text:
MEET TONY
EE059 – Mike Jesowshek
Mike Jesowshek is a modern and innovative CPA/accountant taking a new-age approach to accounting, tax savings, and growing your business.
Mike has been an entrepreneur most of his career. He has CFO and co-founded several companies with experience in all business stages and has the aim of helping businesses that have seen and lived the same experiences he had encountered. He has been in the shoes of many small business owners out there and his end goal is to help them in one area that most business owners are not familiar with, accounting and taxes.
Some of the topics discussed in this episode:
Helped a client save far more on their taxes than they thought possible
Created videos to help clients through all aspects of the financials
Some of the commonly misunderstood issues with accountants addressed:
Tax savings are only for the rich
Bookkeeping isn't necessary
All workers can be independent contractors
If someones says they do "deduct this on taxes", then I can
Taxes are just about filing the forms
One of Mike's favourite quotes:
"The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same."
www.JETROtax.com
Exceeding Expectations links:
How to leave a podcast review:
https://tonywinyard.com/how-to-leave-a-review-for-the-podcast/
(All transcriptions are done using www.otter.ai through a system of artificial intelligence and so on EVERY episode there are quite a few mistakes as AI is far from perfect when it comes to transcribing the human voice. However, it is a very time-consuming process to go through each transcript and correct all the errors. For quite a while I had the transcribed docs sitting on my hard drive in the belief that one day I would eventually get around to correcting all the errors and could then upload each transcript to the show notes for each episode. The reality is that isn't gonna happen for quite a while as I simply do not have sufficient time to be able to do that. So please accept my apologies for the number of errors but I hope that these transcripts are in some way useful to you.)
Tony Winyard 0:00
Exceeding expectations Episode 59
Welcome to another edition of the podcast where we help to give you ways to amaze your customers to give them amazing experiences which ends up in you getting more testimonials, better testimonials, more reviews, referrals, recommendations, read bookings and, and benefits to reputation far exceed the efforts that you have to put in in order to get all this and the work actually becomes far more enjoyable as well. This week's episode is with Mike judge jazz oceanic and he's an accountant we're going to hear a lot about he's going to dispel many of the myths around accounting. If you do really like the show, please do leave a review for us on iTunes. Maybe share the episode with anyone who you feel may get some some more value from this. Hope you enjoyed this week's episode.
So today's edition of exceeding expectations My guest is Mike Jesowshek. How you doing? Mike?
Mike Jesowshek 1:10
I'm doing great How you doing?
I'm very well thank you and we find you in Wisconsin how's the weather in Wisconsin today.
The weather in Wisconsin is beautiful right now. So you don't say that too often in Wisconsin we have fall in spring. I really nice. It's just a good time to be in Wisconsin. Summers a little bit hot and winters are brutal. But right now we're in our fall season. So it's, it's really nice weather.
And so Mike, so you're in, you're in accounting, is that? How long have you been involved in doing that sort of thing?
Yeah. So you know, I've been an accountant for quite some time, but I started an accounting firm about seven years ago now. Prior to that, I was on the accounting side and in many different business ventures and a couple of companies I owned and sold. So I was on the accounting side of those but Seven years ago, I went full time into just focusing on, you know, that accounting piece and helping other small business owners.
And so what was it that got you into it in the first place?
You know, I started running businesses at a pretty young age. So I was running businesses in high school. And I, as many business owners are, you never know, kind of when that's going to fall off. And so being young, I said, Well, I still have to do this school thing, just in case things don't work out. I have a backup plan. And so I went to school, and I just really enjoyed kind of the financial side of things, you know, at a younger age. And so when I went to school, I was like, you know, I think I'm going to make this, this change into focus on accounting. And so when I did that, as I was kind of still running businesses on the side, I started to get more in depth into those businesses and on the finance side of those businesses. And so that's when I said, You know, I think you know, where I want to take future ventures and things like that is into this. accounting and tax side is my main kind of service offering.
And has it been what you expected? Or is it been quite different?
That's, that's a good question. So, you know, typically a lot of people take this approach when they're when they're an accountant, they work for a big public accounting firm, and then they they go public, or they go to a private company, and they just everyone kind of takes the same steps, if you will, in kind of their career, and I did a little different approach. So I started out owning a business, and then opened up an accounting firm with no prior experience being in an accounting firm. So I always say that's kind of a blessing, and it hurt me as well. So a blessing is that I don't bring in a lot of that baggage and things that people don't like about working in public accounting. I didn't bring that along with me because I didn't have that. But the downside was is I had to learn a lot. So I didn't know you know what client expectations were, I knew, know what I kind of wanted as a client and as a business owner, but I didn't know how that correlate to all business owners. So it was it was a really big learning experience, initially trying to understand, you know, how those public accounting firms work. But I think that that's still kind of the beauty about it. So it's been a great ride. It's been, it's been a lot of fun, especially now that we're more developed. And we have had those things under our belt where we, we know how we want our firm to be, but again, I call it kind of a blessing in disguise is that we didn't have to bring in that that traditional idea of what accounting looks like for a business. We didn't have that. And I didn't bring that in. You know how accounting firms typically work. We create our own we create something new, and it's just a much more innovative way to do things that way.
And so therefore, because from the sounds of things, you had quite a different approach. Were any of your clients quite surprised the way you were doing things differently to how other people have been doing? Thanks for them.
Yeah, you know, I think, seven years ago, when we started the firm, it was completely digital, completely remote. All of our clients were scattered around, you know, the United States and we had employees scattered around and, and that was in nowadays, you hear that a lot back seven years ago that was, you know, extremely not common, and even now, it's still probably not as common as it should be. But even then, it was even more uncommon. And so a lot of our initial clients were in that kind of younger generation very tech savvy people that you know, had that mindset where Yeah, I can, I don't need to go see my accountant every time I need something, I can actually work digitally with them. So our clients were, I think, looking for a solution like that, but there just wasn't much available out there. So it was it was kind of a new age to that digital accounting.
And now I says a lot more people using online platforms, you know, such as zero and whatever, is that something that I'm that you mostly do?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So it's kind of funny storey in the US. There's a software called QuickBooks. And that's pretty much what everybody uses. And we started using that its cloud based. And when we started from we started using QuickBooks. And we, we just didn't really enjoy the software. We had a client come to us that was already using zero. And at that time, zero was brand new to the US. And so we adapted were like, wow, this, this is awesome. And so zero, just like QuickBooks is also a cloud based software. And that was our key, we needed to find a software that we could run our company's books, that was 100% cloud based, because our clients would be located everywhere. So we needed something that they were able to access whenever and wherever they might be, that we could also access at the same time and so we've been about a 90% zero firm since almost the beginning and Yeah, the cloud software has been a huge, you know, driver to to what we do.
So all your clients, are they only use in on cloud software? Or are they some still preferred or kind of traditional methods.
One of our requirements is it's got to be cloud based. So there's ways you can work around if someone has a desktop programme or something like that, you can obviously, you know, buy software where you can access their computer, but it's much more clunky. And so one of our requirements we set off the bat is that we need our clients to be in the digital space, we need our clients to be cloud based. And if if they can't adapt to that, then there's probably a firm that's going to be a better fit because everything that we do is cloud based and virtual. So, you know, that's kind of one of the requirements that we have.
So for anyone who's listening who may be, you know, they, they have their own business and they've never yet migrated to always, you know, clouds, cloud accounting. What Would you say to them, why should they consider it? Why is it better than the methods, you know, the traditional methods that have been used in the past?
Yeah, you know, the biggest thing is that you can access it anywhere, anytime. And it's a live instance, everyone's looking at the same thing. You can share it with your accountant, you can share it with financial advisors, you can share with other team members that might need access to the financials. So that's, that's the biggest thing about the accounting software is the ability to use it, look at stuff wherever it is, and everything is live. There's no having to download backups, there's no having to go back and look at certain, you know, certain versions that you had in the past. You don't have to continue to download everything. And it's just continuing to evolve. A lot of people stick on a desktop platform because, you know, the cloud accounting software oftentimes isn't robust in itself. But the beautiful thing about that is that there's other add on software is all these software's kind of are able to come And talk to each other, that if you're looking for functionality that doesn't come standard in a cloud based package, there's likely an add on partner that is able to provide you that same you know, what you're looking to what you're looking to do that you can do on the on the desktop version. So it just creates collaboration, just huge being able to collaborate, and work wherever you are. And you know, we always encourage people to say, as you're looking at this as the way things are changing in technology is becoming so big, that ability to work wherever and wherever, whenever and wherever you are, is huge it in this cloud accounting and embracing your account of the cloud is one important step to kind of make that change your business.
And D Are you aware of any sort of statistics to say how many people are now using cloud based software and how many are not
I don't have any, you know, like, actual statistics. You know, I had to throw a guest. So there you see more and more these days that people are moving to the cloud. But I would say, you know, maybe 60% are in the cloud 40% are on a desktop type software. But I, there's no validity to that kind of stat. So I, you know, don't back me up on that. But, you know, it is something that is really catching on and people are starting to move to it. But there is a tonne of businesses out there that are still stuck in kind of that traditional way of doing things, just waiting till they have to make that change. But I think you see a lot of these desktop software's there, you know, it's a desktop software, they're creating online platforms, they're creating cloud based platforms. So eventually, I think you're going to see a lot of the software companies almost forcing their customers into the cloud because they know that's where the movements going to be. And it's hard to maintain a software that's on a desktop as well as a cloud. That's two different very different pieces of software. And it's just hard to maintain. When you have clients spread out, so I think you're going to start to see almost the software companies, not just accountants and other, you know, vendors, but the software companies almost forcing people in that direction.
Tony Winyard 11:12
Do you think there's some reluctance by some people to take the step to cloud based accounting because of phase of hacking and so on?
Mike Jesowshek 11:21
Yeah, no, I think that that's definitely a case. And, you know, what I always say is that, you know, clients come to us to ask us about security and things like that. And the companies that are running these cloud based software there are they are massive, massive companies, that likely your data is actually more secure on something like a cloud based platform than it might be on something that's on your personal computer that can be corrupted, it can be hacked into and itself. And so yeah, that's always an issue especially for you know, businesses that are kind of stuck in there in the in the old ways of doing things or don't want to make that change. That's kind of the one recent That they kind of lean back on. And, you know, I don't know if they really believe that that there is no security in the cloud based software, or if that's just kind of their reason for not making wanting to make the change. But yeah, you know, that's definitely an issue that I see people around, you know, bring up.
