The car I drive is a 2000 Honda Civic which my Mom bought brand new and kept in really good shape. Then, in his last few years, my father started to drive the car and my younger brother started to drive the car around the same time, too. Somehow, the jack system that I would be using to fix this flat tire wasn’t totally intact. This is good news to find out on the side of 195 when it’s pitch black and freezing out and I only have a thin sweatshirt! Damn it!

So, I’m on the side of the road with cars whizzing by at 65 to 80 miles per hour with a jack that doesn’t quite get the job done while freezing my ass off. Like any good man, though, I figured that I can make this work. So I pull a pen out of my glove box and start turning the jack (which I put in the wrong place) to raise the car. As you may imagine, the plastic pen doesn’t last too long before it’s busted. So, I start searching my car for something that might be able to turn the knob on the jack and raise up this car. Lucky for me, I still have some of the tools from my visits to the organic farm in my car. While digging through the equipment, I found some hand tools – specifically a garden cultivator. For those of you that don’t know, a garden cultivator is that three pronged thing that looks like a claw.

At 5:30pm last night I was on the side of 195 with a garden cultivator turning a jack that was in the wrong place freezing my ass off. Wonderful. Did I mention that the tires were also held in place by lugnuts that were put in place via air-compressed hand guns? Yeah – those things weren’t moving for my tire iron…

The story takes a great turn at this point. After about ten minutes of essentially doing nothing on the side of the road, a Department of Transportation worker pulls over behind me and pretty much changes the tire in a matter of 5 minutes with ridiculously high powered tools. His jack has the leverage of a 4 foot pole that picks up the car with no problem at all. Plus, this guy has an air-compression powered hand gun and blows out the lug nuts in seconds. I tossed my tire iron deep into my trunk so I can forget about it.

The Department of Transportation worker placed the donut on my car and had me heading back home in no time. Actually, I wasn’t heading back home because I clearly needed a new tire. My destination from 195 was to the Sears in Ocean Township. The kid at Sears was nice enough and showed me different types of tires. Then he asks, “Do you just want the one tire?” Now, I now that you’re supposed to buy these things in pairs so I said, “No, give me two. Actually, can you see if I need to get four tires?”

To this kid’s great credit, he went out and checked my car and did not take the obvious bait. In other words, you would expect any salesman to say, “Yep! You definitely need four tires!” without thinking twice. This kid told me that I only needed two new tires, but that due to my extended commute (about 100 miles per day) the other two would have to be replaced in about a month or two. The kid was honest enough and he made enough sense, so I bought four brand new tires as well as the Sears roadside assistance or some such stuff. Whatever service I purchased yesterday, it allows me to have my tires replaced by Sears for free. And since I bought a set of Sumitomo tires that have a guaranteed 75,000 mile lifespan, the warranty should come in handy.

At this point, though, the story takes a bit more of an aggravating twist. No, it’s not the fact that it took these guys two hours to change my four tires (because what I really felt like doing from 6:30pm to 8:30pm was walk around the local Target and Sears while my tires were changed). The aggravation comes in the price. I think, overall, I received a good price on the total package – it came to $402. That’s not a really bad price given the product and services that I purchased. However, getting smacked with such a large expense the week before Christmas pretty much ends my Christmas shopping. Luckily, I purchased a few items for the people on my list last weekend so I do have some gifts to give out. Overall, it’s pretty aggravating, though.

And there you have the story of my night last night.

I like to set up appointments with my clients when I go to visit them. This way, they know when I’m coming and they know how much time I have to spend talking about their website needs. Last week, I set up a meeting at 2:00pm to meet with one of my clients. Now, generally when I set up a meeting with a client, I try to get there five to ten minutes early.

