To contact us Click HERE Oh what a horrible year we've had! Everything is going so badly. No, wait, that's not quite right, is it? On the Internet, you see people trolling and grooming and posting messages about how awful things are. This is nothing new, we've seen it in real life since time began. During every economic recovery I have lived through, there were legions of people willing to tell you how awful things were and why everything was so rotten. These are called depressed people and you shouldn't listen to them.
During the 1950's, we had a huge post-war recovery and our nation was prosperous. But to listen to some folks, it was an awful time, what with nuclear annihilation, the cold war, and youth gangs and all. The fabulous fifties, according to some, were a dark and dreary time!
And during the 1960's, the economy boomed again. But if you listen to some folks, their only impression of the 1960's was race riots, assassinations, and the Chicago 7. Yea, bad things happen - they always do, you know. But a lot of great things happen as well. People seem to forget the latter.
The 1970's? Well, they did kind of suck. Nixon resigned in disgrace, we made a hasty exit from Vietnam, stag-flation and oil embargos paralyzed the country, and Jimmy Carter was President. But you know what? We still drove off to work every day - in our crappy 70's cars - and people still had a lot of fun. I know I did. I spend most of my time water-skiing and smoking pot. There are worse ways to sit out a decade.
In the 1980's, the economy slowly recovered - but the naysayers would have you think that "Reaganomics" killed off all economic activity of that decade. The opposite was really the truth. Gas prices eased and salaries shot up. Things were looking up and people were doing well.
The 1990's, of course, were the Clinton years. And you may think he was a failed President for getting a blowjob in the oval office, the economy prospered and frankly, I made a ton of money during that decade.
the 2000's were marked by our war on Terror - but it is a war we have largely won. While we may never wipe out all these terrorist groups (any jackass with a stick of dynamite and two friends can start another one), I think we proved that the "threat" of Al Quaeda can be kept tamped down. And the economy roared again - and then tanked (as it did in 1959, 1973, 1980, 1992 and in 2001 - perhaps ends-of-decades are a good time to dump stocks!). But by 2010, it was starting to recover.
And today? Well, the recession has been officially "over" for over two years now. The definition of "recession" is when an economy shrinks, not expands. And we are expanding - nice and slowly, thank you, which personally is the way I think it should be. The slower the expansion, the longer the recovery will last. Rapid expansion is usually followed by rapid and more severe decline.
Unemployment is down, housing starts are up, existing home sales are up, home prices are up, foreclosures are starting to ebb, unemployment is down. And it will get better, too, once we stop extending "unenjoyment" indefinitely and people realize that they aren't getting that overpaid job back, ever again - and take a job they are actually entitled to.
And the stock market? Way up over this time last year. In fact, I made more on my investments this year than I did in ordinary income from work. My investment portfolio went up 13% since December of last year, which is not a bad annual rate of return. Will this continue at this rate? Well, we have already seen a drop of a couple of percentage points due to Boehner's boners. But like July 2011, we will bounce back from this, eventually.
My life insurance went up a nice 5.7% which today is considered a good rate of return. And while my income reached a nadir in the summer of 2012 (partly because I took a two-month vacation), my income is ticking up for 2013, and looks to be pretty good for the new year.
And my debt load is pitiful. I am carrying a small balance on my business credit card ($2000) for some filing fees owed to me by a client, but that is about it. No mortgage, no car loan, no staggering monthly payments to make. Even if the shit hits the fan, I'm set - or at least better off that I was four years ago.
In other words, not only are things not all that bad, they are pretty freaking good, compared to say, 2008.
But no one wants to admit to that. Why is this? The political types want to say everything is rotten, so they can blame political opponents. This is how you gain power and leverage in a political debate. And both parties do it, although the GOP, being the party out of power, does it more lately.
And people like to feel sorry for themselves - wallow in self-pity. It feels good to feel bad, sometimes, and we all like to indulge ourselves, from time to time. But some folks take this too far, and it blows up into a full-blown mental depression, and nothing you can say will make them think otherwise.
In fact, good news is bad news to such idiots. You tell them that the stock market is up, and they say, "Well, wait for the double-dip recession! I read about it on a website!" Or you say that housing sales are up, and they argue, "Well, that is only because the banks are holding back on foreclosures!" For every piece of good news, they have some long-winded and improbable theory as to why it is actually bad news.
And the way economies work - the way human nature works - things will get better and then get worse. This isn't the last recession you will see in your lifetime or the life of mankind. So the naysayers can always say, "I told you so!" even if they have to wait a decade or more for their negative dreams to come true.
But more to the point, life is what it is, regardless of your credit score or the level of the Dow, or who is in the White House. A beautiful day in the park doesn't have a score or level or credit, and never goes into recession or recovery. You have to look at life like a customer sometimes, and appreciate it when it is beautiful and not worry so much about nonsense like jet ski payments and new apps for your cell phone.
2013 will be a good year - regardless of the debt ceiling, the fiscal cliff, the stock market, or unemployment rates. Whether you enjoy life or not has a lot less to do with money than you think.
But even if you measure your life in terms of dollars and cents, 2013 seems poised to be a pretty good year, no matter how you slice it.
To contact us Click HERE When you set out to do what you wanted to do, it is time to stop. I have enjoyed writing this blog over the last four years. But like all good things, it has to come to an end. I have been writing this blog since November 2008 - almost 2000 posts at this point. It is time to call it a day. Why? A number of reasons.
1. I did what I set out to do, and I'm done.
2. The bog has become a bit of a time-bandit for me.
3. The postings are becoming repetitive and redundant.
4. I am not sure my message is getting across - or could get across - due to human nature.
This last reason is most troubling. The transformation I have gone through in the last five years has not been some sudden revelation on my part, but rather, I think, a transformative change that occurs in most people as they reach a certain stage and age in life. It does not occur in everybody, or at the same age, of course. Many folks never end up "getting it" and go to their graves as angry and destitute middle-class people.
But I think when you reach a certain age, and face retirement and death in the face, you realize that life isn't what you thought it was at age 20, or even age 40. And for many people, this becomes a "mid-life crises" where they get a divorce and spend even more money. But for others, it is a time for taking stock and realizing that the party doesn't go on forever, and what's more, that in a very short time, the earning years will end - and that is a good thing. I don't want to work forever. Or if I do, I want it to be a personal choice not something forced upon me.
If you try to tell a 20-something that spending all their income on pot, beer, cars, cell phones, and other bling is just a stupid waste of money and net worth, you are shouting to deaf ears. Kids want toys, and being "adults" for the first time in their lives, they want to drink deep from the well of life - even if it means borrowing from their future self to do it. They set themselves up for misery later in life and there ain't much that can be done about it.
And when that misery kicks in, at age 30 to 40 - when it seems that they never will get out of debt, and no matter how hard they work, they never seem to get ahead - they will blame others rather than look inward at their own malfeasance. It is Wall Street's fault! It is the Big Corporations! Nothing you can say will convince them that their credit card debt was a result of their own life choices - chasing after frequent flyer miles instead of low interest rates. And their four years of Party U. that was paid for by student loans? Has to be someone else's fault - along with that onerous "funny money" mortgage they signed. Right?
