My sister was recently looking for a puppy on the internet… she ran into a classified website called oogle.com.. she inquired about a puppy that was located in oregon, which i thought was strange since it was so far away. She received a response fairly quickly to my surprise. It was a very lengthly email asking her all sorts of questions in broken english. It appeared to me to have scam written all over it. The person was selling the puppy for 250 dollars including shipping. Does that just sound very odd to you? The cost of sending the puppy via an airline would be $250 I would think. The email even included the classic hard luck story about why the person wanted to get rid of the puppies.. i told my sister to reply to the email and ask what kind of payment she would accept.. i am almost certain that she will respond saying western union.

Be very careful when dealing with out of state people on classified sites on the internet. I know a few people who have been taken on the sites on a deal that was too good to be true.. google the email address of the person you’re dealing with, you may be surprised what you discover.

My grandfather had always told me to never take one person’s word for the gospel.. always try to get a second opinion from someone else… being an entrepreneur i cannot tell you how important this piece of advice has been in my life. People have different reasons they tell you what they tell you…. you never know what their motive may be. You also can never assume that they understand the questions that your asking them completely. For example, just because you ask and internal medicine doctor about a heart condition you may have does not mean they will give you a good answer or even one that would be appropriate for your situation… another example that is much closer to home, asking a real estate attorney about an intellectual property issue may not necessarily get you a very good answer and vice versa.

The point is you need to know who to direct your question to. It also always helps to ask educated questions. Research the issue or question you’re having and ask the questions that are appropriate to your situation. Asking general questions will get you general answers… being specific and detailed in your questioning will get You much better information.

Noone cares about your question or issue like you do, ask educated questions , do your research and always get a second opinion. Also do not be afraid to appear ignorant in your line of questioning… you’re gathering information specific to your issue… being concerned and wanting to get more information about something will only get you respect. Being passive and “letting things go” will only make it easier for people to walk all over you.

It really sets me off to see men and women of the cloth driving expensive cars driving around to members of their church asking them “not to forget” the church in their wills…. really makes me quite sick honestly……

I joined a health club called american health centers a while back ago and am absolutely loving it.. i started another blog about my weight loss journey… i have been kind of lazy to post on it. I would like to lose about 10 or 15 pounds before i’m satisfied with my weight. I got to about 205 pounds a few years ago and it has taken about 3 years to get to where i am today. I have weighed the same for nearly a year and am very dissatisfied with myself.. i plan on pushing myself very hard and losing 15 pounds before summer is over …i know i can do it

After about a 3 week hiatus from working out I’m finally getting back into the groove. I use a program called calorie king to count my calories. I estimated the i consumed approx 4000 calories yesterday… I should have no more than half of that amount. The sad thing is i worked out for 30 minutes and only burned 140 calories… i plan on changing my ways working out at least 3 to 5 hours a week… i really need to get this weight off of me. I have already lost about 30 pounds, it has taken me over 2 years to do it… i waited appoximately 205 pounds at that point..

are the words I use to describe the employee of St. Mary’s Medical Center who “treated” and “diagnosed” my sister for strep throat. As most are aware there is an epidemic of swine flu that has everyone up in arms, paranoid and afraid. Swine flu is not a big deal for those that are healthy or lack underlying conditions… but when combined with someone who has a compromised immune system, it could and does spell serious trouble. I mention this because the incompetent employee would not take the time to test my sister for swine flu, knowing how serious a situation that could arise, when coupled with strep throat or any other illness for that matter. When I was made aware of this, I was livid to say the least…. Did I mention that she works for St. Mary’s? Can you believe employee health would not take the time to perform an act that could save thousands of lives? This may sound a little dramatic, but is it? I think not… all it takes is one person to expose another, so on and so forth. It baffles my mind how someone (especially in the medical field) can demonstrate such apathy towards their chosen profession. God forbid if they leave five or ten minutes late… to test my sister…. This is a big deal to me, I would love to publish details on what happened, but I do not go looking for trouble… She could potentially have been very sick, exposing people that she is working with, as well as patients, whom I assume are very susceptable to the swine flu to begin with. I do not claim to be a medical expert, I simply attempt to demonstrate common sense… however, if there is a reason why testing my sister was reasonably unneccessary, I would love to hear it, it just makes absolutely zero sense to me why this was allowed to commence, or not commence, depending on the light in which you look into the situation.

