Squid Friends Around the World

Some parts of this lens may seem like a case study of the brain inflicted with both ADD and the dreaded Squiddicted disease! Smiles :-))) You've been warned. I usually try and rein in that tendency to be flighty and lose focus, but hey, we're with friends so some of that random chatter was left unchecked on this lens here and there in the interest of bowing to humor and to the random avalanche of thoughts that afflict us all sometimes. Just gonna trust that Squids understand Squids and move on. Cheers!

Patience. Understand that ADD forbids too many thoughts to grow roots at one time. After all, part of the reason to create this lens is to remember where on earth everyone IS anyway, and that will take awhile to grow. You DO know that those of us afflicted by the dreaded Squiddicted disease have lots of baby lenses and random thoughts to care for in any given day.

Welcome to Flight # 2012 on Squidoo Air. We are prepared for take off into the New Year. Please make sure your Attitude and Blessings are secure and locked in an upright position. All self destructive devices should be turned off at this time. All negativity, hurt and discouragement should be put away. Should we lose Altitude under pressure, during the flight, reach up and pull down a Prayer. Prayers will automatically be activated by Faith. Once your Faith is activated you can assist other passengers. There will be NO BAGGAGE, allowed on this flight. The Captain has cleared us for takeoff. Destination GREATNESS. ALL are Welcome. *above found on facebook via Pat Thompson (and altered slightly)

*You will be flying first class aboard Squidoo Air.
*Stops on this tour are in no particular order.
*Tour guide is hopelessly ADD and Squiddicted.
*Humor and laughter encouraged.
*Negative attitudes strictly forbidden. Complaints thrown overboard.
*Original Squidoo world tour includes 5 countries: US, Canada, England, Australia & New Zealand.
*First Tour created November 2011 - More world destinations expected.

Last but NOT least, the Squidoo Air Banner (below) will fly whenever it is time to jump aboard and buckle up for the next stop on the World Tour. Please watch for it and be on time. Your Squid friends do NOT want to be left waiting for you. Squids tend to be antsy and hyper, busy folks, so please be on time for each departure. See the banner below and watch for transitions. Thanks.

THE Secret only for my Squidoo lensmaster friends is...

For now I am leaving the door to this lens WIDE open, open plexos, open to HTML links, all POLLS open and hungry for comments. This is OPEN House, Squids. So while you are here, leave a link and a comment. We might have to close some of the doors eventually due to those stinkin spammers... but HEY I trust my good friends, and that certainly includes my Squid lensmaster friends.

Each country has its OWN plexo module at the end of that part of the world tour. Squids are invited to leave links to their own favorite landmarks (blogs etc) while traveling on this tour. Please add your blog to the plexo in YOUR country. THX!

Please post only your outside Squidoo (yet squidoo related) links here. We already have a gazillion ways to find squidoo lenses and so ...
Please consider adding your Squidoo related blog or blogs to the plexo. Some Squids actually manage to keep several quality Squidoo related blogs and FB pages active and so if you are one of those Squids (Rhonda ((Pukeko)) and Correen ((clouda9)) come to mind here) then for Pete's sake - Leave those links on the plexo, please, we WANT them.

Ever visited one of those squidoo lenses that contained some LOOOONG list of lens links and felt like you were visiting a link farm? Sure ya have. Well, we do not want that here, OK Squids? DO leave a link or two please. Not a lens though. A Squidoo related blog or FB fan page is perfect. Hey it's even a backlink I think. Let's keep this tour FUN and free of link farms.

The Crazy Canuck (Zut_Moon) checked in saying ...

"I hope they serve beer on this flight."

Squidoo Air Flight Attendant: response...

"You betcha, Squid!

Full bar, gourmet food, the works!"

For those of you outside of the US who maybe never heard of Missouri (???!!!) it is one of the 50 United States and right smack dab in the middle. The 'SHOW ME' state... and so I will show you Missouri Squids and be the pro tour guide on this Missouri Tour. Missouri gets its own state feature because this Squid is a Missouri girl.
My city has this HUGE ARCH (a famous monument, kind of like our very own version of the Eiffel Tower!) and the Arch symbolizes the Gateway to the West of the US in the city of Saint Louis, Missouri. AKA St. Lou or simply 'the Lou' ... with me so far? We here in the Lou like to think of the Arch as the Gateway to the BEST! Been to the Lou? See if you can pass the St. Louis Quiz
I've found some fellow Missourians and would LOVE to report to you that we have met in person, chatted when our computers were turned off, seen a real face instead of a profile photo. Alas... nada. Not yet.

Yep, some do refer to the west coast USA as 'the land of fruits and nuts' cause well ya know there's some crazy folks out there on that west coast, especially in California! Bunch of fruits and nutcakes, I tell ya. But what do I know... I'm just from Missouri and some of those same fruits and nuts might call us Missouri folks names like 'hicks and hoosiers' or even 'rednecks' (hey rednecks are hilarious, got about a handful of redneck lenses...
Are YOU a Redneck? Take the quiz! and find out, double dog DARE ya!) ... where WAS I? Oh yeah, silly cultural nicknames and hey the 'land of fruits and nuts' also DOES spawn some really really good eggs, I know several of them both inside and outside of Squidoo.

So without further ado, meet some really good eggs from the west coast USA.

South Carolina is LOADED with amazing Squids. Meet Joan4 who also goes by the name 'moonvine' in other social media and she's a GEM! She lives in S. Carolina on the east coast. Also from S. Carolina are Cathy Rogers (NYtoSCimjustme) and Nancy Tate Hellams (OhMe) ...and I think maybe Nancy and Joan are sisters...or is it Wednesday_Elf? Squids in S. Carolina are a closely knit tribe!

