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Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Fun Trivial Facts

Well, as promised, tonight we provide some more fun trivial facts. Even though this may be a short week for many, the stress of the holiday can be almost worse than working a full 5-day work week. So, to help you lighten your load, here are some fun trivial facts to annoy your friends and entertain at the Thanksgiving dinner table:

Did you know that Benjamin Franklin thought that the turkey was so American that he wanted it as our National symbol instead of the Bald Eagle?

Until 1863, Thanksgiving Day had not been celebrated annually since the first feast in 1621. This changed in 1863 when Sarah Josepha Hale encouraged Abraham Lincoln to set aside the last Thursday in November "as a day for National Thanksgiving and Prayer."

90% of American homes eat turkey on Thanksgiving Day and 50% eat turkey on Christmas.

Mature turkeys have about 3,500 feathers. The Apache Indians considered the wild turkey so timid that they would not eat it or use the turkey's feathers on their arrows.

It appears that turkeys originated in North and Central America. Evidence indicates that they have been around for over 10 million years. So, if you think the bird on the dinner table is tough, perhaps it was an OLD turkey...

Did you know that a spooked wild turkey can run at speeds up to 20-25 miles per hour? They can also burst into flight approaching speeds between 50 and 55 mph in a matter of seconds. That is great, except for the fact that they can only fly for short distances. Don't try getting a domestic turkey to fly, they cannot.

Turkeys can have heart attacks. When the Air Force was conducting test runs and breaking the sound barrier, fields of turkeys would drop dead. I bet the farmers were a tad irritated about that... I suspect this only relates to farm raised (domesticated) turkeys. I can't imagine that wild turkeys would be so delicate. The wild turkeys are very cunning...

Wild turkeys have excellent vision and hearing. Their field of vision is about 270 degrees which is why they continue to evade some hunters. They (the turkeys) can also see in color.

While the turkey has excellent hearing, they do not have ears

Turkeys (again domestic) can drown if they look up when it is raining.

A 16-week old turkey is called a "fryer", a 5 to 7 month old turkey is called a "young roaster" and a 1 year old turkey is called a "yearling". Any turkey older than 15 months is called "mature" (like so many of us...)

Turkey breeding has caused turkey's breasts to grow so large that the turkeys fall over...

A turkey's head changes colors when it is excited...so do some people I know...ooohh, shouldn't have said that ...hehehe..

Lastly, each year the President of the United States pardons at least one turkey. During the Bush (W.) Administration, his dog almost ate the pardoned turkey...ooops... All the pardoned turkeys live the rest of their natural lives without worrying about being someone's dinner.

Really last...the earliest claim of presidents pardoning turkeys was mentioned by George W. Bush in 2001. According to his statement, the origins of the president pardoning a turkey date back to Abraham Lincoln, who pardoned his son Tad's pet turkey while Lincoln was president.

Hopefully you enjoyed your Turkey Fun Trivial Facts for this week.

Have a wonderful holiday weekend and don't forget to say a prayer of Thanksgiving to our soldiers who continue to protect our freedoms.

Until tomorrow (or most likely Sunday since I will be preparing/cooking TURKEY and the fixings starting tomorrow evening...)...

Monday, November 22, 2010

Adventures in Thanksgiving Shopping

Tonight was supposed to be the Weekly Fun Facts, but we will push that off until tomorrow. There is so much more fun to be had talking about grocery shopping three days before the Thanksgiving holiday this upcoming Thursday. Tonight's topic is my annual Adventures in Thanksgiving Shopping...

Don't ask me why, but I ended up putting off grocery shopping until the Monday night before Thanksgiving. Actually, I did to a little shopping on Saturday, but the crowds were so crazy, and the people so rude, I did the bare minimum and decided to shop later on... Well later on is now and boy, I am not sure that Saturday was all that crazy now. At 7 pm, there were so many people in the grocery store that you could not go down any aisle without having to ask someone to move.

The crowds were one thing, but the way they were behaving was very entertaining. Granted, I went shopping because I HAD to go shopping, but it was fun to stand back and watch all of the activities going on around the store. For starters, in the produce aisle, there were people rapidly pushing carts around the fresh produce like it was a NASCAR track. I didn't know the shopping carts cornered that well, especially with their high center of gravity. People were in the fresh produce section literally grabbing fresh vegetables without even looking at them and then tossing them into the carts.

