Happy St. Patrick's Day from the Smiths in Mableton, GA

This morning the idea hit me to make green lemonade and my Wyteria jumped on the idea before our daughters came home from school.

Our youngest daughter Hailey kept going to the nearby bathroom to see if her tongue was turning green:)

It may become a Smith family tradition on St. Patrick's Day and was tasty too.

Somehow the mind tricked my oldest daughter Rachel and my wife's mind in that they said the Irish Lemonade tasted "minty".

Atlanta Tornado Pictures

The world is really wanting to see the damage from this past weekend's storms here in metro Atlanta.

The best footage that I've seen is located on a CNN-affiliated site named i-Report which is actually taken by residents of the affected areas.

The storms were highly unusual in that Friday's storm hit downtown the hardest and a tornado had not actually done so since 1975.

We live in Mableton, GA which is located within "tornado alley" and usually feel the brunt of any high winds year round, but the storm featured thunder and lightning and subsided very quickly Friday night.

Yesterday at church, I heard that a hail storm really poured down in Lithia Springs, GA which is probably less than 7 to 10 miles away in Douglas County, GA.  Our pastor's car had multiple dings all over from Saturday's storm which also hit the east side of metro Atlanta within Lithonia, GA very hard.

I personally only saw tiny, pellet sized hail outside of our home.

I met a photographer yesterday who took a photo of hail from Friday and Saturday's nights storms and the hail was golf ball sized and clearly might kill you if you were hit by them.

I thank God that we were spared from the damage that is having a large impact on the other areas.  To my knowledge, 2 deaths have occurred from the storms.

Peace!

Interesting Discovery While Going straight DSL versus Local Phone Service

After years of resisting an inevitable trend nationwide, I finally saw the light Thursday night and have switched our service to straight DSL and dropped local phone service altogether.

We can be more easily reached by cell anyway.

The point of no return was when I realized that we were paying over $400 annually for what essentially came down to caller ID service.  Taken together with a recent cellphone plan change, one utility bill (water) and another bill essentially becomes free each month with the new cost savings going forward. 

Our cell phones have pretty much become our cordless phones even at home, so there have been no benefits of having local in-house phone service.  We got burned this winter with several triple digit cell bills.  When the bills were mentioned to our service provider T-Mobile and the fact that we were on the wrong plan was undeniable, they provided a credit to us since we have had the service since 2000.

But the biggest discovery of this entire process is that the local phone number that we have had since November 1992 does not get thrown back on the open market after all.  The number is already permanently assigned as our DSL number anyway and can be reactivated at any other time in the future.

If this single fact had been known earlier, then the decision of dropping the local service could have been made a long time ago.

I know that keeping the number was a legacy of "old school" thinking that my parents and grandparents would have had years ago:)

Another thing that was interesting to me alone possibly is that my wife Wyteria made a comment to the effect of "I was ready months ago" when I explained my logic of the changed opinion:)  So you know how the wives are when it is said and done:)

I hope the above discoveries will help someone else if you have been thinking about it.

Peace!

ElectricSlide.com has a new design and music concept!

Check out our new music and creative concept on Electric Slide.com that you have been instinctively looking for!

Tiger Math Coach.com is back online!

A few years ago, a squatter got their hands on one of our domains entitled Tiger Math Coach.com and I was not too happy about it to say the least.

But whatever is meant for you will never be profitable within the hands of anyone else and being able to re-acquire our original concept is making me very happy on an otherwise gloomy, weather day.

Using my years of teaching math and business courses to grades 9-12, middle school students and even adults as the foundation to help more people learn better worldwide, our services and dynamic strategies formed a reinforcing circle that made the website and concept a huge success.

Now with the available technology, we will be able to reach even more people than we could during our most productive years.

One of the beautiful developments that we are offering this time around is that others will be able to resell our services.

We are going to take math education even higher in 2008!

Peace!

Link Updates for New Business Developments

Here are the links mentioned previously.

They should all work correctly now.

Free Money from Free Services: http://tinyurl.com/38n32k

Original Credit Guard: http://tinyurl.com/2fwfn4

Mac Mogul: http://tinyurl.com/25a3qd

BPSD 101: http://tinyurl.com/yt9kvy

Have a great day!

Peace!

