Campaign to Re-Approve my AdSense

It's been two years since Google has disapproved my account AdSense--earning revenue from Ads that were clicked on my viewers to my blog. (Many people reading this know about it, but there are a few who don't.) In fact, I had begun to monetize my blog only a few months before it was unceremoniously disapproved. Only one starkly, bruskly, and curtly stated impersonal email stated that that the revenue earned was being returned to the appropriate advertisers. They said it had to do with unfairly or inappropriate gains or some such thing as that. I'd look at the email again, but I hate seeing the side of Google that they don't want anyone to see them as, a big corporation that is happy to start something up but just as happy to unequivocally shut it down without conversation when it doesn't look right to them.

I believe the 'no second chance' disapproval was wrong and had they been willing to communicate with me, as I tried to do as soon as I knew they had shut my chance down at making those few pennies to pay for the electricity used in the writing of each blog. They would have none of it. I sent an appeal but was tossed off and treated like a cyber criminal. They wouldn't hear that I had some friends who probably were trying to help me out and didn't understand the consequences should Google find that the clicks were not fair traffic. This I do acknowledge as probably being the problem with the unfair gains. So, send the money back to the advertisers. Let me start again.

Wait one more year......write another appeal. Some non-person, cold response as the first time. They will hear none of it, regardless of how innocent I am and that I had no control over the actions of others. I can't even start another account to generate those few monthly dollars since they will, obviously, know it's me. (No, I did not try to fool Google that way, nor will I now.)

What really bugs me about this whole issue is more how Google brushes a person off when he has unknowingly offended or unknowingly done wrong--let me reiterate that I was not the one clicking the ads, it was people who didn't even know that I could suffer potential consequences for third party actions!

When you send in a question about trouble-shooting, or asking to sign up for some of their products, if it is in their favor they are cheerful and put on this patronizing sense of gaiety as if they invented the cheerful worker. However, when I sent an appeal I got a cold, stand-offish email with no attempt to hear my side of the story. Apparently they were unimpressed with my appeal. Maybe I could have worded the appeal differently but is that cause for Google to return my email with the gruff and grumpy and, perhaps even, step-on-you-don't- bother-me-because-you-did-wrong kind of response?

NO! Why should you ever treat anyone with a first offense like that? I have only ever been a google user of a number of their products for years without ever gaining anything save an email Inbox that had almost no Spam in it. When I heard about monetizing I actually shied away from it and declined to activate AdSense for the better part of a year before trying it out. Yes, I have a Youtube account, too, which, of course, was simultaneously disapproved for monetization. I never intended AdSense to be a huge money maker. I am like most bloggers that start out.  The rationale for me was that, "Well, AdSense is there because Google put it there just for this purpose, to earn money. I think I'll monetize and earn a few cents, maybe some dollars every month. Who knows what it will turn into."

Sure, earning enough to buy a cup of coffee was appealing enough but really, I have about enough traffic to get me a cup of coffee every couple months and anyone who may have clicked unfairly (I still can't be sure who it was) hasn't read my blog for these two years anyway!

Back to the purpose of the post, this is a campaign to get my AdSense re-approved. Who else has had this experience? There must be some others out there who have had well-meaning, but to our misfortune, uninformed family and friends who clicked an extra time or two. It is now two years hence and I can assure you, I have made my situation known to all that I consider near and dear to me. They now know, beyond  the shadow of a doubt, that only fair clicks are allowed. I agree with Google on that one. Taking money from an advertiser just by clicking ad nauseam is not fair. I would have been happy to return all AdSense money earned thus far and started anew with a balance of zero.

Well, what do I have to lose? My Blogger account, my YouTube account, my Gmail account? Give me some support. You can read for yourself, I write about my career in music as a cellist and have a side blog on Taiwan as well. They are a way to pull in some meager earnings while writing about two topics that are both interesting to me. Please, comment on my blog if you support my campaign to re-approve AdSense on my blog. Thank you for reading and supporting.

Cello Adjustments: Getting a "New" Cello

Until recently, my cello has sounded terrible. The sound was more akin to caterwauling creature of undetermined species unable to produce much in the way of beautiful sounds. Yes, the cello sounded good when I acquired it brand new nearly six years ago, but it never was so easy to play. Always given me grief in thumb position, playing four note chords, and getting any fz or > on the C string nothing short of scratches and slap of the string against the fingerboard. Great sound just wasn't coming from this cello that I new could have the tone of a great instrument.

After much fussing over sound post adjustments and tinkering with other setups I finally found the man for the job. In a little town in Wisconsin lives a luthier who repairs instruments worth thousands and other worth hundreds of thousands. In his humble workshop I found someone interested in and committed to finding how to make an instrument sound the best it possibly can.

Thanks to studioKviolins I have a new bridge and sound post that work they way they were intended--making the cello sound like a cello. They fit properly and are the right height, length, width, breadth, thickness, kind of tone wood, type of cut, etc. etc.

Upon returning to the shop to see the progress made on my bridge I discovered an instrument that I had never really played or heard before. Here was a cello whose sonic potential was at long last revealed and it was the same cello but with a new bridge and sound post. That's it!

A transformation of this sort was impossible, so I always latently believed. How could the body of the instrument have the bulk of the material but those two small components have such incredible influence in tone and sound so as to completely transform the instrument into a wholly new creature? The power and resonance had never before been present. The ease of intonation was also increased exponentially.

All this improvement for little more than a couple hundred dollars. Not bad when considering I basically have a new instrument, sonically speaking, one discovery worth every hour and dollar spent.