The Anarcho Geek Info Center

If you are debating whether wooden flooring is right for your home it’s important that you are familiar with the main wooden flooring terms. There are huge array of online flooring retailers, and its important to understand there are several different factors which all influence how the flooring appears, and makes each wooden floor look unique. There is a very slim chance that the wooden floor you saw in the showroom or on the internet will look the same as the final product in your home.

Part of the appeal of hardwood floors is that they are not uniform. One factor which effects the appearance of the wood is how near the wood is to the bark of the tree, this is named sapwood. The closer to the outside of the tree, the lighter the colour the wood will appear. The grain of the wood is another major factor, this can vary is direction and also varies in appearance depending on the colour of the wood fibers. The growth rings of the tree are also an important factor which effect the appearance of the wood. Tightly packed layers of wood are likely to result in a darker colour, these are formed when only a marginal layer of wood is added per year during a growing season. Other factors which can have an effect on the wood are mineral Streaks. These occur when trace elements are in the water, resulting in grey and olive markings. Knots are also a big factor in the appearance of your flooring, and are produced where branches of a tree have been encased, as the tree has grown. Often lower grade flooring will have more knots in it than higher grade.

The great thing about wooden flooring is its durability, and also the ease with which damage can be repaired. But as a natural product, as opposed to synthetic, it is also prone to expand and contract during changes in the weather or season. This needs to be taken into account when your floor is fitted.

I want to work from home. I’m tired of how high the gas prices are and how much money it costs me a week to get to and from the office. If you have been telling yourself this over and over, then it is time for you to check out cash gifting. Do not pay attention to your friends who tell you that it is a pyramid scam, instead think for yourself and check out the cash gifting system on your own. It is absolutely free to find out the details and if you do not like what you hear then, no harm no fowl.

So, you have been reading for weeks about cash gifting, it looks interesting and now you have started looking at all of the cash gifting programs that are available. It is surprising, isn’t it, how many there actually are? If you think about it, with the Internet as big as it is, it is actually surprising that their aren’t more. But I digress, if you are looking for the best gifting programs, you are going to have to do some research. The best way to go is to check out cash gifting reviews and see if you can find out all the pros and cons of each program.

Those fortunate individuals who have had the luxury to travel to China can say how rewarding of an experience it must have been to taste Chinese tea. The Chinese people are known for their investment in making tea that has long been present for thousands of years. This heritage has been carried for many centuries and it is still possible to taste Chinese tea nowadays and feeling as you are back thousands of years.

The flavor that emanates from Chinese tea speaks for itself. Some of their tea may have been brewed for over one day in order to call it a tea. To the surprise of many Westerners, who travel as tourists to China, soon it is discovered that their tea back home is merely a mildly flavored drink. Chinese tea is much more concentrated and richer in taste and thickness. Tea tasting in Peking can cost you over thousands of dollars, for one of the finest Chinese tea. Aside from their flavor, they almost always carry medicinal properties for various medical conditions. At the same time, statistics have shown that there is a higher incidence of esophageal and stomach cancer in countries that consume tea in high quantities.

There are many body parts that are known for undesired hair. Namely, facial, bikini area, and legs among just to mention a few. The face is one of the most exposed area of the body which deserves detail perfection. Facial hair is well-known to be depreciating in women for example and that is why many seek facial hair removal. There are many options available for different facial hair removal nowadays ranging from a simple cream to permanent hair removal through laser treatment.

The most popular types of hair removal are those that are effective while not causing skin damage. Facial skin is one of the most sensitive areas of the skin hence the need for caution when utilizing different types of facial hair removal. Waxing for example, is not very popular for mustache removal, as it may cause skin irritation given the sensitivity of skin in that area. Razor is also not a very good option for facial hair removal given the recurrence of stronger and thicker hair after shaving. In general, for facial hair removal, such as eyebrows and mustache, laser treatment has been very effective. It is always important to consult your physician if local irritation, redness, or swelling occurs after any treatment.

It might come as a challenge to select a perfect countertop for your room. Your choice must be reliable, easily cleanable and impervious to stains. You might get this thought for a second that it sounds kind of impossible to attain but in real its not. You just need to know the right type and texture that you should go for.

The material used for kitchen counter tops is usually natural quartz, stone, solid surface, ceramic tile and plastic laminate. All of them have their pros and cons. You will find natural quartz to be reliable, smooth and very little or no maintenance is required for it. It is heat resistant and impervious to scratches, stains and bacteria. These are available in deep colours that are consistent and seam visibility it seen to be very less. So many advantages make it expensive if compared with other options. And then you will see seam in large or odd sizes.