New Business Developments

Earlier today, several new products and services have been released to the public. The best part about them all is that technology has finally provided an infrastructure strong and suitable enough to operate each one nation and world wide in most cases.

The biggest twist however is that other business professionals will be able to offer the products and services and receive commissions for sales made. There are products and services that every household is already looking for someone reputable to provide. I feel that it might as well be you and I versus anyone else:)

The list includes:

Original Credit Guard's Lifetime Credit Repair (from my very first business venture started in 1987)

Buy Pennies Sell Dollars 101

Free Money from Free Services (even when you get to a cash register to spend the money yourself, you will still have doubts like I did at first)

More products and services will be added weekly until everything is made available to the public.

I am excited since every product or service reflects industries that I am still within or have already achieved proven results.

The products and services initially only require using e-mail to make others aware of them and receive the commission. Every sale is tracked automatically for the salesperson and customer which I totally love versus manually calculating anything. Just send your friends and family a link that they can click and buy through, and receive the commissions as a result. I hope to make it even simpler if possible.

Feel free to ask any questions as well. I will make the links available within the hour hopefully and feel free to contact me directly otherwise..

Peace!

New Lighting for Creating Videos at Home

Here are a few of my thoughts on Super Tuesday 2008 and it is mostly non-political.

New energy for this blog!

I recently discovered some information that I clearly did not know attesting to the popularity and inherent profitability of this blog.

I was rather shocked since I thought that the information (and resulting royalties) would be sent to me automatically.

With the new information, I hope to create more blog entries on a regular basis as well as add video content as well.

I also found out that I was included within a prominent list of Black tech bloggers, so I must clearly blog more to uphold the recognition:)

This year is a breakout and breakthrough year, so everything included needs to reflect the new level of achievement and opportunities.

Peace!

Reversed Course on Planned Apple Purchase

After making a solid plan to buy a Macbook Pro very soon, I have changed my position and received confirmation that it was the right to do.

The markets collapsed to a degree on January 15th and everything has been a little too wishy-washy to accurately predict the short-term outcome.

Some words shared with others also came back to me and one thing that I have learned over the past 2 years is that a complete solution is far better and less stressful than a partial solution.

This means that to buy the needed HD replacement is a far cheaper solution and represents an "over and done with" moment versus going through the multiple payment option even if there is zero-percent interest available.

The funds required for the multiple payments can produce a greater harvest and then the buying will be within the proper season.

A visit to the website where I was going to buy the MBP then indicated that the price had dropped $500 but there are no multiple payments available. The price drop alone justifies buying Leopard as an individual purchase. But the Ghz on the chip was lower than the one I was eyeing.

So I am content staying on the sidelines still other than replacing the hard drive with a larger one.

A lot of online friends are creating content that includes video, so getting the larger HD will work best to incorporate video on the Macbook when the timing is right for video content for me. I believe that it will happen in 2008 for sure.

Today's bottom line is that through my activity within the financial markets, changing course happens every hour.

At times, one can feel like a hypocrite for changing your opinion so often and so fast. But without allowing the position to be dropped in favor of a larger trend, financial losses can put one out of the game forever.

It is better to let pride go down the toilet versus capital earned through hard work. So getting the HD is a decision I can live with:)

Peace!

Audio from Bible Study Series "Christ Jesus and His Anointing" Available Online

Recently I had the pleasure of teaching a Bible study series within our church Bethesda Baptist Church in Austell, GA under the leadership of Senior Pastor Charles B. Goodman that blessed everyone including myself greatly.

The series "Christ Jesus and His Anointing" answers many questions that new Christian converts and even those raised and functioning as members of congregations for decades have wondered about in terms of properly identifying and understanding the ministry, life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The content is not always taught within traditional Protestant churches.

Feel free to listen at your pleasure and ask any questions at anytime. If you wish to obtain a CD or DVD of the audio, just let me know.

The weekly Bible studies at Bethesda usually include songs, prayer, and testimonies before the lessons are taught, so all is included for you to have the full experience as if you were there.

The three parts are uploaded as wave files and they vary in length and part 1 is approximately 1:19 in length. I do plan on uploading the files as MP3s soon also.

