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I think I participated in my first book discussion over a year ago. Merryone led our first discussion, and will be hosting a new one at her new spot . Starting on December 13, we will begin discussing the book Lottery by Patricia Wood.

I just finished reading this book. Overall, I liked the book very much. I really like the lead character, Perry L. Crandall. This book is very poignant and really speaks to all of us as human beings. I think there is a great message to the book. I really like how Ms. Wood has a great understanding for the things she wrote about-from those with disabilities, to sailing to winning the lottery.

If you can get your hands on this book, I hope you will join us for the discussion next month .

I only hope I can remember everything a month from now!

Not everyone who has a bad credit score got it due to irresponsible spending. Sometimes, health problems, unexpected unemployment, or other difficulties can cause financial turmoil with lasting effects. A credit score is not the measure of a person.

Unfortunately, some unscrupulous lenders prey on those who have already had a run of bad luck, only to make their financial situation even more dire by offering them the loans that they need at extremely high rates and with terms that almost assure default. Desperate people sometimes take the first offers that come their way — they make their decisions based on fear, and that fear can cost them dearly. And to be honest, it costs the rest of us, too. When folks who are going through a rough time meet up with lenders who are looking to take advantage, those people can quickly go from a situation that may take a while to dig out from to bankruptcy.

At BadCreditOffers.com, they try to remind folks with less than perfect credit that there are alternatives. They’ve assembled lists of lenders who showcase their best deals — home loans, auto loans, personal loans, and even credit cards, all competing for your business. Making side-by-side comparisons can help people make intelligent financial decisions that will help them to get back on their feet.

If you have bad credit, are you going to get as good a rate as someone with a stellar score? Honestly, no. But having bad credit doesn’t mean that you have to say yes to the first lender who holds out a pre-approval. Take a deep breath and then take a few minutes to browse BadCreditOffers.com. And remember, a credit score is not the measure of a person.

Quotations:

An Ear to the Ground Series - Part ONE: As sure as eggs is eggs.

How did this peculiar way of saying ‘without a doubt’ originate? In all probability,eggs is a deliberate comic distortion of x.

In algebra, a basic equation is that x always equals x. If anything is accepted as true by all mathematicians and logicians, it is just that - that x=x.

So if you want to give a guarantee of the accuracy of a prediction, for instance, you might emphasise that it is sure as x is x or eggs is eggs.

Part Two: Beat About The Bush.

What to many people is simply good manners is often interpreted by others as evasiveness. Beating About The Bush was, originally, in 15th Century England, a way of finding game birds at night. Hunters or poachers would tap a stick on the ground or rustle the leaves to try to flush out game.

This was just a preliminary to the actual capture or killing of a bird, and the phrase came into general use in the sense of a roundabout approach to an awkward problem as opposed to direct and forthright approach to the business in hand.

The Writers Lounge

I think it was about 2 or 3 weeks ago that the writers guild in Hollywood went on strike. Since then some other groups, both in Hollywood and New York have joined them.

What was your first thought when you heard about it? Did it matter to you? Did you care?

I considered it the most insignificant news item of the day. I’m really not impressed with the great majority of the work these people produce. Secondly, their motive for the strike is greed (i.e., money).

How about you? Have you seen an impact? Have you been forced to watch a couple of re-runs? I was laughing when I saw that a show like David Letterman would need to go to re-runs. It is unbelievable that he would need writers to do his show. Producers yes, but writers?

Personally, I am not involved with any groups that can go on strike to force their hand. But there is a slight vein of validity in this strike as the writers go for a piece of the big pie called DVD sales.

What is your take on this?

djbtol

Note: The following is not intended to be legal advice to anyone and is intended only for venting personal frustration and allowing positive awareness to come from negative experiences. You’re on your own from here!

Well, I’m almost through all the bullshit. Closing a dream of my brother’s to run a family restaurant. Six months of hell and another week and it will be history hopefully. There were many factors unnaccounted for but nonetheless, I have gained important insight that I would have rather learned without spending a fortune. I do know much more than when I started if that is any consulation. Would you like to know what I’ve learned? Well do you have a choice? Here they are my top ten lessons for anyone of attempting to become a successful restaurateur :

1. Don’t move quickly. Always take your time when contracting work, buying things, and retaining services. The best looking deal is much like a Las Vegas gorgeous blonde. Shallow, and never there unless they are taking money out of your pocket. Many scammers and their best intentions cost you plenty with nothing to show.

