Thursday, December 27, 2007

The Simple Things in Life
Its amazing as you get older how the little things in life seem to matter most.

It can be anything from:
Making a great cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows and lots of whip cream
Reading a good book from cover to cover on a weekend
Taking a leisure stroll around the beach where you live
Watching an old movie in HD on an HDTV
Reading my journals of 10 years ago
Putting together CD's from iTunes
The time to play video games on my XBOX and PSP
Sleeping in till 10:00AM

I guess what it comes down to is time. Having the time to do the things that matter most to you. Why don't we do these things when we're younger? My guess is we're still trying to grab the brass ring and everything that goes with it so we don't make time for the things that really matter. I guess you can call it peer pressure or even what society expects of someone like me and we seem all too anxious to please these individuals almost to a stereotypical fault. Like its our duty or something.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Juice is the new MLM of the world

Today I researched 2 companies that friends of mine are currently distributors. The first is Mona-Vie which celebrates the acai berry in Central and South America. The other is Goji Juice which celebrates the Goji Berry in the Himalayans.

They both are in nicely packaged 1 liter bottles and range from $35-$40 per bottle. According to the research done it lasts about a week. So you would need 4 bottles to last you a month which is about $160 a month in additional disposable income.

Its amazing how the MLM’s have evolved from cleaning products to health powders to insurance to healthy juices in a nicely packaged bottle that looks like a really expensive bottle of wine. The packaging is really well done on the Mona-Vie and the price is not for your average joe.

The scary thing is this is probably going to be the future in reference to buying and selling products. With the growing population and not enough space to accommodate the growth companies will be selling their products through these types of channels. Going to the office will become part of the past. Those who have the selling skills and the entrepreneurial spirit will thrive in these times.

Friday, October 12, 2007

Dear Novice Fans League Players,

The results for last week puts BruinOneders as the only undefeated team in the league at 3-0. This week BruinOneders will be put to the test with BruinsRock as their opponent. Both teams have the Texas Tech Raiders offensive players so it should be interesting to see who comes out on top. The other results from last week was JamaicanQT's Quest 4 Glory catapulting to take the top spot in the West Division and BruinsRock and Da LBC getting their first wins of the season.

Here are this week's games:

Da LBC vs Buckeyeboy71
BruinsRock vs BruinOneders
JamaicanQT's Quest 4 Glory vs dk
roseboundbears vs PAC-10 Rules

Just a reminder below about the trade deadline. What this means is after this date you can no longer do any trading during this season.

Trade Deadline
Throughout the season, owners can trade units with other teams. In an effort to keep the integrity of the league, a deadline for trades will be imposed at 11:59 PM ET, Wednesday, 10/17/07. No trades will be allowed after that time. Any trades accepted by two parties before the deadline will be subject to the trade approval process.

You can still however continue to pickup players through free agency. Those of you who still need to beef up your lineups look on the free agency wire. There are still alot of good players out there for all positions.

See everyone on the field and good luck this week.





Saturday, October 06, 2007

Watching the Red River rivalry between the Oklahoma Sooners and the Texas Longhorns brought back memories of when I was in Texas for the government contract project. I remember being in the lobby with all the college students and their respective alumni coming back from the game. That day you didn't need to know who won the game. They wore their emotions on their faces.

I never knew how a big of a deal this game was in College football. The funniest part is that Texas is considered the home team, but Norman, Oklahoma is actually closer to the Cotton Bowl, but since its in the state of Texas they are considered the home team for this annual game.


I learned that day this rivalry is one of the biggest and longest rivalries in the history of both universities as well as in college football. I saw alot of red/white and orange/white that day. Oklahoma killed Texas that day with a final score of 65-13. Since that time I've heard of players going to the respective schools specifically to play in that particular game every year.

It might be not only one of the biggest rivalries in college football but in all of sports. Some sports experts consider it right up their with the Boston Redsox vs New York Yankees.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Dear all,

This week in the Novice Fans League was another week of unpredictable play and in College football the week of major upsets such as Oklahoma being beaten by Colorado, Florida being beaten by Auburn, and West Virginia being beaten by South Florida. Congratulations to: JamaicanQT's Quest 4 Glory and roseboundbears for their first wins of the season. The other 2 winners: Buckeyeboy71 and BruinOneders have now won the first 2 games of the season. They happen to both be in the same division so are tied for first place in the East Division.

The following teams have byes this week so make sure you adjust your starting lineups:

Buckeyeboy71
JamaicanQT's Quest 4 Glory
PAC-10 Rules
roseboundbears
Da LBC

Here are the matchups for this week:

BruinOneders vs roseboundbears
dk vs BruinsRock
Buckeyeboy71 vs JamaicanQT's Quest 4 Glory
PAC-10 Rules vs Da LBC

Again, make sure you adjust your lineups for the coming week. The first game this week will be Thursday for those of you who have Kentucky or South Carolina.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Dear Holden,

I met with Jeremy Woodlee yesterday afternoon and he told me he thought you were a really good fit for the Real Estate Managing Editor/Producer position. He thought with your editorial background and progressing into the online world would make for a good match with our culture and this position.

Again this position will report directly to Meredith Artley who is the Executive Editor for Latimes.com (Latimes Interactive) and will be the Managing Editor/Producer for the Real Estate vertical.

This position would require you to relocate to our offices here in Los Angeles. I have relocated quite a few people in my career and people that never really thought about relocating. Based on the opportunity and after more chats with our team they decided it was the right move to make.