Before we started recording, you were telling me a couple of storeys, and there was one about the client, he saw a massive payment to the IRS comes through you want to tell us about that?
Yeah, so it was kind of funny was that it was a client that we weren't doing any kind of tax work for. We were just doing their financials, bookkeeping, that type of stuff. And I saw a big payment come through to the government. And I said, you know, hit the client up and said, What was that for? So Well, that was a, you know, a tax payment. And you know, the first thing I said was, you know, there, what kind of tax strategies have you implemented, we saw, you know, the basics and I said, that size of payment. There are so many different tax savings strategies that are available and you know, We come into this issue all the time. And that and that's a lot of times when we're helping clients is we're introducing tech strategies that they've never heard of. And it's textures that we talked about with all of our clients. But I think the big thing comes into it is that these tech strategies, one can be sometimes hard to explain to, oftentimes, they're hard to implement. Now, not all of them are hard to explain or hard to implement. But a lot of times higher and tax strategies are hard to explain are hard to implement. And you know, what we see as many prepares or many accountants, they don't want to go through the hassle of that of trying to explain this to them trying to get their client on board to these tax savings available. So they just resort to kind of not introducing it to them, or fear of that the clients going to say, I'm not interested in that and then they might look at the account differently. But the point being is that there are so many different strategies out there available to small business owners of all sizes, whether you're very big or very Small, no matter where you're located, there's going to be attack strategies that you can implement. It's just getting that mindset with business owners that you don't have to be extremely wealthy to get tax savings. They're available to everybody. And it's just kind of finding out a way to learn about those tax strategies. So, you know, that was one client that we had, we were able to cut his tax bill in half the next year now, that payment in that year that was already filed. And so we could have implemented those tax savings for that big payment that went out. But the year was already over. So it was too late to implement something like that. But it's just, you know, the idea of being proactive. We look at tax in a lot of people look at taxes, and they think, well, taxes are something that you file at the end of the year. And that's what taxes it's it's it's our goal is to change the mindset of a business owner and say taxes aren't just tax filings. We call tax filings is sending me formation to the government's. That's what a tax filing is. But where real tax work is done is in the offseason, when you're implementing these strategies, so that when you go ahead and file those taxes at your end, or whenever you might file your taxes, you're filing that information. And you already have the savings in place prior to that, because you implemented them ahead of time. And so that's just the idea is, is we're reinforcing with clients the idea of tax planning, preparing for tax savings, instead of just always looking backwards and just doing tax filing, where it's just information reporting. There's no tax savings available very little strategies you can implement at that time, because it's the period is already over.
Are there to your knowledge, any I mean, eight, so in my mind, I don't know much about the accounting world. And so I would have presumed that every business would have an accounting is that the case or do something Businesses think they can do it without the need of an accountant.
There's a lot of businesses out there that don't have accountants, it's the idea of is that they feel that they can do it themselves internally. And a lot of times, that is the case, you know, if someone has that background where they've, you know, have had experience with either accounting, bookkeeping or tax filings, it's definitely something that can be done themselves. So, you know, there's, I would say, many businesses out there are doing their bookkeeping themselves, not necessarily taxes all the time, but some are often doing their taxes themselves. And it's just, you know, kind of that idea that that, you know, they think it's something that might be fairly easy to do. And what we always tell clients are, is that when we look at bookkeeping, it's easy to us because we're experts in it. But to them, it might not be so easy, you know, most clients that come to us that are doing their own bookkeeping or doing their own taxes. On the bookkeeping side, we're finding errors in it to be fixed. On the tax side, we're finding strategies that are being implemented that could be to provide more savings. And so it's just having that professional do it. And, you know, the third thing is that, as these clients are spending time on this bookkeeping, which is oftentimes something that they might not be, you know, very experienced in, or if they are, their time can be spent doing much better things within that business. You know, I didn't start an accounting firm, to do the marketing for that accounting firm. You know, BN. So that's kind of the keys is, we encourage clients to focus on the things that's going to make their business grow, going to get their business to where it wants to be. And those items that they can, you know, offload on their plate or take off their plate that can be ran by some professional for probably cheaper and maybe even in in provide a better output. Those are things that should be Let go so that you can take spend most your time to expand your business and really get your business to where it wants to be.
And you mentioned a few things. So you know, commonly misunderstood issues. I mean, that was the one you just talked about a bookkeeping isn't so necessary. And another one you were talking about tax savings on only for the rich.
Yeah, yeah, in the bookkeeping isn't necessary. There's a lot of clients that, that their bookkeeping is basically once a year. So they know, okay, we have to file a tax return. And so we'll gather all of their bookkeeping, all of the transactions, all their data, right before that tax filing, put it all together and then file their taxes, and then not touch it again till next year. And that's, you know, really, you know, one problem that we see is that bookkeeping isn't just for tax purposes. bookkeeping is an idea of where you can see financials and see how your business is performing and adjust from it. So we look at you Take your bookkeeping. That's that's all prior data. So we do bookkeeping for last month. That's private data. But we can take that prior data and use it to our advantage and implement strategies, whether that's a marketing strategy. Or if we did a marketing strategy, we can see, how did that strategy Do you know, how did was a good Should we do it again, when people aren't doing their bookkeeping and are unable to see accurate financials, they're running their business off of a bank account. And it's really, really hard to see how your business is actually performing, and make changes and adjustments to improve your business. When you're just doing enough of a bank account. You don't know really in depth of where your money's going. You don't know where you could maybe cut costs. And that plays in very well to that tax savings are only for the rich. So many people we talked to are you know, they say, Well, I don't make much money. There's no tax. Yeah, there's no taxes I can save and that's, again, very false. Now the rich might have more tax saving opportunities available, there might be more strategies available to them, because a lot of tax strategies take a lot of funds in order to implement. But that doesn't mean that there's nothing for people that aren't rich or making less money. So, you know, a client that's just starting out, there's a strategy that we can implement for them to save on taxes for clients that have been in business and are just raking in sales and profit. There's lots of strategies we can implement for them, too. So, you know, our thought processes strategies are not just for the rich, their strategies that the rich are using, that the startups can be also using the same exact strategy
to audit any situations where you have clients who are operating internationally. And if you have a countries around the world, where you would then need to know something about other countries tax regulations, or is that not the case?
Yeah, that happens a lot. In in, you know, generally so what in the US that we call accounting firms, there's always the Big Four, and the big for our firms that are located across, you know, across the world, in every country, there is a big four offices for kind of main accounting firms. And those are the companies depending on size, you know, we always recommend if you're a pretty large company, that have businesses in various different countries, you're going to want to find a firm that has experience in multiple different countries. And so you know, in Europe, it might not be as big of a deal because the cut the countries that are working with many of them, and they're in the more closer proximity. But in the US, it's the US laws really hard and it's hard for us to know, laws and other countries. And so for firm our size, you know, we're relatively small, we have international clients, and for those international clients, we manage their us operation So we'll manage the US tax their us bookkeeping, the operations that happened for the company located in the US. But then we always recommend have someone that's local to you or that is, understand your home tax law that's able to manage, you know, the core company that's being operated and maybe structured in whatever country they may be in.
There was another store you were talking about, about clients receiving financials and having no idea what they mean.
Yeah, so, you know, a lot of clients or even work with accountants or doing the bookkeeping themselves, they see financials, they see an income statement, they see a balance sheet, they see these financials, but they don't understand exactly what they mean. They see numbers on paper. And so what we've implemented is a way to help unfold those for clients and say, here's your financials. We're going to send you the financials, so you can view them but along with that, financials, we're going to include a video where we're walking you through a screen share video, we're walking you through all those financials to help you understand what these numbers mean. If we see an expense account or an income or something fluctuate dramatically, we're going to point that out and say, Hey, you might want to check into this sales doubled or sales, you know, we're cut in half, Is that normal? Is there something that can be done to to change that is there you know, or an expense and expense doubled this month? Or expenses are continually rising in this advertising category or this legal category? Is there something we can look into there? So it's taking those numbers and bringing them to real life and saying, numbers are good, and they tell us a lot of information. But we have to go deeper. We have to do a comparison of those numbers and we have to see trends that are happening in today. That information to tell a storey. So we're telling a storey about what's going on with the business. legal expenses could be increasing 10% every month. But the you know, what they're actually needing legal help with is staying the same. And so then it's like, okay, let's look into why that's happening. Let's see if maybe we're being double billed. Let's see if maybe, that whatever is causing the issue, it's looking at trends, and seeing if we can explain them. And if we can't explain them, that we need to change something, or, you know, a lot of clients in that same situation, we had a software, you know, a software expense category. And we're running through this video show, okay, client here is your software is again continually to increase. And they said, well, let's look into that software. Let's see what it is. And so we drill down into it, and we see seven software packages, that they're not even using it and haven't used for over a year, but they're paying a monthly subscription for them and That's the key is, is finding things like that, because we can cancel those. And we can save hundreds of dollars fairly fairly quickly by by cutting something out that we're not even using anymore. So, you know, the idea behind it is that when we're looking at our clients, how can we take something that can be confusing? Whether it's financials or taxes? How can we take some of those confusing, break it down and show the client, the storey that's within those financials. So they can again, help their business succeed, take their business to where they want to be, and really kind of expand without that financial knowledge or that that breakdown of it. They might just be looking at these numbers say, Oh, we had a profit this month sounds good in the paper goes away. But there's other things that we're hitting inside there, that could have really assisted them in in some other area of their business.
So you always are looking for ways to do things that the client wasn't necessarily expecting it and That way how you differentiate yourselves from competitors?