I’ve often wondered the following: Is it moral to lie in order to preserve a secret, in a situation where refusing to answer cannot preserve the secret? I think there exist a continuum on whether someone is blatantly lying to you or simply withholding information in order to preserve the integrity of a secret they may have or even something that is simply none of your business. There does not exist a finite answer on this subject and each situation has to be carefully analyzed.

One really has to analyze the kind of relationship they have with the person they suspect is lying or withholding information. Are you friends where the information they are “withholding” is simply just not any of your business? Is the information they are withholding contrary to your personal belief system which in turn effects (in their opinion) your relationship with the person. Is this information vital to your personal well being or the well being of people you care about? Are you business partners where the information is vital to the success or failure of your business, which in turn may directly affect your personal endeavors?

I mention this after being a victim of the latter…. but it was much more than that and I’m deeply involved with the person on a personal level as well. I was always warned, perhaps rightly so, not to mix friends and business… friends do not make good business partners I was told… Being warned a countless number of times, I have done just that. I do not have any regrets and it has worked out to everyone’s advantage thus far. Each one of us has brought something to the table that the others clearly lack. I was just made aware of some vital information that was unknown to me for over a month. I was led to believe a situation existed that in fact did not exist. I was allowed to worry over things that, if I had known the information, would have freed my mind much easier of the burdens we are facing. Honestly, I can not say that I was lied to, because I was not. Information was withheld from me that I should have been made aware of.

When can you claim to be an honest person if you are withholding information from important people in your life? Is there a continuum of honesty, or is a lie a lie? Is your resistance to telling people what they need to know considered a lie in itself? I continue to remain uncertain about the answers to these questions, there are too many variables to consider. My advice to anyone who may be engaging in this activity to ask yourself: Does this person really need to know, would you tell them the truth if they knew the questions to ask? Think carefully when you speak and when you act, people effect others more than they realize.

Or at least return phone calls and/or emails… It simply amazes me how many people in the business world do just that: not answering emails or phone calls. I do not consider myself a flunky or tire kicker, I own or have interest in several pieces of property… When I ask a question or need something of a realtor, would it not be to their benefit to at least acknowedge I called?

We made an offer on a house and garage apartment that was accepted… due to our interaction with the current owner and his apathy towards having any gutters on the house, we decided to have a formal inspection done on the house. I scheduled an appointment with K&B Pest Control and Home Inspections on Monday (which by the way are top notch, very nice to deal with). I notified our real estate agent that the inspection would be done on Friday… and for him to please acknowledge he recieved my message…. and that we were clear to have the home inspected on Friday.. I called every day and still did not hear from him. Friday comes (today) and the occupants of the house understandably refused to let the inspector in the unit to do his job. He also called our real estate agent along with myself and no answer.

To say the least I am very disappointed…. Everyone knows how important I feel about having a winning team.. We are looking for a competant real esate agent and thought we had one. We were under the impression, in the beginning, he would be an asset to our business endeavors…. Because of his apathy towards our goal of buying this house and garage apartment, he may have just lost out on a signifcant amount of commissions during the lifetime of our business… not to mention “bad blood” that will exist for the unforseeable future… We have 14 days to have the inspection done and the clock keeps ticking.

On a side note, I have been trying unsuccessfully to have the leasing office of Pullman Square contact me about an inquiry…. she has yet to cal me back after repeated attempts… Is the economy so good that one can ignore phone calls and leave emails unanswered….. ?

