My Squidoo Experience

Well last week as I was hanging out in squid chat a friend of mine Loyalis decided we should take up a little lensbuilding competition between us. The main goal of course being to motivate ourselves to continue our lensbuilding efforts.

The challenge is simple really. Between last fri when it started and until Apr 16th Myself and Loyalis each will build 10 lenses, all designed to promote an amazon product from the same category…fitness.

The idea is to see who can generate the most revenue on our dashboard. My strategy will be in promoting more expensive items and Loyalis will see if low priced items can outsell me.

The lenses will follow the following rules:

- Promote a product from Amazon related to the ‘fitness’ category.
- Use only Squidoo Modules and Squidoo’s Amazon Links

One month from Friday, May 16th, the group of lenses with the most Pending $$ on the Dashboard will be judged to be the winner.

I’m a little behind in my lensbuilding but trying to catchup as I am slow lens builder. but this will truly be the little squid vs. giant squid competition.

My first few lenses for this challenge are;
Ab Circle Pro Reviews
Slendertone Flex Pro
Concept2 Indoor Rowing Machine

Well I’m such a big paintball fan I decided to write up a few new reviews in a side related topic airsoft. I picked 2 of my favorite airsoft guns and rifles and wrote up a couple reviews for all the airsoft fans out there.

m4 m16 airsoft replica gun

utg shadow ops sniper rifle

I wanted to change things up a little bit especially since my last board game night where I lost to an old friend of mine to a passionate round of the Settlers of Catan.

What a game. After he beat me, he was kind enough to share a few tips and strategies which I had not considered before especially the ones concerning resource hexes..and the total amount of each resource hex in the game..hmm sure made me think.

Which is why I decided in the spirit of fun and excitement I would do a review of the fantastic diplomacy strategy game.

So cheers and hat’s off to

Settlers of Catan Board Game

Well last summer my young 8 year old boy decided he wanted to take up Karate..so after checking out several local Dojo’s we decided on the one to join.

So what happened next? Well after a month or so into it, my boy started saying to me..hey dad why don’t do you karate with me. Well sure I’m over 40 and sure I can’t move like I used to be, but I thought he had a good point and it was a good opportunity to have a Father/Son activity we could do together..

Here we are several months later and I’m hooked. I think I’m more into it then my own kid, lol. Ya I may have old man hips..and it’s funny because as an old boxer I never was good with kicks..and I’m hoping over time to develop this skill..as a result I’m on the hunt for quality decent martial arts gear.

Top on my list is a freestanding punching bag, and after looking around I settled on the very cool Bob the punching bag. This thing is da Bomb!. So in light of that I did a solid review for it..

Century Bob Body Opponent Bag

Then I decided hey why not feature and review my favorite YFc and MMA fighter Bas Rutten, man I love this guy..funny..great at teaching very cool martial arts techniques and a great fighter..so my hats off to

Bas Rutten Training

Well as I am working on improving my overall fitness I decided to take up jogging awhile ago and doing rather well on consistently jogging 5km’s 3 times a week.

I decided to start using a heart rate monitor to help me improve my overall fitness and workouts and immediately noticed I was often running far harder then I should be for getting the max benefit out of my runs..which makes me glad I bought a polar heart rate watch.

This boost in enthusiasm sparked my interest in making some squidoo lenses on the subject while I decided to review some of the main polar heart rate monitors..

You can see the reviews I wrote up on the subject here

Best Polar Heart Rate Monitor
Polar f11 Heart rate Montor
Polar f6 Heart Rate Monitor

Well I decided to write and create a lens around a topic very dear to my heart Boy Scouts. I personally help assist in our local boy scout troop and my own son is currently in cubs (looking forward to the day he reaches scout age) and so I pose the question.

Do You Support Boy Scouts America?

If so hey that’s great and the boys and scoutmasters all across the country thank you for your support.

The idea behind this lens was to make a reference topic for items that all scouters and scoutmasters should have

A Boy Scout Handbook

So if you have a scouter in your family or you were once one yourself, come by and check the lens out and sign the guestbook showing your support for boy scouts everywhere.

Alright I did it, I managed to reach my goal to try and get 50 lenses by the end of Jan, and I did it..and actually hope to squeeze in one more before the day is done..but for now I’m actually happy I finally hit 50 lenses..hopefully when the next giant squid deadline comes I can be considered for squidhood.

I continued on my green gardening themed and reviewed more composting solutions for home and backyard gardeners, and realyl enjoyed it plus learned a few things myself that I hope to implement this spring after the cold weather melts away.

So send some love and some comments, and as always let me know how to improve as I try to improve each and every lens.

Envirocycle Composter Bin

Worm Composting Bin

Well I continue to work hard on my push to try and hit 50 lenses by the end of this month here in Jan as part of my goal to really improve my squidooship in 2010. So far so good…I’m still on track to hit 50 in the next couple days..crossing my fingers I do not burn out.

Yesterday and today each I posted one new lens and really enjoyed writing about each subject. I decided to continue to expand on the go green theme and continue to review other composting bins and composting in general. You can see the lens here.

Tumbleweeb Compost Bin

The other lens I worked on was a decision I had to try and expand on a martial arts lens I had made a few months back and use that to help cross promote each other. I’m interested in the martial arts mainly because my young son decided to take up Karate and so I decided to do it along with him kinda as our Father/Son bonding activity..plus it helps to keep this old guy fit and active. You can see my new mixed martial arts lens here.

Learn Combat Sambo

I appreciate everyone’s support and comments as it helps me become a better squidoer..so here’s to 50 lenses.

Well I knew from my list of lenses that I would need to double up and make 2 lenses one day in order to reach my goal of 50 by the end of the month so i decided to expand on a few lenses I had concerning paintball.

Myself I love paintball and enjoy playing the game and hope to be able to build more lenses on this subject since it’s a lot of fun, so in my drive to hit 50 lenses I added a new one to this theme.

Here’s a couple of lenses I made about paintball

Smart Parts Ion Paintball Marker
Tippmann A5 Paintball Marker

Again any review or tips on how I can improve my squidoo ship apprentice hood on my journey for giant squid post a comment or 2.

Hi everyone, well with my commitment to try and push for reaching giant squid I now have 44 lenses and close the the min of 50 needed to try for giant squid hood. So with only 1 week to go till the end o January and being so close to 50..i decided the best way to do that was to make at least a lens a day till the end of the month and try to hit 50 before the end of month..

So that’s what I am going to go. So for today I chose to make my next few lenses on gardening since it’s cold out and I’m itching for warmer weather to get out there and get gardening, I thought it would be fun to start off with this subject..

I just finished my lens of the day..challenge till the end of the month and wrote about composting and specifically reviewed a couple composter bins.. here’s my lens of the day.

Achla Spinning Composting Bin.

So if you have any suggestions or ideas to help me achieve my goals and see me improve and add to squidoo and the community let me know would love to hear from you giant squids and angels..