As I struggled to find my way into the bakery section, it was very difficult to find any loaf of bread that was not over $4.00 per loaf. All of the inexpensive bread (primarily used in making turkey stuffing) was gone, the shelves were almost licked bare. You could not even locate a crumb where the bread had been placed. The people in the bakery section were not quite as frantic, most likely because they already had their stale bread for stuffing.

The second most entertaining section of the store was in the meat department, as you can probably well imagine. There you had people 2 and 3 deep, buried up to their shoulders in the open freezer boxes, digging for that perfect turkey. Not only were people looking for that perfect turkey size, but they were looking for the very few birds that still had the $0.29/pound price tag. Once someone was able to locate that rare bird, they would squawk (the people, not the turkey) in delight, hug the frozen turkey to their chest and scurry back to their badly parked shopping cart.

The fun part was watching all the people try to squeeze into that one opened spot by the freezer so that they can have a turn diving into the freezer and locating their turkey. I think it would have only been more fun if lights, bells, whistles and confetti would be included in the hunt for the perfect frozen, cheap turkey. The sad part was when some little person would look into the freezer, and only see a 12 or 18 pound bird way down at the bottom of the freezer. These people were so tiny, that I suspect if they tried to lift the bird out of the freezer, they would be pulled in instead. Occasionally, one would have to rapidly dodge the carelessly tossed frozen bird from a customer who may have decided to either go for a ham or just quit shopping altogether. Then, once that tossed bird settled to the bottom of the freezer compartment, people would literally flock back to see if that newly discarded bird would be perfect for them.

What made shopping such an adventure for this Thanksgiving was the inclusion of the electric carts along with all of the shopping carts. Some of these people would get so tangled up with the shopping carts, that you might consider sending in the search and rescue teams. One poor woman got herself stuck in the middle of an aisle, and tried to make a U-turn. The problem was that there was extra stuff in the aisle, so she kept bumping into one stack of product, backing up into yet another display, so much so that some customers came to her assistance to move the products so that they did not topple onto this poor woman.

Believe it or not, buy the time I was able to locate my remaining groceries, the lines (which had been insanely long when I arrived) were only 1 or 2 people long. Perhaps I entertained myself too long watching everyone else get stressed out, but all the same, I had the pleasure of going through the check out line much faster than it took me to navigate along the length of one of the aisles.

I pity the store workers this time of year. The cashier that took my money had been working at this particular grocery for all of 2 days and had no idea whatsoever where anything was. At least she didn't ask me if I found everything OK. What could she do if I couldn't locate that odd bit of canned matzo balls? Better yet, I had spent almost 15 minutes looking for pickling spices in the spice aisle. I had asked two employees who looked at all the spices and said with surprise, "Pickling Spices...huh...should be here....", and then wandered off. Another customer took up my cause (because the store employees had no idea where to look) and between the two of us, we located on small bag of pickling spices. So even in the heat of trying to get the last minute shopping done, there is still good in many people and they are willing to help their fellow human being.

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all. Enjoy your own personal adventures in Thanksgiving shopping. Hopefully when you do sit down to Thanksgiving Dinner this Thursday, you will all find a lot to be thankful for.

And yes, the weekly fun facts will be tomorrow, Tuesday. That way you can have some fun trivia to entertain all at the Thanksgiving dinner table this Thursday...

Don't forget to check out our website for business opportunities (if you are looking for one) or for some cool Holiday ideas.

Until tomorrow...

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Blue Moons

Well, tonight is the night of the Blue Moon. If you live in an area with a lot of cloud cover, do not fret, the moon is not really blue tonight. It is not even made of blue cheese as I had been told as a child. I also remember hearing the phrase, "Once in a Blue Moon". That phrase was intended to mean that the particular event happens rarely.

There are actually two definitions of Blue Moons. The first definition, which is the one I was aware of, was a second full moon in a single calendar month. Since the lunar cycle is usually 28 days, at some point you may encounter two full moons in the same month, or 13 full moons in a calendar year. Since there is only a few days difference between our calendar months and the lunar months, the occurrence of a double full moon in one month occurs about once every 2-3 years.

