The Saddest Thing...Facing the World
Friday, April 29, 2005
I was just thinking....
The epidemic in North America is Obesity...people are eating too much.
The epidemic in some other parts of the world is starvation...people not having enough to eat.
We live in strange, desperate times.
posted by aforward @ 1:47 PM,
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Exploding Toads in a Hamburg Pond Baffle Scientists
Thursday, April 28, 2005
27/04/2005 1:25:00 PM
BERLIN (AP) - More than 1,000 toads have puffed up and exploded in a Hamburg pond in recent weeks, and German scientists still have no explanation for what's causing the combustion, an official said Wednesday.
Both the pond's water and body parts of the toads have been tested, but scientists have been unable to find a bacteria or virus that would cause the toads to swell up and pop, said Janne Kloepper, of the Hamburg-based Institute for Hygiene and the Environment.
"It's absolutely strange," she said. "We have a really unique story here in Hamburg. This phenomenon really doesn't seem to have appeared anywhere before."
The toads at a pond in the upscale neighbourhood of Altona have been blowing up since the beginning of the month, filling up like balloons until their stomachs suddenly burst.
"It looks like a scene from a science-fiction movie," Werner Schmolnik, the head of a local environment group, told the Hamburger Abendblatt daily. "The bloated animals suffer for several minutes before they finally die."
Biologists have come up with several theories, but Kloepper said that most have been ruled out.
The pond's water quality is no better or worse than other bodies of water in Hamburg, the toads did not appear to have a disease, and a laboratory in Berlin has ruled out the possibility that it is a fungus that made its way from South America, she said.
She said that tests will continue. In the meantime, city residents have been warned to stay away from the pond.
posted by aforward @ 9:59 AM,
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Dairy Queen Responds
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
A little while ago a wrote a personal letter to Dairy Queen asking if they would consider making a smaller "snack size" Blizzard.
They got back to me...hee hee.
I received $5.00 worth of coupons and nice letter! They are going to take my idea into consideration and apparently love getting feedback.
Losing weight these days is all about portion sizes!
posted by aforward @ 1:41 PM,
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A Cottage in PEI
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Yep, that's the next big thing on my income producing assets wish list - a little cottage in PEI. We could rent it for a few weeks in the summer to cover expenses. It would also be a nice family getaway for when the little ones begin to arrive. I love PEI, for three main reasons 1. The Pace 2. The Food 3. The Golf (We'll throw in the beach for Andrew). Oh and did I mention, it's like $60,000 for a waterfront cottage.
Wow my head has really taken a new perspective on life; its important I think that people are educated in realizing there are a lot of other ways to make money in life than through a traditional job and the fact that most of these methods won't charge you income tax. I really hope Andrew considers quitting Deloitte soon, I mean he talks about it a lot but won't take the plunge until we pay our two remaining debts. I mean its not like he doesn't have an income stream to fall back on-its even one that's not effected as much by taxes.
And we can't forget about our "Ace-in-the-Hole".
You could do very well in this world if you just went around asking on every big purchase you make whether not it would produce a stream of income for you.
posted by aforward @ 12:59 PM,
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About Ayana
Monday, April 25, 2005
Name: Ayana Forward (nee Nurse)
I am a Certified Financial Planner based in Ottawa ON Canada. I am the owner of Retirement in View a Fee Only Financial planning firm that helps people build a clear plan for retirement.
Where to find us:
Retirement in View
240 Catherine St
Suite 201
Ottawa ON K2P 2G8
613.416.9593
Favourites:
#1 Andrew
Teams: Miami Dolphins, KNVB
Sport: Soccer
Food: Mashed Potatoes
TV Shows: Veronica Mars, Dexter, Grey's Anatomy
Song: Give Me One Reason, Tracy Chapman
Claim To Fame: I played Semi-Professional Soccer when I was 21. That was the first year Ottawa had a franchise in the W-League.
What I do: I help people manage their finances with a focus on taxation, retirement planning and investing.
Hobbies: painting, being a sports fan, walking, people watching
What I'm trying to get better at: Drawing
11 Quirky Things About Me
andrew and i
posted by aforward @ 8:49 PM,
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Product Overdiversification
Thursday, April 21, 2005
One thing that is getting on my nerves recently is how corporations are now simply overdiversifying their products. It is pretty obvious that diversification is neccessary for companies to differentiate their product in order increase growth of sales in their respective market, especially in times where products sales are stagnant(sp?) or beginning to decline.
