This flag proudly flies in a field overlooking a rural Maine farmhouse! Hope you Independence Day if a great one!

Tom Remington

First let me apologize for not getting something out on this sooner, as most of you know Heller vs. District of Columbia is something I have followed for a long time and has been a bit of a passion for me. I said all along that this ruling, no matter which way it went, could have the biggest impact on our society since Roe vs. Wade. Picking up all the pieces on this ruling will take time and it remains to be seen the full impact of the decision.

This ruling could be a huge turning point in the presidential campaign as well. I am very interested to see how the anti-gun crowd reacts to the ruling and how each candidate responds - truthfully, not just blowing more hot air about supporting gun rights while voting to restrict gun rights.

Justice Scalia wrote the opinion on the ruling. For those interested, you can read the full decision of the court here at the U.S. Supreme Court website(pdf).

My schedule at the moment is hectic and I am off to the airport this morning to get my granddaughter back home. I am reading the opinion from cover to cover and over the next few days will bring you highlights, commentary and opinion and share with you what others around the country are saying about this decision.

Last night my son and all his family were gathered here at our camp and we were having a family celebration around the campfire. When Steven arrived at camp around noontime, he was ecstatic to tell me of the decision - my communications are somewhat limited here in the woods.

Joining our family celebration were our good friends and people we closely regard as family, Milt and Eleanor Inman. When they came driving down our camp road, I could hear their radio blaring from their car. Expecting to hear a polka, which they both enjoy listening to, a grand version of Stars and Stripes was playing. They explained they were listening to talk radio and The Savage Nation. It appeared Michael Savage was in the middle of celebrating the Supreme Court ruling and declaring that President Bush would go down in history as one of our greatest presidents for appointing Justices Roberts and Alito to the Court.

This is just one indication of how some across America are reacting. I’ll bring you more as well as some of those who will sharply disagree but today, I am still celebrating the greatest day in legal history in my lifetime and perhaps forever.

Tom Remington

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Tom Remington

The Hog Blog tries a hand at poetry with Twas the Night Before Father’s Day

The Adventurist gives us Top 5 Ideas For Father’s Day

Tom at the Black Bear Blog can’t decide between a nice new Ferrari or his Family?

Muskoka Outdoors provides us with Last Minute Father’s Day Gifts for the Fisherman

Tails and Trails dedicates a nice story for Father’s Day

Ron Black of WILD Oklahoma shares a great moment with Father’s Day Memories - Relived and Created

And last but not least Hooks and Bullets blog tells us what he wants for Father’s Day

Thanks all!

So what do I believe are some reasons why blogs fail? I have listed out 10 reasons why I believe blogs don’t ever make it.

1) Lack of Long Term Ambition and Commitment
This has to be the biggest one. Notice I said “long term” ambition. It takes ambition to start one, but it takes a sense of commitment to continue day in and day out. It’s like that diet and exercise program we keep going on. You are ambitious for that first week but then something happens. Next thing you know you are counting the days you haven’t been out walking or eating only low-carb foods. To be committed to something long term you have to make it a high priority in your life or you simply will find more important things to do.

2) Failure to Grasp Realities of Blogging
Most bloggers who start a blog are not prepared to undergo the realities of blogging. After a few weeks reality sets in and blogging becomes more work than play. It wasn’t exactly what we thought blogging was. We thought we could begin writing a few fun things and people would swarm in from all corners of cyberspace and leave comments all day long. The truth of the matter is, you have to promote your blog to get people to come to it and read from it. Now you have to learn how to market your blog and we all know that takes more time and commitment and some hard work.

3) Not Standing Out… Being Part of the Mold
Lots of blogs are started because they might have seen another blogger and envy what they do, and simply wish to begin an adventure much the same. So what do we do? We try to duplicate what they do. Although it is nice to learn from others, most bloggers don’t offer up something different. You need to provide readers with something that is new and refreshing. Most people have trouble with finding creative and innovative ideas to stand out and be different rather than how can I be like all the other bloggers. Trying to be like everyone else will not spring your blog into a successful one. Most successful blogs have something unique and don’t necessarily fit the mold of every day blogging.

4) Unattractive Content
Most bloggers want readers. I know some who don’t care and that’s fine. They tend to blog for their personal benefits and as a creative tool and release. But the majority of bloggers I have met in the past want readership. They want interaction and feedback. If this is the case, then we need to stop looking inward and start looking outward. Like companies selling a product. Companies don’t ask, what is it the CEO wants?? Or what is it the owners of the Company wants? No… you ask what is it the Customer wants??

In the world of blogging you need to ask yourself what your readers want. Shape your content to be more attractive towards your targeted audience. The content on your blog is your product you are trying to sell. If your content is boring or not informative or appealing in any shape or form, you will really have a hard time with finding readership. So providing informative and attractive posts is essential to the success of a blog.

