Here's my quandary, guy at the gas station asking for money while I am paying a ridiculous amount of money to put gas in my car: If you didn't have enough gas to get back to Riverside, why'd you come down here in the first place?
My favorite of these many incidents that I have been forced to endure occurred during my Quietly Working days.
I had pulled an all-nighter and was really sick to my stomach at the time. I needed to go down to the office to get some stuff to work on later in the day and on my way to the office, I had to make a detour to get some gas.
Before I could even make it to the gas station, I am behind a strip mall, hurling into a dumpster. After gaining my composure, I then head to get gas so I can get to the office and get home for some sleep before getting back to work. Those of you who know me know that I won't let a little thing like a stomach flu get in the way of getting my work done.
So, as the sun just starts coming up and I stop at the Chevron on PCH in Newport Beach, this guy comes over to me and asks me if he can have some money because he needs to get back to Riverside.
I found myself instantly sorry that I had wasted a good hurling in the dumpster instead of doing so on his shoes. I work for my money, Mr. Beggar, and I do it while sick as a dog. How dare you come ask me for some of my money, especially when you look like a healthy, able-bodied person, obviously of enough whit and determination to try to scam me of out some of my hard-earned cash! I do, however, love the look on their faces when I, unlike I am sure so many of their other victims, say, simply, "Nope," and keep going on about my business.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
"Work," I Said...
Teresa asked me what I used to do during Spring Break. She wasn't surprised at the answer..."Work," I said.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Happy National Stress Awareness Day!
Did you know that April is National Stress Awareness Month? Did you know that today, April 16th is Stress Awareness Day? Does it stress you out that you didn't know that? Now that we have reached the point in this country where we are stressing about stress, I thought I'd share some interesting numbers from Fast Company magazine with you:
1/3 of American children ages 8 to 17 say they worry about their family's finances.
2 other major sources of childhood stress are homework and teasing.
To cope, 44% of kids listen to music, 26% eat, and 22% actually talk to their parents.
Americans spend $14 billion on stress-relieving products each year.
There are actually 2 kinds of stress. Distress, which we all know, and eustress, a positive form that improves productivity and performance.
The word we know as "stress" has had its meaning since the 20th century, but can trace its roots back the Old French/Middle English word "destresse" or "distress".
3/5 of doctor visits around the world are as a result of stress.
Americans spend $22.8 billion on anxiety-related healthcare each year.
275 million work days are lost in the U.S. each year because of people taking "stress" days.
These "stress" days cost employers $602 per worker per year.
62% of Americans claim to be stressed about work.
Eating 1.4 ounces of dark chocolate every day for two weeks has shown to reduce stress, of course, according to a 30-person study done by a team of researchers from Nestle.
A study completed in 1938 and re-given in 2007 showed that high school and college students were 5-times more stressed out going into the Great Recession than they were during the end of the Great Depression.
2/3 of spoken curse words are a result of stress (the other 1/3 must be just for fun!).
80 of the 15,000 words typically spoken per person per day are swear words.
1/3 of American children ages 8 to 17 say they worry about their family's finances.
2 other major sources of childhood stress are homework and teasing.
To cope, 44% of kids listen to music, 26% eat, and 22% actually talk to their parents.
Americans spend $14 billion on stress-relieving products each year.
There are actually 2 kinds of stress. Distress, which we all know, and eustress, a positive form that improves productivity and performance.
The word we know as "stress" has had its meaning since the 20th century, but can trace its roots back the Old French/Middle English word "destresse" or "distress".
3/5 of doctor visits around the world are as a result of stress.
Americans spend $22.8 billion on anxiety-related healthcare each year.
275 million work days are lost in the U.S. each year because of people taking "stress" days.
These "stress" days cost employers $602 per worker per year.
62% of Americans claim to be stressed about work.
Eating 1.4 ounces of dark chocolate every day for two weeks has shown to reduce stress, of course, according to a 30-person study done by a team of researchers from Nestle.
A study completed in 1938 and re-given in 2007 showed that high school and college students were 5-times more stressed out going into the Great Recession than they were during the end of the Great Depression.
