I made a hard choice yesterday – I’ve stopped teaching piano and guitar lessons. I quit not because I didn’t enjoy doing so, it was simply a matter of economics. I need to free up more time to code so that I can have more free time for myself. I may start teaching again one day, but it really made me sad to end this.

Last night I got to hang with my friends Doug, Tracy, Evil Doug (who I hadn’t seen in three years and we learned is hopefully moving back to the area), Jan, and Jodi. Doug, Doug, and I got to play guitars a bit and Abbe joined us after she was done with work.

OK, I better get back to the coding… and I’m hoping to get a run in this afternoon – my back has been feeling better, I’ll take it easy and just enjoy myself out there today.

Small Business/Tech Links…

• Bilingual Website Design – There Are Special Requirements
• Turning Traffic Into Money? 3 Easy Ways To Get Paid Online

Funny/Interesting Links…

• The Price of Internet Fame
• Asciiflow
• Shivering Trunks
• Ramen Noodle, the two legged poodle

Yesterday was a really good one. I had a great meeting with a new client. Taught two great kids piano. Kids had great days at camp. Bubs went over to his buddy Timmy’s house for some lake swimming off of their dock. Viv channeled her inner muse and made some art and then played piano with me. After their Mom picked them up for the weekend, I pedaled over to Rachel and Chris’ lakeside home for some beers and pizza. I definitely need to get back over there with Bubs, Viv, and Abbe with me – they would have had a blast.

Small Business/Tech Links…

• Google+ Hits 20 Million Users, Gender Ratio Begins To Even
• 6 Smart Steps to Mastering Engagement with Your Target Audiences
• 8 Powerful Twitter Marketing Tips
• HOW TO: Integrate Google+ Into Your WordPress Site
• Make Your Own Subscription Service: Introducing Memberly

Funny/Interesting Links…

• Animals drawn poorly on cocktail napkins with lasers shooting out of their eyes
• All space shuttle missions, in 8 minutes. (SLYT)
• Tooth Fairy Affair
• Sesame Street/Beastie Boys mashup
• Ding Dong, DADT is dead.

I got a good amount of work done, got a run in, and got the kids shuffled to and from camp successfully. And then something made me smile – Viv decided she wanted to do a piano lesson yesterday afternoon… even though I love playing and teaching music, I do not force it on my kids at all… if they want to learn – cool, if not – that’s cool too…

And then while the kids stayed with their mom, Abbe and I headed to PJ’s for a nice dinner outside with $4 margaritas (woo!). We ended the evening cuddling on the hammock, perfect.

Movie Review…

Sunshine Cleaning – this movie was likable, but it just went nowhere. Alan Arkin is great as expected.

Small Business/Tech Links…

• About Fighting Spam
• 4 Critical Reasons Why You Should Review Your Privacy Policy Right Now
• How to Scale up Your SEO Productivity With SEnuke X
• 7 Twitter Marketing Campaigns to Learn From
• HOW TO: Use CoTweet as a Marketing Tool
• HOW TO: Launch Facebook Skype Video Chat
• Back to SEO Basics: Choosing Keyword Phrases
• Google to Businesses: Don’t Create Google+ Profiles Yet
• Crayola Releases Stylus App Combo For iPad

Funny/Interesting Links…

• designers.mx
• 8 Secrets about Disneyland
• Heavy metal quilts by Ben Venom
• Rotting, abandoned New Orleans theme-park

Some evenings, my home is Grand Central Station. But somehow, it all works. Within 3 hours all of this happened – my mother and I dropped off my car for repairs, Abbe and I got in a short run together around the Lakes, Viv and I rode bikes home, Bubs and I had a baseball catch, Viv and Bubs went over to Ben and Hanna’s for some trampoline bouncing, I had a conference call in my office, I did some coding, we had pizza delivered, my ex-wife stopped by to give the kids hugs and see how their day went, Abbe cleaned the house for a good friend’s bridal gown picking out/measuring, Lori came over for a piano lesson, Leah and Mya stopped by to borrow the kids to play next door, Vivienne got her hair cut by Leah, Bill and Bubs played hockey in the playroom, and then we all kinda stopped to watch the Phils game around 7pm.

And that right there is a microcosm of why I really want my business to succeed. I had four baseball catches with my son in my backyard yesterday. I needed a break for my aching wrists? “Hey Bubs, want me to show you how to throw that circle change again?” That right there is why I work as hard as I do. It’s all about the people in the pictures on my desk.

Oh and here’s Viv’s new do…

Small Business/Tech Links…

• Your Site and the Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights Act of 2011
• Google +1 for Websites Nears Launch
• Google I/O for Developers: New App Engine, Go Runtime & Eclipse Plugin
• 10 Proven Strategies for Greater Likeability on Facebook
• Adobe Launches Photoshop Companion Apps for iPad
• How Google’s Music Service Works [VIDEO]
• Beware MAC Defender: OSX malware disguised as anti-virus software

Funny/Interesting Links…

• Brazilian Native – Not Afraid of Heights At All
• Van Gogh in Bacon
• MELTDOWN – yes, that’s David Cross as the ham sandwich
• Roger Ebert’s Journal – The One-Percenters

Today is doing to be a doozy, first get both kids off to school, code, invoice clients, drop off Abbe Zabby at work, meeting at a client site, conference call on the way from client site to pick up kids from school (half day today), code, teach 3 piano lessons back-to-back-to-back, code, feed kids/maybe self, code more, and then teach guitar lesson…. and then code more probably…

That said, I am sure there are thousands of folks in Alabama and across the south that would trade my busy day with what they woke up to this morning. I have a lot of friends that went to school in Tuscaloosa – really hope they are all OK.

Small Business/Tech Links…

• 9 Essential WordPress SEO Plugins – A SPN Exclusive Article
• Top 5 SEO Tips to Increase Website Traffic
• HOW TO: Start Marketing on Foursquare

Funny/Interesting Links…

• Photopic Sky Survey
• Achievement Porn
• 12 Videos of Creepy Automata