Leap Year is today. February 29th. It only happens once every 4 years. Shouldn’t we start a tradition of making it really special? Again…It happens only once every 4 years. We should celebrate it. Make it a holiday. Make it a huge celebration of an extra day in our lives. I’ve got 4 kids and life is flying by. We should use leap year to have a worldwide holiday. It’s an extra day! How many of us just get up, go to work, come home, go to bed. Make it happen!

Seven Things You Must do on Leap Year:

1. Praise God for the extra day!
2. Have a party
3. Fool around…yes, that kind of fool around!
4. Don’t get mad all day
5. Eat whatever you want
6. Figure out a way to laugh hysterically
7. Make a difference in someone’s life

For the first time since 2007, I feel like a positive move in the stock market is not fools gold. 13,000 is just a number but as the Dow moves about 13,000, I at least feel like it’s worthy of the number. Based on everything that’s happened, I’m still hesitant to believe the stock market has any great upside move in store for us.  But, at least I don’t feel like we are going down significantly either. I’ve kept so much of my money in case over the past several years and will probably do so for the near future. I think I’ve missed any significant move up with my cash on hand but who knows.

I’ll tell you this…even if I miss a move, I will still be cheering because at least our economy is doing better. Three cheers for the Dow finishing above 13,000! Hip, Hip, Horray! That’s good for most everyone.

Nashville Predators 3, Carolina Hurricanes 4

The Nashville Predators are having a great season and I am a loyal fan. Through thick and thin I will support them. They’ve played some great games this year but tonight was not one of them. Painful. They looked like a very below average hockey team tonight. Way to many turnovers in their own end and, unless Terry Crisp is just anal about getting the puck out of your own end, it seems like this is one of the real problems the Predators have.

On top of that, they need to find a way to get Anders Lindback some additional work. He was really, really rusty tonight. He was not sharp. He let several questionable goals in and did not pick up his Nashville teammates. The Preds certainly cannot win every game and they will not play great in every game. This was one of those games. I watched it…but it wasn’t pretty.

Where’s the Linsanity? I went to Yahoo Sports today and as usual, expected to at least have 1 story about Linsanity. What’s happened? I thought we were supposed to forever be focused on Jeremy Lin and his exploits. I think even the press has gotten tired and I actually didn’t think most of those Yay-hoo’s got tired. If there is any group of people who I would want on my side for perseverance and persistence, it would be reporters. Now admittedly, those 2 qualities I have always held as mainly positive qualities but, with reporters, these words take on a slightly different tone. Maybe since Linsanity isn’t trending on twitter, they’ve moved on to what is better for page views.

Which brings me to my point…if we focus our news generation on appeasing the trending topics on twitter and other outlets, good information gets buried for sake of what’s the current fad. For example, during Linsanity, the Spurs and Heat were playing lights out basketball and got little play. The Linsanity ride has been good but I like a better balance of news and sports news.  Plus, then maybe Jeremy Lin can continue to be a story because we haven’t buried him under the pressure of such unrealistic expectations. We’ll see.

Why franchising? 

There is lots of information on the internet about franchising. The more information, the easier it can be to get confused. If a franchise opportunity is good, it should offer the following attributes:

1. Brand name
2. Proven business system

That’s not it but always keep these two things in mind when considering a franchise. If franchising works for you, it will also do the following:

1. Allow you to be in business for yourself but not by yourself.
2. Bottle success and pass it on to the franchisees
3. Build on the success and failures of others.

Most importantly, it’s your decision. No one else. If it doesn’t feel right, don’t proceed no matter how hard others might be “pushing” you to do it.

If you have any questions or would like a no obligation consultation, please contact: Franchise Opportunities 500

Iphone

I love my IPhone. It’s probably the coolest piece of technology I own. Aside from being a phone, it’s one cool device for doing all sorts of helpful things. I’ve still got the Iphone 4 but look forward to having SIRI. I’ve talked to people and have read how great SIRI is. I’ve had my Iphone for several years now. I’ve used and tried lots of apps over the years but these are my best IPhone apps I use the most:

1. YouVersion – Bible app that has a talking version where you can listen and read the bible. Very cool. I use it everyday in the morning and read one chapter. It takes an average of about 4 minutes to listen to a chapter of the bible.
2. Notes – This app comes standard with the IPhone but I find it very handy.
3. Settings – Another Iphone app. I find myself adjusting the brightness at night so I can sleep after reading my Iphone.
4. App Store – Use this allot to search for cool Apps.
5. Calculator – I use the calculator for a ton of simple math calculations.
6. Camera – The camera is pretty good and taking video keeps me from missing all the things my kids do.
7. Maps – Another Iphone app. I use this app all the time to get directions. So far it hasn’t let me down.
8. Itunes – .99 and $1.29 songs. Awesome.
9. NPR News – This app is great if you want important news and not local crap news.
10. The Weather Channel – Very good for weather.
11. Fidelity – Because I have an account with Fidelity, I use this app.
12. Google – This app allows me to get into some of my Google stuff like reader, etc.
13. Sportacular – This is a very simple and effective app for getting scores. I don’t like it for news but it’s great to get quick scores.
14. Safari – Great for surfing the internet.
15. TuneIn Radio – I have found this app to be fantastic…especially for local stations far away from home.
16. Sudoku – Easy game to learn, hard game to master. Fun to do in your spare time…if you have any!
17. Voxer – I haven’t used it much yet but I’m hopeful because it seems pretty cool. It reminds me of the Sprint Nextel walkie talkie option.

I’ve got a ton of games on my Iphone mostly because my kids download them. The above list are my best IPhone apps I use consistently. If you are contemplating a smartphone, get the IPhone. It’s really good.

Danica Patrick’s Daytona 500 was more like Danica Patrick’s Daytona 5. She crashed on the second lap af the 2. 5 mile Daytona International speedway and left the 2 zeros off the 500. That’s got to be very frustrating to know that you are driving on behalf of sponsors, team members and employees and you don’t even get around the track 2 times. Ouch. On top of that, she has to wait another year before the chance comes again. I’ve really never understood the appeal of auto racing. I’ve been to a couple races and come away with pounding ear drums. It doesn’t do anything for me. Driving around the same track 200 times seems pretty cool. But watching cars drive around a race track 200 times doesn’t.

Yesterday, my wife and I had our sons high school orientation. He is our oldest child so this was our first rodeo into high school as parents. My wife and I have been preparing for this for some time but coming to terms with us having a high school aged kid is just wild. I cannot believe it is going this fast. Anyway, here are 4 simple rules that have made my son’s entry into high school easier.

1. Good grades and good standard scores make the process easier. Our son has done well in middle school. This really helps. On son was assigned a high school guidance counselor who came to the middle school to help him decide on which classes to take. Having seen his scores/grades, she recommended him for several honors classes and talked about the track he’ll be on if he continues what he’s doing now.
2. Have your son talk to anyone he knows already in high school. This helped our son decide on some of the classes. He found out who the better teachers are, which ones have the most homework, etc.
3. Talk to other parents about the process. My wife swallowed a ton of information from parents who have gone through the process. She was well educated on how it worked and what to expect.
4. Let you kid make decisions. We really believe it’s our sons life so he’s got to feel like he’s making the decisions. Yes we want to push him but the guidance counselor did a great job of guiding him in the right direction. We just sat there and mainly listened. We asked a few questions to clarify but mainly she spoke to our son.

The above worked for us and allowed us to better enjoy this painful process of letting our son grow up. With each passing day, he gets more independent and ready to face the world on his own but we still remember when he was learning to walk and wish it didn’t go so fast.