It is simple human nature. It isn't about to change. A very few people might "get it" - but not many. I know I didn't, until about age 50. I thought, like most Americans, that chasing after "things" was the point in life, and that having nice stuff meant you were wealthy. I was wrong.
A reader e-mailed me when I announced I was ending the blog and said, "Congratulations for not falling into the blog trap!" which I thought was an interesting comment. A blog can be a trap - a time bandit that sucks up all your energy and starts to lose focus. And after a while, it just peters out - as so many do that I have seen - and people forget about them or abandon them. Better to leave intentionally than to just give up. Better to leave on a high note, as Seinfeld would say.
And who knows? Maybe I can organize and revise these better postings into a more coherent narrative and put them into e-Book on Amazon or something. It would be a better use of my time. I did not "monetize" this blog as the sorts of side-bar ads that would appear would be for the worst sort of odious deals that I rail against. And that is one thing I am proud of. This blog, for better or worse, is not just some Search Engine Optimized "content" designed to generate click-through revenue - like so much of the crap on the Internet today. And I may revisit some of these postings and "polish them up" a bit, correct typos and misspellings, dead links, and whatnot.
Writing this blog has improved my writing skills and typing ability, both of which were no slouches to begin with. While I could do about 60-80 wpm before, I am hitting 100 wpm on occasion, and fully "touch-typing" today, not looking at the keyboard at all. It is helpful for my career, which involves a lot of writing. But what about the journey, and what have I accomplished? When I started this blog, I was in debt. I had been in debt a lot, having well over a million dollars in mortgage debt at one time. But that was for investment properties, most of which I sold before the market crash (my office building sold in 2008, after the crash, but I still realized a $400,00 capital gain from that, which is rally what precipitated the crises that started me down this road).
I realized that I made a lot of money in life - millions in fact. Most people do, even at a $50,000 a year job, you will make over a million dollars by the time you retire. But where did it all go? Here I was, 48 years old, having made a ton of money and still in debt. I had a mortgage on my home, another on my vacation home, and thanks to a capital gains fiasco, I had a $40,000 credit card bill to pay off.
At the same time, I owned two boats, five cars, a jeep, an RV, an antique tractor, and a host of other "things" all of which were very nice things, and were "paid for" but were in fact costing me money. The taxes alone on my two homes were costing me $10,000 a year. I was spending another $5000 a year on homeowner's insurance. I was paying $500 a month on life insurance policies. I was still making the final payments on my student loans! And I was paying for two internet connections, landlines, cell phones - all sorts of stuff.
And foolishly, I did not rent out my vacation home to help cover some of these costs.
That is where the money all went. It went to lots of little expenses, lots of little purchases, and a lot to interest payments on credit cards and mortgages.
And then of course, the market crashed. My income dropped as the economy collapsed. While I had a good amount in savings, I saw much of this cut in half by the recession. And while I could "keep all the balls in the air" with a high income, as my income declined, it became readily apparent that I was burning through savings to pay expenses.
Something had to be done - and should have been done a long time ago. I realized that while I could "afford" fancy cars and vacation homes and boats, having all of them at once was just too much. And it was too much work, as well. Mowing five acres of lawn took hours every week. And changing the oil on five cars? Winterizing two homes and two boats? Forgetaboutit! I realized that I was a slave to possessions - they owned me, I didn't own them.
It is possible, in this country, to live the life of what in the past would have been a rich man, on a middle-class salary today. But maintaining all that sort of stuff is where it all breaks down. Really rich folks can afford to hire people to paint their mansions and maintain their fancy cars. When we have to pay someone to do these things, that is where we run out of money.
I started by cutting expenses - to the bone. I cut my homeowner's insurance costs in half, merely by shopping around and going to higher deductibles and lower coverage. I cut my life insurance down to zero by converting policies to paid-up status (and they now pay me every year instead). I shopped our cell plan, our landline, our internet services. I looked at every area of spending - our food, our clothing, our utility bills. And I realized that there was no one area of "waste" in my life, but rather a lot of spending a little too much here and a little too much there, that added up to a lot of money over time. You stop watching the little things and they become large things in short order.
Just saving $10 a day, for example, adds up to $3650 a year, which if invested, would be a couple hundred thousand in retirement. And for most folks, this "sacrifice" might mean little more than packing your own lunch or not buying a Starbucks. And yet many middle class people say they can't afford to save!
And credit cards! I got rid of the high-interest-rate ones and rolled them over into low-rate cards and then paid them off. It was difficult, and it took years to bring the balance down. How I allowed myself to get into that debacle, still eludes me. What was I thinking, signing a loan document at 14.5%?
I tried early on to save my lifestyle - which proved to be pointless. While I was able to cut costs, the expense of owning so much "stuff" was still considerable. Cars need repairs over time. Antique Tractors strip a camshaft gear. And while I always wanted to rebuild a flathead Ford, it is better to do such things at a time and place of your own choosing, rather than to be forced to do it as the lawn gets higher and higher.
But pride goeth before the fall. And we see this all the time in the recent meltdown - people wanting to hang on to upside-down mini-mansions and luxury cars, rather than be perceived as "giving up" by their neighbors. We see this all the time here on Retirement Island - people getting reverse mortgages so they can "hang onto their homes" even if they really would rather downsize to something simpler and easier to maintain as they get older. The reason? They don't want to be embarrassed in front of people they don't even know or care about and be perceived as "poor".
Myself, after owning eight homes over the years, realize that a house is just that - a house. And since none of the houses I owned were Frank Lloyd Wright homes, they were not worthwhile making into showplace estates. You can make the perfect lawn - as my neighbors have done - but who really cares that you have made a bland and inoffensive tract home look tidy? No one. And yet that will be the epitaph of many an older man - "He had a really nice lawn."
We were growing tired of maintaining two homes, too. It was a lot of work. And frankly, while it is fun to go on vacation, it is not necessarily fun to go on vacation every year to the same place, and spend half your time on home maintenance. Houses, like cars, don't like to "sit" unoccupied, and vacation homes have special troubles of their own, just from sitting.
So we bit the bullet and sold it - at a loss, of course, the first time in our lives we lost money on Real Estate. We sold the boats, we sold the cars, we sold the tractor, the Jeep. It wasn't sad to see it all go. It was liberating. And most people will never have the experience of going into the bank and depositing a check for a half-million dollars - to a befuddled bank-teller in training who had to call the manager.
And paying off the mortgage and that remaining credit card debt? Priceless. It was like, well, ecstatic. Like 100 orgasms in a row, that first acid trip, or whatever. The idea that you had no debt whatsoever was as liberating as, well, liberation. I was, for the first time since I was 21, no longer a slave to debt.
But it hasn't ended there. I realized that while knocking $30,000 a year out of my budget was good, there were still a lot of expenses in my life - homeowners insurance, car insurance, utilities, property taxes, and the like. It still costs $1000 a month just to live in a house "free and clear" here. And maybe, someday down the road, we will sell this place and move to something smaller and easier to care for - so we can do things rather than own things. When building our pottery studio, we realized that you can build a nice house for not a lot of money - and not need a lot of room to live in. A simple Park Model home, for example, might be all we need. Who knows?