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, you know, there's kind of two approaches you can do. You can just be the person that's, that's sitting in history. So your tax season comes, you're filing a tax return, and you don't do anything tax wise until you find that next tax written financials income, you can just send them over to the client every month and, and move on. And that's an easy way. And we've done that we've been there before. But we sat back and said, there's something missing from this piece, you know, just filing a tax return just doesn't seem enough. You know, the clients were having to tell them how much tax they have to pay and it hurts, or their business is continually losing money or their profits continuing to go down. And we're not telling them why we're not at least giving them insights and what might be doing it. And that's when we made a change. We said, we got to do this differently. You know, we can't just be here being a compliance house for our clients. We can't just file tax returns and have accurate bookkeeping. We need to take that step further and how can we help them live their dream, grow their business, get to where they want to be see tax savings? How can we be proactive and everything that we do to help our clients along this business journey? You know, we're entrepreneurs ourselves, we're business owners yourself. And we understand that this, it's, it's tough. It's not an easy thing. But there's things that I've learned through the various business ventures and our employees have learned through their various careers that can be that we can give to the client and help them along that journey. So that experience can be so much better for them. So yeah, that's a big differentiator for us is that we're very proactive. Our goal is you know, if our clients are not succeeding, or not successful, we're not successful and we take that to heart is something that we really want to help our clients along with their growth in not just be a compliance house again. Not just being a compliance officer, all we do is prepare financials that that are accurate, which is very important, and file a tax return, which is very important, but going above and beyond and taking that next step for growth.
And how have clients been reacting to that? Because I guess they're, they're not used to that kind of service from an accountant.
Yeah, you know, it's something that they oftentimes are a little bit shocked, you know, when we started doing the video things with financials, we had clients, you know, Republic community, like, that was awesome, you know, how can I do that? How can I have that every time and, and so it's things like that. We said, Well, we are doing every time because we notice it's something that you need something that you want. And so clients love it. They're able to, you know, they look at us is not just someone that does their compliance work, someone that keeps them out of jail, but instead someone that keeps them out of jail, but we're also helping them grow and live their dreams and so We've had a lot of clients come to us just really liking that idea of taking that next step further.
And so therefore, I would imagine your you'd get quite a lot of referrals because of that approach.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, it's it's kind of that mindset is that if you're happy with what you're with a service provider, you're obviously going to tell your friends and family and the people that you love, you're going to tell them, Hey, this is where you gotta go. So, you know, we've much of our growth, our firms been around for seven years, and much of our growth has been strictly from that idea of past, you know, other clients referring like minded business owners to us. And you know, that's great. And, you know, a lot of our other growth has come from, how can we provide value to clients without actually maybe being their client yet? So how can we provide value to a future client that they're going to say Hey, this is a company that we got to work with. This is someone that we need to work with because of Look at all this stuff they have given me. I wonder what their clients see because there's stuff that they're not giving us yet. And so that's that's been our other kind of success for growth.
We had a guy on an earlier episode of this podcast, I forget about 20 or 30 episodes ago called Kirk Bowman, who is very big on banging a drum about value based pricing. And he's, I think, I believe he works with a lot of accountants. Is that something that you guys do?
Yeah. So we started our firm, we didn't want to be stuck to the hour. And so we've never done hourly work unless it's a very rare occasion on a project we've never done before, or something like that. We'll do hourly work. But you know, value billing is huge. I wouldn't say we're more of a fixed or flat price. Same model, and not as much value and I would love to get to more value place model. It's a tough transition. So very good services, we've we've started to move that way. But all of our clients are on a flat monthly fee. So there's no surprise them, they know exactly what they're paying, they know exactly what they're getting. They don't get any surprise bills or anything like that at the end of the year at the end of the month. And so that's one thing that's big. But the value pricing piece is something we've solely been trying to implement, especially when we're when we're talking about these high end tax strategies. If we're saving a client half of their tax bill, that might be worth a higher fee for the work that we're completing with them, even though it might not have been a whole tonne of work. But we've put in the work ahead of time in training in understanding a strategy that sometimes it's hard to understand that value piece, because to us, it might seem easy, it might seem quick, but we we oftentimes forget all The training all of the education, all
the things that we did to put into learning that strategy for it to be easy to us. Yeah, absolutely. And it was a couple of other things. You know, before we were talking about a commonly misunderstood issues and everyone you mentioned was workers can be independent contractors.
Yeah, and that's, that's one thing that's kind of key to us is that a lot of a lot of small business owners have a worker that comes in and and there's a big thing between employee or independent contractor. In a lot of businesses, small businesses, especially those that are just starting out. Put everyone is an independent contractor, because it's super easy. It's super simple to do. They don't have to withhold taxes. They don't have to do any of that kind of hard labour. But what they don't understand is that can actually come back to bite them in the end because if they are an employee, but they're treated as independent contractor, there could be a lot of back taxes. Is penalties, fees, things that need to be, they're going to come back to bite them, because things weren't done correctly in the beginning. And that's, you know, again, what we say is, do when you're setting up a company, when you're first starting business, no one knows where their business is going to go. You know, the people that have multibillion dollar businesses they don't, they didn't know from the beginning, they were going to be that big. But setting up things correctly from the start, will help you get to that growth. And you know, what, if things don't work out, at least you can say we did things the right way. And so you know, that that whole idea is, when you starting a business, when you're getting into it, ensure that you're setting things up properly from the beginning, because that's going to help grow your company, where you're going to end up, it's going to have an impact. If you have independent contractors for the first 10 years of your business, and now you're super successful and you find out, whoops, they should all be employees that could take you up Your business in the day. And so it's planning ahead. You know, even though you don't know how successful your businesses where it's going to go, what it's going to become, do things the right way out of the beginning, so that when that massive success comes, you're not stepping back and trying to fix some of the things that were done incorrectly in the past.
Wasn't a storey in the news recently about I think it was said there were some change in the tax laws in the States and the way that Uber works.
Yes, I think that that was there was a case out in California. And that was a lot on this independent contractor employees. And I haven't found the case too deeply. But my understanding of it is that Uber was doing this doing something very similar all their drivers were considered independent contractors, not employees of them. And I think California was coming down and trying to mandate that these people are actually employees. They're not independent contractors, and they don't know what the official rules result was, but I believe it was around that idea of independent contractor versus employee. And that's a great example. You know, and I'm sure they've kind of spent a lot of research into this in the beginning. But that's an example of a company that, you know, that's a lot if they have to change into employees, that's a major shift for them. That's a major project, because they have this robust, there's such a big company, now they have so many workers for them, that that's going to be a major change for them.
And is there any likelihood that other states will introduce the same thing?
Yeah, I would imagine again, I'm not too familiar with the case. And I don't know if it is something that is going to be nationwide. My guess is that Uber as a company would probably make a distinguish, you know, go one way or the other. So if California comes out and says all your drivers need to be employees, and that was just California, my guess is that Uber wouldn't make that determination across every every state, just for the fact that if other states see how it worked in California, and we can get some extra tax dollars in our state, the states will likely over time end up all requiring the same thing. So yeah, I envisioned that they would probably implement that across across company wide.
What are your general thoughts on next aid and expectations? Mike?
It's, it's looking over and above. So taking, you know, expert expectations are tough, because everyone you know, the first thing I believe you have to do is understand what the expectations are. In lay them out for clients, a lot of you know, when we bring on a client, every clients expectations are different. And our goal is to just get a general understanding of what is an expectation a client has, and I think you can't necessarily exceed an expectation. Until you know what the expectation is. And so we spent a lot of time looking at the various markets that we work at the various clients that we're dealing with and said, Okay, what are their expectations? What are other people doing? What is the, you know, 95% of the businesses are looking at accountants, what are their expectations from that accountant. And then we developed our services, our offerings, the way we communicate with clients behind that, to do it better, to find a new way to do it to not just follow what everybody else does, but do it in a way that people are going to be like, wow, I wish I would have found your years ago. And so it's going above and beyond taking what what everyone is is what everyone is used to, and giving them something that adds so much more value than just what what they are expected.
If people want to find out more about you and your company where where would they go to
Yes, you can find you know our information pretty much on you know any social media platform or company name is called Jetro JETRO. My name is Mike Jesowshek. You can find the combination of those across all social media platforms and in various things like that, or they can go directly to our website. So it's www.Jetrotax.com
Okay. And before we go I know there's a quotation that you quote night.
Yeah, you know what, one of the one of the quotes that I have is the road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same. And, you know, we really bring that to heart and in the various ventures that we've been in, there's been a lot of successes and there's been a lot of failures, and that that quote, lives out to breathe. It's, they look a lot alike. And the biggest thing is sometimes breakthroughs. And so you know, kind of another idea behind that is that breakthroughs come when you're not expecting. And so those breakthroughs can be the difference between a massive failure and in a in an incredible success. And so that all it takes is one breakthrough to make that change to shift your focus to shift your business. And those roads before that breakthrough of a successful business and a failing business look very similar.
very profound. Well, Mike, it's been, it's been a pleasure chatting with you and best of luck for the future with you and your company.
Excellent. I really appreciate you having me on. It's been a great time. Thank you, man. Thank you.
Next week is Episode 59. With Dr. Jacqui Taylor. If you ever been wanting to know maybe more about security online, she created a foundation called the Cyber Smart Entrepreneur Success Path and she's done a lot of work with The World Economic Forum and many other governments around the world as well. So we're going to find out a lot more about cyber security in next week's episode with Dr. Jacqui Taylor, hoping you hope you've enjoyed this week's show. Have a fantastic week and see you next week.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Tony 2019-11-05T12:27:21+00:00
You will receive tips on how to increase your prices and exceed customer expectations.
EE070 – Alan Berg
EE069 – Mark Green
EE068 – Mike Tilberry
EE067 – Jessica Silverman
EE066 – Estie Rand
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Sport is at the heart of every community and so is Special Olympics!
Team Ireland are just back from the Special Olympics World Summer Games in Abu Dhabi, returning triumphant with 86 medals! Back at home, children and adults with an intellectual disability are training every day - for health, for life and for the love of sport.
The Special Olympics Annual Collection Day takes place on Friday 5 April, and we need your support.
Can you spare a couple of hours to help nearly 8,000 athletes in clubs and service centers across Ireland?
On Collection Day you can help us by volunteering some of your time in a location near you here. Not free on the 5th April? Find our other ways to get involved.
Visit specialolympics.ie and register to volunteer or donate on the day.


