Since returning from ASW10 in Las Vegas my main mission was to redesign and re-launch DemolitionForum.com.

Well I am glad to say that I am entering the final stages of the re-launch. My original plan was to launch February 1st, but that was going to be impossible due to some of the hacks and mods/plugins were not port to vBulletin 4.0. Speaking of which, vBulletin 4.0 was still having lots of issues and bugs, which was also slowing me down. vBulletin has been slowly fixed some of the issues and bugs, but I didn’t want to launch and have problems for my members.

So what will be new?

New design and colors scheme
New logo
A contractor’s resource center
Directory
An improved classifieds section
aMember (for subscriptions and more)
Better spam protection
Calendar of upcoming events
New Inside the Industry section
New front page

I am very excited and looking forward to the launch, which should happen sometime next week, if not earlier.

If your waiting on the rest of my ASW recap, you’ll see why I haven’t finished it yet.

For the past week, it has been nothing short of an up and down roller coaster for me and my family.

It all started last Wednesday when my wife found out that she was losing her job, so Friday was her last day.

On Friday our daughter was sick, throwing up and all, it lasted the entire weekend, finally on Sunday she was feeling a lot better and Monday she was back to her crazy normal self.

For those who didn’t know, my wife is also pregnant. On Monday we found out that we’re having a Junior (a boy), so of course we were all excited, except for our daughter, she wanted a girl. Now, the ratio in our neighborhood will be a 6 to 1 ratio, our daughter and 6 boys. Talk about a headache, she’s never gonna leave the house again.

Then on Tuesday morning, I got an email from a dear friend of mine who was letting me know that her husband pass away on Monday. He had a stroke on January 17th and it just got worse as the days went by. He was only 49, so of course you start taking a look at your own life, I’m 41.

On Tuesday night my daughter was staying at grandma’s house, about 10:35PM I got a call frantic from my Father in law who told us that we need to run and grab our daughter, he had to call 911 for my Mother-in-law who was having serve chest pains. So I jumped up, put my shoes on and sped over to their house. On a normal drive it’s about 20-25 minutes, that night I was there in about 11 minutes, I almost beat the medics there, although the fire department was already there.

I stayed for a little bit, she seemed to be fine and that my father in law was going to take her to the hospital, I told him to call when they find out anything. So I grabbed our daughter and ran home.

The next morning my wife called over to the house and no answer and we didn’t hear anything overnight. So my wife put in a call to the hospital and found out that she was admitted and they were running all sorts of test to find out what happened.

Thankfully everything is fine, although they don’t know what happened. She was released yesterday evening and now is home resting at home.

So, how was your week?

I started out day one by hitting up a couple of sessions.

First up was Effective Social Media Techniques. I was really disappointed in the session I picked up a couple of pointers, but nothing ground breaking. Brett Tabke of WebmasterWorld and the PubCon conference had a case study of what they were doing and that was pretty interesting, except he was flying through his PowerPoint slides and there was hardly any time to write down anything.

Rebecca Kelly gave a funny presentation as always. Other than that, pretty boring.

Next up was the Monetizing Blogs for Affiliate Marketing and SEO. This session could have been so much better and talking with a couple others they were saying the same thing. They spent way too much time talking about the Wordpress and the install and what plug-ins to use. I thing people went there already had blogs up and running and they were looking how to expand the advertising and SEO tactics, but this session fell well short of the session’s goal.

Then it was time to hit meet market and walked into the first Meet Market room and the room was small and packed and I thought the room was going to be larger than the ASE09, come to find out there was another room. Unfortunately it was way out of the way from the first room. But headed there and that room was like 10 times the size. The larger room was well laid out and was well attended. It was nice that you could actually walk around without touching everyone. Visited we a few people and that was about it.

After hanging out in the Meet Market for just a little bit I head to lunch with Bethany, my Bloosky affiliate manger. After a great lunch at All-American I headed back up to the room to do some work and then get ready for the Share-A-Sale party, which in all my times attending Affiliate Summit I have never been to a Share-A-Sale party before.

So finally made it down to Share-A-Sale party and I was a little disappointed, because everyone that told me about their parties that they were cool and not loud, and more for networking. But I was a little shocked about how loud it was (maybe I’m getting old) But the music that was being played was pretty cool. At the party I finally got to meet Jamie Birch of JEB Commerce, and we talked for a little bit and one of his clients was there, so I had chance to talk with him also and I think we will be doing some business together real soon.

I hung out and played a little bit of Blackjack at the party with a few folks, then after that I headed back to my room to get some work done and got a call from Logan Thompson who just got back from Ian’s dinner and decided to head downstairs to the iBar and grabbed a couple drinks. After just a couple I was dead beat and headed to bed.

Day 2, coming tomorrow.

I know it’s late, but been trying to get all my notes together for all my other post about the show.

After an early flight to Las Vegas (left Seattle at 6 AM), I finally landed in and meet-up with David D Ochoa at the airport and we headed over to the Rio. I was really hoping to catch up with a nap, but the Rio was full from the night before. So instead we headed over to the poker room and played in a no limit tournament, get some practice before the Purpose, Inc. Charity Tourney.

After getting knocked out I headed up to the room. I was going to take a nap, but couldn’t sleep. So I decided to get a group of close affiliate friends together and do some dinner. First we headed down to registration and then over to dinner at Cafe Martorano.

Those who attended dinner was Eric Nagel, Logan Thompson, David D Ochoa, and Eric Schechter from Clickbooth. Martorano had some killer food; along with some great friends it was perfect.

After dinner we checked into the charity poker tournament where Eric Nagel, Logan, David and I all were pick to play at the same table, so of course we didn’t want to try and knock out each other, I played pretty tight, but had fun.

After getting knocked out in 38th place I hung around and cheered on some of my buddies, but after a little bit I was exhausted, so I headed back up to the room did a little bit of work and headed to bed. It was a pretty long day and it was only getting started.

Details about the event:

- Palms Casino Resort, 2nd floor

- Jan 18th 6:00-9pm

- Wes Mahler will talk candidly about:

- Tracking202/Bloosky deal

- The future of affiliate marketing

- What to expect in the coming months

Transportation:

- Door-to-door service to the Meetup from 5-7pm

- get picked up at the RIO Pavilion Entrance after “Ask The Experts”

- get dropped off at the front lobby of The Palms

Benefits:

- Network with top affiliates

- Schmooze with leading networks

- Open Bar

- Free Food

- Good times with good people

- Free photos with your friends

- Raffle for valuable prizes including: Computers, Headphones, Flip Camera and more

- Win a “Bro-mantic Man Date” with Wes and Steven!

- After the Meetup stay at the Palms for the Mundo Media party (Invite only Please contact Mundo Media)