2. Don’t expect all of your friends to understand that they have to pay for their meals. They usually don’t and get offended you are not footing the bill. Most of my friends understood and wanted to pay, but I know of another person who lost everything and went bankrupt due directly to this scenario.

3. Don’t expect or depend on any support from all the people you know, no matter how many you know. The strangers you meet sometimes are much more loyal and they don’t expect #2.

4. Get the best lawyer to include all those things that you would never expect, like termination procedures and the business failures. The “out’s” of the deal are just as important as the “in’s.”

5. Be aware that any required taxes or employee disability and unemployment insurance costs are billed after the fact. You will get bills for the past three months totaling thousands of dollars from your accountant for the government for these at the worst possible times. Be prepared and ask for estimate from your accountant or you will come up very short after each quarter.

6. If the business does fail, you will not get much empathy for failure from but a few people. When I announced the closing, here is a quote from one of my nieces in an email back to me: “Sorry! That’s so sad to hear Do you think I can have a mug for a Christmas present?” Don’t get me wrong, my good old friends felt terrible and I did cherish the people that took the time to express real caring and write or call and want to offer their help if needed. They are few in number but great in deeds and have special places in my heart. You will find that you will need to battle through this failure on your own, as any personal struggle would require, in order to achieve eventual success be it the food business or whatever the road leads you to do.

7. People don’t like to tip and will find any excuse to not do so, regardless of the level of income bracket they are in. If you want to make money in the restaurant business, then open a fast food joint with plastic chairs and walk-up service. That’s what the bulk of America wants, much like the movie, “Demolition Man” and the predictive eventuality of Taco Bell’s dominance for the future of all restaurants.

8. Don’t make the restaurant look like a million bucks because people want to see plastic chairs and spartan decor to percieve that feel of inexpensiveness of what they want to perceive when entering a place they have never been before. If you make it look like an expensive restaurant, even if you give the food away, people will get so nervous they will not even be able to read the menu or prices and then get up and tell you there wasn’t anything on the menu they wanted, no matter how expansive your menu may be. They are headed for the door, just get out of their way. Too many people have been burned by other restaurants that deliver sub-par food and service and it is a Pavlovian response to great looking decor.

9. When you issue coupons use the following disclaimers:

Dine-In only, No cash value, Cannot be combined with any other offer, Expiration Date, Must purchase one beverage per person (or they won’t buy one and you will lose money on the promotion) Not good on Sundays or Holidays (you don’t need them to come on those days), No third party sharing on 2 for 1’s (yes they will do that to you!) No reproductions or copies allowed, One coupon per couple, Must be presented to the waitstaff before ordering in order to be validated, and lastly, state the hours they can use the coupon or they will come in for breakfast at dinner time and make sure this verbage is on the entire coupon they must clip so you can identify it when they try to give you one that is expired or from another restaurant. All of this I have learned from people who have tried to or have, scammed us.

10. Lastly, when it is all said and done, don’t sign a long term lease (I didn’t) unless it is tied to a corporation that is a separate entity (keep all personal business out of the corporate structure) and do not sign personal guarantees for anything including the food bill. If you borrow money you will need protection if you do go belly-up and you don’t want to lose your personal assets. The best way is to put your personal assets in a trust if you have substantial ones, BEFORE you start the corporation to insulate yourself.

These lessons I have learned and/or knew and protected me from fatal damage. The mental damage is another thing and one must have the attitude that money is just money, not health, not happiness. As long as you can still live and love that is the most important thing. If you have made the money in the past, you must be positive about yourself so that you can make it in the future. The future is for certain, the past is past, so be good to yourself and don’t sulk and be bitter. Your feet are still planted on the ground and not in it!

I just have to keep telling myself that until it sinks in……….

POSTSCRIPT- 11/14/07

Here’s an important tidbit before laying out your cash or loan money. You can setup a spreadsheet with expenses vs income easily if you use this formula.

At $10 per cover you need (fill in) # of covers x’s days per week x’s 4.2 weeks a month or just times the amount of days open per month. To achieve those covers assume that each cover will visit your place once a month and now you see how many different people you need in your “base” numbers to make the place break even. For example out of 3,000 people or covers at $10 per person, you would have 100 covers per day for 30 days. You don’t want to break even, you don’t want olive oil and garlic all over your hands and your fingernails gritted with spice rub for nothing. You want to make money, so go back and plug in how much you want to make and see how many covers you need and then do the math to see how many different people you must have in your base covers. This is very important. For example, if you need 120 covers a day ($1200) to break even and can’t see how to get that many people in your restaurant, how can you expect to make money? If you are off the beaten path, that is not good. It is all about accessiblity, competition with supermarkets, fast food chains, like-minded outlets, and drive-by count………..that is how the big boys do it. Are you still game? Use the math, not the heart to determine that answer and you will be able to assess your chances fairly.

