What's the difference?

I grabbed this information from a local independent bookstore where This book will be being signed by the author TONIGHT, good stuff...

$68 vs. $43 – Local businesses support local economies!

Several recent economic studies have concluded that locally owned independent businesses reinvest far more money in their local communities and economies than chain stores do.
One study determined that for every $100 spent in their stores, local businesses give back $68 to their local economy. By contrast, for every $100 spent in national chains, those companies return only $43, meaning that those chain stores take away $57 from that same local economy.
Patronize your local businesses. Good sense for you good cents for your local economy!

Top Ten Reasons to SHOP LOCALLY...

Local character and prosperity. Your community’s local character and prosperity thrive when you support its unique and diverse locally owned businesses.

Community well-being. Local businesses foster community well-being by building strong neighborhoods, sustaining communities, and contributing more to local causes.

Local decision-making. Local ownership means local decision making by people who live in the community and share in the effect of those decisions.

Local economic benefits. Keeping your money in your local economy supports local jobs, funds more local services through sales tax, and invests in neighborhood improvement and development.

Local jobs and wages. Locally owned businesses create more jobs locally and, in some cases, provide better wages and benefits than chains do.

Entrepreneurship. Local entrepreneurship fosters economic innovation and prosperity.
Public services costs. Local stores in town centers make more efficient use of public services and community infrastructure than big box chain stores.

Environmental impact. Local stores help sustain vibrant, compact, walkable town centers, which in turn are essential to reducing sprawl, automobile use, habitat loss, and air and water pollution.
Healthy competition. A marketplace of tens of thousands of small businesses across our country fosters healthy competition and ensures innovation and low prices over the long term.

More choices for you. An abundance of small locally owned businesses, each selecting its own product mix, guarantees a much wider range of product choices for everyone in the community.

Spending money...

Is something I usually hate doing. Today, I'm putting new tires on my wife's car, something I've postponed longer than I should have.

I kept thinking I might try to hold out and trade it in, and I may yet do that soon, if so the best choices for a family vehicle for someone who needs to haul a ladder occasionally and take a trip to the beach with a family of four including a diapered child but also is trying to minimize their choking of the ozone...are the Saturn VUE Hybrid and the Ford Escape/Mariner/Tribute, which is the better choice since it gets better mileage and now has 100% recycled cloth seating!

After some further review I've also narrowed down my own new car choices to two... The Volkswagen CC, which is based on them bringing a manufacturing facility to Chattanooga and the fact that it's one of the best looking sedans out right now and it gets 31 MPG hwy (which is where most of my driving is done)...and the American green choice, the new 2010 Ford Fusion/Mercury Milan Hybrid which has just been given its EPA MPG ratings of 41 City/36 Hwy...AWESOME for an American mid-sized car!

I've just bought some time with Erika's car getting new tires, but mine went over 120k miles this week...it's about time to take some test drives.

Focused effort

I want to change the world! I see a World Vision commercial and I'm immediately stirred, though I don't cry like one friend when I see commercials for unwanted pets...

Our family has given to various causes and even volunteered with several organizations. It's not enough...

If we try to change everything, we usually end up changing nothing, so...

Here are the places that need it most...

I started with the poorest places and found that they were also the most dangerous...

Poorest Countries in the world--
The order changes based on which list you look at, but most are in Africa
Rwanda...you can buy coffee
Burundi...they export coffee and tea
Tanzania...give them some tourism dollars, safari and climb Mt. Kilimanjaro


Afghanistan

Poorest Country in the Western Hemisphere
Haiti

Poor Cities in America
Detroit, MI
New Orleans, LA

SO...this year i'm going to focus my giving of resources (time and money) to--

Tanzania--one of the poorest in the world

Haiti--Poor western country

New Orleans--Poor U.S. City

Southeast TN--Home

I'm not sure what this will involve, and I'm definitely open to ideas and suggestions...

let's change the world

Falling off the Wagon...

I did it last week.

Not only did I miss three days of running, but I also managed to down about 3,000 calories a day for a couple of those days thanks to a trip to the never ending... all you can eat... make yourself sick...heart attack inducing...very uncomfortable stomach making...Pancake feast at IHOP followed by my Pizza delivery guy little brother bringing over samples of the new Pizza's at Domino's the next night(A couple of those are REALLY tasty), and then I capped the weekend with a cheeseburger from our new Five Guys, five minutes from the house.