As 2012 winds down, the world is more uncertain than ever, but appears to be headed for recovery. What will happen is anyone's guess. But today, we are prepared for the worst far better than we were in the past. We have no mortgage to go upside-down on, and we don't have to worry about making X number of dollars a year to get by, as our personal life expenses are down to nil. If we make more than that, we can spend the money on doing things rather than owning things and we look forward to that a lot. For example, renting a 40' yacht in June of this year, in France for a week. It will cost less that the storage and insurance costs on our 28' boat for one year. And I don't have to change the oil or grease the outdrive, either!
And the most wonderful thing of all is that I could retire right now, if I had to, as I have enough money to retire. How did I do that? Simply by lowering my lifestyle costs. If I can live on $50,000 a year, as opposed to $150,000 a year, the money I have in the bank can go a long, long way. More than three times as far, in fact.
I suppose some of the old habits may creep back, over time. Perhaps. It is inevitable. As we make more money, we tend to spend more - Boyle's law at work. But I doubt I will be going back to a barbershop and spending $20 on a haircut - for the rest of my life - as we now have these hair clippers. And I doubt I will ever set foot in a Starbucks again - now that we are drinking tea (and coffee today just gives me horrific cramps). And while we may visit the Harris Teeter for their Indian Food Section, we still shop at Wal-Mart for their inexpensive crackers, cheese, and other staples.
The battle is never over, and the marketplace is a battlefield. You have to fight the merchants and purveyors all the time. And moreover you have to fight yourself - your own urges to "have it all now" and want the latest shiny, shiny, instead of having less "junk", saving more, and having real wealth.
So, dear reader, if you got something out of this blog, I am happy. But as I noted when I started it, I wrote this blog for my own purposes - to turn my own life around. Writing about something tends to reinforce ideas, and the more you pound these ideas into your own head the more you program your brain with positive normative cues.
If I can leave you with one thought, that would be it. Stop watching television, the media, and the advertisements that all pound poor normative cues into your head. You don't need to be "up to date on the news!" other than the weather. And obsessing about politics is a bad idea. Concentrate on your own life and what you want out of it. Unplug from society's expectations. Stop worrying about what other people think of you, and worry more about what you think of yourself.
Be happy. It isn't hard to do in this country, and sadly, so few do it.
Are you ready to stop wasting time when it comes to replying to rental inquiries for your vacation home or condo? ivacationonline unveils its new Email Quoting System for vacation rental inquires. During the busy seasons of the vacation rental business the inquiries can come in droves. This is especially true when you are property manager and are handling the bookings for ten, twenty, thirty or more properties. With the average property getting 20-30 inquiries a week, multiplying that amount of emails by 30 can lead to an email overload.
Individually answering each email with additional information and pricing, not only wastes time but can cost you bookings as well. The new email quote system gives you the option of answering emails with a single click or just a simple copy and paste.
The email quote system gives you 3 options:
Property is available email
Property is unavailable email
Visitor email
In each pre-propagated email you can put in pertinent information, answer redundant questions, send a price quote, and have a link directly to your properties booking page. This saves you time by not having to answer several emails to the same potential renter, and because now they have practically everything they want to know in one email they can make the decision to rent your property.
Many vacation rental customers will send out 10 or more inquiries and normally cannot remember which property was which, but with the ivacationonline.com Email Quote System you will be sending them; a picture of the property, the address, the pricing breakdown, down payment amount, security deposit, and payment schedule. Don't forget the email includes a direct link to your booking page so that a renter can book their stay online with ease. This link to the booking page makes it easier than ever for a potential renter to book you property online.
The system, once you have set up your responses can save you approximately 80% of the time you were spending answering emails. That is correct 80%, and this time saved is money made. It is proven in this industry that home owners and managers who respond faster to inquiries GET MORE BOOKINGS!
Another great feature of the system is when a visitor clicks on your Email Quote button they have the option to send all of the information to every person in their party. This is a major factor in getting more booking and renting your property faster. Every property owner has heard this, "I love the place but I have to show it to the others in our group to see if it is ok with them". Now everyone involved gets all of the information instantly so that your potential vacationers can make a decision faster.
So now that you know all of the time saving benefits, the money making advantages, and the customer service upgrades, you're probably asking what will this additional service from ivacationonline.com cost me. The answer is, nothing, that's right, if you are already a member of the ivacationonline.com property management software system website there is no charge to you, it' free! Also if you are not already a member of ivacationonline.com simply sign up for a 30 day free trial and see how easy renting your vacation home or condo can be.
Visit http://www.ivacationonline.com/ today, click on the risk free 30 day trial offer, and enjoy the benefits of online property management.
Learn about:
Our live calendar Emailing contracts Renter updating email system Online booking payment system Credit card acceptance Damage insurance Travel insurance The "Cancel For Any Reason Plan" Voice description for your property Video and photos of your home Google Maps Picasa And our new Email Quote System
All of this and more on one easy to use website plus a customer service center that is second to none.
As if there were not enough reason to join ivacationonline.com's vacation rental property management software website, here is another. Ivacationonline is the only property management software website that actually pays to advertise on Google and other major search engines to drive targeted traffic to its website. The traffic that ivacationonline markets for on these search engines is specifically tailored to potential renters who are searching for vacation rentals.
Ivacationonline.com does not directly benefit from this traffic or from the rentals its customers receive. So why do they do it? Simple they what their customers to be successful. Ivacationonline.com is sending potential renters directly to you and they are paying the bill. It's just one of the many, many reasons you should be using ivacationonline's online property management software and if you already are a member it is just one more reason for something you already know. That ivacationonline.com is the best way to manage your vacation properties, 2nd home, timeshare condos, or rental property.
Vacation Rental Site Reviews I am always intrigued to find out the stories behind successful companies. Even the largest company had to start somewhere and the path to success is rarely smooth or even planned. To take a case in point, VRBO founder David Clouse and his wife Lynn started VRBO.com (Vacation Rental by Owners) as a way to help rent their ski condo. As the site grew it took up more and more of there time until it became a full time job. VRBO was a pioneer in the "vacation rentals by owner" industry, quickly becoming the market leader, before eventually being acquired by Homeaway. David had spent a number of years as a programmer in the hospitality industry and initially was simply using his skills to save money on rental agents. In the early days, websites were fairly primitive and VRBO was initially no exception, with no graphics and limited functionality. However, through hard work and a keen business sense, David and Lynn built a very successful business. VRBO is still sometimes criticised for his fairly basic user interface .... but you can't argue with brand and business success. If you are interested, you can out find more about the background to vrbo.com and other successful internet companies at Interviewbooks.com
To contact us Click HERE How does this place stay in business? In a previous posting, I opined that Radio Shack might be gone in 2011, as many prognosticators had suggested. It was a Zombie company, the living dead, just waiting for that final shotgun blast to the head.