We are in the process of acquiring two different rental units on the same lot… We based our capitalization on very conservative numbers and static rent that will remain constant for several years. The problem is: The current tenant (who is the owner’s ex-wife) has been there for several years and is not paying market rent. She is actually paying much less than what we estimated is needed for the units to capitalize in seven years.. a number we agreed upon during company inception. The following are the numbers used to analyze this investment:

As you can see, the best case scenerio is to raise the rent to a market rate of $600, which will in turn allow the property to capitalize in 7 years. If we allow the current rent to remain, this property will capitalize in an unacceptable 9 years. We have different views on how this situation should be handled. Personally, I have gone the “tenant loyalty” route and it never pans out… My feeling is that the lady is living there with her son probably in a very linient financial situation. She has no job to speak of….. and I feel that the ex husband is most likely not collecting the rent that is due him. The house is paid for, there are no liens attatched, he does not pay a mortgage. My gut instinct is telling me she is not paying… at least what they are claiming. It is a strange relationship to say the least. They are most definitely not living together.. when we looked the house over a second time, he actually showed up. I’m going on a tangent here, but the house has zero gutters and the current owner has no plans of installing them. This prompted us to do a thorough property inspection before we go into phase 3 of actually purchasing the property..

I digress, I feel we demand income verification to see where the rent would come from for starters, then proceed to raise the rent to market standards. If she does not comply, then we give her 30 days to vacate the premise. The partners seem to disagree, though each have not formally made a statement for or against.

Their stance is the following: We do not “rock the boat” so to speak and mantain status quo…. She continues with her current rent well into the forseeable future.. their thoughts are that if the unit were to remain empty for a couple months, it would eat up any monies gained and we could avoid that by simply keeping the current rent intact. Keep in mind, these are above average properties, we have quality tenants in our other units and actually have a waiting list for two of them…. We do not have problems filling vacancies. Even so, if we were to approach a bank with these numbers (in case we needed to refinance) it would not look nearly as attractive to them. Vacancies are built into our formula, so I feel we should not be near as concerned. In addition, if we needed to unload this property to another investor, we need them to see the maximum this place can rent for… I personally am always concerned about an exit strategy… We have little to gain by keeping her there with no proof of income and the current rent… we are actually losing 3 years of the house’s capitlization…. This is afterall a business, it needs to be treated as such… when we get to the point where we are running a charity the game plan will change, until then, we always need to be aware of how it affects our bottom line. She has been there a long time, Yes, but is it our perogative to reward that and mantain her status quo? Or should we be concerned about our endeavors as a company and raise the rent to what it can be in this economy?

As many are aware, one of the companies I am involved in has 4 main members (owners)…including myself.. we often disagree on the strategies we employ or tactics we use to make the almighty dollar. We are currently involved in a few projects that keep us quite busy.. In the not too distant past we disagreed on everything from the mundane day to day operations of the company to big decisions; which understandably could change the direction we intended on taking. We finally agreed to disagree and decided that one person, within a set boundary, would make the small decisions (under 1K) without interference or questioning of the other members. Of course, everything done would be subject to audit, but for the most part, the one person could run the company without having to get permission on everything and be subject to the barrage of disagreements that so often accompanied our past activities and crippled our progress.

Recently we employed one of the two members mutual friends to help us do some work at one of the company’s properties. It was my personal understanding that we would compensate this person for the time he had put into the project, whether he was actually useful or not (which he was, very much so). I was of the opinion that he was performing a service for something that we intended on making money from in the future and he needed to be justly compensated. In addition, this person gives us a discount and other perks at a store that we frequent and spend a substantial amount of money.

My partner disagreed with my feelings on the matter. His position is he was “doing it as a friend” and was also knowingly engaging in a barter transaction between himself and my partner… because our friend had wanted him to do some computer work, for which my partner is quite knowledgeable. He also bought our mutual friend lunch the 2 or three times he was working with us and paid his bar tab of approximately $15-$20 at a bar the three of us frequent. This was a one time event. I would estimate our friend spent aproximately 10-15 hours working with us on a revenue generating activity we as a company are engaged in. I broke it down to look like this: Our friend spent 10 to 15 hours on a project for 2 value meals and a $20 bar tab.. and the hopes that his computer will be repaired.. Does this seem fair to you? It just does not strike me as being a good idea… I feel our friend has gotten the short end of the stick.

