Hello & Goodbye

I just experienced something I have many times before, but it's still interesting...

In today's world of trying to be polite and politically correct, etc., we have a habit of using 'defaults' for salutations and good-bye's. For I just saw a lady say "You, too!" upon her leaving...but it was in response to "Good-bye"...If you think about that, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Surely the lady was trying to be polite but was already "out the door" in her mind.

It just shows how ingrained we can be with our ways, but also how important a sincere "Thank you" or the like can be. Remember that next time you really mean it...

A Story About Idaho (Where I was born!)

IDAHO LIVING

AUGUST 1  
Move to our new home in Idaho. It is so beautiful here. The hills are
so lovely. Can hardly wait to see snow covering them.

OCTOBER 11   
Idaho is the most beautiful place on earth. The leaves are turned all
the colors and shades of red and orange. Went for a ride through the
beautiful hills and saw some deer. They are so graceful. Certainly they
are the most wonderful animal on earth. This must be paradise. I love it
here.

NOVEMBER 11
Deer season will start soon. I can't imagine anyone wanting to kill such a
gorgeous creature. Hope it will snow soon. I love it here.

DECEMBER 2
It snowed last night. Woke up to find everything blanketed with white. It
looks like a postcard. We went outside and cleaned the snow off the steps
and shoveled the driveway. We had a snowball fight (I won), and when the
snow-plow came by, we had to shovel the driveway again. What a beautiful
place. I love Idaho.

DECEMBER 3
More snow last night. I love it. The snow-plow did his trick again to the
driveway. I love it here.

DECEMBER 19
More snow last night. Couldn't get out of the driveway to get to work. I
am exhausted from shoveling. Snow-plow driver is an a**-hole.

DECEMBER 21
I'm sick of this white sh*t. I've g ot blisters on my hands from shoveling.
I think the snow-plow hides around the curve and waits until I'm done
shoveling the driveway. Fricking b*stard!

DECEMBER 25
Merry Fricking Christmas. More friggen snow. If I ever get my hands on that
son-of-a-b*tch who drives the snow-plow, I swear I'll kill the b*stard.
Don't know why they don't use more salt on the roads to melt the fricking
ice.

DECEMBER 27
More white sh*t last night. Been inside for three days except for
shoveling out the driveway after that snow-plow goes through every time.
Couldn't go anywhere, car is stuck in a mountain of white sh*t. The
weatherman says to expect another 10" of the sh*t again tonight. Do you
know how many shovels full of snow 10" is?

DECEMBER 28
The Fricking weatherman was wrong! We got 14" of that white sh*t this time.
At this rate it won't melt before the summer. The snow-plow got stuck up
in the road and that b*stard came to the door and asked to borrow my
shovel. After I told him I had broken six shovels already shoveling all
the sh*t he pushed into the driveway, I broke my last one over his fricking
head.

JANUARY 3
Finally got out of the house today. Went to the store to get food and on
the way back 2 d*mn deer ran in front of the car and I hit it. Did about
$2,000 damage to the car. Those  beasts should be killed. Wish the
hunters had killed them all last November.

APRIL 7
Took the car to the garage in town. Would you believe the thing is rusting
out from all the d*mn salt they put all over the roads.

MAY 10

Moved to Tucson, AZ.

Amazing views

From Topa Topa Club Tower in Oxnard. Thanks John Hancock!

Transferred to S3

So after about a week and a half of playing with Amazon Web Services, I've successfully cancelled my previous hosting contracts which were about to renew and am now fully on Amazon's S3. I know there was a recent outage and I commented that it's important to have redundancy which is why that is the next step, setting up a backup/mirror system for when S3 goes down next.

However, in the meantime, I am incredibly happy with the speed (amazing compared to other shared-hosting services), the cost (so far my bill for the month is .10, and that's with uploading some of the same stuff multiple times due to the learning curve), and flexibility.

And now that I know how to set it up for web services, the real fun can begin.

