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Charlie Wilke is a veteran of marketing copywriting and media production with more than 15 years of experience creating and editing compelling work.

He holds a BA in Communications, and his pedigree includes working at a newspaper, news & radio stations, a publishing company, two digital-marketing agencies as well as movie and interactive-media production studios.

He’s led teams of writers at both B2B and B2C marketing agencies and spent significant time producing content for films & video games. This experience means he’s developed a broad skill set to help you perfect your marketing message!

On Fiverr, he offers proofreading and editing services to revise, clarify and elevate your words! And below you can enjoy some of his favorite articles that he’s written throughout the years!

5 Common Grammatical Errors That Sink your Dating Profile

Nothing destroys your chances at getting that girl faster than poor grammar on your dating profile. In a study published by Zoosk, 48% of singles polled find bad grammar a deal breaker! Making simple grammar mistakes might make you look less intelligent, or worse: a scammer, and you wouldn’t want that! But the biggest turn off for me when I meet a new match is when it seems like we won’t be able to hold a simple conversation.

I know. I know. Grammar is boring. “I comes before E except after C” reads like some ancient bible translation. But trust me, conjugations are not contagious. And apostrophes are really not that mysterious. So if you’ve slept through English class, you may find your options of sleeping with anyone now a little limiting. Thankfully, you’ve got me!

Let’s discuss a few of my biggest pet peeves when reading your dating profile:
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Some Customers Report LADWP Overcharging on Monthly Bill

There’s a common assumption that everything will cost more when living in Los Angeles. Gas is routinely over $4 a gallon, eggs can creep into the double digits for a dozen, and monthly utility bills can skyrocket for some.

While most of these expenses are unavoidable, if you’re an LADWP customer and you’ve seen your rates jump, there may be an unexpected reason. Customers receiving an estimated amount on their monthly bills may be scratching their heads over why there’s been a sudden jump in their amount due.

What is an estimated amount on a utility bill?

Previous to this current rash of customers receiving estimated bills, estimated amounts only got issued to customers with inaccessible meters. A meter behind a locked gate or somewhere unreachable by a meter reader, or when a dog is present on the homeowner’s property, usually triggers an estimated bill to get delivered to the customer.

These estimated amounts would be derived from historic usage data and might get adjusted for seasonal variance. This means an estimated bill should reflect an accurate guess based on the customer’s actual usage.

The LADWP is now fielding complaints related to the recent billing system overhaul that has left many customers with higher than normal bills due to estimated amounts getting autogenerated. These new estimated bills aren’t based on individual customer usage, leaving some customers to deal with bills many multiple times their actual utility usage.

While the LADWP is prepared to correct these errors, the municipal utility is dragging its feet while placing the blame on a third-party.
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Now Boarding – Life Near an Airport is for the Birds

On a clear day in parts of Los Angeles, you can see a string of commercial airliners queuing up to land at LAX. From a distance, this conga line of four or five planes silently hangs as if stationary on the horizon slowly curving towards the ground.

But if you’re in El Segundo, much closer to LAX, a plane approaching to land every two minutes becomes an unnervingly persistent disruption.

Living near an airport, under the landing pattern of jumbo jets, requires a certain amount of Zen to ignore. But noise isn’t the only detriment to finding peace in your home near an airport. Planes release toxins in the air; and with hundreds taking off and landing each day from major airports, living near a busy travel hub can take its toll on your health.
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The Slow, Sad Death of Google Glass

Sarah Slocum just wanted to go out for a drink after work with friends. Slocum, a San Francisco-based tech writer and proud Google Glass owner, soon realized not everyone is terribly receptive to a wearable computer-and-camera attached to a stranger’s face.

An evening that might have started with not-so-polite requests for her to remove her face computer, quickly devolved into an uncomfortable confrontation. As you can see from the video Slocum recorded from her device:

Slocum is a member of a small demographic that has since been labeled glassholes. Becoming a glasshole is a Google-acknowledged problem with Glass owners. Google’s own documents define a glasshole as a creepy or rude person who does not respect the wishes of others with regards to the use of Glass. “Respect others’ privacy and if they have questions about Glass don’t get snappy,” requests Google.

Fault may rest on both parties at that San Francisco bar, but there’s an inherent irony in Slocum’s altercation. As the angry bar patrons attempted to rip the device from Slocum’s face for her supposedly recording video without their consent, multiple wall-mounted security cameras silently captured the conflict.

