Supernatural Friday: Legend of Black Bartelmy the Pirate

Black Bartelmy was an evil, surly buccaneer. So mean, he even murdered his wife and children. He inflicted his evil deeds in the Atlantic Coast with the worst dredges of the universe. For he was a pirate. Not only at sea, but the countryside was also played victim to his grizzly deeds too.

It was while N.S., Bartelmy and his ship in Cape Forchu, loaded with a lot of treasure, 500 treasure chests worth. When all of a sudden, a fog a thick as pea soup rolled in to the bay.

A tide soon took hold of his ship at Roaring Bull, smashing the ship to pieces. Before all on board were killed, Bartelmy spotted land and with the aid of his trusted mate, Ben the Hook and the rest of the crew,  took as much booty into the escape boat could hold.

Then by Bartelmy’s orders, Ben slit the necks of the crew and tossed their bodies into the deadly sea. Ben and Bartelmy climbed into the overloaded boat and rowed to calmer waters in the cape. They looked for a safe place to hide their murderous booty. A large cave was discovered and they placed the treasure into the belly of the cave, piling heavy rocks in front of the entrance of the cave. Bartelmy turned about and thrust his sword into his mate's chest. The last sight and sounds of Ben where of Bartelmy’s laughing face.

No one to talk to or kill. Hunger hit Bartelmy. As he walked along the shore he ran into the land rising. Bartelmy fell into quicksand and his last curse words only heard by the seagulls.

Years later, the local lighthouse keeper swore that he saw a flare shooting into the air. Thinking some ship might be in trouble, he organized a rescue team and they set off for where he saw the light. As the rescue team drew near they were greeted by no other than Bartelmy himself.  Most lilley his phantom, as this was years and years later.

The spirit waved a cutlass and laughed insanely. The team fled, only to return and find nothing.

If you plan to visit the cape or the Roaring Bull, take heed that you don't find yourself a victim of Bartelmy.

Black Bartelmy was an evil, surly buccaneer who murdered his wife and children and went to sea with a band of pirates as nasty as he. He roamed the Atlantic coast, murdering and pillaging and laying waste to the countryside as he passed. By the time he approached Cape Forchu in Nova Scotia, Black Bartelmy had a ship loaded with treasure; five hundred chests had he full of gold and jewels and goblets and mighty swords. - See more at: http://www.chacha.com/question/black-bartelmys-ghost#sthash.g4qGd5Zb.dpuf

Book Signing at Book Fair at Barnes and Noble in Richmond June 1st

I will be signing copies of Haunted Richmond II and my other three nonfiction ghost books at the Douglas Southall Freeman H. S. Library Barnes and Noble Book Fair at Libbie Barnes and Noble 5501 W. Broad Street Richmond, Virginia 23230 this Saturday, June 1st, from Noon to 2:00 p.m. There will be other authors signing from 10 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Besides the authors, there will be face painting, the high school's jazz band, and door prizes, plus more. All purchases except gift cards 6/1-6/7/13 2 will support the high school's library. For more information, bookseller's phone number: 804-282-0781.

Supernatural Friday: Alien Abductions and Cattle Mutilations

Aliens appear to be doing more than just flying through our air or landing. No, they’re abducting people and even doing cow mutilations. Horrors! 

I am sure abductions have been happening for centuries. Think about fairy stones and people disappearing in the circles, returning sometimes to admit to finding themselves in Faerie. Sounds familiar? People abducted by aliens, returned by the beings, the abductees telling of being in spaceships, operated on. And no matter where they were taken, whether driving, in their beds, at a festival, or what, the lost of time.

But I will talk about some famous abductions.

In 1961, an interracial couple by the names of Barney and Betty Hill were driving along a road in the evening during a short vacation. Because of Barney's ulcer problems, the two had embarked on a vacation into Canada. It was when they were returning home on September 19^th, that Barney noticed a star acting erratic. It was 10:00 p.m. They were just north of North Woodstock, when Barney noticed that the star was moving in a very unusual manner. When they arrived at Indian Head, they stopped their car, and got out to have a better look. Using binoculars, Barney zoomed in what he thought was a star. This was no star! He could make out different colors of lights and see several rows of windows around a flying craft. The object moved closer, and now Barney could actually see people inside the ship. Was this strange flying object being piloted by humans?