All of those carbs would have been fine if I was running major mileage....but...I wasn't.

This wasn't the first time I've been working towards a goal and done something totally counter-productive that makes that goal more difficult to attain. It happens with more regularity than I care to admit...

The thing that makes it ok, or at least not disastrous, is that I've learned that just because you fall off the wagon doesn't mean you've got to stay there. The difference between those who accomplish most of their goals and those that rarely do, isn't some incredible difference in talent or luck, it's the willingness of some to not dwell on the pancake mistake and get back on the treadmill while others give up. It's also similar to what Seth Godin discusses in The Dip, that right before great success we often experience a failure or slowdown.

Some of you set goals and resolutions for the new year and are already at the point of giving up....DON'T....get back on the wagon!

I'll see you there.

Top three #17

I've touched on things I'm doing about my environmental impact, but haven't put anything in a list for you...it's time to fix that. Here they are...

Top 3 things you can do to immediately UP your GREEN, I'm gonna give you FOUR!

4. Setting your thermostat just 2 degrees lower in winter and higher in summer could save about 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide each year.

3. Replace your shower head with a 1.5GPM low flow version--This has become one of my favorites, it's so easy I can do it myself, and I am definitely not plumbing inclined! The average two shower a day household will save over 7,000 gallons of water a year, more than paying for the cost of even the best new shower head.

2. Replace Light bulbs with CFL's or even LED's if you can find them inexpensively enough. Your home accounts for nearly half of all your consumption, this is a quick and easy way to lower it. If every U.S. family replaced one regular light bulb with a CFL, it would eliminate 90 billion pounds of greenhouse gases, the same as taking 7.5 million cars off the road.

1. Change your purchasing habits...buy local, buy in bulk to reduce packaging, buy recycled, and simply buy less...

Honorable Mention--Tell others to do the same, if everyone just did those three things above, we could DRASTICALLY improve our environment...

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

I'm a Registered Republican, but in reflecting over the passing to a new presidential era, I was reminded of some of the Bush-isms of the last eight years, here is one of my favorites from the decider...

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." --Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004

Saturdays

There have been a few songs written about Saturday, and in my informal polling, it's most people's favorite day of the week. I'm not sure if I'd go that far, but I do enjoy college football so Saturday wins the award for best sporting events day in my book.

I travel a fair amount for work, but can almost always count on being home on Saturday to hang out with the family. In the BC (before children) days, the morning usually started late, these days I'm often awoken around sunrise via a flying elbow to the back of the head delivered by Alexander, after a little retribution we make a trip to Hardees or Bojangles for a Biscuit, c'mon we live in the SOUTH....

After that, it could be anything from house cleaning to a trip to the park

The most important thing about the day is that whatever gets done on Saturday gets done TOGETHER in our house! It makes for a fun day. Family naps, wrestling, vacuum cleaning, ahhh...

it's gonna be a great day!

Running Schedule

I've been running a bit since the first of the year, but today I kick it into high gear!

Today's run officially starts my twelve weeks of marathon training for the Music City Marathon on April, 25th. Here is the schedule I'll be following...

Week 1--3.5, 3.5, 3.5, 3.5, 5=19 miles
Week 2--4,4,4,4,6=22 miles
Week 3--4,4,4,4,7=23 miles
Week 4--4,4,4,4,8=24 miles
Week 5--4,4,4,4,10=26 miles
Week 6--4.5,4.5,4.5,4.5,11=29 miles
Week 7--4.5,4.5,4.5,4.5,12=30 miles
Week 8--4.5,4.5,4.5,4.5, RACE (Knoxville 1/2 marathon)=31.1 miles
Week9--5,5,5,5,13=33 miles
Week 10--5,5,5,5,14=34 miles
Week 11--5,5,5,5,15= 35 miles
Week 12-- 5,5,5, RACE (Music City Marathon)=41.2 miles

It's gonna be FUN!

My Son

I LOVE my son!

