If it was only that easy, right? Ha!

I hope you all had a great Halloween. I’ll be posting pictures of the kids in the next day or so. Our oldest ended up dressing up as a ghoulish looking hunchbacked dwarf, which was hilarious. Our second was a skeleton, in a home made costume that totally rocked, and the youngest was a miniature Frankenstein. They cleaned up on candy in the neighborhood, and one lady was even giving out full size Hershey bars, how cool was that?

By far, the best house we visited was just across the street where the teenage kid was dressed in US Army fatigues and was sitting on his front porch. As he passed the candy to the kids, Osama bin Laden poked his head out of the bushes (played by a really brave friend of his), and he chased down Osama and removed his head. HAHAHAHA. Man, that was one time I wish I had the video camera with me. Those kids made my Halloween.

So, what were you for Halloween?

When I started my first business back in 1994, life was good. I invested most of my 401k money in the business, and worked hard everyday to make sure I had the best products available and that my customers were satisfied. Other than harsh winters and the normal everyday issues you deal with when you own your own business, I didn’t have too many problems.

Fast forward a few years when I opened my second business, which, unlike the first, involved large contracts and monthly service agreements, and the headaches really started. The number one problem was getting some customers to pay their bills and I tried all sorts of ways to convince them they needed to square up their accounts. Nothing seemed to work, and I ended up writing off more unpaid bills than I collected. I wish the Bill Collector In A Box Website had been around back then.

The software costs just $99, and it allows you to keep track of your customers and their payments in one place and print reports to track their payment progress. You can also report those who write bad checks to the Shared Check Authorization Network, and everytime they attempt to write a check or open a bank account they will receive a reminder that they need to pay their bill with you to clear up the issue. Man, the money that would have saved me back then…

With Bill Collector In A Box, the all-in-one collection solution for small business, you receive no waiting email and phone support and you can process credit cards and ach payments with no additional equipment, print an unlimited amount of collection letters, report your customer to the major Credit Bureaus, and use professional skiptracing tools and support to help collect your debt.

Bill Collector In A Box was mentioned in the Wall Street Journal and the developer of the software has been nominated as entrepreneur of the year for the product and its unique way of collecting debt. BCIAB offers guaranteed results or your money back, and you can purchase the software at many different locations like Office Depot, Amazon.com, Buy.com, and J&R.

I can’t stress enough how much this software would have helped me just a few years ago, but if you are a landlord, dentist, auto dealer, or any merchant that is looking for a one stop solution to collecting debts, Bill Collector In A Box is the perfect solution for you.

The first recall of the day comes from Toys “R” Us.

Toys “R” Us Recalls Elite Operations Toys Due to Violation of Lead Paint Standard

The second one comes from SimplyFun.

SimplyFun Recalls Ribbit Board Games Due to Risk of Lead Exposure

And the third one comes from Amscan, Inc.

Halloween “Ugly Teeth” Recalled By Amscan Inc. Due to Violation of Lead Paint Standard

Like almost all of the other recalls involving lead based paint, all three of these products were made in China.

Robert Goulet, the handsome, big-voiced baritone whose Broadway debut in “Camelot” launched an award-winning stage and recording career, has died. He was 73.

The singer died Tuesday morning in a Los Angeles hospital while awaiting a lung transplant, said Goulet spokesman Norm Johnson.

He had been awaiting the transplant at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after being found last month to have a rare form of pulmonary fibrosis.

Goulet had remained in good spirits even as he waited for the transplant, said Vera Goulet, his wife of 25 years.

…

His first two marriages ended in divorce. He had a daughter with his first wife, Louise Longmore, and two sons with his second wife, Carol Lawrence, the actress and singer who played Maria in the original Broadway production of “West Side Story.”

After their breakup, she portrayed him unflatteringly in a book. “There’s a fine line between love and hate,” he responded in a New York Times interview. “She went on every talk show interview and cut me to shreds, and I’ve never done anything like that, and I won’t.”

Rest In Peace, Robert.

I love articles like this. Read the first paragraph…

Fourteen children working in a textiles factory have been rescued after media reports said an Indian clothing supplier to US retailer Gap was employing underage workers, an activist said Tuesday.

