The "Über" Ranger Blog Show

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So, Scratch invested in a boat. He’s put a lot of hard work into it over the past few weeks and today it finally paid dividends! (Like I how I worked that EA subliminal buy LAT message in there?).

Check out the Blog he wrote here on FiftyNorth.ca along with some video of the day. Yeah.. sure beats kicking around the lake in a pontoon boat.

I hope YOU enjoyed or took part in the “Free Family Fishing Weekend” here in Alberta (July 10th and 11th).

Yeah, today I went down to “Stingray Flats” with my good buddy GScratch to try and hook another Sturgeon. When I showed up a “Fish Cop” was on the scene there. However, he was NOT checking licenses! Actually, he was out educating the public!

I showed him mine anyways, as it’s the first time I have been “checked” on the NSR in over 20 years fishing, and about the third in as many times fishing. I always have mine on me. So, of course I thanked him for his efforts in coming out to educate the public. He was still checking for other “violations of the law” such as barbed hooks. Yup, that’s a “no-no” in Alberta.

He reminded me, that even if I didn’t have my license it would be cool, as it was “Free Family Fishing” weekend. I forgots, or I would have blogged it. Anyways, the day turned out to be more like “Free Family Planning” fishing day. Uhm yeah, I caught me another snake skin on the NSR today.

Sorry, I had to cut the line on this one too. More pics here, and I will post some video on FiftyNorth.ca later.

Holy Kaw! The Pooch(er) [ PCH ] finally has his very own Blog! The Internets are stunned!

:: http://pooch02.wordpress.com/

Disclosure: Pooch (a.k.a. Troy Landry, see past posts here) was the Best Man at my wedding, and I was the “Best Man” at his. Yeah, we’ve known each other way too long. Oh look, here is a picture of him beside me in this wedding photo. Funny, I have none of me in the Tux I rented for his. Maybe he can fix that!

P.S. – Sorry “LadyHardcore“, I am already spoken for. 19 years of Bliss! One more makes it an official life sentence don’t it?”

In the past, me and my buddies have caught some pretty strange things on the river with a hook. Ranging from assorted fishing lures and weights, Muskrats, Beavers, Dragon Flies*, Dead Pelicans*, sunglasses, condoms, needles, shoes, Corvettes*, and well today was no different. Today, I caught me and landed a 9.5″ bottle of “something” from out in the middle of the North Saskatchewan River.

Once again #yeg, thank-you for dumping garbage where I fish!

Thank-god it was not another dead hooker. Those are kind of tough to release and there is an awful lot of paperwork that needs to be filled out when reporting the tags.

(Sadly, that is also a true story from my younger days fishing with my Dad and Uncle – so how I know that).

You can view the video here on FiftyNorth.Ca of today’s trip.

P.S. – I am still holding out for a tire. When I do land one of those, I am so going to take up Golf again.

(* – Denotes video available of said occurrence.)

Yup, so  it’s official now! This Thursday, June 17th @ 7:00 PM at Runway 29 Pub @DUPS himself will be on hand. See location details and map from the first event held here, and come out and be part of company, or be part of the conversation. Please DM me or e-mail, or shout out on my LAT profile that you’ll be appearing, and I will be sure to reserve us enough seating again.

Yeah, now that Cork has been released, and with the impending API being updated, I am sure there will be lots to discuss.

But, if there isn’t.. there will still be beer, and wings so that is all that really matters eh?

PS – Pants are optional, and the blog he was talking about above is here.

Alrighty, so I did not take the decision lightly to offer more shares right away. Rarity through scarcity is a valid option in the marketplace, but I noticed that my share price would obviously be stalled. So, my choice was forced for a number of different reasons.

Firstly, I hit a wall in Empire Avenue. Apparently, you cannot invest in over 1,000 people (that is the maximum you can hold). I had 1,001 investments in total before getting an error message that you’ll likely never get to see.

Sadly, there is no achievement for this feat, nor is their a purchase upgrade available in the store at this time that you can get to increase that limit. However, it was suggested to me by @DUPS through the ticket support center this might become an option one day.

Second, for my investors. I went through my portfolio and dumped all the low-earning stocks and low paying dividend ones. I don’t want to call them “loser stocks”, because there are no losers. I would call it “culling” or “harvesting”. I did make some profit on investing in a number of those single shares, and so grabbed it while I could. I dumped off about 150 investments.

