I never knew what Feng Shui was until I became a home inspector and found so many notes and books on Feng Shui in many of the homes that I was inspecting. It seems that the Asian culture here has a serious interest in Feng Shui.
Now, of course, I have my own personal Feng Shui expert by the name of Carole Provenzale. No, she's not mine alone. She's actually available to everyone here at ActiveRain because she's an ActiveRain member and owner of Feng Shui Long Island and New York.
Every time I go over to Carol's blog, I find that I've been practicing a little bit of Feng Shui here and there but just didn't know it. Perhaps that has something to do with who I am as a person. I don't know. While visiting Carol's blog today, I found out that "amethysts are known to have healing properties." I wonder if they have preventive properties, too, because I rarely get sick -- these past few days are an exception and worthy of a blog post all its own -- and I've had amethysts in my home for many decades, an appreciation that I got from my wise old grandmother who loved the color purple and anything that was purple.
Just before my wise old grandmother died in 2003, she gave me her amethyst bookends during my last visit with her:
If you're feeling a little under the weather, or your house just doesn't feel right, or you're just curious about Feng Shui like I was, hope on over to Carole's blog and do some reading. Also go with an open mind since so many people are afraid of something that they don't understand, too afraid to try to understand it. I'm not an expert on Feng Shui, but you just might learn some things like I have.
I started playing tennis when I was in fifth grade. Unfortunately, my wise old grandmother didn't like me staying after school to practice. She thought I needed to be at home doing my homework, so I didn't get to play tennis very long under the aegis of a coach at school. Instead, I had to be your weekend hacker, and my wise old grandmother would sit in the car at the school tennis courts to keep an eye on me. I guess the fact that when she adopted me I did have a lot of juvenile baggage and skeletons in my closet that caused her to take a greater interest in me than might otherwise have been done with a straight A student who wanted to play tennis.
Of course, the greatest tennis tournament in the world typically ends on Fourth of July weekend, which always caused havoc for me when friends wanted to go boating, or skiing, or flying on the weekend that Wimbledon was having its men's and women's championships. I missed out on many a good time, I think, but I also saw many a great tennis match -- Borg vs. McEnroe, 1980; Nadal vs. Federer, 2008. And those were, indeed, great, but the greatest in my book that I've personally watched is Federer vs. Roddick, 2009. And that goes for all the other Grand Slam tournaments, too -- Australian Open, French Open, and U.S. Open.
The one thing that has always bothered me about how tennis is scored, though, was perfectly illustrated in Federer vs. Roddick, 2009. In tennis, it's not necessarily who wins the most points, or who wins the most games. It's really a case of who wins the right points at the right time in the right games. Both Federer and Roddick were awesome, and the play throughout the match was of the highest quality. Roddick lost his serve only once, and Federer lost his twice. Unfortunately, Roddick's lost serve was the very last game of the match, and that was the one that ultimately meant the most.
Nonetheless, Roddick proved that he is, indeed, back, courtesy of his new coach, Larry Stefanki, and his beautiful new wife, a model named Brooklyn Decker. After last year's early Wimbledon exit, Brooklyn, then his girlfriend, convinced Roddick that he was too young to quit and that with a lot of hard work, dedication, and a good coach, he could get back to being in tennis championship finals. That's exactly what has happened.
I've been a fan of Andy Roddick since his junior years. Congratulations, Andy, for winning the match even though you didn't win it at the right time. I hope to see you many more times in these championship finals. I know you'll get your wins.
Along with pictures of birds in flight, I've always loved pictures of animals in the midst of a yawn or a roar.
I like that little/big pink tongue -- unless you have a Chow Chow, and then it will be purple. I'll even take them eating or cleaning themselves just to see that little/big pink tongue in action.
With my new Canon Rebel XSi, I'm now able to sit patiently with my finger on the shutter button and wait for birds to fly or animals to roar.
Here are a few of my recent ones of Zoey the Cool Cat, whom everyone knows is a favorite of mine.
I've always been fascinated by wildlife, but particularly cats and dogs since they can easily be kept inside and don't mind waiting to welcome you home after a long day at work.