But here it is, almost 2013 and the company still is in business.
But for how long?
Date
Qtr
EPS
Revs
10/23/12
Q312
-$0.33
$1B
7/25/12
Q212
-$0.21
$953.2M
4/24/12
Q112
-$0.08
$1.01B
2/21/12
Q411
$0.12
$1.39B
10/25/11
Q311
$0.15
$1.03B
7/26/11
Q211
$0.31
$941.9M
4/25/11
Q111
$0.33
$1.06B
2/22/11
Q410
$0.51
$1.37B
Note that "revenues" are not profits but merely gross income. Net profit per share at Radio Shack is negative, which means they are losing money.
The earnings trend does not look good. But oddly enough, their revenues are relatively flat, if not trending upward slightly. What is really crazy is that even as the company is losing money, it is still paying dividends!
Ex/Eff Date
Type
Cash Amount
Declaration Date
Record Date
Payment Date
5/30/2012
Cash
0.125
5/17/2012
6/1/2012
6/22/2012
3/14/2012
Cash
0.125
2/16/2012
3/16/2012
3/30/2012
11/22/2011
Cash
0.5
10/25/2011
11/25/2011
12/15/2011
11/23/2010
Cash
0.25
11/8/2010
11/26/2010
12/16/2010
11/24/2009
Cash
0.25
11/9/2009
11/27/2009
12/16/2009
11/25/2008
Cash
0.25
11/6/2008
11/28/2008
12/17/2008
11/27/2007
Cash
0.25
11/12/2007
11/29/2007
12/19/2007
11/29/2006
Cash
0.25
11/6/2006
12/1/2006
12/20/2006
11/29/2005
Cash
0.25
9/30/2005
12/1/2005
12/19/2005
What is up with that? As I discussed before with regard to dividend stocks, dividends are great, provided the company is making money to pay for them. When a company pays dividends while losing money, the end result is that the company is eating itself.
And the market seems to be recognizing this, as the share price has dropped below $2 - down from as much as $11 in the last year (you have to feel sorry for those who paid that much for the stock!).
What is going on here? Is the company merely failing, or is it being driven into the ground (Bain-style)? After all, if revenues are flat, why are profits (earnings) dropping? Part of the problem might be debt load, part might be tighter margins on newer cell phone products. Part might be poor management and poor cost controls. Or is Amazon taking down another brick-and-mortar store? Or could it be all of the above?
As this article noted, the company's debt rating is in the tank. With about $700 Million in debt, until recently, the company had a pretty hefty load (although according to some sources, the company had, at least until recently, about $500 Million in cash and cash equivalents).
It is hard to know what is going on at Radio Shack, which is a good reason not to bet on it. As I noted in a previous posting about Sears, it can take a long time for a company to finally sputter and die. No company can continue indefinitely with negative earnings. And I for one am not convinced that the company has the cache in the market to attract customers anymore. There is no value in the Trademarks and underlying good will. To my mind, Radio Shack used to mean a place you went to buy resistors and solder - until it morphed into a place to buy cheap radio-controlled cars.
2013 will be an interesting year for a lot of companies like Radio Shack, Sears, J.C. Penny, Martha Stewart, and others - companies that have been hemorrhaging cash and whose business models are outdated or out of style.
A lot of people are crying that newspapers are dying - because of the Internet. But the Internet is little more than a format-change. Journalism started dying long before the Internet came along.
The terms "Journalism" and "Journalist" have taken on new meanings in recent years. We tend to think, without thinking, of "Journalism" as "The News" and a "Journalist" as a Newscaster or reporter, or perhaps a writer for a daily paper.
But the terms once had a different meaning. Literally, Journalism referred to keeping a journal, and a journalist as one who wrote for a journal. Mary Chestnut, who wrote a diary of the Civil War, which today is viewed as an amazing historical record, was a Journalist in that regard. She wrote of her life experiences. Samuel Clemens and H.L. Mencken were journalists in the sense that they were people with experiences in life who wrote, not people who set out to be copy writers.
Today, Journalists are cranked out by schools, such as the Newhouse School at Syracuse University. And my brief brush with their sort of "Journalism" as a student was a real eye-opener. What passes for writing, in today's papers and online sites, is often horrifically bad. The idea is to get people to buy papers, or today, to click on stories. Gaudy headlines sell papers or generate click-through revenue. So the idea is to punch up or sensationalize a story.
That is, unless, of course, it might annoy the advertisers or piss off the powers-that-be. In that case, they can turn any story into a series of blandishments that say little or nothing of value, unless you can really read between the lines.
I wrote a story for the Daily Orange once, about a student retreat held by S.U. for "student leaders" (which for some reason, included me). A student had recently been raped by a football player and it made the national news. We wanted to discuss this, but the people in charge nixed it. The Assistant Dean of Students, an old battle axe said to me, "Mr. Bell, what you fail to understand is that the football program brings in a lot of money to the school!"
So there you have it. Anyone in the football program can do as they please - rape co-eds, or apparently in the case of Penn State, abuse 11-year-old boys. Maybe times have changed since then. And maybe they would have changed sooner had the media not been a complicit ally.
I wrote the story, telling what I heard and say. The editor said it was a good story, but I needed to "punch it up with quotes!". That was his line - "punch it up with quotes!" which apparently a professor at Newhouse told him. I thought the one quote - from the Assistant Dean of Students, was punchy enough. But that was the one quote he didn't want to put in. "We don't want to be too controversial" he said, realizing that the school held the purse strings to the student fee, and hence his budget.
So the story got watered down and I walked away from it and asked them to take my name off it. It was published as "Students Leaders Attend Retreat, Discuss Student Issues" with three paragraphs of non-alarming fluff.
That was the drivel coming out of the Newhouse School back then. And since then, it has gotten worse. Today it is all about capturing eyeballs and click-bait. They want you to "stay tuned" for a story that is made to seem more than it is - or get you to click on a story just so they can get click-through revenue. So they put alarming headlines on plebeian stories. You are being baited.
And few media outlets are honest enough to say this. Well, there is one, the Onion. In a recent article entitled, "Please Click on Our Banner Ads" the satirical newspaper stretched irony so far as to expose the underlying truth:
Oh, I'm sorry. Did you think The Onion actually cared about the integrity of its brand? Or that we paid even one single thought to the expectations of our readers? Or that the enduring quality of The Onion's content mattered even in the slightest? Ha! That's rich. No, none of that stuff matters at all. I mean, don't get me wrong, we want tons of people to go to our website and click on our news stories, for sure. But the only reason we want this to happen is so that their eyes might, by chance, wander over, like little lost children, to a nearby ad. You think the New York Times is any different? Don't kid yourself. What you are taking part in here is not a free exchange of information provided by The Onion as some sort of noble act of public service. Lord, no. What you are taking part in here is, essentially, a scam. A scam in which we trick you in to visiting our website and looking at ads so that some large, omnipotent corporation will give us a big stack of cash. Or a small stack of cash. Or, really, any amount of cash at all, preferably arranged in stacks.
