Every weekend I take a break and catch up with life and try to do things that do not involve too much of the blog. So, out of the blue, and complying to my therapist’s orders to speak my mind (“release it all out, no holding anything back”) just a quick note about friend Mike and dear friend’s cat Rascal. Yeah, once in a while you will get some things that have nothing to do with travel, miles & points or even personal finance! Hey, it’s my blog and I can post what I want:-)
See you all Monday morning with you know what.
TBB Mission: To Entertain, Educate and Inspire. Aim to at least do one well!
DONATIONS IN MEMORY OF FLYER TALK LEGEND MIKE CORDELLI
As you all know one of the nicest guys on Flyer Talk Mike Cordelli recently passed away. I am passing below the information on donations in his memory. Thank you to reader dhammer53 for arranging this. Please also see the wiki in FT and you can read all the touching comments about what Mike was all about!
T.A.I.L.S.
PO Box 2277
Westport, CT 06880
or
Colbert Veterinary Rescue
41 County Road 229,
Colbert, GA 30628
————————————————-
FYI, Mike was a co-founder of T.A.I.L.S.
In the spirit of Flyertalk, you can donate online http://www.tailsct.org/4/
GOODBYE TO MY CAT RASCAL
Tomorrow we lay to rest my friend’s cat Rascal. This is a loving good bye note from her about Rascal which pretty much captures the hold our pets have over us! RIP Rascal.
Today I euthanized my sweet Rascal, who was 18 and 1/4 years old. That is longer than some marriages last, and for those of you who have children, older than many of your children. Rascal was the same age as a child leaving home to start college, but instead, today my Rascal left home for the Great Hereafter.
I got Rascal as a small kitten in 1995. I fell in love with him after he climbed onto my shoulder and nibbled my earring, and he continued to take delight in my jewelry until the end of his life. I named him Rascal because he was one, especially was in those early years; if I slept in and he wanted me to get up, as a small kitten he would walk across the alarm clock until he hit the button that turned on the radio! We had many adventures together, going to Oregon to live for 4 years, and then returning home to Michigan.
Recently Rascal had grown increasingly deaf and increasingly weak, and he would barely eat; but if I cuddled him and stroked him and murmured sweet nothings in his ear he would purr happily in my arms, enjoy having his belly rubbed, and if I then set him down by his bowl of food, he would take a few meager bites of food, which to me demonstrated that there is an undeniable link between emotional nurturing and physical nourishment. Always my constant companion at home, Rascal recently took to sleeping most of the day on a stack of brown wrapping paper in the spare bedroom, instead of next to me in bed; yet every evening he would still make his way onto my bed (using the two-step stool I put next to the bed as an assistive device), and there he would wait until I had settled into bed for the night, had stroked his head and flank and scratched behind his ears; then, like a parent having kissed his child goodnight, as I was starting to fall asleep, he would quietly take his leave and retire to the stack of wrapping paper in the spare bedroom (he had a bed but preferred the paper), where he would usually stay until morning.
I interpreted this behavior as a sign that Rascal was beginning to separate from me , that this was as close as he could get to walking off into the woods to die. He never stopped loving to be held and cuddled, and he never stopped purring in happiness, but it was now more of a quiet, private purr than a loud, joyful noise. More and more I would have to carry Rascal, whether to the couch, or to his food, or to the litter box, because he was so weak that walking had become exceedingly effortful for him.
So today I decided to take him in to the vet to have him euthanized–now, before he was in outright pain or major discomfort. There were forms to be signed and the payment to be made and then the injection, while I stroked Rascal’s head and spoke softly to him. Within seconds of the injection Rascal was gone…the end was so fast. I was left to sit alone with Rascal, to hold him and cry. I cut some of his fur to take home with me, wrapped him in the towel on which he was euthanized and said good-bye to my lovely boy. I sent you a photo of Rascal, if you want to see him.
Good-Bye, My Sweet One.
oh my god, mms decides to answer a reader question. and you know what, the spg amex is the best card for earning aa! bettter than citi aa cards!
You must have read Ingy’s last comment.
It’s in the queue. Grilled burgers, I am sleepy. No ribs, not on sale:-)
{sigh} One constant of life is the death that goes with it. (I joke that ‘life is a sexually transmitted terminal illness’ … which it is!)
Yeah, the older I get the more frequent this happens around me!
Very touching letter.
Yes I agree. I just found out that we will bury Rascal at a friend’s backyard while we are there celebrating his 50th birthday. Which is totally weird…never been in a cat funeral before!!!
Nice to read some of those posts on FT about Mike. We can only hope that, when we each pass, people will have such nice things to remember about us too… RIP
Day of tributes post is weird timing for rolling out the ads. (I like the strange irony of that)
disgusting.
Yeah my son is pretty smart kid, what can I say? See my response about this issue from yesterday’s blog post.
