John Boehner is Following Me on Twitter

January 26, 2009 / By John Beagle / In Congressman, John Boehner, twitter / Leave Comment

John Boehner visits Monroe, originally uploaded by John Beagle.

Last Summer I had the privilege of meeting John Boehner, one of his aids snapped this photo. Today, John Boehner started following me on Twitter. You to can follow us @JohnBoehner and @JohnBeagle on Twitter.

Twitter is a free social networking tool, its the most popular micro-blogging service on the Internet. Twitter.com

Today @JohnBoehner has 2431 followers with only 269 updates.
Congressman Boehner started tweeting on April 21, 2007.

Here is his first tweet:
Have an op-ed on TownHall.com: http://tinyurl.com/ytndvb
11:55 AM Apr 21st, 2007 from web

Being a local businessman and homeowner in Mr. Boehner’s 8th Ohio District, I feel my voice is being heard in congress. That’s because Mr. Boehner is pro-business. He knows that businesses like mine are the backbone of the economy and that taxes and regulation are literally squeezing the life out of small business.

Barack Obama surely has a lead on Twitter with 144,000 followers.

With efforts from people like John Boehner, and Top Conservatives on Twitter #tCOT, TopConservativesOnTwitter.org aka #TCOC, the conservative voice will be heard. We have a lot of work to do. Currently, Brooks Bayne @BrooksBayne is the #TCOC having 20,488 followers at last count.

All told, there are very few republican congressmen on this list or on Twitter to say the least. I am calling all republican congressman to post comments on twitter. Keep your constituency informed.

(John Boehner is rated 77th on #TCOT)

Jamica Mon

January 5, 2009 / By John Beagle / In jamica, Middletown / Leave Comment

Jamica Mon, originally uploaded by John Beagle.

Last year we invited Mongolian Exchange students into our home.
More: Mongolian Music Friends

This year, our family met people from Jamica. The photo is of my son, Bobby demonstrating his knowledge of the culture, Rastafarianism*. Don’t worry, be happy.

*Some Rastafari wear their hair in an untended, uncut condition called dreadlocks. They generally believe in the Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. He is said to be the true descendant of Solomon, and precepts are shared amongst followers as folklore.

I’m Stuck in the Middle

December 15, 2008 / By John Beagle / In AK Steel monroe ohio middletown, Suncoke / Leave Comment

I’m stuck in the middle of Monroe and Middletown. That’s me with the US flag tie and disgusted look on my face, watching our town fight itself, neighboring Middletown and the areas largest employer, AK Steel. I’m stuck because I own a business in Middletown and live in Monroe. I’m damned if I take either side of this argument.

It all started when AK Steel decided it wanted to partner with SunCoke for coke and electricity.
Discussion: SunCoke Plant – Commission Vote March 26, 2008

Since then, things have gone steadily downward. Monroe Council has obtained legal council to fight the building of what AK Steel says is necessary for its survival. Union members who live in Monroe ask why their jobs are being blocked by Council. Residents ask why SunCoke has to build their plant on the boarder with Monroe.

Either Middletown will win and many residents of my hometown will see their quality of life go down or Monroe will win and AK may close down, jobs will be lost.

Today, residents attack the local paper on this Voice Post: Middletown Journal, or is it the AK Journal?

I hope this ends soon. Either way, many people will be unhappy.

Permalink: http://www.johnbeagle.com/2008/12/im-stuck-in-middle-of-monroe-and.html

Still Renting Computers after 21 years

December 4, 2008 / By John Beagle / In computer rental, Projector Rental, training / 1 Comment

room camera shot, originally uploaded by Xponex.

People always ask me what I do for a living. When I tell them I rent computers, they usually scratch their head and ask why.

“Why would anyone ever want to rent a computer?,” they ask.

One good example is classroom computer training. Renting is far easier and cheaper than owning for off-site training. This is a wonderful environment to train staff from all over the world.

My company installs computers, networks, projectors and even the IP surveillance cameras in rooms like the one in the photo all over the world, but primarily in the US.

The computers are preloaded with the client company’s software for training. All computers are networked and have the same specification.

This is just one example, there are many other examples of the cost effective and convenience advantages of renting computer and audio visual technology.

Call me crazy, but since 1987, I have non-stop, been renting computers to businesses in the United States, Canada and now Europe.