All you have to do is feed them and love them, and in return they'll provide you with unconditional love.
All day yesterday on Animal Planet were a series of one-hour programs titled "Dogs 101."
Right now, while waiting for the Wimbledon Men's final to start between Roger Federer and Andy Roddick, I'm watching some of the reruns.
Probably the most interesting Dogs 101 episode was "All the President's Dogs."
Most of the episode sections are available at the Animal Planet Dogs 101 web site, as well as future schedules. Check it out if you love our fine, furry friends.
*****
This week's blog posts
WWW (Wordless Wednesday with Words): Are you watching me? - 7/1/09
The other day I took one of my Clients and her husband to the San Diego Zoo as a reward for her sticking to her game plan.
I might be a laid-back Southern boy born and raised in Texas, but when it comes to business, that laid-backness takes a hike. If you want to be successful, you have to work.
I don't take on Clients who don't want to work, and I always provide them with even more incentive to work than simply being successful with their business.
I've got four more Clients to take to the Zoo -- I take the Top Five each quarter -- but meanwhile, here are four pictures of a little guy who was having lunch and wondering why we all were staring at him:
There have been all sorts of beautiful cloud formations here in San Diego today, so I took an extra little walk this evening to see if anything might be photographable (photographable?).
I took my 28-80 mm lens, my macro lens converter, and my wide angle lens converter just in case, but probably more so simply because I have not really taken those three lenses out to see what they could do, or perhaps more properly, to see what I could do with them.
I have decided that photography is not like riding a bicycle, driving a car, or talking. When one hasn't used a high quality camera and lenses for almost twenty years, well, the pictures one wants aren't always what one gets. I still think that today's camera might be like our VCRs, DVD players, and cell phones in that there are more bells and whistles than one could ever use, and just when one things that one knows how to use all the bells and whistles, the thing breaks and one has to buy a new one since no one works on the old one. A throwaway society we have become, but that's an issue for another post.
Anyway, here are some pictures that I got this evening. If you mouse over the picture, you'll get the picture information.
First up, some macro shots:
Here are three wide angle shots:
And finally, just a regular old sunset picture at 80 mm focal length:
The first thing my wise old grandmother taught me as she was helping me set up my first business when I was just 11 was not to put all my eggs in the same basket.
Since Easter was just a few weeks away, I knew exactly what she meant. Putting all those eggs in the same basket meant that someone could simply pick up the basket and walk away with everything.
Or if I stumbled and fell (something I was inclined to do with my big feet and my eyes about six feet above them), I wouldn't break all my eggs. Not until many years later did I understand what she meant.
I consider myself lucky because I have so many interests, so if the economy took one of my interests away from me, I could fall back on another interest for my livelihood. It seems to work, so who am I to complain?
Many readers know that I recently bought a new digital SLR camera, a Canon Rebel XSi, and that I've been having a lot of fun with it, having taken over 2,600 pictures, about 850 per week. Good thing I don't have film and developing costs.
Shortly after I got my camera, David Etheridge, an ActiveRain member about 100 miles north of me, asked me if I would be willing to take some subject-specific pictures for him. Sure! Little did I know that I would actually get paid for the pictures, too, and that I would get photo credit and be listed as a contributor to the magazine. I'm ready to give up my day job!
Alright, so $20 isn't much for two pictures, so maybe I should hang on to my day job, but the photo credits, contributor credit, and check made out to me were kind of neat, just like getting an ActiveRain Featured Post!
Many years decades ago when I took my first marketing class, we were taught that in most circumstances, in order to get someone to buy your product or use your services, you had to basically reach them with your advertising 21 times. That's why you see the same commercial repeated over and over and over again during the Super Bowl, movies, etc.
I call these "bops," in that you have to bop people over the head in order to sell your products and services to you.
You can short circuit the process, such as having a Grand Opening, setting your prices lower than your competition's, offering something that your competition doesn't offer -- what I call quality bops.
Here I am three decades later, with all this modern technology and everything, and marketing people are still telling me that you have to reach people with your advertising 21 times before they will buy from you.
You can short circuit the process, such as having a Grand Opening, setting your prices lower than your competition's, or offering something that your competition doesn't offer -- what I call quality bops.
