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By Posted on Posted in Author, Business, Calculators, Free, Marketing, PDRater Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Nov
6
2008

A while ago a very entrepreneurial friend of mine suggested I read a book called, “The Art of the Start” by Guy Kawasaki.  This one book is responsible in no small part for the website you see today.1  Guy worked for Apple and later started an influential and innovative venture capital firm, Garage.  As if that wasn’t enough, he’s a frequent lecturer, best selling author, and avid blogger.

In one of his recent articles, he talks about “Plan B for Fund Raising.”  Here’s my take on Plans A and B:

Plan Bee*
Plan Bee

Plan A

Anyone who was alive during the late 90’s has heard of “Plan A.”  Build a prototype, put together a PowerPoint presentation, get some venture capital, and spend venture capitalist money.  You know how this story ends.  The company gets bought out and everyone is rich or the company never goes anywhere and its assets are sold for scrap.

Plan B2

Anyone who was alive during the 70’s knows all about “Plan B.”  These are the people who started businesses in their garage.  I suppose we really only hear about the success “Plan B” stories.  No one’s surprised when a home business doesn’t go big so no one talks about it.  Plan B is where somebody believes so feverishly in their own idea they work on it nights and weekends after they come home from their day job as a barrista.

The whole reason I’m writing this blog post, indeed the reason why I have this blog and website at all, is because of “Plan B.”  At its most hectic in the last year, I was working a day job, doing contract attorney and techie work for various clients, while marketing and programming these calculators.  While I didn’t live with my parents, I participated in a surprisingly (and embarrassingly) large number of the activities Guy describes under Plan B.

This is NOT something I intend to do ever again.  Thankfully, the hard work of building the calculators is done.3  These days my only continuing time commitment to this site is writing blog posts and answering fan mail.4

  1. So, if you don’t like it – blame him!  Haha! [↩]
  2. Original photo courtesy of Eye of Einstein [↩]
  3. Well, more accurately, its always almost done.  ;) [↩]
  4. But, mostly blog posts. [↩]

By Posted on Posted in PDRater Tagged with , , , , ,
Nov
5
2008

I never thought I would see in my lifetime any of the following people nominated for president:

  • An African-American
  • A child of a non-American
  • Someone with a non-traditional first or last name
  • Someone with the middle name Hussein

I am never prouder as a citizen when I am voting.  And last night at 8:30pm, I have never been prouder of America.

Congratulations to Barak Obama and Joe Biden.  I do not envy you gentlemen – you’ve got a lot of hard work ahead of you.

By Posted on Posted in Not Workers Compensation Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,
Nov
4
2008

Go vote today.  No matter how you vote you’ll be part of history.  And, if you don’t vote, you’ll have no right to complain.

Random voting tidbits:

  • I heard on NPR last night that California does not honor the postmark on an absentee ballot.  If you  you haven’t mailed in your absentee ballot yet, it will not be accepted with today’s postmark.  You will need to call or go to a voting precinct to drop off your vote in person.
  • Also per NPR if you’re not in line when the voting precinct says its 8:00PM, you’re out of luck.  Be in line well before 8:00PM to make sure you are allowed to vote.
  • I have a distrust of voting machines given what we’ve been hearing about all of the voting machine malfunctions and vote-switching going on in the East coast.  Once you’ve made all your selections, double check your answers to make sure the machine got them right.  If your ballot machine has a paper-ticket, make sure that matches the electronic screen.  Someone I know recommended putting your driver’s license on the voting machine itself and taking a picture of your vote with a camera or camera phone.

By Posted on Posted in Author, Calculators, PDRater, Technobabble, Website Updates, Workers Compensation Resources Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Nov
3
2008
Obama and McCain on heathcare
Obama and McCain on heathcare

October was another pretty good month for PDRater.com. During the month of October, the traffic for this website increased by about 25%, I added a few new calculator features, I completely changed the look of the website, and we passed the 200 registered users mark.1

In no particular order, I’m including my favorite “photoshopped” pictures from October on the right side.  The footnotes below link to the original photographers.  None of them are to blame for the photoediting. 2345

Top Posts Awards:

Obama vs McCain: Round 3
Obama vs McCain: Round 3

2008 Presidential Election Coverage:

2008 Economic Turmoil Coverage:

*PDRater up, the Dow down
PDRater up, the Dow down

I added on to my “Road Warrior Checklists”:

In case you’re interested, here’s the best of September 2008.

  1. At the time of this post, 227 registered users! [↩]
  2. Special thanks to the kind people who use Flickr for making their photos available for use. [↩]
  3. Photos courtesy of richardmasoner, C_Dave, and mikewade. [↩]
  4. Photo courtesy of DaveHogg. [↩]
  5. Photo courtesy of Daniel Martini. [↩]

By Posted on Posted in Not Workers Compensation Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Oct
31
2008
Jack-o-Lantern - Cat
Jack-o-Lantern - Cat

Pumpkin Carving Tutorial

((PDRater and Jay Shergill are not responsible for any use or misuse of these instructions.  Please only attempt in well lit, well ventilated, area in the presence of trained medical professionals.  In fact, its really just better if you don’t do this at all.))

Last night I carved our Jack-O-Lantern.  It seemed a waste to not use the rest of that pumpkin real estate, so I carved one side into a cat and the other side as a skull.

Tools of the Pumpkin Carving Trade:

  • Apron
  • Sharp large kitchen knife
  • Sharp small kitchen knife
  • Wide rounded cheese knife (looks like a paddle)
  • Plastic bag (for pumpkin guts)
  • Chopsticks
  • Washable markers
  • Sandwich bag and flashlight or
  • Candle
  • Adult supervision
Jack-o-Lantern - Skull
Jack-o-Lantern - Skull

Directions:

  • Wear apron.
  • Put pumpkin in sink.
  • Cut top out using large knife.  I prefer to make a jagged gut around the top.
  • Use wide paddle-knife to scoop out the insides into the plastic bag.
  • Draw your design on the pumpkin using the marker.
  • Cut out your design using the small knife.
  • Use the chopsticks to punch out any small pieces that don’t easily fall out.
  • When done carving, wash off any excess marker (you’re still in the sink, remember?).
  • Put flashlight in the sandwich bag, put the sandwich bag inside the pumpkin.

Tips:

  • If you look at the skull carving, you’ll notice that both the skull and jaw appear to be free-standing.  The skull is still attached at the top and the jaw is attached at the two sides.  All you need to do is only cut part-way into the pumpkin in those areas – the light source will make it appear to be free-standing/floating.
  • Using the flashlight is probably significantly safer than a candle.
  • Consider adding water and dry ice to the pumpkin for a mist-like effect.
    • If you do, you’ll have to use the flashlight-in-the-sandwich-baggie trick.  As the dry ice sublimates, it will extinguish any flame by depriving it of oxygen.1234

Enjoy!

  1. What, you didn’t know the word sublimate??? [↩]
  2. Sublimate is the name for the process of a solid material converting directly into its gaseous state. [↩]
  3. Since dry ice is just solid (frozen) carbon dioxide, it would basically starve any flame of oxygen. [↩]
  4. Many fire extinguishers actually work by simply shooting carbon dioxide onto the target flame/heat source. [↩]