The Waukee Water Department flushes fire hydrants annually from spring through fall. The hydrants are flushed once every three years, rotating areas to cover a third of the City each year.
The program consists of cleaning water mains through a network of flushing sequences with water being discharged from hydrants' largest ports. It involves closing valves in a specific sequence to create water movement in one direction with opening specific hydrants at the end of each sequence. The flushing program ensures the greatest quality of water throughout the entire system. This technique allows higher water flow velocities to produce better scouring of pipes. This process will dislodge and remove mineral deposits which have accumulated in the water mains.
The benefits include maintaining and improving the water quality level in the water mains. The flushing program will also reduce bacteriological growth, restore disinfection residuals, improve color, and turbidity, control corrosion, and will help restore fire flows and pressure in the distribution system.
Discoloration in the water may appear. All water users should check their cold water for discoloration prior to cooking with water or running dishwashers, etc. If discoloration is found, the water user is advised to discontinue use until the water is clear. This can be accomplished by letting cold water run until it is clear. Discolored water is not harmful to your health.
The flushing will take place during the hours of 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on weekdays. There may be a slight drop in water pressure. Otherwise, service should not be affected.


On 18th February, 2009 New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson signed into law a bill to repeal the death penalty in that State. This makes New Mexico the second state to abolish the death penalty. The law replaces the death penalty with a sentence of life without possibility of parole.
New Mexico joins New Jersey which abolished the death penalty last year. Use of the death penalty moratorium and repeal bills are increasing in other states such as Montana, Maryland and Nebraska. We are now invited to spread the victory over the death penalty in New Mexico to other U.S. states.
The Missionary Oblates JPIC staff sends heartfelt congratulations to Governor Bill Richardson and the people of New Mexico for this important milestone in upholding life and respect for human rights.