Apparently, the only thing that all this modern technology has done is make it easier for you to get those 21 bops, so get to work. Sitting around the office complaining about not having any Clients is not how you get bops.
Don't forget traditional means of marketing -- business cards, post cards, farming, door knocking, etc. -- in addition to the Internet, and remember to get those quality bops in to short-circuit the process, for the faster you can get those 21 bops in, the faster you'll get a new Client.
I thought ActiveRain and its members were some of the most forwarding thinking people, using all this wonderful technology to set themselves apart from the competition.
To be better than average.
To go where no one had gone before.
[Insert your own favorite cliché here.)
So as the second quarter winds down -- and I'm guilty myself, but you don't yet know what I'm guilty of -- I wonder why our members say things like:
"This year's not going like I thought it would. I hope next year is better."
"This month has been dreary. I can't wait for next month to get here."
"It's only Wednesday, but the week is already a bummer. Hurry up and get here, next week."
"I'm sure glad it's time for lunch because this morning was rough. I should just skip this afternoon and go straight to tomorrow."
The one that comes closest to my subject here is #4. Read them again and see if you can determine why. I'll wait for you....
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Back? Okay, let's talk about this thing that is 6,000 years old yet seems to run our lives, especially if we let it.
It's that darn calendar, especially the Gregorian calendar, which is the de facto standard throughout the world for civil purposes. Imagine that. The United States, North Korea, Iran, and Israel all use the same calendar for civil purposes. Now if we can all agree on that, why can we not agree on other things? Ah, but I digress....
According to Wikipedia, "A calendar is a system of organizing days for social, religious, commercial, or administrative purposes. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months, and years. The name given to each day is known as a date. Periods in a calendar (such as years and months) are usually, though not necessarily, synchronized with the cycles of some astronomical phenomenon, such as the cycle of the sun or the moon. Many civilizations and societies have devised a calendar, usually derived from other calendars on which they model their systems, suited to their particular needs."
Now we're getting somewhere.
Here are some more tidbits from ActiveRain which we'll be able to use to serve our purposes:
"Calendars can include computerized systems, which can be set to remind the user of upcoming events and appointments."
"Calendar is also used to denote a list of particular set of planned events."
"The simplest calendar system just counts time periods from a reference date."
Several web sites have told me that the 365-day calendar is about 6,000 years old, but the one at indiastudychannel.com was the best:
"The earliest Egyptian calendar was based on the moon's cycles, but later the Egyptians realized that the "Dog Star" in Canis Major, which is now called Sirius, rose next to the sun every 365 days, about when the annual inundation of the Nile began. Based on this knowledge, they devised a 365-day calendar that seems to have begun in 4236 B.C., the earliest recorded year in history."
You're telling me that you're using a calendar that was created in 4,236 B.C.?
Good Heavens! Can we not devise a calendar that is more useful to our needs in this modern age? I believe we can.
First, though, we can't just throw away our 365-day calendar -- and our months and weeks -- because the Internal Revenue Service uses the 365-day calendar to compute our taxes, and your mortgage lender wants to seek your monthly or weekly pay stub. So we might have to keep two calendars, but that's actually quite easy to do. Remember, we live in the modern age.
Second, let's go back to revisit those tidbits we found at Wikipedia about a calendar:
Simplest
System for administrative purposes
Time periods
Computerized
Planned events
Reference date
So if you're waiting for next year, start next year TODAY! If you're waiting for next month, start next month TODAY! If you're waiting for next week, well next week is here TODAY!
The "simplest" "system for administrative purpose" to organize your "time periods" is to have something that is "computerized," such as -- my own personal favorite -- Microsoft Excel. My Excel shows me my "planned events" for each hour of the day, each day of the week, each week of the month, each month of the year, and each year of my five-year business plan. My first day of business for my Marketing & Business Consulting Company was August 16, 2008. That was a Saturday, my "reference date."
So when you hear me talk about my first week in business, that was from August 16 to August 22, Saturday to Friday. When you hear me talk about my first month in business, that was from August 16 to September 15. So I guess you know that my first year in business ends on August 15, 2009.