There are even very occasions where we have two full moons in one month, and then no full moons in the following month. That occurred in 1999 where there were two full moons in January, none in February (a traditionally short month, and then two full moons in March. The next time we can see a double Blue Moon will be in 2018, so now you have something to look forward to...

The second definition comes from an old Farmers Almanac definition. In the Farmers Almanac, a Blue Moon occurs when an extra full moon occurs in a season. So for November 21, 2010 we will have already had our 3rd full moon, with the 4th full moon occurring in December. Generally, a season only has 3 full moons in it.

Based on both definitions, November 21, 2010 is a Blue Moon, but this agreement does not always occur. Some people prefer to use the definition of the third full moon of four in a season is the more accurate definition of a Blue Moon because it appears to be the older definition. Whichever definition you personally prefer, tonight is truly a Blue Moon.

If you have clear skies tonight, enjoy the full, Blue Moon. Otherwise, you can look to the sky, use your imagination and enjoy the Blue Moon that is there, but you can't see it...

Until tomorrow...

Thursday, November 18, 2010

My Boredom Cures

There are many times throughout the day that I find myself working a task that I find insanely boring. The key is to find SOMETHING interesting about that task to make it easier to complete and not bore you to death.


288/365 Sleepy Drunk...

How to cure boredom can be very challenging. If you are working for a company or working for yourself, you can also get very bored with the same types of tasks day in and day out. Some tricks I developed to cure boredom are to find something different about the current boring task I am currently doing. If it is a form of data entry I would search the screen for any anomalies, or look for patterns that I hadn't noticed before.



For boredom when working a home based business (and yes, even though working your own business can be very exciting, there are times when things get extremely dull) I look for opportunities to improve processes. If I am recording financial data from the business, I will not only work on entering the data, but on ways to improve the data collection and try to determine how I want my reports to look. Even if you have a report that you currently like, there are many different ways you can look through data and analyse the information. I find it exciting to discover new ways to look at old information and see if new ideas can be generated from that new approach.



If I am unable to cure boredom from some of these exercises, it is time to move to "Plan B". That usually entails getting up from the desk, and taking a brisk walk around the block. That brisk walk can be very interesting and very invigorating especially since some of the blocks I may walk around are not your standard city block. If it is raining outside (and I get VERY bored when it is raining) I will take out my exercise ball and play on that for about a half an hour.



Basically, if I find myself getting bored and unable to get past the boredom, I will get up and do some light exercising. Exercising tends to clear my head and allow me to re-look at what I am doing with fresh eyes. While exercising, I will put on some up-beat music or a comedy show on the TV. This gives my brain a break from the boring task at hand so that when the exercise is complete, I am both mentally and physically prepared to complete the original task.



If even exercising is not effective, then it is time to go to "Plan C" which is to hop on the motorcycle and take a ride. The best part of that ride is that I point the bike in a direction and just go, there is no plan in place. By not specifically planning my ride, I leave myself open for more opportunities and a fresh outlook on life in general. I have yet to discover myself bored after going on a motorcycle ride.



The best part about beating boredom is that when you actually sit back down to complete the boring task, you are more energized and will complete the task quickly and accurately. I have discovered that if I try to just work through the boredom without taking a break, mistakes will occur and you end up working that particular boring task for much longer than was necessary.



Good luck kicking boredom to the curb...

If you are looking for an additional income opportunity, please check out our website.

Until tomorrow...

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Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Growing your Business


Last night we reviewed some ideas on new business opportunities. Tonight we are going to briefly cover other ideas on growing your business. When the economy is great, money flows easily and readily. When the economy is robust, even poorly run businesses survive. They say that money cures many evils, which is true. But when the money flow slows, or even comes to a halt, that is when we separate the good from the poorly run businesses.

As money coming in slows down, many business owners finally take a good hard look at their financial statements (sometimes this is the first time they have looked in a very long time) and start finding ways to reduce expenses or basically cut costs. It is in times like these where you find the efficient businesses begin to grow. In times of economic downturns many new business opportunities spring up, filling the gap from those that no longer exist. It is less expensive to find rental space, products may cost less and more companies and people are more willing to sell at lower prices.

