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Latest posts | Feed | ...email marketing advice by Mark Brownlow
You have your email marketing all set up nicely. Someone signs up at your site, they fill out all the information you ask for, and you send them a warm welcome message.
Soon they're bathing in the delights of your wonderful newsletters or promotions, fulfilling their every expectation with useful and relevant content.
And then there are those that didn't sign-up on your website. What happens to those? Do they get a welcome message? How soon do they enter your system and start getting the emails?
Stefan's article explains how an email program tuned to website sign-ups can easily leave a few unhappy orphans by the roadside if you're not taking account of all the other ways you're collecting email addresses. Good point. Good reading.
More on list management | Tags: email marketing, list acquisition
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Here you can find individual statistics, metrics and little snippets of info on a range of email marketing topics. Everything from Authentication to something email related beginning with Z (can't think of one right now.) Certainly another website for your list of favorites.
The eec is a vendor-based organisation that's developing a growing profile through its work seeking to bring order into the email marketing world. The new stats site sits well with their other useful resource at RetailEmail.Blogspot, which monitors retailer email campaigns.
For other sources of metrics, check out my newly-updated guide to using and finding benchmark email marketing metrics.
More on statistics | Tags: email marketing, email marketing statistics, email marketing metrics
Turns out there's a whole science dedicated to this. A good URL can:
> Reinforce a brand message
> Help orientate the reader
> Provide text clues to the destination page's content and value
> Indicate important content relationships
> Remain relevant and recognisable over a long period of time
Compare, for example...
With the prevalence of third-party tracking links in email, URL design gets a little tricky and limited. But at least it's worth remembering in the context of landing pages.
What if we could personalize that landing page URL in a more meaningful way? Could the landing page be:
How does that compare to:
http://www.brandk.com/land.php?123456 ?
Much of the discussion around this topic centers on website navigation, but a lot is applicable to email. Try these resources for some tips and ideas...
Design patterns for URLs
Making URLs accessible
A BBC presentation on what makes a good URL
URLs as UI
URL principles
User-centered URL design
If anyone has their experience to pass on, I'd welcome it. Looks like a niche topic worth exploring...every little bit helps.
Update: Mike Schinkel takes the above post and makes some insightful comments here. His whole blog covers URL design, so if the topic tweaks your interest, be sure to bookmark that.
More on email design | Tags: email marketing, email design, url design, landing pages
Anyway, here's another two great articles that don't fit any category but are worth your attention.
Jeanne Jennings works with a lot of newcomers to the field and answers three notable questions that came out of discussions. So now you can understand absolute open rates, the value of getting email addresses offline and the pros and (mostly) cons of sending email that isn't 100% opt-in.
That last topic also features in the rather nice Seven Deadly Sins of Email Marketing Management article by Véro S. Pepperrell.
Véro covers design testing, spam checks, unsubscribing, address upkeep, complacency and relevancy as well. And has the most apt quote ever seen about email newsletters, which you might hang on your office wall:
"Don't do a half-assed job"
More on basic email advertising | Tags: email marketing, bulk email lists, permission marketing
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If you are looking for some thoughts, two new references for you...
The first is a new conversation going on at the WebmasterWorld discussion forum. Various folk chip in with their experiences with sending B2B email. Hard to find a consensus, but plenty of opinion.
The second is some data from the Emailcenter UK, looking at when most emails are sent and what the open rates and clickthrough rates look like between Monday and Friday.
Deciding when to send your email is a three-step process:
1. Check the various opinions on offer to give you some food for thought, but don't take them too literally.
2. Consider what you're sending, who you're sending it to and what you want them to do. If you know your target audience well enough, you can make some educated guesses as to the day they're most likely to have the time and motivation to open, read and act on your email.
(This is why you can't take the stats too literally. Your content, audience and desired action bears no relation to most of the content, audience and desired action of the emails used to generate those stats.)
3. Come up with your best guesses and then test them to see which gives the best results.
More on the best day to send | Tags: email marketing, best time to send email, email timing
Put the two together and what do you get? Spam that sounds better than it really is? Or the perfect opportunity for a service profession to stay top of mind and gain referrals?
The choice is yours if you're a real estate professional. And here are two excellent blog posts to help you make up your mind...
The first comes from the folk at MailChimp who explain why blasting a list of email addresses you bought or found or collected randomly is a waste of time and space. They then give an example of the right way to market your real estate service online.
And if you find it tough coming up with quality content for a proper email newsletter, Janine Popick just posted on exactly that topic: newsletter content for real estate pros, with a big pile of ideas and some suggested content sources.
You'll find more general content ideas here.
More on publishing email newsletters | Tags: email marketing, real estate agent, content development
So webmail accounts you mail to will no longer be limited in the number of emails they can store. But does that matter?
The practical implications are near zero, since my understanding is that the vast, vast majority of webmail users aren't butting up against current storage limitations. Nevertheless...
Your emails won't come back undelivered because of an abandoned account filled up with email. But the accounts are still abandoned: don't be fooled into thinking that less bounces means more active readers.
Readers using webmail services may be more inclined to retain old emails, so ensure links and images from your previous emails continue to work. (That's a best practice anyway.)
Webmail users will be less disinclined to have large files, reports, images, white papers etc. sent to them via an email autoresponder.
The credibility of webmail services goes up another notch.
It used to be a truism that free email addresses were "lower quality," particularly for a business email list. So much so that some B2B email marketers automatically reject subscription requests using those addresses.
These days, Gmail etc. are no longer the preserve of poor students. People from across the demographic spectrum use webmail services as a primary and fully-fledged email account.
More on email address providers | Tags: webmail, email marketing, yahoo mail, yahoo mail beta, gmail, hotmail, email storage
They surveyed just over 2,250 consumers about their email use, specifically about habits, awareness and attitudes regarding "report spam" and "unsubscribe" buttons and links, certified email and false positives (requested email ending up in junk folders.)
Various points are raised in the survey analysis, but the key ones are:
1. More evidence that the from and subject line are absolutely critical in determining whether someone opens the email or dumps it as spam. Recognition is everything.
2. Respondents suggest they'd look favorably on emails bearing some kind of third-party certification. So might be worth considering that route if you haven't already.
3. There's a glass full / glass empty issue with regard to false positives and other issues.
The summary states "64 percent of panelists report that they rarely or never see messages that they've requested in their bulk boxes" which means over a third still do. So no resting on laurels there.
Equally "Just 20 percent admit to using the 'Report Spam' button as a quick way to unsubscribe." Hmmm...so how many do it, but won't admit it? And how many do it because they think the email is spam, but it isn't?
Lots of stuff to ponder in there, and the study is a useful contribution to an understanding of how ISPs and senders might work together to give consumers the right tools to properly manage their email.
Tags: email marketing, consumer use of email, espc, Email Sender and Provider Coalition
This time he diagnoses the problems, proposes solutions and presents the before and after screenshots for a B2B email originally consisting entirely of a single image.
Mark suggests adding quite a long bit of text to the start of the email reminding recipients that they signed up and can unsubscribe anytime.
Has anyone done any tests to see how that changes response?
I can see how it might help recognition and thus open rates / clicks. I can also see how it might depress opens and clicks by taking up valuable preview pane space. And might sound a little bit "The lady doth protest too much" to some.
Anybody got any evidence to support either supposition?
More case studies | Tags: email marketing, permission reminders
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The issue seems to be that Expedia considers a coupon reminder to be transactional rather than commercial email.
For me, the actual semantics and legalities of the email are fairly irrelevant. Permission issues are not just about keeping the right side of anti-spam laws.
No apologies for saying this a thousand times, but recipients don't label emails based on the legal definition of spam.
You want to be seen as a spammer? Then send irrelevant commercial email that people don't want. You can call it what you like, but if the recipients see it as spam, then all the legal ifs and buts in the world won't help. And don't be surprised if you end up on a blacklist or criticised in public.
More on permission | Tags: email marketing, can-spam, anti-spam, permission email
Taken together, they are a persuasive argument to take image blocking seriously when it comes to design.
More on design | Tags: email marketing, image blocking, email design
A thorough competitive analysis is one part of planning that often gets left off the "to do" list.
You need compelling reasons if you want to do exactly what everyone else is already doing but you expect people to read your version...especially in the field of informational newsletters.
More on strategy | Tags: email marketing, competitive analysis, email marketing strategy
In short, modern email design must account for popular email software packages and webmail services turning pretty graphics into empty spaces featuring nice red Xs.
These same email clients and services may also display the whole mail in a shallow (or narrow) preview window that gives you limited time and space to capture the reader's attention.
The article by Lena Waters has more detail, together with illustrative screenshots.
More on email design | Tags: email marketing, email design, image blocking, preview panes
Helen Bowie explains what the act requires, suggests how you set about ensuring compliance, and describes exactly what is meant by express, inferred and deemed consent. (Which is an interesting bit of text for anyone involved in the anti-spam world.)
One day I shall write a book on the many definitions of permission. Here's the cover.
More on NZ spam laws | Tags:
For those newcomers who signed up for the feed, a hearty welcome and an honest warning. This is an industry blog about opt-in email marketing. There are humorous posts, but they're intermittent and mostly marketing-related.
If you're expecting a continuous stream of funny stuff, posts on wireless email trends and problems with image displays in Outlook 2007 may not match your expectations. Wouldn't want you to get disappointed...
- The destruction of Pompeii in 79AD is the most viewed video at YouTube. The first comment is..."OMG so cool! Volcanos ROCK!"
- Attila the Hun has his own MySpace page. Nobody ever rejects his "invite a friend" emails.
- The soothsayer's "Ides of March" email fails to get Caesar's proper attention as it's inadvertently filtered into his junk folder.
- But at least Caesar's "Et tu Brute?" comment is available as a free ringtone download.
- The domain gladiator.rome sells for the record sum of 1,000,000 denarii.