Listen and enjoy!

http://www.tnlis.com/podcasts/ChristJesus_and_HisAnointing_Part_1.wav

http://www.tnlis.com/podcasts/ChristJesus_and_HisAnointing_Part_2.wav

http://www.tnlis.com/podcasts/ChristJesus_and_HisAnointing_Part_3.wav

Peace!

Down Goes Macbook Hard Drive Like Frazier!

On Friday, I learned that my Macbook hard drive had indeed bought the farm to push up daisies and all contents went back to the Architect's construct for lost data.  Call it a sign of technological maturity or simply being blessed far above what I could ask or think because I have not been fazed at the development in the least bit.

Everything is clearly out of my hands and one of the biggest surprises learned is that there are no differences between hard drives for the PC and Mac.  This tidbit meant that I could do the repair myself and skip paying Apple $300 to $500 just for the hard drive alone plus the labor charges or to any authorized Apple repair shop.

Since my Macbook is already out of warranty, there is nothing to lose on the repair itself since it is within my repair range.  I have fried enough computers to know:)

I had a great day on Friday and had my oldest daughter with me the entire time.  She had a full week of winter break left and most kids had already returned to school. 

Earlier within the day we had gotten our new 2008 tag sticker with a zero wait (walked straight from the door straight to the counter) and I picked up a wireless mouse made by Microsoft that I am still loving with each touch.  After hearing my favorite oil change place try to fry me on a relatively simple repair, I knew that I was not going to pay a lot for this hard drive repair.

With any suitable hard drive serving as a candidate for the repair, I have discovered that there are prices easily below $200.  I am going with Western Digital as the manufacturer regardless of the actual size of the hard drive and could have purchased one today right at $150 but I saw one online at $134 (before taxes are applied on each quote).

The Macbook Pro (MBP) is available at my favorite online store for music equipment and Apple computers with multiple payments available, so I plan on obtaining one within a week and postpone the hard drive repair until February or almost indefinitely.

The Macbook may become a system for either my wife or my kids to use.  As a result, I am inclined to keep the size of the hard drive to be bought higher than the previous, original hard drive space (80GB) but under the maximum seen so far (320GB).  My target price is looking good at $134 for the 250 GB HD.

250 GB is still no joke and it is awesome to see how storage space is really the new commodity that is to be taken for granted these days.

I always fought to no avail the hard drive wars of limited space and one can buy terabytes of space for what used to cost sub-gigabyte storage space.

But I will need to confirm why the MBP is needed and what advantages are being picked up versus repairing my Macbook.

The repaired Macbook will clearly have more HD space than the MBP does at 160 GB.  I already knwo that the MBP will not have Leopard even though the price is the full price for MBPs sold by Apple, but Apple does have a program called "Leopard up-to-date" that provides a free upgrade to Leopard in the post-iPhone fiasco that occurred last year.

The multiple payments at zero-percent interest are simply phenomenal and are loosening my mind and wallet at the same time.

The portability factor is the real asset being purchased because being able to work, surf, produce, or invest anywhere that has wi-fi is an asset that is really not fully understood until the capability is obtained.

Limitations melt and new opportunities are revealed to the initiated.  Doubters or the not-easily-convinced will never know how much they loss as an opportunity cost for not "getting it" earlier.

Just from the flow of this blog entry tonight, the debate of the HD space is pitting the MBP and Macbook head to head harder than they went at it earlier today.  90 GB of HD space is the real difference, so I need to put a price tag on the 90 GB.  The time required to obtain the HD for the repair is 3 business days after the order is placed and there is an unknown time limitation if the multiple payment options disappear as it did after I bought the Macbook.  So what's a geek to do?

Through the risk and money management that I have been practicing and still learning more in this new year, I see the solution coming over the horizon.

The 250 GB HD will be obtained first and we will see how the repair goes.  If the repair goes smoothly and without any hitches, the MBP ---whoa, whoa, whoa!!!!

The MBP has to be purchased first because of the "Leopard up-to-date" program that expires on January 26th I believe.  I almost do not feel like buying Leopard now or later for some reason and the Macbook did not have it.  But I know that the HD space limitation was a reason why.

So dude, you're getting a MBP!  LOL:)

The only data loss of the original HD is one song that was still being developed but I've lost greater masterpieces before.  I am just glad that my FlickrBeats were not lost since they represented not only a creativity breakthrough, but an investment of time and effort that cannot be recaptured otherwise.