If you want your business to grow though, you always have to remember the customer. Continue to build your long-relationship with them. Don't forget to do a follow up call, find out if the customer is happy with your product or service. Find out what else they would like to see you provide. They may offer some very helpful insights into growing your business or product line. Keep your customers happy because they are one of the best marketing tools that you have. If your customers are happy, they will do all the advertising for you at no cost to you. But, conversely, if your customers are unhappy with your business, product or services, they will tell more people than you could ever reach with expensive advertising campaigns.

As we have discussed before, the customer is king and they are your best marketing tool. Be sure that you have under-promised and over-delivered. Always smile, and smile honestly, do not put on a fake smile, the customers can tell the difference. If you are having a bad day, strive to not let that problem run over onto your sales floor so that the customers may experience it too. Be sincere, and most importantly, be honest with your customers. They will remember and reward you with your honesty by keeping a long-term relationship with you.

If you have a list of customers who have utilized your products or services in the past, don't be afraid to send them a brief newsletter, letting them know what is happening and what new promotions you may currently have in place. You may be surprised to see some older customers come back because of your brief newsletter. In your newsletter, do not try to sell your customers something, more importantly, offer a service for them. Become a "go-to" source of information for your customer. Allow them to feel comfortable asking you questions without them fearing you are going to push a sale onto them. You want your customers to see you as a valuable asset, not someone to be avoided.

If you keep your communications up with your current and old customer base, you may be surprised at the positive response you receive. Don't send them countless messages about sales, send a brief, monthly newsletter and perhaps sprinkle that newsletter with some fun anecdote's. People are always looking for something to feel good about, perhaps provide a positive, or inspirational story (again brief) and you may discover your customers looking forward to your monthly missives. If they like what they read, they may even share your newsletters with others, again advertising for you.

The benefit for keeping the message short should be obvious. How many of us have time to read all of the messages from our Inbox anymore? Keep your message short, don't advertise too hard, and allow your customers to have fun reading your monthly message.

Hopefully these ideas were helpful and will benefit you in growing your business.

If you are looking for an additional income stream, we do offer some small business opportunities. Feel free to review our website for ideas and contact us with any questions you may have.

Until tomorrow...

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Looking for a Business Opportunity

All right, that question can go either direction. Am I looking for a business opportunity, or are you looking for a business opportunity? For the record, I am ALWAYS looking for business opportunities, if I didn't then I would stagnate (not literally). By always looking for the newest trends, newest products, or just different opportunities, I keep my own ideas fresh. There is also the distinct possibility that I will find an awesome business opportunity to incorporate.

So, the million dollar question that is most likely burning in the back of you head is... what business opportunity should I get involved in, and is it legitimate? Unfortunately, that is a very difficult question. There are so many "business opportunities" out there that really aren't opportunities (at least not for us) and won't turn into a legitimate business. You don't necessarily want to throw your money away, yet you don't want to miss an up-and coming opportunity either.

There are so many new and very good pitch-men (or pitch-people) out there, that you really have to do your homework before putting money into any opportunity. Tonight I am going to suggest a few places you can look for your next opportunity and let you decide if anything looks interesting. Perhaps, with the ideas I throw out there, they will trigger something that will cause you to discover an opportunity that has not been mentioned.

You may also be wondering, why would anyone want to get involved in a new business opportunity in today's depressed economy. The answer is really pretty simple. Costs of buildings/rentals are low, product costs are going down, and people are motivated to sell stuff for relatively low prices in order to drive business. If you are able to get a business up and running in this economy, think of how successful you will be when the economy picks up (and yes, it will get better...eventually). So, now is a great time to start a business, either a home-based business or a brick-and-mortar business.

If you want to get started on a business, but don't know what you want to do, here is some food for thought: do you have the ability to help others live better for less money? Are you able to help others to trim their expenses and still live comfortably? There is a huge demand for people with that talent right now. Do you have ideas for helping cars to increase their fuel mileage? Can you organize car and van pools to help people save on fuel costs? How about helping people collect coupons (perhaps you provide the coupon service for a small fee...) so they can save at the store? Can you help people invest in higher yield investments?

If you are looking for a business opportunity in today's market, you need to look at what people are complaining about and see if you have the particular skill set to resolve their problem. Don't just take one person's problem and strive to correct it, but find a common theme and then see if you can find a solution to the overall problem. That can become a very lucrative business segment for you.