- The owner of hadriansucks.rome is compelled to hand over both the domain name and selected body parts by an independent domain tribunal chaired by...Emperor Hadrian.
- "Naked Cleopatra" is the top search term on Google.
- Unfortunately, the Queen of Egypt dies an early death after misunderstanding IT's call to embrace an ASP solution.
- Hannibal blogs his way across the Alps with posts like, "Whoops, lost another elephant today."
- But he runs out of money when his PPC budget is plundered by an iberian click scam organized by Publius Cornelius Scipio.
- Tiber.com opens, initially selling scrolls and tablets before expanding to include togas, pottery, and do-it-yourself mosaic kits.
- Websites like handsome-literate-male-british-slave.com pollute the search listings thanks to generous commissions at the slaves.co.rome affiliate program.
- Roman programmers moan about projects outsourced to cheap coders in Mesopotamia.
- The Colosseum is renamed the eBay Colosseum, with free wireless hotspots outside the lark's tongue restaurant.
- The volume of spam collapses when the penalty for not providing a working opt-out mechanism becomes equal billing with the lions at the eBay Colosseum.
- But we still get emails featuring Brunhilda, the lonely Visigoth, and hot deals on cheap peacock livers from Gaul.
- Nobody invents a spam filter good enough for the House of the Vestals.
- Classical geeks wear t-shirts proclaiming, "there's no place like CXXVII.0.0.I" (bonus points if you get that one)
- Finally, Rome burns to the ground while Emperor Nero battles online with Hakkar the Soulflayer in World of Warcraft.
(Sorry, had to temporarily kill comments as the system and CSS aren't coping under the Digg overload!)
More humor | Tags: internet humor, geek humor, ancient rome
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The most interesting part is seeing all the various ways they use email to complement direct mail efforts, keep in touch with customers and prospects, encourage people to come into the dealership, drive (!) ancillary sales like service inspections, auto paraphernalia etc. Perhaps some ideas to inspire you there.
(Though I would be intrigued to know if anyone does open an email from a car dealership, click on the latest model and then buy it online. That would be cool.)
More case studies | Tags: email marketing, lead generation, email marketing case studies
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A lot of email marketing stuff is on the agenda, covering such things as authentication (surprise!), dealing with blocked images, delivery best practices etc.
What makes the event unusual is the coming together of minds from all sides of the email table. As well as the usual email marketing suspects, the FTC are there, as is Spamhaus's CIO, the anti-spam folk at AOL and Microsoft, the DMA, IAB and others.
Watch the marketing news for useful insight coming out of the sessions.
More on authentication | Tags: email marketing, email authentication, authentication adn online trust summit
The company suggests that the number of mobile users will move into the hundreds of millions and that a lot of these will be consumers.
Now it may not shock you to discover that Funambol describe themselves as "the leading provider of open source push email and PIM for consumers." So obviously they have...ahem...no interest in promoting the consumer mobile email market.
But it's more evidence that wireless email is heading towards big time usage.
Tags: email marketing, wireless email, mobile email
Thinking of using Flash in your emails? Well Outlook 2007 drew the final curtain on that idea. Or so says Brent Shroyer over at Listrak. He has some clever suggestions on how you can still make use of Flash to get your message across.
And at the other end of the design spectrum, Justin Premick of AWeber explains how you might adequately "brand" your plain text email.
Just for good measure he also offers a refresher on why you should do this. And why you need a plain text version of your email in the first place. Here are some more hints on designing text emails.
More on email design | Tags: email marketing, email design, text emails
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On April 11th, Return Path co-host a one hour webinar with Optimost on the ins and outs of testing your emails. Details.
On March 28th, Dr. Flint McGlaughlin of MEC takes an hour to reveal the results of their studies into email copy and the factors that drive clicks and sales.
There will also be some live copywriting makeovers of sample emails sent in by subscribers to the Marketing Experiments Journal. Details.
Note: you have to be an ME Journal subscriber for the second webinar. If you're not, your registration will sign you up (free.)
More on testing and copywriting | Tags: email marketing, email testing, email copywriting
It spoils email for everyone: senders, recipients and those who process email on our behalf. And it messes up email marketing by cluttering up inboxes and forcing ISPs and others into ever more drastic measures that block spam and inadvertently catch legitimate marketing emails in the same trap.
A point emphasised by Derek Harding in his article calling for email marketers to help solve spam, not support it. He speaks with some of the passion that Bill McCloskey misses in email marketing.
It's a point that needs making again and again: killing spam is in the interests of email marketers.
The more anti-spam measures you tear down, the more spam you get elbowing your messages out of the inbox and out of the minds of your customers and prospects. Read Derek's article to understand why marketers should be supporting blacklists and anti-spam legislation, not fighting them.
Still unconvinced?
Try this post for another argument...
More on anti-spam laws and blacklists | Tags: email marketing, spam, anti-spam
He has a point, although I'd say the list of passionate email marketers is longer than he suggests. Try some of these folk for starters.
But it got me thinking.
Perhaps one reason is that RSS and SEO is more inclusive. An awful lot of stuff written about email marketing is aimed at a small group of marketers with big email programs and budgets to match.
So it's easy to get the mistaken impression that email marketing is for two groups: big brands or spammers. Few people see themselves as either.
In contrast, discussions around RSS and SEO often address a much wider audience of marketers and webmasters, small and big. Plus RSS is still geeky and geeks are passionate about their technology.
Who knows? And does it matter? It's not much use sprinting passionately for the cutting edge when even the big companies haven't yet mastered the art of walking.
Tags: email marketing
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1. It's a very detailed 43-page look at how the different versions of the Outlook email client (2007, 2003, XP and Express) handle and display email. Packed with screenshots of how images, CSS-based designs, preview panes, javascript, forms etc. look in each client.
2. I like this text on the "send me a copy please" form at the above landing page: Please be assured by completing the information below you are not being added to a prospect list; we will only contact if you specifically request we do so and for the specific reasons you indicate.
I would bet my wife, children and various other relatives that this kind of clear reassurance makes a big difference to the number of people willing to hand over their email address.
More on email design | Tags: email marketing, email design, outlook 2007, outlook, registration forms
About 38 of the 223 charts and tables refer specifically to email, covering such things as email merchandising tactics and how retailers use opt-in forms etc.
Noteworthy is a special section on service and transactional emails, and how you can blend those with marketing messages. Since I'm not buying the report (this isn't an e-commerce site), I'm hoping we see some insights from that in an article or two later down the road.
More on email marketing statistics | Tags: email marketing, ecommerce, marketingsherpa, ecommerce benchmark guide
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She kindly found time to chat with me about some of the relevant issues facing email marketers, such as list quality, campaign stagnation, the value of transactional emails and the role of benchmarks.
She also revealed what we can learn from the NHL and shared some insights gained from a visit to a Seattle fishmarket.
Read Jeanne's words of wisdom here.
More interviews | Tags: email marketing, transactional emails, email marketing benchmarks, Jeanne Jennings
Dave Dabbah addresses the second question in depth in this article. He explains the factors that determine an optimal mailing frequency and then offers up a couple of examples to illustrate situations where a change in frequency might be a good idea.
Like the first question above, there is no simple answer, even if a simple answer is what everyone wants to hear. As with many things, it depends on what you're trying to achieve, what you're sending and who you're sending to.
More on timing and frequency | Tags: email marketing, email frequency, email marketing strategy
The welfare of these pigs took a nosedive as animal husbandry became livestock management became a manufacturing business. The pigs turned from animals into numbers.
Your email list holds similar dangers. We are obsessed with metrics and management issues like anti-spam laws or deliverability problems. We forget that an address is not a series of characters and numbers, but an individual reading your emails.
Faced with the disinterest of his or her custodian, the average pig has few options other than to go slowly mad. Email addresses, on the other hand, can rebel through their delete, unsubscribe and spam buttons.
Forgetting their welfare is not an option.
Fortunately, unlike pig farming, keeping subscribers happy usually means better results anyway. But we do need constant reminders that we have a fickle and human audience. Fail to deliver value to that audience and they leave for fresh pastures.
So step away from the spreadsheet and take a look at your emails from the perspective of those on the receiving end. These articles will help:
Marketing with an email newsletter: value
What does the reader care about?
Are you spamming your customers?
More on email strategy | Tags: email marketing, spam, relevancy, email list management
> "dead"
> "unlikely to survive"
> "breathing its last"
But also...
> "not dead"
> "growing modestly"
> "quickly expanding"
> "growing big time"
Email marketing is "spam" and also "not spam."
It is "exactly the same as direct mail" but "not direct mail online."
It's a "form of advertising" but "not advertising."
Email marketing is "not any different than other types of marketing" yet also "a...unique communication channel."
It's "not an automatic metaphor for marketing on the cheap" although it is "inexpensive."
Finally, don't worry, it's "not difficult" even if it's "not so easy and simple."
I guess email marketing is what you make of it.
More humor | Tags: email marketing
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He draws on his own observations dealing with clients and vendors to offer advice on what to think about in more than just a technical sense. He addresses, for example, those aspects of a service change that involve the way you work, or the way you intend to evaluate (and move to) a new service.
He also has some suggestions on communities that can help you get past the service PR and learn from the real-world experiences of other marketers.
More on choosing an ESP | Tags: email marketing, email service providers, choosing an ESP, email marketing service
It describes how TicketsNow.com pulled out the best customers on their email list and sent them different offers. Baseline result: they more than tripled email revenue.
There's other stuff in there, too, about encouraging engagement, customer relationship management etc., but it's the "targeting rocks" message that we maybe need to hear.
More on segmentation and targeting | Tags: email marketing, segmentation, database marketing, ticketsnow
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I know rabbit used it in one campaign that garnered them a recent award based on the results it brought in.
The wow factor is certainly there, but it will fade as soon as personalized images start appearing everywhere. So it would certainly pay to be an early adopter if the "cost vs response lift" equation makes sense AND if you're pretty sure about the integrity and accuracy of the names in your database.