So I get the to the meeting five minutes early and find that there is no one at the building. That’s okay, though. I can sit outside and wait for the clients to arrive. No big problem. Then 2:00pm comes around and I’m still the only one there…2:05pm, 2:10pm, 2:15pm…

Now at this point I’ve been sitting there for twenty minutes on my own. I sent a text to my client that we would have to reschedule because I had to get to another meeting and then I left. About twenty minutes later the client texted me back and said that he had to go out to the store to get something to eat before our meeting, but that he would be back at the store in ten minutes if I wanted to meet then.

Follow the timeline here, folks. I left at 2:15pm and was texted back at 2:35pm at which time the client said they could meet at 2:45pm. That’s a full 45 minutes after our original meeting was scheduled for!!! Obviously, I said that we would have to stick with rescheduling because I couldn’t put off the 3:00pm meeting.

Can you imagine? After not showing up for a meeting at your own office (because you had to get something to eat) and saying that you’ll be around 45 minutes after the start time, you would expect the vendor to come back and think nothing of it?!

Some people are just amazing in their lack of concern about the cost of other people’s time.

Park Hotel Brasilia is ideally located in the East area of Lido di Jesolo away from traffic crow and few steps from the main shopping street which, in the evening, is a pedestrian area. Imagine that – you could vacationing in a place that is so serene that there is cow traffic in some areas. Definitely something much different than you would find in the traditional resort. The Park Hotel Brasilia is no typical resort, though…

The Park Hotel Brasilia is a “hotel 4 stelle jesolo” (that means a Four Star Hotel in Jesolo, by the way)! So now we’ve got a Four Star Hotel located away from the regular aggravations of tourist travel – what else can this hotel offer you? Well, how about a private beach and private facilities?! That’s right, guests at the Park Hotel Brasilia can take advantage of a private beach – how great is that?!

And for those of you who don’t want to go jump into the ocean (I certainly wouldn’t want to), the Park Hotel Brasilia offers two swimming pools (with a jacuzzi) located in the middle of a large sun terrace and a secluded garden. A secluded garden, folks. You can’t find that at the general touristy places – especially in Italy!

So for those of you looking to spend some time at a beautiful hotel jesolo lido (i.e. a beautiful seaside hotel and resort), then give some serious consideration the Park Hotel Brasilia. The perfect location, unbeatable amenities, and the allure of the sea – what more could you want from the perfect Italian getaway? Enjoy!

1. Pay Your Bill On Time. The biggest aggravation that any small business owner runs into is usually related to finances. To be frank, there are a bunch of customers who just don’t pay their bills. Then, as a small business owner, you’re wedged between a rock and a hard place. Do you charge a late fee and risk aggravating the client or do you stick to the terms of your contract? I say for habitual offenders, you have to charge the late fee. But folks, if you’re working with a small business – pay your damn invoices on time.
2. Not Showing Up To Meetings. In truth, this particular point is what drove me to write this post today (and I’m writing this on Friday, the day before it’ll be on the blog). I was supposed to have a meeting with a new client at 1:00pm today – he didn’t show. This has happened on a few occasions with other potential clients. If people want to know why some small business owners stay away from random inquiries, this is the reason. No one has time in their day to go to a meeting place, sit around for half an hour, and then leave. It’s insulting and probably crosses you off of that small business’ list of future clients.
3. I’m Not Your Tech Guy. My company designs and maintains websites. Nothing gets me aggravated more than when my clients call me and expect me to be able to fix the viruses on their computer. Look – you’re the idiot who either ran over to a porn site or actually clicked a link in the spam e-mail. Besides, my contract is to provide you with website services – not to be your tech guy!
4. You’re Not My Website Company. On a related note, I often get bothered by people who want to plug their limited online expertise into the services that my company performs. I’ll train my clients to work with their websites, but I don’t need you telling me how to do my job. At the same time, I absolutely hate it when small clients (nonprofits or small companies like my own) want websites that are as expansive as organizations 100 times their size. Part of my company’s purpose is to provide an online business for small companies and nonprofits – if you have plans on world domination, that’s fine. Using my company as a stepping stone in your plans.
5. Your Projects Are Different. Related to the previous point is this one, which comes up more than you would think. I often have clients who do one site with me, love my prices and my services, and then want to come back for another site or two. That’s fine – that’s actually great and it means that I’m doing my job. But when I create a small website for your small company and charge you a small fee, don’t think that when you come back with your website that is going to “rival YouTube” that I’m going to do it for beans. Frankly, I’m not going to do it because this company is my side gig and I’m really only in it to help the small guys out and earn a small profit on the side. I’m not interested in fighting the man or creating a better online profile site than Facebook or MySpace – and if I was, then you’d better damn well be ready to pony up the tens of thousands of dollars it would take to get started on that type of project!