By the way, what I just described above is the sole aim of every website on the Internet. Literally, every one of them. It is also the sole aim of every newspaper, every magazine, and every television program. And you—you clueless, literate schmuck—are but a pawn in this game. So just let go. Just accept the fact that you are reading this column right now simply because we can count you as a number on a spreadsheet. You are a pageview, my friend. You are a "monthly unique visitor." One of millions. Nothing more, nothing less.
There you have it. You are click-bait, nothing more.
To contact us Click HERE What the heck is this Mylife thing? And how do they find out so much information about you?
If you ever google your own name (an exercise in narcissism, but then again, so is a blog), or that of a friend or family member, you will get hits from a website called "mylife". And if you click on the link, you will see some information about you or the person whose name you entered. Some of it is right, some of it is wrong, and it seems alarmingly personal to some folks.
How do they get this information? And what are they doing with it and why? To answer the second question, you need to read this Wikipedia entry about the company, which was formerly Reunion.com, a website for high school reunions. Apparently they want you to "join" the site and perhaps pay a fee. I would recommend neither.
But how do they get this information about you? And should you be worried that personal information is available on the Internet? The answer to the second question is "No" and I'll explain why later. But with regard to the first question, I think you can blame me, in part.
Data mining or data-scraping is how the site gets data. And I wrote the Patent for a company that does this sort of work for Ancestry.com and other sites. It turns out that biographical data is formatted pretty much the same on many sites, and smart neural-network type "learning algorithm" can be trained to fetch such data. Train the program to recognize certain patterns and then set it loose on the Internet, and watch the fun begin. So blame me, if you want to. But I think data harvesting and data scraping are here to stay.
What sort of information do they collect on you? Here is my entry on MyLife, apparently scraped from phone books and tax records, and perhaps even wills.
URLmylife.com/c-177672001
Places LivedJekyll Island, GA Ledyard, NYPhone(912) 635-XXXX
About Robert Bell Robert Platt Bell was born in 1960. Robert currently lives in Jekyll Island, Georgia. Before that, Robert lived in Jekyll Island, GA from 2005 to 2011. Before that, Robert lived in Ledyard, NY in 2010. Robert Platt Bell is related to Mark See, who is 47 years old and lives in Alexandria, VA. Robert Platt Bell is also related to John Bell, who is 61 years old and lives in Cambridge, MA.
In my case, the information is accurate, although I have run other people's names in the system and found some data inaccurate - claiming relationships to people with the same last name that are not correct. It is interesting that after publishing online all this information that they somehow felt that the last four digits of my phone number should be blanked out. That data is available on the online white pages and a number of other sites and indeed, is on my own website. They have privacy concerns about my address and phone number, but not more intimate information. Weird.
But getting back to "should you be concerned about this information being online?" I would answer "NO" and let me explain why.
First of all, people put up a lot of data about themselves online - a staggering amount and at a startling level of intimacy. So-called self-appointed "Privacy Advocates" scream bloody murder about Google publishing a photo of us walking on a public sidewalk. But at the same time, families put up "family websites" with photos of their children, as well as all sorts of personal information such as when they are leaving on vacation, what time they get home from work, and when little Suzie gets out of swim practice (along with a photo of Suzie in her swimsuit). Burglars, robbers, and pedophiles could have a field day with such data - and yet people post it willingly.
And of course, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and the like take this whole concept to a new level - and then sell the data to marketers. People willingly "like" their favorite restaurants and products and even sign up to link what they buy to their Facebook page. And then they scream about "privacy".
But in addition to all of that, there is something called Public Records, which are old as the hills and are now available, at least in limited form, online. You may think you have a lot of privacy in your life, but a lot of what you do is public record, and I, or anyone else, has a legal right to those records.
A newspaper recently published the names of gun owners in their County and people got "up in arms" (sorry, again) about it. But the information is public record and a Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) request is all it took to get the data.
But there are other records that are easier to find - online - without an FoIA request.
For example, property tax records are usually computerized in most Counties - as well as deed data. Usually, the .pdf files of the actual documents are not available online, unless you sign up for a subscription service, or pay a small fee for copies of the documents.
But with the click of a mouse, I can find out how much your house is assessed for, what your property taxes are, and whether you have paid them on time. A few more clicks and I can tell when your parents died and whether they left a will. A few clicks later, and I can find that your no-good brother has an unsatisfied judgement against him. These are all recorded at the public records office of most counties, and the abstracted data is available with a click of a mouse.
And if you order a copy of the will, people can figure out how much you inherited, etc.
Before you get all riled up about this, bear in mind that such public records have been public for generations, and this is not some new "Internet Thing". The Internet just makes such records more easy to retrieve - which may or may not be a good thing.
There is lots of other data you can download online as well. That no-good brother, for example, has a mugshot which can be downloaded from some law enforcement sites. And if your sister went to college, I can download an abstract of her Master's Thesis. The list goes on and on.
And if you are good at Internet searching, you can spend about 20 minutes and pretty much parcel out how people are living, where they are living, what their income level is, and what they are doing. And all of this is without even looking at their Facebook page or their family website, or whatever.
Of course, other sites are also goldmines for data. Newspaper obituaries list relatives of a deceased person and their relationship, which is how MyLife no doubt found my brother (through my Mother's obituary) but for some reason left out my late Sister and other brother. By the way, "MyLife" shows my late sister alive and well at age 63, which is sort of creepy.
Employment websites are another source of data. Many sites have biographies of various employees, particularly if they are professionals, teachers, or the like. With a few clicks, you can figure out where someone has been working, what they did, and what they are doing now. And this is all without having to access LinkedIn, either.
If you "scrape" discussion groups (which you can search on Google) you might find the person commenting on a news story or on a USENET group from back in the day. This data may fill in other areas of their background - their employment history, where they lived, etc. This may also tell you about their political views or personal views on issues. Product reviews can be very illuminating, particularly when the products are books or personal items. You can tell a lot about a person from what they post online, that is for sure.
And if you have their address (which yields all that tax data) you can look at a satellite view of their house on Google Maps, and if they have "street view" you can even see a photo of their house as well as the car in the driveway and its license number (and yes, I have done this, and it is creepy).
Now, it isn't always possible to do this, of course. You need some seed data to start with. If a person has a unique name (Robert Platt Bell, as opposed to Robert Bell) then it is easier to find information on them. A fellow named "John Smith" is harder to search, unless you have a middle name and a city of residence.
The more data you have, of course, the more data you find. If you have a full name, residence, and occupation, even the elusive "Mr. Smith" can be tracked down.
(It is funny, but I knew two couples who work or worked for the CIA, and both had a last name of Smith. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but I always gave them a hard time about it).
So, I would not sweat "MyLife". In fact, I think it is a classic baiting game they are playing. They scrape all this information and package it and get you worried about it. In fact, this seems to be a common theme among a number of sites, such as ZabaSearch and Spokeo. They send you e-mails saying that they have all this personal information about you, and that you should sign up to "opt out" of their site and/or correct the data.