(Because "Merry Xmas asdfasfd" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.)
Ask your ESP, agency or Google about this kind of service. Or if anyone has some image personalisation services they can recommend, please let us know in the comments.
More on design | Tags: email marketing, image personalisation, email design, email creative
Integrating mobile and email marketing was a topic at a recent Email Summit, and two attendees have some great notes on the presentation given. Check out...
denise cox's blog (Denise also has some links to stats on mobile email usage)
The Email Wars
And for those hunting more advice on the display and design issues, EmailLabs has one easy solution in their FAQ.
More on email design | Tags: wireless email, mobile email, email marketing
The emergence of all these other forms of messaging and collaboration may well see email usage decline. But note that these tools are mostly about interactive communication between two individuals or small self-selected groups.
So it's important to distinguish between email and email marketing. Email use for collaboration and personal correspondence may decline, but that does not necessarily mean email marketing follows suit.
For example, my incoming personal correspondence shifted entirely from letters to email. But I still have a postbox which I use regularly to get communications from local shops, businesses etc.
Also, nearly everyone blogging or writing about these things belongs to the technical minority. My Dad has just about got used to the idea of electronic mail. He won't be moving to another form of online communication too quickly.
Having said that, it behoves email marketers to keep an eye on alternatives (like RSS). Not to "watch the competition" but because the more communication alternatives you give the customer or prospect, the more likely they are to pick one and listen to what you say.
You want to get your message across, not defend email from all newcomers.
[As for outgoing correspondence, I find a handwritten note can make a huge impression on a customer or business partner, now that everyone's used to the somewhat impersonal electronic alternatives.]
Tags: email marketing, online tools
Forget the problem with getting your beautiful image-rich work of email art to appear nicely on a two inch screen. Worry instead about how your email sounds when read out loud.
I just discovered the HP iPAQ 510 Voice Messenger, a smartphone that lets you dictate email messages and have the phone read out your emails to you.
I imagine the horror scenario where you're having dinner with your mother-in-law and the phone decides to read out that spam email from Nataliya, the lonely Russian girl. Let's hope these devices never get artificial intelligence or a sense of humor: they could play havoc with your relationships.
But to strike a note of seriousness, it is a reminder that the business of email never stops changing. Toes: keep on yours.
Tags: wireless email, email marketing, mobile email, iPAQ 510
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This kind of free education is fantastic. The only downside is that the more I read, the more I realize how little I know.
There's something essentially demotivating about continually pointing people to the kind of articles you could never write yourself. So much to learn, so little time.
More case studies | Tags: email marketing case studies, email creative, email design, email marketing
And here's another great article leaving me awestruck. Andrew Seer takes a promotional email from a premium shirtmaker and highlights all the problems with it (using a screenshot to help you grasp the points he makes).
He then presents a revised version of the email which addresses those problems.
Fascinating stuff. The article comes from a new email marketing newsletter produced by a UK vendor. I'm also a contributor: this is my basic introduction to email marketing metrics.
More case studies and statistics | Tags: email marketing, email marketing case studies, email creative
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These are the winners of the MarketingSherpa 2007 Email Awards. Categories include welcome messages, opt-in campaigns, e-newsletters, promotional email, triggered email and more.
You can see the judges' comments and the submitter's pitch for each winner, too.
Other creative galleries worthy of a thoughtful review are...
The 2006 winners
ClickZ's email award winners
CampaignMonitor's design gallery
And dozens of case studies are listed here. Let yourself be inspired.
Tags: email marketing case studies, marketingsherpa, email marketing
Stefan highlights a deliverability nightmare that can occur if your subject line sounds like one spammers might use.
You may be sending to your house list built on best permission practices. But if a casual glance at the subject line lets people think you're spam, they'll delete, ignore and report you. The latter can see your good name move unfairly onto a spam blacklist.
One of Stefan's recommendations on how to avoid this nasty fate is to ensure your subject line is adequately branded...
More on deliverability | Tags: email marketing, subject lines, email deliverability, spam
Others argue that the "from" header takes care of recognition and you shouldn't waste valuable subject line real estate by repeating your brand name.
I tend to place my delicate posterior on the nearest fence, and suggest that this is something you need to test before jumping to any conclusions.
Another contribution to this topic comes from Chad White at RetailEmail.Blogspot. He looked at what the top retailers are doing with their subject lines and discovered some interesting approaches.
While most are not using their own brand name directly, they might repeat another recognisable name (such as the newsletter name or the brand name of a product they're pushing).
Get Chad's insights here.
More on email subject lines | Tags: email marketing, subject lines, branding
In this article, Ivan Schneider explains why using Outlook 2007 to send bulk email is not a great idea and suggests some adequate alternatives for small businesses.
Listings for email marketing services | Tags: email marketing, outlook 2007
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Some clever folk at MIT's Sloan School of Management spent time observing how employees of one financial services company used the BlackBerrys issued to each of them. The easy accessibility of mobile mail turned out to be boon and bane.
It seems the satirical term "CrackBerry" now has a veneer of academic validity to it, with 90% of employees admitting to compulsive behavior and a compelling need to check email everywhere and anytime.
Still, the overall effect was regarded as positive, as expressed in the article's "Happy Addicts" subheader.
How long before we see celebrities entering rehab for their email addiction?
Tags: mobile email, email addiction, email humor, blackberry
Lingo Alert: assumed permission
Er, no..actually I don't want your newsletter
So I was very pleased to read a lengthy article by Stefan Pollard at EmailLabs which explains how to expand your email marketing activities without breaking permission marketing principles. Expansion here means sending more often or sending another kind of email entirely.
It's a must read for all those who want to up the intensity on their email program.
More on permission | Tags: email marketing, permission marketing, email list acquisition
Over at ClickZ, Jeanne Jennings details the initial two steps -- identify qualitative goals and analyze the current situation -- in defining a strategy. It's the first of a series of articles on the subject.
Those interested in getting into all this more quickly can also download the strategy chapter from her recent book for free.
More on strategy | Tags: email marketing strategy
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He draws on his experience to point out four typical mistakes made when marketing folk set out to find a new email marketing service: using a standard RFP, going through procurement, placing too much emphasis on a test send and looking for bundled services.
He explains the problems associated with each, and then outlines a further four things you should do to help ensure you get the best fit for your needs.
This is not about the technical requirements you might have, but advice on how to ensure compatibility between you and your email marketing vendor.
More on choosing a service | Tags: email marketing, email service providers, choosing an ESP, email marketing service
Just in case any of us have a "well they would say that, wouldn't they?" reaction, here's a key stat from an independent source...
According to market research outfit the Radicati Group, "Email Reputation Services" (meaning the kind used to sniff out disreputable senders and block their email) "will protect roughly 332 million mailboxes in 2007."
That's a lot of mailboxes. Something tells me maintaining a good reputation might be a good idea. For help on how to do it, check these articles.
More on deliverability | Tags: email reputation services, email marketing, email deliverability
Flavors of the moment appear to be...
...making better use of transactional emails and administrative list messages.
...smarter segmentation, meaning more innovation in terms of how you split up your list into smaller target groups.
There's also talk around staffing and other organisational issues, localisation, use of images and the importance of frequency considerations.
More on transactional emails and segmentation | Tags: MarketingSherpa email summit, email marketing
The theory goes like this: if you share an IP address with that service's other customers, then their behavior could affect your success.
If one of those other customers indulges in a little spamming, then the sender address may get on a blocklist, And since you have the same sender IP, your emails get blocked too.
But if you have an IP address all to yourself, then only your email practices determine whether that sender address gets on a blocklist or not.
So far so good. But here's another theory...
If an email marketing service uses shared IP addresses, it's in their own best interests to ensure those IP addresses stay off blocklists. Low deliverability means angry customers means less customers.
So wouldn't they dump bad customers pretty quickly and shift the good ones to block-free sender IP addresses if something does go wrong?
I'm just wondering...if your ESP is a decent one, is a dedicated IP address as important as it used to be?
That's not a rhetorical question: I'd enjoy some enlightenment from ESPs out there as I'm no expert when it comes to the technical side of deliverability...
More on deliverability | Tags: email marketing, email deliverability, email marketing services
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This is partly a response to continuing sponsorship inquiries...some slots are sold already...and partly to finance my growing addiction to Powerade sports drinks (not a sponsor, unfortunately).
The blog remains ad-free, in the sense that people can't pay for a post. So you shouldn't find service promotions appearing in your RSS reader disguised as commentary.
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The version of Outlook that comes with Office Small Business 2007 and Office Professional 2007 includes Business Contact Manager.
And Business Contact Manager now includes --- for the first time -- an email marketing service, allowing the Outlook user to build email lists from her contacts database, send marketing emails to the list, and track responses. Just like you might do with a conventional ESP.
The mechanism for doing this appears to be integration with Microsoft's Listbuilder. This was an email marketing service promoted as part of the bCentral brand and suite of services for small business (which stopped taking new sign-ups last year.)
It's hard to find anyone recommending a standard email client for managing email marketing. But integration with Listbuilder might address some of the relevant issues, like reporting.
Though it's hard to judge without using the service, I'm still skeptical. Outlook is not the ideal environment for creating emails and managing subscribers. And conventional ESPs provide a lot of ancillary benefits in terms of customer education, support, advanced subscriber management, tracking, reporting, email deliverability etc. I don't know how much of that is included in the Business Contact Manager service.
If anyone has experience with (or thoughts on) the new software, I'd love to hear from you.
More on email marketing services | Tags: email marketing, business contact manager, outlook 2007, email marketing service
Good email marketers are like foresters. They know how to keep the forest growing and productive. They harvest the timber, but never at the expense of the long-term health and productivity of the forest.
Spammers are the "slash and burn" agriculturalists. They would chop down all the trees, make a quick buck and move on. Leaving a barren wasteland behind.
The ISPs and spam blocklists are the game wardens and conservationists who build the fence around the forest.
