For once in my life, I would love to be a part of a medical community that had the best interests of the patients in mind, rather than being focused on money and what could be gained from the patients. I have seen my elderly mother be treated for far too many things that needed no treatment just because there was a quick buck to be earned because of her fake diagnosis.

The last time this happened, I had finally had enough. I gave the doctor a piece of my mind and before we left, he actually admitted to me that perhaps he had been a little bit hasty at prescribing the medication that he had and that maybe she didn’t need it after all.

I told him that she would not be back and I made it my mission to find her a doctor that cared enough about her and her well being to treat her for what she needed and nothing more. We found one that has been great so far and I figure that as long as I keep my fingers crossed, it will be good for as long as she needs him.

The learning curve for starting an online business is, to put it mildly, daunting. At its worst it can be a non-technical person’s worst nightmare.

I’m not a technophobe, but I do have limits on what I’m able to handle in the way of troubleshooting computer systems. To set up a home office that will handle a shared, high-speed Internet connection and accommodate three or four networked computers is pretty much at the outer boundaries of my expertise.

Fortunately, I was smart enough to ask a friend who is an IT Consultant for help in cutting that learning curve down to size. I’ve always been told, "Do what you’re good at and hire others to do what you’re not good at."

I returned the favor by connecting him with someone who could optimize his websites to rank higher in Google’s Search Engine listings. As Hannibal often said on The A-Team, "I love it when a plan comes together."

My cousin just finished high school and had to find a job in the real world.  He is bright, but from the times that I have talked to him, he really expressed no interest in furthering his education by attending college.

He had no problem getting a job, but it was clear after a couple of months that he wasn’t happy.  He didn’t like working hours set by someone else for such little pay – he had always had an entrepreneurial spirit in him.

I suggested that he follow his passion of motorcycles and do something along those lines.  Though I didn’t know what he should do, I told him that the best idea would be to do a little brainstorming and soul searching to figure out what he wanted to be when he grew up  and take steps to make that happen.

When I spoke with him a month later, he had become a Cycle Trader, helping others find the perfect motorcycle for their budget and he was enjoying providing the service to his clients.  He had finally found his calling.

With the purchase of my new computer for my business, I have purchased a customer service plan for my computer.  This not only includes regular maintenance, but it also telephone computer support should I run into problems.

You might wonder why I would spend the money to get service like this, but the reasoning is simple: time is money.  This is especially important in my line of work as every moment that I don’t have the use of the computer, my business is bleeding money.  Too many minutes of downtime, means that I would be broke.

You could argue that I could buy software to keep my computer running at tip-top shape, but when I can’t figure something out, or the computer is non-responsive, will the software help me out?  I think not.

So, is it worth it?  You bet.  It is nice to know that there will be someone on the other end of the phone that would be happy to help me out with my computer problems at a moments notice.

My wife decided that we should have some friends over tonight for a games night.  I wish that she had not invited them.

You see, I have been working really hard at work and I was just hoping for a quiet night at home alone.  Usually, she goes out on Thursday nights with her girlfriends and I thought that I could have a movie night with myself.

In fact, I had already bought some cheap finger food yesterday with that plan in mind.  But when she told me that she decided that we were going to have friends over, those dreams were shattered.

So, I had to go shopping this morning for some food for tonight’s event. There were quite a few things on my list, but the store wasn’t busy, so it didn’t take too long.

I hope we don’t go too late tonight as I need my sleep, and honestly, I don’t care for the people that she invited over.

If you have ever tried to create your own website, you will know what I mean when I say it is tough.  Now, I guess it is really not that hard, but when you don’t know what you are doing, it can be quite a challenge.

After reading book after book on website optimization, I thought that I had everything figured out.  I mean, all I had to do was make sure that my site would look good to the search engines, right?

Well, that really wasn’t the whole picture.  Sure, I wanted to get good search engine placement, but the goal of the site was to be useful for my visitors as well.  When I finally realized that the search engines weren’t everything, I had to redo my site to cater to both the search engines and my website visitors.

After much trial and error, I finally figured things out and people started to come to my site.  What I learned at that point that my marketing was not complete – in fact, it was just beginning.

I found that the workload given to college students was a little bit ridiculous.  I really didn’t understand the fact that people would pay money so they can be enrolled at a place that sought to take up all their free time and provided them with limited skills.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a college graduate to but I took a different path compared to my peers, only completing half of my college assignments myself.  Would you like to know how I did it?

Let me share my secret with you.

You see is quite simple: I would write every law essay that was assigned to me but I would order a custom essay for each history essay I was supposed to write.  I really didn’t care so much for history and since I was going to become a lawyer and I needed to make sure that I understood the law aspect of things.  This way I was able to understand what I would need to know for my eventual career and not waste my time on my electives.

I have learned so many things since I joined Weight Watchers. I was very surprised that it was not all about dieting, but about making better food choices. In the very first meeting that I attended, we talked a lot about food storage and I attribute a lot of my success to that very topic.

I learned that we were much more likely to snack on fruits and vegetables if they were readily available when the hunger pangs struck us. We were told that if we took them home and washed and chopped them up, we were much more likely to grab their food storage unit out of the fridge and start munching on them, rather than that handy bag of chips on the shelf.

After that meeting, I went out and purchased several food storage units for that sole purpose and I learned that they were right. When I was hungry, I did not feel like washing and cutting up a vegetable to eat, but since that was already done, I needed to only grab the container from the fridge and my snack was ready.

When my sister got married, she became a monster. She got a whole group of us together and started doling out lists of things that we were expected to do for her. One of the things on my list was to phone a number of resorts to inquire about their honeymoon packages.

I really did not see the benefit of me doing this, as it was not my honeymoon and I could not make decisions for her on what she wanted. Some of the things she gave us to do were stupid and there was no way we were going to be able to do them up to her standards anyway.

We finally all threw in the towel and told her that she was crazy and out of control. She had a major meltdown and then apologized. I must admit that she has been treating us a lot better since then and I am officially back in the wedding.

Last week, my favorite professor from college passed away.  It was a really sad time for me, as she and I were fairly close.  I don’t think I would have ever finished my thesis if it wasn’t for her.  She was always there to give me an extra push when I was ready to give up.

In fact, if it wasn’t for her, I never would have been working on a dissertation in the first place.  She is the person who encouraged me, more than anyone else, to take my education to the next level.  I would even go as far as to say, that she was one of the best friends that I have ever had.

Saying goodbye to her was one of the hardest things that I have ever had to do.  It ate away at me even more than my guilt did when I purchased a few custom term papers for one of my classes.  I will always remember her for the great times we had and the great encouragement she always offered me.