In a way, it is like the "Who is searching for you on Facebook?" scams that claim to be able to track who searches for you on Facebook, or who unfriended you, or whatever. These sorts of pitches seem to hit an anxiety point in a lot of people, who are worried about what people are saying about them behind their back. People, it seems, never really graduate from High School.
Of course, the easiest and cheapest way around this, is to just not give a shit what people are saying about you, or more specifically, what some robot website has scraped about you from public records. Worry more about what you think of yourself than what others think of you.
And don't worry that your life is an "open book" as really there is no reason for secrecy in anyone's life - at least not anymore. While you may think your life is special and private, as Facebook as shown us, most of us lead very similar and dull and boring lives. Everyone's Facebook page looks the same. You are not as unique and special as you might like to think. And being weird and secret about the mundane things in your life is just creepy and a form of self-aggrandizement that shallow people use to make themselves appear to be more mysterious and deep than they really are.
So, don't sweat it. You life is already an open book. And why shouldn't it be? If nothing else, you will leave an electronic trail or legacy after you die - some indication that you existed on this planet. Trying to be "private" really just means that you won't have existed.
Are you ready to stop wasting time when it comes to replying to rental inquiries for your vacation home or condo? ivacationonline unveils its new Email Quoting System for vacation rental inquires. During the busy seasons of the vacation rental business the inquiries can come in droves. This is especially true when you are property manager and are handling the bookings for ten, twenty, thirty or more properties. With the average property getting 20-30 inquiries a week, multiplying that amount of emails by 30 can lead to an email overload.
Individually answering each email with additional information and pricing, not only wastes time but can cost you bookings as well. The new email quote system gives you the option of answering emails with a single click or just a simple copy and paste.
The email quote system gives you 3 options:
Property is available email
Property is unavailable email
Visitor email
In each pre-propagated email you can put in pertinent information, answer redundant questions, send a price quote, and have a link directly to your properties booking page. This saves you time by not having to answer several emails to the same potential renter, and because now they have practically everything they want to know in one email they can make the decision to rent your property.
Many vacation rental customers will send out 10 or more inquiries and normally cannot remember which property was which, but with the ivacationonline.com Email Quote System you will be sending them; a picture of the property, the address, the pricing breakdown, down payment amount, security deposit, and payment schedule. Don't forget the email includes a direct link to your booking page so that a renter can book their stay online with ease. This link to the booking page makes it easier than ever for a potential renter to book you property online.
The system, once you have set up your responses can save you approximately 80% of the time you were spending answering emails. That is correct 80%, and this time saved is money made. It is proven in this industry that home owners and managers who respond faster to inquiries GET MORE BOOKINGS!
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Ivacationonline.com does not directly benefit from this traffic or from the rentals its customers receive. So why do they do it? Simple they what their customers to be successful. Ivacationonline.com is sending potential renters directly to you and they are paying the bill. It's just one of the many, many reasons you should be using ivacationonline's online property management software and if you already are a member it is just one more reason for something you already know. That ivacationonline.com is the best way to manage your vacation properties, 2nd home, timeshare condos, or rental property.
Given our technical sophistication, you might think we live in an age of reason. But in reality, today is an age of disbelief - more than ever. Most people live in an alternate-reality or fantasy-world.
According to a recent article, folks in France have blocked access to a mountain, as some new-age freaks posted something online that this mountain would be a "safe zone" during the end-of-the-world on December 21, 2012. You see, that is the end-of-the-world as predicted by the Mayan Calendar, and if you go to this mountain, a big spaceship will pop out and save you.
No, I am not kidding. Adult people really believe this.
But that is just the disbelief du jour. There are plenty of other crazy stories that people believe in - including most religions - and today people are taking religion to scary new places.
When I was a kid, being a Christian had more to do with the teachings of Jesus than anything else. It seems axiomatic now - being a Christian means following the teachings of Christ. And for a guy who wore a sheet and wiped his ass with his hands, Jesus had a lot of good things to say, as opposed to his predecessors, who just wanted to kill or enslave everybody. You know, that love thy neighbor stuff and all - as opposed to eye for an eye.
Today, though, so-called Christians - the hatey-kind - are digging through the dregs of the old Testament and a crazy book called Revelations (which was apparently written by a schizophrenic old Jew) to turn Christianity into a creepy pagan superstition. These folks spend hours divining the meanings of Leviticus - picking and choosing the parts that fit their world-view, while ignoring the bits that conflict with modern living (swearing, eating lobster, enslaving people).
And then they look for "signs" that the "end times are nigh" and prepare for some end-of-the-world holocaust.
My, how Christianity has changed, in just 40 short years. Jesus is no longer the reason for the season - Apocalypse is!
But the list goes on and on. UFOs, Conspiracy theories, 9/11 Truthers, Ghost Hunters, you-name-it. And the cable channels that once touted science and discovery and showed nature films, are now catering to this new normal of para-science.
What is odd to me, as an Engineer, is that we also live in this high-tech world of semiconductor microchips and home-built spacecraft. We have split the atom down to bosons, and yet people still believe in ghosts and angels - in their daily lives.
And this goes beyond mere weird spiritual beliefs, too. People forward e-mails to one another, documenting the latest outrages of our government or our Negro President, without bothering to check whether these things are really true or not. Welfare recipients are all getting free Obamaphones! Well, not exactly. And no, it wasn't Obama who started the program, but Ronald Reagan.
They have television shows spouting conspiracy theories. Jesse Ventura supposedly documented the "internment camps" that Obama was going to use to round up dissidents, after the election was over. And I've met people who really believe this, too!
It doesn't matter if they are true, only if you believe them to be true.
Why do people believe what they want to believe as opposed to seeking out real truth? And is this a trend that has accelerated in recent years, or one that is constant?
The first question is easy to answer. People are lazy. People are selfish. And it is easier to believe things that you want to believe than it is to seek out hard knowledge - knowledge that often is painful to learn and personally painful to you.
It is easier to buy a narrative that says you are a victim - of the government, big business, welfare queens, take your pick. And the Left and the Right both play this game. If you are a Liberal, you posit yourself as a victim of Wall Street. If you are a Conservative, you posit yourself as a victim of Big Government. And both extremes will tell you that the reason they underfunded their 401(k) were these big trends that were beyond their control. It is all someone else's fault!
The reality is, of course, that people of all political stripes, myself included, make poor financial decisions and spend money on junk we don't need. It is human nature to goof off now or want now, and pay for it all tomorrow. So we go into debt, we fail to save, and we end up paying the piper. And we don't want to look inwardly at what we did wrong - when so many people out there are selling excuses that you can just try on and wear.
So the folks who bought the mini-mansion who later lost it to foreclosure are not stupid for buying a house they cannot afford - they are victims of the Bush economic bubble or the Obama welfare state - take your pick. Either excuse is as equally as lame.
So it is human nature to believe in stupid shit - that faeries will grant magic wishes and that Leprachauns have a pot of gold - that is for sale by Glenn Beck!
