Rant: Google AdSense Account Suspended

So just before leaving on holiday at the beginning of August, I get an email from the folks at Google AdSense informing me in no uncertain terms that my AdSense account is suspended:

"Hello,

While going through our records recently, we found that your AdSense
account has posed a significant risk to our AdWords advertisers. Since
keeping your account in our publisher network may financially damage our
advertisers in the future, we've decided to disable your account.

Please understand that we consider this a necessary step to protect the
interests of both our advertisers and our other AdSense publishers. We
realize the inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you in advance
for your understanding and cooperation.

If you have any questions about your account or the actions we've taken,
please do not reply to this email. You can find more information byvisiting
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team
"

Huh??? It would seem that the Google machinery had charged, tried, and convicted me for some unknown transgression. From my perspective, the only thing I have to feel guilty about is neglecting my blog this summer so, of course, I appealed their unilateral decision, answering the general questions as best I could about traffic patterns, etc. and invited them (if their corporate policies allowed) to check out the relevant stats and assorted technical details for my blog on Blogger and Google Analytics. I logged in from the cottage (dial-up!) to check my mail a few days ago and found the following:

"Hello,

Thanks for providing us with additional information. However, after
thoroughly reviewing your account data and taking your feedback into
consideration, we've re-confirmed that your account poses a significant
risk to our advertisers. For this reason, we're unable to reinstate your
account. Thank you for your understanding.

As a reminder, if you have any questions about your account or the actions
we've taken, please do not reply to this email. You can find more
information by visiting
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153 .

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team"

OK, it appears that I am guilty of something, who knows what. With the hordes of people visiting my blog recently (1 or 2 per day on a *good* day) and the huge earnings ($0.00) that I've received in the 14 or so months of having the blog, I'm sure I'm making Google's advertisers quake in their boots with whatever it is that they claim I've done wrong.

I did a bit of Googling (oh, the irony!) and at this time figure that my account *might* have been suspended because the Amazon ad that appears right under where the Google ads used to appear probably did not distinguish itself sufficiently from the Amazon ad -- the colours were the same. If this was, indeed, the case, a simple sentence in the original email asking to correct that particular problem would have ensured that the problem was corrected and that I could continue to live with the eternal hope that one day, in the far distant future, I might get a cheque.

As it is, I'm just really annoyed and disgusted with Google's way of dealing with its users. I no longer think of Google as a company with a high concentration of brilliant Computer Science PhDs doing research on a wide variety of problems for the sheer love of coming up with something new. No. In my mind, Google is now an impersonal machine that has possibly acquired way too much power and sense of self. It's time for me to look at what Microsoft, Yahoo, et al. have to offer.


On a garden note: The garden has been cared for as well as the blog this summer and I am pleased to report that it is thriving. My access to it has not been suspended...

The Intentions Were Good...

I went to the local garden centre with A Plan (for a change) and actually stuck to it (I think there must be something wrong!). I came back home, unloaded the car, and..... got distracted. That was well over two weeks ago. One of these days, hopefully soon, I'll get back on track with The Plan.

In the meantime, various spring and early-summer perennials have bloomed and gone to seed, and now I look out over the garden and think "The trollius is blooming already???? My, how time flies!".
While I was wandering through the garden areas around the house, wondering how the garden had advanced so much without my noticing how time was passing, my eye caught on a few splashes of magenta and white where a colour other than green was definitely not expected. I wonder what these pretty flowers are and, more importantly, where they came from? Hopefully, they'll become a regular fixture in the garden.

Invasion!

It's such a pretty addition to a spring garden -- brilliantly green leaves, delicate, lacy, white flowers -- and it's a menace. Introduced by European settlers, garlic mustard is considered to be an invasive species across North America. It aggressively competes with native species, often reducing their numbers. This in turn reduces the food supply for a variety of insects and wildlife and affects those populations in turn. So, despite its attractive appearance, it is essential to prevent the plant from reseeding by pulling the plants, chopping, or burning them.

What a Difference a Month Makes!

My last blog entry was just around a month ago -- the ground was still pretty much bare. Today,
there are blooms galore: tulips, daffodils, grape hyacinths, hyacinths, forget me nots, brunera,
trillium, virginia blue bells, wild garlic, ground ivy, trout lilies, columbines, etc.

A number of plants which appeared to thrive last summer have mysteriously disappeared over the course of the winter. A few bleeding hearts are no longer. A particularly lush clump of violets has disappeared. A large clump of brunera has been reduced to a few puny leaves and the patch of toad lilies which had the bizarre blooming times last year haven't come back. I wonder if it's always like this or if having been super aware of the contents of the garden last year because of the blogging has simply made the absences more notable.

April Showers Bring...... Butterflies?!?

I was looking out into the garden this afternoon, enjoying the sunshine and admiring the various blooms that were starting to appear when I noticed a movement on the path. The motion reminded me of that of a butterfly's wings and I wondered about the breeze that was making a leaf move in a similar way. Except the "leaf" really didn't look right for a leaf. I grabbed my
camera and headed outside only to find that it really was a butterfly sunning itself on the bricks in the path... in Montreal... in April.

Wordless Wednesday: An Eggplant With Heart

Grrr..... Yaaaawwwwnnnn..... Streeeeetttcccchhhhh.....

Well. I managed to remember how to log in to my blog. What a relief after 3 months of blogging-hibernation.

My last post featured a photo of my family's annual gingerbread house. I won't post a current photo (yes, it's still in our dining room -- sort of) because its current state is....well...."accessibly delicious" (Yeah, that's it! The reality is that it's in the form of bite-sized rubble!).

The gingerbread house is not the only thing to change in appearance. The garden has gone through a range of degrees of snow cover over the last few months. The snow-covered wonderland of February (pictured above) has melted (partly into our basement :( !!! ) and is
showing the beginnings of new life foretold by last fall's seed, bulbs, roots, etc. The snowdrops
are usually the first to bloom:

The crocuses follow. I think that there's a patch of them missing this year -- perhaps the
squirrels?

Oh and speaking of mischief in the garden, the raccoons have declared war again. Our municipality started a curbside kitchen compost pickup in November and we all received green bins in which to put out the kitchen scraps. It was outside all winter without any problems until last week. The raccoons have figured out how to undo the latch. So it's back to the drawing board to figure out how to turn the compost bin into a bandit-proof Fort Knox.