I absolutely agree on the timing fail! I had no idea the kid will figure out this adsense stuff so quick. No wonder Stanford and Harvard are interested:-) He wants to help more and I am ecstatic!
I blocked some disgusting ad types now…But, come on, does anyone ever bother with these ads anyway? I have never clicked on an ad in a web page! Sorry, scratch that. I did it a few times by accident…I did not have my contacts on:-)
Very touching tribute to a pet. Thanks for posting it as life is about all things that touch us, not just miles and points and credit cards. This differentiates your blog and shows your heart. Thanks TBB!
Thank you for the kind words. Our cat Fluffy is 12 now so my friend’s note hit hard. I can see my son was also really touched as he grew up with this cat. Hard to imagine our house without Fluffy around. Maybe we get a dog when Fluffy joins Rascal:-)
That is a very nice letter. It clearly showed a very strong bond between the owner and the cat. It was very hard for the owner, but she did not want the cat to suffer any longer. Thanks for sharing this George.
You are very welcome, glad you liked it. When I got the note I thought it would be a good change of pace to post it here. Fit the “Inspire” part of TBB mission a little bit.
Just wanted you to know that I was not disgusted by the ads. If fact, I did not notice them until after I heard about them in the comments and then scrolled up to see what they were.
Good. Just ignore them like everyone else does. Except one reader who even takes pics of them:-)
They won’t last long I am afraid. And son will be pissed he can’t get enough for a Jimmy Johns sub by Christmas lol. Great learning exercise for kids & divert them from League of Legends games:-)
What ads? Oh yeah, i have adblock installed. How about throwing in an ad captcha in the reply box like BoardingArea? Seriously though, I don’t get the ads. Are you just looking to cover your hosting costs? If so I would consider adding an amazon affiliate link. Almost everyone shops at Amazon. Why not let readers support you in categories where they can’t get cash back from a portal? This is how I cover the costs for my hiking site without any obtrusive ads. Just a little amazon link at the top.
I don’t think I ever clicked on an adsense ad…ever. Maybe a few times when I was without my contacts:-)
Great idea about the amazon affiliate link! I am making a list of to do items for my son. Hope I can put him to work before school starts in a few weeks. Making work for his allowance! Besides, I am an avid user of Amazon (Payments, that is lol).
This has been a giant learning experience for me and I am very glad to get son out of his League of Legends game zone and get him interested in helping me out and learning more useful things!
Seeing the ridiculous reaction about adsense..is just priceless. Being called a hypocrite and hypopimp are…what else can I say, amusing just does not cut it!
Thanks for the comment and help!
Ha, you ads are hilarious! I’ve seen bubble bath, law management software, and bunch of other stuff.
I use adblock normally haha.
I saw one for Filipino dating, these guys at Google are really good;-)
Someone told me I can block categories so there should not be much more ridiculous ads which most people don’t see anyway and certainly do not click!
An ad for United Airlines just showed up on your blog
It’s hard to take the integrity of your blog seriously with an ad for United.com appearing
I mean, how can anyone treat your reviews of Rapid Travel Chai’s trip reports on North Korea objectively knowing that you’ll make money if I click your United ad?
That’s practically the same thing as the TPG’s and FTG’s of the world bombarding you with endless “you have to have it” hawkings of the same products they make their money off of
Maybe one day, you can give a “top 15 reasons to get the [insert whatever advertisement you want people to click]” so that Rick can have a legitimate complaint about your practices, instead of him needing to pretend that you haven’t always since day stated you’re fine with people monetizing their blogs and having affiliate links (and obviously that it’s the way some people do it that’s the issue).
If not for us, do it as a favor for him. It just looks really weak when he has to pretend not to see the 5,000,000 times you’ve mentioned that you are perfectly ok (and hope to emulate) the business practices of those like Frequent Miler
“But TBB – you’re monetizing your blog?!?!?!?!? HYPOCRITE”
– a guy who should’ve listened to his own mosquito-infested advice
Steve: Thanks for taking the time to comment in my blog.
>>>>>>>>Maybe one day, you can give a “top 15 reasons to get the [insert whatever advertisement you want people to click]”
That is a great idea actually! So much material I can do here but time is limited. I do my best to keep you guys mostly entertained, you know, the mission:-)
Thanks for reminding my audience that I was never against NOT monetizing and affiliate links and always have (and will) have issues with blogging practices (how some bloggers do it).
Frequent Miler: 5,000,001
Thanks again.
Anyone who doesn’t understand the significant difference between Google Adsense and affiliate credit card links is making a fool of themselves by posting here. Adsense is a few bucks for a blogger when loyal readers who want to help out click a banner ad. It’s literally about 5 bucks a day with no changes to any content whatsoever.