We still have that nasty little matter about the Internal Revenue Service, though. Not to worry! With Excel, all you have to do is highlight the cells that you want to use for your Internal Revenue Service calculations and click on the sum button (the yellow button in the picture at right). Very easy.
So, if you're waiting for next month, there's nothing wrong with it starting today, unless you're a procrastinator looking for an excuse to procrastinate. If you're waiting for next year, start next year TODAY!
Even if you've been in business for many years, you can start any future time period TODAY and simply have your Excel spreadsheet give compute information that can then be compared to past time periods or future goals.
Usually I plan my trips to the San Diego Zoo, but today I was caught totally off guard because I was at a Client's home. She has had an excellent second quarter, and her husband decided to reward her with a trip to the Zoo. Since I keep a lot of free passes in my car, I gave them two, at which point they invited me to go with them.
Uh-oh.
My handy dandy new Canon Rebel XSi digital camera was back at my place since I don't normally carry it around in the car. Fortunately, I did have my GE A735 7.0 megapixel backup camera and was able to get this picture of a new little cutie at the Zoo:
I'm not sure who the daddy was, possibly the one in the picture, although he was in a group of four who really looked proud:
That's mommy's feet at the left in the picture.
*****
This week's blog posts (they will open in a new window)
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I never knew what Feng Shui was until I became a home inspector and found so many notes and books on Feng Shui in many of the homes that I was inspecting. It seems that the Asian culture here has a serious interest in Feng Shui.
I started playing tennis when I was in fifth grade. Unfortunately, my wise old grandmother didn't like me staying after school to practice. She thought I needed to be at home doing my homework, so I didn't get to play tennis very long under the aegis of a coach at school. Instead, I had to be your weekend hacker, and my wise old grandmother would sit in the car at the school tennis courts to keep an eye on me. I guess the fact that when she adopted me I did have a lot of juvenile baggage and skeletons in my closet that caused her to take a greater interest in me than might otherwise have been done with a straight A student who wanted to play tennis.
The one thing that has always bothered me about how tennis is scored, though, was perfectly illustrated in Federer vs. Roddick, 2009. In tennis, it's not necessarily who wins the most points, or who wins the most games. It's really a case of who wins the right points at the right time in the right games. Both Federer and Roddick were awesome, and the play throughout the match was of the highest quality. Roddick lost his serve only once, and Federer lost his twice. Unfortunately, Roddick's lost serve was the very last game of the match, and that was the one that ultimately meant the most.
Along with pictures of birds in flight, I've always loved pictures of animals in the midst of a yawn or a roar.
I've always been fascinated by wildlife, but particularly cats and dogs since they can easily be kept inside and don't mind waiting to welcome you home after a long day at work.
The other day I took one of my Clients and her husband to the San Diego Zoo as a reward for her sticking to her game plan.
There have been all sorts of beautiful cloud formations here in San Diego today, so I took an extra little walk this evening to see if anything might be photographable (photographable?).
The first thing my wise old grandmother taught me as she was helping me set up my first business when I was just 11 was not to put all my eggs in the same basket.
Many 
I thought ActiveRain and its members were some of the most forwarding thinking people, using all this wonderful technology to set themselves apart from the competition.
According to Wikipedia, "A calendar is a system of organizing days for social, religious, commercial, or administrative purposes. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months, and years. The name given to each day is known as a date. Periods in a calendar (such as years and months) are usually, though not necessarily, synchronized with the cycles of some astronomical phenomenon, such as the cycle of the sun or the moon. Many civilizations and societies have devised a calendar, usually derived from other calendars on which they model their systems, suited to their particular needs."
We still have that nasty little matter about the Internal Revenue Service, though. Not to worry! With Excel, all you have to do is highlight the cells that you want to use for your Internal Revenue Service calculations and click on the sum button (the yellow button in the picture at right). Very easy.
Usually I plan my trips to the San Diego Zoo, but today I was caught totally off guard because I was at a Client's home. She has had an excellent second quarter, and her husband decided to reward her with a trip to the Zoo. Since I keep a lot of free passes in my car, I gave them two, at which point they invited me to go with them.
;)
;)