There are some great examples of this working and even more documented examples
of this failing miserably. What I'm annoyed by is that it is everywhere from
toothpaste to chocolate bars. And the poor examples have marred this
technique so much that they nullify the effect of those who actually do it
right.
I'm annoyed by the following:
Heinz introduces new easy squeeze ketchup bottles: I guess there really aren't that many ways to differentiate ketchup. I've seen some new flavours like hot and spicy, I think they made it green at one point. Anyways this new bottle is the farthest thing from being "easy to sueeze". The ketchup comes out in blobs, after 3 minutes of trying to hold and tap the bottle just right.
Toothpaste: there's tarter fighter, fresh breeze, vanilla scented, whitening, flossing. I just want the one that cleans my teeth.
Listerine: Citrus flavoured mouth wash only because the minty is too minty for some people.Please note citrus flavour is also $1.00 more.
Pepsi: Pepsi clear, pepsi free,vanilla pepsi, lime pepsi
Reeses: Inside out peanut butter cups, more peanut butter than chocolate cups, more chocolate than peanut butter cups, vanilla covered cups, fudge cups
Oreo: Now has a vanilla flavoured cookie
Gillete: one blade, two blade, three blade, excel, sensor excel, Mach 10, Mach 10 with vibrator????, Mach 10 with sleek design.
Enough already. I say stick with got you your market share in the first place.
posted by aforward @ 1:38 PM,
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First Fundraising Client
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
My mom's company has to raise something like 2.2 million dollars for a women's shelter they want to build. We might even get to test out some new fundraising ideas on them.
It would be cool if we could put together one of those Cruising for Charity programs for them. I may even be able to practice the Mission Fish/ebay model with this group. The trouble is, with the program..I think is how is a group going to be able to sell 75 cabins - that is where mission fish and my sustainable business model comes in.
Anyways, sounds like she is excited for my book.
Hey...you never know unless you try right?
posted by aforward @ 1:15 PM,
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Things To Do When I Retire
Monday, April 18, 2005
- Start Painting Again
- Golf more
- Work on Woodworking Projects
- Take Another Computer Course (learn flash)
- Sit on Our Patio and Read
- Sit on Our Patio and Drink beer and/or wine
- Climb Mount Kilamanjaro
- Learn French and Spanish
- Start running seriously again
- Start Playing Squash
- Learn to drive manually
- Poke Andrew
This post will be a work in progress
posted by aforward @ 2:41 PM,
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What People Will Go Through To Catch The Bus
I can't believe the number of people who will run across oncoming traffic just so they can catch the bus.
posted by aforward @ 9:57 AM,
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McDonald's Chicken Selects
Friday, April 15, 2005
One word...yuck
I just thought I'd try these out because I was craving chicken fingers last night. When I got home all I got was some fried batter. Only one of the 3 pieces actually had chicken in it.
It tasted like it had been sitting out for while, was over cooked, over chewy and all around not very "select" or "chickeny".
I have to give props for the honey dijon sauce though...yummy. It made the experience bearble.
Anyways $3.99 for three tiny pieces of batter and some yummy sauce is not a great idea. I guess I will have to stick with my fajitas and McChickens.
posted by aforward @ 11:38 AM,
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Badminton is like Chess
Thursday, April 14, 2005
So having some fun at the community center on Wednesday nights playing a little badminton.
Its taking a little time to get the rust out but I'm glad to be playing again.
I'm trying to learn more of the strategy of the game and I really have to cut down on some of the errors.
You really have to stay focused, one little distraction and your out of it.
We've already started coming up with names for people, Yacabal, The rally killer, Vijay.
posted by aforward @ 12:45 PM,
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Summer Sports
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
So looks like I've found some summer sports teams to put together.
I'd like to do a six-a-side soccer team with Nilu, Kath, Eric, Nicole, Mauricio, Andrew (if he wants).
I'd also like to do a softball team with some soccer chicks and maybe some of Andrew's posse friends.
And there is also beach volleyball with Roy.
posted by aforward @ 11:58 AM,
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eBay and the Travel Business
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
So as the empire grows, I'm close to putting another little "arm" or income stream onto the fundraising business. I love how the ideas are starting to multiply and the income streams are potentially independent of one another. I think we can look at combining the TravelOnly business with the eBay giving works program to have charities raise money with Cruises.
This can not only be very lucrative, but also we have more control. We decide when to set up an auction and we are selling in bulk without having to do individual quotes.