I will share the new car smell of the MBP soon!  At least there will be multiple laptops with the iSight cameras that will allow me to create "at the computer or desk" videos that would have been too prohibitive with my time schedule for anyone else to be involved.

So it all works out in the end one way or another!

Peace!

Still Not Enough to Wreck 2008: Macbook Is Blind to Hard Drive

Today I have a surprise recreational afternoon planned for my girls and since the place has wi-fi, I thought about taking my Macbook.

The Macbook froze during its last usage in 2007 with my wife and I was too busy to invest much time in it until today.

I installed the original CD and RAM to no avail.  It is simply not recognizing the hard drive.

I have an appointment scheduled at an Apple Store on Friday to have it checked out.

I already knew that adding more Macs to our lineup was going to be necessary and I am just curious at this point what is going on with it.

First generation technology is never easy on you once the original warranty runs out.

I now know to avoid such early purchases especially with Apple from now on but 2008 is already going so great and although it would have ripped me apart on some level before, I can take this technology glitch or hardware massive coronary in stride this time around since I backed up everything late November 2007 after seeing the initial warning signs:)

A friend recently shared his backup plan with me and it was so broad in scope that I may implement it as well since multiple backups and remote storage increase the security and reduce the potential stress levels tremendously.

Peace!

Peace!

Tivo Adds Google Picasa & Photobucket for TV Viewing of Photographs

Here is a blog entry that I was creating on December 3, 2007 and just got too busy to finish it in a timely fashion.

I just tried out the new capability on Tivo's digital video recorders (DVR) and came away with mixed feelings in the short-term but positive feelings in the long term.

I had to look for the feature repeatedly today and found the new Photos & Slideshows menu item far below the area where the now non-existing Yahoo! Photos still appears unfortunately.

The menu item should have been placed either at the top of the list or at least viewable on the same screen without scrolling down.  It falls into the background and without any emphasis currently which is unfortunate.  The Yahoo! should be totally removed.

My earlier search this morning upon receiving the news was a failed attempt due to the placement of the new features.

I already had accounts with both Photobucket which is owned by MySpace and Picasa which is owned by Google and entering the appropriate login information was very straightforward.

I got distracted by my daughters while entering my information for the Picasa account and was pleasantly surprised to see that I did not have to start completely over.

You are able to stay logged into both accounts to view photos without going through a cumbersome process to switch between the services.

Picasa has the capability of viewing photo albums within your account and I will need to do further research to see if Photobucket offers the same capability.

There is basically no competition between the services other than the ownership of the services.

While viewing the photographs on the television, they did take on a new personality due to the increased size and seemed richer in depth.

The slideshow capability allows the transitions to be changed to either display the captions and photo titles or not as well as the amount of time between each photo.

Before I believed that Tivo would be acquired by Yahoo! but I now believe that Yahoo! has already missed the train and resulting opportunity.

Amazon has stepped into the picture and the Amazon Unbox service is very cool and we have rented and downloaded paid and free stuff over the weekend.  No trips back to the video store is a good thing!

Amazon could acquire  Tivo in a far better move and with greater synchronicity than if Yahoo! acquired  Tivo.

I doubt that Google is interested since they are more interested in the advertising aspects versus the content side.  On second thought, the data generated by  Tivos would be a goldmine to Google but Google has not moved far enough in this direction still.

Peace!

Erase and Install Recommended for Bounce Issue w/ Logic Express 8

Hello All,

There was no solution found today and this evening with Apple for the inability to bounce a project to my internal or external hard drives with Logic Express 8.

At the Apple Store, a creative and technical person both suggested creating a new account to see if it would work and the problem continued.

Reinstalling the program twice this evening and removing certain files from the Library did not work with an Apple Software Support Specialist on the phone.

Since another erase and install would make my third one in less than a year, I have decided to forego doing another one at this time.

I will transfer the files or create a MP3 through other means and wait until a Macbook Pro or iMac purchase takes place in early 2008 before erasing and installing Tiger again during the holiday season.

I still thank everyone for their help, concern, and suggestions.

