Johnny's new blog, and other thoughts.

Hey folks, Johnny Bond, (Yes, the PhotoShop specialist that put clouds behind my head in the photo to the right) has finally begun to think about writing his own blog.

His new blog will be called "A Life in the World of Johnny." Or maybe it is "A World in the Life of Johnny." Whatever.... When he gets his first blog up and running, I will tell you all about where to go to read it.

I keep getting advertisements in my email box for FREE information on how to make thousands of dollars a week with blogs. I check these out, and invariably they want to SELL me a system to make thousands of dollars a month with my blog. It seems to me that THIS is how to make a lot of money. I need to find a way to swallow my pride and sell an you am ebook on how YOU can make thousands of dollars a month with YOUR blog. And you can send me $1000's of dollars to find out how I made thousands of dollars.... Hmmmm??? And if enough people buy my ebook, then I will have made the thousands of dollars.

Hey.... Did you realize that if enough people vote for Obama in the election coming up, the good old USA might just become an OBAMANATION??? This (pun/play on words) is original with me. Please give me credit if you use it. Just mention my name.... David A. Youngs, and send people a link to this (my) blog: http://polybids.blogspot.com Thanks. I need my 15 minutes of fame.

I was talking to a friendly stranger at a restaurant today. He said this was the first presidential election where he felt that rather than voting FOR any candidate, instead he had to vote AGAINST candidates. I think he is voting ABC (Anybody But Clinton).

Just this evening on the talk radio program Money Talk I heard the moderator really chew out Barrack Obama for his ideas on how to overhaul Social Security. He said that if Obama enacted his new ideas, every entrepreneur would be taxed at the incredible rate of 65 %. I might be off a percentage point or two, but the main thrust of his comments was that this was the worst idea he had ever heard of bar none. Nobody would work very long if 65% of all their earnings were taxed away from them. No new jobs would be created because no new small businesses would be formed. I hope this doesn't happen. Small businesses employ the majority of people. And all big businesses that employ the rest were once small businesses too.

I challenge any of you fine readers to show me even a single instance of even one country or nation that taxed itself into prosperity. You won't be able too. Taxes don't make a country prosperous. They tend to make it poor. People won't work if they do not get any direct benefit from their work. Communism has proved this point over and over. When there is no incentive to work, nobody works. Nobody produces much of anything. And why should they? Especially if they get taxed to death.

When taxes are repealed, the economy grows at a rapid pace. Raise the taxes and the economy goes into a recession. Guess which one has been happening lately???

Well, I gotta run.

Think before you act.

David A. Youngs

Home Business?? Home FRAUDS!!

How many of you are literally being bombarded by "opportunities" to go into businesses that you can run from home? If you are like me, your spam filter is working overtime just to keep all these "opportunities" from drowning you in outrageous schemes. Now I am sure that some of these business plans must be legitimate, but from where I sit, (with a cat satisfactorily resting in my arms) a lot of these "opportunities" are basically offering you the great chance to send all your money off to somebody else.

Lately I have been approached repeated online with the concept of "free information." Just put your email address and your name in the appropriate boxes and free information will immediately be mailed or emailed to you. This sounds legitimate. After all, who would not want to actually check out a supposed opportunities before "investing" in them with your time and money -- especially your money. So I put in my name and my email address and then what happens?

Up pops a little dialog page asking for my credit card numbers. Why? Who needs your credit card information to send you FREE stuff? Because you have to pay for the "free" information. Suddenly it is explained that you are only paying initially for the small shipping charge required to send you the free information.

Whatever you do, DO NOT put your credit card information in the boxes. At least not until you read ALL the fine print that they are hoping you will overlook. Most of the time, if you take enough time to read everything, you will find that by filling in the boxes you do get the "free information" AND if you do not cancel, you are also agreeing to a significant monthly charge on your credit card forever. Or until you get tired of paying and paying for that little bit of free information.

Look folks, this is the same scam that sends you a check by snail mail. But if you read the back of the check you discover that if you sign and deposit the check, by affixing your signature to the check, suddenly you have agreed to change your telephone long distance provider, or just signed yourself up for a new life insurance policy which costs only $45 a month, or any number of other things you would not want nor agree to.

My advice to you is DO NOT sign nor deposit the check. This little check (and believe me, compared to the future significant hit to your bank account it is a little check) may be one of the most expensive things you have ever signed.

When the Lottery first came to California and you could buy and scratch off lottery tickets, some bright person in the place where I worked decided that it would be a brilliant idea if everybody pooled their money together and bought a hundred tickets. They were convinced that at least some of the 100 tickets would be winners, and all the people who pooled their money together would share in the winnings. They looked at me as if I was a fool for not reaching deep into my pocket and pulling out lots of green pieces of paper with dead presidents on them.