5) No Time
This sort of fits in with lack of commitment, but people today are jam packed with life. Some running to and fro working 2 jobs, school, family events, and there simply isn’t enough time to put into blogging. A lot of people start blogs realizing that there just isn’t enough hours in the day for them to keep up a blog. So they give it up.

6) Lack of Promotional Skills and Outreach
OK this is where I see a lot of people end up. They have the time, the commitment, and even really great content. But they have no idea how to promote their blog. Where do I go from here they ask? How do I get readers? My content is great but nobody is coming to read it. People talk about Search Engine Optimization and Networking. Where do I start. The thought of it begins to get overwhelming and then the blogger becomes frustrated and soon the blog either sits there and rots or the blogger loses excitement and posting becomes less frequent.

Feel free to read through all my blogging tips I have posted in the past. A lot of them touch on promotion and networking.

7) Not Posting Frequently Enough
This is huge on my list. I have noticed, even with this blog here, that when I relax on posting often, then the readership level goes down as well, which makes sense. No new content to talk about so nothing really to do here… When posting increased there is more to read and more to discuss. If you can’t post at least 5 times per week don’t expect a very active blog. You can have a nice blog and nice content but posting frequently will really juice up your blog. Google also loves it when there is new content on your blog. Update it daily and Google will train their “bots” to come crawl your site daily. Having Google come to your site daily is a wonderful thing. So post often as you can with nice good content.

8- Too Broad of a Topic
Pick a topic you can talk about a lot and use that as your blog’s topic. Narrowing down on a topic and hitting it hard is where it’s at. People tend to try to become everything to everybody and that just is not realistic. A blog that is titled Steve’s Hunting Tips will probably be more successful than Steve’s Journal or Steve’s Life. Having content that is similar such as hunting or fishing or outdoorsy stuff will do better in the long run than to have a blog that talks about hunting, politics, religion, yarn, cars, book keeping, science, astronomy, and under water basket weaving. Narrow it right down and hit your niche with a ton of rocks. People will enjoy your blog a lot more.

9) Ugly Template
Now, I know this is a bit vain BUT, I can’t stand going to a blog and reading white text on a black background. I just won’t do it. I can’t. Sorry. If your template is too ugly or hard to read then I just won’t go there anymore. Keep it neutral with white background behind your text area and make it black, if you like black so much, around the edges. The template needs to be easy to navigate from topic to topic.

10) Spamming and Being an Annoying Blogger
We all know you want to promote your blog and we all know thousands of other people are interested in promoting theirs as well. But refrain from spamming other sites with your link. I think it’s fine to post at forums and leave a link in your signature if the Forum Administrators of the site allow that sort of thing. But refrain from going onto a new forum and saying “check out my new blog click here now”.

Annoying!

Feel free to send an email to everyone in your friends list and say, “hey guys.. check out my latest blog.. here is the link and invite you all to come participate”. Great! Don’t start mass emailing people daily with new updates to your blog. Let people know they can subscribe to it and those who choose to get email updates will get them automatically. I have seen many bloggers lose any chance of success because they are trying to force their blog down people’s throats. Over time you will get readers one at a time. How about those people who send Private Messages to all the members at a Message Forum, inviting you to see their blog. Don’t be one of those. In all honestly it will make people furious and less likely to come to your blog. Sometimes less is more.

Although I am not a veteran of many previous Maine Moose Lottery drawings, I think it can be said that this one was a big success. Those who weren’t lucky enough to get their names drawn might not agree with me today, but as the dust and disappointment settles, I think they will also look back and think it was a good time.

This was a first for me and Skinny Moose Media to attempt a live stream of audio and video of the event. I can say without any hesitation that without the hard work of the Kittery Trading Post personal, namely Bob Adams and Julie-Lynn Belon, the success we realized from this event would never have materialized. I can only hope that we have boosted interest with KTP and the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and the Moose Lottery.

Bob Adams had hard-wired us a connection so we could get direct access to his Internet connection. Then he whipped out a power cable and soon we were assembling our gear. We seemed to be the first of any media companies to set up and were definitely the last to tear down.

Julie-Lynn and Bob gave us an ideal table to work from. We were right up front next to the main table, where we had excellent visibility - the crowd got see us as easily as we could see them. We were even provided with a sign indicating our reserved space. In short, I think we were treated with royalty.

I want to also take a moment to thank Milt Inman and Gregg Inman for their much needed and highly appreciated assistance last night. I couldn’t have pulled this off without their help. Whenever I needed something, one of them was always there ready and eager to help. Most of the time they were anticipating my next move and already ahead of me.

Several months ago when I received an email from Deborah Turcotte of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife about this year’s Maine Moose Lottery, I began thinking that we could perhaps attend that event and broadcast live audio of the drawing.

I contacted Deborah and the Kittery Trading Post and we began making the plans of how we could do this and make it work. It wasn’t until after Bob Adams of KTP told me about the effort he was making to provide an Internet connection, did I realize that his service was good enough to also stream the video.