One interesting tidbit that was discovered on the phone with Apple this evening is that the earlier version of LE did not have to be reinstalled in order to get LE 8 on the system.  All that was needed was the LE 8 upgrade DVD itself.  With a PC, earlier versions typically have to be installed first before the latest version of a program can be used.

This will be a time-saver going forward within itself!

Peace!

Roney
http://www.myspace.com/seedoflife

Thanksgiving Music Experiment Highly Successful:)

On this past Monday night, I discovered a video podcast entitled "The Weakest Beat" on Podshow.com. What made this discovery so cool is that I got it to work via Tivo first. I did not run across the show on the web.

On the show that lasts probably no more than 10 minutes, a music producer is shown a photograph and given two (2) hours to produce a song that matches the photo.

The host then talks to the producer about what they saw within the photo and how they were inspired to produce the song.

Two hours is clearly not a lot of time for most music perfectionists but one major benefit that the reduced time frame does provide is a single-minded focus and clarity that most music producers (including myself) pray for.

Being that the show appeared to be produced in or around Oakland, California and not with national correspondents, it dawned on me to try my hand at using visual photographs for musical inspiration since we were traveling out of state to Latta, SC for Thanksgiving and I knew that my musical productivity was being restricted home in Atlanta for some reason (probably due to our routines with school drop-offs and pick ups which provides a narrow window of opportunity as well).

So I took my Black Macbook, M-Audio Trigger Finger, and M-Audio Oxygen v2 25-key USB midi controller along for the ride. My Macbook was going regardless:)

I thought that I had all that would be needed but Murphy's Law kicked in within the perfect storm to limit my experiment.

My initial goal was to produce 15 songs over the 3 day period but had to settle for less when the dial up access kept the photos on Flickr from being fully viewable in a timely fashion. 5 songs per day would have been doable but after getting stumped at the entire process of getting online (this was not my first time using my Macbook with dial up at the same house either), I gave up and worked instead from a thumbnail photo of Chicago taken by a Twitter friend during her recent visit there while she was driving. Having traveled to Chicago in 1996, I knew how the vibe should feel and worked from there.

The song created is a medium to slow tempo hip hop jazzy ditty named "Windy City". At 95 BPM (beats per minute), I used only the instruments within Logic Express 8 without any loops or preset tracks.

During the 4.5 hours of travel time from Mableton, GA to Latta, SC, I listened to XM Radio. Using what I heard as a class in structure and music theory and as a result of my musical growth, I wanted to simplify my music composition style versus having too many parts within my songs. But I wanted to use point and counterpoint equally well for balance and creativity.

Chicago has a sophisticated vibe within everything except for my Chicago Bears this year. Other than kick off returns, it is a rebuilding year:) So the groove had to have a sense of style, class, and a clever nuance of elitism.

Near the end of producing the various tracks, I ran across an instrument entitled Atmospheric and lo and behold, it sounds just like the wind while soaring in a plane. This sound was the icing needed.

Upon playing the song for my family, they did not know what the sound was supposed to be and heard it as noise instead. So I lowered the volume on this track of the wind and the song fell into the pocket nicely.

The pizzicato on the violins and a spacey delay on a piano team up to square off against an electric guitar for anyone needing a rock star experience:)

Then while moving a section to a different place within the song, I moved it to the wrong instrument which played it as an instrument I am getting a huge mental block on the name now but it is like an octave curtain of small wind chimes.

The pattern can be heard near the end of the song and I learned that musical mistakes can sound better than intentional thoughts at times, so I flowed with my mistake and accepted it as divine intervention:)

I believe that "Windy City" was initially created on either Tuesday evening and fully completed by Wednesday afternoon.

I tried again on Wednesday to get my connectivity issues behind me and they remained. But I saved the thumbnails to my hard drive and proceeded to create more music.

One thought that is coming to my mind now is that the second photographer actually lives in Chicago and I totally love her photos of food and believe that she can seriously cook. I have never seen food photograph so well:)

While scanning through her photos, I ran across a photo of a cat on a bed with its belly exposed. We have similar photos of our pets, but this photo clearly had a cat that was not startled or surprised in any way.

A favorite song of mine entitled "Don't Disturb This Groove" by The System popped in my head as what the cat was saying to the photographer. I had the necessary vibe as a result and started with a simple piano part to say the words of the title.

