• Posted 12/19/2024.
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    I am still waiting on my developer to finish up on the Classifieds Control Panel so I can use it to encourage members into becoming paying members. Google Adsense has become a real burden on the viewing of this site, but honestly it is the ONLY source of income now that keeps it afloat. I tried offering disabling the ads being viewed by paying members, but apparently that is not enough incentive. Quite frankly, Google Adsense has dropped down to where it barely brings in enough daily to match even a single paid member per day. But it still gets the bills paid. But at what cost?

    So even without the classifieds control panel being complete, I believe I am going to have to disable those Google ads completely and likely disable some options here that have been free since going to the new platform. Like classified ad bumping, member name changes, and anything else I can use to encourage this site to be supported by the members instead of the Google Adsense ads.

    But there is risk involved. I will not pay out of pocket for very long during this last ditch experimental effort. If I find that the membership does not want to support this site with memberships, then I cannot support your being able to post your classified ads here for free. No, I am not intending to start charging for your posting ads here. I will just shut the site down and that will be it. I will be done with FaunaClassifieds. I certainly don't need this, and can live the rest of my life just fine without it. If I see that no one else really wants it to survive neither, then so be it. It goes away and you all can just go elsewhere to advertise your animals and merchandise.

    Not sure when this will take place, and I don't intend to give any further warning concerning the disabling of the Google Adsense. Just as there probably won't be any warning if I decide to close down this site. You will just come here and there will be some sort of message that the site is gone, and you have a nice day.

    I have been trying to make a go of this site for a very long time. And quite frankly, I am just tired of trying. I had hoped that enough people would be willing to help me help you all have a free outlet to offer your stuff for sale. But every year I see less and less people coming to this site, much less supporting it financially. That is fine. I tried. I retired the SerpenCo business about 14 years ago, so retiring out of this business completely is not that big if a step for me, nor will it be especially painful to do. When I was in Thailand, I did not check in here for three weeks. I didn't miss it even a little bit. So if you all want it to remain, it will be in your hands. I really don't care either way.

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    Some people have indicated that finding the method to contribute is rather difficult. And I have to admit, that it is not all that obvious. So to help, here is a thread to help as a quide. How to become a contributing member of FaunaClassifieds.

    And for the record, I will be shutting down the Google Adsense ads on January 1, 2025.
  • Responding to email notices you receive.
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    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

Hurricane season - 2021

I'm hoping too that it will be a small weak storm and not affect the roof. Now that you have it, have you ever considered selling and moving to a more hospitable area with no hurricanes?

No, not really. I suppose everywhere and anywhere has some drawback or another. If there was a perfect place, then probably everyone that could afford the likely VERY high price would already be living there.

A motorhome would likely be the best solution. Simply go where we want, when we want, and avoid the times and places where things aren't just peachy for us. We have noted that people have taken to buying land here and there, and simply park their motor home on their lot whenever they want to be in that particular neighborhood. Have a half dozen or so places all across the USA and boondock at them whenever you wanted to.

But the problem is that I have become rather fond of my toys I have accumulated over my lifetime, and giving them up would be very difficult to do. What about my guns and ammunition? My tools? My home theater system with LOTS of speakers? My computer equipment? Hell, what would I DO with myself without all the toys to play with?

Now if they all got destroyed in some disaster, that would be a different situation entirely as I wouldn't be volunteering to change my life so drastically. Not that I would he happy about it, but it would definitely be a sign that Connie and I need to move on somewhere else. And about Connie, I believe she would follow me into Hell itself.

Heck, there are sink holes all around in this area. If one does open up underneath the house, I sure do hope we aren't in it at the time. Our well is about 300 ft. or so from the house. It was pre-existing when we bought the property. When we had the pump and tank installed the guy ran a plumb line down the 4 inch pipe. He hit water at 20 ft. Just for giggles, he wanted to see how deep the water was. He only had a 100 ft. line and at the end of the line, he still hadn't hit bottom. So we are probably living overtop of some vast underground lake.

Every now and again we will be watering some plants and when I go back to check on it, I see a small hole had opened up and all the water from the hose is just draining down it. It never backs up, so I assume it is going WAY down into the ground. I've seen this at least three or four times at various spots close by. Vast underground limestone cavern underneath our feet? :shrug01:

Heck, I'll be 71 in about 2 weeks, and sure don't plan on living forever. So if I gotta go, at least do so via something that makes front page news. :hehe:

Anyway, I am keeping an eye on this storm. If I remember correctly, Michael was forecast to weekend substantially before making landfall around Mexico Beach. We all saw what happened then. My spider sense was tingling like hell about that storm and that is the first and only time, so far, that we have bailed out to head to safer ground. So far, not a peep out of my spider sense over this one.
 
