AskDong

The old adage on buying houses is to buy the worst house in the best neighborhood.  The same should be said of hotel rooms.  Many of the nicer hotels and resorts on the beach typically offer at least three different classes of rooms (not including suites).  When I stayed at Caneel Bay, it had in order of best to “worst”, Beachfront, Oceanview, Gardenview, Tennis Court view room. This week at my stay at Hanalei Bay Resorts I had the option of Oceanview, Garden View, and Mountain View.  Personally as long as there’s a view I’m pretty happy.   I’ve stayed in rooms that have looked into a brick wall, and know that I don’t like sleeping in a cave.  However, I’m going to look at the ocean, I’m more likely to step out of my room and do that.

When you’re staying at any hotel you’re paying for more than just the room or the view, especially at nicer hotels and resorts.  You’re paying for access to different facilities.  At Caneel Bay, free snorkel and other watersport rental (such as small catamarans and windsurfing boards) came with every room not just the expensive beachfront rooms. You’re paying for impeccable service.  This service generally remains impeccable even when you stay in the “cheap” rooms.

I compared quickly some the recent quoted rates for some resorts, and the price difference between rooms can be remarkable.

I’ve pulled the rates for the 2nd week of January from the official websites except for Hanalei Bay.  These rates may not be the best rates available.  Hanalei Bay is primarily a condo resort, i.e. many of the rooms are individually owned or part of timeshare, and as result does not have official website that I know.  For Hanalei Bay, I pulled a quote from Yahoo travel.  The price spread at the Marriott in Puerto Rico is much more narrow because the rooms are in large high rise.  The properties in Kauai and St. John are much more varied.  Caneel Bay has individual bungalows for example scattered on the property, and as a result the beachfront properties are unique in being right on the beach.  Still, I’m not sure and extra $425 a night is worth that convenience.  I rather stay near the tennis courts and walk an extra five minutes to the beach.

I’ve never driven a car that’s needed anything but the cheapest gas available.  My family drove a car that ran on regular when it meant leaded well into the 80s.  I’m not sure how to fill up a tank with anything but the cheapy under 90 octane stuff.  I have friends who drive nicer cars than mine, not hard to do given I’m still rolling my windows down by hand, who fill up their cars with the good stuff.  Some places call it super, or supra, and others call it plus or premium.  Whatever it’s name, it’s got more octane, and apparently some cars need more octane.

How many of us actually even know what octane is, or what the difference between 87 octane and 93 octane? The octane referred to at gas stations is technically 2,2,4-trimethylpentane (isooctane), one of the isomers of CH3(CH2)6CH3.  For those who haven’t take organic chemistry, an isomer is a particular configuration for a particular molecule.

Isooctane looks like this (that is if you could actually see it):

Another isomer, 2-methylheptane - (CH3)2CH(CH2)4CH3, meaning is has the same atoms – the same number of hydrogens and carbons but configured differently looks like this:

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Given my background in the Energy Industry, I’m often interested by things that most people would not give a second thought to. On my flight from Honolulu to Maui, there was a serendipitous moment. I was reading an article on the geothermal plant on the Big Island while we flew over a set of large wind turbines dotting the mountainside of Maui.

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I want to take this post to encourage people to subscribe to my blog via the RSS feed.  You can subscribe through an RSS reader or via email.  It’s your choice.   By subscribing, you’ll automatically receive updates in your reader or email.  Of course feel more than free to continuing visiting the actual blog even after subscribing.  

While I realize most of you already know what an RSS subscription is, some don’t.  RSS or Really Simple Syndication is set of web feed formats that allows content to be pulled by various outside readers.  I didn’t really know what RSS was until I started writing my blog.   I had never subscribed to anything up to that point.  Now when I go to my iGoogle homepage, I see the latest entries from my favorite blogs.  It makes it much easier for me to read the posts that look interesting rather than scanning all my favorite blogs on FireFox individually.

When you click on the subscribe link, you’ll be redirected to another page that will allow you to select what platform you want to read updates from.  You can choose Google, Yahoo, AOL, and others.   Just the pick the one that you regularly use and AskDong will be added.

An email subscription works similarly but instead of receiving new posts in your reader, you receive them in your email to read at your leisure.   You can actually subscribe to both if you wanted. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this unabashed plug of an AskDong RSS subscription.

I sold my second spot at Text-Links-Ads last week.  I’m not really sure how I feel about it on two different fronts. 1) The ad is for a payday loan company.  While I respect the right for these types of companies to exist, and acknowledge there might be a time and place for their business, I’m not sure how much I want to be associated with them.  I have changed my settings and will no longer allow Text-Link-Ads pre-approve ads for publication.  The second front is my general feeling towards the ad revenue model for smaller blogs/websites such as AskDong.  I don’t blog for the money as I’ve to date been paid a total $15 for what is at this point hundreds of hours of “work”, but I’m not sure if I would blog if there was no money.  Getting paid somehow serves as affirmation of my work, and I still harbor day dreams of being a six figure blogger.  Realistically though, I have no expectations that I’ll ever be able to make blogging anything other than a hobby that pays for itself.

Even though, I don’t expect I will ever make much money by blogging, I do want to believe that blogging income is sustainable.  I like the idea of having different, albeit small income streams.  Selling ad space gives me what I feel might be a false sense of hope. I also wonder if the Advertising gravy train will continue uninterrupted.  The economy is likely to slow in the next year, and the advertising budget is often the first to be cut.  I also question how effective advertising actually is, and will blogs like mine continue to be able to pickup advertisers and generate revenue.  Personally, I don’t think I’ve ever purchased something via an ad.  I have definitely clicked on more than few ads, but I don’t think I’ve purchased anything, and don’t even remember what ads I’ve clicked.  If anything I feel image ads are more effective as they tend build brand recognition and lead to sales in the long run.  I’m much more likely to remember the name of a company or it’s logo in mage banner ads than to click on a text ad.

I hope this last ad sale isn’t my last. Though the truth is I don’t believe I have any more ad spaces to sell.  I don’t really have any revenue model for my blog.  All I know is I’d like to have few ads to generate some revenue, but definitely don’t want so much that I feel like corporate schill.  I imagine I’ve got space for a few more ads but not too much more than that.