The next thing the Hills recalled was being frightened by the unusual flying object, and the occupants inside of it. Barney scurried back to the car where Betty was waiting. They jumped into the car, and raced down the highway. Looking for the object, they found that it was now gone. As they drove on, they began to hear a beeping sound... once, then again. Although they had been driving only a couple of minutes, they were 35 miles down the road!

Betty and Barney finally arrived home safely. After seeing the UFO, the rest of their trip home had been uneventful. They were tired from their journey, and immediately went to bed. When Betty awoke the next day, she telephoned Janet, her sister, and told her about the strange object they had seen. Janet urged her to call Pease Air Force Base, and tell them what her and Barney had seen. After hearing Betty's report, Major Paul W. Henderson, told her: "The UFO was also confirmed by our radar."

They had been stopped on the road by aliens, and abducted by them too—becoming a famous case. They had lost two hours of time. Regressive hypnosis by Boston psychiatrist and neurologist Dr. Benjamin Simon played a major role in unveiling a dark secret of alien abduction and medical experimentation. During the intensive regression sessions, the Hills would describe their captors as "... bald-headed alien beings, about five foot tall, with grayish skin, pear shaped heads and slanting cat-like eyes." This description very much described what would become known as the "grays," now a standard description for the small beings with large heads, small mouths, and little or no ears, and hairless.

In South Ashburnham, Massachusetts on the night of January 25 1967, Betty Andreasson was working in her kitchen while her seven children, mother, and father were in the living room. All of a sudden, a bright red beam of light invaded the home. Betty rushed from the kitchen to her children, on edge from the phenomenon. Betty's father ran to look out of the kitchen window to see where the light came from. Amazement filled him at the sight five strange creatures heading toward their house in a hopping motion. He became shock as the creatures walked through the wooden door of the kitchen and entered the house. All of a sudden, the entire family was put into a type of trance. The five creatures wore a blue coverall with a wide belt. On their sleeves could be seen a logo of a bird. Three fingers were on their hands, and their feet were shod with boots. They did not actually walk, but floated as they moved along. Betty later would recall that she was not frightened by their presence, but instead, felt calm. In fact, one of them—one thought to maybe be the leader—communicated to her by telepathy.

Betty's mother and children were still in a state of suspended animation, while she was taken to the spacecraft. It rose in the air and joined a mother ship. She was subjected to a physical examination and then various tests by strange equipment. She was given one test which caused her pain, but resulted in being a religious awakening. She was gone for four hours.

As Patrolman Schirmer passed through the intersection of Highway 6 with Highway 63 on the outskirts of Ashland in 1967, he saw what appeared to be red lights on a large truck stopped a short way down Highway 63. He decided to turn around and check it out. He drove the short distance down 63 and stopped with his headlights shining on the object. According to Schirmer, the object was definitely not a truck. The red lights that he had seen were blinking through the oval portholes of a metallic, oval-shaped object.

Seven and a half years after the Betty and Barney Hill tale, Buff Ledge in Vermont would be visited by four UFOs doing revolutionary aerial maneuvers. Two counselors suffered missing time, and ultimately, sought professional help.

Fifteen different people see a large, silver UFO fly over a housing project in St. Tammany Parish, New Orleans, Louisiana in 1973. Only a scant 24 hours later, Calvin Parker and Charles Hickson would unwillingly take a journey twenty-four hours later after the sighting, thanks to strange creatures with claw-like hands abduct them. J. Allen Hynek investigates.

Author Whitley Strieber, author of horror fiction, The Wolfen (werewolves of a kind—I loved it) and The Hunger (vampires), was abducted by aliens from his isolated cabin in upstate New York he shared with his wife and son over the Christmas season of 1985. He encountered four kinds of aliens—one a little robot type, another was a short, stocky humanoid, the third type was very thin and frail with haunting black, slanted eyes, and the last had smaller, button-type eyes.. They preformed a number of medical procedures on him in the UFO they took him to. He wrote the book, Communion that had the entire story in it.

