kerryoneal.com

Often in business I am approached by people giving me advice on a variety of topics that they do, or should, have expert knowledge in. When confronted with such expert testimony on the prudent direction of a decision you are in position to make, you often feel like the wise thing is to follow these sages. More often than not, I later find out that what I was gambling my fate, and the fates of those around me on, was nothing more than a gut feeling of some person who’s credentials were not nearly as clear to me as they should have been. What I need is insight. Use intuition when it’s only your skin on the line.

I love a great business idea.

Logoworks.com has been around for some time, and although I’ve never used their services, I’ve always thought they had a wonderfully interesting business idea. This WSJ article I ran across on their site provides a little more depth into how they do what they do.

I would love to use their services. Think I would go Platinum package. My current dilemma is thinking of a name for my next business start-up. It’s a gift-basket company that creates branded gifts for corporations and benefits developmentally challenged adults. I’m just stumped, so I’m taking suggestions.

Sometimes in business you come across a couple of people that just can’t get along. They try…or at least they say they do….and for whatever reason, it just never works out. I’ve been dealing with such a situation this morning, and it’s allowed me to come up with a new theory. It goes like this:

If A can get along with B, and C can get along with B, then A and C can find common ground….they each just need to act more like B.

Just had to post about this great article from Dr. Charles Wheelan. One of the comments I got from an earlier Wal-Mart post was, “How about us taxpayers picking up the slack for those low wages?…” Well, as Dr. Wheelan points out, that’s OK. If there is a standard of living that we would like to guarantee our citizens, then we should pick up the bill. Not push the responsibility onto some one’s business, and certainly not chastise them for not wanting to pick up the slack on their own.

I’m rarely impressed with ideas. After enough time in the web and business world, I’ve heard a tremendous number of ideas. Ideas often have little or no value. Execution is what counts. The ability to start and to finish. Not come up with an idea.
Having said that, some ideas do have negative value. This is one I ran across recently…
2005 National Blind Hunter Program. Granted…I haven’t really looked into it very far, but at first blush it just doesn’t seem safe.

This is an interesting article that coordinates my losses in General Motors stock with the collapse of the housing industry (my profession). The kind of thing that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. MSN Money - GM’s woes one more blow to housing bubble

“The use-your-house-as-an-ATM-to-live-beyond-your-means stimulus is finished, thanks to the recent de-leveraging/crackup in the bond market. The refi game and the bull market in housing it created postponed the consequences of the largest stock-market bubble in history. Though the Fed and the rest of the government succeeded in postponing the fallout from the massive misallocation of capital that took place in the mania, they have also succeeded in compounding and exacerbating those consequences. Even more leverage was created in the system, as we attempted to speculate our way to prosperity. “

I forwarded some of the homebrew information for making your own biodiesel to my brother who is a chemical engineer. This is what I got back this morning…too funny not to post:

“Hi Kerry,

It pisses me off that competent, prudent people can be sued and lose their life savings when they did everything right, and then you see wackos manufacturing biodiesel in their living rooms and promoting the practice! First of all, I don’t know much about biodiesel, but here is my quickie assessment:

Regarding performance claims - I find it hard to believe that a homemade product with variable quality can “make your diesel motor run better, last longer, and run cleaner.” I’m sure a refinery engineer would beg to differ in opinion. By the way, it’s an engine, not a motor.

Regarding the economics – I can’t understand how one can take ingredients costing over $1.00/gal, blend them up, generate a 20% waste stream, use lots of energy for heat and mixing, and end up with a product that costs $0.60/gal. I guess the oil is considered free (though here in Houston, spent cooking oils are sold for around $1/gal and recycled as low grade lube oils such as chain lube). Also, I guess these environmentalist-types are dumping the 20% glycerine stream and the 100% vol/vol wash water emulsion down their kitchen drains.

Regarding the legal aspects – it appears the home-based manufacturers of biodiesel don’t intend to pay fuel taxes. This could be the single reason the economics work – but it could get them in trouble.

Regarding the technical aspects – biodiesel may be common in the future, but I WOULD NOT be manufacturing it anywhere around my house. Think of it as a modern day moonshine still. Find some remote mountain land and make it there. It scares me that this article claims to be disclosing all the safety requirements you need to know, then they script a procedure that involves heating methanol mixtures. Holy Cow! Methanol has a flash point of 50F and is poisonous. It is one of the most dangerous chemicals I sell and all equipment around it must be explosionproof – no arcing light switches, blenders and the like.

Regarding the practicality – who has 2 days of manufacturing and 3 weeks of “drying” time on their hands? Obviously, you’ll need several batch reactor vessels and a storage tank – unless of course this is just a curiosity.

Regarding one last nit-pick – the following quote surprised me: “Still, for every gallon of vegetable oil you use, that’s one gallon of fossil-fuel saved, and that much less carbon in the atmosphere.” Either the author doesn’t realize that SVO contains hydrocarbons, or he is smarter than I think and he expects your vehicle to be stranded on the side of the road – which might just be one step toward saving this planet.

Later.”

I sent him some more biodiesel info and can’t wait for the next response.

Last biodiesel article…

Caught an interesting investment program this weekend. Mad Money with Jim Cramer. This guy runs around on stage setting off sound effects and ranting stock market advice. Rumor has it he knows what he’s talking about, and the floorshow is quite entertaining.

*update - He has an email service on his website, TheStreet.com, that allows you to follow his own stock purchases on a minute-by-minute basis. I tried to sign up for the 14-day trial, but they still wanted my credit card. I was afraid of forgetting to cancel and purchasing something I’d never use.

I am a huge fan of the IBM ThinkPad laptops. I keep a little X40 connected to me most hours of the day. So I was more than a little concerned when the news came out regarding IBM selling its PC business to a Chinese company. I assumed, much like the newspaper headlines, that this was the end.

Well, that’s been a few months ago. Since then we’ve had to send some IBM computers in for standard warranty work and there seems to be no change in the type or quality of service. This morning I jumped on the IBM website to look at purchasing some of their cool new fingerprint authentication hardware for my notebook, and ran across this article putting most of my fears to rest. So now I’m really confused about what the change does mean.

Oh, well. While I was there I also ran across a pretty cool series called “Legends of Thinkpad” where you can watch movies about a ThinkPad being burned, run over by a truck, and left under a tree for a year. Pretty cool.