Alexander Gabriel is almost 3 1/2 and cracks me up EVERY day. Today was no exception, Erika was running late for work so I offered to get Alex ready and take him to his sitter. He has developed a serious aversion to wearing anything other than pajamas, so we had a discussion about this and why he was not allowed to leave the house in them, after which I asked him to finish his food, his response..."IT'S NOT FOOD. IT'S BREAKFAST!!!"

He was eating VERY slowly, so I finally coaxed him into the car with his unfinished food to eat on the way. Getting in, he almost spilled it and got mad at me for him almost spilling his breakfast. It made me think...

I do the same thing... I get mad at others for things that I do, and worry about things that haven't even happened. Silly when I see my 3 year old do it, but totally justified when I do it?

I think not.

wednesday ramble...

I've got a lot on the mind today, and plenty to do...so I'll just give a little James Joyce style rant to you here...

--Getting back in the swing of things with work, it's gonna be a different, challenging, fun, good year! I'm not just saying that because Mark Johnson could read this :-)

--I've pretty much covered the quick fix/easy stuff for conservation at home...next steps, alternative fuel vehicle and solar/wind system

--I'm officially a gun owner, picked up a hunting rifle and self defense pistol, next step is to get my NRA card!

--The Congressional district I live in is going to be incumbent-less for the first time since 1994 in the next election...should I run?

Top 3 #16

I've been a Registered Investment Advisor for nearly a decade, but it's pretty rare that I give any advice these days. Since I've been re-allocating my stock portfolio I thought I'd share the top three new stocks I'm adding this year.

As with all of my Top 3's...this is purely my opinion and may not even be good for me much less anyone else...

I do believe that one of the themes that is here to stay is the move towards sustainability and being "green" I'm adding the following to my portfolio to capitalize on this trend...

3. Whole Foods Market (WFMI)-- Yes, the economy is down and folks are tightening the belts, but one of the easiest places to maintain some luxury is in those grain fed steaks you get here vs. going out to dinner...They also still pay a nice dividend, have cash, and show nice profitability.

2. JA Solar Holdings (JASO)--With the removal of the $2,000 cap on federal Tax credits for residential solar power systems, it opens the door to a much larger group of potential buyers, including ME! This is one of the smaller public companies in the solar game...

1. American Apparel (APP)--The former high flyer has gotten creamed lately, but their Made in the USA, sweatshop free, image will continue to build a following and increase their already solid profits.

Honorable Mention--Interface Flooring (IFSIA) low p/e, dividend, and goal of 0 negative environmental impact within 10 years, well on their way...

So those are a few investment choices I'm making right now...we'll see what happens next...

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Happy MLK Day!

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice Everywhere."-- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Vegas Baby

I'm in Las Vegas for a couple days and thought I'd dig up some stats for you to read while I try my luck at the tables...

--Vegas Vic, the enormous neon cowboy that towers over Fremont Street, is the world's largest mechanical neon sign.

--Seventeen of the 20 largest hotels in the U.S. are in Las Vegas.

--Nearly 40 million hotel nights booked in Las Vegas each year, it is the most visited city in america, Orlando, Los Angeles, and New York all claim second place in the 25 million range.

--Howard Hughes stayed at the Desert Inn for so long that he was asked to leave... He bought the hotel.

--Percent of Visitors who say they come to Vegas to gamble: 5%...Percent that end up gambling:87%

--315, Average number of weddings per day

Let it Ride!

Heroes

What can you say about the people that make your life worth living? The ones who push and encourage you to be better than you are and inspire you. They have a daily impact on me more than I will ever be able to fully articulate, but I hope they know I love them and would take a bullet to keep them safe, they say a picture is worth a thousand words so here are some of the most important people in my life.

I also don't tell my friends enough, but thank you for putting up with me and I hope you all know that if you ever need anything, I'll do everything I can to help.

What shade of Green are you?

Being a relatively new convert to the Green movement, I'm still catching on to the lingo. A few days ago I ran across the question which has become the title of this post. Apparently, there are different shades of green based on how serious you are about your environmental impact.

Light Green is for most of us, those who consider the impact of the big things they are doing, often more out of monetary than environmental concern(extra cellulose insulation in your attic will save you money), maybe going as far as trying to buy some organic foods and consider a higher mpg vehicle for the car and stop littering, maybe even start using re-usable grocery bags to save some of the 500 plastic bags a year that the average American goes through

Medium Green is when you've decided to start doing some recycling, maybe buy one of the low flow shower heads I've been talking about, go ahead and purchase the hybrid, trying to buy more locally sourced products.

