26January2017

Is your website working for you?

Written By Crystal

I see it over and over again, people invest valuable time and money in creating a web presence, but sadly enough, they fail to ensure that their website will be listed high in search engines for the desired keywords.

A few years ago it was easy: businesses would design a website, fill it up with nice content and wait for Google to list it, it was as simple as that! But things have come on a long way since then. Today, we website owners need to study the relevant keywords typed in search engines and then adjust the website accordingly.

I’m being told that the key to success is “keyword analysis” and “inbound link building”, the other important factors are reviews and blog posts about your business with links to your website. If your website has no incoming links probably it’s not worth the money.

Digital New Tools 

Creating a brand is probably the most significant challenges for every online marketer or company. But allow me to explain to you that if you will not be branded on the internet, you won’t last for the simple reason that the future is relying on the online world.

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3December2016

Yellow & White Diet

Written By Crystal

My daughter Luísa is now on a yellow and white diet. She’s been only eating bread, rice, pasta, chicken, and potatoes. For fruit, she’s all about bananas (some days she will have three – making my nutritional worry be gone for the rest of the day, I can’t really explain this feeling) and apples. And lots of milk that she serves herself to the point it’s just annoying. The colorful exceptions are tomatoes and watermelon.

As monotonous as this looks, it has foods from the main four groups needed every day: cereals and potatoes; fruit and vegetables; milk and dairy foods; meat, fish, and alternatives. I do get stressed about her diet and think she needs more diversity, more colors. What happened to old spinach she used to like?

But somehow I trust her diet, or rather I got tired of trying to make her eat what she doesn’t want.  She manages what goes inside her body in a satisfactory way. She is healthy after all.

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18November2016

New Technology

Written By Crystal

The Internet and related technologies are changing the securities business. Buzzwords such as “investor empowerment,” “democratization,” and “paradigm shift” only begin to suggest the extent to which the industry is being transformed. But if technology is the driver, regulatory change is the pit crew.

Consider a few recent examples. A couple of years ago, Congress repealed the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, eliminating barriers between commercial banks such as Citibank and investment firms such as Salomon Smith Barney. Later, Congress was debating whether to repeal the ban on trading single stock futures (surrogates for the underlying securities) and which set of laws – securities, commodities, or both – would apply to that area of trading.

U.S. exchanges shredded trading in fractions in favor of decimals. In the following years, the securities settlement cycle shrunk from three days to one day, dramatically reducing risk in the financial system. Eventually, a security may trade globally and continuously as firms pass their trading book from closing markets to open markets.

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12September2016

My Christian Ghetto

Written By Crystal

There are two great temptations every Christian faces in regard to how he relates to the world. The first is that which we are most familiar with, that narrative of a boy taking his inheritance early and running off to cavort with heathens.

Stay out of pool halls. Check.
Don’t rush down to Cancun on Spring Break. Check.

I was in Bible College when I started hearing about the second temptation, to withdraw from the culture-at-large and hang out with only Christian friends. Some people referred to it as “the Christian bubble” that arena wherein inhabitants are shielded from the evil realities of the world out there.

Jesus famously instructed, “Be in the world, but not of the world.”

Okay, Jesus.  You lost me.
Are you saying you want me to go to Cancun?
Not exactly? Well, then I don’t get it.

I really liked that verse though it may have been the eisegesis talking.

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22June2016

Clean Shaven Legs

Written By Crystal

It’s Saturday night and I’m exhausted. Things have been so busy these days that I feel like I’m just rushing through the day from one thing to another with no time to sit back and enjoy any one of them.

Today, I was so mixed up that I went to a birthday pool party an hour EARLY! I was standing there with my son looking around and wondering why no one else was there (we were supposed to meet at the pool of an apartment building complex). Then when I called my friend, I thought it was strange that she sounded surprised to hear from me and said that she wasn’t ready yet but would come and get me at the pool as soon as she could. Aren’t we supposed to meet out here? Why isn’t she here already? It took me a good three minutes to figure it out. Duh! I’m super early.

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19April2016

When I have to wear a suit to work

Written By Crystal

For one or two days out of every year I have to wear a suit to work.  This is one of those days.  I hate it.  I can’t stand wearing suits.  I feel like I’m at my own open-casket funeral.  I don’t mind tuxes, in fact I quite enjoy wearing my tux.  I think a man in a tux is just about irresistible.  And most men look pretty darn good in a suit.  I just hate wearing one.  They are itchy and stuffy and blah.