They let the forester through to do his work, but they keep the slash and burn folk away.
The forester needs the game warden, even if sometimes the latter forgets to unlock the gates.
Good email marketers support the anti-spam efforts of the ISPs and blocklists. Which is why you'll find the likes of Return Path and EmailLabs expressing direct support for blacklisting service Spamhaus in an ongoing court case.
Whose side are you on?
Further reading:
Spam threatens the e-mail channel
Well-Known E-mailers Back Spamhaus in Amicus Brief
Are You an Email Marketing Miner or Manager?
More on email blacklists | Tags: email marketing, spamhaus, anti-spam, email blacklists
I thought about a rant about media bias. Too serious. A few revelations about who the heck this Mark Brownlow actually is? Too personal (people read your blog to get information on the subject, not the writer.)
So I've settled for a bit of humor to brighten up your day. Probably the most popular post of all time here was the one entitled You know you've done too much email marketing if...
So here's another nine examples of when it's time to put away the email and reach for the off switch. Cheers and thanks for being here.
- you keep changing the design of your office door to see how this impacts open rates
- your spouse tells you the marriage is over, and you offer them a $25 coupon if they'll recommit to the relationship
- when your checks bounce, you just delete the payee from your records
- you don't put stamps on letters on the assumption you're whitelisted at the postal service
- it annoys you that the grocery store didn't change this week's flyer based on your last purchase there
- you want more than one child, so you can do proper A/B tests on mealtime content preferences
- you don't let people join your card game unless they first reveal their age, gender, household income, zipcode and prefered salutation
- your kids are tired of trying to justify the ROI of the pocket money you give them
- you're still reading this blog post ;-)
More humor | Tags: email marketing, email humor, marketing humor, mark brownlow
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But how can you tell what's true and what's not?
The validity of submitted info is an issue that the lead generation folk have long dealt with. So I'm sure there's a heap of useful insight to be gleaned from them. Which is why I point you to this blog post by Return Path's Craig Swerdloff.
Craig describes seven techniques they use to validate leads before passing them on to clients. Interesting stuff.
More on list management | Tags: email marketing, lead generation, lead fraud, list acquisition
It's always good to review posts like Kai's because it helps us step back from the day-to-day stuff and ask whether we're running to stand still or to actually get somewhere.
I particular like his invitation to put up copies of your last emails all in a row so you can see whether you actually have some kind of flow there. Nice.
More on strategy | Tags: email marketing, permission marketing, email strategy
Of course, with all the hoopla about the new version, we shouldn't forget that most people are viewing their emails someplace else. It would be a shame if we focused all our energy on Outlook 2007 and forgot about Yahoo Mail, Gmail, Hotmail, Thunderbird, Outlook Express, Outlook 2003 etc. etc.
More on email design | Tags: email marketing, outlook 2007, email design, css in email, html email
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Their conclusion was essentially that we need standards here. For how metrics are calculated, how bounces are defined etc. It's good to see them pushing to give the email marketing sector a stronger theoretical and practical base to build from. You can read their thoughts in this ClickZ article.
I'm less enthusiastic about the sky-is-falling tone of some of the interpretations of their survey. Email marketing has been growing strongly so it's hard to imagine how standardisation issues now suddenly represent "a threat to the channel itself."
If anyone can explain that to me, please comment.
More on email marketing statistics | Tags: email marketing, email marketing statistics
So for event coverage and commentary, try:
Email Days or Listrak
Tags: email marketing
First, they eschew the ever unpopular popups to request newsletter signups, but go for a similar effect using intercept screens when someone browses the site.
Second, if a recipient signs up, he or she gets a welcome letter. No shock there. But if that welcome emails does not register an open, then they don't bother sending them the actual newsletter.
That's pretty drastic list pruning in action, but certainly ought to boost future open rates and responses. Interesting approach, anyway.
More case studies | Tags: email marketing, Questia, marketing case study
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...if you check open rates for specific destination addresses (all @yahoo.com addresses or all @companyABC.com addresses), then a huge deviation from your average might hint at a deliverability problem.
Unless that address group makes up a big proportion of your list, a 0% open rate for those addresses wouldn't change your total open rate too much: you'd never notice the problem.
A case in point: MarketingSherpa discovered problems with getting HTML emails delivered to BellSouth addresses thanks to just such a check. They switched those addresses to text-only and the problem was solved.
(Incidentally, according to the article you might be having the same issue with your BellSouth addresses.)
More on open rates | Tags: email marketing, open rates, email deliverability
Gail Goodman highlights five different concepts you can apply to come up with more effective headers: ask a question, be a tease, tell it like it is, WIIFM and getting personal. She explains each concept and has examples to illustrate them.
More on subject lines | Tags: email marketing,, email headers, subject lines
Notice the capitalised SPAM. Hormel have a full-time job on their hands defending their trademark now that spam (lower case) is such a ubiquitous term in the email space. You'd think there couldn't be much confusion between the pork and electronic versions of the S word, but Hormel's lawyers beg to differ.
anti-spam resources | Tags: spam, email marketing
That may be so...but the folks at AWeber invite you to rethink the value of the plain text version that accompanies your delightful full-color marketing email.
Justin Premick argues that a proper text alternative is still a must-have. Not just for keeping your anti-HTML readership happy, but because it has a direct impact on whether your HTML email gets delivered in the first place.
My tip: many service providers have a handy button which produces a text-only version of the HTML email you uploaded to their delivery system. Don't rely on this alone. The results can be pretty ugly. Check whether you need to upload your own text-only version, with a nicer layout and formatting than the automatic version has.
More on email format | Tags: email marketing, text email, html email, deliverability, email design
Here's the summary for those short on time:
"A truly definitive overview of the whats and hows of email marketing. Highly recommended for anyone contemplating or using email for marketing purposes."
And you can get it from the publisher here.
I interviewed Jeanne for you just yesterday and she has some super interesting things to say on transactional email, benchmarks, rendering issues, email in the organisation and...the NHL. Watch for that shortly.
More book reviews | Tags: email marketing kit, sitepoint, jeanne jennings
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It also has a jargon-free explanation of exactly why you should avoid dropping some dollars on one of those CDs of addresses.
As part of the basics category here at EMR, it's aimed at those unfamiliar with the topic area...people who might be seduced by the superficial attractiveness of those allegedly opt-in email lists sold around the darker sides of the Internet.
You might also like to wave it at bosses and colleagues who don't understand why you fuss about your house list and address acquisition costs when you can just send out a million emails for $99.
More on the basics | Tags: email marketing, email list rental, bulk email list, email list
If you find your emails getting blocked by a specific ISP or webmail service, then Stefan Pollard explains how you can and should set about resolving the issue.
It's a companion article to his previous advice on getting off a blocklist.
More on deliverability and blocklists | Tags: email marketing, email deliverability, ISP relations
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Perhaps not.
There are other alternatives to driving subscriptions. One of these is to offer a sign-up incentive. Researching that topic, I bumped into a timely post on the VerticalResponse blog.
Janine Popick lists a variety of possible incentives you might offer, including specific suggestions for tradeshows, competitions and welcome gifts. Perhaps some of the ideas would fit with your list needs?
If you do win new subscribers, there's always the question of how you can pluck a few little bits of useful information out of them. Demographics data, preferences etc. Denise Cox at the business of email has some words of wisdom on that topic.
More on building an email list | Tags: email marketing, list acquisition, growing your list, database marketing, sign-up incentives


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subset: commoncrawl


text:
January is one of my favorite months in San Francisco. No, not because I'm some sort of hydrophilic masochist who loves to frolic in the freezing rain and watch towns in Sonoma County and Napa County washed away by rising floodwaters. I love January because it's Dine About Town month in San Francisco, where scores of restaurants, some of them quite good, offer three course fixed-price dinners for $31.95. Some of them also do $21.95 dinners. This is a great way to go out and sample some of the best of what San Francisco has to offer.
Some restaurants do a better job of this than others, and some are more likely to mention this promotion than others, but even if it takes a little hunting on your part, or a little persistence in requesting the special menu, there's a lot of good meals to be had this month without breaking the bank.
They are also doing a promotion for those coming in from out of town that involves hotel rooms and prizes, etc. I can't be bothered to figure it all out, and I care most about the food, but if you're traveling here in the next 30 days you might want to check out their web site for the details.
Since I received a good response to this last year, I'm going to go ahead and share the restaurants that I think are really worth checking out, usually because the food is really good AND they tend to be more expensive so this promotion gets you a better deal. It's all about value, see? Make your reservations soon. I know I will.
VINOGRAPHY'S TOP CHOICES FOR A DINE ABOUT TOWN DINNER* RESERVATION (* some restaurants only have this deal going during lunch)
Ana Mandara
Big 4 Restaurant
Bacar Restaurant & Wine Salon
Crustacean Restaurant
EOS Restaurant & Wine Bar
1550 Hyde Wine Bar and Cafe
Le Colonial
One Market Restaurant
RNM Restaurant
Seasons at Four Seasons Hotel
The Waterfront Restaurant & Cafe
Campton Place is unfortunately only serving lunch, but apparently is worth making a trip to visit nonetheless.