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How to Deal with the Alberta Flood Conditions
But with the recovery process still several days away, the Insurance Bureau of Canada is reminding residents of what they should be sure to do in order to keep themselves and their family safe.
Bill Adams, vice president of the Western Canada division of IBC, noted that homeowners should pay attention to their officials and to do what they're asked.
"First and foremost, we encourage all individuals in danger of flooding to take the proper measures to protect themselves and their loved ones," said Adams. "In addition, we urge homeowners to take preventative action to minimize their losses."
While the current flooding conditions have been downgraded in severity, multiple news reports indicate that at least 10,000 residents remain under mandatory evacuation orders, meaning that they can't access their property. For those who are still residing in their homes, though, IBC offers a variety of recommendations to keep in mind in order to keep property damage to a minimum.
Take Precautions in the Basement
Because the basement is traditionally the lowest part of a residence, this is where much of the damage will likely be confined to. If they haven't been moved already, IBC says homeowners should be sure to move their valuables out of harm's way by bringing them to the attic or to anywhere that's far removed from the basement.
If flooded conditions have receded, it's important to mop up the area as soon as possible. IBC notes that within a matter of two to three days, an untreated cellar or basement can grow mold that attaches to the walls and floors, causing damage to the interior. While towels may be suitable for minor incursions of water, home improvement retailers should have industrial-grade air dryers available for purchase, which can help expedite the drying out process.
Some Flood Waters may be too Dangerous to Enter
Something else to keep in mind is where the flooded waters originate from. Depending on the source, it may not be safe for homeowners to take care of themselves. For example, IBC notes that if the flooding is from the sewage system, bacteria levels may be so high that they create the risk of disease for those who wade through.
For those who have just recently moved to Alberta or Western Canada from the U.S., they may be under the impression that home insurance in Canada includes damage for flooding. In reality, insurers don't traditionally cover overland flooding. However, if homeowners have water damage that resulted from sewage system problems, they may be able to make a claim, so long as they purchased sewer backup insurance when they first purchased their policy, IBC points out.
What has been particularly noteworthy about the current flood is how wide reaching it is. Multiple road closings remain in place throughout the province and rivers have risen to levels never seen before. For instance, Reuters reports that the Bow River crested this past weekend five times above its normal level.
Speaking with NBC News, Kevin Harrison, chief superintendent for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, indicated that the majority of southern Alberta's 420,000 residents have likely been impacted by flood waters in some form or fashion.
It remains unclear when the 10,000-plus residents who have evacuated will be able to return to their homes.
Due to heavy rainfall and rivers cresting beyond their maximum holding capacity, flooding has ravaged several parts of Alberta, prompting thousands of people to evacuate; likely leading to scores of home insurance claims once they're given the all-clear to return.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Business Leader Profile on Kelly Lockwood Primus of Holliston
Name: Kelly Lockwood Primus
Occupation: president and chief operating officer of Leading Women
Town in which you reside: Holliston
Family: Married to Stuart Primus
Name of business: Leading Women
Business address: 14 Milliston Road #226, Millis, MA 02054
Business website: www.leadingwomen.biz
In three sentences, share how you ended up in this line of work.
As a former global vice president and GM in a consumer products company, I grew accustomed to being the only woman on the company's leadership team. When I had the chance to mentor women in the MBA program at Wake Forrest University, I realized there was more I could do to help women gain leadership roles. I jumped at the opportunity to join a Women's Leadership Development organization and there's been no looking back.
What are two memories from your career that stick with you the most?
The first was when I was sitting in a company leadership meeting and the president stands up and says "OK, let's get started guys.....oops and Kelly." Nothing like a statement like that to let everyone else in the room know you are different from them.
The second is when the CEO of a consumer products company told me he wanted me to take on the GM role for a business unit. I was so surprised and really nervous about taking on that role. He told me I could take the weekend to think about it and that when I came back in on Monday, he'd expect the answer to be yes. He was an awesome boss and had great faith in me. I will never forget that.
What do you most like about your work? What do you like least?
I love the fact that everyday I have the opportunity to help company executives figure out what barriers they have in place that are preventing women from reaching leadership roles.
What do I like the least? The paperwork.
What makes your business or profession unusual?
The work we do is very different from other leadership organizations in that every solution we offer is based on global research that we've done. We are experts in Gender Dynamics and Leadership Development for Women.
What advice do you have for someone who wants to open a business?
Find your passion and make it your job. That way, what you do everyday will fill you with purpose, and you won't mind the hours that you have to put in.