These are just a very few ideas that are out there to generate a business opportunity. The overall key is to find a need and fill that common need. That way your customers win and you win.

If you would like some other business opportunity ideas, please feel free to visit our website. We can help you start your own vehicle detailing service, or we can show you how Pre-Paid Legal could help you, or we can introduce you to our Stem Cell Nutritional line that has the ability to provide you an additional income stream. We would be more than willing to talk with you about your thoughts and ideas and answer any questions you may have. Happy business opportunity hunting...

Until tomorrow...

Monday, November 15, 2010

Monday Funnies and Fun Facts

Welcome to Monday's Funnies (new addition) and Fun Facts. Since Mondays are usually pretty tough on many, providing some silly jokes and useless fun facts should help put a better spin on what may have been a pretty grueling day. Tonight we are going to add a few jokes to the fun trivial facts. I am not very good at telling jokes (usually mess up the punch line) but perhaps there are many of you out there who have impeccable timing. How many of you also deal with engineers in your day-to-day business dealings? Tonight we are going to poke a little fun at this very interesting profession. Enjoy this week's installment of Fun Facts.

"Two engineering students were walking across campus when one said, 'Where did you get such a great bike?'

The second engineer replied, 'Well, I was walking along yesterday, minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, 'Take what you want.'

The first engineer nodded approvingly, 'Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn't have fit.'"

This Monday was particularly difficult for me. At one point, I had two decisions to make, neither of which were what I wanted to do. I decided that if I must choose between two evils, I was going to pick the one I ever tried before....

Have you ever noticed that the hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread?

If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.

Everyone has a photographic memory, some just don't have any film... (I know a few of those...)

For the fishermen out there - There's a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore looking like an idiot... (you know who you are...hehehe)

When you were a kid, do you remember Popeye the Sailor? He ate spinach to get strong and get out of bad situations. My parents also insisted that spinach was loaded with iron which makes you stronger. Guess what? Popeye and our parents were wrong. In reality, spinach has no more iron in it than any other vegetable. This spinach misconception dates back to the 1950's when a food analyst made an error while calculating the iron in spinach. His decimal place was off by one place, suggesting that spinach had ten times as much iron content than it really did. Now you can go back to your parents and tell them that you KNEW spinach wasn't all it was cracked up to be...(I still love spinach though...).

Current news in Arizona, they have finally tallied all the votes and have now passed a law allowing medical marijuana to be dispensed in the state. Did you know that Marijuana was not illegal in the United States until October 1st, 1937, when Congress passed the "Marijuana Tax Act"? The total debate time on the House of Representatives floor concerning this issue was 90 seconds. This act did not actually ban the substance - it simply stated that one could not sell marijuana without a license. Of course, Congress refused to issue any licenses. Congress finally banned marijuana outright in 1970. Now the states are slowly allowing it back legally in medical instances. California was first, now Arizona has followed suit...

And, one last poke at my favorite profession - engineers - "Normal people... believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet." - Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle

Hopefully this brightened your Monday and hopefully you can use some of what was posted in Monday Funnies and Fun facts. Have a wonderful remainder of the week.

If you are looking for a second income or a home based business opportunity, perhaps we have something that would interest you. We have several business opportunities ranging from Stem Cell nutrition, to Pre-Paid Legal Services, nutritional juice drinks to waterless vehicle detailing services. Please feel free to ask us about some of our business opportunities, we may have something that would work well for you.

Until tomorrow...

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Millionaire Focus

Welcome to this week's Millionaire Focus. Tonight we are going to briefly cover one of Forbes' Richest People, Isaac Perlmutter. Most likely many of you have not heard of this person, but if you were involved in watching Marvel Comics over the last 7 years. He is noted as a a new billionaire who flipped Marvel Entertainment to Disney for $4 billion dollars. Isaac netted nearly $900 million in cash and 20 million shares of Disney in the transaction.

We strive to bring you not just interesting people to read about in this Millionaire Focus but also struggle to locate millionaires who are self-made. Isaac Perlmutter is on such billionaire. Despite the large deal with Disney, Isaac Perlmutter has kept a very low profile. Apparently he is so shy of publicity that he attends movie premiers in disguise. He has gotten so good at disguising himself that at the premier of Iron Man not even his close friends recognized him.

