(Photo courtesy of flickr.com)

I met up with my son this afternoon and I was delighted to see him smiling and looking very relaxed. “What’s going on?” I asked, thinking maybe he’d just gotten a cash advance loan. “Cars are pouring in,” he said. “Don’t ask me why or where from; I don’t know. All I can tell you is that my six technicians are working flat out, even overtime, and buisness is looking great.”

What a change from the past two months. My son operates a small business that provides pre-delivery services to car dealers. They fit radios, antennas, alarm systems, keypad locks, tracking devices, GPS, and even inboard computers. All these items, as ordered by the car buyers, are fitted while the car is in storage and prior to delivery.

Work stopped completely

Business was going quite well, despite being below its normal turnover due to the recession, and then about two months ago my son arrived at the storage center one morning to be told, “You have to take your crew out of here. There are no new cars and we cannot tell you when cars will start arriving again. We can’t have your men wandering around with nothing to do.” Naturally, he was devastated. He switched to providing repair services, but that dried up after a week or so, too. Two of his technicians quit their jobs to look for other work, and as much as he valued them, he accepted their resignations with relief.

People were laid off

All in all he laid off only three men and managed to keep the other five busy with all sorts of car-related odd jobs. He himself looked pale and nervous as he stood and watched his years of hard work building the business go down the drain. Then he managed to get a cash advance loan to help him through the next few weeks.

Suddenly, business started up again

Today my son is a new man. He has worked until midnight almost every day this week to fill in for the men who left but is quite happy with the situation. On the other hand, he says, “It all happened so suddenly that I’m nervous I’ll get to the workshop one morning and we’ll be shut down again.”
From what I can make out in the press reports, the car industry is going through a major crisis in the wake of the recession. People simply are not buying new cars. But as always happens, after the shock wave dissipates, things return to some semblance of normality and everything starts up again. So long as you don’t look over your shoulder and see the newspaper headlines or the homeless in the streets, you’re fine.

The casualties are everywhere

The casualties are everywhere: the unemployed, the homeless, those that have lost their pensions and have had to return to work, and those who are working at jobs way below their positions before the recession. I think it’s going to take years and years for things to come right, if they ever do. The number of empty stores still seems to be increasing and retail trade is nowhere near what it was.

Let’s hope the holidays help!

Hopefully, the coming holiday season will give business a boost along with a dose of cheer. A cash advance loan is a good back-up plan to make sure ends meet while sharing a little joy in the upcoming (and expensive) holiday season.

Apply here for a Cash Advance Loan

Novak Djokovic may need one of his credit cards to help pay the fines for his latest on-court outburst. (Photo: Wikipedia.org)

“Use one of your credit cards, Novak!” I shout from my semi-comatose position on the couch. I just witnessed a tennis player’s breakdown that’s going to cost him money, maybe lots of it. Novak Djokovic missed a tiny little lob over the net and smashed his racquet into the court surface in rage. The racquet, of course, folded and close-up shots from the TV cameras showed possible ridges in the court surface.

This is Gonna Cost!

Whatever happens, this little display of temper is going to cost you, Novak. Probable fine from the APT tennis organization will be in the region of $10,000, wasted racket – $200, repairs to courts surface – a whole debate. The Shanghai Club may decide to lay a complete new surface, because the surfacing contractor will no doubt tell them that it is impossible to ‘patch’ a court surface… “We will never get it perfectly smooth.” If you are really unlucky, they may decide to resurface all the courts in the club so the colors match. As far as the racquet is concerned, one of your credit cards will look after all the messy details.

The Money Angle

This year is the first that Shanghai joins eight other cities in hosting an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event, the new top tier of tournaments on the ATP World Tour. It is also the finale to the three-week Asian swing of the ATP World Tour. The prize money is over five million dollars. Wow, Novak, you couldn’t have picked a worse place for your demonstration. Over a billion Chinese will remember you.

