I had a rather unusual visit to see my grandmother, who lives in Clifton NJ. She got me to drive her to this place and I thought that she wanted to be taken to the Costco there in Clifton. Instead she went to shop at this place that sells Jewish memorials in NJ. I thought that was rather odd obviously, but she wanted to get a bigger stone that would replace the one my Uncle Sol has, obviously one which was big enough to have both of their names on it. She had a lot of trouble figuring out what she wanted and of course I did not think that she could afford such a thing. Continue reading →

It’s a little rare to see a hack that doesn’t have something wrong with it. Usually there is an extra bit of code put into the hack that will enable someone to have access to personal files. I experienced this once when I used a hack for a music program that I put on my phone. It gave me ads that just wouldn’t go away, even after removing it. When I learned that there was a Snapchat hack, I was wary about trying it, because I feared the same thing would happen all over again. This time, things were much different.

As a precautionary measure, I decided to test the hack using two methods. One method involved emulating a smartphone on my computer. Continue reading →

The big secret is that everyone is a sales person. You just need to bring it out in them. Everyone is passionate about something, and for every human passion there is a market for it. If you really like cars, people buy cars. If you like the latest phones and gadgets, people buy tons of the stuff every year. Think of a product or service you know a lot about and feel great about. That is all it takes to be in sales whether it be as a sales person, consultative selling professional or any other type of sales. Every day we are selling something whether we are aware of it or not.

You are selling yourself as a certain type of person when you go out in public. Do you dress classy, tough, new age, modest, flamboyant or in another manner? You are selling a perception of yourself to the public with how you look when you go out in public. It must be something you believe in, otherwise you would not do it. We sell products all the time for companies now too. However, the problem is that we are doing it for free. Continue reading →

There was a point when the vines in my backyard got out of control and I had to use all of my strength to get rid of them. I sprayed the vines with an herbicide, but it didn’t do anything. I had to yank the vines up by hand until they were all gone. There was one place I didn’t bother to remove the vines, and that was an old tree. The vines choked the tree to death and there was nothing I could do except get tree removal in Long Island to take the tree and those pesky vines away with it.

The vines on that tree were the last remnants of my battle with them, so I was happy that they were going to be taken away with the tree. On the other hand, I was sad that the tree had died because I was unable to save it before the vines took over it. That tree was part of my yard for many years. My kids used to climb in that tree like they were little monkeys. We’ve had a lot of good memories with that tree, and in a way, it was like a frozen, inanimate part of our family.

I asked the tree removal people to let me keep a small section of the tree before they took it away. I wanted to keep it to remind me of what used to be. I carved down the piece of tree into a small wooden tree model and sanded and put some finish on it. I made it look like the old tree as much as possible. My wife thought I was a little crazy for getting sentimental over a dead tree, but this was something that she just didn’t understand. That tree was something special, and it will never come back.

My aunt had spent all of her married life living near Boston, MA in a huge house that many would call an estate. My uncle had been incredibly successful in real estate, but since his passing, my aunt was looking to downsize. The house was simply too much for her so we began looking for luxury apartments for rent in Revere MA which would keep her close to her friends and take the burden of home ownership and upkeep off her shoulders. My aunt, while always aware of how hard my uncle had worked in his life, had no idea just how much he was doing at home as well. Lawn mowing, general upkeep on the house and those small repairs my uncle had been dealing with over the years became too much for my aunt to handle along with cleaning and maintaining the interior of the house.

My aunt was never the pretentious type, but I knew any apartment for her would need to be upscale and offer her the amenities to make the transition from living in a big home to a more modestly sized apartment as seamless as possible. Continue reading →

My mom moved to Tennessee with her second husband about 10 years ago. I was a bit envious because it is so pretty there. I helped her look at apartments in Antioch when she first arrived. Her husband was busy overseas on a business trip, and she wanted the help of a second opinion. I had never seen so many lush trees in one area before! Living in the plains where things are so flat is very different. Things didn’t feel so inviting once I got back home after that trip. Things changed this year when my mother asked me if I could move there to live with her.

Mom’s husband passed away about 5 years after they married. I felt so bad for her because he was so good to her. Mom tried dating a little bit here and there, but she felt the quality of men she was meeting was very lacking. Continue reading →