I already think it is ludicrous for the kids to start back the first week of August. That is awfully early to be going to school when most of the rest of the country does not start until after Labor Day. As far as I am concerned, they need to bring in extra teachers and extra tutors to help the kids who are struggling. The kids who are average and better are being punished for being in the same classes as the dumb ones.

I would love to see the schools get serious about making the school campus a safe and pleasant place for our children to spend the better part of their days. If you’ve not been inside a public school lately and seen the awful conditions, listened to the demeaning and humiliating way that the teachers and school staff talk to the students, and actually looked inside their current textbooks to see what they are supposed to be learning – you can’t begin to understand the ginormous problems we are facing in trying to improve or revamp our public education system here.

In the early days when i was exploring the sales and marketing route, I asked a lot of my contemporaries, including other successful sale people and vendors, “What is the difference between “sales” and “marketing”? None of them gave me a good answer. It was only on my own exploration of the sales process and corporate structures that I discovered and embraced marketing. Over the years I’ve mastered quite a bit of the marketing principles and techniques in a variety of corporate settings. Now I am ready to step into the new millenium and learn more about internet marketing and search engine optimization.

Obviously I will make use of the internet for a lot of this effort. I have found some good articles about search engine optimization and internet marketing. One interesting aspect of the new marketing is that most of the traditional marketing logic does not apply. You have to shift mental gears into “geek think” instead of what works in the real world, because often they are very different and mistakes on your website can prove very costly and difficult to correct or overcome.

As I was sufing the channels I came across a headshot of someone that I recognized immediately – Steve Cropper. Now I have been a big fan of Steve Cropper for many many years and I was intrigued – what is this show about? Turns out I struck gold and had come upon a special documentary show about Staxx records in Memphis back in the 1960′s. It had info on Booker T and the MGs, Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Sam & Dave, and all the greats of the Memphis sound, narrated by Samuel Jackson.

Great show – what a lucky break that I found it this morning.

My son is much more serious about getting a college education and we are in the process of evaluating the different colleges and universities to see where he would like to go. Of course, I would prefer an in state school to help save on tuition and take advantage of the scholarships available to residents through the lottery funded programs. But if he gets his heart set on an out of state school then I’m down with it and will find a way to get the money for him.

There’s a cool website that helps kids with their college applications. Here are their top tips:

1. Proofread your applications for spelling and grammar
2. Read the instructions carefully and all the way through before beginning
3. Type the applications and write legibly
4. Apply to several schools
5. Don’t use a silly nickname in your email address – get a free email account using your first and last name to appear more serious and professional

We were all shocked and amazed when our company made the announcement that the Board of Directors had decided to eliminate the Human Resources department and outsource those tasks as part of our staff reduction and reorganization plans. My friend was laid off and we were all instructed on the new processes for HR support within our departments. After the initial shock of losing a friend and co-worker, I must say that the new processes are not bad.

My friend has found another position and is very happy with her new company as VP of HR, and our company is happy with the move to outsourcing their HR. So it was a win-win change for all.

I have to print out reports every night of the week except Tuesdays and Thursdays, so that’s a lot of printing. The color printer would take up to three hours to print the reports and since they are just black and white it occurred to me that I should look into get a monochrome printer that is faster. The fast color printers are just too expensive for my home office budget. So I found the HP laserjet and discovered a little bonus – the laser toner cartridge lasts 6 times longer than the inkjet cartridges.

The inkjets were running out every week of one color or another, especially the black cartridge. I could easily go through two black cartridges each week. But the laserjet toner cartridge lasts about one month. Of course the price difference is huge. You can buy inkjets for $20-$30 at the discount stores but the laser runs $80. But the yield is much greater than the increased cost, so I’m saving a lot of money and time with the laser.

Trying to pinch my pennies even further, I decided to check out the generic cartridges and also getting refilled or recycled cartridges. If I know I can recycle something I feel guilty tossing it into the trash and not recycling. There’s been so much buzz about recycling printer cartridges that I knew I had to start doing that. So I surfed the internet and found a cool site called Inkjet Deals. They have information refilling both inkjet cartridges and laser toner cartridges for my HP laserjet and all the top brands of printers.

I like the sectio on their site that is a resource center with informational articles. After I read the one about “Generic and Remanufactured Cartridges,” I knew right then that I must start recycling my cartridges and also spread the word so everyone else will do that, too.

Another article they have that helped me with the penny pinching mode is called, “Seven Tips for Saving Ink.” Now some of those tips might be obvious to you, but I hadn’t thought of them until this article pointed them out.

I’m also not sure that I’m going to keep my HP color inkjet. After reading this site and learning more about printers, I might be better off buying a different brand for the photos I want to print. I’m seriously thinking about shopping around for the right site to buy Epson color printers online for less money than the local discount stores and getting a better quality photo print for my collection.

Perot has launched a website called www.perotcharts.com that has . . . you guessed it! Charts.

He’s trying to help America manage it’s money and its debt. Check it out.

So we headed to the Christian bookstore and shopped for a bible cover. They had a great selection of different styles and colors, and I picked one with a bible verse blazened on the front to go along with the camouflage idea. It’s actually quite handy – it is the perfect size for the mini laptop and it has inside pockets for pens, highlighters, business cards, and a small zippered pouch for money or credit cards.