January 1 (2024) The Campfire Trail - Some New Beginnings

January 1, 2024

Day 822 of the Adventure

Today is the beginning of a new year but it's also the beginning of several other things of significance for us.  It's funny how sometimes the most obscure things can drive change. This is the case for us in one particular area of the adventure we're on. A change in policy by gmail, of all things, has resulted in a big shift for us that went way beyond the silly new requirement we had to recon with from gmail. 

By the way, do you like the sunrise pic to the right? it was taken about 20 minutes before sunrise but was brilliant in the eastern sky. My phone pictures never really do the natural world any justice. 

So back to gmail. Without going into boring details, they implemented a new policy which basically would make our email marketing obsolete if we did not make one small change. I could no longer use a personal email to deliver newsletters or updates of any kind. They must now come from a genuine "business" web address. In other words, I will now need a website. After the routine stomping and snorting I did over this new and frustrating policy, I realized I had but two choices. Either comply or don't comply. On direction would keep our email system alive. The other would cause it to completely disappear. It was tempting to simply say, Okay, enough and let it all slide into oblivion. On the other hand, fifteen years worth of building an email list of nearly 20,000 followers is not something to just casually and completely turn your back on. The only real solution would be to adopt a new website and then link it all up to gmail's liking. 

After some discussion, Shelley and I decided that if we must create a website anyway, we may as well maximize it for more purposes than sending emails. So........... here we go, stepping off into another adventure. One that irritates me in part but also energizes me. How can that be you may ask? I'll be going deeper into the exciting parts of this tomorrow and beyond. For now, you can get a peek at the opening round of activity at: www.thecampfiretrail.com  

Carry On

Adventure Quote:  “There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.” 

― Franklin D. Roosevelt

Base Camp Coffee of the Day: Lost on the Trail (Guatemala)

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