Third, to minimize shareholder inpact in this transition I used my ability to buy 400 shares in my high earning stocks to maximize profits to put towards this acheivement purchase. Thus minimize the blip it would make as much as possible.

Historically, the weekends tend to bring a lot of “newbies” into the market. I would invest in them, but they could not invest in me. Yeah, I got a lot of notifications on that one. When could I buy your shares again?

So, I took the hit… but with the new offering that allows me a chance to grow my portfolio again and bring more dividends to my shareholders.

Finally, a stock tip for you… buy ‘Pooch Land (e)PCH‘. For those that know this blog well, you’ll know who he is. Yes, he has influence too.

If you have been following along, and no doubt you have (cuz, well you are here, aren’t you). You MUST know it too by now from my past five years of bloggin’ here that “I can haz influence.” Well, yeah, I’ve always known that for most of my life. But, to have it actually now recognized by my on-line peers in Empire Avenue just confirms it. How cool is that shit!? In reality, that is what Empire Avenue is about. I swear, in someways your stock is tied to your actual self-esteem and your share price actually reflects it, and your every mood!

Well. today, I sold out of all my initial IPO of 10,000 shares. W00T!!

Yeah, I started “playing the game“, some 21 days ago, and within just 14 of those I had moved up to the #6 spot on the leader board in share price, and top People Stocks and I have pretty much “lurked there”. To tell you the honest truth, I have seen a great many other new people enter onto the Avenue that deserve my spot much more then I. From causes to bringing environmental awareness (e)BPFAIL, and STOOPID CANCER (e)CANCER, and my personal favorite WORLD PEACE (e)WPEACE.

I totally respect Craig Miller (e)MILLER [ @craigwmiller ] way to much to not surpass him at #5. We’ve never actually met face to face yet, but as he pointed out to me once in a private message.. “It’s a small world!” (and we found out that we have many friends in common). Hence, I have actually never made any real attempt to surpass him in the leader board. I consider him an actual friend, and I think he knows that by now too.

As I said, we’ve never met in person yet.. but social media is just that. Getting people together! We’ll meet soon enough in a social medium… mmm.. beer and wings. I can’t wait!

So, what’s the logical step.. to “continue playing the game“. Well, the gamers move would be to sell off all of those that I invested, and profit at their expense. Yeah, take all my Shareholder’s loot… bamboozle them.. and “Driiiink up their milkshakes!!” of any dividend profit. Thus further my means, and influence. Yes, I could offer up another 12,500 shares today at a cost of 30,000 eaves… but will I?

NO! That has never been my game plan from the very get go from signing up. You see, I set some personal “checkpoints” when I entered this “game”.

First, I confirmed the obvious to me, that I have real influence. Actually, I will let you in on a little secret, we all have “real influence”. However, I took the “bull by the horns” and organized the first social gathering of these on-line folks from this game.. whom are now asking me daily when the next one is to be held (announcement soon, I promise).

Second, I networked with some of the “real die-hard players” of this game on-line, many whom started in at the ground floor to get a feel of the history of it, and have met them face to face. Even if some of those meetings were in private Skype calls (they know whom they are).

Third, I networked with the “actual makers of this game” some of whom I have called close personal friends over the past 20 years (e)BGRIER whom got me sucked into his “little, but growing daily” on-line world here.

Fourth, I really DO want to see Empire Avenue succeed in what it was designed for. To bring social media streams together in a common place, engage you, and have you engage others. This is what the “Avenue Atmosphere” is all about. Bringing folks together!

So, now.. my Uber Plan from here. I know you all are dying to hear it!?

Yes, I will share that with you here now publicly. I have spoken about in private with a number of players and stakeholders.

Kevin Umbach (e)KU (also long time buddy) and I, are partnering up to work on an iPhone application to work with Empire Avenue for release (hopefully) ready when it comes out of BETA, sometime this summer (or, so the word on the Avenue is).

Ever since Mashable published this story about Empire Avenue, I have seen MANY, and I mean MANY Twitter requests made.. asking, if and when an iPhone application would be made for Empire Avenue.

Well, if you search my blog, you’ll note I have had a keen interest in getting into iPhone development. I think the first application begs to be.. Empire Avenue for the iPhone. I encourage others also (rather (e)DUPS) to develop for this platform as well. You can read more about the Empire Avenue API here as well. (Rumored to be updated in a couple of weeks, now that Cork is out).