Visit Rentacomputer.com for more information.

Let us proclaim Thursday a Day of Thanksgiving

November 26, 2008 / By John Beagle / In jesus, prayer, thanksgiving / 1 Comment

Photo: Visitors we are thankful for this year.

This year a Thanksgiving Feast will be celebrated in our home.
As the head of the household, it is tradition for me to say a prayer of thanksgiving.

So here is my prayer :

Dear God,
It’s Thanksgiving Day, so let us give thanks together.

Thank you for the turkey, mash potatoes and gravy we are about to receive.
…(Amen)

Thank you for our family and friends
Thank you for our visitors
Thank you for our pets, our homes and the fun we all have together
Thank you for the sun on the beach and greens on the golf courses
Thank you for our health and wealth and our optimism for both
Thank you for our time together

In Jesus’ name we meet.
Amen

About Thanksgiving:
Thanksgiving was not always celebrated in our country. For nearly one hundred years, the tradition dwindled. Thanks to Lincoln’s urgings, Thanksgiving got a fixed date to be celebrated in the US.

Both Washington and Lincoln Proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving and acknowledged the Almighty God and helped keep the spirit of Thanksgiving alive. Source: ConservativeTruth.org

Washington proclaimed “a DAY OF PUBLIC THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”

Lincoln called for Americans “to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.”

50 Twitter Twips from Webmaster World’s Pubcon Vegas 2008

November 16, 2008 / By John Beagle / In pubcon, twitter, vegas / 1 Comment

Warren Whitlock was the first person I met at Pubcon.

Below are all the twips I tweeted (notes I took) while at Pubcon last week. The actual tweet stream contains spelling errors plus additional commentary from me. All Pubcon tweeting was done via my cell phone so posts are short due to technological limitations.

There were multiple Pubcon conference tracks available. Tracks included SEO: Organic Search, SEM, Social Brand Networking, Web Hosting, Content, Advertising and others. I mostly attended social networking in Salon C.

It’s interesting what Zappos and Comcast are doing in the Twitter space. I might follow their example with my company too. Certainly I will be watching the efforts to fully benefit from micro-blogging.

My Pubcon Notes
If I heard a tip or good idea, I tweeted it. You can follow me,
JohnBeagle on Twitter.

Here are my PubCon Twitter Twips, in order as they appear:

1. warren wrote Twitter Revolution
2. rand …yahoo buzz helped huffington post get traffic
3. rand… follow new president on twitter
4. rand…user profiles build good page rank you can leverage
5. gray…build trusted profile
6. pubcon social mktg seminar… try everything. see what works
7. gray..nohard selling on social sites but logos are ok
8. reach out to bloggers in the space
9. email neil patel for his slides on the dark side of social media
10. find people in the social media space and hire them
11. also hire interns and telecommuters’ to cut social media costs
12. see what google put in its database with key words and advanced search …select 24 hrs
13. only 100 people can connect laptop at pubcon
14. easytweets is worth taking a look at for commercial social
15. pubcon lunch sucks but cloud computing with amazon dude was cool
16. amazon dude Mike Culver speaks tomorrow at pubcon
17. twitterers use the term …tweet …when posting they don’t twit
18. twitter has passed the one billion tweet milestone
19. zapos has 400 employees on twitter …its in their culture
20. brian carter now up on pubcon stage blog + bookmarketing + twitter = optimization
21. propeller is pretty much useless ..buchard at pubcon
22. add digg vote button on posts so people can vote right away
23. only 6 to 8 stories from un-trusted domains get on hom page of digg ..Buchard
24. facebooks kent schoen speaking at pubcon 120m users
25. ugc user generated content is gold
26. bloggers hate technorati…Jenkins at pubcon
27. stumbleupon is a better social space
28. facebook connect digg …good pubcon tip from Breslin
29. openid is a distributed login tool …on list to try
30. “Twitter” #1 most talked about in Social Thread at #pubcon today
31. dont build a Frakensite -Ulle
32. know thy competitor with Bruce Clay
33. andy beal as james bond ‘spy’ with domintools.com
34. Bill Atchison ‘noarchive’ entire site
35. optimizing pdf for se by george aspland
36. comments count on video search – greg jarboe
37. spencer suggests multiple rss feeds on blogs such as comment rss
38. andy beal isnt afraid to post his true opinions on his blog
39. no one thinks blogging is going downhill at #pubcon
40. 9 to 10 am est is best time to post a blog -beal
41. lee odden keeps several drafts of posts going at all time
42. blog as often as u can – barry schwartz
43. have at lesat 3 bloggers on a blog – schwartz
44. LIVE search looks better than Yahoo
45. interview with bruce clay on live seach excel integration . its cool but no one will use it .
46. clay: word integration would be better
47. paid links need to be in relevant text. need to be the only paid link on the page
48. buy links directly from website owners – Lessnau
49. sometimes I buy links -fishkin
50. Chris Tolles fom topix advised to do as little moderating as possible