2/3 of spoken curse words are a result of stress (the other 1/3 must be just for fun!).
80 of the 15,000 words typically spoken per person per day are swear words.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
The Grandparent Economy
Grandparents.com, a site which is dispelling the myth about grandparents and computers, recently commissioned a study that it coined the Grandparent Economy. Here is what it found:
3 out of 10 adults are grandparents - an all-time high.
Grandparents spend $100 billion a year on entertainment and $77 billion a year on travel-related expenses.
The average net worth of households by 55- to 64-year olds (66% of which are grandparent led) is $254,000. This is the highest of any age group.
Grandparent spending has grown 7.6% per year since 2000 - nearly double the annual rate for other consumers.
Grandparents spend $2 trillion on goods and services each year, roughly 1/3 of all spending.
The grandparent population is larger then either the African-American or Hispanic population segments.
A recent article by Deliver Magazine urged marketers to get away from traditional advertising that showed grandparents sitting docile, staring off into the horizon and appeal more to the active lifestyle of today's early Baby Boomers. "Be authentic and honest," says David Martino, president of Martino and Binzer, a Connecticut-based agency that caters to direct mail clients. "Showcase a product's benefits and try an ageless marketing approach combined with hyper-tartgeting."
3 out of 10 adults are grandparents - an all-time high.
Grandparents spend $100 billion a year on entertainment and $77 billion a year on travel-related expenses.
The average net worth of households by 55- to 64-year olds (66% of which are grandparent led) is $254,000. This is the highest of any age group.
Grandparent spending has grown 7.6% per year since 2000 - nearly double the annual rate for other consumers.
Grandparents spend $2 trillion on goods and services each year, roughly 1/3 of all spending.
The grandparent population is larger then either the African-American or Hispanic population segments.
A recent article by Deliver Magazine urged marketers to get away from traditional advertising that showed grandparents sitting docile, staring off into the horizon and appeal more to the active lifestyle of today's early Baby Boomers. "Be authentic and honest," says David Martino, president of Martino and Binzer, a Connecticut-based agency that caters to direct mail clients. "Showcase a product's benefits and try an ageless marketing approach combined with hyper-tartgeting."
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Socialist Dreams Not Working Out In Venezuela
Venezuela and Hugo Chavez are on the ropes. Chavez's dream of spreading "21st century socialism" throughout Latin America is being stalled by a sluggish economy both at home and abroad.
When Chavez came to power in 1999, he quickly mobilized to make the most of the country's state-owned oil production, but has reportedly blown most of the windfalls of cash buying the favor of the world's other socialist nations.
Chavez's runaway spending on social programs amid declining state revenue is further putting the nation's economy into turmoil. In 2002, following a failed coup, Venezuela's economy experienced a sharp downturn when the government-owned oil company went on strike for two months to protest Chavez's regime.
While rising oil prices in the following years would help the economy recover temporarily, declining oil prices in recent years have had a substantial negative effect as well.
Add to the mix the fact that in response to the strike, Chavez implemented a policy forcing 10% of the state-owned oil company's profits be put directly into his social programs, and you have a recipe for financial disaster.
Oil accounts for 80% of Venezuela's exports, 50% of the government's income, and about one-third of overall GDP.
In 2007, Chavez nationalized the country's electricity grid with the plans of expanding production output at Venezuela's two large hydroelectric dams that provide 70% of the country's electricity. The expansion, however, never came to pass, and the government was forced to order rolling blackouts. A lengthy drought is also further impacting electricity output at the dams.
The latest threat to Venezuela's economy is inflation. The country's economy shrunk by 4.5% last year and will shrink another 2% this year, making it the only Latin American nation still in full recession.
In Venezuela, the exchange rate between the country's bolivar and the dollar is also set by the government. It had been set at 2.15 bolivars per dollar in 2005, but in January 2010, Chavez set the rate to 2.6 bolivars for food, medicine, and other important imports, and to 4.6 bolivars for non-essential goods. This devaluation of the bolivar will have Venezuela seeing 45% inflation in 2010 and 27% inflation in 2011.
