I’m in trouble! Traveling all over the world this past year, I’ve easily put on 25-30lbs.. Now Blog World Expo is coming up in 3 weeks, and I need to shed some of this extra weight. One small problem - Timing. This is my busiest time of year, I’m impelenting two new technologies onto my e-commerce site, and we’re rolling out two VERY high profile websites that are sure to keep me busy!

What’s a fatty to do?

I’m going to post my progress on ZanderChance.com, and hopefully this will add some motivation to my workouts, and keep me on track. It should be interesting to see how this plays out.. I’ll post updates, so keep checking back!

After destroying my old sandals in Punta Cana, I needed to find some decent sandals to replace them. I’ve heard great things about Reef sandals, so I decided to take a look. Journey’s had their Fanning Supreme for $52.99 - A bit more than I was looking to spend, but considering I wear sandals almost everywhere, it’s money well spent.

These sandals ROCK! And the bottle opener on the bottom of the shoe is pretty trick, always a crowd pleaser at parties.

Almost two weeks without a post, and my inbox is overflowing with concerned e-mails! I probably should have posted something before I left, but I didn’t pack until the past minute, and ended up leaving in a hurry..

I went to Dreams Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic for a wedding. The website make the resort look better than it really is. While it was still a good time, the food was REALLY bad, and I was pretty bored after a few days. I guess all-inclusive resorts just aren’t my thing, I need to be actually DOING something.

After that, we jetted off to Beijing for the Olympics. The flight from hell. I’m never flying commercial again! As for Beijing, it was definitely a “unique” experience. The air pollution there makes Los Angeles look crystal clear! And there was a lot of chaos with the American tourist that got killed on Saturday.. Very scary stuff!

While it’s nice to get away, there’s just no place like home! I had VERY limited Internet access while I was gone (Internet in Punta Cana was like being on dial-up!), so I came home to nearly 2000 e-mails.. FUN!

Talk to you all later!

Tyler Cruz is back with Affiliate Marketing Challenge 2, once again sponsored by MarketLeverage

This competition has even bigger and better prizes than the last competition, with a total of 16 prizes up for grabs. Also, this time around there are 5 prizes available to be won just by blogging about this challenge. This allows non-affiliate marketers or those who have already previously registered to MarketLeverage under a different referral link, able to participate!

The contest runs until August 14th, but don’t be discouraged by registering late - Last month’s winner entered the contest with less than 2 weeks left, and he was able to take the lead by generating $3300 in commissions!

The Prizes:
1st Place: Dell 22? Widescreen Monitor with Built-In Webcam
2nd Place: Sony PSP + Secret Agent Clank
3rd Place: Mino Flip Video Camera
4th Place: iPod Nano
5th - 6th Place: $100 Prepaid Rewards Card

Bonus Prizes
The top 5 new referrals who sign up to MarketLeverage through his referral link and earn the most money out of new referrals will each receive a 2.0GB USB Storage Pen.

In addition, 5 bloggers who post about this competition will be chosen randomly by drawing and will also each receive a 2.0GB USB Storage Pen as well!

Visit Tyler’s site for more details on how to get started. Good luck!

Evil blogger John Chow is getting smoked by a bunch of puppies!

Daily Puppy boasts 47,847 Feedburner readers, and an Alexa Rank of 21,854. John Chow has 27,185 Feedburner readers, and an Alexa Rank of 43,681. And that’s with John’s 4-year head start!

Apparently, cute puppies are more interesting than bragadocious bloggers.

For those of you who don’t know, Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch passed away yesterday. His last lecture, entitled “Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”, has been viewed on YouTube over 4 million times since it was posted on December 20, 2007. Today alone, there have been over 500K views!

Randy Pausch gave his last lecture at the CMU on September 18th 2007, before a packed audience. In this moving presentation, Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals.

At 76 minutes in length, it’s a LONG video. But it’s one of the most profound things you’ll ever watch. Carve out some free time, and watch this presentation in it’s entirety. I hope you find it as moving as I did.