More pizzicato violins were thrown in and I think that the same instrumentation set up was used from the previous song.

I found a nice snare-hand clap combo to match with a kick drum and stumbled on a sensual, minimalistic vibe that producers Tim & Bob created for singers Brian McKnight, Deitrick Haddon, and Joe separately.

A simple, descending chord progression quickly fell into my hands and the song took a cohesive life of its own. The bass line was kept to a bare minimum as well.

Somehow the song was missing a lower end anchor and I played the same progression on an electric piano as was played on strings. Then a nice and airy choir vocal instrument was added to play off the chord progression.

After adding an acoustic guitar to pull on the heartstrings and reducing the number of time a motif was played on alto sax, a gentle breeze of a vibe was created.

The final result is a track entitled "This Groove Is Mine" which has a vibe that I felt when I traveled earlier this year to Jersey City and stayed at the Hyatt Riverside which was my first experience with the Hyatt chain. The best keyword that describes my experience is PLUSH.

The groove is so plush that you can consume it either alone or with a loved one:)

The track alone has a chilled groove that says upscale in every way and the track would make a nice musical presentation within a commercial expressing an upscale and sophisticated lifestyle.

The hotel was playing similar music within the atrium and dining area. With the view of Manhattan and Hudson River, I remember being in the city of my birth (Jersey City) near Wall Street and feeling that I made it career wise. "This Groove Is Mine" is going to be an affirmation to myself musically as I write these words. No matter what happens or what others may say, you need to feel a vibe that lets you know that everything is going to be alright and you can make it with or without those who feel they hold the keys to your destiny.

You are not defined by what you do as much as you are defined by what you believe. The amazing thing is that a photo of a cat on a bed drove this point home to me on another level:)

The third song is one that I view as largely experimental, funky, and avant garde at the same time just as much as it is hip hop with a retro feel to something that Afrika Bambaataa might do as a collaboration with Mannie Fresh:)

I found a photo of a young lady walking out of a darkened tunnel and the sunlight was hitting her face for the first time. The photographer is one of my Flickr contacts, so his photos already had caught my eyes before.

Other than a Jam Master jay scratching loop and a loop with a wicked double-time hi-hat, the song is all me. The first discovery was the spacey, delayed bass which is the foundation for the song.

The name of the song is entitled "Step Into The Light" and is the fastest song at 106 BPM that was created during this period.

As a minister who performs gospel hip hop, this fishnet (what I call my songs) is going to be a life changer. The meaning is for the listener to give their life to Christ if they have not done so already. With the funky beat that is irresistible to dancing, everyone is going to celebrate.

I actually hear this song being performed by Kirk Franklin's choir with yours truly getting a short 8 or 16 bars to spit a verse. The song may not be considered a full blown hip hop track due to the verses not being 16 bars in length on the original song as it stands now. But it could be lengthened for that type of rapper.

But it is a party song no doubt that even a marching band may play in the stands.

I could not tell the ethnicity of the lady within the photo, but I found an Indian and Middle Eastern tabla percussion kit that I feverishly twerked as a mad genius:) Yeah, I said it. Your Brother got down thanks to God indeed!!!

Even though I had the Trigger Finger available, I played the tabla part on the 25-key Oxygen2 midi controller with only 2 keys on the keyboard. I think of each instrumental part as one who would actually play the instrument in order to not do anything too crazy or unrealistic.

The bass line leads one out of darkness while there is a clavinet part that sounds like a lead guitar to provide the title motif throughout the verses.

"Step Into The Light" has a couple of breakdowns thrown in for added surprise and to build intensity. I just heard a tom tom roll I added to not leave the percussion too dry.

The thought has just hit me to add the photos used to this blog even though I may just link the photos to the song titles. As soon as I get the MP3s created, I will upload them to my Seed Of Life Records' page on MySpace.

Finally, I created a new group on Flickr entitled FlickrBeats to see and hear others use the same process to create music. It may even inspire someone to shoot photographs for the purpose of inspiring music. The double helix effect should work wonders and create bridges musically, culturally, and internationally.

If the process of creating FlickrBeats inspires you, then join the group and get in where you fit in!

I truly enjoyed the experience although I did not handcuff myself to 2 hours for each song!