Affiliate ads are enough to make a very comfortable living and completely change the content of a blog. It’s well documented what the demands are on a blogger who uses affiliate ads. At least Dan’s Deals admits it and says he has a family to feed. At least he’s honest about what we all know. Affiliate bloggers sell out the best interest of their readers to different degrees. Huge difference between that at Adsense. And it’s incredible to read Rick’s posts. This is an epic insecure bully who uses twisted rationalization to make himself feel better. He reasons that posting his real name makes him a man of the people for some strange reason. If he felt secure in the way he made his 500k, he wouldn’t need to read or respond here. He is, in fact, a guilt-ridden, petty old man who isn’t able to enjoy his money and feel good about himself. It’s pretty sad, really.
He’ll respond with his one comeback – pointing out that I posted anonymously. But he knows who I am just by my writing. You all do. I’m the guy who never posts comments and isn’t scared of confrontation. Come on Rick…say my name.
No idea who you are, nor do I care. And no idea where you got your guesstimate either and again don’t care.
Yawn
I’ll be back sometime in the future to see if the whining still continues.
TBB’s Ten best credit cards ad still makes me laugh out loud.
>>>>>>>> TBB’s Ten best credit cards ad still makes me laugh out loud.
Absolutely hilarious indeed! Trying to think of jokes to crack up in tomorrow’s blog post. How can this guy have the nerve to try to hypopimp the 10 Best credit cards, huh? I put all this hard work into the ad, I massaged & tested all the links, the placing of them in several parts of the page (header, footer, middle, left corner, right corner, shoot every freaking corner, etc). Who said that blogging is not hard work hey?
We all know the reason you were laughing was due to the much dinero this adsense ad brought in lol. Maybe this will fly with FTG (the blog) readers but it is not flying here. We know the difference.And we yawn.
I wonder if the beautiful pic with the giant LOL (MMS like) arrow is copyrighted, hmmm? Do I need to get permission to use this work? Or will I be threatened with copyright infringement legal action? Shucks, my buddy attorney is playing soccer with me tomorrow night, I will ask to be sure. You never know these days…I hear these corporate lawyers have lots of time on their hands.
As always I thank you from the bottom of my heart for contributing to my blog’s mission to entertain! THANK YOU!
This is what you’ve chosen to do with your golden years?
“Anyone who doesn’t understand the significant difference between Google Adsense and affiliate credit card links is making a fool of themselves by posting here”
As evident from the comments, those who PRETEND not to understand the difference is also making a fool of themselves
There is a difference between CBS airing a Coca Cola commercial during a broadcast, and them spending 10 minutes during the evening news 4 times a week extolling the benefits of Coca Cola because they’re CBS’ biggest advertiser
I know that. You know that. TBB knows that. DP and FTG will pretend not to know that, but they know that.
“Top 10 reasons Coca Cola is better than Pepsi”
– Rickter Cronkersoll
TBB readers absolutely know that. And if they did not I certainly failed on the education part! But then I send them here to the comments to learn more:-)
For the record, I prefer Pepsi, the choice of the New Generation:-)
TBB
a division of Hypopimp Enterprises, Inc.
+1
@Anon: Thanks for taking the time to comment in my blog.I am honored people take the time to read TBB and even more honored they take their time to post their feedback! I read and do my best to respond to every single one and try to learn from them. I admit some of them by now make me, you know, yawn:-)
Heisenberg!
There’s a huge jump between having a growing family to feed and selling out your readers.
I’m not telling people to go signup for crappy cards or to go to nursing homes to get people to signup for the SPG card. But obviously card offers affect content, who could deny that? Just look at SPG.
Does that make it a mortal sin to create additional content on the Lufthansa or SPG card when there are improved offers? I don’t think so, though obviously others will disagree. Though unless the content is egregious I don’t think it’s evil or selling out your readers and nobody is forcing anyone to read their blogs. Just change the channel if it doesn’t agree with you.
I do think FM’s case in unique. Non-top converting blogs lose their links, simple as that (well, except Barclays 😉 ). He has a ton of goodwill and unique content and manages to pulls it off. I don’t think it’s replicable.
>>>>>>Does that make it a mortal sin to create additional content on the Lufthansa or SPG card when there are improved offers?
The problem is we have not seen much ADDITIONAL content on these cards. Well, we did with LH card at MMS but that created a little bit of controversy by itself:-)
Yeah, maybe we are a bit harsh. But, I can’t help it, seeing pseudo “experts” selling pseudo “expertise” pushing inferior financial products repeatedly without adequate disclosures with BAD content. TBB wil point them out. You get lots of plus points because you never pretended to be dishing out advice to travel for “free” to friends and family. I wish they would do the same and end the charade lol.
I think you should lay all this out in my questions for you…I am waiting;-)
at the rate milevalue is going it is going to be so great for him when he gets his chase links
Oh god please no. Then again, got so tired of the crappy US air card again and again:-)
hey now it’s amex spg because that pays higher commissions oh wait no it’s 30k bonus. go apply for it now! you and your parents and your pets!!!!!!! *sound of coins*
That cat letter was so sweet and so sad. Thanks for sharing!
Your dog is sweet too! Our cat is 12. We will be there one day:-(