I am almost certain he would much rather have gotten paid $8 to $10 an hour and made the decision himself whether he wanted a value meal or attended a night out on the town.. or even had someone else fix his computer…

My question for the masses is: When is bartering a good idea? Also, how far can you stretch the concept of “being a good friend” to help you out…. I feel in this case someone ended up being the loser.. and it wasn’t my partner. Had our friend been doing something for us personally, such as helping us with our home or another personal endeavor, I would not have near as a problem with the circumstances.. but given he was performing a task for a revenue generating entity, I feel he actually expected to get paid.. though he tells my partner that was not the case. Given the brief commentary at the beginning on our decision making policies, is it best for me to let the 2 of them work it out and not interfere or should I step up to the plate for our friend? It is quite unsettling to me and I would love to hear peoples’ opinions on the matter.

I am starting a new experiment on a very interesting niche that I just happen to stumble upon… based on something my partners and I have been interested in for some time now… You can follow the progress on my marketing experiment blog, but I will break it down for you a little bit here…. I chose the “donut business” niche.

It has 1800 searches per month for this term and 61K competing sites. So as you can see it would be fairly easy to rank for this search term. I am contemplating on turning it into a bans (build a niche store) site and promote Ebay items. The products that Ebay has for this niche can be quite expensive so it could generate some nice cash this way.. I do not feel that Google Adwords would be appropriate nor CPA ads. I am looking into other possibilities as well for monetization. I have some first hand knowledge on the subject due to my research, so I will not employ any ghostwriters, so costs will be minimal. I will keep you posted as time progresses.. as always, you can follow the progress on my marketing experiment blog.

I am primarily a marketer but I also dabble (as most of you know) in about anything that will legally turn a buck…. I have had some real estate holdings for quite some time… I have just recently managed to remove myself from the day to day managing of the property and hired a property manager…. I also have some good friends that will check on things for me periodically.. Someone that had lived in our 10 unit building recently moved, they were there for about 4 years, always paid on time, etc. The problem was they were filthy dirty… I had been at the foot of their doorstep many a time and could just see that they were living in filth. To make a long story short they left a huge mess, one that my friends and apartment manager said they have never seen the likes of. Keep in mind, these people do not exagerate. They told me I need to really see for myself to appreciate the mess that was left… Here are a couple of pictures a friend took, he said it does not do it justice. How do people live like this, I mean honestly!!! I intend on uploading video of the place once I make a personal visit… I should post their names to warn other landlords!! geez

I first watched this over 2 years ago but wanted to share it again.. I have posted it before.. but I really enjoy it.. Be sure to turn your speakers up.

Anyone who knows me realizes the importance I place on “getting things done”. Procrastination is the enemy to practicing good business, not to mention personal endeavors. My philosophy is I would much rather make a mistake, learn from it, then move on. It is the in-action sometimes that can lead to bigger problems that if one had taken an action and learned if it was the correct action to take. I was once in a real estate seminar where one of the speakers used this same philosophy. Many people, myself included, suffer from analysis paralysis… an inability to make a decision by analyzing every detail… every “what if” scenerio….

So back to the seminar… The speaker offered $10 to the first person who would come up and snatch it out of his hand…. What do you think happened? Do you think he was bombarded with people going up to the front grabbing the money out of his hand? Quite the opposite actually… until finnally a few people came up, but it was only after one person took the first step or “action” that others followed suit. She was rewarded not only with the $10 but with a free course that he was selling at the seminar.. a course that cost everyone else over $1k.

He did the same thing a second time around later in his presentation, what do you think happened? Do you think he was bombarded with people coming to snatch the money out of his hand? Do you think the audience assumed the same thing would happen the second time around? Well… to my astonishment, the exact same thing happened as the first… people hesitated, and it was not until the lady who recieved the first $10 came and ran for the money that others followed her lead. I am not advocating that people make irrational, careless decisions, that is very far from the truth… but when the risk is low and the reward is great, what holds people back? Are they afraid of the consequences of their actions? Maybe too lazy to do anything about it? Psychology plays a big part in the business world.. people win or loose, many times, based on how they reason and how they interact with others. Some people, when they hear opportunity knocking, grab it and run with it… others may hear the knock, but are unprepared or unwilling to answer the door. Where do you stand? Are you ready to open the door when opportunity knocks?