Those are only a few of the aggravations of owning a small business. I post these here mainly for your amusement, but you never know – someone might Google this page one day and get something out of it!

First, like everyone I hope for health, happiness, safety, etc. Blah blah blah – we all get this resolution. So everyone out there be careful and safe and so on and so on…

Financially, I’m in a good spot. A few years ago I tightened my financial belt and it paid off. I’m close to breaking beneath $100,000 in total student loan debt, I have no credit card debt, I have a sufficient safety reserve, and I have a diversified investment portfolio including an ING savings account, CDs, stocks, and my 401k. For someone my age, that’s pretty good. This year, though, I’d like to double my safety reserve since the economy doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better any time soon. I’m also staying in the market.

Honestly, that’s about it for the resolutions. I’m going to go to the doctor this year and get a full physical and I really need to get my eyes checked again because I think I need a new set of lenses. Other than that, I think I’m doing well!

Good luck to all of you in meeting your New Year’s Resolutions!

Landlords in Monmouth County are weird.

And now we have an absentee landlord who lives in Kentucky. Fine, whatever. Like any other American, he has the right to live where he wants and own what he can afford – even if that means he owns a property thousands of miles from where he lives. Whatever – good for him. He’s not a good “people person” as he is one of those rich guys who never really listens to what you say, but rather just talks over you. Also, he is quite condescending and thinks that my roommates and I are just a bunch of “kids.” Bear in mind, I’ll be 28 years old in a few months and both of my roommates and I have Masters Degrees and we’ve been working professionals for the last 2+ years (we’ve all actually held jobs for much longer). But, like all Monmouth County landlords, this guy is just weird.

My roommates and I sent him August’s rent on July 21st. Talk about sending the rent early, huh? We try to be good tenants and we wanted to start the relationship with the new landlord on the right foot. Get this – the landlord doesn’t cash any of our checks until August 22nd. That’s 32 days later! In the interim, he complains that we sent three checks (one from each of us) and he demands that he gets one check from me from now on. I told him that he wouldn’t have to worry about this in the future as we’ll be sending a money order or cashier’s check.

Why a money order or cashier’s check? Well, my roommates and I have any number of monthly expenses that we each pay – cell phone, car insurance, utilities, rent, car loans, student loans, etc, etc. Every single one of our bills can either be paid instantly online or we can send a check that is cashed within a week. None of us (and I would assume none of you) EVER pay one of your monthly bills and have to wait 32 days for your checks to be cashed! Why a money order? Because I live my life within a tight budget and in the real world! With all of the bullshit that I have to deal with in my financial life, I don’t have the time or effort to let a check sit out there for over a month.

I write this because the landlord has now recommended that we do NOT send money orders to pay the rent. I don’t know what his angle is, but it’s not going to work. I’m sending these money orders as certified mail with return receipts. He mentioned something in an e-mail about “what if they get lost in the mail?” Ugh…

There are enough fail-safes in the money order system in the year 2008 to track where these money orders are and who is cashing them. Plus, they are sent as certified mail to HIS OWN ADDRESS!

Folks, this is an unnecessary complication in my life. I do not want to talk with my landlord or have an adversarial relationship with the guy. I want to pay my rent on time, take care of my apartment, and I want him to cash my checks in a reasonable time frame. Why must this process be any more complicated, damn it?