Aaron Ewer

One thing that is a big treat for us at holidays is to buy a Honeybaked ham. There are several retail stores in the area and I don’t have to go out of my way very far to buy one.

I’ve enjoyed Honeybaked hams since a former colleague introduced me to them back in the early 1980’s. He threw a huge open house party and had a Honeybaked ham on the buffet table for everyone to serve themselves throughout the evening. By the end of the night that ham bone was picked clean. Forget about any leftovers - everyone loved that ham so much it was gone in hours.

This weekend being Labor Day I’ve been thinking about getting another Honeybaked ham although we have no plans to entertain. I think we’d just like to have it for ourselves so there is less need to cook over the holiday weekend. There will be plenty for sandwiches and even fried slices to serve as a sidemeat for breakfast.

The Honeybaked store has some great side items, like candied sweet potatoes and green bean casseroles. They even have great desserts, like pumpkin pie and carrot cake. I love the food at this store an I’ve pretty much just now talked myself into going to the Honeybaked store tomorrow on my way home from work.

In this part of the country, August will be the hottest, with high humidity and temperatures that can range from the upper 80’s to triple digits. Last year there was a full week of temperatures that topped 100 degrees and very little rain, which brought about water shortages in various parts and an outcry for fans and room air conditioners for the homeless and disadvantaged.

This year we have been lucky to have most days in the 80’s and only a few in the 90’s. At the moment it is 92 degrees with dark skies and the stillness in the air that precedes the summer thunder storms. The hot weather doesn’t usually other me much, but the air conditioning in my car has gone out, making the commute a little uncomfortable.

I took the car to my mechanic and had him run a check on the A/C system. That set me back 4 hours and $80 for the diagnostics and a squirt of freon. But the truth is, the condenser is on its last legs and my mechanic says I need a new one ASAP. He says he can’t even guarantee that the air conditioning compressor will last the rest of summer. But hold on to your wallet, folks - the estimate for him putting in a new one is $1,800.

This sent me right to the internet to check out the prices of an a/c compressor for my car. Found a site with a handy search tool and I went right to the page with information on the BMW AC compressor. Now that I see the cost for just the compressor runs about $500 I’m not so worried about the repair estimate. But this also gives me the information I need to go back and haggle with my mechanic to get the price down.

If you have any tips on shopping for a/c compressors and getting them fixed, give me a shout. For now, I’ve found a decent web site for parts pricing and that’s worth checking out if you are having the same problems that I’m having.

Back to school means shelling out the big bucks for school supplies, plus in this area the kids all have to wear clothes that meet the county’s strict uniform guidelines. There was a lot of controversy about implementing a school uniform policy, but it worked out OK last year.

Most of the schools have an approved list of school supplies for each grade, and they provide these lists to the local Wal-Marts and Targets about 3 weeks before the first day of school so parents can take advantage of the tax-free weekend shop around the different stores for special prices and sales.

The school supplies lists are very specific, often including the only acceptable brand usually offering no explanation for things like “two folders, one red and one black” or “backpacks with one pocket and no wheels.”

On the list I’m working with, the kids are required to bring three boxes of 24 count Crayola brand crayons. We are not allowed to put our child’s name on them, as evidently all crayons are put into a community sharing box for all the children to share amongst themselves. What?!?! If everyone is “sharing” then why am I sending three boxes at the start of the school year? For the bussed in kids to “share” my kids stuff? If that’s what they plan, why hide behind this list and not just come out and say they want me to provide free crayons for two other kids in the class?

Evidently, not all the supplies are to be “shared” and these items are to be labeled with our child’s first and last name before sending them to the school. There were no further instructions as to what type of labeling is required. In my house, labeling means using a DYMO Labelmaker and printing out the name on the different color tapes that come with the machine. I worry that I’ll use the wrong color tape and meet with the teacher’s immediate disapproval, resulting in a bias against my child for the entire school year.

Perhaps if I donate one of the labelmakers to the class we will be forgiven? They are so handy to have for so many things around the house and office, I bet the teacher’s would appreciate having one in the classroom to label the items for children who’s parents neglected to put labels on their supplies, plus they can label items within the classroom to help stay organized. Well, that’s the plan then.

I’ve been percolating on a business idea that involves advertising for small businesses and I think the time is getting ripe to launch it in the next year or two. I won’t go into the details here, but it involves a custom made display for use in regional malls and I think I finally came up with the design that would work for my idea.

I’ve been looking at the mall kiosks and pushcarts and know that what they have available at the malls now won’t really adapt well for my use. So I started looking online for companies that make displays and found the Godfrey Group. I like their web site because it has lots of photos and good ideas of what other people have designed and use for their businesses. Of course, most of what is out there was designed for trade show displays. But I think it can be easily adapted for use in the malls, too.

I clicked on their tab for custom designs and found a lot of good information. And the Godfrey Group has a best price guarantee. So I can’t go wrong working with the Godfrey Group to fine tune my display design and get my new business launched early next year.

A few jobs ago one of the executives was a highly educated but productively worthless marketing guru. He talked all the high dollar words, but when it came to putting results on the board he usually came up empty. These guys with the V.P. titles and too big bank accounts drive me nuts - I’m all about results. So it didn’t bother me much when I learned he left the company under a “mutual agreement.”

Since I didn’t consider him a friend, I was surprised to get an email from him a couple weeks ago announcing his new company. He has bought the territory rights to most of the southeastern states to launch a new product and he’s taking it on a roadshow to promote it. He made arrangements with Sam’s Club to put up a display for one week at a time at rotating Sam’s Club locations.

So out of curiosity, I stopped by the local Sam’s Club to check it out and see if he was doing any business. I have to admit the display was nice and it was getting it’s fair share of attention from the shoppers. He had a 10 x 10 carpet laid out, four chairs - one on each corner of the carpet, and a nice, eyecatching backdrop with lights and graphics. The two blondes with big hair and bigger cleavage handing out brochures didn’t hurt, either.

Chatting with him in between customers, he told me that his cost of entry into the business was minimal. He bought the custom trade show displays from a company online called the “Godfrey Group” and couldn’t be more pleased with all the design help and cost effective solutions they provided to produce the most important part of his road show exhibit, the portable display wall.

So it looks like he is off to a good start and maybe has finally found his calling - out of the big corporate world and into entrepreneurism.