Next we have the stone material for countertops. It too is durable and smooth to touch and look. It is resistant to heat and water. It is an ideal choice when it comes to preparations for baking and then the visual texture is very rich. The stone material is also expensive. You will witness seem that is visible in odd and large sizes. Plus, if scratched, then these will be hard to remove.ness seem that is visible in odd and large sizes.t and water. but in real its not. You just need to kno

Don’t ever, ever lose your job!

That’s right, it’s not your credit score or your assets or your
equity or even Location, Location, Location that matter the
most, it is whether or not you have an income stream capable of
supporting your mortgage. Most people think of their home as the
safest of investments that they have. It can be but only if you
manage it correctly. If you have equity in your home, you are
subject to the risk of loss of that equity at any time you can
no longer afford to make your payments. It doesn’t matter how
many years you have paid perfectly, if you for some reason
can’t, the bank will not let you slide for a few months to be
nice. As a matter of fact, the more equity you have the more
attractive it is to them to foreclose on you. That to me is the
exact opposite of a safe investment!

I counsel my clients to understand that the most important thing
they want to maintain is liquidity. They want to have the access
to enough cash or near cash reserves that they are in charge or
their financial choices.

This may not seem like a revolutionary idea but I would argue it
is something that a great many people do very poorly. My clients
are above average as far as wealth in their socio-economic
groups. They tend to have more wealth per average income or job
position than their peers. And most if not all of them have less
than 5% equity in their homes!

There are many factors that contribute to wealth and putting
your home equity to work isn’t the magic criterion that assures
you will be wealthy. But consider why these people are
positioned this way and maybe the connection will become clear.
In addition to liquidity, other benefits include increased
safety, rate of return, tax savings, elimination of non
preferred debt and establishing an emergency side or reserve
fund.

How does all of this relate to income? Consider that if you lose
your income you lose the ability to get access to the equity in
your home. And guess when most people need access to that money
the most? You guessed it, when something unexpectedly affects
their income stream, like a job loss. Lenders will make loans to
someone with bad credit, with no assets or reserves and with
limited time in a certain field of work but if you don’t have
the ability to pay them back when you lose your job, they
generally don’t want to lend you money!

I would be willing to wager that most of you have either been
affected by corporate restructuring or know someone who has.
There are also a substantial number of people who lose jobs
either because they or someone in their family becomes ill or
are injured. In those situations would you be better off with
$50,000 in an emergency fund to help you get back on your feet,
pay doctor or home care bills, and allow you a cushion to find a
good job instead of the first one you could find or have $50,000
in equity in your house that you couldn’t access?

Now to finish up on the wealth equation as it relates to home
equity. One thing that most people don’t understand is their
home equity is earning them a 0% rate of return. There are 2
components to your home value: what it cost to purchase it
(basis) and appreciation. In 5 years your house will be worth
the same whether you have a mortgage or don’t. Any money you
choose to put into the house is simply a return of your
investment.

If you are willing to rethink the wealth equation and put your
home to work for you it can be a great source for turbo charging
your wealth. If you coordinate that with an integrated financial
plan involving your planner, accountant and insurance agent then
the results can truly be outstanding!

For more info: www.rightwayunlimited.com or
www.columbusmortgageloans.com

Jeff Blovits Prospera Mortgage Group
Jeff@Columbusmortgageloans.com

We did not choose to be born. Without our permission, we were
pitched into this world, to live out seventy or eighty years, to
act out our unique scripts in life. Each of those millions of
actions had a purpose. It achieved an objective. Just to pick up
a cup of tea, or to become an accountant. Achieving objectives
gave progressive meanings to our activities. The mason who felt
he was just laying bricks was less satisfied than the one who
believed he was building a cathedral. Finding deeper meanings
satisfied us. So, it was but natural to gaze beyond our
individual careers at the meaning of life itself. Greater
satisfaction came from fulfilment of a nobler purpose.

Religion offered a a compelling vision of a divine and
benevolent purpose. It acted in the best of all possible worlds,
for the well being of all. If there was pain and distress, the
beneficent deity had willed it to steel humanity to ever greater
triumphs. Everything happened for the best. But, for a few
people, there was a flaw in this view. Disaster was hardly
necessary for improvement. The finest periods of creativity of
the human race occurred during periods of peace and prosperity,
not in times of famine and disease, or earthquakes and floods.
It stretched credibility to believe that a hundred thousand
people could be crushed in an earthquake for their own good. To
sceptics, the world appeared iniquitous. But, they often avoided
despair by accepting the random quality of life. For these, just
fighting back gave meaning to life.