We Understand

We may be highly critical of your actions and your uncontrollable desire to smash something, but inside we do understand. The court surface was a better choice than your opponent, Gilles Simon, or the umpire or even some stray character out of the audience. But the media is going to dine out for weeks on this event. All sportsmen and others who are trained to such a high pitch snap easily. My grandson, aged nine, lost a swimming race by a touch last week and he’s inconsolable, mentally kicking himself for taking too long on a turn. He hasn’t smashed anything in rage, but I’m sure he will learn as he gets older.

Ambition

It’s all about ambition, the desire to win, to excel, to never be second. Every time we are on the way to the swimming pool, grandson reminds me that his ‘dream’ is to swim in some future Olympic Games. I hope he makes it. Then he says, “What was your dream when you were my age, Pop?” It’s difficult to explain that I wanted to be a tail-gunner in a Liberator bomber. Luckily, I was too young to achieve my dream.

The Novak Djokovic Dream

Novak has achieved his. At age 24, he will be elevated to the world’s number three ranking in a week’s time, something very few people manage to do. He has already won about 14 million dollars playing tennis, so he walks with a wallet full of unlimited credit cards. The racquet-slamming incident was not money linked, just an outward sign of sportsman’s total frustration.

Eggplant: The beauty is more than skin deep (Photo courtesy of flickr.com)

Oh thank you, Valerie Bertinelli,  for your wonderful Tuscan-style soup recipe! I am so excited! I spent last October in Tuscany with a painting group and I really enjoyed the food and the wine and most of all the soups that preceded every meal.

As soon as I came home I started collecting Tuscan soup recipes and I have been making something different every day. I know these soups are supposed to be very healthy, but the truth is I’m putting on a bit of weight. Could this be from all the bread I eat with the soup?

Meet the soup maker

I’m a retired engineer, writer, and soup maker. I got into the soup side after listening to a woman – not my wife – complain about the hardships of cooking. I went into the kitchen, took down a recipe book from the shelf, and proceeded to make a passable pot of bean soup. Not only did I find the task relatively easy, I found it relaxing. I mentally composed an article as I was blending the beans. (Reminder: Buy a new, hand-held blender; the old one is burned out. Reminder: Apply for a payday loan to buy the blender; the bank account is running on empty.)

Meet Jenny and Valerie

The recipe came to me courtesy of Valerie Bertinelli a spokesperson for Jenny Craig, Inc.  Jenny Craig is a weight loss, weight management, and nutrition company headquartered in Carlsbad, California. The company was founded in Melbourne, Australia, in 1983 and was established in the United States in 1985. The company became a part of Nestlé Nutrition in 2006. For this and other favorite Jenny Craig dishes visit www.jennycraig.com.

Eggplant: The blossoms are as lovely as the fruit (Photo courtesy of wikimedia.org)

Meet the eggplant

The Valerie Bertinelli Soup recipe has eggplant as an ingredient. The eggplant, (aka aubergine or brinjal), is a member of the Solanaceae plant family, commonly known as the nightshades.

The smooth, shiny, ovoid, purple to blackish-purple or white fruit of the eggplant is highly valued as a flavor-holding, culinary ingredient. Closely related to other nightshades like tomatoes and potatoes, eggplant is native to Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lank, and India.

Any fruit or vegetable that can survive the monsoon rains, floods, and other natural disasters of such native lands doesn’t deserve to end up in the soup –  but it certainly imparts a wonderful texture and flavor.  I whipped up a quick version of the Valerie Bertinelli Soup recipe and it was delicious!

Coming soon: An Engineer’s Guide to Soup Making

My personal soup recipe collection continues to grow and I am seriously considering publishing it in the form of a book. I have already decided on the name: “An Engineer’s Guide to Soup Making.” I think it will be a winner and will attract many men into the kitchen. With the Valerie Bertinelli Soup recipe to start with, you can’t go wrong!