Paula (LakeErieArtists) lives up north near Lake Erie, another very active and professional Squid. Sylvia Mayfield (boutiqueshops) joined the tour, also Wendy Krick from Maryland, Kimberly Perry (savenlives) from New York, Evelyn_Saentz from Vermont, Daria Perse (daria369) from Florida and Susan52 from Arkansas. Cheryl (CreativeArtist) has joined us from ??? and also Eddie Seaton (CountryLuthier) from Mississippi.

Jaguar Julie has joined us (from Jacksonville FL)! Also Margaret Ann Brown (mbrownauthor) from Michigan and JoyfulPamela (Pamela Johnson) from Pennsylvania. Welocme to Lisa (lisakleinweber) who now is in Idaho now but lived in Hawaii for many years. Cheryl (Tembrooke) joined us from Tennesse, Janet Bromley Ford (Snowpup) from Michigan and Ruthi from Ohio. Steve (tagsforkids) has joined us from South Florida and Steve is one of our very own resident graphic artists, the guy who created all of the Squid nation graphics on this lens.

You might be Squiddicted if you consider building a Squidoo lens for just about every thought that floats through your brain. That's a particularly HUGE issue for those of us afflicted with ADD and the dreaded Squiddicted disease, for we'd be publishing about a gazillion lens by the hour. But now and then the focus sticks around long enough to get those thought organized and then dumped into cyberspace, see what kinds reaction it gets, cause isn't THAT part of the thrill? Why we play this daily addicted to cyberspace game of life and earning boosts in lensrank, Squidoo angel blessings, purple stars, LOT D and even CASH?

Cheers
to
our
New Zealand
Squidoo
lensmaster
kiwi
friends.

G'day Mates. Our tour deputy is busy out gathering Awesome Aussies.

It's an Aussie Squid round-up. See that Squid deputy in the pic over there with the lasso? He's on an Aussie mission.

We KNOW they are out there... soon more Aussies will be safely buckled into their seats for this fun world tour.

Ah but we so love our Canadian friends, eh?
AnthonyGodinho is a Squid Angel from Ontario. GramaBarb (Barbara Vv) joined the tour and also Mark Goodwin (Zut_Moon) the Crazy Canuck who lives in Halifax, NS and this dude signed in wanting to know if there's any beer on this flight. LOL! YUP, got beer for the Crazy Canook. We DID say FIRST CLASS, remember? Might have to drink premium beer, like out of a bottle instead of a can. Can ya handle that, Canook?

More Canadians have hopped aboard, welcome to Marie(poutine) and Rose (sousababy).
By the way I just learned this from Zut-Moon, the Crazy Canuck...the word 'Canuck' refers to a Canadian, particularly a French Canadian. Mark says he's not French - and I say he's definitely CRAZY! :-) He'll be fun to have aboard this tour.

Did ya hear that a few Squids got thrown into the wrong country? The tour guide lady assumed that LisaAuch was American, then Heather told her she lives in England, and then Lisa finally reported that she is actually Scottish. Great, so poor LisaAuch was thrown in the wrong country TWICE! She's staying in the England cabin for now, since Scotland has yet to be added to this Squid World Tour, but we all want her aboard and she's happy to be here.

See why we ALL need this tour?
Dontcha just LOVE having Squid friends all around the world?

At one time in planning stages, the tour guide lady told a Squid friend...
"The Squid World Tour is a BLAST! LOVE IT but it sure is taking a TON of time to birth this baby, been working on this lens for days, keep pushing this baby out... I hit publish but still have a gazillion loose pieces to tie up before I feel ready to post it around, send out birth announcements (#newlens tweets) and such... looong labor on THIS one, but a labor of love, fun but hey ... labor pains and ...where's my damn epidural? GEEZ!"

'I get by with a little help from my friends' ... remember those lyrics from the Fab Four, that British Group who blew away the world of rock and roll in the 1960s? Of course you do, and I'm sure my Brit friends will come along and help me get by here, to cross reference and find more of you, cause some of the best Squidoo lensmasters EVER live over there across the pond.

So far, European lensmasters known to the tour guide are only in England, however a few other Europeans have arrived a requested a ticket aboard this wild tour, and so it IS. Gust Mees (luxwebwizard) from Luxembourg was the first to request a European section, so he gets to break in this cabin aboard Squidoo Air. Welcome Gust.
I'm hoping to find some Italian Squids and maybe French Squids to parley with on this tour, always did want to visit the French Riviera.

Latest Squidoo Angel Blessing Count = 18

EIGHTEEN Angel Blessings
on a lens just recently published???

Unheard of, a Squid miracle!

THANKS!!!

See all of those Squidoo angels below.

So many Squids...so many categories... not that we're trying to force ya'll into some defined box, don't care for those anyway but the thing is that sometimes these categories help us to remember who is who. So when I think of a Squidoo lensmaster name... where is she/he from? what do they Squid about (write about?) you know - their favorite topics or niches? and then also an old timer Squid or a baby Squid?

Guess I'd be considered an old-timer Squid since I joined in 2006, so will celebrate my SIX Squidoo birthday in 2012. Now that's pretty OLD in Squid years. However I was not real active those first few years, did not know any other Squids and so figured things out on my own and surely screwed up a ton. Then I discovered Rocket Moms and that of course rocketed my squid growth like crazy! Still my Squid progress was a bit sporadic as I steered my way through some pretty intense life changes for a few years, and so Squid age really matters little cause some of those baby squids only a few years old have blown away Squidoo records. Bows to those mighty baby Squids, Senior Squids and Squids of any age.