Chavez is trying to fight the inflation he caused by forcing 70 businesses to close for increasing their prices to keep up with costs, hoping to scare other businesses into eating the cost of his inflation, but panicked buying continues.
Chavez has also nationalized about 25% of Venezuela's banking system to try to get the economy back under control as well, but it would seem that nationalization of more and more of Venezuela's economy is not doing the trick.
Despite a rapidly failing economy, however, most likely driven by the country's growing social programs, Chavez's popularity rating remains close to 50%. Proof positive that popularity polls have no reflection on the true financial stability or health of a nation.
When Chavez came to power in 1999, he quickly mobilized to make the most of the country's state-owned oil production, but has reportedly blown most of the windfalls of cash buying the favor of the world's other socialist nations.
Chavez's runaway spending on social programs amid declining state revenue is further putting the nation's economy into turmoil. In 2002, following a failed coup, Venezuela's economy experienced a sharp downturn when the government-owned oil company went on strike for two months to protest Chavez's regime.
While rising oil prices in the following years would help the economy recover temporarily, declining oil prices in recent years have had a substantial negative effect as well.
Add to the mix the fact that in response to the strike, Chavez implemented a policy forcing 10% of the state-owned oil company's profits be put directly into his social programs, and you have a recipe for financial disaster.
Oil accounts for 80% of Venezuela's exports, 50% of the government's income, and about one-third of overall GDP.
In 2007, Chavez nationalized the country's electricity grid with the plans of expanding production output at Venezuela's two large hydroelectric dams that provide 70% of the country's electricity. The expansion, however, never came to pass, and the government was forced to order rolling blackouts. A lengthy drought is also further impacting electricity output at the dams.
The latest threat to Venezuela's economy is inflation. The country's economy shrunk by 4.5% last year and will shrink another 2% this year, making it the only Latin American nation still in full recession.
In Venezuela, the exchange rate between the country's bolivar and the dollar is also set by the government. It had been set at 2.15 bolivars per dollar in 2005, but in January 2010, Chavez set the rate to 2.6 bolivars for food, medicine, and other important imports, and to 4.6 bolivars for non-essential goods. This devaluation of the bolivar will have Venezuela seeing 45% inflation in 2010 and 27% inflation in 2011.
Chavez is trying to fight the inflation he caused by forcing 70 businesses to close for increasing their prices to keep up with costs, hoping to scare other businesses into eating the cost of his inflation, but panicked buying continues.
Chavez has also nationalized about 25% of Venezuela's banking system to try to get the economy back under control as well, but it would seem that nationalization of more and more of Venezuela's economy is not doing the trick.
Despite a rapidly failing economy, however, most likely driven by the country's growing social programs, Chavez's popularity rating remains close to 50%. Proof positive that popularity polls have no reflection on the true financial stability or health of a nation.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Time To Start Using & Measuring Social Media
If your organization is not Tweeting, Facebooking, YouTubing, or LinkedIn-in', then you are really behind the curve! I know you may not want to hear that, but it is true.
The 2008 Presidential Election showed that technology can have a real impact on campaigns, and the 2010 Mid-Term Elections will be no different. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele has offered to teach Tweeting to anyone in his party who does not know how.
Businesses throughout the world are quickly clamoring to get Tweeting, get Facebook Fan Pages up and running, get videos on YouTube, and to quite literally, get LinkedIn. If your enterprise is not doing the same, you'd better get caught up quickly. Social media needs to start becoming part of all of your advertising and marketing campaigns.
You may be asking yourself what the value of putting your time into social media really is. Let me tell you right now, I'm not saying to stop paying for web site hosting, throw out your collateral, stop networking in person, and stop making phone calls, but I am saying that if you want to stay viable in your market, social media should be playing a larger and larger part of your advertising and marketing efforts.
With each passing day, more and more people are signing up on Twitter and Facebook and are bookmarking those pages as their home pages and/or using smart phones to check them as regularly as email.