Mongolian Music Friends

October 7, 2008 / By John Beagle / In Uncategorized / Leave Comment

Mongolians Music AD Friends, originally uploaded by John Beagle.

Ankhaa and Dembee were visitors in our home last week. Ankhaa celebrated his 16th birthday on Sunday. Dembee already is 16. Neither boy spoke any english. Thumbs up was the first sign language we learned. Do you like this? Thumbs up or down?

While Ankhaa lives in a traditional house in town, Dembee lives in a ger in the countryside. Life is quite different in Monglolia. There is limited electricity and running water. But there are lots of cell phones.

Everything was an adventure. From taking showers to eating hamburgers like a sandwich, the boys received an education in our American ways. We played golf, basketball, and soccer with my 16 year old son, Bobby.

One night the boys made us a traditional Mongolian supper. They went shopping for the food. Prepared the food and then performed music on their Morin Khurr (horse head fiddle) for us. The attached video is the performance from last Thursday night in our Monroe, Ohio home.

Here is a video of their performance in our kitchen:
Mongolian Performance in Monroe, Ohio

John Ryan Beagle HS Graduation Speech

September 24, 2008 / By John Beagle / In high school graduation valedictorian / Leave Comment

My son, Valedictorian of Monroe Local Schools Class of 2008, gives a graduation speech.

John encouraged his classmates to “apply what you have learned, don’t let the years you spent in high school go to waste.” He references 70’s philosophical lyrics from Pink Floyd’s, “Time” here:

You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

In conclusion, John said, “Always make the rest of your life, the best of your life.”

Day 8 Held Hostage by Duke Energy

September 19, 2008 / By John Beagle / In blackout, duke, smb / 2 Comments

breaker poll 007-crop, originally uploaded by John Beagle.

A 5 minute repair from Duke Energy could put mine and 10 other SMBs back in business. Many have called to report this.

This outage hurts tenants in the building which include Health Service Review, Christian Credit One, Adult Care, Amerprise, New Steel, Verizon, T-Moble, International Quality Health Care, Xponex Media, and others. All without power.

Small business is the backbone of Middletown. Right now 10 businesses are out of business. And will continue to be out of business until this is fixed.

Trucks drive right by our pole. I tried to flag one down as they drove by, but they just went on by.

Since last Sunday evening we have been feeding the generators to keep our server farm alive. I took a 2 to 5 am shift Monday refilling our gasoline powered generators.

As I type this, I’m still in the dark.

I hope we soon find power.
Is this the way things will be or might be?

My Seat at OSU Stadium

September 8, 2008 / By John Beagle / In football, Ohio State, osu, stadium, the ohio state university / 2 Comments

Ohio State 012, originally uploaded by John Beagle.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a stadium in college football that is as well-recognized simply by its shape. The OSU stadium is laid out in the shape of a horseshoe and has a capacity to seat 89,841 screaming fans. Source: OhioStateTix.com

I sit in row 9 (not bad) near the bottom of the “U” is a good place to watch the Ohio State Buckeyes. This game, against Ohio University, was an “All Ohio College Football Game” one that hadn’t been played since 1999.

A new cheer that involves fan interaction was started this year with Youngstown State. Every time Ohio State gets a first, the scoreboard announcer says, “Gain of (blank) on the play and that’s another Buckeeeeeeeeeye … (crowd response) first down.”

Now its the second game, and I agree with Buckeye Commentary blog poster who says, … for the love of all things Ohio State, stop the call and response first down announcement from the scoreboard. Stop it. Right. Now.

Still, Buckeye games are fun. Tailgating is even funner.