Thanks goes out to "The Weakest Beat" for your fine example! A special thanks goes out to the 3 photographers that shared their vision that expanded my musical vision!

Peace!

Citigroup's Downgrade of ETFC Seems Fishy to Me Now

E*Trade Financial's (ETFC) stock took a "my name is Kunta" beating last week after Citigroup ( C) research investment analyst Prashant Bhatia had downgraded the stock.

I am not an investment analyst or an employee of ETFC any longer (exactly on the afternoon of the 50 basis Federal Reserve cut of all days-September 18th) and have nothing on the line either way but within my own opinion, I smell a "knock down the price and let's buy them cheap" move on the table.

Big fish devouring the little fish is what I am beginning to detect for some reason.

Now today Goldman Sachs (GS) kicks the chair out from under Citigroup while they were demonstrating how ETFC's demise might look to financial CSI types. Poetry in motion I say:)

If this is not a "Kill Bill" stand off in progress, then show me the door:)

Charles Gasparino is one financial reporter whose insights I trust almost blindly and his book "Blood on the Street" gave me a red pill on Wall Street wholesale, but the conspiracy theorist in me is seeing the string theory connect the dots like a room sweep flashback at the end of Mission Impossible. Why is everyone so quick to assume that it could not be a possibility in the wake of the financial service industry having to supposedly separate research analysts from investment banking activities?

Of course it would be premature to fully accuse C or Bhatia of intentionally doing this, but game recognizes game and real recognizes real and C is not looking too admirable right now especially with former C CEO Prince falling on his own sword honorably (wink, wink).

I am not going on a hunting or fishing trip with anybody in this climate:) Any such requests are being turned down just as the numerous job offers from Nigeria, staff of disposed dictators, and to process orders for art dealers in the UK. Strings are being pulled somewhere for somebody.

The downturn appears to be a scenario where "I hope you die before I do to distract the attention from my own misfortune". Cramer may have this one right after all.

The best thing that everyone can do is to take a grain of salt with any analyst's upgrades or downgrades until February at a minimum.

No one has to the fortitude to downgrade GS or challenge them honorably at the present time. Does GS have a bone to pick or are they looking for a discount? It does not matter since they have been doing so many things so right for so long, it would be welcomed if they were:)

I studied the financial supermarket concept in graduate school for my MBA in finance and it was a lofty idea back then in the mid 90s. But the execution of the idea has fallen short consistently.

Every company that I have worked for within the financial services industry has not gotten it right either. American Express (AXP) divested of its financial advisory division which is now named Ameriprise ( AMP). The only place where the consolidation of functions appear to be working is actually after an industry divestiture has taken place--the telecommunications industry.

After the US Department of Justice broke up Ma Bell (T) in 1984, time has revealed that the dry bones have been reconnected and a child (formerly known as SBC Communications) has grown up to consume the parent (bigger fish) through acquisitions.

Corporate philosophy and leadership are at an all time low right now. Too many companies are demonstrating that they do not know how to make money in hard times and the economy is paying the price through the wallets of the middle class. A hedge fund full of quants cannot save every company at the same time and although forex is a gravy train right now (even investing guru Warren Buffett has the Kool-Aid on his lips and tongue), corporate America is already busy forming a new bubble within foreign currency exchange from their long-term investments there.

Only after a system has been declared a failure has there traditionally been a restructuring and opportunity for new minds to be recognized and come to the table for implementation.

The AT&T that I worked in the early 90s undeniably failed just as those with a financial supermarket offering are doing so now.

I am not saying that the idea will never work, but clearly it will not work with the current personnel at the helm of these companies. The solution will only come from external sources or those not at the table when the current strategies were considered the right thing to do.

One significant problem that I saw at pre-AMP is that the card carrying customers being called on repeatedly for a formal introduction to the financial advisory side of AXP at the request of managers and supervisors simply had a psycho-graphic composition totally different from what the marketing department thought they did. They were interested within the exclusivity and benefits of membership of the AMEX cards but not within investing.

Linking mentally (somehow as a great idea to an unnamed corporate John or Jane Doe) these customers' credit scores with their investing inclinations had the same effectiveness and was at the same level of doing a hardcore substance-abuse intervention for toddlers:) I kid you not!!! No one even looked at the advisor attrition levels to identify this as an input to my knowledge.

