Archive for August, 2007
A Union of Workers
· CommentsA union of workers. That idea started what we now celebrate as Labor Day. Did you ever wonder why Labor Day falls on the first Monday in September? Evidently, the timing was chosen to give laborers a holiday in between July 4th and Thanksgiving.
Labor Day came about because of the Industrial Revolution. As you know, the Industrial Revolution spawned the creation of dark, dank factories where workers labored long days in poor conditions for extremely low wages. Sometimes, it required the wages of an entire family just to put food on the table.
Then, the concept of forming a union of workers to battle for better conditions was born. To celebrate the success of the idea, the first Labor Day was celebrated in New York City in 1882. In 1894, Labor Day was declared an official federal holiday, and we’ve been celebrating it ever since.
All this information is news to me. I was going to write a Labor Day post, and realized that I really had no idea how the holiday started in the first place. I’m sure I learned about it in school, but can’t say that I retained the information! Now you’ve had your history lesson for the day, too.
Well, except for this last piece of union nostalgia. In July 1975, Jimmy Hoffa disappeared from a restaurant parking lot around the Detroit area where I grew up. It was a great restaurant, but I must admit that I looked at the clientele a bit more carefully when I ate there after his disappearance. It is a bit unsettling to think you may be sharing a dining room with someone who makes people disappear!
I wish you all an enjoyable Labor Day. Take some time off from your real estate marketing efforts and have some fun!
Whimsical Wednesday: Traffic Terminology
· Comments
Do you have your own dictionary that only comes into use when you’re stuck in traffic, or annoyed by another driver?
I have one, but nothing in it can be published on the Internet, at least not on this blog!
Here’s how George Carlin thinks about it: “Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?”
Drivers seem to be different in different parts of the country. In Atlanta, the speed limit is only a suggestion, while in Baltimore, I found that drivers actually observe speed limits.
One thing that has always puzzled me is when I see an accident in the middle of an expressway – not near any exits or entrances. If all the cars were going straight, how did they manage to run into each other?
Boston is another amazing place for drivers. I spent about six months there several years ago. The most curious thing I saw was a flashing green light that I passed fairly often. It wasn’t broken. It was flashing green.
That might be one reason why driving in Boston is so difficult. I asked every native Bostonian I came across, and not one of them had any idea what to do at a flashing green signal. But the advice most of them gave was just to ignore it.
The August edition of the Real Estate Results Newsletter is now available. The topics this month are:
- Use the Sub-Prime Fiasco to Reinforce Your Value as a REALTOR®
- Introducing Yourself: The Key to Turning Acquaintances into Clients
- Using Your Website to Increase Direct Mail Response
As always, the newsletter is short and to the point with links to resources where you can find more information on those topics that are of interest.
If you’ve signed up to receive the newsletter via e-mail, but you don’t receive it, it’s because of e-mail filtering issues. This newsletter is a double-opt in to avoid spam. So, if you subscribed to the newsletter on the site, but didn’t receive a confirmation e-mail, that means you won’t get the newsletter, either.
Check the Real Estate Newsletter page on the main website to subscribe to the newsletter, review back issues, and for tips on making sure you get the newsletter after you’ve subscribed!
Introducing Whimsical Wednesdays
· CommentsI have to admit that I got this idea from Teresa Boardman, the well-known real estate blogger. Teresa has a category on her blog for Friday Fun, and I think her Friday posts are great when you need to lighten up on a Friday.
Not wanting to be a complete plagiarist, I decided to create a category for Whimsical Wednesdays. While Wednesdays in the real estate industry aren’t really the middle-of-the-week day like they are in Monday through Friday industries, I chose Wednesday because it provided alliteration with the word whimsical, which is defined as:
“Erratic in behavior or degree of unpredictability”
Look for the first bit of whimsy this Wednesday!
Comment Handling Improvements
· CommentsWe’ve updated a couple things in terms of how comments are handled on this blog to make it easier for you to participate.
Subscribe to Comments
You can now subscribe to the comments for any post. You can just as easily unsubscribe, too. If you want to ask a question or get feedback on your comments, you’ll receive an email when a new comment is added to the same post.
Notification of new comments will be sent from Contact@BuildRealEstateResults.com, and will show in the email’s From field as BRER Real Estate Marketing Blog. At the bottom of each notification email, you’ll find a link to easily unsubscribe to all comments or those from a particular post.
Controlling Comment Spam
Until today, this blog’s options were set up so that the first comment by a person had to be approved before it was posted. I wasn’t really happy with that set up, but I don’t want the site overrrun by spam, either.
Today, I installed Spam Karma and Bad Behavior to add to the Askimet spam blocker that was already on the site. Hopefully, those three comment spam blockers will eliminate most if not all comment spam.
So, now your comments will appear as soon as you enter them. I’ll monitor the site closely to make sure spam comments aren’t getting through. But, if some do slip through, please excuse me!
