I was very much against the brokers getting into selling businesses. There is a unique segment of our industry that specializes in business brokerage and there are very good reasons why it is considered a specialty. For one thing, there is an incredible amount of time spent by the broker on valuing the business and preparing an extensive marketing package. To prepare the marketing package requires a lot of paperwork gathering and analysis, and a lot of research.

The amount of data that is collected for any type of business sale is staggering and it is confidential data that must be safeguarded while parts are being made available to potential buyers. A good solution for storing and managing this data is using an online resource, such as the professional VDR solution for IPO process.

Because financing has been so difficult to obtain from American banks and investment companies, some of our buyers are turning to foreign banks and investors. The problem with dealing with banks in China or the Mid-East is that many of the legal documents must be translated for the foreign banks to review, analyze and present to their loan committees. For those kinds of deals, we can use the Merrill Brink translation services and have a high level of confidence that the data maintains its integrity.

I’ve worked with a technical translation services provider before and it can be very difficult or it can be very easy. I think the first time you try to do an international deal it will be difficult. But once you learn the process and get a deal done, the next ones are much easier.

I would not think there is that much work for actors in Philadelphia. But actually, it is not far from NYC and is a lot cheaper to live in Philly than to live in New Jersey or New York. So when he gets work in NYC he gets a short term apartment in New Jersey. New Jersey is actually nice once you get away from NYC and the banks of the Hudson River. In fact, most of New Jersey has nothing to do with New York City.

My favorite spot in New Jersey is Atlantic City. Most people probably think of Atlantic City as a min-Las Vegas, but i think of it as the beach and the boardwalk. I spent many summer weekends on the beaches of the Jersey Shore, swimming is the surf and walking for miles up and down the boardwalk and the beach looking for seashells. And I promise you, my summers at the beach were nothing at all like the TV series, Jersey Shore.

Keith’s parents live in rural New Jersey, about an hour east of Philadelphia and that is too far for him to commute to NYC for acting jobs. They have a small dairy farm and we were out there visiting his family over the holidays. I flew into Philadelphia and Keith picked me up at the airport. Then we drove out to his family’s farm in Jersey. That was a nice drive – nothing but open fields and a lot of cows. It was nothing like the opening scenes in “The Sopranos” when Tony is driving from his home in New Jersey across the river into the city.

I’ve know Keith and his family since college and they are like a second family to me. I’ve been to their farm several times and they always make me feel like I am one of the family and very welcome. On this visit, we hung out with Keith’s dad a lot, while his mom was busy shopping and baking – getting ready for Christmas.

Keith’s dad was telling us about Arosa Energy, a company that helps homeowners, farmers and businesses with New Jersey solar power. He says that there are a lot of ways to be able to afford switching to solar power or adding solar power to your property. Now there are federal tax credits and rebates from the state, which really help with the initial cost of installation.

His dad is planning to work with Arosa Energy to add solar panels to the dairy barn and the farmhouse. He was told that there will be so much energy generated from that many solar panels that he can actually sell the excess energy to the electrical utility provider company. I think that New Jersey solar energy is going to prove to be a great investment for his dad and the farm. We might end up back at the farm in April to help with the solar panel installation. I wouldn’t mind going back to help – I think I would learn so much from working on it – and it would be great to spend time with Keith and his folks, too.

So, I was inspired to learn a little more about Dyson, as I never thought much about them being a British company, but here they were advertising on the BBC channel. Turns out that the company does a lot more than just vacuum cleaners. I found out that Dyson hand dryers are made for public restrooms and restrooms in large manufacturing companies or office buildings, as an air dryer is more sanitary than cloth or paper towels. Personally, I believe that air hand dryers are better for the environment, too.

Dyson invented these cool airblade hand dryers that move air differently and more efficiently than the old fashioned hand dryers. They also make a special kind of cooling fan. All based on their unique way of looking at moving air – whether for suction or for ventillation and cooling.

The asteroid will be moving fast, but you should be able to see it from an East Coast viewing spot around 6:28 pm. It is expected to pass Earth, at only 201,700 miles from us. According to NASA, that is the closest any asteroid has passed Earth since 1976.

My server has had a couple of glitches. The web site would not load for a few minutes here and there because they were doing maintenance or upgrades. That was no big deal. My my friend Wendy has been having horrible problems with her server company. Her web site has been totally down for 9 days. The hosting company was sold to a different company and they moved all the data from one location to a different one. But the data migration had a lot of problems and her web site suffered the brunt of the problems.

That kind of problem should be rare, but when it happens to you it is very upsetting. I know that she looked at other server companies to see if it made sense to move. She was comparing prices between the top 10 best hosting services. She read the hosting reviews and tried to consider more than just the monthly cost. She was just about ready to pull the plug and then her site came back up yesterday.

I hope that the site stays up now and that the migration problems are all solved. I feel badly for Wendy, but I trust that she will give them one last chance and if necessary she can change web site hosting companies at any time.

The son of a real friend (as opposed to a Facebook friend) is in the Navy Seal training program. He is on a carrier in the Pacific and is able to post on Facebook almost every day. It is interesting to read his accounts of serving in the Navy and the discoveries of visiting other countries.

Another friend’s son is serving in Afghanistan. He has asked for several specific items to be put into care packages and sent to where he is stationed. Interestingly, something he requested was small, stuffed animals. The soldiers like to stuff their pockets full of Beanie Babies and other small toys and they when they go into villages they give them away to the kids in the village. I love that idea!