Make sure to check out www.RemoteCPAs.com for new Backup Only and RemoteAccess with Backup packages starting at only $159.99 for the year for 50GBs of redundant storage! RemoteCPAs.com will be undergoing a revamp to update the target market (not just CPA firms anymore) as will DavinCarey.com for new design/info/links (pictures and videos will soon be hosted directly to the page rather than Facebook/Flickr/etc. plus the typical bevvy of blog posts and tighter integration with the Blogger account).

Enjoy! And please leave comments of any ideas, suggestions, or otherwise.

'Til Then...

Davin's "News" Finished!

Ok, so all the news is off of "Davin's Amazing Life!" and onto "Davin's "What I Think Is Good News" Blog" @ http://davinsnews.blogspot.com/

This should keep things tidier and split up the news from the stuff actually 'amazing' in my life, rather than just the mundane plethora of feeds and reads I go through daily.

Enjoy!

HD-DVD @ Fry's

Apparently Fry's didn't get the memo. It's not ''The look & sound of perfect''...it's the look and sound of dead!

Cow's Life - A Metaphor for Life

DEMOCRATIC

You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being successful.
Barbara Streisand sings for you.

REPUBLICAN

You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
So?

SOCIALIST

You have two cows.
The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.

COMMUNIST

You have two cows.
The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
You wait in line for hours to get it.
It is expensive and sour.

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE

You have two cows.
You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE

You have two cows.
Under the new farm program the government pays you to shoot one, milk
the other, and then pours the milk down the drain.

AMERICAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one.
You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows.
You are surprised when one cow drops dead.
You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses.
Your stock goes up.

FRENCH CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.
You go to lunch and drink wine.
Life is good.

JAPANESE CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains.
Most are at the top of their class at cow school.

GERMAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour..
Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.

ITALIAN CORPORATION

You have two cows but you don't know where they are.
While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman.
You break for lunch.
Life is good.

RUSSIAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You have some vodka.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You have some more vodka.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.

TALIBAN CORPORATION

You have all the cows in Afghanistan , which are two.
You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature's private parts.
You get a $40 million grant from the US government to find alternatives to milk production but use the money to buy weapons.

IRAQI CORPORATION

You have two cows.
They go into hiding.
They send radio tapes of their mooing.

POLISH CORPORATION

You have two bulls.
Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.

BELGIAN CORPORATION

You have one cow.
The cow is schizophrenic.
Sometimes the cow thinks he's French, other times he's Flemish.
The Flemish cow won't share with the French cow.
The French cow wants control of the Flemish cow's milk.
The cow asks permission to be cut in half.
The cow dies happy.

FLORIDA CORPORATION

You have a black cow and a brown cow.
Everyone votes for the best looking one.
Some of the people who actually like the brown one best accidentally
vote for the black one.
Some people vote for both.
Some people vote for neither.
Some people can't figure out how to vote at all.
Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which one you think is the best-looking cow.

CALIFORNIA CORPORATION

You have millions of cows.
They make real California cheese.
Only five speak English.
Most are illegals.
Arnold likes the ones with the big udders.

Things that make you go HMMMM!

Why, Why, Why
do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are
getting dead?

Why do banks charge a fee on "insufficient funds" when they know there
is not enough money?

Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion
stars, but check when you say the paint is wet?

Why doesn't glue stick to the bottle?

Why do they use sterilized needles for death by lethal injection?

Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard?

Why does Superman stop bullets with his chest, but ducks when you
throw a revolver at him?

Why do Kamikaze pilots wear helmets?

Whose idea was it to put an "S" in the word "Lisp"?

If people evolved from apes, why are there still apes?

Why is it that no matter what color bubble bath you use the bubbles
are always white?

Is there ever a d ay that mattresses are not on sale?

Why do people constantly return to the refrigerator with hopes that
something new to eat will have materialized?