Democrat Senator John D. Dingell is trying to do his part to save the planet. The Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in September released his plan to impose a carbon tax on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to combat global warming. The carbon tax would be $50 per ton on polluting industries, plus it would add a 50 cent per gallon tax on gasoline and other transportation fuels. Finally, for homes over 4200 square feet the owners would no longer be able to deduct interest when calculating taxes.

Would this work? It is suspected that these measures would raise hundreds of billions of dollars. So you need think no further. Issue closed.

Of course that is what such politicians will be counting on. But ask yourself, how does putting hundreds of billions of dollars in the hands of politicians address the global warming crisis? Truth of the matter is, it doesn’t. Here is what they intend to spend the money on:

- expand earned income tax credit to help lower-income families pay high fuel bills;
- highway trust fund and mass transit programs on a 60 / 40 split;
- many other social welfare programs, such as shoring up Medicare and Social Security.

Feel the temperature dropping? See those carbon atoms falling out of the sky? What better evidence could there be that the global warming scam is nothing more than a way for politicians to raise taxes and thus gain more control. Standard liberal democrat agenda - been that way for years.

Bottom line - fight the myth anyway you can! But hurry, according to Algore we only have 10 years to do it!

djbtol

I am not one looking for the government to get more involved in my life. I do not believe that they should make laws that restrict personal freedom. That is, of course, unless those laws protect the good of society. So, how do I feel about helmet laws?

Every year in Tennessee, the idea of repealing the helmet law comes before the legislature. Every year, I make calls and send emails to my representatives, telling them we must keep those laws intact. Every year, so far, those laws have not passed both houses.

So, why would a conservative support such laws? It’s simple; the good of the public.

Many people have argued with me that it should be a person choice. If this is the case, so should seatbelts. Yet, most would agree that they should be required. Many will cite safety as the reason, and the arguments against such laws state that it is not the government’s job to make sure I’m safe. They are correct.

The government, though, does have a responsibility to taxpayers to protect them. That’s where this issue gains it foundation.

Several years ago, Louisiana, Kentucky and Florida repealed their helmet laws. They placed stipulations that if you rode without a helmet, you had to have enough insurance to cover any potential injuries you might sustain. This seemed to please everyone. Recently, though, Louisiana reinstated their helmet law after it was determined that a large number of helmetless riders were not properly insured and the state was left with a hefty tab in excess of $1 million per year. Simply put, the state, not the rider, was assuming the risk of riding without a helmet.

This doesn’t even take into consideration that the insurance of other riders increases, even if they ride with a helmet. The insurance companies must cover their assets by increasing the premiums of all riders. Tell me how this is fair to me.

I wonder sometimes, though, the logic behind why someone would want to ride without a helmet. There is overwhelming evidence that helmets provide far more protection than they do risk. Some cite the idea of a helmet increasing the possibility of neck injuries. Some claim the limitation of sight and hearing. These are nonsense.

For the possible protection a helmet offers, we need look no further than NASCAR. If a helmet were to endanger the driver to the possibility of neck injury, they wouldn’t wear one. They certainly don’t have as great a risk as a motorcyclist of hitting their head, yet not one driver would consider driving without one. Some may cite the use of the HANS device to protect from this. I would counter with the fact that many times they are going over 200 mph. I know of only a few motorcycle riders in danger of that. In that case, though, there is more wrong with the situation than a helmet whipping the neck!

Helmets are made to protect the head in the event of an accident. Head injuries from helmetless riders generally exceed $100,000. Most are far more, up to death. Would you really want to saddle your family with that debt, while you are either dead or a vegetable? More over, is it fair that you saddle society with that debt when the risk was all yours?

Today we welcome Jason Walker to Communati and my writing blog. He is discussing his book MISSING MY BODY. Find out more about the story line, how he wrote and published the book and what he is doing to promote it.