Of course, other PCs were already on the market, such as:

the Apple II
the Commodore PET
the Osborne 1
the Tandy TRS-80

You have to admit, that even with the other PCs, the IBM PC was the first full featured, ready to use personal computer that was affordable for most businesses and many homes.

The IBM’s system ran Microsoft’s Disk Operating System, known as MS-DOS and booted from a 5.25 inch floppy drive. It sold for $1,565 with no software except MS-DOS. In today’s money, that would be a little over $3,700.

I remember the very first game I played on a computer. It was a puzzle, adventure game. You had to type in each move as DOS code. You started out in t forest and you had to type in each move, going north or south, up or down, etc. It was totally addicting and everyone at work would try for weeks to solve the puzzle and beat the game.

Then we got a new computer that was pre-loaded with solitaire. The secretaries at work and anyone with a private office would spend hours at their desk playing Canfield, often caught by their supervisor and getting in trouble for playing games when they were supposed to be working. There was a lot of uproar among the ranks about feeling entitled to “take a break” and play a game or two on the company’s computer.

Now the computers allow us to get online and play thousands of games, often against real people from all over the world. It is amazing to be living and playing in the digital age.

I was talking with a golfing buddy who is looking into a medical teaching course as a way to give back to his industry. I think that is a great idea. I know a lot of industries have opportunities for experienced members to teach in various capacities.

Even if you are not interested in becoming a professor at a university, you can contribute by teaching a medical management course or something that interests you.

My good friend who retired from teaching last year after 24 years in the classroom can still contribute to her field. It is good to give back to your industry – it is a Win-Win situation. Students need to learn from an experienced person – not just read a book. Although it is good to have the internet as a resource, too. Sometimes we still need a good reason to get up in the morning and put on makeup, dress up and get out into the real world. Teaching part time and sharing what you know is a great way to help others.

My golfing buddy is looking into a teach the teacher course to stay to get a start in teaching other doctors. I have to give him credit for being so generous with his time and experience.

I had to listen to what he was talking about, as I don’t really know much about that and he was explaining how he found a cash advance affiliate program to make some extra money. In today’s economy, who isn’t interested in ways to earn some extra cash? I actually own and maintain eight different web sites, so if this idea of monetizing is easy and lucrative, I might be interested in doing it.

Carl told me to check out a company called Blue Global Media and read through the information on their web site to learn the facts. I had never heard of this company before and asked him how he found out about them. He said he was doing research on the top affiliate networks and that their program made the most sense to him.

I’m the first to admit that all of this is new to me, but Carl is a smart guy and if he says it works, then I owe it to myslef to check it out.

Life by the water is the only kind I like. I have to live in Houston most of the year since that’s where my advertising job is but I was lucky enough a few years ago to be able to afford a house on the lake which has been a lifelong dream of mine. It’s so nice being able to pack up all my stuff on the weekends and just head out for some R&R with my friends on the water! That first summer I went to http://TexasElectricityproviders.com because my electricity bills were so high (it gets hot at the lake) and I also invested in a new dock since the one I had was pretty weathered. I’m slowly getting the place decorated how I like it and making it look all shiny and new again and before you know it, it’s going to be better than my real house! I don’t know how some people don’t love the water but I for one wouldn’t have it any other way if you paid me!

I worked with and talked to a lot of different financial experts over the years. I am by no means qualified to give anyone financial advice over the internet. You have to be licensed and accept a fiduciary responsibility when you do that. And professionals get paid well for doing that.

That is part of the whole point of using this Online Portfolio Manager that I found. It seems to be a better way to manage your investment than using a money manager who charges you a fee.

Once you set up the Portfolio rebalancing software for your current investments and learn how to use the program, you don’t really need a commissioned money manager to hep you. Everything you need is online. The information that I found most helpful was introducing the concept of a core portfolio dedicated strictly to your retirement goals, and then another allocation for emergency cash and the last allocation for speculative investments. You set up the parameters and then make your trades based on keeping that balance.

Do It Yourself portfolio management is obviously not for everybody, but if you have some financial savvy and want to avoid the management fees by using an easy to learn and easy to use software, now you know that you do have options.

She has moved to a different state and did not realize that she would need these papers to register her children in the public schools. Frankly, I am shocked that the schools require papers like a divorce record. What business is it of the school if you are married or divorced? I can see needing perhaps, at most, proof of custody. But the rest of the divorce, such as property settlements, grounds for the divorce, alimony amounts, etc. are non of their business!

She says that the school is being proactive about registering children who might be here illegally or might be here with a parent who does not have actually legal custody of them. Again, I question the right of the schools to assume that you are doing something wrong and force you to prove otherwise. That just frosts me. There has to be some reason for them to suspect you are doing something wrong. Just moving there from another state is not incriminating!

When you think about it, an extra battery is like insurance. It doesn’t cost very much and if you have it with you, you are pretty much guaranteed extra time to finish taking the pictures that you want. Of course, that is assuming that you have no other issues, like a cracked lens or dropping the camera overboard, etc.

I bought a nice padded camera case that is just barely big enough for the digital camera. It has a zippered pocket on the outside that is large enough to hold my driver’s license, a credit card, some cash and an extra battery. With that in hand, I’m ready to go just about anywhere and shoot lots of pictures.

Most of the time I keep the camera with me, but I learned a long time ago to not leave the camera in the car over the summer or any time the sun can beat down on it and get it too hot. The display screen is sensitive to heat and a hot car or direct sun can ruin the screen.