Yeah, Last weekend, I kludged together an app called “eTrader” to buy one share of everyone on the market. To whit, all I have to say is.. “Ask around people know me on the Avenue!” from the volumes it was pumping out. Well, I still do intend to own one share of everyone in the game, that is my end-game goal. However, I will do it on mainly weekends when your share price is down.. and I won’t run 50 buys in a row. Rather, they’ll be staggered and in smaller batches so as not to impact your headlines.

Yeah, that made quite a splash apparently. Why they call it BETA? =)

Anyways, I am now invested in over 993 people on the avenue. In total, as of this writing, there are 3264 people. That number grew from just 2117 people last weekend (before the Mashable article). I plan to PWN a piece of you all one day.

For now, my share price is where it’s at. My investors may FEREL FREE to buy and sell me as they wish.. and scoop me up when shares may become available, because, for the next few months I forsee many long hours hacking in front of X-Code to make some more delicious Kool-Aid for you.

So, let my share price fall where it may.. I says!

World Peace – Out!

(e)LAT

P.S. – A shout out to (e)ADRIEL, on his blog entry ‘#EmpreAve: Building Value – Game Mechanics‘ – yeah, communities, and real social media value are going to have a bigger impact then just ‘playing the game‘ here.

P.P.S. – Shouts out to my closest friends ‘The Scratchley’s’ as they prepare to nest tomorrow. My buddy is building an army of fishing buddies! Keep it up!

Today was quite a roller coaster ride indeed for LAT. Sorry, I was trying to get some actual work done this morning.. so my stock sorta slipped there a bit. It may slide a bit again later this week when Kevin Umbach and I head up to Cold Lake to take more fighter jet pics at Maple Flag 2010. I promise it will rebound and then some with the pics uploaded. Hoping for decent fly weather this year, always at the mercy of the elements in these parts.

Hey, for those still following from the old EOG (Edmonton Observer’s Group) — PeteMan *Boytang* has resurfaced. You too can now buy and sell him on the Avenue PETERB. I also linked him up under the Photography Blogroll there. Check out his latest work.

http://www.peterboytang.com/

OBTW, I still have a number of invites left to the Empire Avenue BETA, don’t be afraid to e-mail me below to claim one.

Finally, who me, ‘lil ‘ole me have influence? I never knew that before. Buy MAX.

No, not really. Happy Quit Facebook Day, I hope you drank the Kool Aid.

Oh yeah really, not missing it. Like, see I have this thing called a Blog where I write stuff. If you want, you can write stuff back on it too.. it’s called comments. Not a thumb up /down button, or a Like or Unlike. No poking please!

It takes time to think up and write the words. Takes time, and it makes you think what you are gonna “communicate”. I don’t think Facebook ever gave me that satisfaction ever, save the personal messages. Oh, and catching them nasty duck poachers once. Yeah, Facebook kind of jumped the shark right after that for me. Anyways, I now get that same thrill again through something called e-mail. I know it’s kind of old school, but BCC’ing your buddies, keeping your contact lists up to date, sure makes it fun. Last time I checked, e-mail was not blocked by work too? Imagine that.

You wanna e-mail me now? Oh, you can’t find my e-mail address anywhere since I deleted it from Facebook. Well, click here below then to send me an e-mail. It’s much easier then those ‘DM’ (Direct Messages) on the twitter, and I promise to still read it even if you use more then 140 characters.

lance.rangerbob@gmail.com

Also, remember how much fun us cool-kids used to have on Windows Messenger? IRC’s. Well, I kinda figured that one out too. Twitter is just that – it’s replacement. You tune in, or you tune out as you desire. You find cool stuff, and cool people to follow. Who knew Ogopogo had a Twitter account!? He is one hungry dude, apparently not enough fish in that lake.  For my IM replacement today, I use Skype!

Hey, wanna chat… or instant message me anywhere? Sure, we can do that too (but no chat roulette please).

Skype @ “lance.rangerbob“.

Anyways, I think I’ll show my Blog just a little more love these days. I hope you will too! I am even considering popping up another one on my domain http://lance-taylor.net that I have sorely neglected over these past five years. This one here, will be for the fun stuff. The other for perhaps the more serious.. and creative side of my on-line schizoid persona.

OCD in a Social Media Wrapper.. hyup, that’s me.

P.S. – The blog looks great on an iPad. I just wanted to point that out to the folks that don’t own one yet. ;^)

P.P.S. – Yeah, the Flickr badge don’t work.. so.. what.. MEH!