But in all honesty, I never dreamed we would get the viewers we did. Although Steve and I never actually discussed expectations, we both individually thought if we could muster up 20 or 30 people, maybe even as many as 50 viewers, we would have considered it a success.

For those who may not know, at our peak time we had over 400 viewers. That may very well have translated into over 600 different viewers or more being on line viewing the events throughout the night. I just don’t have those statistics.

As we watched the viewer count rise, so did our own excitement level. First we wondered to ourselves if we could ever reach 100 viewers. Then it was spoken questioning whether we could hit 200, 300 and 400.

Needless to say we were walking on thin air. The curiosity and excitement from the crowd was great. Many stopped by our table to ask about what were doing. Several in attendance called friends, neighbors and family members once they discovered they could see the event live online. In short, the responses we got from everyone - attendees, IFW personnel, KTP staff, television and radio people - was astounding.

It wasn’t without some glitches though. Two of the biggest come to mind. First was dealing with audio problems but once I got a handle on it and tweaked the audio and video quality and learned how to adjust the volume better on the mixer, for the most part the audio came out pretty good.

The second issue was getting booted off line twice during production. I don’t have an answer why that happened, but after the second time, we lost a sizable amount of viewers.

Once I figure out a better way to become more mobile with the video camera, we can get better quality video. Without having to spend thousands of dollars, we are pretty limited with power cords and USB video cables.

I want to thank everyone who was gracious enough to stop by the table and participate in an interview. I had a great time talking with everyone and I hope I was kind enough to you that you will consider doing it again.

Thanks again to everyone and already we are thinking about next year or the next event.

Tom Remington

I’ve been working with the folks at KTP and Bob Adams has given me a great Internet connection speed so that I can stream audio and video from our web site. You will be able to do that by clicking this link at Skinny Moose Media broadcasting. We will make this link available at several of our websites so that you can more easily find it.

Let me first give you a bit of information about what we intend to do. The Kittery Trading Post has put together a great slate of events leading up to the actual drawing. Skinny Moose Media intends to be at KTP around 3 p.m. when the festivities begin. We will set up and stream as much audio and video of what’s going on around KTP. We will be somewhat limited in how much we can move around but we’ll do the best we can. I hope also to have a few interviews with some key and interesting people.

Once the actual drawing of names begins, I plan to set up a camera on the podium and just let the audio and video run so nobody misses their name if and when it is called. We plan to provide a link at the same page above that you can check on where we will post photos all through the night as well.

For those interested in listening and/or viewing the stream, here are some pointers. First, you must have high speed Internet access. You will only see the screen constantly trying to buffer if you don’t. Depending on your Internet service provider’s download speed, you should be able to stream constant video and audio.

Should the occasion present itself, which more than likely it will, where you get disconnected from the stream, you may have to refresh your browser page and select the “play” button to begin again.

This should be a great opportunity for those who can’t make the drive to Kittery for the event and those who don’t want to wait until the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife get the list of names posted to their website.

Below is a copy of the flyer KTP is circulating with a list of some of the events. After the flyer, you’ll find a link to the KTP website where you can find a complete list of events.

Full schedule of events from the Kittery Trading Post.

Tom Remington

Posted By: Jessica Downing

April 16, 2008 (Denver, Colo.) Outside Hub, the largest and fastest growing online vertical ad network dedicated to reaching outdoor enthusiasts, partners with Big City Mountaineers to assist in its web effort. Through a vast network base and audience, Outside Hub connects the true adventure seeker to the outdoor world online. For April and May, Outdoor Hub will support Big City Mountaineers, and its primary fundraising channel, Summit for Someone to reach outdoor enthusiasts.

“Partnering with BCM allows us to continue our support of the youth audience and encourage participation in outdoor recreational activities” said Steve Fromwiller, Chief Marketing Officer at Outside Hub.

“Outside Hub attracts hikers, campers, anglers, and every other type of outdoor enthusiast from across the country. We feel very fortunate Outside Hub is choosing to support us, and we believe its client base will be very interested in our mountaineering fundraiser, Summit for Someone,” states Executive Director, Mark Godley. “By supporting our programs Outside Hub is sending a clear message that getting today’s youth into the outdoors is just as important to them as it is to us!”

About Outside Hub
Outside Hub is the largest and fastest growing online vertical ad network with over 350 publishing partners devoted to the outdoor enthusiast. For more information about Outside Hub, contact Erick Bzovi, Business Development Manager at ebzovi@outsidehub.com or visit www.outsidehub.com.

About Big City Mountaineers
BCM is the largest non-profit in the country devoted to working exclusively with under-resourced teens by using the outdoors as a transformational element in their lives. BCM runs its recreational mentoring program in most major urban centers throughout the country, with its largest program areas in Denver and San Francisco. Learn more at www.bigcitymountaineers.org.