But, the religious sometimes failed to discover any visible
benign purpose behind epic disasters. This troubled some. The
sceptics, on the other hand, wondered if it was so weightily
important to survive in the this all too brief span of time in
this infinitesimally small speck in the universe. What was so
special about survival, if the earth was to end a dead planet
hurtling through black space? What was the purpose of all this
suffering? Whatever their convictions, the search for a meaning
in life troubled both the religious and the sceptics. In spite
of their doubts, finding meaning was crucial.

The famed psychiatrist, Frankl, survived the horrors of the Nazi
concentration camps, to narrate the dreaded moment, when a
fellow prisoner ceased to struggle for life. Usually, the
prisoner refused to go out on to the parade grounds. “He just
lay there, hardly moving. No entreaties, no blows, no threats
had any effect. He simply gave up. There he remained, lying in
his own excreta, and nothing bothered him any more.” His life
had lost its meaning. Such people died soon after.

But, despite the meaningless torture and beatings, thousands of
inmates still struggled against all odds to eke out a life.
Frankl submitted that it was a purpose in life, whatever it was,
which helped them to survive. These were not large purposes. A
hope of meeting a son after the war was a purpose. Even a
decision to harden oneself against suffering was a sufficient
purpose. After the war, Frankl established a major field in
psychiatry, assisting thousands of suicidal patients around the
world to recover by discovering an acceptable purpose in life.

In reality, the need to find a purpose in life was built into
our neural circuits. Emotions granted us short term purpose.
Anger sought retribution; hunger, a search for food; fear a
drive to escape. Each drive intelligently sought its own
objective and rewarded its achievement with pleasure. The thrill
one felt came from built in pleasure circuits fashioned by
nature. Those circuits powered drives, which successfully
achieved a range of survival activities in a complex and hostile
world. The drive circuits carried within them a massive depth of
experience and wisdom. The noblest goals of mankind and its most
evil instincts were drives, inherited from millions of years of
history. One of those drives was a search for meaning - an
instinctual drive, like hunger.

Across history, mankind searched the heavens to discover
meaning. Religions offered a wide range of possible meanings,
each favouring a particular divine purpose. But, religion failed
to find meaning in horrifying disasters. For the sceptic,
without the support of religion, a fearful existence on a tiny
planet appeared utterly pointless. Both suspected that life
appeared to have no meaning. Where could we go from there? There
was an answer. We had to understand this obsessive human need to
find meaning. It was merely another instinctual drive. A
craving. Such drives could be calmed. Just an awareness alone
could still the need. After all, it was hardly so urgent to
discover that cosmic meaning.

Freed from this need, it was easier to fit into society,
contribute our mite and satisfy the demands of our minds. We
could be content with discovering reasonable purposes. Frankl
had proved that simpler purposes sufficiently enabled prisoners
to withstand even the most meaningless excesses of life. Hunger
did not demand that we gorge ourselves. A reasonable repast was
sufficient to satisfy our craving. So also, it was hardly
necessary to feast ourselves on understanding the global purpose
of the universe. Just as there was little need to travel to a
distant galaxy to satisfy our curiosity. It was enough to be
happy with finding our own role in society.

Danny Burke is successfully self employed as a PC trouble
shooter. He is also a builder and designer of computers and an
inventor of software. He has strong views on life in general and
on how you should run your own business.

Danny believes that from the minute you are born your life is
controlled by economics and the government.

>From the age of five to fifteen you are forced to go to school
and after school you are forced to work from the age of 16 to
65. This age may go up to 70 or higher in the UK and elsewhere.
People are living longer. So economically it is necessary to
raise the age of retirement. People will have to work till they
drop.

Danny worked for computer companies from the age of 18 to 35 and
then one day realised he was a slave. To show you what he meant
by being a slave he gave me a brief description of his daily
routine.

He usually had to get up at 7 a.m. to drive to work by 9 a.m. It
took him an hour and a half to drive through the London traffic.
A train would have taken two hours and cost more! He would have
had to sniff the arm pits of his fellow passengers as well.
However, Danny is very tall so the situation might have been
reversed.