THE FULL LIST OF PARTICIPATING RESTAURANTS (check out the Dine About Town site for overviews and sample menus for each restaurant)
Asia de Cuba
Azie Aziza
bacar restaurant and wine salon
Big 4 Restaurant
Bistro Boudin
BIX Restaurant
Blowfish Sushi To Die For
Blupointe Raw Bar. Bistro. Lounge
Bob's Chop & Steak House
C & L Steak
Cafe Maritime
Campton Place Restaurant
Catch Restaurant
Chenery Park Restaurant
Chez Papa
Circolo Restaurant & Ultra Lounge
Citizen Cake
Cliff House
Mexican Bistro
Cortez Restaurant & Bar
The Cosmopolitan Restaurant.Bar.Piano Lounge
Côté Sud
Cozmo's Corner
Crustacean Daily Grill
Emporio Rulli
1550 Hyde Cafe & Wine Bar
Fior d'Italia Restaurant
First Crush Restaurant, Wine Bar & Lounge
Forbes Island
Foreign Cinema
Fournou's Ovens
Frisson Restaurant
Grand Cafe
Hornblower Cruise & Events
Hyde Street Bistro
Il Fornaio
Cucina Italiana
Jack Falstaff
Julius' Castle Restaurant
La Suite
Le Charm French Bistro
Le Colonial
Le Zinc French Bistro
The Mandarin
Mangarosa Restaurant and Bar
Market Street Grill
Maya Restaurant
McCormick & Kuleto's Seafood Restaurant
Medjool Restaurant & Lounge
MoMo's San Francisco Grill
Moose's Nectar Wine Lounge
The Oak Room and Piano Bar
One Market Restaurant
O'Reilly's Holy Grail
Ozumo Restaurant
Palio d'Asti
Paragon Restaurant and Bar
Park Grill
PlumpJack Cafe
The Public Resto and Lounge
Restaurant Jeanne D'Arc
Restaurant LuLu
RNM Restaurant
Rose Pistola
Roy's Hawaiian Fusion
Rue Saint Jacques
Ruth's Chris Steak House
Scoma's Restaurant
Seasons Restaurant
Sinbad's Restaurant
Soluna Cafe & Lounge
The Terrace at the Ritz
Tommy Toy's Cuisine Chinoise
Universal Café
Vintner's Grill Washington Square Bar & Grill
The Waterfront Restaurant & Cafe
Zingari Ristorante
A wine book like no other. Photographs, essays, and wine recommendations. 2015 Roederer Award Winner.Learn more.
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Vinography Images: Unglamorous Work A Lesson in the Loss of Denis Malbec I'll Drink to That: Kimberly Prokoshyn of Rebelle Restaurant Wine News: What I'm Reading the Week of 6/19/16 Vinography Unboxed: Week of June 12, 2016 Warm Up: Richebourg I'll Drink to That: Jean-Nicolas Méo of Méo-Camuzet Vinography Images: It's Nice to be King It's Time for American Wineries to Grow Up I'll Drink to That: Joy Kull of La Villana Winery
Wine Will Never Smell the Same Again: Luca Turin and the Science of Scent Forlorn Hope: The Remarkable Wines of Matthew Rorick Debating Robert Parker At His Invitation Passopisciaro Winery, Etna, Sicily: Current Releases Should We Care What Winemakers Say? The Sweet Taste of Freedom: Austria's Ruster Ausbruch Wines 2009 Burgundy Vintage According to Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Charles Banks: The New Man Behind Mayacamas Wine from the Caldera: The Incredible Viticulture of Santorini Why Community Tasting Notes Sites Will Fail Chateau Rayas and the 2012 Vintage of Chateauneuf-du-Pape A Life Indomitable: The Wines of Casal Santa Maria, Portugal Bay Area Bordeaux: Tasting Santa Cruz Mountain Cabernets Forgotten Jewels: Reviving Chile's Old Vine Carignane The First-Timer's Guide to Les Trois Glorieuses of Hospices de Beaune


text:
Since Nicole Scherzinger has landed in the welcoming arms of Simon Cowell and The X Factor, she's been looking to introduce herself to a new audience through various promotional gigs and the help of her best non-musical assets. A self-proclaimed Team Coco groupie, Scherzinger visited the set of Conan on Monday, in a form-fitting dress that even the least couture-versed ginger couldn't help but recognize. "It's like its painted on!" remarked late night's one and only male fashion correspondent. Scherzinger explained that she felt like a sausage—the pains of being famous!—before the two traded stories about Cowell and his odd pull on the female gender. Just as Scherzinger was about to launch into her rehearsed speech of why The X Factor is different, and thus, better, than its competition, O'Brien quickly became lost in the enchantment of her cleavage. "Focus, Conan," the former Pussycat Doll scolded without missing a beat, and likely not the first time she's had to lift tongues off the floor. O'Brien apologized profusely and tried to mask his goof in last-ditch attempts at chivalry with regifted flowers, before owning up to it all. "Let's be real here for a second. You didn't think I was going to look down there?" Somehow you win again, Coco. Now if only we at the dinner table discussion in the O'Brien household later that night.
After rendering the host speechless, the conversation lingered on the subject of body parts as Scherzinger launched into her dissection of Cowell's "moobs," mainly because Ryan Seacrest regularly likes to ask how they're doing. "They're strong, they're perky…they're alive and alert breasts," she explained. And to further solidify her place in the Late Night Guest Hall of Fame, Scherzinger conceded to showing off her own Britney Spears impression, complete with a slightly sarcastic undertone ("It really shows off my vocal range and ability"). Enjoy Scherzinger's generous gifts to the late night host and audience, below. Ah, so that's why Simon hired her!


text:
My very first camping trip ruined me forever. Well, actually, I had been on my first trip years before when I was six and my Brownie troop went to Camp Tomahawk just outside of Denver for three nights. I don't consider that real camping, however, because we had cabins, cots, a cafeteria, and a llama. That weekend at Camp Tomahawk had been a pleasant experience, and why wouldn't it be? We had a frickin' llama.
But the first time I went camping for real, and by real I mean roughing it as God intended, I was doomed from the get-go.
I was twenty years old, seven months pregnant with my first baby, and married to a man who, as best I can tell, has always thought he was Les Stroud. Larry comes from a family of what I believe southerners refer to as "hill folk," and even though not a one of them has ever set foot in the South, they all mysteriously talk like they grew up in the Ozarks. My husband, the youngest in a long line of rednecks, grew up hunting with bows and guns, fishing with homemade rods, off-roading in Jeeps, and learning how to whittle crap out of corn cobs. He's eaten alligator meat and even sampled the deep fried scorpions at that exotic foods booth at the State Fair. According to him, they taste like fishy chicken and peanuts, respectively. I finally broke him of his habit of bringing me the rattles from rattlesnakes he'd killed as gifts, as well as the wild box turtles he caught to keep as pets. For all these reasons, my brother, Jeremy, christened him with the nickname "Everyone's Favorite Hillbilly."
Of course, Larry is hillbilly-light compared to his family. They're very kindhearted, generous people who would gladly give the coat off their backs to someone in need, but sometimes, they do things that make me raise my eyebrows in bewildered astonishment. For example, one time, my father-in-law bought one of those Flowbee machines, that hair cutting apparatus attached to a vacuum cleaner, because it was, in his words, "a good investment." He cut my son's hair with it, and by the time it was all said and done his head looked like it lost a fight with a weed-whacker.
Then the very first Christmas Larry and I spent together as a married couple, his family decided to have a sing-along. But what song should we sing first? My brother-in-law and I, newcomers to the family tree, foolishly suggested we all sing "Jingle Bells" because it's a nice, classic song and everyone knows the words. Larry's grandmother came unglued at the idea, however, and derisively spat, "Absolutely not! I will not sing a song that glorifies the Devil!"
And that doesn't even count the Hatfield-McCoy war they have going with their neighbor over the water flow to all the houses in their corner of Olathe.
My sister-in-law even has a recipe for squirrel stew.
The list goes on and on.
So when they announced they were driving up to Roaring Fork just outside of Telluride to camp over the 4th of July weekend and wanted to know if we would come too, I should've just used my pregnancy to excuse myself. But I remembered how fun it was at Camp Tomahawk, and I thought it would be nice to camp deep in the mountains. Spending the 4th of July camping seems to be one of those things that's central to a native Coloradoan's identity, one of those iconic examples of who we are as a people, and I didn't want to miss out on the opportunity to celebrate my Coloradoan and American heritage. Besides, it was my birthday as well, and my family wasn't doing anything special with my dad out of town and my mom passed out drunk two days before the party even started. This was my chance to connect with my new family, rough around the edges as they were. So when Larry begged me to go with them, his eyes big and sweet like a puppy's, I happily agreed.
We loaded up his beat-up '84 Mustang and followed his parents' Suburban towards Telluride. We were at least an hour out of Montrose before I made an awful discovery: my rescue inhaler was out. A terrible asthmatic, I didn't dare go anywhere without it, let alone the woods where irritants were out in full force, waiting to force my lungs to close up shop. There is nothing worse than an asthma attack as far as I'm concerned, not only because you feel yourself choking to death in the most painful way possible, but because like a vampire, it drains your soul from your body and leaves you impossibly weak for days after. My asthma has nearly killed me on more than one occasion, but even still, there have been times when I've played dangerous games of Russian roulette with it by trying to live without my medicine, an act of defiance that refuses to acknowledge its profound control over me. That day proved to be one of the times I thumbed my nose at it. By God, I wasn't going to be the weak one of the group; I knew I was a true native and not some tenderfoot city-girl who couldn't last a day in the woods, but I had to prove it by not showing my weakness. So when Larry offered to turn the car around, I stubbornly refused to go back.
"Are you sure?" he asked when I'd made my decision.
"I'm sure," I said, clenching my jaw in determination. I'd never admit it, but I was kind of scared. I'd only played games with my oral medications, never my inhaler. I thought I could last a day without it, but three days? And in the woods? That was pushing it, even for me. But now my pride wouldn't let me retract my decision because that would be admitting weakness, and I wasn't going to let my in-laws think I was just a dumb city-girl. So I put on a fake smile and said, "I'll be okay. I'll just take it easy. I won't do anything too strenuous."
"I don't like this," he replied.
"I promise," I insisted. "I'll be fine."
After that, I dozed off for awhile, waking up as we coasted into Telluride for gas. Light rain that quickly became a torrential downpour began to fall just outside of town. In spite of the brilliant red-orange sunshine breaking through the clouds, the temperature rapidly plummeted from the eighties to the fifties. That damp chill deepened as we drove up the muddy, winding road in the mountain's shadow, and the afternoon thunderstorm didn't let up until we rolled into camp at sunset. There, the sky continued to drizzle lightly as I stepped out of Larry's beater. At ten-thousand feet, I realized, the world is calm, but cold.
