• 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.

Possible hurricane - 2022 (Ian)

How is the weather now? Are the streets OK? Any chance that you and Connie could just go away for a week?
I'm certainly praying that Ian does not come straight for you, or doesn't gather strength like they describe; the more I read, the more apprehensive I am.
 
How is the weather now? Are the streets OK? Any chance that you and Connie could just go away for a week?
I'm certainly praying that Ian does not come straight for you, or doesn't gather strength like they describe; the more I read, the more apprehensive I am.

The weather is beautiful here right now. As for getting away this week, I wouldn't count on that happening. Connie is going to the hospital to get a port installed on Tuesday for her continued chemo treatment. That gets slid under the skin on her chest and attached to a tube that ties into one of the major arteries going into her heart. Then she has an appointment Wednesday with our new primary care physician, and I have my appointment with same on Friday.

I imagine after her surgery she isn't going to feel much like moving around a whole lot. I won't be at all surprised if she cancels out of her PCP appointment. And I doubt it likely that I will be attending mine if that hurricane is actually going to be making landfall here Friday morning.

What makes me nervous, is that when hurricane Michael was being forecast, they also predicted that it would lose strength before making landfall. And it pretty nearly wiped Mexico Beach right off of the map as a Cat 5 storm. I didn't believe them, so Connie and I bailed out of here and stayed at a motel over on the east coast, out of the way. This time things are complicated for us. But it could be worse. Connie was actually supposed to have her first Doxil treatment on Tuesday with her previous oncologist. That stuff can have some pretty bad side effects. So no good scenarios, only one somewhat better than the other concerning how Connie will likely be feeling this week.

But at least I got the standby generator fixed up and ready in case we have to just hunker down here. Unless a tree falls across it or the propane tank, of course.

If Connie is feeling up to it, I suppose we could just jump into the Grand Cherokee and bug out somewhere. The front seats will fold down flat and would be OK to sleep in if we had to just drive to a rest stop or a Walmart parking lot somewhere out of the target area. But depends on how Connie is feeling then. It is considered minor surgery, but still, getting cut is going to be painful for a while. I watched a video of the procedure, and it certainly doesn't look like any fun to me.

Oh well, we will just have to see what happens. Two of the four models I am watching are still calling for Ian to hit somewhere near Tampa. But by Tuesday or Wednesday I expect the predictions should be more accurate by then.
 
Landfall moving further east. Again. Estimated landfall time is 09-30-2022, 08:00pm, now.
 

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And now West again.... With landfall at 11:00am 09-30. :face_palm_02:
 

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And then back eastward again, with a later landfall time of around 9:00pm on 09-30. :rolleyes:
 

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Actually, it looks like they might have just recycled the predicted landfall image from the post I made on 09-25-2022, 08:09 PM. Just looks like the strength of the storm has been reduced a bit. The other models are showing a greatly reduced storm at landfall too. :shrug01:

One would hope this will just fizzle out to being just a modest rain event.
 
Looking at all of the tracking models, it appears that most are predicting landfall around Tampa Bay. As of today, anyway.
 

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Looks like they looked real hard at the multiple tracking models and GFS changed their prediction accordingly. Now showing landfall at Tampa Bay on Thursday, 09-29-2022 at 2:00pm.
 

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Naples? That is WAY south of the Tampa Bay area. I don't see any of the forecast tracks headed that way. Of course, some of the later models are now showing tracks further west in my direction. :(
 

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I think a lot of people in lower-lying areas along the coast are being advised to get out. Since the rotation is counter-clockwise and it's coming up from the south, there will be a fairly impressive storm surge.
223342_peak_surge.png
 
Yeah, it looks like that storm is just going to park itself (according to the latest track, anyway) right at the mouth of Tampa Bay for at least 12 hours. Maybe as long as 24 hours. :ack2:
 
Looks like most of the spaghetti models are converging on Tampa Bay for landfall.
 

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Looks like as of today at 5:00pm, the track is showing landfall at Englewood Beach, FL around 02:00 am on Thursday, 09-29.
 

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I've been watching this from a distance, and it looks like it was pretty rough on Cuba. Seems like flooding from the storm surge was the worst of it though, and I think you are pretty much away from the coast, right?
Anyway I know the next day or two are going to be rough over there, just hoping it will go over strong but fast and you'll be in the clean up phase as soon as possible.
 
Mandatory evacuation orders issued for Tampa/Naples/Pinellas areas.

Well, it certainly looks like they were correct about extending the evacuation order all the way down to Naples. :shrug01:
 
Please check in and let us know how you and Connie are doing.
 
Looks like the hurricane made landfall right up Charlotte Harbor around 3:00 pm today as a Category 4 storm. Wouldn't have been a good time to be on Sanibel Island or Englewood Beach for vacation as Connie and I have done many times in the past. Looks like it will be pretty ugly there through this storm. Probably would be some GREAT shelling on Sanibel afterwards, though.

We are OK up here. Just somewhat breezy, with no rain to speak of in the forecast. Matter of fact, I am watering some of the citrus trees right now. Been pretty dry here for a while now.

Connie had her port surgery yesterday, and I think she would have been OK had we had to evacuate had the storm headed this way. She is a little sore, but not disabled by the surgery. Not that I wish that storm on anyone, but I sure am glad it didn't come this way. We have had enough bad luck for the year, thank you very much.
 
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