Once he arrived at work he was told what to do by his immediate
boss. He was forced to make phone calls; answer emails and get
equipment ready. The penalty for not doing these things was
unemployment and losing his house and car etc. After his
standard 9 hour day he then had another hour and a half fight in
the traffic getting back home by half seven. He was working
basically from 7.30 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. (a twelve hour day) and
sometimes a half day on Saturday. He was working 66 hours a week
i.e. 75% of his waking time was spent doing things that he was
told to do and forced to do.

Extrapolate the above to your life. If you live to 74 that’s
55.5 years spent doing things you don’t really want to do and
being bossed around. Even in your personal time you are dictated
to by the government as you have to sort out licences; fill in
forms etc (sometimes for good reason)

So Danny sat down one day and got very depressed at the thought
of dying at 75 with two grand in the bank. He eventually thought
about how to break this vicious circle and decided that there is
only one way and that is to earn enough money to pay all the
bills without worrying.

Once you reach a certain cash level you cannot be dictated to. A
certain amount of cash breaks your shackles and sets you free.
Working for other people ensures that you will remain
downtrodden and poor unless your job is among the few jobs that
are highly paid.

So you must decide how you are going to earn the cash to pay
your bills. So you cut out the middleman (your employer) and
start working for yourself. In the end it makes no difference
what you decide to do.

But it is going to involve selling something to someone. It
doesn’t matter what you sell or to whom. although obviously you
would prefer to sell a product that you morally agreed with and
which serves a useful purpose.

The bottom line is you buy something for a pound and sell it for
two pounds. This action will set you free even if it takes years
to reach your target. You will still be working towards your
freedom from the usual rat race.

You may have to keep working at a normal job to support your
family in the meantime. Even celebrities make much of their
money through sales. David Beckham (the English soccer player)
can earn a big salary because his employers can sell products
through the use of his image. He might earn a million a year for
playing football but will earn 10 million for sponsorship and
advertising.

So the principle is; you must sell something and decide what you
are comfortable with selling. Preferably you should be running
your own business and buying and selling as soon as you leave
school. Bill Gates dropped out of university before he finished
because he saw the opportunity and did not want to miss it. If
he had waited till he finished his degree course or got married,
the opportunity would have passed him by.

Is it risky?

You may think starting your own business is a risky venture and
that working for someone else is the safe option. This is a
fallacy. You might work for an employer for 20 years and then
one day you go to work and he fires you and all that 20 years of
effort means nothing.

Any way you look at it; it is better to work for yourself.
However, if you want an easy life, business is not the way to
go. It is often easier to work for someone else. If you want an
easy life, you will stay a slave. Danny, if he were 17, would
leave school and slog his guts out for 15 years working for
himself and then retire.

Danny admits that he is not fully following his own rules. He is
self employed but he is still selling a service which takes up
too much of his time. He is making more money now than when he
was employed but he would make much more money if he were
selling products rather than a service.

I asked Danny what skills he uses now to make his business a
success. He came up with the following:

You have to have a product/service to sell in the first place

This product or service needs to be both cheaper and better than
the competition or at least as good.

You have to get the advertising right. I’m going to say that
again, YOU HAVE TO GET THE ADVERTISING RIGHT.

So many people have good ideas and good products yet totally
fail due to poor marketing. You could build the best car in the
world for half the cost of anyone else and you would STILL fail
if the marketing was wrong. Marketing is time consuming, boring,
expensive (all the costs are up front) and, if you get it wrong,
very wasteful. It’s no wonder most people don’t want to do it.
BUT YOU MUST!!!! A lot of people do not follow up the calls and
leads they get. You must follow up every single lead you get.
You never know which call will make you a lot of money. Even if
the call looks unpromising, ALWAYS call back. Danny has many
customers telling him that out of 5 people they rang, he was the
only one to call back.

Even if Danny is too busy to take on a new customer he will ring
back and tell them this. He will even recommend his competition
if they are desperate. They remember this and will probably call
again when he is less busy. Even if the customer thinks Danny’s
prices are too high, the fact that he called them back will mean
they end up coming back to him.

Cost control is another major factor. It is very easy to spend
more than you are earning. You can earn a £1000 and spend £1200
without even trying. It is vitally important that you watch
every penny that goes out and make sure your incomings are
greater than your outgoings.

At any given time you should know to the nearest tenner how much
is in your bank account and when the next bills are coming. When
Danny started he spent £57 pounds on advertising. He then made
£35 on his first job and £35 on the second. He was now in profit
and from then on never spent more than he made.

Part of cost control involves chasing up customers who are slow
to pay. Usually one phone call will do the trick although if
necessary a daily call for a week will either produce results or
the kind of hostile situation where you and your customer part
company.