Our campground high above the Roaring Fork River was far from any trace of civilization. A small, grassy clearing surrounded on all sides by aspens, it was secluded and difficult to find. That is why, according to Larry, his uncle used it as a staging ground for hunting. My husband even made it a point to show me the spigot his uncle installed in the sheer granite wall to funnel and dispense the arctic-cold spring water to the camp as necessary. I was reluctant to try untreated water even though he insisted the rock acted like a filter, but at that altitude, no pollutants infected it, so I conceded and drank a cup. It tasted sweet and refreshing, much to my surprise.
Gayla and Jim, my sister and brother-in-law, arrived at camp with their kids the night before, so when we arrived, nearly everything was already set up. Experienced campers, they only brought the bare essentials because that's how camping is supposed to be done. Otherwise, it's not camping. Larry, who also subscribed to that theory, happily began pitching our tent in the mud near the tree line while Myrna and Larry Senior, his parents, unloaded the extra food from the Suburban. Adhering to my plan of taking it easy, I sat in a folding chair beside the campfire and watched Jim fuss with the logs. The rain made it difficult to keep the flames going, even with the dry wood he'd plucked from his truck, but he pushed the cinders and branches around with a poker and somehow kept the fire alive. Thick clouds of white smoke and steam wafted from it, and when a gust of wind blew the column into my face, I involuntarily sucked down the irritants.
Naturally, I choked and coughed on the smog, and as the pollutants bit into the insides of my lungs in stinging pain, I bitterly thought, Only been here five minutes and I'm already having an attack. This is just great. Quickly, I grabbed a cup of campfire coffee, an old-school remedy for asthma, and chugged it down. The attack immediately subsided.
The first night was rather uneventful and boring. After the usual campfire dinner of hamburgers and hotdogs, everyone decided to turn in for the night. It was cold and raining still, and it was dark as well. I felt disappointed. Where were the songs around the fire, and the roasted marshmallows? Where were the scary stories and everything else that went into my vision of what camping should be? I didn't dare ask. I didn't want my in-laws to know my romantic ideal of camping was just that: a romantic ideal. That is, what the tenderfoot Californians whom they disdained thought of when they thought of camping. I was no Californian, so I said nothing and hunkered down in my sleeping bag.
Larry was right at home in the woods and he quickly fell into a coma in his brand new mummy bag, but I could tell right away that camping and I weren't going to be good friends. The way the ground refused to give against my spine annoyed me, and I tossed and turned incessantly trying to find a good nook to relax into. Further compounding the problem was my swollen tummy; though I was so small around the waist that people couldn't tell I was seven months pregnant unless I lifted my shirt to prove it, that tight bubble around my mid-section kept getting in my way no matter how I turned. I thought I could almost deal with the discomfort of stone and mud against flesh if it weren't so damn cold as well. Even through my sleeping bag (which Larry picked for me because it was rated down to zero degrees), the frigid rock under my body froze me like a popsicle. When my husband kicked off his bag because he was too hot, I looked at him in amazement and disbelief. How the hell was he not freezing like me? Sleep evaded me for most of the night until at last, as the gray sky of dawn broke through our tent, I dozed off from sheer exhaustion. And then, of course, my obnoxious spouse, excited about the day's activities, promptly woke me up.
"It's time for breakfast!" he cried cheerily.
"You are entirely too cheerful for six o'clock in the morning," I growled as I buried my face in my sweatshirt to block out the morning sunlight.
"Come on, get up!"
"Just another hour?" I whined.
"No, come on. My mom's making a farmer's breakfast! She's got biscuits and gravy, and sausage, and bacon, and eggs, and some other stuff cooking. And then we're going hiking. So you can't sleep in."
"I hate you and everything you stand for," I grumbled, though breakfast did sound pretty good. As we spoke, I smelled the smoky aroma of bacon waft through the tent flaps.
"Come on, get up! It's gonna be a fun day!"
The jerk lied. Oh, he had a fun day of hiking, fishing, and playing with our nieces and nephews. I, on the other hand, spent the day taking it easy and listening to Myrna and Gayla bitch about Trisa, Larry's moronic sister. Of course, I had no one to blame for my predicament but myself, but as each long minute spent gossiping ticked away, I found myself wishing I had brought a book to read or a notebook to write in. Instead, my butt made a deep impression in my canvas chair. Upon closer inspection, I actually thought I could see the boredom in the round indentations.
The tedious afternoon was broken up when my nieces and nephews balanced their way up a fallen tree. At its highest, the dead trunk hovered twenty feet off the ground, and as they scurried up it like squirrels, I envisioned a horrible tragedy. One of them would lose their balance on the bark slippery from the prior night's rain, and he or she would fall and break their neck. I didn't care that these roughneck children grew up in the woods and were probably safer turning cartwheels on the tree than I was just walking normal. I was certain one of them was going to die. So I yelled at them. It was like herding cats.
"You better get your butts down now!" I hollered as they argued with me. "You should be afraid of your Aunt Katie's temper." I had a mean temper, and I didn't put up with crap, especially from kids. I hadn't meant to step on Gayla's toes with my threat, but as soon as I said it, she was behind me.
"No, they better be afraid of mine," she corrected.
"Uh, yes, that's right," I stammered, surprised and embarrassed. Obviously, her authority trumped mine. But she had been busy cleaning up our lunch mess, so I just took it upon myself to babysit. I didn't think she'd mind.
Still, her attitude towards me seemed decidedly grouchy the rest of the day, and I knew she was angry with me for overstepping my bounds. I kept to myself and didn't say much to anyone unless they asked me a question. I thought that would placate her anger. But after dinner, when I saw her dumping the food scraps in the bushes by my tent, I wasn't so sure.
I knew I wasn't exactly Woodsy Owl, but wasn't that a cardinal no-no when camping?
"It's fine," Larry grumbled emphatically when I pulled him aside and asked him about it. "She knows what she's doing. They've been camping forever. You just don't like my family."
"That's not true!" I whispered. "I'm beginning to think they don't like me!"
"So what, am I supposed to take you home now?"
"No," I shot back, my arms crossed. I stuck out my chin in defiance. "I'm not going home. So there."
"Then sit down and try to enjoy yourself. Quit worrying so much. We know what we're doing." He whirled around and headed back to the campfire.
"That's what scares me," I muttered under my breath and then followed him.
But I was delighted when I saw Jim break open a bag of giant campfire marshmallows, spear them on a couple of pitchforks, and hold them over the flames. While he worked, I noticed Gayla and Myrna open a box of graham crackers and a package of Hershey bars. Finally, s'mores! Chocolate cures all ill. My fears about the food scraps were long forgotten.
Nighttime in the forest was a disconcerting thing for me because the darkness was so utterly black that it swallowed me whole, and it prompted Gayla to leave a small lantern glowing in her makeshift kitchen. Additionally, the animals — both the predators and prey alike — chattered away in strange, unfamiliar tones, and as everyone but me slept, I found myself wondering if they were talking about me in their own language, laughing at this girl who clearly was no native of Colorado. Although the chill from the storm the prior night kept me awake, I almost preferred it to the noisiness of the forest because the rapid pangs of raindrops on our tent would've been quieter. But in the absence of a storm, my sleep-deprived brain listened to the sounds of the woods, and soon my imagination started to run away with me as it began replaying The Blair Witch Project in my mind.
I had gotten myself so thoroughly scared and worked up that at first, I didn't notice the abrupt silence that settled on the woods around the camp. But then I heard a metallic clanking sound cut through the still air, immediately snapping me from my daydream about a witch coming to kill us. As the pot, perhaps kettle, clattered to the ground, I heard the footsteps of a large animal. Just a deer, I scoffed. As if reading my mind, the animal stamped, the sound hollow and heavy, not light and airy like a deer. A terrible thought crept to my mind, and my heart started racing as I listened to the creature move through our camp. It's just a deer…right? Again, as if responding to my fear, it snorted and grunted.
That's not a deer!
"Larry! Larry!" I whispered urgently as I violently shook him awake.
"Wha-? What is it?" he asked loudly, clearly annoyed with me for waking him.
"Shh!" I silenced. "There's a bear in the camp!"
Sleepily, he waved me off. "No, there's not, it's just a deer," he said.
"Dammit, Larry!" The footsteps grew louder. I threw myself onto my back, pulled my sleeping bag to my chin, and watched as the silhouette of a bear approached. Larry, who had reluctantly indulged me when he too heard the footsteps, looked at me, now wide-eyed in terror.
"There's a bear in the camp!" he whispered.
"Thank you for the news flash, Captain Obvious," I hissed. "What are we gonna do?" Immediately, he rolled onto my body. I scowled. He was choosing now to get fresh with me? "What the hell are you doing?" I asked.
"I'm protecting you," he replied as the creature swayed closer. "If it attacks us, it'll take me first, and hopefully you and the baby can get away."
"Great plan," I drily remarked. "I thought your family was good at this!"
"I don't have any guns with me," he chattered. "Jim has them all."
Shit. Jim was clear on the other side of camp. If we tried to get to his tent, we risked getting mauled.
"Call him!"
"No, it might provoke the bear," Larry argued as the animal arrived at our tent. It followed the length of it, intently sniffing through it as it walked. It pushed its nose into the thin fabric as far as it could, and it nudged my leg. Back home, my lab, Kaylar, often playfully dug her muzzle into various parts of my body and sometimes she accidentally hurt me with her attention-getting game, but as strong as she was, her snout was nowhere near as powerful as the one that goosed me now. I stayed as still as possible, however, so as to not attract attention.