Instead of starting out on a search engine to find your business, more and more often, web users are starting out with your Twitter or Facebook page. If you are not ensuring that anything of importance that you are uploading to your web site is also going onto the social media sites, you may be missing out on an ever-increasing segment of your potential customers.
Stop reaching potential customers and you are going to stop making sales. Sales aren't going to dry up overnight, but they may gradually over time if you don't jump on the social media bandwagon.
How do you get started? Get signed up. Go to http://www.twitter.com/ and http://www.facebook.com/ and start pages for your business. Start tweeting and posting any newsworthy events and start inviting your customers and prospects to follow you or become a fan of your Facebook page.
You will be amazed at how many of your contacts are not only using these sites, but are spending quite a large amount of time on them. If you have any business videos, go to http://www.youtube.com/, get a YouTube channel set up and get your videos posted.
Also, go to http://www.linkedin.com/ and make sure that you have a LinkedIn page set up for both you personally and your business. Customers will have greater confidence in you and your products and services when they see that you are in tune with the growing importance of social media.
It will be difficult to keep up with posting and you will be very tempted to just let it fall by the way side, but create a campaign schedule and set aside time each day to post, read and respond on the major social media sites.
While you may not get a phone call right away that says, "I saw your tweet and now I want to buy something," you will begin to notice that social media is helping to keep the buzz about your business going strong. It keeps your name out in front of customers, showcases your expertise, and adds just the right amount of icing to the cake.
To get a clear view of the value of your efforts, start tracking your results. Record on a daily or weekly basis, the number of followers, number of fans, number of video hits, etc. Record the number of posts that you are making and the number of times people are either re-tweeting, re-posting, or somehow sharing your tweets and posts with others. Be sure that you are using Twitter's hash tags and the other valuable tools the social media sites offer for tracking.
In a March 8 B to B Magazine article, Mitch Wagner stated, "Despite marketers' widespread use of Web analytics, social media remains largely unmeasured by b-to-b companies." This fact gives you a great opportunity to catch up to the herd by beginning your social media efforts, then to quickly move to the front of the pack by tracking your results.
Now, keep in mind, this is a high-level overview. You are going to have to set aside some time to spend visiting the social media sites, signing up, using them, and discovering what works and does not work.
Despite your reservations about spending the time it will take, I think you will be pleasantly surprised with the results of how well social media may work for you and your business.
The 2008 Presidential Election showed that technology can have a real impact on campaigns, and the 2010 Mid-Term Elections will be no different. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele has offered to teach Tweeting to anyone in his party who does not know how.
Businesses throughout the world are quickly clamoring to get Tweeting, get Facebook Fan Pages up and running, get videos on YouTube, and to quite literally, get LinkedIn. If your enterprise is not doing the same, you'd better get caught up quickly. Social media needs to start becoming part of all of your advertising and marketing campaigns.
You may be asking yourself what the value of putting your time into social media really is. Let me tell you right now, I'm not saying to stop paying for web site hosting, throw out your collateral, stop networking in person, and stop making phone calls, but I am saying that if you want to stay viable in your market, social media should be playing a larger and larger part of your advertising and marketing efforts.
With each passing day, more and more people are signing up on Twitter and Facebook and are bookmarking those pages as their home pages and/or using smart phones to check them as regularly as email.
Instead of starting out on a search engine to find your business, more and more often, web users are starting out with your Twitter or Facebook page. If you are not ensuring that anything of importance that you are uploading to your web site is also going onto the social media sites, you may be missing out on an ever-increasing segment of your potential customers.
Stop reaching potential customers and you are going to stop making sales. Sales aren't going to dry up overnight, but they may gradually over time if you don't jump on the social media bandwagon.
How do you get started? Get signed up. Go to http://www.twitter.com/ and http://www.facebook.com/ and start pages for your business. Start tweeting and posting any newsworthy events and start inviting your customers and prospects to follow you or become a fan of your Facebook page.
You will be amazed at how many of your contacts are not only using these sites, but are spending quite a large amount of time on them. If you have any business videos, go to http://www.youtube.com/, get a YouTube channel set up and get your videos posted.