This irony may be the underlying reason why Google Glass is now dying a slow death.
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The State of Dating in 2016

“Twenty years from now, the idea that someone looking for love won’t look for it online will be silly, akin to skipping the card catalog to instead wander the stacks because the right books are found only by accident.”
— Rufus Griscom Wired Magazine, 2002

The modern era of digital courtship allows everyone seeking love to sift through an infinite stream of potential suitors. But are more options always better? And what does that mean when it comes time to choose just one lifelong partner? That was always the point, right? To find enduring love; a soulmate?

Have you ever seen a child selecting a flavor at Baskin Robbins? Deciding between 31 different ice-cream flavors as a child is a special form of torture. Choosing chocolate over vanilla is a rather simple decision. But increasing the available options also increases the fear of missing out (FOMO), which makes that final decision an excruciating endeavor.

A study in 1995 conducted at a California grocery store attempted to quantify our inability to choose when the pool of choice is increased. The researcher handed out coupons for heavily discounted jam at an endcap kiosk but rotated the amount of presented jams each hour. One hour, a passerby could select from six jams, the next hour that number increased to 24.

The larger assortment of jams attracted more attention, a total of 60 percent of customers were drawn to the display. When the display dropped to just six jams, attention dropped to 40 percent.

But attention alone is not entirely a statement of choice.
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Shell Abandons Arctic Drilling Plans at a $7 Billion Loss

For years now, oil companies have circled the Arctic like vultures hanging in the sky over a dying carcass. From up there, the target is clear, and the execution appears easy.

Political cycles come and go with the idea of drilling in the Arctic rising and falling in popularity. Some believe we can unlock unimaginable energy potential by cracking into the trove of crude buried beneath the frozen tundra. Remember Sarah Palin’s reductive catch phrase, “Drill, baby, drill”? Others think the process of deep-sea arctic drilling is as impossible as tying your shoe on a rollercoaster.

Across the span of quite a few years now, Shell spent a total of $7 billion in research and exploratory drilling of the Arctic. After previously stating its confidence in the “90 billion barrels of crude available” in the Arctic, Shell is now announcing that it is abandoning its arctic operation entirely.

“Shell will now cease further exploration activity in offshore Alaska for the foreseeable future,” the oil company stated. “The decision reflects both the Burger J well [the planned location] result, the high costs associated with the project, and the challenging and unpredictable federal regulatory environment in offshore Alaska.”
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Hooking Up at Coachella

Ah Coachella. Where The Flaming Lips can describe both the band on stage and the blistered labia scattered throughout the crowd. Over the next two weekends, the 2016 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival descends on a sleepy community in the middle of nowhere.

This dusty expanse of nothingness becomes the throbbing epicenter of hipster idol worship for two weekends each year. With all these like-minded, fashionable youths swarming like locusts with bare midriffs and culturally insensitive Native American headdresses, it’s hard not to think about hooking up. Well, hooking up and where to find water that’s not $5 a bottle.

Yes, steamy sex and heat exhaustion are often not far from the hipster’s mind as they slog through the world’s longest line of bumper-to-bumper traffic approaching the tragically underdeveloped, yet charmingly beautiful, Coachella Valley.
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Frank Lloyd Wright – Architect Spotlight

His stylistic command of wood, steel and concrete make him an architectural legend. His restrained minimalism remains unmistakable among his peers. Each of his 1,100 designs are as unique as a fingerprint, and a clear reflection of their creator, Frank Lloyd Wright.

Born in 1867 to William Carey Wright and Anna Lloyd Jones in the sleepy farming community of Richland Center, Wisconsin, Frank Lloyd Wright entered a world in transition. During the throes of western expansion, and two short years after the conclusion of the Civil War, Wright was born decades before Chicago-architect Louis Sullivan would create the modern skyscraper.
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7 Best Irish Pubs in Chicago to Visit on St. Patrick’s Day

St. Patrick’s Day is a big deal in Chicago. We mock those who forget to wear green, we pound Shamrock Shakes and we hunt high and low for green-tinted beer. Hell, we even dye the Chicago River bright green for March 17th! The city turns to a singular mission mid-March: Get drunk, be loud and stumble through the city hitting as many Irish pubs as we can.

And Chicago is stuffed with Irish pubs. Not even the most diehard St. Paddy’s Day reveler can hope to hit every shamrock-themed drinking hole in this city. Especially if you’ve got a corned-beef-&-cabbage dinner on the books, and frankly you should, it’s tradition!

Luckily, we’ve got a list of great (dare we say best?) Irish pubs located all around Chicago.
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