journey to the Edge of the Universe

Here are a couple more related videos:
The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken
The God Theory

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7 Things You Do Not know About Me

And Probably Wish I Wouldn’t Tell

I was tagged by Kristi from Kikolani.com to do the 7 Things People Don’t Know About Me meme. The rules for this meme are as follows:

• Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged.

This is my first tag (and last so don’t even think about it) but I am my favorite subject and you deserve to know more about me. Kidding… kind of What is a meme? Just as extra credit Richard at Makak Media tagged Kristi. I like Richard’s blog so I wanted to get that in.

My life is like an open book. There’s not much I keep secret. Here’s a few things that most of my online friends already know about me. I use my real name Brian D. Hawkins. I have to use the middle inital because some jerk got my URL before I did. I am very opinionated and outspoken. I love animals. I am very passionate about many things and will sometimes say things for the shock value without thinking things through. I have been married to the love of my life for almost twenty six years. We have four children, all grown, and three and a half Grand children (My youngest daughter is expecting).

1. Personality: I’m actually very anti-social. I have always had one close friend but never more than one at a time my entire life. I find close friends very stressful and can’t handle more than one at a time. I keep a safe distance even from that friend. The thought of going out and doing things on a social level like dinner, golf, games etc. bothers me to no end. At the same time I can handle myself in almost any situation or environment. Whether meeting with a top CEO or rubbing shoulders with gangbangers in Detroit I can handle the situation perfectly yet hate doing both equally. The internet and the birth of social networking is the only place I’ve found where I actually enjoy communicating with others. I am about as open minded as one can be. I am not racist, sexist or a bigot. I don’t judge people from their color, sexual orientation or where they are from. Life is far too short for such nonsense.
2. Religion: I do not consider myself religious yet believe in a higher power. I feel God is beyond my comprehension and get a little frustrated when others try to ‘explain‘ everything. I feel everyone has a right to their beliefs and respect their opinions. I just feel it’s a little arrogant for others to assume what they ‘believe‘ is fact and anyone that disagrees is wrong.
3. Patriotism: I consider my self very patriotic. I’m proud to be American. I served in the United States Army for seven years and would fight to the death to defend our nation. At the same time I can understand and respect differing opinions. I have no problem with others, American or otherwise, speaking their mind for or against the United States. I love to hear from people of other countries and cultures.
4. Obsessive: I always have a hobby and that hobby would take over my life if I didn’t have my Wife to reel me in. I have obsessed over woodworking, body building, classic cars, photography and various businesses over the years. Now I finally have a hobby that turned into a business since I make a profit – online business.
5. Education: I’m a high school dropout. I left home and quit high school just before my seventeenth birthday. I received my GED when in the Army and have taken several collage courses but never pursued a degree. Even though I earn more than most collage graduates I will be the first to admit that an education is very important. I got lucky and decent jobs for the under-educated are getting harder to find. I have no intention of getting a degree at this stage in my life but I will take more marketing courses simply because that’s my passion.
6. Intelligence: I have an undiagnosed and undocumented disorder that causes my brain to grow larger than my head will allow. This condition pushes brain overflow into my abdomen. That’s why I’m so smart but look overweight. I also have a sense of humor.
7. Just SHOCKING: My Wife’s mother married my Father 10 years after my wife and I were married. I’ll just let that soak in.

Now for the hard part. First of all, I have to say I’m doing this under duress. Kristi from Kikolani.com is making me do it. There simply is no way to look at that pretty face and say no Those that I tag, on the other hand, don’t have that problem so I understand if you ignore the tag. I’m not sure how memes work but I believe internet gods swoop down and disable your modem if you ignore the tag.

Who on Earth do I want to torture – I mean treat by tagging them?

1. How about Pheak Tol? Sorry Pheak but you have an interesting story on your ‘About Pheak Tol‘ page so 7 more tidbits might be nice.
2. Next is John Baril of Johnny’s Training Blog For Online Marketing. Yes, Johnny, a married Paramedic in British Columbia with two sons has more than one paragraph to share.
3. I must tag John Dillbeck of 21st Century Affiliate Marketing because I think he’s going to find it hard to find seven things about himself that he hasn’t already published lol
4. I have to know more about Adrian Jock from Ezine Advertising tips & reviews. This guy reminds me a lot of myself. Very opinionated and not afraid to show it. Sorry Adrian but I’m going to enjoy your post.
5. My friend Ben Pei is a good sport and I’m interested in how he will work this into his blog. De you have a personal blog Ben?
6. The dot Com Guru Shanker Bakshi leads an interesting life. It is hard to tell him apart from John Chow but we will soon know more when he continues the meme. Tag Shanker, you’re it.
7. Speaking of John Chow… Yes, I have the fortitude to tag mighty John Chow. How about it John, I know you are very busy writing and fine dining but can you take a few to jot down a little more about yourself? I know you share everything already but this will really go viral with a boost from you.

