To balance out that last post, I should mention that my dad has been having a lot of fun as Santa's helper this month. He filled in at Philbrook a couple of weekends and has appeared at some Christmas parties. He's had kids from 9 weeks to 94 years on his lap. He was the first Santa a Tunisian visitor to Tulsa had ever met.

I gave him a free BlogAd, and he's had several leads from the ad. A reader in Conway, Arkansas, mentioned him to a Tulsa relative who needed a Santa for an event. A Santa who needed a last-minute substitute gave him a call.

As the blurb says, "A BatesLine ad is great value." For $10 a week, your ad appears on every page on the site, including all my archived entries. It averages out to less than 2/10ths of a cent per view. For a ridiculous $45, you can have an ad for three months -- that averages less than a tenth of a penny per view.

A big portion of the readership is in Tulsa or interested in Tulsa because they still have family and friends here and they visit once in a while, so it's a cheap way to attract local customers to your locally-owned business. You could even use a BlogAd to wish a friend a happy birthday -- it's cheaper than flowers.

Click the "Advertise on BatesLine" button to set up your own cheap ad. If you need help setting things up, drop me an e-mail at blog AT batesline DOT com.