Dark Green...you know who you are, these folks are trying to eliminate their environmental impact entirely, we're talking composting toilets, bike to work, garden eating, own clothes making...

So, my goal is to become light dark green...I have the low flow faucets, toilets, and shower heads, I recycle, I want to get solar panels and maybe even a windmill for the house! I think I've got my wife talked into using gDiapers for the new baby. When I get home, I'm installing syrup taps on our big maple tree....but don't expect to see me in hemp clothing tending my garden and writing songs about mother earth just yet.

As Brandon would say...The best is yet to come.

Top 3 #15

I had a couple ideas but then I decided to stop drinking in preparation for my upcoming BIG RUN and read an interesting article in Money Magazine that inspired me to make this weeks top three...

Top 3 most consumed Liquors in the U.S.

3. Rum--13% of total. This is a classic for mixing with anything fruity, but one of my very favorite's is Sailor Jerry's Spiced dark rum... yum.

2. Whiskey--Given my passion for locally sourced products, this is the only one I buy with any regularity, of course being a good Tennessean mine are Dickel and Daniels, but there are several Kentucky rye's and of course the ever popular Scotch whiskey's, it takes a quarter (25%) of the market.

1. Vodka-- 28% of all liquor sold in the U.S. is Vodka, the recent trend being towards ultra high end and flavored varieties, someone gave me a raspberry vodka mixed with coke at a Christmas party and it was dangerously delicious.

Honorable Mention-- the distant fourth most consumed liquor is Gin...I'm not a fan, apparently neither are most other Americans, it accounts for 6% of consumption.

As with most things, moderation is the way to go when it comes to spirits so don't go gettin crazy out there, and I'll see you after the marathon!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Focus--

"Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow."--Aesop

Meyers-Briggs

When I was in High School I took the Meyers-Briggs personality profile for the first time. I remember it clearly because I was a slight Introvert and embarrassed when the results were read aloud in class.

For the next few years after that, my Dad was working on his Masters and Doctorate in Organizational Leadership and one of the things he worked on frequently was dealing with various personality types and tests, so yours truly had the "opportunity" to take the test a lot more.

As I experienced various personal life experiences I became more extroverted and my results started to change, I became a consistent ESTJ.

I hadn't thought about the test since right before marriage when Erika and I both took it and my results were once again confirmed. Since then, LOTS has happened, so I was curious to see if I had changed when I saw the link on Mike's blog. The biggest change is fatherhood, and I think that's why when I just took it again for the first time in nearly 6 years my results were very different...



So being a dad has made me an intuitive, feeling, perceiver....huh

Goals and Books

Since it's January, and I've been talking about goal setting lately, I thought I'd share one of mine.

I read a few books every year, for the past few years I've been keeping track of how many...last year I set a goal to read 52 books, I made it to 44 (unless I count each book of the New Testament separately then I exceeded my goal!) When I looked back at my reading list for 2008 it was even more eclectic than usual. I've always read business and leadership books as well as theology and spiritual, but last year saw an unusual mix. I enjoyed almost every book I read last year, the one exception off the top of my head was Stumbling on Happiness...just not that into it.

This year, I've decided to cut the goal in half. A book every two weeks, 26 for the year.

I'm doing this for a few reasons...

1. I have a three and a half year old son
2. I have a pregnant wife
3. I will soon have a newborn son
4. There are other things I want to spend more time with...see above

I try to keep a backlog of books in the library to read in the coming months, I'm going to let this dwindle a bit, not much new stuff coming out soon that I'm overly interested in, though I am looking forward to Dino Rizzo's new book Servolution. While I certainly don't plan every book I read for the year, in fact some of the best ones I read last year were picked up almost accidentally, I do have a few in the queue. Books I will definitely be reading this year include--
Sin Boldly
On Writing
The End of Poverty
Confessions
Blue Ocean Strategy

I'm always looking for suggestions too, so if you've read a book that you can't help but gush about, let's hear it and I'll add it to the list!

Rental Property

Some of you may know about my excursions into the fun and exciting world of rental property. I bought my first place when I was 21, a little 2 BR house in downtown Cleveland, from there until a couple years ago I purchased at least one property every year. At the height of my empire ;-)
I had over 70 rental units....YIKES!