Why do people keep running over a string a dozen times with their
vacuum cleaner, then reach down, pick it up, examine it, then put it
down to give the vacuum one more chance?

Why is it that no plastic bag will open from the end on your first try?

How do those dead bugs get into those enclosed light fixtures?

When we are in the supermarket and someone rams our ankle with a
shopping cart then apologizes for doing so, why do we say, "It's all
right?" Well, it isn't all right, so why don't we say, "That hurt, you
stupid idiot?"

Why is it that whenever you attempt to catch something that's falling
off the table you always manage to knock something else over?

In winter why do we try to keep the house as warm as it was in summer
when we complained about the heat?

How come you never hear father-in-law jokes?

And my FAVORITE......


The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four persons is
suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your three best
friends -- if they're okay, then it's you.

5 Lessons Learned From Gordon Ramsay

via Learn to Duck by Micah on 2/17/08

First, I have never met Gordon Ramsay, but I have watched him on television. I watched Hell’s Kitchen pretty religiously, and then enjoyed watching Kitchen Nightmares. After moving to Boulder, I finally got my TiVo setup, and one of the first shows it recorded for me was Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares from BBC-America. So, after 3-4 episodes were recorded, I finally sat down and started to watch them. What amazed me is how his general rules for running a successful restaurant are really not all that different than getting a startup off the ground.

1) It’s never as easy as it looks.

One term that I have always disliked was serial entrepreneur. It really means that you are unable to complete anything, and that you find joy in the starting of things. What most entrepreneurs dont realize is that all the time spent on coming up with a cool idea, getting a couple of people to join you, and maybe even raising some money, is just the beginning. At some point, you have to start running a business.

It seems that in the restaurant business, this is very much the same. Some is told that they are a great cook, or they have watched someone run a restaurant for a long period of time. They come up with a concept (American Southern Cuisine on the beach in Brighton), a look (a purple covered restaurant with a yellow interior), hire a few people (or get some friends together), and they convince a bank or someone to give them some cash. Then the restaurant starts, and there is no one who knows how to run a business.

2) Running a business is like baking a cake.

In one episode, Gordon shows a restaurant owner that running a restaurant is just like baking a cake. It is important to have a balance among three things: Food Cost, Overhead/Staffing and Profits. To much of any of three, and the cake ends up being a horrible mess.

In business, this is much the same. Every business has cost associated with doing the business, a tech business has intellectual property or the idea itself, a services business might have time or media costs, and a product business has manufacturing costs.

Spend too much on physical costs or staffing/overhead you eat up your profits. Spend too much effort on generating profits, and you will lose customers/clients or create opportunity costs.

Baking a cake takes more than just combining a bunch of ingredients and throwing it in the oven. Same could be said for running a business.

3) Communication is key.

Gordon has become known for being extremely mean. Personally, I have seemed to have gained a similar reputation. So in watching Gordon, I kept thinking to myself, is he really that mean? What I determined is that when communicating, he eliminates any ambiguity, is extremely direct, and doesnt take the time to take the other person’s feelings into account. Why? Because critical communication needs to be understood and delivered in a timely fashion. In the kitchen or in a business, this is often lost in the desire to be liked. The truth is that a CEO/Restaurant owner that creates a positive work environment and a successful business is always liked. Especially every two weeks on payday.

4) Sometimes broccoli soup is just broccoli.

Often, one of the main things Gordon does is get the restaurant owner to focus on what is important, the food. The decor, parking, cramped dining room, etc is always secondary. (He does always remake the restaurant in some way). But the message is clear. Good food, made in a way to ensure profit always leads to happy customers. For example, he showed one restaurant owner how to make a broccoli soup with just broccoli (the chef had used several ingredients that seemed to take away from the broccoli). Gordon’s soup was the favorite of the customers, and cost 1/20 of the other soup.

So many times new business owners spend a lot of time on things like signage, websites, business cards and the like. They forget that sometimes broccoli soup is just broccoli. Focus on making the best broccoli soup possible, and customers wont care about the shabby website, missing features or witty error pages.