Strieber had activated his system at about 11:00 PM on December 26, and his family began to retire for the evening. A few hours later, he heard a strange sound, which woke him from sleep. Thinking that he might have a burglar who had set off the alarm system, he went to check it out. As he did, he was shocked to see a creature standing in his bedroom.

Before he knew it, Strieber was sitting in the woods that encircled his cabin. He was at a loss to explain what had happened, and how he had gotten from the bedroom to the woods. His memories were lost, and he eventually sought the help of Dr. Donald F. Klein. Klein would perform regressive hypnosis on Strieber in an attempt to recover the lost time.

One of the harrowing procedures Strieber went under was the insertion of a long needle directly into his brain. The aliens also inserted a tool into his rectum, and took a blood sample from his finger. Because many of the details of his alleged abduction were so bizarre, Dr. Klein diagnosed Strieber as having "temporal lobe epilepsy." One of the most common effects of the condition is the onset of hallucinations.

There are many more stories of people having these harrowing close encounters, the abductees not telling anyone, but a doctor and usually to be put under to account for lost time. Not just one or two, but entire families have been abducted.

COW MUTILATIONS:

Cow mutilations are another sign of the UFO beings. These mutilations are a phenomenon that has been plaguing cattle ranchers in the United States ever since the late 1960s. They have been recorded in all 50 states, but no one's ever been caught. The FBI concluded a report in 1979 stating that these strange animal deaths were attributable to mundane events such as predators and humans conducting cult activities. However, the report has never been accepted by the ranchers most affected by this enigma. Strange cattle deaths have not ceased and have actually picked up in frequency over the years. The signature descriptions of these deaths still persist: exsanguinations, no bodily fluid traces around the animal corpse; internal organs taken with surgical precision, etc.

Some in the UFO field of study have hypothesized that these strange mutilations are an ongoing program of radiation and/or infectious disease tracking. Though this theory seems a little far-fetched at face value, there exists plenty of circumstantial and tertiary support to seriously consider this explanation. Between 1957 and 1968, the US conducted a host of underground nuclear detonations. The sites included the states of Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico. The purpose for these tests ran the gamut from providing information for hardening silos and measuring the effects on layers of rock to producing gases for use in providing an energy resource. However, these tests produced effects that were not totally anticipated prior to their detonations. Some of the tests caused minor fault tremors and on at least one occasion, the energy produced by one series of tremors immediately following a test exceeded the energy of the detonation. But more importantly, large doses of radiation were released into the immediate environment. It is wondered about the possible effects that underground radiation would have on our underground water reserves. The Ogallala Aquifer is a vast underground deposit of fossil water that spans the central region of the United States. It has provided drinking water and water for crops for the last 200 years. Any appreciable radioactive poisoning would have severely deleterious effects upon the entire food chain in the area – not to mention the effects upon anything grown in the area and transported to other areas of the country. If a researcher bothers to track the dates of cattle mutilations and compare them to the nuclear testing dates performed by the US government, it becomes immediately obvious that there exists a correlation. Surprisingly, the increase in cattle mutilations in the late 60s and early 70s seems to follow an increase in the underground nuclear testing events.

Another possibility going hand in hand with the radiation testing argument is that cattle mutilations are part of an ongoing program to test for infectious diseases gaining ground alongside the suspicion that radiation testing has been occurring. Some may even argue that both of these types of testing have been occurring simultaneously. Infectious diseases in animals provide a constant concern for governments with the Mad Cow Disease and Bird Flu epidemics as two examples. Again, the rationale for testing animals for infectious diseases lies behind its effects upon humans that use these animals for a food source. There has been considerable research done to support this theory. Of particular note is the extensive and well-documented work compiled in the report forwarded by the National Institute for Discovery Science based in Las Vegas, Nevada. This report delineates the specific diseases present in our dairy and cattle herds as well as the effects that it could have on the population. The report further goes on to report how the same aspects common to animal mutilations serve to suggest that some type of covert governmental testing is ongoing.