Andrea Tantaros, co-host of "Outnumbered" on Fox News, doubled down on a suggestion President Obama might be anti-Semitic, naming off the ways during a recent broadcast that the White House pushes views that seemingly harm Israel.
Tantaros made a similar suggestion a week ago, while discussing Obama's plans to allow Iran to further its nuclear program after ten years of good behavior – a much-contested "sunset clause" in the emerging U.S.-Tehran agreement that has set Israel on edge.
One of her co-hosts replied, "That's a pretty heavy charge," Salon reported.
But Tantaros made the same suggestion this week – and right after, "Outnumbered" guest Charles Gasparino replied: "The administration is not anti-Semitic," the news blog reported.


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«Powerless (Say What You Want)» es una canción de la cantante canadiense Nelly Furtado, primer sencillo de su segundo álbum de estudio Folklore (2003).

También se lanzó una versión en español junto a Juanes para los países latinos que llevaba por título "Abre Tu Corazón'".
 Información

La canción fue producida por Track & Field y recibida positivamente por los críticos de música. Powerless representa cuán Nelly era discriminada dentro de su disquera y cómo esta compañía quería esconder su ascendencia portuguesa:

"Paint my face in your magazines (Pintas mi rostro en tus revistas)Make it look whiter than it seems (Lo haces ver más blanco de lo que es)Paint me over with your dreams (Me describes como en tus sueños)
Shove away my ethnicity (Dejando de lado mis rasgos étnicos)"'

Además el gran Banjo de Béla Fleck enriquece el tema de la canción.

Realizado en diciembre de 2003, la canción fue escogida como el mejor sencillo.

 Videoclip Powerless ganó el MuchMusic Award de Canadá : Mejor Video Pop del 2004.
El vídeo se desarrolla alrededor de una clásica metáfora filosófica: Nelly atrapapada dentro de una caja que luego se abre para escapar. Dentro, las paredes tienen pósteres que actúan como puertas o ventanas para la imaginación de la artista. Esto representa que está siendo definida y conocida por la ilusioria realidad de su fama y belleza.

Los 25 pósteres para el vídeo de Powerless dan a conocer lo importante del mensaje de su canción para una visión espiritual libre. Los pósteres son animados con emoción e imaginación, capturando el entusiasmo de la juventud de Nelly y su colorida personalidad. Powerless'' afirma la diversidad y la peculiaridad que cada uno lleva dentro.

Posiciones

Referencias

Sencillos de Nelly Furtado
Canciones de 2003
Sencillos de 2003
Sencillos de pop
Sencillos en inglés

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
By Guido in Deathfire, Games July 30, 2013
One by one they are disappearing
Friends, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers
When they return they aren't who you think
They look the same. They sound the same
But they are no longer the same…
The most unholy of spells incanted,
Undead fire burns in its victims' eyes…
The Nethermancer has spoken
His was the last voice they heard…
Before they were perverted into monsters with familiar faces
In a world without heroes
Who can you trust?
In a world where the dead are rising
Who can you turn to?
No one.
No one is safe
Can you save the world from everyone you ever cared about?
This, my friends, is the promotional snippet for Deathfire, designed to whet your appetites. Because of my vacations and all the stuff going on here, it has been a while since my last Developer Diary update, but today I thought, I'd give you a bit of a glimpse at the game's story.
As you can certainly tell from the blurb above, there are some sinister things going on in the world. From villages, people are disappearing at random. Families are torn apart and the people are mourning and heartbroken.
But that is not all there is to it. At the same time, hordes of zombies appear and threaten the once peaceful villages. Flesh-eating monsters that tear into anything that lives. The worst part, however? These are the same people who went missing… These are the fathers, mothers, sons, sisters and friends… and they do not distinguish friend from foe. They simply… feast!
Rumor among the villagers has it that it is all the doing of an evil Nethermancer, who is hiding out in the hilltop runs of the old Apocryphic Temple. Abandoned long ago, haunted they say, and a cesspool for wicked and foul creatures, the Temple can no longer be reached directly. Thickets and forests, ravines and collapsed bridges make it all but impossible to reach the ancient structure. And yet, as its ruins claw at the sky like skeletal fingers, flickering lights can be seen among the walls. Shrieks of the tortured souls can be heard emanating from its crumbling walls and a strange, unholy glow permeates the place, as fell creatures prowl through the woods, spreading further and further, spewing forth the undead in a never-ending stream of walking death.
This is the premise of Deathfire, a story in which the Nethermancer Endergast has uncovered an ancient spell so devastating, so frightening that it had been banished for centuries. By burning his victims' souls with an undead flame, he reclaims their bodies to do his bidding. He is gathering an army and soon, the legions of the undead will outnumber those of the living.
So this Nethermancer is really just a Necromancer, you may be tempted to think, but alas no, let me allay that misconception right here. The craft of Nethermancy is far more vicious. Unlike Necromancy it reaches out not only into the realms of the dead, but also… hey, what am I saying? I wont spoil this for you. You'll find out in the game, because this is where you come in.
When your father has disappeared like so many before him, you rally a small group of adventurers. While you know there is no salvation for the poor souls taken and destroyed by the Nethermancer, at least you can try to put their bodies to rest and put an end to Endergast. And if you will find the same grisly end as all those around you, at the very least you died, trying!
This is only the "front end" of story, of course. The part that we present to you, the prospective player, in order to get you intrigued in the game's premise. Once you enter the game you will very quickly find that there is a lot more to it. Nothing is as simple as it may seem and with many plot twists and turns, the story will quickly take on a much more elaborate and grander scope than you may initially suspect. In a way, I wish I could share with you many of the cool ideas we have prepared for the game's plot, but that would truly spoil the fun for you. However, throughout the story there will be encounters with various other characters and I think in the weeks to come I may introduce you to a few of those. It may give you a better understanding of the various factions and key players in the game and hint at some of the dilemmas you may encounter as a player.
Meanwhile I hope this little glimpse into the game's story has gotten your attention and will rev up your own imagination as to what Deathfire will hold in store for you. In my next update, however, I plan to give you an update on the Focus Group we did a little while back. Not only will I tell you in detail what it was about, but more importantly, I will break down the results for you so that you, too, can see how other role-players felt about some of the questions we posed. Naturally, the post will also let you know what conclusion we came to on our end, and finally reveal the actual title of the game. Remember, up to this point Deathfire has always been merely a project title, in reference to the Nethermancer's horrific spell. So, stay tuned. Until next time…
An untainted look at the cover of Shadows over Riva
6 Replies to "Let me tell you a story"
Mark Coburn
Okay I am hooked already! 🙂 Just the premise of the story has endless and boundless potential. And I am upset that I myself (being an old CRPG veteran player) did not think of the EPIC combination of Necromancy and Nether World magic disciplines. They kind of go together like chocolate and peanut butter…absolutely brilliant! Cannot wait to hear more.
Was an honor and pleasure to be a part of the Focus Group 😀
I wish I could contribute more….you have these old untapped creative juices flowing now…lol. Good luck and thanks for the update!
AbounI
A very well written entry that thirst me.No doubt the whole story will quench it.keep the good things about Deathfire going up.It makes more sense for the title now.Thanks
Sacred_Path
I hope that Endergast isn't the real antagonist. Giving away the antagonist at the start ruins all suspense IMO
I'm not sure I agree entirely. It depends on the story and how the story plays out, I suppose. Some of the greatest stories and movies introduce you to the antagonist right from the beginning, and oftentimes the excitement comes from how you're going to bring them down. Apart from that… unless you play and finish the game you won't know if he's really the antagonist or not, so there's always a lot of room for surprises.
The same goes for basic premises as well. One could argue that this is just another army of zombies game, but if you look at it that way, "Planescape: Torment" was just another amnesia game, "Star Trail" was just another quest item game and "Baldur's Gate" was just another stop-the-bad-guys game. Ultimately, it comes down to the execution and how a story unfolds as you play it and where the actual focus turns to.
I admit that I simply have an aversion to this. Baldur's Gate was ruined for me because I knew exactly who I was going to face in the end, and the relatively open world lost its appeal because BG was the only inaccessible location on the map making it clear where the showdown would unfold. So despite being relatively open world it sure felt like being railroaded.
If you just take things back one step, i.e. it's clear the undead are a major problem but you don't know the specifics at first, really improves things IMO.
But yeah I don't really know anything for sure yet… thankfully 😉
I really like the story so far and look forward to future developments. Obviously the main thing that draws me to this is the darker story telling, I love it! I couldn't help but notice you are using Unity. I think that is awesome, and on a side note I saw that there are dungeon assets available as of recently from Richard Garriot's game project Shroud of the Avatar. I would love to see some of your work and inspiration in that game as well as the game is being opened up to the backers and I guess anyone who wants to purchase the assets from the google market.