It has been difficult gathering information of Perlmutter's early years other than that he was born in 1945 in what was to become Israel. He fought during the Israeli Six Day War in 1967 and soon after came to America with about $250 in his pocket. When first in America, he would sell toys and beauty products on the street. His first fortune was made selling surplus goods to dollar stores after he taught himself how to read balance sheets. Isaac Perlmutter had a knack for finding distressed businesses and at one point owned a controlling interest in Victor Kiam's electric razor manufacturer Remington Products.

His comfort was in the toy market though. He first encountered his future partner, Avu Arad, during a dispute over royalty payments. In 1990 they teamed up to run Toy Biz and struck a deal with Marvel's then owner Perelman to sell action figures based on Marvel characters. When Marvel got into financial problems, Perlmutter and Arad jumped in to acquire Marvel. Even after the acquisition of Marvel Entertainment by the Walt Disney Company came in 2009, he remains CEO of Marvel Entertainment.

Perlmutter shuns the trappings of wealth, with his only known indulgence being tennis. He likes to observe and absorb what is going on around him without needing to be in the middle. He seems to be the kind of person you wouldn't notice in a room. He is well known for penny-pinching and he watches all costs, no matter how small. Even though penny-pinching can be thought of as a negative, Perlmutter was able to help turn around Marvel with his ability to watch costs. One colleague notes that Perlmutter may now be a mogul of enormous wealth, "but he knows the value of a buck."

Hopefully you enjoyed this week's Millionaire Focus and found some tidbits to help you with your own business dealings. As you can see, being in the right place at the right time, along with staying alert can possibly bring you from rags to riches.

Until tomorrow...

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Happy Veterans' Day


Happy Veterans' Day to all of you who have served or are serving to protect our country. Today we, as a nation, should take the time to honor all of our hero's who have protected our country. It is because of all of our Veteran's sacrifices that we have the freedom to say mostly what we want and to travel where we want. We have the freedom to vote for who we want, we can worship where we want, and we can protest if we want.

There are many times that I have heard people complain about the "military" not doing what they should, or misbehaving on foreign soil. Some people do not even like our men and women who have served or are serving in the military. They are more than entitled to their opinion, but in all honesty, these people who complain, are complaining BECAUSE of what our brave soldiers have done. If it were not for our soldiers standing up to protect our freedom, we wouldn't have the ability to complain about anything.

As you may remember (from your history books...no, we are not all that old...) 91 years ago, Veterans' Day was originally called Armistice Day to mark the official cessation of hostilities in World War I. That ceasefire came on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918. The actual peace treaty was not signed until the following year, but the for original moment of peace, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed November 11th, Armistice Day. This was originally a time for prayer, thanksgiving and appreciation for the sacrifice of those lost. Normal business was to cease only for a few minutes around the armistice time.

Nineteen years later Congress turned November 11th into a federal holiday to honor all veterans of World War I. Following the end of the Korean War (in 1954), the word "Veterans" replaced the word "Armistice" in the holiday legislation.

Did you know that there is only one living veteran in the United States from World War I? We need to be particularly aware of our veterans from World War II, Korea and Vietnam as they are all getting older. These wars are our history, and these veterans have seen much. Each time I have the opportunity to talk to a veteran, from any war, I am amazed about how much more I learn about that microcosm in time. You get general information in your history books, but by talking to veterans of wars, and listening to their memories, the dry history comes alive.

Take the opportunity to thank our veterans for all that they have done to preserve our rights and freedoms. They are the ones who have stood on the wall at night, protecting us from all types of evil, so that we can sleep peacefully. Even though today we are honoring those who have served, take the time out of your day to also thank those who are currently in harm's way. It is also because of them that we are living in relative peace and prosperity now.

There are approximately 23.2 million military veterans in the United States
9.2 million veterans are over the age of 65
1.9 million veterans are under the age of 35
1.8 million veterans are women
7.8 million veterans served during the Vietnam War era (1964-1975) which represents about 33% of all living veterans
5.2 million veterans served during the Gulf War (from August 2, 1990 to present)

Have a Happy Veterans' Day - remember to thank those who have served and salute our fallen heroes.

