Jan 31, 2010
Hate winter. Said it a bajillion times already. If you’re like me, and love being outside and doing activities outside, and if you live in Indiana (and especially in the burg), the things you CAN do during the winter months are different than what you WANT to do. Blah!
In the summer months, Perry and I will take a walk with the dogs during the time we break for lunch. When 33 degrees is considered warm, I’m sorry, I would rather eat at my desk. This weekend has been pretty darned good though — even with the cold that January brings. After a very hectic and extremely productive week, I was excited to do …absolutely nothing!
I’m a gamer — love World of Warcraft! And I love to read. So since Friday at 6:00 PM, I’ve done just that. I’m all about PVP (player vs player) in game, and while in queue to enter battlegrounds, I read books. I’ve devoured 2 so far, and will probably get through 1 more before the work-week starts all over again tomorrow. No business books for me on the weekends — I read Sue Grafton’s U is for Undertow and Tami Hoag’s Deeper Than the Dead (both are very good I might add). Still enjoying the whole Kindle thing — at least until the iPad is available.
But other than killing Horde, sleeping till noon, reading books and baking friendship bread — I also ran across this awesome find!!
The first thing I thought of (besides that I’m old as dirt), is that my Grandmother made my dress. Of course, girls attending this year’s prom will vying for the perfect dress at all the trendy places — trying to out-do their friends. Their parents will be worrying how they will pay for them. I am willing to bet I enjoyed my proms just as much way back then as girls do now. I will also betcha that I got the same excited feelings in my homemade dress as they will get from putting on their designer one. Ya think?
Jan 29, 2010
It’s another dark, dreary day in the burg. It’s days like today that make me want to crawl under the covers and just nap the afternoon away. But before I do, I wanted rant about the email SPAM that is most annoying to me right now…
Email spoofing is the forgery of an email header so that the message appears to have originated from someone other than the actual source. SPAMMERs love it and use spoofing in an attempt to get recipients to open, and possibly even respond to, their solicitations. So far today, I’ve received 24 email messages that LOOK like they are coming to me from my favorite brother on the planet, and they say:
I sexual Russian blonde, want to see, come closer Register [and then a web url here]
Last time I checked, my brother was neither blonde nor Russian. I guess some people actually respond to this garbage (maybe people with blonde, Russian friends/family) or the messages wouldn’t continue to be sent out by the bajillions. Whatever.
Jan 27, 2010
Just a quick bit of information to share as I’m eating breakfast. So what if it’s almost 3:30 in the afternoon? It’s been a crazy, busy, FUN and productive day! Yippee!
So this morning I formatted and emailed the Scott McKain UCEzine (here’s the link in case you’re not a subscriber and want to check it out), and it got me thinking about all the ezines/newsletters that I subscribe to. Some of them are interesting/informative — some simply keep me in ‘delete key’ practice. We’ve played around in the past with our offerings and all have been well received, but when there are only so many hours in the day, prioritizing is essential. It’s the same for our thousands of subscribers too! They don’t have time to read a ton of articles.
But get this! There’s one ezine author that has that little problem all figured out. Have a peek at the screenshot on the left. Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t want anyone else reading for me. I’m good with reading other’s innovative thoughts and business practice ideas. I’m great with reading the opinions of others even if they don’t agree with my own. What I think is laughable is that I would be encouraged NOT to read and research as much — and simply take someone else’s word for what might impact my business.
Doesn’t it sound like this author is devouring mass amounts of information just so I can be knowledgeable? I’m not buying it. Any professional that begins any publication with something along these lines, “…typos are in here on purpose. My subscribers have fun finding them,” isn’t setting the stage for me to believe he’s an expert. Yah. Typos and grammatical errors happen. They don’t happen on purpose.
Jan 26, 2010
Snow in the burg this morning, and Gracie’s first move is to go outside and roll in it.
Yesterday was a typical Monday. I’m working in a pair of shorts and a sweatshirt, and yes, it’s snowing outside. It’s no secret that my house is my office, even though my friends/family rarely acknowledge that I actually do work here (except of course my favorite brother who knows what is produced from this small house just outside of the burg). A mid-day knock on the door wasn’t really a shocker, but the fact that it was at the front door was unusual.
I open the door to a dude who explains my house is on his sales route (although I’ve NEVER been visited by a meat peddler before), and asks me if I’m interested in buying steaks. I quickly dismiss and thank him, telling him that we get our meat from a locker. Seriously, I’m a butcher’s daughter. The thought of filets frozen in fancy shrink-wrap doesn’t get me excited. He asks if I might instead be interested in chops or chicken. Again I tell him no thanks.
Have you ever been solicited and had to say ‘no’ a bajillion times, only to have the salesperson end up rudely acting like you’re stupid because you don’t want their stuff? Well, not this guy! He smiled, thanked me for my time and apologized for bothering me. As he rolled down the road out of sight, I thought about him. I figure he has a family and probably isn’t selling as many steaks as he once was. In those short seconds, I bonded with a meat peddler for crying out loud!
But yanno what? He didn’t give me a card. I have no idea who he was or how to contact him. He had the whole selling process down perfectly, but he didn’t do that one last extremely important thing. With all the invasive selling tactics that include phone calls and SPAM email we are bombarded with — we automatically shutdown those who contact US for a sale — instead of the other way around. I wish this meat peddler dude would’ve realized that he would’ve made a future sale by simply handing me a card with that last smile.
Jan 22, 2010
You lost your camera. You have no clue how to get it back and the person finding it either doesn’t know HOW to return it or WHY they really should.
If you found Andrew McDonald’s camera, would you return it?
But get this! There’s one ezine author that has that little problem all figured out. Have a peek at the screenshot on the left. Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t want anyone else reading for me. I’m good with reading other’s innovative thoughts and business practice ideas. I’m great with reading the opinions of others even if they don’t agree with my own. What I think is laughable is that I would be encouraged NOT to read and research as much — and simply take someone else’s word for what might impact my business. 