Greatest threat to the food supply and the human population that depends on its source for nourishment may lie in the formation of prions (something that is used for werewolves in the novel, Red Moon I am reading now). A prion is an abnormally-shaped protein strand that plays havoc with the internal organs of the infected host. These prions may form as a result of of an animal being fed food tainted with a specific disease, or by feeding the animal the reconstituted remains of the same species. The broad category that describes these diseases is Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE), and this category includes Mad Cow Disease, Scrapie, and Kuru. All of these diseases form as a result of the formation of prions.
The practice of feeding reconstituted animal parts to animals is not new. Approximately 100,000 cattle die of unknown causes each year, and the carcasses of these animals is often used to produce a protein-rich feed to give to other animals that are used as a food supply to humans. It is estimated that approximately 10% of these animals may have died as a result of TSE and feeding this tainted food to other animals may have greatly accelerated the spread of the disease.
Two possible explanations come to mind of why would any government do a covert operation on cattle, both disturbing. The agencies conducting the tests may be monitoring the herds that they wish to target as well as the possible actions that may be taken to combat and react to the mutilations. The lights could be the lights on helicopters being used to ferry the animals to an undisclosed testing site. The presence of strange phenomena prowling the skies and territory of the affected areas could be part of a vast program of disinformation targeted at the affected populace with the intent of steering them away from any action that may cause the truth of these strange activities to be revealed. Ranchers and farmers have been puzzled by the US government doing nothing. Some ranchers have complained that the government has actively worked against the affected cattle owners in getting a viable explanation for their cattle deaths.  Interestingly enough, I discovered that the National Institute for Discovery Science that is based in Las Vegas, is investigating into current mutilations. They are the only scientific organization in the country that is seriously pursuing the mutilation mystery, to determine who or what is doing this.
What is the real truth? Government? Or Aliens? Whichever you choose, either one is frightening. And let’s not go into a sort of vampire creature: chupacabra.
Whatever is happening on either subject, they are both interesting. It will be fascinating to see what is really behind one or the other.

I Will Be at Science Fiction Yard Sale Saturday, May 25th in Virginia Beach, Virginia

I will be selling and signing copies of my books written by me  both as Pamela K. Kinney and my pseudonym, Sapphire Phelan Saturday May 25, 2013, at the  Science Fiction Yard Sale, 4844 Linshaw Lane Virginia Beach, Virginia. It is FREE to the public--from 9:00 a.m to 3:00 p.m. For more information: 757-499-2359. (Rain-date is June 1st, but if that happens, I will not be at this). I will also be selling used books and other yard sale stuff, besides my own books. My books regular price--yard sale stuff yard sale prices. 

 

Supernatural Friday: It's a Bird, a Plane, No, It's a. . .UFO?

UFOs—the term UFO meaning unidentified flying object–refers to a suspected alien spacecraft. Though the definition can be name for any unexplained aerial phenomena. UFO sightings have been reported throughout recorded history and in various parts of the world. This has raised questions about life on other planets, and about whether extraterrestrials have visited Earth. A major subject of interest, they have become the inspiration behind numerous films and books–following the development of rocketry after World War II. 



Though it is said since the 1940s there have been sightings, some documented, some not, there is no doubt that since man first walked the earth such objects have been seen in the skies. There have been suspicions that some text in the Bible and many mythologies could be referring to UFOs or even alien contact. The modern history of UFOs, though, perhaps begins in 1947 with an Idaho businessman and pilot named Kenneth Arnold. As he flew near Mount Rainier in the state of Washington, Arnold spotted a formation of nine silvery crescent-shaped objects flying in tight formation. Later on, he figured that they were forty to fifty feet wide, with their speed hitting at a fantastic 1,200 miles per hour, more than twice as fast as any known aircraft of that time. He described the movements to a reporter as "like pie plates skipping over the water." The reporter coined the term "flying saucers" the next day, and the label stuck.

After that, UFO sightings in our skies exploded. On June 26, four witnesses saw a "huge silver globe" moving along the rim of the Grand Canyon. Not long after that, about two days, an Air Force pilot reported a sighting of six discs over Lake Meade, Nevada. Reports came rushing in from places like Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, Louisiana, Quebec, and Prince Edward Island in far-north Canada. rom 1952 on, UFO sightings piled up for months. Most came from airline and military pilots. An Air Force report declassified in 1985 describes radar sightings involving up to twelve unidentified "targets" at a time near Washington National Airport. At a large peacetime press conference, the Air Force attributed the radar activity to "temperature inversions,” but local meteorologists said it was not. What do you think? 