YVONNE: please give us the basic story line so we’ll know what your book is about.
JASON: Missing My Body is the name of the book. It’s about a young man living with a disease called Duchenne muscular dystrophy and what it’s like for him to live everyday life with the constant worrying and daily struggles. Different situations arise from day to day and this book shows what a basic day is like for me. Other people take these things for granted. Also, it’s about the accomplishments I’ve been able to achieve and the hard times I’ve been through; the difficult obstacles of medical procedures. I also let the reader in on what Duchenne muscular dystrophy is.

YVONNE: Is this the first book you have written?
JASON: Yes, first time ever thought of doing so.

YVONNE: How long did it take to write this book?
JASON: I would say I think six months probably. It’s hard to always think that far back with everything that goes on in my life.

YVONNE: How did you publish your book?
JASON: I was looking online one day for someone that could help write my book because I had no clue of what I was doing or who I could get to help me with this idea of writing a book. All I knew is that I wanted to write a book of some sort and I came across the name of Mrs. Perry who directed me to a Web site of a ghostwriter Taryn Simpson who could possibly be able to help me do this idea of mine. Well Taryn Simpson agreed to do it after we decided how to go about it.

YVONNE: Yes, Taryn is a writer on my team and I’m very proud of her for showing such compassion to you. I know she helped you get your book published via Lulu.com. Do you have a Web site or blog where we can learn more about you or your book?
JASON: My book is currently available online at Lulu.com, Barnes and Noble.com and will be available on Amazon.com. Unfortunately I do not have a Web site or blog where you can learn more about me or my book.

YVONNE: As far as marketing, do you do more online publicity or print/radio/TV promotion?
JASON: Aside from where you’re able to buy it I am currently working on trying to promote it more where I can. It only has been marketed through my local town newspaper and during a segment of the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Telethon and two local television stations did interviews.

YVONNE: Have you hired a publicist to help promote this book? Have you worked with a publicist on any of your books?
JASON: No I have not hired a publicist just basically word-of-mouth and when I have been able to do.

YVONNE: Any other comments or things you would like for us to know?
JASON: I would just like people to come away from reading this book with a different perspective of life and just how precious it is. Life is a constant struggle and we all go through it but there is always there one person next to you that has bigger problems than you and far more serious things to worry about. I’m hoping my memoir can be an inspiration for those who choose to buy it and read it.

YVONNE: Thank you for giving us the opportunity to get to know you and learn about your book. I wish you well.
JASON: You are welcome and I hope you enjoy my memoir.

I came across an interesting figure on student debt from a mid-size state college in Ohio. The school has about 20,000 students and last year alone, students borrowed $129 million dollars. Some percentage of these students have credit card debt on top of that.

If that is accurate, it certainly shows that more college expense is being paid by debt, than by cash and financial aid.

Richard Cordray, Treasurer State of Ohio had this comment:

“If we don’t make good financial decisions, we’re in trouble all of our lives.”

I most certainly agree with that - it is the story of my life.

However, the point of the article is summed up in this statement - “The solution; mandatory personal finance classes in high school.”

This is of course just the age old fallacy that if the bumbling idiots were just better educated, they wouldn’t do such stupid things. Not so!

Neither a high school or a college class is going to instill financial responsibility into the materialistic life of a young person. Being raised from young child on up with the right financial attitudes and disciplines just might.

djbtol

Several days ago Congress was successful at overriding a ‘water projects’ bill that President Bush had halted with a veto. The media and most democrats were feeling a sense of accomplishment about that. That is understandable, since President Bush has shown that he will use the veto.

The objection that President Bush had against the bill had to do with excessive spending, but until today I didn’t know what was behind that.

Follow the history of this bill:

The Army Corp of Engineers was seeking about 5 billion dollars for various water projects.

The bill was approved in the Senate, but came out with a price tag of 14 billion.

The bill then went to the House, and was approved with a slight increase to 15 billion.

The bill then went to a conference committee to merge the house and senate versions. Mission accomplished, but the price tag went up to 23 billion.

Review the numbers and think PORK!

5 billion dollars of water projects and 18 billion dollars of PORK!. Anybody else feeling sick?

This bill obviously got a lot of yes votes (before and after the veto). My question: Was there anyone actually voting to approve funding for the water projects? Seems that most might have been voting to approve their favorite brand of pork.

Obviously our government is obsessed with spending and there is no one to tell them NO!

At least half of these congressional men and women would be willing to sit down with you today and say that we need to increase government revenue by raising taxes. I say punch them in the face!

djbtol