This week, I instituted a little more structure in my life to make sure all the odds and ends of my life are taken care if. A lot of times, administrative work for your own behalf takes a back seat to all the things you need to do for your startup, for school, for others. Making time becomes an exercise in fixing the squeaky wheel... the unpaid bill, the pile of mail on your table, the friend who complains they never see you.

So yesterday, I drew myself a chart for the week. On the list, I put Gym, Read, Fix, Clean, Build, Friend. Gym is what I want to do during my workout. Read is to manage between the book I'm reading for pleasure and various career related books I'm reading for Path 101. Fix is because things generally seem to need a lot of fixing in my life, from my bike to my bedroom door which has never had a handle on it, to the keyboard on my home computer which just crapped out yesterday. Clean is about clutter. It usually means clearing old mail from my living room table or putting away clean clothes. Build most often means food, actually...like making lunch to save money or just because I like to cook. Friend means catching up with a friend either by IM or email (and maybe the phone, but unlikely because I hate the phone) and really being somewhat purposeful and focused on it, vs just casually paying continuous partial attention to someone.

I wrote down targets for each of these things and hope to get one of each category accomplished each day.

I just got an invite to a "Meet and Greet" hosted by The Action Network.  The Eventbrite invitation gives invitees plenty of opportunity to donate--citing a "suggested" donation--but you can go for free if you want.

There's only one problem with the invite.   I have no idea who The Action Network is, what they do exactly or how I got on their e-mail list.  I checked out their site and it says their mission is to "encourage, sustain, and develop volunteerism among young people in New York City."  When you click on "Program" to find out how, you get a "This page is under construction" message.  There are no names and no pictures of any actual people on the site. 

I'm going to assume that there are well intentioned people behind this endeavor (hopefully) but there's absolutely no way I'm going to show up to an event that asks for money before I even know who's asking that is run by people who won't publicly associate their names with the program.

Does anyone know who is running this and whether or not this is real?

What to say, except that I'm pretty sure this is the first year that we didn't get that same perfectly blue sky we had that day.  It's raining here.  Seriously, if there's anything that stood out to me about September 11th, it was how amazingly blue and clear the sky in NYC was.

And let's see...  we're mired in a war we can't seem to get out of, Ground Zero is still a whole in the ground, 9/11 workers are sick, Bin Laden looks better than he did a few years ago and our immigration policy now seems to keep the people we actually want to come here out, and we still have no idea who's even here.

I dunno, but I hope that by the time the 10th anniversary comes around, we have a little more to show for what happened...   

Bo Jackson: Greatest video game athlete ever

Jason Calcanis "grew up in the famously gritty Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, where violence was as ubiquitous as graffiti", according to Fast Company.

Bay Ridge?

This Bay Ridge? 

So, um... I guess if the violence is as ubiquitous as the graffiti, then there's... um.... no violence.

We do have tornadoes, though.

I just received an unsolicited e-mail from Robert Sexton of Star Positions.   

I've posted the text of the e-mail below.   

Basically, Mr. Sexton and his company are offering search engine optimization.  Of course, the problem is that he's offering his services unsolicited by spamming e-mail addresses, bulletin boards, and forums, and what's worse, threatening anyone who attempts to out him.

Want proof?   Google ""star position" "robert sexton" spam".  You'll get this link which contains a really interesting thread.

"You know,
I also received this email from a Robert Saxton"

"Robert Sexton and his Star Position company are notorious spammmers. He tries to play high and mighty but a few of our company email alias are bombed with UCE from him on a regular basis."

"This outfit sends from comprimised open-relays such as the current one 66.174.76.167

I was once getting over 10 spams from this guy everyday until firewalling the blocking all the sending IP's"

Other people have gotten similar spam from Star Positions, like this woman.

Apparently, Mr. Sexton doesn't know about the CAN SPAM Act, which has the following requirement:

It requires that commercial email be identified as an advertisement and include the sender's valid physical postal address.

Yeah, um, Bob, I don't see a valid physical postal address with this e-mail.

I wonder what the penalty for that is.

"Each violation of the above provisions is subject to fines of up to $11,000."

Hmm...  that's going to cost them a pretty penny.

Now about that valid posital address?

Google says it is:

"Without being seen first on the major search engines, your

This is the placement we do for a Los Angeles Realtor, Kathryn Bishop.

What you see above even the names of the search engines is her actual

website! The search terms 'LOS ANGELES REAL ESTATE' and several others

always points to her site on the Network, across  the top sixteen search

engines, including GOOGLE, YAHOO and MSN!

And lastly, this is the placement we do for Stone Canyon Mortgage, What you

see above the names of the search engines is Stone Canyon's actual website!

Stone Canyon has the generic search term 'MORTGAGE' pointing to their

website on our Network, across the top sixteen search engines, including

GOOGLE, YAHOO and MSN! What we've done for Stone Canyon on a nationwide

level, we can do for other mortgage companies on a more localized level.

You too can have this guaranteed type of exposure. Our normal run on the

  Network  goes for one year, but for those who register with us, by the end

of this week , you will only pay for the first six months.  As for the cost, you'll

probably spend more over the next year for your morning coffee than you

would spend for this.

We do make specific guarantees, including a money back guarantee.

I can be reached at my office, from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Pacific time.

Please feel free to call me if you have any questions.

Best regards,

Robert Sexton

Director of Business Development, Star Position

Phone:        800.481.2979, ext 2001

Direct Line: 949.215.0022

Hilarious...and cute.

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