During my days of selling advertising for regional Tallahassee publications, I had the wonderful privilege of meeting so many different business owners to chat about strategies to help spread the word about their business. Several times I talked with Clifton at Gulf Coast Metal Systems who is a metal roofing specialist for hurricane-prone Florida.

Like so many business owners, Clifton was looking for an advertising solution that wouldn't involve a throw-away publication. Advertising is too expensive to invest in print ads that only end up in a trashcan and the county landfill.

Businesses like American Steel Pan who are in the business of steel buildings are utilizing the power of the blogosphere to spread the word about their services.

Game nights are a great way to entertain family and friends. Last Saturday night I was invited to a game night at the home of two of my favorite newlyweds. Everyone brought a snack to share and the host and hostess provided some of their culinary specialties.

Among the highlights of the evening for me was winning at gin rummy 500 and being serenaded with a song of happy birthday by my friends.

Playing cards was something I hadn't done in years. Sitting around the card table with my closely vested hand of 7 stirred sweet old images of playing the same game in the U.P. with my Finnish grandparents at their summer cottage on Lake Superior.

The take away lesson for me was that I really should play cards more often... they really are fun.
When I got home I looked online at poker tables.

Fat bushels of ripe Georgia peaches sat on the rustic counter of the summer kitchen.

Over the next several days canning, pickling, and baking peaches would be the agenda. All this was in preparation for a Peachy Celebration that would coincide with a new cookbook and a television series.

One question drifted through my mind... how can I arrange home theater seating around the pool?

My vision was to set up the screening outside, sort of like the outdoor movies of long ago.

There I was ready to start another business without properly doing my market research.

It is not wise to launch off in new ventures without first doing your research. We have to guard ourselves against diving into ventures that are not founded in smart strategic planning.

For me it was a magazine. I was thinking more with my heart, than my head. The bottom line is I want to own my own magazine, but when more and more of the cards started showing up on the table, I realized that my initial decision was perhaps an ill-advised one.

In the nick of time, I was saved from signing on the dotted line.

Hopefully, my dream to create my own magazine will be realized some day.

If you get out of the routine of blogging for awhile, it can be down right difficult to get back into the groove. Sort of like dieting!

Today I hit the 71 pound mark. I'm planning to plow through the seventies in record speed. Considering it took me a couple months to get out of the 60's.

I can come up with a list of excuses as to why it took so long. But the bottom line is there are really only two things:

1. Results

and

2. Excuses

Despite whatever is going on in my life, there is no reason why I should have taken so long to move past the 60's.

So I'm going to sharpen my writing pens, don my workout clothes and get back in gear to lose the rest of this unnecessary extra weight.