The Boy Can’t Help It | Peter Mehit

He heads upslope with purpose. He’s so focused that he steps over the spread out blankets and coolers, around the playing children and conversing adults without looking at them. He’s worked out an audio problem with speakers that flank a giant 100 foot wide inflatable movie screen and now he’s trudging back to the make shift projection booth with a scant twenty minutes to make sure all is in order for a screening of ‘Kung Fu Panda’.

Even while double checking connectors and dialing in the projector, he is aware of what his team is doing. It’s almost as if he has radar. Every so often he’ll stand up and use hand signals to communicate with one of his team down by the screen. Even with the occasional miscommunication, it’s pretty impressive.

Eventually the sun sets and the movie begins. About 2,000 people fill the bowl shaped park, settling in for the show. Hollywood Outdoor Movies has yet another successful program under its belt. This event, one of a series of publicity events for Bank of America, represents one several corporate events the company has done. The client list sports marquee clients any company would be proud to have: Dreamworks, Walt Disney, NASA, MGM, American Film Institute, AMC Theaters, KIA Motors and Univision to name a few. The business has broken a million dollars in top line revenue for the first time in 2011 and is seeking capital to quadruple that in 2012.

Continue reading “The Boy Can’t Help It | Peter Mehit”

Shale shocked: USGS links ‘remarkable increase’ in earthquakes to fracking | Grist

The study found that the frequency of earthquakes started rising in 2001 across a broad swath of the country between Alabama and Montana. In 2009, there were 50 earthquakes greater than magnitude-3.0, the abstract states, then 87 quakes in 2010. The 134 earthquakes in the zone last year is a sixfold increase over 20th century levels.

The surge in the last few years corresponds to a nationwide surge in shale drilling, which requires disposal of millions of gallons of wastewater for each well. According to the federal Energy Information Administration, shale gas production grew, on average, nearly 50 percent a year from 2006 to 2010.

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Winning Your Own Lottery | Boaz Rauchwerger

Many years ago, I worked in radio and television news. A lot has changed in the broadcast news business in recent years.
This past week, especially later in the week, the biggest story in the U.S. appeared to be the record $640 million up for grabs in the Mega Millions Lottery. Some people waited in line for up to 4 hours in order to buy tickets.
Even though the odds of winning the big prize were something like 170 million to 1, many people wanted to buy a chance because they thought about the dramatic changes they could make in their lives with instant wealth.
What if we could set up a process that, in time, could literally make it possible for all of us to win our own personal lottery?
Contrary to what I used to think, it’s not how much we make that makes the difference. It’s how much we keep.
Otherwise, how would you explain the story about a little old librarian in Vermont, who never earned a lot of money in any given year, who retires after 40 years with several hundred thousand dollars in her bank account?
Maybe she decided to keep some of the money she made every year.
So, what if each of us was willing to make a few changes that might make it possible to win our own personal lottery? What would it take to do that? Here are some options:
1. Live a little below our means and pay off all debts.
2. Stop charging and pay in cash. What’s wrong with saving for something instead of charging?
3. Save some money every day, even if we start with a dollar a day.
4. Prepare a sack lunch to take to work instead of buying lunch every day.
5. If possible, ride a bike to work. That’s great exercise and you’ll save the gas.
6. Make a list, for 30 days, of where every one of your dollars is going and look for ways to trim back unnecessary expenditures.
Implementing such ideas, I believe, will raise the odds on each of us ultimately winning our own personal lottery.
You are special. You are unique. You are destined for greatness! Have a powerful day!
A Personal-Lottery Affirmation
I keep more of what I make because I make good decisions with money.
Boaz Rauchwerger is a speaker, author, consultant and trainer. He is also a contributor to the Lifetime Network program,’ The Balancing Act’.www.boazpower.com

On the horrors of getting approval for an ice-cream parlour in San Francisco | Boing Boing


Ms. Pries said she had to endure months of runaround and pay a lawyer to determine whether her location (a former grocery, vacant for years) was eligible to become a restaurant. There were permit fees of $20,000; a demand that she create a detailed map of all existing area businesses (the city didn’t have one); and an $11,000 charge just to turn on the water.

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