Also, go to http://www.linkedin.com/ and make sure that you have a LinkedIn page set up for both you personally and your business. Customers will have greater confidence in you and your products and services when they see that you are in tune with the growing importance of social media.
It will be difficult to keep up with posting and you will be very tempted to just let it fall by the way side, but create a campaign schedule and set aside time each day to post, read and respond on the major social media sites.
While you may not get a phone call right away that says, "I saw your tweet and now I want to buy something," you will begin to notice that social media is helping to keep the buzz about your business going strong. It keeps your name out in front of customers, showcases your expertise, and adds just the right amount of icing to the cake.
To get a clear view of the value of your efforts, start tracking your results. Record on a daily or weekly basis, the number of followers, number of fans, number of video hits, etc. Record the number of posts that you are making and the number of times people are either re-tweeting, re-posting, or somehow sharing your tweets and posts with others. Be sure that you are using Twitter's hash tags and the other valuable tools the social media sites offer for tracking.
In a March 8 B to B Magazine article, Mitch Wagner stated, "Despite marketers' widespread use of Web analytics, social media remains largely unmeasured by b-to-b companies." This fact gives you a great opportunity to catch up to the herd by beginning your social media efforts, then to quickly move to the front of the pack by tracking your results.
Now, keep in mind, this is a high-level overview. You are going to have to set aside some time to spend visiting the social media sites, signing up, using them, and discovering what works and does not work.
Despite your reservations about spending the time it will take, I think you will be pleasantly surprised with the results of how well social media may work for you and your business.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
My Minions Vote With Me...
I just had to post a Facebook exchange that I had with a friend and co-worker, Nabil Elazmeh:
Nabil: William.. i got naturalized today, what's funny is they handed me the voter registration application and when i got it i thought well it doesnt matter how i vote, since all of california vote is already known... then i smiled and i said to myself i will vote only to tell William that i canceled his vote :D
William: LOL - I love that! Congratulations, though! Welcome aboard and welcome to the team. I hope you enjoy your portion of the national debt! Vote Democrat and you can see that number get larger and larger! Mark my word, though, we won't cancel each other's votes out 100% of the time - probably just on the big offices. Oh, and don't forget, while you might cancel my vote, my minions vote with me -- you're going to need more minions to cancel me out!
Nabil: well Cali all votes democrat for big offices, so you're already canceled out. Which makes me think i wont be voting for big offices. Especially that, as i told you before, i believe when it comes to presidency there's a general guideline that the president, regardless of which party, cannot cross. We have a dem in there and we still have troops ... See Morein afghanistan, gitmo is still alive, iraq is still chaotic. I just want to vote for whatever brings down taxes because i'm selfish and want as much of MY MONEY as possible. Whatcha think? Did i get initiated well? :D
William: You did, indeed. You and I will be voting together on every measure that reduces taxes beside what the Comrades want.
Nabil: William.. i got naturalized today, what's funny is they handed me the voter registration application and when i got it i thought well it doesnt matter how i vote, since all of california vote is already known... then i smiled and i said to myself i will vote only to tell William that i canceled his vote :D
William: LOL - I love that! Congratulations, though! Welcome aboard and welcome to the team. I hope you enjoy your portion of the national debt! Vote Democrat and you can see that number get larger and larger! Mark my word, though, we won't cancel each other's votes out 100% of the time - probably just on the big offices. Oh, and don't forget, while you might cancel my vote, my minions vote with me -- you're going to need more minions to cancel me out!
Nabil: well Cali all votes democrat for big offices, so you're already canceled out. Which makes me think i wont be voting for big offices. Especially that, as i told you before, i believe when it comes to presidency there's a general guideline that the president, regardless of which party, cannot cross. We have a dem in there and we still have troops ... See Morein afghanistan, gitmo is still alive, iraq is still chaotic. I just want to vote for whatever brings down taxes because i'm selfish and want as much of MY MONEY as possible. Whatcha think? Did i get initiated well? :D
William: You did, indeed. You and I will be voting together on every measure that reduces taxes beside what the Comrades want.
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