Until tomorrow...

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Fun Trivia Facts

Well, I know, it is not Monday, but it is the Wednesday "Hump" Day and since we missed Monday, tonight we are presenting Fun Trivia Facts. If you have had a rough day and are not looking forward to the rest of the week, perhaps this brief respite will help you survive.

Tonight we are going to rejoice that we are not living in England between 1558 and 1603:

At that time, medicines were not so advanced, it really was not wise to get sick. If you did get sick, you may have been asked to ingest some powdered burnt swallow feathers (do you know how stinky that is?), red coral, pigeon's dung or your own (YUCK!!), mistletoe may be taken in the month of March, swallow syrup of poppy, earthworms, or consume a prepared pill or suppository coated in gold. One cure for kidney stones was a mixture of white wine (OK, I can do that...), salad oil, powdered crab's eyes (do you KNOW how little those are?) and the bone in a carp's head. I think I would rather be sick than to take any of those medications!!!

The women's clothes were not quite as you would think during this time either. The clothes were mix and match (sort of like today...but not..). Sleeves, bodices and skirts were not connected. You connected the different pieces with straight pins (OUCH!). That is largely because safety pins were not invented until 1849. You really didn't want to bend too much for sure... At least if you had two dresses, you could make a lot of different combinations this way...

How many of you think men's codpieces were places to put the man's "junk"? They were not used for that at all...often they were stuffed, and a man could keep important things (no, not the "family jewels") like money, papers, etc in a codpiece for storage...

Now if I was worried about being poisoned, I would wear a ring containing a piece of a unicorn's horn because if I wore that, I was protected from poisonings. The problem? No such thing as Unicorns...ooops..

In England, young men would play female characters in theatrical roles. Women were not allowed on stage at the time. Elizabethans believed there was a difference in genders right from the start. A male fetus was thought to grow on the right side of the womb and the female, the left. Fortunately, the reasoning for malformed or unusual-looking children was switching from the idea of the mother sleeping with the Devil to the more "forward-thinking" concept of Maternal Impressions. If a pregnant woman saw something that startled her, the baby born would have some resemblance to that particular thing (like a boy with scaly skin like a fish, or a horsey face child..). Craving strawberries could cause a woman's unborn child to be born with a "strawberry" birthmark on their skin.

Hopefully you are now happier that you are here now, instead of in England between 1558 and 1603. We all need to be glad about something.

If you are looking for an additional income opportunity, check out our website for some ideas. Please feel free to contact us with any questions you may have.

Until tomorrow...

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

So Sorry

Sorry everyone for disappearing for 5 days. Had a computer virus / worm that has taken sigificant time to remove. Am finally up and running, and will start posting blogs again tomorrow... you are not being ignored, I just got slammed trying to undo damage to the computer...

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Election Day Mid-Term Elections

Well, mid-term elections are FINALLY over. It has been a long haul and there have been significant changes already made to hopefully put this great country of ours back on track. We are far from being on-track, now the hard part begins.

With the mid-terms complete, we have to watch and see that the newly elected officials will do as the people of the United States requests of them. We are no longer going to accept our elected people tell us that we don't know what is good for us. We elected these people to represent us, not what they think we want or need. The problem I have personally seen is that even the best intentions of newly elected officials get buried by the 'status quo'. The object this year is to make sure that the new representatives do not fall into the same rut that the people we just elected OUT of office fell into.

We now must be vigilant and remain active in keeping our country strong. We should take a hard-line and continue to expect that our representatives truly represent what we the people want. This is not going to be an easy road to hoe, we will still have problems, but with luck and a lot of dedication from all of us, we can climb out of this hole we all dug (we are ALL responsible for the current state of affairs) better and stronger than we were before. We need to remember not to point fingers, but to squarely take responsibility not for actions that have all ready occurred, but to take responsibility for actions moving forward.

We can never change what has already occurred, but we can make changes going forward that will benefit all of us. Let's put away our party differences (are there really any party differences anymore? Republicans look and act more like Democrats and the reverse is also true) and focus on healing a seriously sick country. Patching problems will not make them go away. We need to honestly identify the rood of the problems we are currently in and fix the problems.