Gradually, the bear worked its way to our heads. Once again, it pressed its nose through the thin material, but this time it began sniffing our heads. I looked at Larry, and we exchanged a look of silent panic. The beast obviously smelled something he liked because he thrust his nose harder through the tent wall until it touched our scalps. Hot and heavy snorts warmed my forehead, and I realized in absolute horror that the only thing that separated my skull from its teeth was a millimeter of fabric. It grunted and pushed my head. Quiet, stinging tears streamed from my eyes now, but I remained still.
Finally, after what felt like eternity, it lost interest in our heads and stepped around the corner. It quickly found the scraps of food in the bushes and began devouring its feast. Larry and I both exhaled in relief.
He then whispered in my ear: "When I say so, you run to Jim and Gayla's tent as fast as you can, okay?"
"Okay," I whispered back.
Stealthily, he climbed off me and knelt beside the door while I rolled to my knees in equal silence. With a nervous breath, he slowly began to unzip the opening, pausing only for a second to see what the bear would do. The creature didn't seem to notice the sound, so satisfied it was safe, Larry quietly undid the door the rest of the way.
Then, he bellowed: "Jim! Dad! There's a bear!"
Chaos ensued after that. First, Larry sprang from the tent just as the bear, startled, grunted and tried to run away. But our camp was on a slight incline, and after my husband yelled bizarre noises at it to frighten it further, I heard its big feet trip over something woody, perhaps a log or a branch. Twigs snapped in the bushes. That was followed by the sound of the bear falling down the hill with confused thuds.
"Katie, go!"
He didn't have to tell me twice. Now I sprang into action, and I quickly climbed through the tent door just in time to see Jim run out of his tent in his old-timey long-johns. In each hand was a revolver ready to fire, and as I bolted towards him I thought he looked like Billy the Kid with his guns drawn. Larry Senior, clutching a rifle, emerged from the other tent as well.
"There's a bear!" I screeched as I raced towards them.
"Get inside!" my father-in-law yelled, and I obeyed. Breathlessly, I leapt through the door to their ten-man tent and zipped it up behind me. Outside, the men whooped and hollered in shrill tones as they crashed through the bushes.
"What's going on?" my niece, Jamie, asked.
"There's a bear," I panted. My lungs, stressed from fear and my wind-sprint through the cold, mountain air, began to burn with that familiar asthmatic pain.
"Cool!" little Stevie, my nephew, cried.
"No, not cool," I said, trying to catch my breath. I couldn't. It was the fear. The panic. The jog. All of it. My lungs were closing up, and they wouldn't be calmed.
"Are you okay?" Myrna asked me as I struggled for air.
"I'm — having — an — attack," I choked out. It was like someone clamped a big, strong fist around my throat. I sat upright on a sleeping bag and wheezed. When the men returned five minutes later, I was balancing my elbows on my knees and my face on my hands. To an unwitting bystander, the position looks like a tri-pod, and it's a bad sign because it means the patient is rapidly losing the fight for air.
Larry recognized my distress and immediately got me a cup of water since no coffee had been brewed. When it didn't work, I found my old inhaler and tried to use it, hoping against hope that one little squirt of medicine, or even propellant, remained. But it only shot out useless puffs of air, and I threw it in frustration.
"You just gotta calm down," Gayla said.
"Yeah, the bear's gone," Jim added. "Everything's okay, but if it'll make you feel better, you guys can sleep in here tonight. Just in case it comes back."
I was so tired from the ordeal and the attack that sleep sounded nice, but whenever I inhaled, a jagged pain sawed through my chest. I felt each little bronchiole, irritated by the bear's appearance, turn a scarlet shade of red and threaten to explode in rage. I gasped for air, and knew this attack was far beyond self-help, but I nodded and agreed to try to go to bed anyway. I stretched out on my back, but my tongue felt jammed in my throat, so I tried to lie on my side instead. Slowly inhaling and exhaling as I'd been trained to do, the attack would not be quelled. You have to go to the hospital, I finally conceded.
"Larry — (gasp)?" I whispered so as to not disturb the others.
"Hmm?" He had promptly fallen asleep ten minutes ago when everyone but me had gone back to bed, and I hated waking him up again like an indecisive mo. But it couldn't be helped. I had to get medical attention right away. I was slowly suffocating to death.
"You — have — (gasp) — to — take — me — (gasp) — to — the — hospital — (gasp)."
"Are you sure you can't make it through the night?"
"I'm — (gasp) — sure."
He immediately got up and found the sleeping form of his father on the other side of the tent. "Dad? I have to take Katie to the hospital. What's the closest one to here?"
"Probably the one in Cortez. It's just down the hill." He gave Larry a set of instructions to follow to get to town.
"What's going on?" I heard Gayla ask.
"Katie's in bad shape. I'm gonna take her to the hospital," Larry explained.
Well, that's it. Just admit it. You're not a camper. You're not a real Coloradoan. Your body knows it. So why don't you? In the darkness, I frowned in sadness and defeat. My derisive inner voice was right. I was weak. Just like the tenderfoot Californians. A city girl with no business in the woods. Just one more place I didn't belong. In the darkness, I wiped away tears at having lost the battle.
"Have you tried taking in some deep breaths to calm down?" Gayla asked me, breaking through my thoughts.
"Yeah, she has," Larry thankfully answered for me.
As sick as I was, I still managed to roll my eyes in the darkness. No, Gayla, I hadn't thought of trying to breathe. But I'll be sure to give it a whirl because golly-gee, it sure sounds like a swell plan! Nothing irritates me more than when people try to suggest remedies while I'm in the midst of an attack, as if they've conveniently forgotten I'm a lifelong asthmatic and have probably already done what they've suggested, plus ten other things they haven't, to recover. And I probably would've gotten snarky with her about it had it not been a waste of precious air. So I stifled it and let Larry help me to my feet.
"Hope you feel better," several of my nieces and nephews called as he led me outside.
"We'll call you when we get back to town," Myrna said to Larry.
"I — (gasp) — can't — (gasp) — breathe (gasp)," I said as he put me in the Mustang.
"I know, that's why I'm taking you."
"I'm — (gasp) sorry."
"That's okay. You couldn't help it."
When we rolled out of camp, Larry flew down the hill, his speed gradually increasing to a hundred miles an hour. I looked at him in alarm as he raced around the curves. A month before we met, he'd been in a crash just outside of Montrose in which the driver rolled off a cliff. She had been going forty on a ten mile an hour hairpin turn in her Jeep, and when it was all said and done, my husband probably shouldn't have survived the fifty foot fall to the ravine floor. The Jeep, according to him, looked like a crumpled beer can. But his speed tonight, albeit born out of worry for me, was definitely going to get us killed.
"Slow — (gasp) — down," I choked. I was struggling even harder to breathe now. My trapezius muscles were as taut as a snare drum, spasming violently as every wisp of air I gulped down tried to stretch them loose. To optimize what little air flow I had, I braced my arms on the dash and leaned forward. My efforts helped little and soon, my biceps and triceps ached as bad as my back and neck. A deep rattle emanated from within, like someone gulping air through a straw.
"Are you okay?" Larry kept asking me, and I kept shaking my head no. Obviously, I wasn't okay. I wasn't going to expend the air to say so.
Finally, he flipped on the Mustang's hazard lights after getting caught behind much slower mountain traffic. He cursed all the drivers, certain they were idiots because they didn't know to move out of the way, and he hoped to scare them aside. It worked. People scrambled to the side of the road when they saw his car flying down the mountain with its hazards on. I'm sure they thought his brakes had burned out. Of course, when the city lights from Cortez filled my sight, not two minutes after he implemented his bright idea, a set of blue and red flashing lights broke through our back windshield.
"Just fucking great!" Larry yelled as he pulled over. I thought the same thing as my eyes started to slip shut. "Well, maybe he can give us directions to the hospital anyway." He rolled down the window.
"Do you know why I pulled you over?" the cop opened. A standard question.
"Because I was going too fast and my hazard lights were on," Larry answered.
"Can you tell me why?"
"Look, I don't want to be rude, but my wife's having an asthma attack and she ran out of her medicine. I'm trying to get her to the hospital in Cortez because it's really bad. I know I shouldn't have had my hazards on, but it's an emergency. Can you please tell us how to get there?"
The state trooper shined his mag-light flashlight in my face. Even though my eyes were barely open, the white light blinded me.
"Jesus, Katie, your lips and eyelids are turning blue!" Larry cried.
"Okay, here's what we're gonna do," Smokey the Bear began. "You're gonna follow me. I'm gonna take you straight to the hospital, and I'm gonna call this in so they're ready for her when we get there."
"Thank you so much!" my husband cried. In a moment, the trooper pulled ahead and led the way down the mountain. He never turned his lights off, and he too sped down the hill. I barely noticed, though, because my asthma leeched out my last traces of fighting power, and I slumped backwards in my seat. I was drifting to a place where I barely noticed the pain anymore, and blue bursts of energy exploded across my corneas. So tired. So tired. I started to close my eyes.
"Katie, stay awake!" my husband barked at me.
"Can't — (gasp) — help — (gasp) — it," I whispered as I collapsed into the window. The staunch chill of it felt good on my face.
I was barely conscious when we arrived at the Cortez hospital, right where the ambulances drop off patients. The cop, who made good on his promise to alert them, got Larry's information while an unusually large entourage of doctors and nurses met me at the door with an oxygen mask, pulse-ox machines, and medicine. I spent the night in the emergency room, drifting in and out of consciousness as they worked hard to fix me. And after four nebulizer treatments and equally large shots of Solumedrol, Benadryl, and adrenaline, just as the sun was rising over the distant horizon, they finally released me. It was, I realized, the 4th of July and my birthday.
So frail that I could barely walk, I slept all the way from Cortez to Montrose. Asthma attacks always take it out of me, and I knew I was going to be exhausted from it for days, so I needed to get a head start on my sleep. Larry didn't wake me during the car ride until we rolled into town and he pointed out the hot air balloons slowly climbing into the clear blue sky. They were colorful, and many of them were patriotic-themed, but many more were effigies of famous cartoon characters. Still, they rose out of the flatter buttes of the Western Slope like candles on a cake. And I wished I had stayed in Montrose all along.