The most infamous story has to do with Roswell, New Mexico, and the crash landing of one of these UFOs. On July 2, 1947, a farmer, Mac Brazel, heard a loud crash during a thunderstorm. The next day, when he was out riding with his neighbors to check on his sheep, he found debris scattered in the field. The debris on the field mostly consisted of I-beams and parchment-like, paper-thin pieces of metal material. The material was very light in weight, colored dull gray, and most of the pieces were six to seven inches in length. Some pieces that were even thinner than paper could not be broken in half, cut, or burned. Mac picked up several pieces of the stuff and went back to his ranch. 

The next day, he reported it to the local sheriff, who in turn, contacted Roswell Army Air Field. Not long after, Major Jesse Marcel and others from the 509^th Bomb group arrived and went to the field with Brazel. Marcel gathered up some of the debris, even stopping at his home on the way to the base, to drop some pieces off.  On July 8, 1947, a press release went out that the wreckage of a crashed disk had been recovered. This was issued by the Commander of the 509th Bomb Group at Roswell, Colonel William Blanchard. At 11:00 a.m. Walter Haut, public relations officer, finished the press release he'd been ordered to write, and gave copies of the release to the two radio stations and both of the newspapers. By 2:26 p.m., the story was announced on the AP Wire: "The Army Air Forces here today announced a flying disk had been found." Calls began to pour into the base from all over the world. It was not long after that began happening that the flying saucer turned into a balloon. That is when details became murky. 

Supposedly, the air base is sealed off, Brazel got taken into custody, and military police close some roads. The same day, it is said that a second crash site was discovered two and half miles southeast of the first. Barney Barnett and 4 archaeologists had stumbled onto the new site only a few minutes before the military got there. At the site they pretended they had found a "pretty good sized metallic dull gray object" and four small alien bodies. The bodies were about four to five feet tall, had large pear shaped heads, small bodies, and skinny arms and legs. They had two large eyes, no ears and no hair, with leathery, pinkish-gray skin. The aliens wore one-piece grey suits. The civilians were escorted out of the area and MPs carried loaded wreckage onto a C-54 from the First Transport Unit. Then it was taken back to base. It was after that that the now famous photo of Marcel with the weather balloon came to light and the story of his discovery not being a spacecraft was told. There have been books written about this and a senator even had the case reopened for investigation. 

For years, there have been the Air Force Project Blue Book, crop circles, close encounter stories, alien abductions and more, all starting from the first sighting of a flying saucer.  Due to the Condon Report (named for Edward U. Condon, the physicist who headed the investigation), Project Blue Book was dismantled in 1969. You can read more on it in a physicist's article at "Dr. Thornton's Review

of the "Condon Report.  On Project Blue Book, supposedly there is an archive at Project Blue Book Archive Online. 

Next week's Supernatural Friday, I'll be blogging about alien abduction and cattle mutilations.

Supernatural Friday: Mothers, Er Monsters Don’t Exist!

Mothers, Er Monsters Don’t Exist!

By

Pamela K. Kinney

Mother said that monsters didn’t exist

That they came from fast food or scary movies.

She lied!

And kept lying when the monster came that night

He instructed Mother to change and attack,

To rip Father’s throat out and tear out his heart.

His eyes pleading as he screamed,

“Don’t kill me—I love you!”

Before yelling at me,

“Run! Don’t let the monsters catch you!”

But I didn’t run,

Why would I?

Then the monster held out its clawed paw to me,

And I took it, asking, “Can we play?”

She called me her dear child, the promised one,

“I’ll teach you all I know, how to do what I do,”

She said, “Just as the one before me taught me.”

And so among the fires and slaughter we went,

I skipped beside Momma, only stopping

To play catch with bodiless heads.

When we left that place near to morning

What remained of the township right behind us

Inhuman sheep leaving for desolate pastures. 

7 QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER BEFORE YOU PIN ON PINTEREST

 

Welcome author Karen Leland as she stops here on her blog tour about considering seven questions before pinning on Pinterest.