5) Passion isnt everything, its the only thing.

I really think that Gordon Ramsey would be someone that I would enjoy being around. He is laser focused on what constitutes a successful restaurant, his passion for cooking and teaching is clear. In one episode of The F Word, he has a competition with a friend over who can bake the better chocolate brownie. The friend uses cocoa powder, butter, milk and some sugar. Gordon uses special pans, real chocolate, butter, etc. When the guest’s brownies are voted best by a small group of food critics, Gordon confronts them and asks a dozen questions about why the simple brownies were better. He wasnt questioning the critics; he was learning.

Great business leaders have passion and are able to transfer that passion to the people around them. And, they understand that passion isnt demostrated by constant activity, but rather by constant trial, education and achievement.

StickK

A community contract site to keep you on track for whatever you want to do:

http://www.stickk.com/

CookThink

Like Pandora (finds music you should like by what you like now), for food and recipes!

http://www.cookthink.com/

The result of 6 hours @ the mall

Danya & Steph matching in AF

A day at the mall...

So instead of heading down to Hollywood, we decided a more laid back day would be good. Get some rest and not stress. We head up to the Thousand Oaks mall about noon after a brunch with friends and it's now 5:20p and still here. Not that it's a bad thing, but I never knew we'd be here this long. I guess this is where all those advertising dollars are going.

Another interesting thing is how 'discounted' things can be and retailers still make profit after paying for labor and rent and utilities plus some room left for profitability. Take my experience today for example. I head over to Express and picked up a couple shirts. 3 for 29.50 ea instead of 49.50 like normal. Good deal and I was happy. I like their stuff because I think they do make a superior product and they have good designers. Then it's off to Macy's to spend some gift card money. I bought 11 dress shirts and 3 ties for $246 after it being discounted $395 between an 11% coupon I received from guest services while checking my gift card balance & the hefty discount storewide on top of the department/item discounts.

Just crazy how overpriced stuff is non-sale and how selling the sale makes all the difference these days...

Well, off to another store for the girls. Maybe a movie soon...

Hollywood

So today I was supposed to head down to Hollywood w/ Steph and show her the sights (she's never been down there)...but instead we ended up staying in Camarillo helping my dad & step mom move some stuff. No big deal, got some free food and great company. So tomorrow the plan is to head down and take in the sights...there might even be some pix/video afterwards from the trip to post!

In other news, I'm trying to migrate all my sites to different web hosting, possibly. I've been playing a bit w/ the Amazon S3 thing so far and it's a little more technical/laborious than needs be for a learning curve to use as a hosting platform. But with some work, it looks like it will be extremely cost effective, plus includes a pretty good "cool factor" to boot...

I'll post an update once things are underway.

Also...updating DavinCarey.com soon (after I decide S3 or not)...and updating billing plans for RemoteCPAs.com...if you haven't heard of BackupRight.com, check it out. Awesome service, especially when used in conjunction with RemoteCPAs =)

G'Nite!

Corny Joke

Steph loves these...

What do you call a flying turtle?

A shellocopter!

WOW

This is Vegas

Wow...they must have been watching me the last couple times I've been out there...

Vday for me!

..and to my surprise, look what I received at the office. Whoo hoo!!!

JetBlue announces Burbank to Vegas for $39!

New Nonstop Route Fares (*plus taxes and fees) between Long Beach and San Jose between Burbank and Las Vegas (Starts May 21) Book a flight between Long Beach and Seattle between San Diego and Seattle (Starts May 21) Book a flight between Long Beach and Austin (Starts May 1) Book a flight between Burbank and Washington, D.C. (Starts May 21) Book a flight between Los Angeles and New York City (Starts May 21) Book a flight between Los Angeles and Boston (Starts May 21) Book a flight

Silent Force Fans? I think not

Ron Paul...in SF. That's commitment!