I own two suits.  The first one is now a museum piece, as I had a small waist when I first bought few years ago.  Days gone by, my friends, days gone by.  The second is a chunky dark gray suit that looks like it was taken right out of The Sopranos wardrobe.  It was poorly tailored in a rush to have it ready for my grandfather’s funeral and completely unsuited (ha, unsuited!) for business use.  Unless I’m conducting business in a titty bar.

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26February2016

The $100K trigger finger

Written By Crystal

Most of us are familiar with the story of the Six Million Dollar Man, and most of us have eaten a Hundred Grand Bar (the candy bar formerly known as the Hundred Thousand Dollar Bar). But what about the Hundred Thousand Dollar Trigger Finger?

This story concerns an acquaintance of mine who is a sworn officer for a state law-enforcement agency. One weekend, while doing a little home improvement, he accidentally cut off the tip of his right index finger, just above the first knuckle. Since the guy is right-handed, his right index finger is his trigger finger—a fairly important digit for someone in law enforcement.

After the accident, he and the severed fingertip were rushed to the hospital. The doctors called in a hand specialist—there’s a specialist for every body part, apparently—who attempted to re-attach the finger. The hand specialist was unsuccessful, so he called in a plastic surgeon to sew up the shortened digit in a way that would minimize scarring. All in all, my acquaintance spent two nights in the hospital.

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17February2016

February Expectations

Written By Crystal

So first off, we’ve already had 1 month of 2016 – will somebody apply the brakes, please? February is a little bit of a funny month – it’s the one that I never really remember, or pay much attention to. It’s just a bit of a filler if you ask me – once March kicks in, then the year really starts but I have certain expectations about February…

1. Expect more blog posts about my placement because it’ll be in full force this month – I just completed my first full shift and it went quite well. I’ve got plenty of jobs to be getting on with (possibly too many) so there’s lots of new stuff to learn – slightly gutted, but oh well, what can you do?

2. Taking on Math. I found this really good website with Math questions, so I am getting ready for my Math exam. How good is your math?

3. Money will be tight. Every bill known to man looks like it’s coming out of my bank account in February – credit card, subscriptions, phone contract… *sigh* Last month I think I had about $5 to last me two weeks – very tough, and I delved deeper into the credit card pot, but I came out the other side which I expect to do this month too… ask me that at the end of February.

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2December2015

I am exhausted and I’m not even sure why

Written By Crystal

First of all, thank you everyone for the prayers concerning Nathan. I received a reply from him this morning…And he is fine. Yay! He actually had not yet made it to Baghdad yet at the time he had emailed me…and while he had heard about attacks, he had not even heard that there had been soldier casualties. Anyway, thank you. I’m still feeling nervous for him, however, and that will probably continue. Nothing you can do about that.

So yesterday was a non-stop panic attack. If you don’t remember me talking about Nathan, my childhood friend who is currently serving in the Army, …and you obviously haven’t read enough of the archives to know about him. The guy that is going through the divorce, I’m going through a break up…and we’re both too vulnerable to know better.

Yes, I think I kind of have feelings for this guy. But I can’t act on them right now even if I wanted to, you know? We’re both in the wrong place right now. He’s broken. I’m broken. We’re both a mess and for now we have sat and written endless emails to each other in an attempt to vent out our feelings. There are things we have shared with each other that we would not and have not shared with our other friends and/or family members.  It’s been nice to have him in my life. And well, yes, I have developed some sort of feelings. I’m not sure what kind but yeah. They are there.

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27November2015

Black Friday Dilemma, Shopping deals for runners

Written By Crystal

Today is Black Friday but it is also Buy Nothing Day, however, one should be prepared for the other 364 days when you can spend, without worrying about your conscience, therefore I present to you The Ars Technica Holiday Gift Guide.

This year they’ve conveniently divided it up into sections. Under the kitchen section, for example, the first item is an Impressa E Espresso Machine, made by Jura-Capresso that will set you back an astonishing $899 although, when it comes to the coffee fiend who shares your bed you should spare no expense.

Moving along the next section to catch my eye was the fitness section.

The first item on the list is the Gramin forerunner 310 GPS. It’s a special gadget made for runners. You strap it to your wrist like a watch. If you are a runner and feel the need for something to track how far, how fast and at what pace you are running you want this. It also comes with a heart rate monitor you strap around your chest so it can send data wirelessly to the GPS. The cheapest place to get this is at GPScity.ca or .com. For a cool $169.95 CAD you are saving $80 -$100 over the competition. Mine arrived in the mail two days ago. I will post a review in another week or two once I get on to it.

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