Excerpted from the new book

Entrepreneur Magazine’s Ultimate Guide to Pinterest For Business

The right boards, beautifully named, won’t do you much good if they aren’t housing winning pins. And let’s face it: the pics (and videos) you post are what will make or break your Pinterest reputation and determine how far you can go.

Not all pins are created equal. Just posting any old photo or video won’t get visitors to follow your boards or find out more about you. In general, you want answer these 7 questions before you pin.

1. Is it Appropriate?

Be sure to think before you pin anything that might violate another’s privacy or your own. A good rule of thumb: If you wouldn’t want the image or information to appear on the front page of The New York Times, then it doesn’t belong on Pinterest.

2. Is it Interesting, Cute, Unique, Beautiful, and/or Funny?

The only thing a visitor to your Pinterest account may use to determine whether they want to stay is their first glance at the pictures you post.

Anyone who has ever read a Match.com profile knows that certain attributes are highly desirable in a potential date. The same goes for Pinterest pins. Pins that are interesting, funny, cute, beautiful, or unique stand a better chance of getting repinned and asked out on a second date.

If visitors aren’t intrigued enough by the image to go further, they may never get to your bio, click through to your website, or even read the description of the pin.

3. Is It on Brand, Message, and Target?

A high-end cosmetic dentist’s Pinterest boards probably won’t feature photos of cute little bunnies lying in the sun—but a veterinarian’s site just might.

Whatever images you end up pinning, they won’t move your marketing forward if they aren’t congruent with your brand and on message and on target for your audience. Likewise, spending your efforts posting things that help craft an accurate and powerful picture of who you are as a business and brand makes viewers want to further engage with you.

For example: GoGirl Finance (http://pinterest.com/ gogirlfinance/) has a board called “Personal Finance,” which offers a host of “how-to” pins on how to handle your money, including one on “5 Ways to Help (or Hurt) Your Credit Score.”

4. Does it move and/or inspire? Check out the “Happiness” board pin from Passion and Positivity (http://pinterest.com/positiveiquotes/), which focuses on aspirational messages and images.

5. Does it show us how to do something better, faster, cheaper, etc?

Fitness Magazine (http://pinterest.com/fitnessmagsa/) has a whole board titled “Work Those Abs,” with pins showing ways to get tight and toned.

6. Does it educate, enlighten, or entertain? Dr. Mehmet Oz, (http://pinterest.com/ doctoroz/) of Oprah fame, has a strong presence on Pinterest, with over 100,000 followers. His “Oz Lists” board offers educational information on healthy foods such as the “100 Foods Dr. Oz Wants in Your Grocery Cart” pin.

7. Does it tell a Story, with Feeling?

A picture is worth a thousand words. Photos that evoke a strong emotion, tell a story, or communicate a clear message make great pins. One way to evaluate whether your image has the right stuff is to think of a single word that expresses the idea, meaning, story, or message you want to convey. Then take that word and find images that match.

Keep in mind that even pins that meet these criteria are subject to size limitations. While Pinterest doesn’t limit the vertical size of the image you can post, it only allows for a horizontal width of 600 pixels. Anything wider will be resized. However, it’s best to avoid a long vertical that requires visitors to scroll down to view the entire image. Instead, keep your vertical size to under 5,000 pixels. On the other side of the coin, images that are too small (under 250 pixels wide or deep) end up looking teeny-tiny and don’t catch the eye.

Karen Leland is the bestselling author of 8 business books including the recently released Entrepreneur Magazine’s Ultimate Guide to Pinterest For Business, which can be purchased at http://bit.ly/Amazonbook. She is the president of Sterling Marketing Group, where she works with small businesses and Fortune 500 on building stronger personal and team brands. She writes the Modern Marketing Blog at www.karenleland.com. 

A blurb about the book and the author:

Pinterest is a social bookmarking site that allows users to create a visual, online pinboard with images they love organized around topics of their choice by category. It’s the fastest growing social media site in history, the third-largest network after Facebook and Twitter and has over 25 million members and 10 million unique visitors a month. 