Police carried out the raid after alerts by a non-profit organisation which acted on a British newspaper report that Indian children as young as 10 were working for a Gap supplier in New Delhi.

Since most people read nothing more than the headlines and one or two paragraphs of a news story, you would think, based on what we’ve read that the Gap is using child labor to supply some of it’s products. Right? Not quite.

The children who were rescued late Monday worked in the building that houses the Gap supplier, but did not produce clothes for the US label, said the Save the Childhood Foundation, which works to rehabilitate child workers

“When we went there, we found a room where they had been living and working. Some children were ill and some were not being paid at all,” said Bhuwan Ribhu of the group.

Yes, the children were there, but no, they were not working for the supplier for the Gap. The article does not mention which company they may have been working for. But even so, the Gap pulled some clothes from their line. Talk about peer pressure.

Gap withdrew some garments from sale after Britain’s Observer newspaper said an Indian supplier in New Delhi’s Shahpur Jat area employed child workers.

My question is, if they weren’t working on garments for the Gap, who were they making them for? I couldn’t have been any “big” companies, or they would have mentioned them instead of, or in addition to, the Gap.

Cross posted at Kooks In Suits.

Friedman Paul Erhardt, a German-born cook known as “Chef Tell” who was one of America’s pioneering television chefs, has died. He was 63.

Erhardt died of heart failure on Friday at his home in Upper Black Eddy, about 25 miles east of Allentown, his family said.

Erhardt’s jolly personality, thick German accent and wit made him a fixture on television shows such as “Regis and Kathie Lee” and comedy skits on “Saturday Night Live.” He was also said to be the inspiration for the Swedish chef on “The Muppet Show.”

…

For the last 2 1/2 years, Erhardt taught at the Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College.

A diabetic, Erhardt just completed a new book about cooking for diabetics based on his own experience of working himself off insulin naturally by changing his recipes.

Rest In Peace, Friedman.

You Are Changing Leaves

Pretty, but soon dead.

What Part of Fall Are You?

Haha… I am pretty, but soon dead. Haha. Soon is a relative term, much like dead is.

[See at: Shadowscope]

On the surface, the arrest of 774 people sounds impressive, doesn’t it? Pardon me if I laugh about this. While it’s nice they are “cracking down” on the food suppliers, maybe they should focus on fixing the problem rather than pointing fingers. Arresting a few people here and there will not stop the problem.

China said Monday that it had arrested 774 people in a crackdown on substandard goods, part of ongoing efforts to calm international worries over the quality of the country’s products.

The General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said the arrests were the result of 626 criminal investigations nationwide into the manufacture and sale of fake or substandard food, medicine or agricultural products between August and mid-October.

“All local authorities and relevant departments have maintained a high-pressure attitude toward their crackdown on the illegal activity of producing and selling fake products,” the AQSIQ, one of China’s main quality control agencies, said on its Web site.

Too bad all the arrests are for making fake or substandard food. When will the get around to cracking down on all of the plants that paint toys with lead based paints? When will they get around to stopping the flow of the crap coming into our country?

If I remember correctly though, those people are not arrested, they just disappear.

I bet some of you had forgotten all about Charlotte Wyatt. She just celebrated her fourth birthday last week. She still isn’t with her parents (who were not able to see her on her birthday), but they (her parents) are back together again, so hopefully Charlotte will be back in their care before too long.

Stay strong little one.

It’s not often that I get time off from work, let alone to relax, but that’s exactly what I did, well, after driving from Las Vegas to Atlanta.

On the 17th, our oldest son and I flew to Las Vegas, to help my mom and sister pack up the last of the their stuff and prepare for their moves back East.

By the afternoon of the 19th, the movers had loaded the last of their stuff, and my mom was ready to start her journey moving across the country. My sister didn’t leave for three more days, and you can read about her journey on her blog.

That first day we didn’t get on the road until 3pm, but we drove all the way from Las Vegas through Arizona all the way to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Most of these pictures were taken by the oldest son, who had a unique perspective on his journey across America.

Read rest of story…