I know its a big commitment, so what I am looking for is not necessarily will you relocate today. But is there anything that would prevent you from relocating if and when an offer was made and is this the type of opportunity you are looking for in order to make a move from your current situation?

Depending on how you answer those questions, the next steps will be to do a phone conference with Meredith Artley Executive Editor (who you would report to), and Sean Gallagher.

Also let me know if Friday 6:00PM EST works for you in reference to a phone chat with me.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Dear all,

This week was an exciting week of Novice Fans League football. We had a high of 237 Fantasy Points by PAC-10 Rules, and a single player position (WR) by BruinOneders with 90 points. If any of you have ever played the NFL Fantasy Football you will know these type of numbers are non-existent, but with the points being tallied based on positions and not on individual players this is going to be a reality every week. Which means every week will be competitive.

Here are this weeks final scores and the winners for the week of 09/22:

dk
166.25 vs Da LBC 141.25
Winner: Dakotta Alex (dk)

BruinOneders
202 vs JamaicaQT's Quest 4 Glory 166
Winner: Randy Powell (BruinOneders)

Buckeyeboy71
165 vs roseboundbears 156.75
Winner:
Chai Cai (Buckeyeboy71)

PAC-10 Rules
237 vs BruinsRock 197.5
Winner
: Doug Yamaguchi (PAC-10 Rules)

For those of you who have a percentage point after your score ie: .25, .5 , .75 that is because you have a college team that played a non-division 1-A team. This week that occured for those of you who have Hawaii or Missouri.

The way that is calculated is the following example:
If a Division 1-A team is playing a non-division 1-A team, the division 1-A team will only receive 75% of its actual points. For instance, in week 1 Maryland, who is a division 1-A team is playing Villanova, who is a non-division 1-A team. If you start the Maryland RB unit, and they score 32 points, your fantasy team will be awarded 24 points.

On a final note to those of us who were defeated this week. Remember winning this league is all based on Fantasy Points. It doesn't matter if the particular school you have wins or loses their particular game, its all about the Fantasy Points. You can click on each schools position and you will see a graph of the Fantasy Points they accumulated for that week. Also peruse the Free Agents that are available which can be found on your home page under the players tab.

Good luck to everyone this week and see you all on the field virtually speaking.




Wednesday, January 30, 2002

The thought is to have all types of speech technology fall under Kaku International. I don't think there is a company out there right now that does all aspects of speech technology which would include stuttering software, diagnostic software, etc.

Saturday, January 26, 2002

Looked into building website from Verizon account. Server too busy right now need to try later. Also look into getting monogram golf shirts for Kaku with the saying "Who is Kaku Intl".

Tuesday, January 22, 2002

Agenda for Kaku meeting

Want to focus on strategy to get Product Manager position for Nate and Sales position for Katrina. Set a time frame of like March 1, 2002 as the target date.
The company that comes to mind for product manager is Havas Interactive who Miguel has contacts at including the CFO.

Sunday, January 20, 2002

Need to look at building web page from Verizon account
Logo for Kaku being accent mark over the a in Kaku
Find company to make logo golf shirts
Marketing Research journals
Forrester Reports
Jupiter Media Metrix
Yankee Group Reports
S&P 500

Wednesday, January 16, 2002

According to George Jang the forums are a good place to do the market research. He has used these groups in the past and gotten what the objection questions would be for a particular product before taking it to market. He also talked about a division in IBM that funded Human interface products and used a special type of toothbrush as an example. Probably worth looking into this area and see if they do any software products.

Tuesday, January 15, 2002

Think about Associations and National organizations. Look to see if BBB has marketing information on accent reduction industry.
What was good about the picture front view but no english translation and side view of what the mouth is actually doing. The guy and a girl and they are exchanging conversation and pronounciation.
How to say it at the word level
How to say it at a phrase level
How to say it at a conversation level
It also has games which is a good thing to have to lighten things up a little especially for adults.
Think about putting software in the discounted software dumpsters at the retail stores in order to get the name out there. Pricing is about 50.00 for Transparent Language and the one we both liked with the Japanese Immersion software is a company in Washington state called Topics Entertainment. See what types of software is out there that is bundled in the speech recognition software.
Another medium to sell to is the Bookstore companies and set something up similar to the cd's sold in the Barnes and Nobles.
Barron's has a software out their to train government personnel called Mastering X language (Spanish, Russian, Japanese, etc.) The price for Barron's software is 80.00.
Do mentoring along with the selling of the software.
Put together NDA form
Speech recognition software is selling at about 100.00 for something like Dragon.
MP3 site where people can download a demo of our software.


Friday, January 11, 2002

Start thinking about a Focus group for Kaku as part of the marketing research. The other thing is look at the S&P 500 at the library on Sunday.

Tuesday, January 08, 2002

Need to think about hooking Katrina up with a position as a trainer so she can get immersed in the training environment and be ready to go when we launch Kaku.

Sunday, January 06, 2002

Need to find Forrester or another marketing research company to pull stats on the Accent Reduction industry. The other area we totally forgot about is the need for accent reduction when it comes to teleconferencing especially in the technical arena where most of your engineers are from another country and speak another native language other than English.
We should look at the company Transparent Language and Knowledge University ( A Michael Milken company) as potential partners. Especially Knowledge University since that would fit well with their other international businesses. Knowledge University also has headquarters here in Los Angeles versus Transparent whose headquarters are in New Hampshire.