What happened? They bought one hundred tickets for one dollar each. Out of one hundred scratch off lottery tickets they WON.... about $55. But rather than take the "winnings" they felt inspired to "reinvest" their money and buy 55 more tickets. When they scratched them all, they WON again.... about $26. Well, that did not seem like very much so they bought 26 more tickets and began scratching in earnest again. Again they won... about $14 which they again reinvested in more tickets. I am not sure of all the exact details, but after buying more tickets, scratching them off and winning less, etc., eventually they had two or three tickets and finally they did not win anything. So they had successfully parleyed the initial investment of $100 into a grand winning total of zero dollars.

And yet they were elated. They all told me that they were winners, and I was a fool for not getting involved with this opportunity. When I saw where they were going I said, "well, if you give me $100, I will give you back $75 dollars. And I will continue to give you back 75% of whatever you want to give me. Then you can win at a higher rate!!"

To this they responded, "But you are not giving us the opportunity to win BIG. The scratch off lottery tickets can win up to $3000." Okay, I had to concede their point. But -- did THEY win $3000? NO!! They ended up with zero dollars. And I have found that this is what happens with most home businesses.

Not only do they initially cost money to "join the company" but you have to continue to "invest" your money every month to buy products, to pay for paperwork, to have access to your incredible $5000 web pages (which are exactly like everyone else's web pages except for one or two tiny details such as YOUR web page has YOUR name or associate number associated with it.) or to be a member with access to all the "training" provided. In the end, you spin your wheels, you invest all your time, effort and money, and what do you end up with?

Zero net dollars return. Well, just like my friends at work, you might get a diminishing return on your investment. And just like my friends, you can pretend that even though in the end you are broke you are a winner because you are in business for yourself, and just look at all the "profit" you made. You have got web pages! And own a business, and... are more broke than ever.

So, why do people keep falling for this fraud? Because deep down inside we would all like for it to be true that we can get something for nothing with practically no effort on our part. Yes, it would be nice to earn a gazillion dollars on the web. And there are those who have -- or at least they tell us they have and if we will just sign up, they will send us the free information that will teach us how we too can do it. Just put your credit card information right here in these little boxes. Most of the people offering to show you how to earn a lot of money are earning most of their money by hoaxing you into sending them yours.

I can't stop you. Go ahead... send them your money. I just wish you would send it to me instead. Hey, I will give you $75 return for every $100 you send me. And I will guarantee that. Maybe I will even buy you a lottery ticket from time to time, as a bonus. So... what IS your credit card number any way. Go ahead. Send it to me. You will be enrolled in a special class all by yourself called "the hidden reality about home businesses" And the best part is that you can enroll in this class just as long as you want, and every month you will learn even more. What are you waiting for? Enroll today.

Sincerely,

David A. Youngs

Home business adventures, failures, and bankruptcy

Of course the entire purpose of starting a home business is to make money. Well there are those who start a home business just so they can have a tax write off--but for me, the reason is basically to earn additional money. The question that the home entrepreneur is confronted with is simple: which home business to start. There are literally thousands of people promoting all sorts of home businesses that run the gamut from reselling e-books, to stuffing letters, to really bizarre things that are so complicated that people join them by sheer faith.

I got involved in one of the latter kind. My good friend whom I will call Ed suggested that I get involved in the business that he was in because I was sure to double my investment in about 3 months. That sounded pretty good. I mean, who wouldn't want to double their money every 3 months. He had invested about a two thousand dollars, and already he had withdrawn over $10,000 dollars of profit.

There was no product. We were all involved in buying advertising space on the internet. When you consider that web pages can be put up today that are FREE, I think we over paid considerably. But we did not care, because as other people invested and bought advertising space, we were paid double whatever we invested originally.

Now if you think about this, it absolutely cannot go on forever. Remember that if you start with just a penny, and double it every day for 31 days, by the 31st day, you will be dealing in millions of dollars. The huge pile of money being created for the founder of this concept (and he only took out a meager 11% for "expenses") was nothing compared to the millions of dollars that were being invested. But each time the entire pot doubled, it of course took at least twice as many people to invest to get it doubled again. After awhile, it took longer than three months to double. And then of course new investors began to lose interest as it took 6 months to double, then a year, then....

After awhile, nobody who had already invested was getting paid. The whole scheme ground to a halt. I did not ever get any money back. The whole program was revamped trying to get it going again. But it never did. I got an email recently that the whole business was bankrupt. I will never get a penny. The only people who did well were the original investors, and even now their gravy train has derailed.

One of the things I found out from this experience: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. There are hundreds of people out there wanting to take your cash assuring you that you will make a pile of money by just investing in their particular home business. If the business seems pretty complicated, and you can't describe it in a couple simple sentences, don't invest.

If there is not a real tangible product, then warning flags should be going up all over the place. The business should make sense from a business point of view. You should be able to see that it will be in business for the long haul. Otherwise, just keep your money and you will be that far ahead.