But what about the second question? Are we becoming more unhinged in this day and age than in the past? This is harder to quantify. All I can say is, if you look at history, over time, a large number of people have engaged in wishful thinking or distorted thinking, for huge swaths of our history.
Just in the last Century, we had millions of people believe in silly things like Communism, Fascism, or Nazism, just as an example. Millions of people really believed that country would do better with one guy in charge, provided he isn't totally insane. Problem is, the guy in charge usually ends up being insane, nearly every time.
Yet people believed fervently in these -isms. They fought wars over them. They were willing to die for these "causes" that in retrospect seem pretty stupid.
Or take the hippie movement of the 1960's. Young people actually thought we could "live together in peace and harmony" just by willing it to be so. In the 1970's, folks thought you could do cocaine and it would actually enhance your life. Today it is steroids, oxycontin, or methamphetamine.
Crazy religions, crazy cults - they have all been around a long time, or a predecessor religion or cult took their place. Scientology is nothing new - it has just progressed from outlier cult to mainstream religion, much as Mormonism has. And both are based on some pretty fantastic stories - and by "fantastic" I don't mean "really really good" either.
Go back the the Century before and look at the attitudes of people then. Folks fought a war over slavery - the very idea of which today seems, well, insane. And yet folks would rationalize enslaving other humans, often using religion as a backstop. And in terms of financial malfeasance, the various trusts and bubbles of the 1800's make today's Wall-Street shenanigans look like child's play. And how could all of this have happened in the age of steam? After all, with such high-tech machinery as the locomotive, could people really believe in ghosts and faeries? You betcha!
Yet they did, and today they still do. And perhaps that is because most people have little or no clue how their world actually works. They don't know what a Higg's Boson is, so they read an article in a dumbed-down "science" magazine, calling it the "God Particle". They don't know what goes on inside their smart phones or their flat-screen televisions, or indeed even in their automobiles. It is all so scary and unnerving.
So, maybe it is easier to believe in disbelief. One website out there basically claims that all of our science today is based on "captured alien technology" and YouTube videos abound with this sort of nonsense. After all, we are just too darn dumb to build pyramids or microprocessors! Thank God for those aliens! We'd be beating rocks together without them!
So what is the point of this posting? Simple. Act rationally in an irrational world and you will get ahead.
This is not to say you will end up as rich as Warren Buffet or something, but that you will end up better off in your own life.
And acting rationally means looking inward at your own life and examining what it is that you have done to affect your life, rather than looking for easy answers in spirituality, myths, conspiracy theories, or victim mentality. God is not going to help you by praying to him - you have to get up off your ass and help yourself.
Similarly, if you want to believe that all your setbacks in life are the fault of someone else, chances are, you will continue to have setbacks, as you will never learn from your mistakes and failures. This is not to say that other actors are at work - they are. But in nearly every situation, you have some culpability in the equation.
A guy speeding in a blinding rainstorm spins out and whacks into my car. Was I at fault? Most people would say "NO" and when you talk to people about car accidents, they typically have this "He was at fault, I was entirely innocent" story to tell, even if they were the ones who ran through the crosswalk and crushed a gaggle of children.
But in looking inwardly, I realize that driving in heavy traffic in a rainstorm is very dangerous, not because I might wipe out, but because some other jackalope will likely plow into me. Today, when it starts raining like that and people start driving too fast and too close together, I get off the road and park it until the traffic dies down and the weather improves. I can't control the other drivers - but I still have control over my own actions and can ameliorate risk - even if I can't eliminate it entirely.
In your financial life, this is also true. So many Americans today whine and complain about how hard they have it - sending me messages from their iPhones to that effect. They are living paycheck-to-paycheck, can hardly afford to make the lease payments on their car and their minimum credit card payments!
It has to be someone else's fault, as having lots of debt and electronic toys is "normal" and they are entitled to that sort of thing. But really, this is not the case. If you want to get ahead in life, you have to accumulate wealth, not spend it. And if you spend it, you have no one but yourself to blame.
Looking for easy answers is looking for the wrong answers. Belief is a fine and wonderful thing for "answering" the imponderables in life - why we are here, what happens after you die, what is existance - that sort of thing. It is a horrific thing to use in your daily life (as some religions suggest you do) for answers like "how much do I have in my checking account" and "how do I pay off this loan?"
We may be living in an age of disbelief, but you can take advantage of this by being a rational actor in an irrational world.
To contact us Click HERE There is a real Who's Who that lists all the names of the beautiful people. You are not among them.
I got another telemarketer call. The telemarketers have realized that the "Do Not Call" registry is about as effective as a restraining order on an abusing husband - and they have given up all pretense of even trying to obey the law.
But, like Police Tape, this does help the consumer. You should assume that any unsolicited phone call is for a scam, just as any unsolicited e-mail or regular mail entreaty. If someone calls, e-mails, texts, or mails you, asking for money, just assume it is fraudulent, period.
I pick up the phone and I say "hello" and there is a pause. Usually this is a good time to just hang up, as that pause means a computer robodialer has detected your voice and is connecting you with a telemarketer, probably offshore.
After a short pause, some clicking and beeping, a foreign-sounding voice says, "Mr. Robert Bell?" and I say, "Hello" and they say, "may I speak to Mr. Robert Bell" to which I say, "Speaking". Since slammers and crammers often try to get you to say the word "YES" over the phone, it is a good idea to avoid saying that word on the phone, as they will record it as use it as "evidence" that you consented to a $50 a month calling feature. Well, at least they used to do that. Today such scams are less common, but not obsolete.
I asked, "Who is calling please?" to which she kept saying "Mr. Robert Bell?" which is another sure sign of a scam, as people who don't immediately identify themselves on the phone are usually con artists.
Then comes the real tip-off, "How are you today?"
Telemarketers always start off with this phrase, as it disarms the listener. "Fine, thank you" is what you are trained from birth to reply. You have to avoid this urge and say, "Who is calling, please?"
She finally says, "I am calling from Who's Who, and we want to confirm your entry in this year's edition..."
I tell her she is violating the Do Not Call Registry, and she replies, "Well, this is a confirmation call, and...."
But I had hung up by then.
What is Who's Who and what is this scam? I was prompted to write this as when I mentioned it to Mark, only five years my junior, he said "What the heck is Who's Who?"
What the heck, indeed. Back before the turn of the Century - and the previous one as well - there were books like Burke's Peerage and such, where the "important people" were listed in a big book, and if you were someone, you were written up in it. Who's Who was one of these books, and over the years, it has expanded to include celebrities, businesspeople, and the social set. If you were in Who's Who back in 1967, you were important!
Of course, the Internet and Social Media have changed all that. Today, nobody reads Who's Who.
And by that, I mean the real Who's Who. Since those days, a number of fake ones have sprung up. And those are the ones that call you on the phone and ask to "verify" your information. The lady who called me was not from the original Who's Who, but was from one of the knock-off versions - or could have been an utter scam artist entirely. We'll never know.
For people of my generation, I guess, the term "Who's Who" still might resonate, although I think the term is pretty dated in this day and age.