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I just had an ordeal with Amazon.com’s Associates (Affiliate) Program that left me fuming. I thought I would just paste the actual emails below and let them tell the story. I added images just for effect and I will admit I should have allowed myself a few minutes to cool off before I replied but I didn’t.

Just to set it up a little one of our Ad Tracking member’s abused Amazon.com’s affiliate agreement and Amazon.com jumped to conclusions and suspended my PERSONAL account. That account is in my personal name and has nothing to do with  YourAdTracker.com. I have never promoted any of their products on that domain. Here’s the exchange, you be the judge:

Greetings from the Associates Program.

We recently noticed your Associate links are appearing as sponsored links on search engines under the term “kindle” and variations of this term using incorrect information (i.e. “FREE BONUS”).  We have also found that you are framing the Kindle detail page with the URL 4u2bn.com/ih46.  Please note, per the Operating Agreement:

[Exerpt of Amazon.com terms removed]

As you have failed to comply with these terms, your Associates account has been closed.  Thank you for your interest in the Amazon.com Associates Program and best of luck in the future.

Best regards,
Thomas – Associates Account Specialist
http://www.amazon.com

Hello Thomas, Thank you so much for taking the time to check into things and not jump to conclusions and closing my account. Oh wait, what was I thinking, of course you are so much busier than the rest of us you shouldn’t have to take the time to check your facts or ask a question.

Anyone with half a brain should be able to tell that 4u2bn.com/ih46 is a short url and ad tracking link. A simple view source would tell you the affiliate link is: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00154JDAI?tag=YOUR_ID_HERE-20

I assure you it’s not my affiliate link but since you didn’t bother checking a single thing before you closed my account you know where to stick your Associates Program!

BTW, The next time I want to buy a book I’ll gladly go to borders.com It will be a cold day in hell before I spend a dime on your site again. I have to go blog about this now,

Good day and KMA,
Brian D. Hawkins

Hello again from the Associates Program.

Thank you for writing back to us. We did notice that the link was incorrectly tagged; however, because you are the domain holder of 4u2bn.com, you were held responsible for the advertising content which used this domain as the referring URL and also frames our web site. Based on the multiple violations occurring using your domain, your account was closed without warning. We regret any frustration or inconvenience that this may have caused for you.

The person using your domain has since contacted us about this issue and confirmed that they were responsible for the violations.  As a result, we would be willing to reinstate your account if you so choose.

Please let us know how you wish to proceed.

Best regards,

Edward – Associates Account Specialist
http://www.amazon.com

Hi Edward, With thousands of members it is impossible for me to check every tracking URL that is created on our site. I have kept a very clean service and I’m proud of our reputation. We made the very unpopular decision last year to stop offering free accounts and go to an all paid membership site. We did this to help prevent our service from being used as a spam and phishing resource.

It clearly states in our terms that we require all members to only shorten and track URLs to third party sites that allow such activity. It’s funny, the same people that are violating your terms are violating ours as well yet you want to punish me because I own the site.

Have you canceled the personal accounts of Kevin Gilbertson of tinyurl.com or Ben Braman of shorturl.com? When an affiliate violates your terms do you go after their ISPs and hosting companies? I seriously doubt it and no one would expect such an unreasonable reaction.

I don’t know if that’s the official policy of Amazon.com or if it’s simply your discretion. In either case there is obviously no way for me to prevent future Amazon.com term violations from our members short of closing the site so I must decline your reinstatement offer.

I have updated our TOS and posted an article on our blog clarifying the relation of our ‘cloaking‘ feature and ‘site framing‘. A notice will be sent to all members this weekend as well.

Sincerely,
Brian D. Hawkins
http://youradtracker.com/

There you have, now wasn’t that interesting?

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