What a surprise we had this week when we went to collect our mail! An unexpected box of goodies from the Nuffnang bloggers’ network.

Yes, we are associates of Nuffnang, but we really appreciated this suprise because it was not anything we could have expected as being due to us. It was an example of the philosophy of abundance that we have observed is central to how Nuffnang operates.

We had been talking, as we were walking on the beach, about gratitude and being grateful for where we live. And I had been preparing a talk for Toastmasters that night, on The Power of Gratitude, in terms of helping to attract abundance: so the arrival of this unexpected box was a real bonus. Yes I did add it to my Toastmasters speech.

When we opened  the box we found lots of goodies, a thank you letter and a Myer card loaded with $10 .

So what is this Nuffnang bloggers’ network?

Nuffnang is an Asia Pacific blog advertising platform with an 800-strong Australia blogging network. It’s a lot bigger outside Australia: as of July 2009, they have 80,000 bloggers in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines using Nuffnang ads.

Interested? You can read more here about Nuffnang and about how you can become a part of their ad network. If you sign up between August 12 and September 11, 2009, Nuffnang will send you a sample box of goodies pictured above.

Nuffnang has a motto of fun, so this week lots of bloggers around Australia had some fun and many of us have written about our fun boxes. This is a great example of businesses working together to support one another.

Are you a Nuffnang Blogger?

Rainbow Bay, Queensland, Australia, early this morning

I said “I have to get a picture for my blog!”

He smiled and posed.

“What’s the name?” I asked

“Santa”

Of course.

Between the usual demands of the festive season and the lure of the beach, I doubt that I’ll be doing a lot of blog posting over the next few days.

Wishing you a very happy Hanukkah, very happy Christmas, and very happy whatever other greetings of your preference, dear readers.

This takes time and can be fiddly.

Now there is a tool/toy you can play with that will create a graphic for you. It has the wonderful name of Woodle.

So what can you do with this:

Type in your URL. This what came out for Thinking Home Business.

This is from my Delicious account

And this is from text from an article on LOA

Click on this image to see the full size. This was also customized. There are a range of color palettes, a randomizer for how the words are displayed. It’s a fun tool

I think this has great potential. Your own personalized word clouds.

Go and play and leave a link below to your woodle.

Spent a very enjoyable hour or so yesterday at nearby Rainbow Bay, where the Quiksilver Pro surfing championships are still in progress off Snapper Rocks.

I managed to catch an amazing performance by Taj Burrow – the judges also thought it was excellent, with a couple of 10s contributing to his score of 9.87.

You might need to download it and play it in full screen mode to get the beauty of it.

Spent a very enjoyable hour or so yesterday at nearby Rainbow Bay, where the Quiksilver Pro surfing championships are still in progress.

I managed to catch an amazing performance by Taj Burrow – the judges also thought it was excellent, with a couple of 10s contributing to his score of 9.87.

You might need to download it and play it in full screen mode to get the beauty of it.

I used a “still” camera in video mode for this and spent half this morning figuring out how a way to edit the file. I hope you enjoy it.

I’ll head back to the beach this afternoon or tomorrow with my camcorder.

An enquiry about how to sign up to receive these quotes made me think it would be a good idea to add a new category of Quotes and post each week’s quote as a blog post. Then if they wished, people could bring all the quotes up together by clicking on the category – or by using the lijit search facility in the sidebar.

I need to figure out also how to set up for subscribing to an RSS link (possibly also an email alert?) for a specific category. That was one of the good features of the Blogware software which used to be the platform for this blog. Now I have to figure out how to do it with WordPress. I’ve looked for a plugin, but so far to no avail.

Here are quotes from previous weeks, including this week just ending.

One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: To rise above the little things.

John Burroughs

“If everybody’s thinking alike, somebody isn’t thinking.”

General George S. Patton (American General in World War I and II, 1885-1945)

“If you want to go faster, go alone. If you want to go further, go together.”

African Proverb

via David McGregor’s ThoughtSpurs

“Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Poet, Lecturer, Essayist, 1803-1882

If you have a favorite quote you would like to see featured here, please provide the details at the Contact page on this site.

If you submit a quote for featuring, please understand and accept that I will be completely subjective about which quotes I use and which I don’t.

Please make sure to include a Web link for the source.

If you can’t quite remember the quote, just Google the words you recall, with the word “quote” or “quotation”.

Or check some of the standard sites:

The Quotations Page

Bartelby

The Yahoo! Directory of Quotations

Brainy Quote

Famous Quotes

This could be fun!