Business and Society Articles

Explaining how long it took for me and all the details involved. I’m happy to report I’ve been approved for monetization at NewsBreak! I wanted to share the details with anyone waiting or thinking about becoming a contributor. Here are some details:I wrote my first article on NewsBreak on December 24, 2022. 23 total articles 370 followers 734k impressions 46k views 853 likes 565 comments 742 shares As you may know, contributors have to have 100 registered followers and 10 articles before they can apply for monetization. I reached these markers after 15 articles on January 6, 2023. After applying, NewsBreak told me it could take up to one month until they got back to me. I also heard from some Medium writers that it has sometimes taken up to 45 days. I heard back from them yesterday January 1. That means it took roughly 25 days for them to get back to me, thankfully, to tell me I’m approved. I really wasn’t sure if I would be approved, especially considering I slowed down writing there ...

NASA used it to practice for the moon. The Hole-in-the-Ground is a large crater caused by a volcanic explosion (maar). It is an entire mile across at the furthest point and 490 ft. deep in the middle. There is another maar 8 miles west of this one that is even bigger at 1.1 miles across called the Big Hole. The elevation of this area is 4,650 ft. This massive hole is one of the many geographic attractions found in Lake County, OR. It can be found off OR-31 around the 22-mile marker. There is a sign saying Hole-in-the-Ground and another entry point saying Outback Station. Off OR-31 at the second exit, visitors will take dirt roads and come across the Outback Station, which is an RV park, before getting to the Hole-in-the-Ground Vista Point about 2 miles later. The Hole-in-the-Ground is located within the Deschutes National Forest at the western edge of the Fort Rock basin. It is located about 8 miles northwest of the town of Fort Rock and 24 miles southeast of La Pine. The Oregon Encyc...

Let us be committed to making our marriages work. It seems that nearly everything in American culture and society is trying to destroy our marriages. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would conclude there is a conspiracy to destroy the Biblical family unit however possible. Whatever the reasons our modern marriages are failing and not even getting started, the fact is they are more than is acceptable. I want to fight this modern trend by encouraging people to value marriage and do what it takes to make them work. I understand how hard it can be, as I’ve been married for around 10 years now and my wife and I both came from dysfunctional and broken families. Even with guidance from our faith in the Holy Bible, we have had many difficulties and challenges along the way threatening to thwart our marriage for good. Praise God, we are still together through the challenges. I will say it takes two people who are committed to staying together. If one person isn’t willing to make it work, even...

Another interesting geological formation in Lake County. The Crack-in-the-Ground is one of the many geological attractions in Lake County, Oregon. Managed by the Bureau of Land Management, it has a small dirt parking lot with an on-site bathroom, a well-beaten path, and beautiful views. The Crack-in-the-Ground is a volcanic fissure formed long ago and preserved in the high-desert surroundings around Christmas Valley, OR. There is a 2-mile-long hiking trail that runs through the formation that goes as far down as 70 feet below the surface; the average width between the stone walls is 10 ft. Visitors will have to traverse a rocky dirt road that leads up the hills surrounding the basin area where Christmas Valley and Fort Rock are located. The parking area and start of the hiking trail are around five miles from Christmas Valley and 102 miles southeast of Bend. Once visitors are past the short, rocky, hundred-foot climb, they will be on a smoother dirt road that winds its way to the tra...

Are you sharing articles on this social site? Above is one of my posts on Reddit. As you can see, it has over 35k views and 369 more upvotes than downvotes. It also has 53 shares. This is in a subreddit community called Oregon. It has 168k members. Not all of my posts to this subreddit do this well, but this shows the potential Reddit offers. This link share is from a NewsBreak article and I have noticed traffic coming to the articles when I post here. I write mostly about local news in Oregon. My experience at Reddit hasn’t always been so beneficial. For most of the nine years I’ve been there I gained no traction and my posts to subreddits were almost always removed for some reason. I began to think Reddit was a puzzle I couldn’t figure out. Nevertheless, I kept trying and finally found some subreddits that work. The key is to find a subreddit, read all the directions for posting, and then once find one that doesn’t remove your link, you now have a good place to share content on that...

Analyzing the holistic enterprise with stats and generalities. I started syndicating my blog content on Medium around 2017 with my first account, which has gone by the wayside since. The account I’m using now is my second account which I started around August 2018. I posted around 12 articles here from then until December 2022. Like a long-lost treasure realized, I started writing seriously on Medium around early December 2022. I’ve now been writing regularly here for around 5 weeks. The total article count I’ve amassed is 46 at this point in my Medium journey. When I came back to Medium after 4.5 years of neglect, I had 34 followers and wasn’t a member. I became a member and then soon enough reached the 100-follower threshold to apply for monetization. I really appreciate how quickly Medium approves this part of the journey. How I Got 48 Followers on Medium in 4.5 Years Some sarcasm mixed with sincerity. medium.com At this point, I have 242 followers and am up to 1,580 views in the pa...

Learning to be positive without being false.  O ne of the most challenging tasks in life is to look at ourselves and the world truthfully while remaining optimistic.  We don’t have to look very far to find trouble in the world and within ourselves.  Some people try to shield themselves from all negative news, thoughts, and people. Others tend to dwell on the negative aspects of life. Neither of these extremes teaches us how to cope with life in a balanced way.  If we are in a helping profession or are a counselor-type of person, we will find ourselves dealing with troubled people and realities often. Just dealing with the realities of day-to-day life with family, friends, and community asks us to look at the problems of life.  So how do we look truthfully at the problems of life while staying optimistic?  We can see what happens to people when they aren’t able to figure this question out, they often become: addicted to substances and bad habits negative and...

The AI-curated online world has created a new breed, yet some hold on to their creative uniqueness despite the pervasive trend. The stormtrooper gazes at the flower wondering with awe at the natural creativity found within it. The internet is conditioning human thought and behavior and creating information machines among us. These are humans who have given over to the influences of the hive mind.  The hive mind is the personification of the internet and the big data brain behind its user-friendly interfaces. The hive mind is the holistic sum of the digital age and the internet of things (IoT). On the other side of the human spectrum is the Luddite creative thinker who is detached from the influences of the hive mind, even though part of it in some measure.  The most important aspect of the creative thinker is they are not led by the influences of the hive mind, at least not overtly and consciously.  The information machine-human is keen to know the secrets of the hive min...

Maybe this is a perspective only older people can relate to.  When I was in high school in the mid-90s, I used a typewriter to accomplish my essay assignments that needed to be typed. This really wasn’t that long ago, yet how things have changed. Part of this change is people’s perspectives when it comes to being entitled to write online. Not only do they now expect to be published on sites like Medium, but also make money. And if the money isn’t enough for them to make a living they are critical of the entire platform, like it owes them something. I realize writers need to make money to live, so write a book or submit articles to magazines and other paying publications. Sign a book deal with a publishing house or self-publish, etc. There are so many different ways to make money writing now; the difficult part is everyone else is doing it too, which makes it hard to stand out and find an audience. Even on Medium, the competition is thick with so many different types of people tryin...