Hoping your home business will succeed,
David A. Youngs

CPAP arrives changing this man's health

I awoke extremely exausted and tired. I had been without a CPAP machine ever since leaving the sleep disorder clinic -- and the nurse had been right. Now that I had once experienced the vigor and return to young man's health that occured using the CPAP, I, in effect, did "hit the wall" -- just as the nurse had predicted. But now I knew what I needed: (a CPAP machine) -- and that one was "one its way." I could hardly wait.

Now it was March 13, only 5 days since the test at the clinic -- and it was my wife's 50th birthday. Unbeknownst to me, she had been praying that the CPAP machine would arrive before or on her birthday. When I had left the sleep disorder clinic, the nurse cautioned me that it could take a week and half or two weeks before I would get my own machine. The medical doctors had to review the tests and approve me. She was pretty certain I would be approved, but wanted me to know that she wasn't the one to make that decision.

But I did not have to wait any longer. The telephone rang and it was the medical supply store. I had been approved and did I want to come on down and pick up my CPAP machine? Oh did I! I got dressed so fast it would make your head spin, and rushed off the get my machine.

At the store I met another fine lady who explained to me the use of my CPAP machine. This particular unit is NOT the final one I will be using. Oh, it is extremely similar, but this one has a memory chip to enable somebody to determine how effective this machine has really been to allieviate my sleep apnea. In the first minute she happened to mention that my order for the CPAP had been expedited because during the test over at the sleep disorder clinic, I had stopped breathing over 90 times an hour during the intial part of the sleep test without the CPAP assistance. Wow!! That is more than once a minute. It is amazing that I ever woke up again. No wonder I could go to bed a just a little tired and wake up just totally exhausted. My sleep had been literally wearing me out!!

I had been told at the sleep clinic that my machine would differ from theirs because their unit could be remotely controlled for how much air it pumps, and it could be switched from CPAP to IPAP (intermittent positive air pressure.) The nurse explained that during the sleep test they gradually increased the pressure until I didn't stop breathing any more. Enough pressure is required to keep the throat open.

Well, apparently for me that is a setting of 11. Eleven what I am not sure -- maybe 11 liters of air per minute. And I don't know how high the machine could ultimately go, but I somehow got the impression that it might top out at 20 or 25. I would like a machine where I could fiddle with the settings, but of course everyone fiddled with the settings when the machines were adjustable. And it was usually to their detriment. So now the machines are set at the store and the end user can't change the airflow settings. I am stuck with a setting of 11.

Any way, my very own CPAP machine consists of two parts: the humidifier and the air pump. The humidifier is important to insure that my lungs and breathing passages won't dry out during the night. Every night, before I turn the CPAP machine on, it is important to fill up the humidifier's water chamber. The instructor told me if I used tap water, I would have to clean the whole chamber about once a week to get rid of mineral deposits. On the other hand, if I use bottled water there wouldn't be any deposits. I elected to save myself a pile of grief later, and so I am using bottled water.

I have had my CPAP machine just about a week now. Oh wow, the difference it makes. I should have obtained one 25 years ago!! I feel about 25 years old again, and I have a ENERGY in the morning. Now when I wake up, I actually have energy to do things! It is incredible. No more slowly coming to consciousness and wishing I wasn't awake because I am so extremely tired. NO!! Now I have energy. When I wake up.... Suddenly I am wide AWAKE!!!

In fact, I have so much energy, I am challenged with forcing myself to go to bed at the end of the day. One night I woke up because I had to go pee, and I felt so wide awake at 3:00 AM that I jumped on my computer and wrote a super long email telling a friend of mine how busy I was. I must have been up about 2 1/2 hours. Then I went back to bed, and had trouble falling asleep. All this energy that I am unaccustomed to.

I have to tell you, my life has changed. I am now beginning to do the things I should have done years ago. Well, I am blogging... for one thing. And I am finally doing something about finishing my private web over at http://polybids.com/ that I have been just letting lie dormant and unfinished for a couple of years. I am also taking classes on the internet on how to make money. If it works out, I will probably start ANOTHER blog, in addition to this one, telling about this man's quest for riches. I am considering starting an in-home business. All these things are things I did not do before because I just didn't have the energy to get up and do them.

I guess my biggest challenge is keeping myself focused, because of all the additional energy I now feel.

Oh... and I am beginning to lose weight. My metabolism is cranking up to the level it used to be when I was in college, and it is exciting. I am down to 258 pounds -- which is far better than 278. The doctor thinks much of the loss is fluid and he is probably right. I don't care. I am feeling so much better than I have in many, many years. My goal is to weigh less than 200 pounds. Well, I used to say 190, but I will be happy with anything under 200. Who knows... maybe I can even take up jogging again pretty soon. :-)

So in sumary:
The CPAP machine has worked out incredibly well in my quest for health.

Until next time,
David
polybids@yahoo.com
http://polybids.blogspot.com