Recessionary times revive old ideas for making money
These recessionary times may be reviving some old ideas as new people look for ways to make money. I just finished reading a news report about what items are being bought the most for various “party favors.” And the winner, according to that news story, appears to be personalized drink cups.Many years ago now, I was looking for an idea to start a business and/or be able to make enough money from it to quit my miserable job. (It was a good job, but I was miserable in it.) At the time, one of the biggest ideas making the rounds to pull in eager young entrepreneurs was to buy the supplies and sales literature to go around to businesses offering them rock-bottom prices on personalized pens and pencils, giveaway personalized sticky pads, even paper clip holders with the business name on them. And one of the big attractions even back then was to offer a business owner the chance to give his customers and prospects personalized plastic cups or custom plastic cups of one sort or another.
I never tried the idea. I’m really not much of a salesman, so I was not particularly eager to go door-to-door in various business centers in town hawking personalized office giveaways or whatever.
So it came as somewhat of a surprise to see that personalized drink cups are a big deal right now as giveaway party favors. The article I read (sorry, I never caught a link to it) suggested the obvious reason: Cups are popular because, if they are well made at all, they can be taken home as a souvenir and reused for drinking.
Personally, I’m somewhat of a fanatic about collecting coffee mugs. Plastic coffee mugs — I know there are some — are almost worthless, in my opinion. I like a good, hefty mug I can actually take home and use regularly.
Hmmm. Maybe there’s a business potential for me there … ?
Hard to pin down real national crime statistics
I foolishly thought I could Google “national crime statistics” and easily find some useful, meaningful national crime statistics. But I kept digging and finally came to a site called “2008 Crime in the United States,” located on the FBI’s website. Even there, you need to click through a lot of links to find this now-out-dated information.Essentially, according to that site, “an estimated 1,382,012 violent crimes occurred nationwide in 2008, showing a decrease of 1.9 percent from the 2007 estimate.”
I tried looking for 2009 stats, but they apparently haven’t yet been processed.
I got started on all this because we’ve had some news stories in recent weeks — and one nearly personal “close call” violent crime situation in my family’s case last summer — that started me wondering about violent crimes, property crimes, increased crime reporting, etc.
Personally, I don’t think crime and violence in general have gotten too much worse than when I was a kid. I think that REPORTING of crime and violence has gotten much better and much more widespread. But all that’s just my opinion.
What I do recall vividly is the nearby violent crime in our neighborhood last summer. For those of you living in larger cities where shootings, drive-by shootings, and all that other stuff is routine, this won’t mean as much, I suppose. But dinky on Springfield, Missouri, “Queen City of the Ozarks,” isn’t the sort of place where you expect gun violence in the streets. (Except for a rather historical shootout on our town square involving Wild Bill Hickok back in the 1860s.)
I heard three rapid “bang” noises one afternoon last summer, followed quickly by either two or three deeper, louder “boom” noises. My wife and I thought it sounded like it could be fireworks and that it may have come from somewhere quite a bit south of our home. I quickly peeked out from behind our “faux wood blinds” (i.e., plastic window shades) and looked in that direction, seeing nothing.
I went outside and saw my neighbor leaving his car and walking toward his front porch. He’d heard the noise, and both of us concluded it was probably fireworks or cars backfiring, or something.
As we were speaking about it, two police cars raced down the street and turned the nearby corner. Within a minute, an ambulance did the same thing.
We walked down to the end of the block and looked southward down the street. Cops, a couple of vehicles with one door swung open, and an ambulance were there. The cops were already putting up “crime scene” yellow tapes and neighbors were standing on their porches looking.
We discovered the next day that three people — two men and a woman, the woman being from a house in that block — were arguing in the two empty vehicles. One guy pulled a small caliber gun and started shooting. The other guy pulled a larger gun and fired twice, hitting and killing the first guy.
All of this happened in front of a house which has a backyard that abuts MY backyard.
It may be hard to pin down real, accurate, current national crime statistics. But I know now that’s a close as I ever hope to come to becoming a crime statistic!
Oh, wow, reminders of my childhood joy — yo-yos!
I know, I know. “Reading the papers” is what this site’s all about, really. But once in awhile I allow myself to see a bit of television news. Okay, I watch television news everyday.But rarely do I get such a wonderful reminder of my childhood joy — yo-yos! — as I did just awhile ago. The CBS Evening News had a closing feature story on a dermatologist who’s passion is yo-yos. He holds what is recognized as the world’s largest collection of yo-yos, numbering somewhere over 10,000.
If you’ve never experienced the yo-yo, I only have one question for you: How quickly can you get out and buy a yo-yo??
My older brother was pretty good with yo-yos; I wasn’t as accomplished. Too uncoordinated, I guess, to really catch on to all the finer, more elaborate yo-yo tricks. But I did get pretty good at “walk the dog” and “around the world.” Is doing yo-yo like learning a bike, once you get it you never really forget? I dunno.
After all that raving, I’m ashamed to say I don’t think we have a single yo-yo in the house. Of course, a quick trip to Wal-mart later this week will remedy that, I’m sure.
Meanwhile, I urge you to get your own yo-yo as a first step to good mental health in this old stressful world we’re journeying through. Are you struggling with being overweight? Get a good yo-yo. Great exercise and easy to use even sitting down. (And none of those nasty side effects of diet pills that might come with other weight loss methods!)
Feeling nervous, anxious about something happening in your life? Grab a good yo-yo and focus on that soothing up-and-down motion. It’ll improve your coordination, strengthen your hands, wrists, and upper bodies, as well.
Now, if I’d only paid closer attention to where that yo-yo guy lives (his home is his yo-yo museum), once winter lets up, maybe the wife and I could make a little trip …