Rental Property can produce a lucrative income, it can also produce some world class headaches.

When my wife was pregnant with our first son, I started waking up to the reality that I didn't really want to be a property guy. So much so, that since that time we've cut our holdings down to 23 units.

Which brings me to my initial reason for this post. I happen to have a couple vacancies right now, if you know anyone who is looking for a place I've got a nice 4 br 2.5 bath house for rent and a 2 br 1 ba house for rent.

I'm also open to selling any or all of them, so if you ARE looking to be a property guy/gal, give me a shout.

S.M.A.R.T.

As I mentioned before, I didn't make a bunch of resolutions this year, but EVERY year, I update and look over my life goals and take some time to set, reset, eliminate, and update.

Goals and the ability to set and follow them have been a big part of me becoming who I am today(that may convince some of you to avoid them). With any goal no matter how big or small, what has helped me is to review and check my progress regularly, I use the New Year as an obvious check up but also try to look at them at least monthly.

Many of you are familiar with the acronym SMART when it comes to goal setting, but it warrants review. A great place to start after thinking about a goal is to answer the Who, What, When, Where, Why, if you can't come up with answers, probably not worth the effort of reviewing further...Your goals should be--

Specific--It's easy to say "I plan to lose weight" but my goal is more like-I want to lose 1 lb a week for the next 20 weeks and will do that by running 20 miles a week and eating three meals a day that total less than 1800 calories.

Measurable--This is not always simple, since some goals "To be a better person" are not as easily quantifiable as my weight loss example above but it helps to have a measurement for success, If I want to help people I might use time and dollars given as measures of achievement. How much/How Many??
In sales we often say What gets measured gets done...

Action-Oriented and Attainable--This is an easy spot to get fouled up, but if you don't set some action steps up at the outset you are far less likely to follow through later, schedule some things you're going to do to help reach your goals...then do them. Nearly any goal is attainable if you have enough desire and time to work on it.

Realistic--Are you both willing and able to work on it? If not, don't waste any more time and work on something that you are willing and able to work on. Also, consider who else needs to be involved, if my goal is to have ten more kids, I better talk to the wife to see how realistic that is...

Time-Bound/Timely--I have LOTS of goals, and the ones that don't get attention are the ones with the longest time horizon or no specific completion date attached at all...WE are naturally drawn to the hottest fires, so if I have a goal to pay off my mortgage in 30 years, that's probably about when it will happen, but if I want to pay it down in 5 that will require I do a lot more action items and measure it much more closely...of course that could also be shortened so much that it no longer meets the realistic criteria...

One reason I check up on my goals regularly is that priorities can change...my goal of having a convertible moved down the list when I found out my wife was pregnant again, the goal of a Hybrid SUV moved UP the list at the same time.

Whatever your goals, write them down and visit them often.

Hopefully this will help you as you review and set your goals for 2009 and beyond...

Tuesday Thoughts

I'm off to a bit of a slow start to blogging in the New Year, but here is what's on my mind today...

--I'm getting a little obsessed with my environmental impact, thinking about trying to start making some things at home, may start with a colony of bees to make honey and wax to use in candles, soaps, etc...

--Starting to feel like running is a little less of a chore which makes it nicer, I REALLY like Nike+!

--Headed out to California next week for work, then staying over a couple days to drive to Vegas

--Took a trip to the Recyling center yesterday, saved a LOT, but could do better.

--I like Music and a good book

--Starting to really hone in on some specific goals for what to accomplish in 2009 personally and professionally

It's gonna be a very good year.

Top 3 # 14

Well...I alluded to it last week in my year end top 3, so here it is

Top 3 Cities in the southeastern U.S.

If you've read my blog more than once, and I realize many of you have NOT... I just finished a series of reviews of the cities I deem to be the major must sees in the south, from Charlotte to San Antonio. I LOVE the south, but the best of the best are...

3. New Orleans, LA

2. Savannah, GA

1. Charleston, SC

Honorable Mention--not because its close to home, but honestly CHATTANOOGA, TN ROCKS! If there was a beach nearby it would probably knock one of the others out of the top 3!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man." ~Benjamin Franklin