If there are companies that have been poorly managed and are on the verge of collapse, let them fail. How can we as Americans learn how to grow if we don't learn how to fail? A healthy economy does include failed businesses, that is life. Instead of putting a band aid on a dying business, let the business die an honest death. It is from those failures that great things will come. I don't even recommend anymore putting "bail-out" money into the hands of the people anymore. Let's stop that garbage and just get back to good old-fashioned business with the money we have in hand. Let's stop trying to micro-manage people, assuming they are too stupid to take care of themselves.

Let's let Darwin's theory on the evolution of the species take over (aka survival of the fittest). That was how this country was founded, and that, I believe, is how we are going to pull ourselves out of this mess we all are responsible for putting ourselves in. We are all at fault for allowing incompetent politicians to ruin our country. WE voted them in, WE allowed these people to push their personal agendas, WE allowed much of this mess to happen, partly due to greed, partly due to apathy.

Hopefully we will stop being apathetic and will continue to remain active in the actions of our government. To sit at home listening to the news and shake your head in disbelief is NOT action. If you don't like where the country is heading, go out and do something about it. The people have spoken in this last mid-term election, if we expect to see change, we must continue to speak out and continue to act. We cannot become complacent again, if we do, the United States as we know it will be doomed.

The rant on my soap-box is now completed. I will continue to remain active and aware of government actions and initiatives and will do all I can to no longer be the silent majority. Hopefully many more will follow suit. Tomorrow we will be back to our more "normal" blogging, so continue to stay tuned.

Until tomorrow...

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Fun Trivial Facts

OK, it's Tuesday night, but since Monday was such a rough day for me and today is mid-term elections throughout the country, I thought we could use some levity today. Welcome to our weekly installment of Fun Trivial Facts. Hopefully this will provide a nice break from all of the election coverage, and the stresses of the last two days...

Have you ever had days where you wanted to bang your head against the wall? Did you feel like that today? Banging your head off a wall uses 150 calories an hour. So, if you have had a frustrating day, and want to do bang your head against the wall, you now know how much weight you can lose while doing just that.. Sounds painful, but hey, to each their own...

Since it is election night, thought we would provide some views of useless use of money; in downtown Lima, Peru, there is a large brass statue dedicated to Winnie-the-Pooh. Perhaps there was nobody else they wanted to honor??? Actually, I think Winnie-the-Pooh has some excellent moral values to emulate...so, this may not be a bad use of public monies after all...

A warning to the "lefties" of the world - 2,500 left handers die each year using products designed for right handers....

Here is a warning to red-haired men - a red-haired man is more likely to go bald than anyone else...

Now, something to keep you awake at night... The average human will eat an average of eight spiders while sleeping. Keep in mind that an average means some people eat MORE spiders than 8, pretty yucky..

Let's have some real fun now; if you keep a goldfish in a dark room, it will eventually turn white. I thought those were albino fish, now I will have to purchase a white goldfish and see what happens.

Did you know that fish cough? Does that mean they can catch a cold too?

In case you were worried about jumping things, elephants are the only mammal that cannot jump...and I thought it was white people... (reference to a movie, not a commentary on anyone in particular)

All elephants walk on tip-toe (not because they want to sneak up on you) because the back portion of their foot is made up of all fat and no bone.

The closest relative to the manatee is the elephant. Scientists think the elephant crawled back into the sea to become a manatee. Have you looked at a manatee? I don't see any resemblance...they look more like a walrus than an elephant...see what genetic codes can do?

But, they say that elephants have been found swimming miles from shore in the Indian Ocean. I don't know what I would do if I was sailing around and encountered an elephant in the water with me... definitely not give it a lift back to shore.

I would like to leave you with this tidbit (which ties into our original thought of banging your head against the wall); Montana mountain goats will butt heads so hard their hooves fall off. Now, what do they do when that happens?

Hopefully you enjoyed this lighter moment in Fun Trivial Facts.

Until tomorrow when we get back to weightier topics...

Monday, November 1, 2010

Migraine

Well guys and girls... I have a migraine to die for right now. Can barely see straight, my head hurts so bad. The upshot is that if I can't get the pain managed this evening, there will be no blog, the light from the screen is hurting my eyeballs...Sorry... If the pain goes away this evening, I will finish posting the blog for today. Take care...