Sorry everyone for the lack of posting. I am looking for a new server to host my videos and make this site faster. I have been getting lots of complains that the videos are no loading and that pages are taking for ever to load. So Im on the hunt for a host that can speed things up.

I should have things sorted out soon

Thanks for everyone patience

Robdogg =)

Well as of Sunday, I have completed my official second week of not smoking. I will tell you, the last two weeks have been HELL for me. I will remember the past two weeks for the rest of my life, and there are many stories to be told. The withdrawal symptoms of quitting smoking are much more intense then I could have ever realized. I never put much thought into it, and never really figured cigarettes had such a strong effect over my body. Whether or not there is a physical effect, it absolutely has a mental effect.

Let me take you on a little journey of my quitting smoking experience, thus far. Imagine if you could, something that gave you great emotional and physical relief. Can you picture the feeling you got when this happens to you? Imagine a stressful day at work, were your boss is just breathing down your neck, or the worry that you might not be able to pay a bill on its due date. You get a feeling of stress, your muscle get tense and you just feel agitated. Now, come back to the thought you had previously, of the thing you did that made it all go away. It’s a great feeling of release isn’t it? All your worries just go away. Well, for a smoker, this happens every time you light up that cigarette. Everything just goes away for those 5 minutes, and you feel “re-energized”. Not physically, but mentally.

I’m not 100% sure why I decided to do it, especially on the day I choose to do it (which apparently has a very ironic date, that I was not aware of, that only really applies to me), but many of my closest friends, of whom I could never imagine quitting, just decided to quit. First was a good buddy of mine who quit on New Years, then another buddy who quit just after catching a really bad flu that kept him in bed rest for almost 2 solid weeks. I then got a phone call from a friend who I have not seen in a long time, and he tells me he decided to quit. Now this guy has been smoking for years, and was the 2^nd to last person I would ever think to quit, especially since he works in a Las Vegas casino. The very last person is a long time friend, who has been smoking probably 2 packs minimum per day for as long as I can remember. I’m not even sure he has ever taken a breath of fresh air in the last 10 years, he will never quit, but all the others who did truly amazed me.

I quit smoking on Sunday March 16^th. I felt good all day and I was proud of myself, like the feeling you get when you’re about to start a new puzzle. I was happy I was taking on this new challenge. It made me excited and I dreamt about all the possible benefits it could have and how great I will feel physically and mentally for quitting.

Sunday March 16^th – The start of a brand new life, one without smoking. This first day wasn’t so bad. I had just partied the night before and was around a lot of smoke that night anyway. I usually like to take a half day off from smoking on a night like this anyway. I made it the whole day, a few temptations came up here and there but I fought through them, however I found myself tapping on things a lot and being very bored.

Monday March 17^th – I woke up impressed, knowing I made it through the entire day without a single cigarette. Today was going to be a new challenge, handling a day of work with no cigarettes. I went on with my normal routine, but felt the urge to smoke several times throughout the day, especially when I would normally have a smoke break, or after lunch. For those who have never smoked before, a cigarette after any meal is the greatest bliss of all time.

Tuesday March 18^th – I didn’t get the greatest sleep on Monday night. I was a little restless and it left me a little sleepy that morning. Normally not a big deal, since I can function fine on 4 – 5 hours of sleep, but by the afternoon, I could barely keep my eyes open. I started to get a headache and feel a bit nauseated. I usually have a rock solid immune system, to the point I can’t even remember the last time I was really sick. So I knew something was up so I started to research the effects of quitting smoking. Sure enough I found some great articles describing exactly how I was feeling and the term quitters flu has been coined for these symptoms.

Symptoms include: Cravings to smoke, Irritable, cranky, Insomnia, Fatigue, Inability t o Concentrate, Headache, Cough, Sore throat, Constipation, gas, stomach pain, Dry mouth, Sore tongue and/or gums, Postnasal drip, Tightness in the chest.

I didn’t have all of them, but I did have some of them. Mainly an insane headache that no painkiller would get rid of, Fatigue to the point I just wanted to pass out, and some tightness in the chest. Well that night I decided to go straight home a lay in bed. Well I might as well have just been coming down off cocaine because that is what it felt like. Well, at least from what I have seen in the movies. I broke out into a cold sweat, I was highly irritable, couldn’t sleep, my joints and muscles were so sore I just wanted to stay curled up into a ball and hug my pillow, and on top of that I wanted to rip off all my skin. The little voices in my head kept telling me, “Just smoke and it will all go away”. I almost gave in, I was so ready to.

Wednesday March 19^th – Barely a wink of sleep, but I still managed to drag myself out of bed and go to work. I’m not even really sure what I did that day. Probably just sat around hoping for the day to end, I just wanted to go back to sleep. I left work early and went straight to bed.

Thursday March 20^th – I was finally able to get a good night rest. My headache went away, and my body was not so irritable anymore. But all was not good, I started getting some new symptoms. Now I have so much mucus coming out of my nose I could blow it for days. My nose was running all the time and it was stuffed so I had to start breathing out of my mouth. Well, that didn’t play out so well since breathing from my mouth started to make me cough more often. It wasn’t so bad, and it was tolerable.

