This is probably a good opportunity for you to practice contract negotiation. They are requiring you to do a lot of work for $250.00 a month, and he probably intends this contract as a first draft to begin contract talks as he says, "attached. fire away with questions." That means he's EXPECTING you to ask/clarify/dicker a little.
Couple of suggestions for you to consider:
1. Ask Allison Kilkenny if she negotiated with them, what she thinks about payment system, as she may have asked for/ gotten a better deal..
2. Bounce an email back to him saying, "hmmmm.... this is a lot less than I made many years ago at AOL. Could we bump up the dollars for both monthly posts and number of site hits?"
(And if you say to your dad and me, never mind about the contract, I'm going to do it anyway, that doesn't make us feel too good about continuing to help support you when you're not making the effort to understand/negotiate reasonable pay for your work.)
This is a binding, one-year contract with no opportunity to share in their profits if their numbers go way up. It's time for you to stand up for yourself and what your value is!