One particular customer was late in paying so Danny called them
and they said they would pay. After several attempts they still
had not paid so he resorted to phoning everyday. This resulted
in the company eventually refusing to pay just to stop the
calls.

You cannot please everybody and so sooner or later one of your
customers will not pay up even if it’s not your fault. Later
that month Danny had a call from a debt collection agency. He
explained that he had very little bad debt problems except for
the one mentioned. This was for such a small amount that
normally the agency’s percentage would be too small so he just
gave the whole debt to them.

At least the company would get hassled by them for payment.
Phoning everyday is annoying to your customer and should
obviously be a last resort but Danny’s time is valuable. He
needs to know which companies are trustworthy and which are time
wasters. This tactic is annoying to your customer but will
distinguish one from the other. Most pay. The one’s that don’t
are the one’s best avoided anyway.

Danny also likes to pay his bills on time so that he knows where
he is financially. He does not like to deal with companies who
only pay up after 90 days and then are still late. He knows of
several companies with 90 day payment terms who then pay up only
after 5 months. Danny was asked for 3 computers by one such
company but when they refused to pay on delivery, declined their
business. He remembers working for a company who delayed their
payment to save on interest etc. What they saved on interest
they lost in cooperation from their suppliers.

Once you are successful, your company will need to grow. The
rules for the growth of your company are different from the ones
in the earlier paragraph. Cost control is still vitally
important but you may have to borrow money to speed up your
growth. You probably could finance your growth from your own
income but to speed this up you can borrow money.

The amount should never be more than 10% of your earnings. If
you take risks you could lose your house and your family! This
is a conservative figure and some borrow a much larger
percentage BUT business can be dangerous. You never know when
other things can go wrong and so you should NEVER overstretch
yourself.

In the UK property developers can afford to risk more of their
money since the country is overpopulated and the price of
property tends to double every six years. Any investment is
likely to be a safe bet but obviously one needs to take care not
to buy property in an area run by hooligans or which is near an
area which is close to a potential motorway or airport!

“What motivates you to keep going?” I asked Danny. He paused and
thought for a while:

“Looking at other people. For example, I was in a well known
burger place the other week looking at the counter staff running
round like headless chickens. All of them had slave written on
the front of their heads and sucker tattooed on the back.

Even the manager who had a different coloured shirt to show that
he is special, looked like he had left his brain at home and had
a face like thunder. He looked so miserable. When my son is
misbehaving and not working at school, l ask him if he wants to
work at a burger bar or be a road sweeper. He gets the point”.

One well known guru suggests driving your kids to the poor part
of town and asking them “Do you want to live here?” Another good
place to make you feel motivated is to watch near a train
station in the morning. Look at all those poor little ants
trudging into bondage. It always makes Danny smile.

One trick Danny uses is to imagine himself in a situation he
would hate like being in a residential home when he gets old
with two grand in the bank. The other side is to imagine himself
in a yacht in Barbados surrounded by nubile young women giving
him a massage three times a day. The massage oils are gently
warming in the microwave ready for the next massage.

You imagine yourself in the worst and the best situation. You
know that if you do nothing you will end up in the worst
situation but if you work for yourself you may end up in the
best.

To sum up: work for yourself, sell something, live long and
prosper! ”

You build it and they will come is the battle cry of Web Page
Designers. Many people are hooked on this idea. Well it’s not
that easy or is it?

There is a way to try E-commerce before you jump in with the big
dollars. During this trial period, you could learn to build your
own web page, play in the retail market, and yes Earn While You
Learn. Build your E-commerce business like you built your
current business. Do it yourself so you don’t have to rely on
high dollar transit programmers. How?

Use Auction Sites as your playground. You would be surprised to
learn the return you could achieve with just a little bit of
knowledge. As our clients know, we don’t teach anything we don’t
actually work in! When we decided to earn while we learned, we
picked eBay. In addition to making money, we learned valuable
information about E-commerce, and:

Lessons in shipping Lessons in customer support. Lessons in
accepting online credit cards

We now have over 100 E-commerce clients with repeat clients.
During our auctions, our website hits increase dramatically. So
before you jump into E-commerce, first learn to walk slowly and
then run. What’s the cost of eBay? If you accept credit cards,
and learn some tricks, the cost of listing, and credit card fees
runs approximately six percent of the sales price. You can learn
more about our eBay clients at www.thirdpocket.com, a support
site for the self-employed.