No one at pre-AMP had a clue of a suitable customer profile on any level (I asked repeatedly before taking things into my own hands) and as far as I can tell, the same is still happening there and is more prevalent than these all-in-one-stop companies would dare to imagine.

Anyone within any company that is being told to cross-sell and up-sell existing clientèle should begin to recognize the fallacy of this marketing myth.

You may ask what I am going to do as a result and I am glad that you have done so:) First, I am going to continue the implementation of a long-term proprietary strategy launched in the aftermath of my latest employment transition (nice way of saying that you will have to see my fruit since my seeds are more secure than VP Cheney's assets--LOL:) Secondly: since history has a fondness for repeating itself, I am going to keep my eyes open for the next SBC-type company that springs up within the financial services industry. I missed it last time due to working for the Death Star (as T was called back then in some corners).

Being outside the system is the only hope since the Kool-Aid has to be loyally consumed with every direct deposit.

Even since being terminated from my last employer, I still cannot get my jaw out of the divot from the mindset running rampant at the wholesale and retail levels within the supermarket segment of any industry pre-paradigm shift.

But I do know one thing that will absolutely never fail in my analysis of it all: the management severance packages and golden parachutes are being kept safely and securely by personnel dressed as the old Intel shiny suit commercials appeared. Maybe Diddy and Ma$e will auction their form of the shiny clean-suits:)

By choice and by force, no executive is fighting to stay in control in lieu of taking the big payday and running with it:) Their mamas did not raise any fools on that level!

May God help us all that are not as fortunate in our placement on the pyramid organizational charts.

Maybe the three-card Monty of network marketing may not look so bad after all when compared to this. LOL:) Surely I jest for the record.

Peace!

Interesting Soul Train Episode

This evening I saw on Tivo an old school episode of "Soul Train" that had BT Express on it.

Playing keyboard was a young Kashif.

I never knew his given name Mike Jones until today and believe that I remember reading that he had a conversion of religion that gave him the name Kashif.

He is one of my favorite music teachers although from a distance:)

I do not know what Kashif as a name stands for, but Kashif had written a book and given seminars on the music industry for years.

I think that I also remember being on a mailing list or newsgroup for him years ago as well.

The songs that BT Express performed clearly had a train theme within the music and nice structure.

Keep doing your thing "Brooklyn Boy" and thanks for the inspiration!

Peace!

Two Ordinary but Unique Networks Created Tonight

I got a hair cut today which is not unusual but while my barber was cutting my hair, another barber who is moving to the area from out of town came into the shop. What made their interaction strike a chord within me I cannot determine yet but clearly as a result, two networks were created tonight to see what can possibly develop from the network of customers who get their hair cut at a regular barber shop of choice or upon visiting a new one.

I guess the idea was already within me for some time since I had mentioned to several barbers over the years that they should look to network their customers. This thought may have had too much risk for them due to their reputations going on the line for someone looking to get over on someone, but it happens anyway with or without the barbers involvement.

So why not take the bull by the horns and keep the ball in your court or at least have some online method to cast your support or disapproval consistently.

As a result the Barber Shop Network and Beauty Salon Network were created tonight on Ning which is a great web 2.0 platform.

I will readily admit that the names are not high tech or high definition, but at least you do not have to wonder what they are about:)

Barbers, hair stylists, and shop owners will have the opportunity to create their own networks within the network as well. It may become a Bronner Brothers Hair Show online or something since videos, audio, photos, and pretty much any type of digital content can be shared there.

So check these networks out and let's see where the technology and networks take us!

Peace!

Now Sen. Grassley's Investigation Begins to Make Sense

After reading this article reported by the Associated Press, the most unusual request by Sen. Grassley (R-Iowa) begins to make sense.

He is essentially investigating anyone directly associated with Oral Roberts University (ORU) it appears as well as their ministerial relationships to other pastors and church leaders. Three ORU board members out of the 6 ministries that received the senator's request for more information were named in his investigation.

There is an unworthy guilt by association and I suspect that this investigation will continue and go through several degrees of separation nationwide.

The development also goes to show the prudence and discretion needed to serve on a board of directors as well.

Peace!