Friday March 21^st – Good thing I don’t work Fridays. I slept in till noon and I got as much rest as possible. I had to meet with a new potential side client that afternoon and things went well. My nose was still stuffed up and coughing here and there but nothing intolerable or disruptive during my meeting. However, by that night the coughing became worse and worse. I guess you can say I started coughing up a lung, or maybe even two. The long rolling kind of cough too, that vibrates that back of your throat squeezing out an extra couple coughs right after your first cough because it tickled your throat. It was bad, and I’m surprised I didn’t really cough anything up.

Saturday March 22^nd – Half a day, a whole night and the coughing continues with no end in sight. All I did the entire day was cough. Hi, cough… cough… cough… my name is rob… cough… After each sentence and spontaneously when I would least expect it. I would just be sitting there and then have a 5 minute cough attack. It was driving me insane. I tried drinking water and sucking on cough suppressants. Nothing, of course worked. By the end of the night, I had practically lost my voice. I felt as if I was screaming to make out a word. I’m not sure how it sounded, but I’m sure it weirded a few people out.

Well, there is still another week and a half of HELL to write about. But I really wanted to share this experience. Not to gross anyone out and make you afraid of quitting, but so you know what to expect if you are a smoker wanting to quit or if you never smoked a day in your life and your one of those people who say, “JUST QUIT”. Just remember what I say here, so you know what to expect and you know what kind of advice you’re giving out.

I will conclude this as Part 1 of my Quitting Smoking Story

I know everyone has been looking forward to some new tutorials on Google AdWords, but I recently quit smoking, and unfortunately I developed what is called “The Quitters Flu”. I didn’t know this would happen when I decided to commit to quitting for good. All I can say is that I feel sick, and I have never felt so sick in my life. I would probably never have felt this way if I just kept smoking, but I know smoking is bad and is something that should be done.

I have been smoking almost half my life. I stated when I was 14 and now I am 27. I figure, smoking for almost 50% of your entire life as to do something to you permanently. At the very least you become dependant on it. Before I decided to quit smoking I could have never pictured myself a day without a smoke.

I had a discussion the other day with a buddy of mine, and he explained to me that I work so hard at mastering my life, hence my blog motto, How To Rule The World. He said, you are mastering everything around you, but you are not mastering yourself. Why do it, just to throw it all away due to an illness or the inevitable effects of smoking.

So therefore, I QUIT and the hard way too, Cold Turkey.

I was good for the first 24 hours, then around 48 hours in I began to feel sick with flu like symptoms. I thought I was coming down with something, but honestly, I have not had the flu since I was probably 8 years old. I have a rock solid immune system. I can be in a room full of people with the flu and walk out of there never getting sick. So I knew something was wrong. I started researching the effects of quitting and came across a few articles that mentioned the quitter’s flu. By my 72^nd hour of not smoking all I could do is lay in bed. It reminded me of that scene in the Johnny Cash film Walk The Line, where Johnny Cash was locked in his room until he is sober. I was curled up in a ball, I broke out into a cold sweat and couldn’t sleep a wink. I felt like ripping my skin off and my bones and muscles were so sore all I could do is lay there and wish it would all stop.

Well, I am feeling better, but now I have developed this insane cough. All I do is cough all the time. I just wish something would come out. I cough so hard I want to puke, but normally I don’t. I cough at random moments, in the middle of talking, eating, driving, and even while I am sleeping. Last night alone I must have woken myself up at least once every hour to cough about 100 times into my pillow. I just coughed after finishing that last sentence…

Lastly I seem to be loosing my voice now… I can’t speak and half the time I feel like I’m yelling just to say a word. Then while I am trying to say something so hard, I end up squealing like I’m hitting puberty. It’s all really annoying, if you ask me. I hope I get over this fast.

Anyway, since all I do is cough all day long and can’t speak, I basically can’t make a video until this all ends. So for now, I will provide some other insights and thoughts via the good old text written article method.

For those of you who are interested, here are my QUIT SMOKING stats

Time Since Last Cigarette | Amount Saved Since Quitting

In this video I go over how to cluster your adgroup keywords for maximum efficiency. I have recently reviewed several Google Adwords accounts from online forum members that are having problems, and I noticed that many people are grouping their keywords improperly. Many are just bunching up large grouping of keywords into one large adgroup and thinking everything is going to be OK. This method is highly inefficient and will result in much higher average CPC prices.

I decided to pick out a random industry and show the process of keyword research, which is finding keywords related to a specific industry. I then show an extraction method on how to get those keywords off the internet and into your Google Adwords account. I go into detail on how to use excel to extract properly clustered keyword groupings and then how to upload those keywords into your Adwords account using Google Adwords Editor.

Please leave your comments, questions and suggestions.

Thanks everybody!

Many people have been managing their Google Adwords campaign portfolios the old hard way. Using the web interface to manage a Google campaign is very slow and time consuming. I decided to do a little Adwords editor beginners guide for you so that you can see how easy it is to setup and manage your campaigns with this software.

The video tutorial is a little over 15 minutes long, but if you have no knowledge of Google Adwords editor then this tutorial will explain a lot. This is only a guide to the basics and I will go into more advanced stuff in the near future. If you have any questions on anything that is done in this video please let me know. Post a comment or drop me an email at tutorials@robdogg.com