The scam is simple. And by "scam" I don't mean they are committing any crime - far from it, they are too clever for that! Rather, they just take your money and give you something that I believe is of little or no value in return.
They call you up to "confirm" your listing in Who's Who, and then ask for a lot of personal data. For a nominal fee, they say, you can have an "expanded biography" in the book (which no doubt is online these days). People who are narcissists (and we all are, to some extent) fall for this and cough up $25 to $250 or more, just to make themselves famous.
And just like the poetry scam, the company might actually publish such a book. Since the title is in the Public Domain, they can publish "Who's Who of Lawyers" or "Who's Who of Doctors" or "Who's Who of College Students" or whatever. So long as at least one copy is published, or it is put on a website, they can claim they are fulfilling their half of the obligation. And usually they do sell copies - to the people who paid to get into it! So it is not illegal. It's just a stupid waste of money and ego-stroking.
It is not a good value - and in that regard, I consider it a scam. But like most good scams, it preys upon the greed of the mark - that you want your name in lights so badly, that you will pay for the privilege. And like most excellent scams, the mark, once they realize they have been had, will be too embarrassed to tell anyone about their foolishness. Secrecy is the con artist's best friend!
Of course, there are "legitimate" books out there that do similar shakedowns. Martindale-Hubbel, for example, has a listing of all the lawyers in the country. I'm in there, and no, I would not pay for an "expanded" listing. (I saw a physical copy in a junk shop the other day, there I was, listed in Alexandria, Virginia). But if you are a Lawyer, they will call you and ask if you want an "expanded biography" published, for an extra fee, of course. No thanks.
In a way, it is like the yellow pages - there are so many of them today. You get a listing for free, but those full-page ads are not cheap. And like the yellow pages, I think these sorts of books are a poor source for leads of any source, and a poor investment for a businessperson. No one uses the yellow pages anymore. And the best leads are from referrals from real live friends (not online review sites!) not advertisement books.
I would not waste my money getting into any version of "Who's Who" or other book that claims to honor the "best and brightest". I realize they are a scam, as they asked to list my name, which is proof positive that they are not seeking out the "best and brightest" but instead those with a pulse.
Sadly, some folks don't get this. I have seen resumes with "Listed in Who's Who of College Students!" on them. This is not really a credential, and likely, it will be one reason your resume gets tossed in the garbage. "Clueless sod!" the HR manager will say, chuckling softly, as your crumpled resume and cover letter bounce off the edge of his wastebasket....
To contact us Click HERE Festivus was a joke from the Seinfeld show. Unfortunately, a lot of people didn't get the joke, and actually celebrate this new-found holiday. Is this how Christmas got started? Perhaps. Christmas time is here, and it is not a favorite time of year for me, or most other people. Kids love it, because they get a shiny new bike and an X-box, and maybe an iPad. Unless you are poor, of course, then it sucks. Too bad for you. Don't be poor - that's the real meaning of Christmas, right?
Now, some of you Fox News Geniuses are going to say I am waging "war on Christmas" but as always, people who watch Fox News are full of shit. Christmas, as its original Christian holiday is a fine thing in my book. A minor holiday celebrating the birth of Christ - a good way to break up the Winter Solstice. And as even the Pope reminds us, not a major holiday and no, not really in Winter. But there it is, so there you have it.
But the Frosty-the-Snowman, Santa Claus, Little Drummer Boy, Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer, and even the Grinch, are all added on "modern" traditions that date back to no more than 100 years - in some instances less than 50 years. Many were created in my lifetime. These are not time-honored traditions of yore.
And new ones are being added all the time, even as we speak.
And the worst "tradition that is not a tradition" is this idea that we all have to spend massive amounts of money buying things for people - things they do not want or need - so the retail merchants of America and our corporate overlords can show tidy profit margins. We are exhorted to consume - for little or no purpose whatsoever.
And all of this would be fine and all, if it were enjoyable. But Christmas is a season laden with guilt. Did you send out your Christmas cards yet? What about a present for Uncle Henry? What do you get a guy lives in a bunker? A gift box of ammo? Christmas MRE's? What?
It is, of course, all silly. It is nice to buy presents for the kiddies - after all, they have no income of their own. And that is how it all started. Santa brought toys for the kiddies. But now it has morphed into this sick gift exchange nonsense, which is more like bartering than anything else. And we keep score as to who gave us what gift.
What's worse, is that we've taken a holiday that was a single day, morphed it into the 12 days of Christmas, then a month of Christmas. And now it is wiping out Thanksgiving - after already taking New Year's Eve hostage.
Well, it can be that way, if you choose to make it that way. You can De-Militarize Christmas, if you choose to do so. And it is a choice, really. No, really. No one, not even the almighty Fox News can force you to celebrate Christmas. Just tell people you are Jewish, or better yet Muslim - as they will honor your "traditions" with quiet reverence as we are all supposed to do.
The real meaning of Festivus was just what I am talking about here - that our traditions are very arbitrary, usually of recent vintage, and often just plain silly. Putting an aluminim pole in your living room makes as much sense as putting in an ugly Christmas tree. Yes, they are ugly - Christmas trees are an aesthetic nightmare, period. There, I said it.
You can create your own Christmas traditions - I grant you permission. Take a trip to a Carribean Island. Go on a cruise. Take a trip to Disney. Stay at home and paint the garage floor. Whatever. Get Chinese take-out and see a movie. Whatever works for you.
My Christmas Tradition is to run my free annual credit report. Why not? There's nothing fucking to do on Christmas day, other than eat, watch Television and talk to your relatives. Ugh, Ugh, and Ugh. It works out wells - kills an hour of time and also I am reminded to do it every year. I also total up our finances for the year in preparation for tax season. Christmas - a time for reflecting on how blessed you truly are - right?
It is sad to me - and a bit scary - that some folks are taking Festivus to heart and actually "celebrating" this made-up holiday. But you know, Kwanzaa was the same way - a manufactured holiday that people started taking seriously. As Elaine would say, "Fake, Fake, Fake, Fake!"
To contact us Click HERE Sometimes investments really pay off. I got my Christmas present early this year. The Board of Directors at Access National Bank decided to offer a 70-cent special year-end dividend, which came today in the form of a check for over $1300.
As you know, I bought this stock when a friend of mine helped start the bank about 12 years ago. I was offered founders shares and the most I could scrape up was $10,000 at the time.
Over the years, I have sold $30,000 of this stock, and today the remaining balance is still worth close to $20,000.
In addition to this special dividend, it cranks out a dividend of 6 to 8 cents a share, every quarter.
Not a bad return on my investment!
Now, if I had only invested $100,000 in the bank, where would I be?
Oh, but time machines! They are such devious things!
Oh what a horrible year we've had! Everything is going so badly. No, wait, that's not quite right, is it?
How does this place stay in business?
What the heck is this Mylife thing? And how do they find out so much information about you?
There is a real Who's Who that lists all the names of the beautiful people. You are not among them.
Festivus was a joke from the Seinfeld show. Unfortunately, a lot of people didn't get the joke, and actually celebrate this new-found holiday. Is this how Christmas got started? Perhaps.