I have always stressed this, but it is well worth the time to know your rights when presented with a legal situation or otherwise. Everyone has rights…. Luckily we have attorneys that can keep us abreast of what our rights are and how to keep bureaucrats from imposing rules on us that are not enforcable or comply with standards that they have drawn themselves. As I have posted on my other blog, the state fire marshall came to visit an apartment building we own in the lovely town of Ceredo, WV. This occured after a disgruntled tenant complained to city hall about an electrical issue that was already resolved. I will keep the details of how it evolved into their visit short and sweet (I will tell all and my thoughts on each person involved) after the issue is settled and we are removed from the situation. But basically the fire marshall was called. He (again I am ommitting names for now) was accompanied by 4 other nameless individuals who for all intents and purposes were on a witch hunt… they were abusing their power and going outside of the bounds of what they could say or do. Exactly five instances exist where these lovely bureaucrats were going outside of what “they should be saying” or “doing”. Luckily I had someone else with me to attest to their carelessly chosen words of wisdom. Be careful what comes out of your mouth people! Regardless, they scoured up and down the building looking for problems. I mentioned witch hunt previously because there is a political reason this was done (in my opinion)… We had a problem with one of the tenants who is related to the ex- mayor of Ceredo. The current mayor of ceredo is also related to him. There was a long drawn out scenerio, which, depending on what happens, could draw several people into court. I do not like to stir trouble, but when you declare war, be prepared to fight, that is all I ask. I am unraveling the mess and will expose everyone involved and their role in the defamation of my character and our apartment building.

Now I understand that safety is a must in a multi unit building… the building has 10 apartments. Some of his findings I agree with… What I did not agree with was a 10K fire alarm system when the building is located directly across the street from the fire station in Ceredo. One would think we could get some slack simply for this reason. The fire marshall seemed to take pleasure in saying to me “this is going to be expensive”. Once the report was recieved in the mail, I immediately faxed it to our attorneys. They found that we were exempt from this requirement because:

1. Our building has less than 12 units.
2. Our building has less than 4 floors.

So my question is: Do the Bureaucrats just assume that most people are not aware of the law and just take what is served to them? Our attorney advised us to write a courteous but firm letter explaining we will comply with the other complaints but we are not installing a fire alarm system. If they continue to push, we will get our lawyers involved, but not until then.

Bottom line: In business or personally, know your rights in every situation, it makes no difference how much moolah you have. I intend on exposing everything I know once this is resolved…. so when you do a search for the person’s name involved in google…. my blog will show up… searchers will be aware of what that person is about. Think I can’t do it? I know precisely how to get a person’s name where I want it to be in google. Type my name in, and it’s not because of my domain name either… it does not matter… Think it’s defamation of character? Think again, if it’s true it is not defamation. The towns folk in Ceredo have mistakingly taken me for being passive…. I know for a fact they do not like confrontation… I have stories about that as well. Stay tuned, it will be interesting how it turns out. I may be vindictive, but when someone comes after me, I fight full throttle.

I did a search for Yanni on youtube and saw some of the faces behind Yanni’s vocals… I have seen some of them but never for one of my favorite songs,  “Aria”.   Very interesting…….   I frequently go to his website, but never have seen these two.  There are only a few things more amazing to me than beautiful women with compelling and powerful voices….. wow.    It is really a talent only a select few have,  I love it.

This is another one of my favorite songs,  I love youtube…

Okay, just one more and I stop, promise…

I must say I love the idea of having a virtual assistant… I use them often to proof read articles I have written, or sometimes, if qualified, use them as ghost writers. I also use them to make up for my deficiencies in certain computer languages. Often I can quickly pay someone to figure out a problem that I am having that would take me hours to figure out.. The only problem I have sometimes is hiding the part of the code that I do not want the coder to see…. These are smart people and they can quickly see what I am up to, replicate it and outperform me.. and I don’t want that. I am a fan of scriptlance, elance, getafreelancer with elance being my favorite. I consider myself to be a general contractor in the internet world.. sometimes you need an expert to figure out something.. Someone who is committed to one thing and does nothing else.
Another plus; I do not have to share the toilet in my office, worry if they are hot or cold or any of the other aggravations of a permanent employee.. Wow, we live in good times!