thereid

We have decide to build a new bigger, better pizza oven for the 2010 Pizza season.

To enlighten the unenlightened. To share the wisdom of experience and education, or is this being overly critical and squashing the imaginitive mind.

I find that unfortunatily discussing new ideas with most people becomes a frustrating experiance. I consider myself a big thinker. I have ADD and I have a dozen projects in the works at all times. I have been this way for most of my adult life. some work out some fall by the wayside.

With each and every idea, I flush it out, research it, write it down, make notes, find resources, go to the library, buy books, search Google, search YouTube. I go to all lengths to try to learn from those who have gone before me.

I make my best effort to learn what is practical, what skills set must I bring to the project. Either i must learn these skills or find someone with these skills to partner with or hire.

I kill lots of trees I this process. Unfortunatily, no matter ho much I love technology, paper and pencil work best for me. The act of writting down lists of research to do and infor
ation I learn helps me to fo us my mind and work toward to goal.

I find that too many people have ideas that they pasionatly think are great. however they do not dedicate the time and effort to do enough research to unveil the true practicality of the idea.

I am reminded of Google. the great Internet company. Google has the highest percentage of PhD’s of any company in the world. These are not just any PhD’s. I read that to get hired, you need to demonstrate not that you have great ideas, but what have your done. Ahat have you brought to fruition. Ideas are a dollar a dozen. Google says Show Me.

It takes allot to turn an idea into a reality, Research, planning, organiztion, percervierance, time- lots of time, sleep – not so much sleep, dedication, record keeping just to male a few.

I often listen to people ramble on about their ideas and I probrobly glaze over, I hope not visibly. I am short changing people I consider to be friends by not sharing my thoughts. On the other hand I don’t want to be the one who is viewed as always being negative, of shooting them down ideas, of not having enough faith.

To speak up, or shut up that is the question. I try to ask leading questions, too bad I am much better at doing that in hindsight. I know what I should have said. I’m not as good at thinking on my feet with out offending through my words, tone or body language.

What do you think! be a friend by being supportive, or by being honest?

Peace.

Happy New Year. Welcome 2010.

2009 is now but a memory. Good, bad or indifferent it’s a time in the past, neither worthy of regret, nor changeable given the time, space and dimension in which we live.

A new year is here, unadulterated, a chance to start over with that proverbial clean slate. And of course new year is the time for our annual new years resolutions. Whether your resolution is to lose weight, exercise more, eat less, quit smoking, go back to school or read a book a month. We set resolutions for ourselves to make a change, to improve our lives, financially, physically, spiritually or emotionally.

Making the resolution is the easy part, as you well know by now. Weight loss is the number one new years resolution, compare the number of people at the gym next April compared the the number in mid January. New Years is a boon to gym membership, in January membership spikes as people make good on their pledge to get into shape. As the months go by the numbers dwindle back into the normal range.

Do we really want to make a change? Do we want change or do we just want others to think we have changed?

Ponder this; how did we learn the bad behavior in the first place?

What importance do we place in that behavior that made us do this for so long. If there was not a good reason for doing it wouldn’t you have stopped along time ago? Hey, I love the taste of a chocolate malt. No question about it, I love it. I love the comfort of feeling full. What’s wrong with that?

Do we learn from our family? From our peers? From books? From our environment?

Albert Einstein once said

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

So we need to change our thinking. How do we go about doing that? By trying new experiences? Reading new material? Associating with new people? Taking new classes?

Your behaviors and mine are controlled by this fantastic computer in our head we call the brain. And similar to the computer sitting on your desk it only calculates data based upon the programs it runs and the data that is entered.

Even with good software it still requires good data. You can install Quicken on your computer, Quicken is a great financial management program,  however is you don’t remember to enter all of your transactions, every deposit, every atm transaction, every check, each and every one. Then all you get is junk, the balance of your accounts will be wrong. If it’s wrong by $5 or $10,000 it doesn’t matter. It is wrong. Junk in, Junk out.  Similarly when you input junk into your mind you get junk out. Your mind takes input data from a variety of resources, it uses your eyes, your ears, the nerves of your fingertips and the feelings in your heart. You are not even aware of all of the input that you give your mind. It is recording all the time, 24 / 7 whether you like it or not.

It records what you see, the pictures on your wall, the screensaver on your computer, your work environment, your car, your drive to work. It records everything you hear, the music on your ipod, the jokes your friends tell, the background sounds you hear at home, the sweet nothings your lover whispers into your ear. What you feel, it records when you are happy, when you are sad, when you are angry, when you are mad. Your mind records what you touch. Is it soft? Is it rough? It is hot or cold?

Then you ask your mind to make a decision and you think you have control of those decisions. And you do, you have control of all of the input, you just don’t think about it, you have been imputing information towards that decision all day long, everyday for years.

So lets start off with Joe. Joe lives in an apartment in the noisy city. He has decorated the apartment in bright red and black. Joe’s apartment walls are adorned with posters of heavy metal bands and classic horror movies. The furniture is modern style of hard metal and plastic. In an effort to drown out the city noise of cars honking and people yelling Joe cranks up his stereo to his favorite band, Metallica. So based upon the input that Joe’s living environment provides to his mind I’m banking on Joe making decision A. Right wrong or indifferent.

As opposed to John who lives in a comfortable home in the country sitting on several acres. The sounds John hears are mostly birds and the wind through the trees. Johns home is painted in Pastel colors and decorated with photos of his family and beautiful places he has been to or wants to visit and the furniture is soft fabrics and warm leather. John listens to Jazz and classical music. So do you imagine that John would make the same decision as Joe? Ponder that I say.

May your changes be positive, the results on target, your future is yours. Live it.

Happy New Year

Just Google It.

That’s what I am famous for telling everyone in my family, when they have a question. They follow up with telling me they don’t know what to search for. Well here it is, my son stoped by this afternoon, he was telling me about a couple of $12 charges that showed up on his checking account statement. It said “ReservationsReward 1-800-732-7031″. However when he called the number it was no longer in service. So he called the bank and they credited his account for the $12. But he was frustrated because he said he knew he didn’t sign up for anything and he only used his Visa card number on a couple of trusted sites.

So I asked did you Google it? He said he did but didn’t find anything. So, I tried it. I Googled ”

“How did my credit card charged for Reservation Rewards”

I got tons of hits. It turns out this company has links on tons of website that pop up after you finish your transaction. And if you slip and say yes, they take you credit card information from the previous transaction and start charging you #12 a month.

Thank god we live in America, the lawyers save the day. Connecticut filed a class action lawsuit and won and 10 million dollar settlement for all of the fraud that took place between September 2000 and September 2008. Of course most of that went to the lawyers.

So after all of the research my son said Well I did use Fandango to buy some movie tickets. Fandango was mentioned in the article I read by Mitch Lipka on Wallet Pop, as being one of the many sites that use Reservations Rewards.

The long and the short of it is that this kind of scam continues to this day because they technically have your permission and our consumer protections does not really exist because their interest are in helping business create jobs. The thing to do is to boycott every site that takes money from you by allowing this type of links on their website .

The good news is that you can cancel your account.  Go to Reservations Rewards FAQ page. The phone number does not seam to work but the website does have a place where you can cancel you account. First you have to log in and of course if you don’t remember signing up, then you don’t remember your password. Well like all good website these days, just enter your email address and they will gladly email you your password.

Then you can

• Log into your account select FAQ under the Member Services menu on the left menu,
• Click on the General FAQ
• then select How to Cancel My Account, clicking on this link to access our online Benefit Cancel Center
• and finally at the bottom of the page select CANCEL YOUR ACCOUNT!

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