But the problem is that I have become rather fond of my toys I have accumulated over my lifetime, and giving them up would be very difficult to do. What about my guns and ammunition? My tools? My home theater system with LOTS of speakers? My computer equipment? Hell, what would I DO with myself without all the toys to play with?

Now if they all got destroyed in some disaster, that would be a different situation entirely as I wouldn't be volunteering to change my life so drastically. Not that I would he happy about it, but it would definitely be a sign

Why would you need to give up your toys? You could find property in another state that was not so hurricane prone and move everything except your beautiful garage in one large moving truck Yes, every place has something. But hurricanes are fairly frequent.

Why wait for a sign? With a VERY expensive new roof and no insurance you are asking for a sign. Florida property is hot, with your new roof and your beautiful garage you would get a pretty penny for your place. (You don't even have to list, you can get a realtor to give you an estimate based on area comps, so you could make sure that there was plenty of cash for a new place and a fancy moving truck for the toys.)

You can even scope out new areas at City-Data.com, and take your next vacation visiting a likely town in person.

OK, I'll be quiet now :D
 
Moving is something I would only undertake with a cattle prod poking my butt to make me do it. I remember when I was down here by myself unloading a rented moving truck. It was raining, the ramp was slick, I was tired, wet, and really stressed out. The thought crossed my mind that I wondered what was going to kill me, slipping on the ramp and breaking my neck, catching pneumonia (it was November) and dying, or just the stress making my head explode. I believe I STILL have a couple of boxes that I have never unpacked since moving. Lordy, just thinking of all the work I would have to do now just to get ready to have movers come in and haul the stuff makes me break out into a cold sweat. I would love to sell off my herp book library, but just the work involved to photograph, offer for sale, and ship the books and publications out makes my head hurt. Take them all to a show? Lordy...... I've watched book sellers at shows breaking their backs bringing in all those heavy boxes. Then when the show was over, breaking their backs hauling most of them back out again.

Nope. I will probably die here.

One thing I did check out before we moved down to this area was the actual frequency of hurricane landfalls in this particular area. It is on par with what used to be called Cape Canaveral. Meaning it was about the lowest incidence in the entire state. In the 30 years we have lived here, there has only been one storm that chased us out of here, and that was Michael. We have had power out a few times, and some trees snapped off we had to clean up, but all in all it is not all that bad. And we had a few of the most threatening trees removed recently before this new roof install. But trees surrounding the house can be beneficial. They keep the most damaging winds aloft so that they don't get to ground level and maybe lift your roof off of your house. Those trees I mentioned that snapped? Well they sacrificed themselves with those high winds snapping out the tops of the trees instead of having the winds do damage to the house and buildings. Yeah, one might fall on the house or a building, but I would rather have a damaged roof rather than having no roof at all after a storm.

And to be perfectly honest, no way in Hell I am ever moving north. For any reason. I do NOT ever want to see snow again when I look out my front door. And I do NOT ever want to see the thermometer in the 30s during the daylight hours. Heck, I won't even visit up north in the Winter months. When we moved down here I told my mom that I was NEVER coming up north in the Winter and she said "Do you mean that if I die in the Winter, you won't come to my funeral?" I just told her, "Make sure you die in the Summer months.". As it turned out, she moved further south and died near Englewood Florida. So yeah, I went to her funeral.

So what would be my options? Move further south? Yeah, leaning into a punch by doing that. Moving east? Wouldn't be gaining anything there, either. Moving west? Would have to go inland to get away from the Gulf of Mexico, and that would put us right along the Mexican border. Thanks, but no thanks. It's bad enough having to shoot squirrels around here, and that is legal.

And then there is the state wide and local political climate to be considered. Some places are just going to be better than others in the coming years. There is talk of Biden ordering people to go door to door with compulsory vaccinations. Yeah, just talk, I know. But in the county I live in now, that would be a real stupid thing for people to do. You just don't threaten rednecks with needles.

A while back I actually toyed with the idea of moving to Central America. So I looked into it. A lot of things we take for granted in the USA just do not exist in a lot of other countries in that region.

Anyway, Elsa made landfall between Steinhatchee and Perry, Florida, well East of us. We are getting a little bit of wind here and we have gotten just 0.02" of rain so far. So pretty much a non event. Seriously, in this area, that is pretty much par for the course with these tropical storms. A whole lot of worry and preparation, then a big sigh of relief afterwards.

No place will ever be perfect. But what we have here is likely as close to it as I could realistically ever hope for. Basically, 364 days of semi-paradise, one day of a landfalling hurricane in your front yard. Just deal with it.
 
This is pretty typical for storms here.... Knock on wood.
 

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