I love an outdoor ceremony. In France it's unusual to have anything but, but in Yorkshire it's a rare treat. Though I don't know why really as it doesn't rain as often as you think and maybe now it's been made easier for venues to have a licence there will be more ceremonies in the good fresh open air. I do hope so as I'm doing more and more weddings in Yorkshire (never to abandon my French and other destination ones though, don't worry). Anyway, here's a brilliant example of how to do it in style in good old blighty. The Sun Pavilion in Harrogate's gorgeous Valley Gardens has the perfect terrace overlooking the park and Barbara and Andrew chose it as the place to make their wedding vows. These lovely people told me they weren't very keen on a big fuss, being centre stage or having their photo taken and their wedding was very much all about all their wonderful family and friends as much as them but the truth is that it's their love for each other that shines through.


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Archive for the 'News' Category
Posted by: zzz on: July 12, 2010
In: Creator Spotlight | News
The passing of Harvey Pekar requires acknowledgment, not just because we're a comics blog and this is news from our geeky world, but because Pekar was a legitimately important writer who deserves the recognition and appreciation of all of us, whether you're a nerd or not. With comics' longevity in our culture comes the sad fact that there are precious few true innovators of the medium left with us. We lost another titan today, as Harvey Pekar passed away of causes yet-undetermined. He was 70 years old.
His creation, American Splendor, was a pioneering effort in independent comics, an autobiographical book depicting the real-life "drama" of the human condition told by an anonymous file clerk in Cleveland, Ohio, far away from Gotham and the center of the comic book universe. His book was populated by Pekar's own friends, his co-workers, and anybody he interacted with in the day to day, and the stories told within its pages all came from incidents in his own life. The book was illustrated by dozens of artists since its first issue in 1976 (including, famously, Pekar's legendary buddy R. Crumb) and over the course of its run became recognized as one of the best and most influential creator-owned properties ever.
Harvey's writing in American Splendor was favorably compared to greats like Anton Chekhov in its narrative focus on the ephemeral emotionalism of moments between moments rather than any definitive set of linear events as they might relate to a traditional style of storytelling. But unlike Chekhov, who wrote initially for money on the side before formally committing himself to the craft of writing, Pekar was never any kind of literary genius. Rather, he was akin to those other DIY-ers that dotted the artistic landscape of latter half of the 20th century, driven by something innate and maybe a little profound, to stay up all night to write down the things that he wanted other people to see in his world, even if it meant being extra-tired during his double shift at the VA the next day.
Following the underground success of American Splendor, Pekar would be "discovered" any number of times in the ensuing years by any number of outsiders who found novelty in glimpsing the mundane existence of this glum little weirdo from the distant Mid-West. In his willingness to indulge potential readers, he even became a bit of a side-show attraction at times, as when he appeared eight times on Late Night with David Letterman, culminating with an acrimonious airing of grievance that once again relegated him to national obscurity, save for those few viewers who might have actually gone on to pick up a copy of his most recent issue.
But Harvey's insistence that he never be "co-opted" was equal parts a commitment to his art and to himself, knowing that he could not make his comic if he ever believed himself to be another phony. Even as neurotic, cantankerous and put-upon as the man could be, he was also never nearly as self-serious as his public persona might have lead one to believe. How could he be? American Splendor was downright severe in its sincerity, and showed not one iota of inauthenticity in the four decades that it was published. His body of works are paradoxically the least self-aware metatextual texts ever created. It simply couldn't have worked otherwise.
Harvey Pekar was a Great in the world of comics, if never more than a regular guy in the real one. And he will be missed.
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Tags: American Splendor, Harvey Pekar
…And Justice For All: Brendan Fixes The Eisner Awards
Posted by: zzz on: April 8, 2010
In: Brendan K. Is Dead In Continuity | News
The 2010 Eisner Award nominations have been released, and if you're like me, you probably had a mixed reaction, something along the lines of: "Hooray, comics I like! Boo, comics I didn't read!"
…which is why you and I shouldn't be chosen to hand out the industry's most prestigious and coveted award: we're amateurs! We've got way too many things going on in our lives that prevent us from reading all the comics we wish we could. I mean, right now I'm finishing a masters thesis, sculpting the minds of impressionable college students, and preparing a move across a state that's bigger than most European countries, and you're… making some sort of contribution to society that doesn't require an orange jumpsuit on the side of a road, I'm sure. The point is that comics readers like you and me possess neither the breadth of familiarity with the vast quantity of books that are printed every year, nor the time to read them. Any picks we'd make for the "best" comics of the year would be a woefully incomplete selection from the pool of whatever titles we've both read and liked in the last twelve months.
Luckily there's a group of dedicated professionals behind the most important honors in the industry, right? Well, yes and no. The truth is that while the Eisners are a fine and meaningful flagship institution dedicated to a criminally under-publicized art form, they're far from perfect. It's no crime. Every awards system has to revamp every once in a while, and when they do and Sandra Bullock can still end up winning an Oscar for the fucking Blind Side, perhaps they can revamp again. It's just the way of things. So here now is my three point plan to help make the Eisner Awards the prize they deserve to be.
Point #1: Enlarge the Nominations Committee
The Eisner nominees are currently selected by some of the finest experts available from all types of comics people, be they from the industry, academia, retail or general readership. Their pedigrees are unimpeachable, and they should be, since these are the folks who have to read every submission for potential nomination and then whittle the entries down to just five nominees. Unfortunately, there are only five judges selected every year to comprise the pool of judges.
This is just comically small, and can't possibly represent the full spectrum of styles and sensibilities spoken to by the massively diverse number of potential nominees every year. I understand that these folks are the crème de la crème, but can't we keep an acceptably excellent standard in a pool of, say, 25 judges? Not every judge can have 25 years of experience running a store, but there are plenty of folks who have ten years and the time to read the submissions. Widening the pool would also increase diversity, meaning that maybe we could see more than one woman, or hell, anybody that isn't white.
Finally, this diversity would also translate to a broader spectrum of experience in readership, thus hopefully limited the effects of conventional wisdom that sometimes plagues the Eisner nominations. Too often the judging committee keeps the old guard of previously-nominated books in play for slightly too long, taking away valuable spots from other deserving potential selections. A bigger pool of judges would keep long-running, previously honored books honest, and give every opportunity to elevate younger titles a fighting chance.
Point #2: Reduce the Voters Pool
Here we have a problem that's the opposite of the nominations process. Simply put, too damned many people get to vote for the Eisners. Of the literally thousands of people will cast their votes for the dozens of nominees, how many do you think were made having read each of the other nominees in a given category?
The current system is susceptible to the same problems as the Academy Awards: with so many voters, it's inevitable that most folks make selections that are woefully under-informed. Worse still, the system is hopelessly biased toward the major publishers. The companies that have the money to advertise titles and move the most books are more likely to have been read by the voters, crowding out smaller comics in the pages of the trades and capturing the attention of comics people at large. It's impossible for the little guy to compete. Cutting the pool down to, say, a few hundred voters would likely yield results that better reflect the quality of the nominees than simply what's been popular lately. The system would benefit from being slightly more selective in whom it allows to vote for the Eisner's winners.
Point #3: Split the Categories More Fairly
The big versus small dynamic also presents another major problem: No matter if you limit the pool to some respectable degree, the major publishers have an unfair advantage in sheer number of books sold. If more of those books have been read than any other, it stands to reason that inevitably that will translate to those books being voted for more than the others. It's just unavoidable. So what can we do?
Easy: Split the categories by sales. Books that cross the threshold of X copies shipped/sold (a number that I'm sure can be fairly chosen based on some metrics of sales figures from both the major and independent publishers) qualify for one of two designations: "Major" (X or more sold) and "Select" (X or fewer sold.) A title/writer/artist/publisher should not be punished for the fact that not enough people bought an issue, and this adjustment allows for the books that fall through the cracks to earn the same honor as the best of the big boys.
If this idea proves favorable, you can create as many tiers as are fitting. The true "blockbusters" can duke it out amongst themselves in one category, while self-published books vie for the win in their own. Parity in awards can be restored for quality instead of quantity, and winning an Eisner can truly be called the birthright of the best of the best.
Tags: Eisner Awards
The Duck Knight Returns: Darkwing Duck from BOOM! Studios Coming in June
Posted by: Maggie_C on: March 13, 2010
In: Fandom | News
If you want your beloved Disney Afternoon heroes to come back to life in comic book form, apparently all you have to do is ask.
Last October at Long Beach Comic Con, BOOM! Studios hosted a panel on their upcoming titles, including a few from their Disney line; Uncle Scrooge and Mickey Mouse. The second I saw ducks, I shot my hand up and asked when we'd be seeing a Darkwing Duck comic – at the time, the answer was something along the lines of "Not sure, maybe never." Turns out, they were either playing coy last year or their plans changed because I just received this press release:
March 13th, 2010 – Seattle, WA – He is the terror that flaps in the night. He is the super-hero that is about to make his return. He is…DARKWING DUCK! This June, Disney and BOOM! Studios herald the triumphant comeback of the beloved Disney Afternoon star with DARKWING DUCK: THE DUCK KNIGHT RETURNS. Lanchpad McQuack, Gosalyn Mallard, and the fiercest of Darkwing's rogue gallery all join the daring duck of mystery in an all-new, completely original four-issue mini-series: DARKWING DUCK: THE DUCK KNIGHT RETURNS!
Whether you're a Darkwing fan from the hit TV show or want to discover this cherished character for the first time, this new mini-series delivers all the madcap adventurous spirit that made a fan out of millions!
Written by Ian Brill (ZOMBIE TALES) and James Silvani (MUPPET KING ARTHUR), the mini-series sees Darkwing's city of St. Canard under the control of a mysterious corporation. Darkwing's been out of commission for a while but when his friends and family are under attack…you better watch out you bad boys! Darkwing fights new villains as well as old, for Megavolt, Quackerjack, Liquidator and Bushroot are on the loose!
"It's such a dream to bring back Darkwing, a favorite of mine and millions of other's," says series writer Brill. "Everyone involved in this book are working tirelessly to make sure this comic has the same feel of anarchic fun of the TV series, while still presenting a whole new adventure in the life of Darkwing."
Debuting in 1991 as a spin-off of the hugely popular DUCK TALES, DARKWING DUCK brought super-hero action and excitement to the Disney Afternoon animation block, captivating viewers for years. Shown around the world, DARKWING DUCK is still a fan-favorite of pop culture fans everywhere.
DARKWING DUCK: THE DUCK KNIGHT RETURNS #1 is written by Ian Brill with interior art by James Silvani. The debut issues features two covers in a 50/50 split by Magic Eye Studios and Silvani respectively and a 1-in-10 incentive cover by Silvani and Jake Myler.
I'm not gonna lie to you, I'm more excited about this than I am about the new Flash run. And I love the Flash. We'll be sure to preview the return of Darkwing for all you nineties kid comic nerds out there as soon as it's available!
Let's. Get. Dangerous!
Tags: BOOM! Kids, BOOM! Studios, Darkwing Duck
High Five! Comics! – #100
Posted by: Maggie_C on: November 11, 2009
Should we be releasing 5 variant versions of this post? Oooo! I know! We can release it wrapped in a black plastic wrapper and tell everyone it's a collector's item for sure!
Orrrrr not.
Jon, Rob, and I sat down a few months ago after tearing through a six-pack and a Wednesday pull. We started riffing (and we're funnier in Real Life, I swear). After a while, I said, "Man, we should podcast or something." And thus, the birth.
Granted, we're at post #100 and haven't quite gotten around to podcasting yet. We'll get on that one of these days. Really.
Big thanks to our other contributors, Hava, Brendan, and Ian – at least one of whom may or may not have a new regular High Five! column in the works. Thanks also to BOOM! Studios, who for some reason seems to give a (small) rip about what we think, Kelson at SpeedForce.org for all those retweets, TV Rots Your Mind Grapes for reminding us there's entertainment outside comics (the girls are funny, read them), all of our Twitter followers, all the artists/writers/letterers who've been willing to let little old us pick their brains, and most especially to everyone who's been reading us everyday, even when we've sucked.
We've got some great stuff in the pipeline, so stick with us, High Fivers!
Here's to making it to issue #600.
Chug!
The Question to Relaunch, Blackest Night #6 Will See Release on December 30th
Posted by: Maggie_C on: October 12, 2009
At High Five! we're usually more into goofing off than reporting industry news, but the DC news out of Baltimore is pretty awesome, so I'm going to chatter about it a bit.
From CBR's article on the Diamond Retailer Summit in Baltimore:
DC Comics took the stage to wrap the event with VP of Sales and Marketing Bob Wayne quickly announcing that the publisher would take advantage of its "Blackest Night" skip month by resurrecting a slew of former DC titles which will pick back up at their previous numbering. Some of these comics will feature the original writers who were behind the titles back in the day like "Suicide Squad" #67 by John Ostrander and "Starman" #81 by James Robinson, while others will include new writers continuing the stories of classic characters. Those included "The Atom and Hawkman" #46 by Geoff Johns, "The Question" #37 by Greg Rucka, "Phantom Stranger" #42 by Peter Tomasi, "The Power of Shazam!" #48 by Eric Wallace, "Catwoman" #83 by Fabian Nicieza, and "Weird Western Tales" #71 by Dan DiDio.
What a great way to keep things interesting (read as: get our money) in a skip month! I can't help but wonder just how long these resurrected titles will stick around, the relaunch issue sales will be decent, I'm sure, but I imagine a lot of these titles will have HUGE sales drops as they continue. That said, Renee's going to have her own book! I wonder how this will affect the Detective Comics Question second feature, perhaps we'll end up with TWO Kate-heavy books?
Wayne also announced that DC would release a book to be sold on December 30th: "Blackest Night" #6. Since the comic would have to ship a week before its on-sale date, Wayne told the retailers that threaten future opportunities like this with death if anyone breaks the set street date for the highly-anticipated book.
I honestly think they're just testing everyone. If I were a retailer, I'd be a little terrified. Odds are that someone, somewhere is going to leak this. Comics fans are, on the whole, a pretty loyal lot but with an event this huge? Yipes.
Still this is great for retailers. Blackest Night will bring the regulars in during a week that they'd normally stay at home, and we'll all be wash with Christmas cash. Way to support the direct market!
What a great way to keep things interesting (read as: get our money) in a skip month! Still, I can't help but wonder just how long these resurrected titles will stick around. The first relaunch issue sales will be decent, I'm sure, but I imagine a lot of these titles will have HUGE sales drops as they continue. That said – Hurray! Renee's going to have her own book! I'm curious as to how this will affect the Detective Comics Question second feature. Perhaps we'll end up with TWO Question & Batwoman-heavy books? Hopefully the relaunch succeeds, Renee's book stays afloat and Kate gets to have her very own solo ongoing title when Bruce gets back from being dead (sort of) and wants Detective back.
So. Which relaunches one-shots are you guys jazzed for?
UPDATE: More clarification! Looks like commenter Kelson was right! These issues are just going to be one shots! Kind of a bummer, but makes WAY more sense. Now, to decide which ones to pick up…
I honestly think they're just testing everyone. If I were a retailer, I'd be a terrified. Odds are that someone, somewhere is going to leak the book. Comics fans are on the whole a pretty loyal lot, but with an event this huge? Yipes.
Even with the risk of a leak, this is wonderful for retailers. Blackest Night will bring the regulars in during a week that they'd normally stay at home, and we'll all be swimming with Christmas cash. Way to support the direct market!
Tags: Batwoman, Blackest Night, DC Comics, The Question


