Toddlers and Fathers: Heartwarming Love That Warms the Hands, Too.

The child! The child! Yes, for all you artsy types, this is indeed a reference to Kurtz's exclamation in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, "The horror! The horror!" It began around the time that creature that y'all know as The Toddler discovered the joy of the outdoors. First he learned to go down the porch stairs backward on his belly, then he learned to go up them--not that he used the second talent much. He was all about staying out there on the front lawn, going up and down the path exclaiming like a mad thing and hollering as a beast wounded whenever we tried to pick him up and bring him inside. And heaven forbid we take away his stick while doing it.

It was a warm evening. The air was crisp and fresh, the Pacific Northwestern sky clear for a change. The Toddler was running to and fro down the path, waving his stick and hollering triumphantly whenever he stooped to pick up something interesting.  Every so often he'd run over to me where I was sitting on the porch step and drop whatever it was he'd found into my hand.

HubPages and EHow: Legit Revenue Sharing Model, No Scam

When I first started writing web content last fall, I guessed sites like eHow and HubPages were scams. Write articles on whatever you want and earn ad revenue on them? Real moolah? Money that actually gets deposited into your PayPal account? What I've learned since then is that they're not scams.

I've been on eHow for nine months and on HubPages for about one month [note: August 8, 2009 update--I've been on HubPages now for 4 months and it's still the most profitable revenue sharing site for me.  note: June 1, 2010 update - It's still the best earning of all the article sites for me.  Last month, my HubPages articles topped eHow's per article earnings by about $1 per article.]

April 5, 2010 Update:  eHow has just today ended their Writer's Compensation Program (WCP) for new writers.  Well, not exactly ended.  EHow is no longer accepting new WCP applications and any new publishing on eHow will be through Demand Studios, their partner company (both are owned by Demand Media.)  Existing WCP articles will remain on the site if you choose and continue to earn money.   Now back to your regularly scheduled blog post...