The first thing I did when we got back to our apartment was take a shower. I didn't realize until I stripped off my clothes just how much I reeked of smoke and dirt. I wrinkled my nose in disgust, washing my hair three times just to get it all off, the earthy aroma of burnt wood conquering the fresh scent of shampoo flowers. Gross. Just one more thing to hate about camping. What a useless, boring waste of a person's time. Who actually finds it fun? But, then again, what did that say about me? What true Coloradoan hates camping so much? I sighed and watched in amazement as the water turned black while it streamed down my body and swirled down the drain, all my expectations and certainty of who I was flowing with it, and I wondered if Wyoming would welcome me as a native.


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American EZ Bag
30 pocket reversible bag with adjustable straps. Can be worn as a backpack, rigger's bag or unzipped and laid out flat. Originally made for carpentry tools, but the American EZ Bag can be used as a tote bag, boat bag, knitting bag, overnight bag, gardening bag, hairdresser's bag, arts & crafts bag, & more....
Tool Bag
Beach Bag
Artists Bag
Knitting Bag
Overnight Bag
Available in heavy duty canvas...
or in nylon ( white or blue).
Original Canvas - 16" deep -- bottom measures 12" x 6" 1152 cubic inches
Nylon - 14 1/2" deep -- bottom measures 10" x 6" 870 cubic inches


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As the rain stopped and the wind died on Sunday, Dogfish Head's Patrick Staggs kept getting the same two text messages back to back.
First, everyone asked if Patrick and his family had made it safely through Hurricane Irene.
Then came the followup: "How's the brewery?"
As the operations director, it was Patrick's job to protect the three key branches of our Milton brewery: the people, the property and, of course, our off-centered ales.
"We talked about people first," says Patrick. "Are we going to be able to get everyone out so they can take care of their own personal lives? Then it was the structures. The whole front of our building is glass and right in front of that we have a big steel treehouse, so everyone was thinking of that. And then it was the beer."
The good news for Dogfish Head's extended family and friends is that all three are intact. Irene's impact was weaker than expected, but the storm still brought a three-hour power outage and wind gusts near 70 mph. We lost five shifts of production, but not a drop of beer, and after playing a little catch-up in the next two weeks, our round-the-clock brewery should be back on schedule.
"We didn't know how bad it was going to be," Patrick says. "But we planned for the absolute worst."
The first step was getting the right team together. Co-workers from operations, brewing, quality control, maintenance, scheduling, safety, IT and water treatment started laying out precautions midweek. By the end of the workday Thursday, the team was feeling good about its plan and ready to put it in motion on Friday. But when Gov. Jack Markell declared a state of emergency Thursday evening, the plan had to be fast-tracked.
"Come Thursday night when the state of emergency was declared, I was on the phone for three hours," says Patrick. "It was tough rearranging the whole plan via phone and text."
Brewing and packaging were cut off around 10:30 p.m. Thursday, and a skeleton crew started a controlled shutdown. The bottling lines were cleared, empty fermenters were filled with water to keep them anchored and non-essential equipment was powered down.
"During storms like this you could have massive electrical surges if not direct lightning strikes, so we unplugged everything that wasn't mission critical," says Chief Operating Officer Nick Benz. "Phones, computers, copiers, fax machines, coffeemakers, toasters, anything electrical that wasn't needed."
But the cellars, where fermentation takes place, were a different story. There was too much beer at risk. If the power was cut and the supply of coolant was disrupted, the primary fermenters could quickly reach 80 to 90 degrees, changing flavor profiles and ruining the batches.
"Yeah, you can fry a really expensive piece of equipment," says Nick. "But if we took it offline, we'd lose a lot of beer. Any beer that we brewed on Thursday rolling into Friday we would've ended up dumping."
Thankfully, it never came to that, and by about 2 p.m. Monday, a Dogfish-wide effort had the brewery back at full capacity.
Down the road in Rehoboth Beach, co-workers at Dogfish Head Brewing & Eats popped the plywood out of the windows and were grateful to find dry floors and an intact brewpub.
"I was quite surprised by the lack of water in the building," says General Manager Jason Weissberg. "We were very lucky."
By Tuesday morning, it was as if the week that sleepy lower Delaware saw a hurricane, a tornado and an earthquake had never happened.
"Ah, the smell of hot mash in the morning," Patrick said. "It really is a beautiful thing, isnt it?"


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Since the two year relationship of the youngest Royal couple ended just under two months ago, Royal watchers can't help but wonder whether or not there is any hope for a reunion for Prince Harry and Cressida Bonas. Prince Harry has reportedly served Cressida dinner at Kensington Palace since the split, and rumors surfaced earlier that the couple would become a match made in Devon when Harry invited his Cressie for a getaway during the now infamous Kensington Palace dinner. Since then however the individual behavior of the couple has confused Royal watchers hoping for a reconnection. On June 13 People Magazine reported that Cressida Bonas was out with her Royal friends looking more stunning than ever in her newly single status. Prince Harry has also been spotted in Devon, but not with Cressida Bonas.
It was a recent society shindig with many Royals in attendance that had People Magazine reporting on June 13 that Cressida Bonas was wowing crowds in a new look that suggested newly single Cressida was more than ready to mingle. The 24-year-old blonde bombshell arrived at the Art Antiques Gala Evening to aid Children in Crisis in Kensington Gardens on June 10 looking sexier than ever.
Cressida attended the event in a stunning black and gold sparkling backless number that left little to the imagination. This look for Cressida at the London Gala is one that is far from her normal disheveled appearance, referred to as "haute bohemian" by the New York Times.
The look that Cressida dazzled with at the Art Antiques Gala was one not unlike a certain Kate Middleton's that many Royal watchers will remember Kate adopted post her own Royal breakup. That look occurred when Kate Middleton appeared half naked on a runway for a show that had her own Prince running back to her arms in very little time. Could Cressida be taking a page from Kate Middleton's book?
By all accounts the behavior Cressida showed at the party mingling with the Royal crowds suggest that Cressida may be moving on, but she is still very much keeping her foot in the doors of the Royal palaces. She spent most of the evening chatting it up with her mates Princess Eugenie and her mother Sarah the Duchess of York according to Hello Magazine.
Cressida may also be trying to establish a more social presence in the London circuit if the source that spoke with E! News is a credible account of the breakup between Cressida and Prince Harry,
"Harry thought she was boring toward the end. She didn't like to go out, party and have fun as often as he does, and they weren't matched enough for him to commit. Cress is beautiful, intelligent and fun—but she's no raver like Harry still enjoys. Harry just wasn't ready to settle down and head down the route of getting serious with his royal commitments. It's going to take a special girl to tame him."
This may well be why since the breakup Cressida has been spotted out on a number of occasions, most notably in the Royal circuit, and thus in the public one as well. Could this lend hope for this Royal couple? Is Cressida about to show the world a thing or two about getting an ex back?
The Devon invitation that Prince Harry previously offered to Cressida Bonas at his recent Kensington Palace wooing may be on hold. The Western Daily Press reports that there have been a number of Prince Harry spottings in Devon the week of June 11, but that Prince Harry was attending events in Devon alone with Cressida nowhere to be found.
Do you think this couple has moved on? Or do you think they are just having the same break that Prince William and Kate Middleton had before getting back together?
Suggested Links
- Cressida Bonas, the show must go on: Prince Harry also sporting brave face
- Royal couple separate ways, Prince Harry preps for 2014 World Cup
- Prince Harry and Cressida keeping a secret from Kensington Palace date
- Prince Harry woos Cressida with home cooking, and Estonia with friendship
- Prince Harry's lesson, what happens in Vegas doesn't always stay in Vegas


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If you've never had a breakfast burrito, you are in for a treat! They are super addicting because they taste so darn good! This isn't a bad thing -- a breakfast burrito can be a healthy choice. Here is a recipe that combines protein, potassium, fiber, and a score of other nutrients, all in a delicious and easy dish. It is a perfect breakfast choice that will satisfy your hunger, and leave you wanting one the next day – a healthy addiction!
What you put in a burrito makes them wonderful. What you put on top of the burrito, makes them amazing! These burritos taste wonderfully accompanied with sour cream (fat-free sour cream works well) and salsa. Whatever your favorite salsa is, this is the place for it.
If you like mango salsa, check out the Mango Habanero Salsa made by American Spoon – it is amazing! American Spoon is located in Petoskey, Michigan, and its products can be found in several grocery stores or you can order online. Their Mango Habanero Salsa is sweet with a little bite and, once you try it, you'll never want to be without it again – it's that good!
Breakfast Burrito Recipe
Ingredients for Breakfast Burritos (makes 2 burritos):
- Olive oil
- 2 medium potatoes, sliced
- ½ red bell pepper, chopped
- ½ cup corn
- 2 eggs
- Salt/pepper to taste
- Fresh cilantro, chopped
- 2 large tortillas
- Sour cream (garnish)
- Salsa (garnish)
- Cheese, shredded (optional garnish)
Directions for making Breakfast Burritos:
In a large skillet, put in enough olive oil to lightly coat the bottom, add the sliced potatoes and red bell pepper. Cook, flipping occasionally, until the potatoes are soft and a bit crispy. Add the corn and cook for a couple minutes more.
Break the eggs onto the potatoes, add salt and pepper, then mix everything together. Cook until the eggs are done – remove from the heat. Put the tortillas on top of the mixture, and cover the pan for 2-3 minutes to heat the tortillas. Put a tortilla on a plate, put ½ the mixture in the center of the tortilla, sprinkle on some fresh cilantro, and fold the tortilla around the mixture. Eat warm accompanied with sour cream and salsa.
Another incredible burrito recipe:
Beef burrito with potatoes – this one has shredded beef and potatoes inside and it's amazing!
Click on "SUBSCRIBE" above!