JEEP GRAND WAGONEER!! RARE FIND & RARE COLOR! CLEAN SURVIVOR WITH LOW MILES!
This 1988 Jeep Grand Wagoneer is a great example of an unrestored and unmolested survivor and original Grand Wagoneer. The mileage of 92K is also original and it is very hard to find these vehicles with miles under 100,000. This was a 2 Owner Truck with a very rare paint color of Coffee (CW Paint Code). This Jeep was bought new in Missouri and stayed there its whole life. As far as we can tell this is all original paint and nothing has been changed. It even has the original radio (that works) and original Jeep Floor Mats.
The exterior paint is still in excellent condition and was never driven in bad weather and it shows. The Woodgrain is excellent and the undercarriage is really clean. The Chrome and stainless is all still in very good condition too and you will be very pleased with the overall condition of this rig. The interior is also in excellent original condition! No rips or tears. All of the windows work including the rear window. It is easy to see that this vehicle was always taken care of its entire life and that is is a low mileage vehicle.
The drivetrain is also original. The engine is the 5.9L V8 360 that runs excellent. It has the bulletproof 727 Automatic Transmission and the NP229 Transfer Case. This truck has always been maintained and you can tell by how it runs and drives. The only thing we found not working was the AC needing to be charged. We pride ourselves in locating vehicles we would want in our own personal collection. We hand pick each vehicle, drive it, and make sure it is ready for you to enjoy! We drive what we sell so that we can give you a first hand and accurate report on how the vehicle runs and drives.


text:
The 1970 Virginia State Elections took place on Election Day, November 3, 1970, the same day as the U.S. Senate and U.S. House elections in the state. The only statewide elections on the ballot were four constitutional referendums  to amend the Virginia State Constitution. All referendums were referred to the voters by the Virginia General Assembly.

Question 1

Due to the events of the Civil Rights Movement, several U.S. federal laws, court cases, and the 24th Amendment had nullified large parts of the Virginia State Constitution which had been drafted in 1902.  Therefore, Governor A. Linwood Holton Jr. and the Virginia General Assembly collectively decided to call a constitutional convention in order to overhaul the constitution and remove its discriminatory elements.  After this measure was passed the Government of Virginia established a Commission on Constitutional Revision which generated the current Virginia State Constitution.

Voters were asked the following question:

"Shall the Constitution be generally amended and revised, as agreed to by the General Assembly at its 1969 and 1970 sessions (except for the three proposals separately stated below)?"

Question 2

This amendment asked voters to repeal Section 60 (which prohibits lotteries) and leave it to the General Assembly to decide whether or not to authorize or prohibit lotteries.

Question 3

This amendment asked voters to authorize the state government to issue government bonds for specific capital projects. The sum of the debt incurred by these bond measures cannot not exceed 1.15 times the total annual income and sales tax revenues of the Commonwealth.  These bond measures must first be approved by a voter referendum in order to take effect.

Question 4

This amendment asked voters to authorize the state government to issue revenue bonds for specific capital projects.  Such bonds must first by certified by the Governor that the anticipated revenues from such projects will be sufficient to pay principal and interest as they become due.  Such bonds must also have the approval of 2/3s of both chambers in the Virginia General Assembly.  The sum of the debt incurred by these bond measures cannot not exceed 1.15 times the total annual income and sales tax revenues of the Commonwealth.

References

1970 Virginia elections


Club Marabú is back once again delivering future hip hop, glitch, trap and everything in between. Live at the controls: Why Be from the sensational Halcyon Veil tribe, Berlin-based genre-blending Chait-T from the US-American imprint Mindclub, Kendra of the local What.If collective and the mystical Ulldeter of Drakis Discs. We recommend you put on your best wares and bring an open minded. The sound will be touching, futuristic, uncommon but most of all moving.


text:
CAMERON LAGO: CHARTING A COURSE FOR SUCCESSApril 2018
First released April 16, 2018 on Ontario Racing websiteOntario Racing website
Story: Chris Lomon
There's no doubt Cameron Lago has charted a successful course in the Standardbred industry, thanks to an unmistakable passion for the sport and an exceptional educational experience through Equine Guelph.
"I started my appreciation for horses when I was about 9-10, when I attended the OHHA Youth camp at Flamboro Downs," recalled the 20-year-old. "My love for horses and racing kind of all started with that. I've been hooked on it ever since."
Lago admits that might be somewhat of an understatement.
"Yes, it probably is," he said with a laugh. "My grandfather has had a couple of broodmares around as part of his retirement project, so he and I kind of kick-started things here on our farm after I attended the youth camp. Ever since then, we've just continued to grow, slowly, but surely, getting involved in the horse racing industry, overall just building our broodmares."
"We currently have four broodmares at home here," continued Lago. "I'm working in partnership with my grandfather for the moment, slowly starting to buy into some of them. Buying new mares is the goal for myself over the next couple of years, to expand my own herd and get more involved in the breeding side. I have a passion for it – the genetics – and I want to pursue that."
His fascination with and appreciation for Standardbreds continues to grow.
It's what eventually drew Lago to Equine Guelph, specifically, the vast array of online educational courses that are offered. He applied for and won the Stuart Stocks Memorial Tuition Award (Equine Guelph Tuition Awards) through Equine Guelph in 2016.
"I was thrilled to be chosen," he said. "I knew there was some tough competition. I think education within the industry will continue to grow. It's extremely important."
His association with Equine Guelph turned out to be twice as nice one year later.
Lago, who was part of the 2016 Wannadrive team, a Hands on Horses Program, also received two online courses through Equine Guelph (valued at $549 each) after being selected as the recipient of the inaugural Roger L'Heureux Award in 2017. Certificates were available in Equine Science, Equine Welfare and Equine Business.
"Getting to take the Equine Genetics and Equine Exercise Physiology in 2017 was an amazing experience," said Lago, who is set to take the Health & Disease course out of the University of Guelph this May. "My main motive behind it all was to gain more experience. Horses, at one point, they were an unknown to me. I was going to Agricultural school (Business and Livestock Production) at the time in Olds, Alberta. There wasn't much focus on racehorses, of course, so I wanted to further my education in that, so by taking these courses through Guelph, it's really helped me in so many ways and helped me increase my knowledge of racehorses. It's opened a lot of doors."
He's hoping other young people get the same opportunities.
"I want to keep giving to this industry to the fullest extent," offered Lago. "By doing interviews, talking to people, it's just tremendous because it really shows off the sport. Any positive publicity that harness racing can get is great. The sport has a lot of room for growth and I believe there are a lot of positive outlooks for the industry."
An industry that Lago believes offers a little bit of everything, with the exception of tedium.
Why would he encourage people to consider a horseracing life?
"I would say it's thrilling, that you're always doing something new every day and you never know what your day will be like," said Lago. "When you go into a barn, someone always has a story and someone always teaches you something. Working with the equine athletes is something in itself. I've really come to appreciate them even more after taking these Guelph courses. It's fueled my passion even more. To work with them every day, it's a privilege. You get hooked".
"I would encourage anyone to apply with Equine Guelph because there is so much to learn about these amazing athletes. They're very complex animals, so to better care for them and understand them is so important. Whether they are racing or they're a broodmare, they all have a purpose. I would highly encourage anyone to get connected with Equine Guelph and Ontario Racing. There's a lot to learn from one another."
Cameron Lago would certainly know.