The most recent studies indicate that nearly 20 percent of women using the Internet are on Pinterest, 72 percent of Pinterest users are female, and 66 percent of those are age 35 or older, and the average amount of time visitors spend surfing the Pinterest site is an hour.

Karen Leland, author of the new book “Entrepreneur Magazine’s Ultimate Guide to Pinterest for Business,” has created a comprehensive and easy-to-use guide to hitting the road running and quickly making Pinterest into a valuable source of prospects, promotion and profits. 

“Great business brands are about telling compelling, congruent stories, and Pinterest is at its core about storytelling in pictures,” says Leland. “Pinterest has tapped into this visceral lover of visuals, and no small business, entrepreneur or corporation can afford to miss the boat on bringing what they offer beyond words and into images.”

About Ultimate Pinterest Guide for Business:

“The Ultimate Guide to Pinterest for Business” is designed to help businesses use Pinterest to its maximum potential. The book provides both beginning users and seasoned veterans with the ability to find their specific area of interest “at a glance.” It uses step-by-step how-to, sidebars, examples, case studies, expert interviews and tip sheets to show how, from setup to strategy, to use Pinterest for promotional, branding and marketing objectives. 

The book explores the ins and outs of signing up and getting started on Pinterest and how to create boards that get noticed, drive traffic and convert fans into customers. Special chapters are devoted to creating a strong community and enthusiastic following through high-engagement activities, contests, social media outreach and smart pinning strategies.

In addition the book outlines specific marketing applications to small businesses, from architecture firms to theater companies.

About Karen Leland:

Karen Leland is the best-selling author of nine business books and the President of Sterling Marketing Group, where she works with entrepreneurs, small businesses and Fortune 500 companies around the globe on building stronger personal and business brands. Her clients have included AT&T, American Express, Marriott Hotels, Apple Computer and Johnson & Johnson, among others.  

She is a regular speaker for business groups and has spoken for the Young Presidents’ Organization, American Management Association and Direct Marketing Association, among others. Karen is a frequent guest of the media and has been interviewed on “The Today Show,” CNN, CNBC and “Oprah.”

She writes a regular branding and marketing column for Entrepreneur.com and has been published in Woman’s Day, Self, The Los Angeles Times and others. Her latest book is “Entrepreneur Magazine’s Ultimate Guide to Pinterest for Business.”

Supernatural Friday: Weird Facts

Sometimes some facts are useful knowledge. But then again, there are facts that might be considered strange and true, but not useful at all. Like the state of Alaska is 429 times larger than the state of Rhode Island is.  But Rhode Island has a significantly larger population than Alaska does. Or Montana has three times as many cows as it does people. Would any of this be useful to you? And yet, weird as it may seem, someone might find this information interesting.

Do we really need to know that the United States has 845 motor vehicles for every 1,000 people?  Or that Japan only has 593 for every 1,000 people and Germany only has 540 for every 1,000 people? All that means is a lot of smog to me. 

Other maybe useless, but maybe not weird facts:

Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. president to have been born in a hospital.

One survey found that 25 percent of all employees that have Internet access in the United States visit pornography websites while they are at work. (Really? I don't even want to know what they might be doing in their cubicles while looking at the sites!)

There are three towns in the United States that have the name "Santa Claus".

In Tokyo, a bicycle is faster than a car for most trips of less than 50 minutes!

There are 18 different animal shapes in the Animal Crackers cookie zoo!

The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache on a standard playing card!

There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos!

Tourists visiting Iceland should know that tipping at a restaurant is considered an insult!

Until the nineteenth century, solid blocks of tea were used as money in Siberia!

The two-foot long bird called a Kea that lives in New Zealand likes to eat the strips of rubber around car windows!

It's illegal to drink beer out of a bucket while you're sitting on a curb in St. Louis!

A group of geese on the ground is a gaggle, a group of geese in the air is a skein!

Clinophobia is the fear of beds!

A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second!

The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog." uses every letter of the alphabet!

Cat urine glows under a black-light! (I wonder how someone determined this?)

Ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone!

Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie!

In Natoma, Kansas, it's illegal to throw knives at men wearing striped suits.

It was once against the law to have a pet dog in a city in Iceland!