Now that is truly thinking outside of the box. It also is a great way to monetize some of the fundraising traffic we will hopefully be getting 6-8 months from now.
posted by aforward @ 12:08 PM,
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Other Income Producing Assets
Monday, April 11, 2005
So I've just picked up David Foster's, Stop Working book. I saw himon TV and they didn't have it in ottawa so I grabbed it while we were in Dundas this weekend.
Again I am impressed by authors who don't tell you the same old, same old. I love the perspective he takes on looking at stocks. He looks at them like you are buying a piece of the business and not for how much you will eventually make on the sale, in fact he plans on never selling his stocks. He keeps them around for the dividend distributions.
I also want to get into REITs, he likes these too.
I also enjoy how he gives examples and specifics.
He writes from the perspective of an everday investor and not from a financial planner, (which he is not). Its nice to know he was successful even in the bear market.
The great news is that we now have a few more ideas for income producing assets that we can add to the empire.
1. Real Estate Trusts
2. Dividends from Blue Chip Stocks
And I am only half way through
posted by aforward @ 12:37 PM,
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Writing Articles-Fundraising Project
Thursday, April 07, 2005
So I officially need 9 more articles, a fundraising course and about 20-30 more blog posts to be ready for launch. This should be just enough content to start seeing some organic search results.
I've also found a great new method for writing content. I think of a topic as a whole, and then pick a piece off of it and focus on that. I think about a Big Niche topic, then I blog about an offshoot of that niche. My last post on the golf fundraisers is a great example. Golf tournament fundraisers is a big niche (Fundsport article or content page) ...while "running a whole in one contest without risk" is the small sub topic of that article.
One of the main things I want to offer at fundsport is interactivity. I want people to email us suggestions. It will give us great inspiration for articles, content and blog posts. Will need Andrew to set up email accounts and filters in the gmail to accelerate this process.
I am pretty excited about how everything is turning out. I'd love to be able to launch both projects by May 1st, 2005.
After we are ready for launch, then we can start to do some PR for more traffic and some great link exchanges.
The blog is a great optimization tool and resource. It's an awesome way to post links for exchanges as well.
What did I learn today?
"People look at graphics, and they read text. Text tends to draw people in."
posted by aforward @ 2:22 PM,
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24 Goes Stealth
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
The "24" we know and love returned yesterday with a midair assault on the President by own of his air force's own "secret weapons".
It was back to the good old "edge of your seat" days. CTU and Jack seem to lagging pretty far behind Marwan. He's sneaky that little guy, always sneaking away into the shadows and always with a getaway car at his disposal.
Thoughts on the episode:
Why didn't terroist-assasin lady just leave after she found the hard drive?
Why are Tony and Michelle bickering about their personal life when the air force one is about to be attacked?
Ummm Michelle what are thinking Tony? or Old Guy?
posted by aforward @ 11:08 AM,
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Psychology of Wealth
Friday, April 01, 2005
So I dragged the guys out to a millionaire seminar mind seminar and they wanted to leave half way thorugh, which was fine as I was getting tired.
But there is always that one tip, piece of advice or revelation that comes out of these seminars and the trick is to try and ignore all of the cultish propoganda and filter out those points. For everyone there i'm sure it was somethng different.
For me it was "Think in hundreds and you will only make hundreds". This is a really powerful fact. I say fact because I see it everyday in my life and in the lives of others. I remember in the movie "Ray", a similar comment was made and it struck me then as well.
I also liked how he said the wealthy "create their wealth", it doesn't just happen to them.
Anyways it the seminar made me want to pick up "Think and Grow Rich" again, I have it on my computer.
posted by aforward @ 2:13 PM,
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Keyword Density in Search Engine Optimization
Another little tidbit I had not intentionally been focusing on is keyword density.
There is a nice little equation one could literally sit down and make quite a bit of money with.
It is in finding the ULTIMATE KEYWORD PHRASE.
The UKP would have some great characteristics:
Lots of Searches (over 1000 per month)
Little competition (Under 500,000 sites)
Lack of KDA in Competing Sites
The keyword analysis software I use is great but it needs to go one step further, it needs a column that also specifies the average kda for that keyword in the top 10 listings. Now that is powerful.
Keep Kda levels between 5-15% for as many key word phrases you can.
And of course (once in title, once in description, once in header tag, once in alt tag, once in anchor text etc)
This is powerful because if your pay-per-click campaigns are generating good ROI imagine the succes you could have with free hits from organic search listings.
Now your business is truly on autopilot.
posted by aforward @ 1:42 PM,
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