Get Rich Slick

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I’m sorry to see Trisha from Building An Empire considering shutting down her blog and it looks like it might be a foregone conclusion but I perfectly understand her situation.   A capitalist will often invest his/her time pursuing the most profitable endeavor and blogging isn’t quite the profitable venue for most.   I know a few successful bloggers make good income blogging but the reality is that if you don’t have a true passion for blogging you’ll likely not get rich writing posts day in and day out.

Trisha was one of the few blogs that had earned a “coveted” link from my blog roll.   Like a true capitalist, she invested a great deal of time in the real estate gambit and let us now how her adventures were going from time to time.   I read her blog frequently and learned a great deal.  At one point I had written a comment that it was her great work on her blog that gave me pause from jumping directly into the real estate market.

Quite honestly, reading the amount of work she put into real estate deals made me realize that I’m just too lazy to make money that way.  I like to sit at my desk, click a few mouse buttons and have $1000 or more tumble into my accounts each month.   Meeting with contractors, insurance agents, inspectors, loan officers, bankers, city officials, keeping up with licensing and all the other things associated with closing a deal just made me shiver.

Trisha, best of luck to you and I hope you start up a new blog with your new adventures some day.

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After you’ve traveled the world, it becomes a bit mundane to stay at the same old resort & spas, visit the area’s museums, wine country and local tourist traps so I’m always on the look out for something a little different.

As it so happens,  I’m an avid fan of the show Ice Road Truckers on the History Channel and I would love to have the opportunity to buy a seat or two next to those guys driving those rigs on one of their hauls.   The remote location is ideal and the threat of the ice cracking or breaking along with potential vehicular problems adds a little adrenaline to the possibilities of adventure.

The beauty of the area adds additional value to a trip up there.    I would possibly combine this with a wilderness tour of Alaska as well but that would be a great excursion.   Perhaps an excursion on one of those crab fishing boats on The Deadliest Catch would be a second adventurous excursion as well.

I’ve seen a TV show called Black Gold advertised about oil drilling in West Texas that might also be somewhat appealing but I’d have to see the show first to see what all that’s about.

If anyone from the show is reading this, I’ve got $1500 burning a whole in my pocket ready to buy a seat on that truck!

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I’ve now flown on numerous long haul overseas flights (10+ hours or more) on numerous carriers that I’ve decided to write a post about my experiences. I’m reviewing British Airways, Continental, Delta and Emirates; Oddly enough their listed in alphabetical order because that’s how I’ve flown them.

Photo: Travel Kits issued in Business / First class listed in clockwise order: Emirates, Continental, British Airways, Delta

Airlines

Quick Summary:

British Airlines - The seating, entertainment was superb for a long haul flight. The airline provides Bose Noise Canceling headset and the in-flight entertainment has many options including video on demand and video game entertainment. The staff was your typical cold and indifferent unionized employees but no airline is perfect and I can live with it as long as service isn’t sacrificed and it wasn’t. The food was edible but bland. What’s in the travel kit? Pretty typical stuff: tooth paste, eye covers, tooth brush, various hand creams, long haul socks and pen.

Continental - I couldn’t believe my ears or eyes when I saw a poor old woman carrying a baby, car seat and trying to haul a bag on a plane. The ticket counter agent said the flight attendant would help her with her items but when she got to the airplane, the flight attendant on the plane rudely blurts out, “it’s not my job to help people carry their stuff” as she rolls her eyes. I intended to write down her name and report her to Continental but never got around to it. The seats on Continental were much smaller than on BA but I managed to marginally get comfortable. The food was edible but nothing to write home about. The inflight entertainment sucked - no Bose noise canceling headset and the movies just cycle through, i.e. no video on demand. It took over 30 minutes for the movie to cycle through so you’re left with a black screen most of the time! What’s in the travel kit? Typical stuff: tooth paste, tooth brush, tissues, long haul socks, eye covers, creams, and pen.

Delta - The friendliest, warmest people I’ve ever flown long haul on. The captain and flight attendants made it a point to come out and say “thank you” for flying their airline. Never saw a person who didn’t have a smile on his/her face which made it a very pleasant flight. Unfortunately, either I’m getting fatter each flight or the seats continue to shrink. Delta has some of the WORST seats in business/first class. My hips were snugly squeezed against the seat the whole time and the retracting positions on the seat weren’t too comfortable. The food was decent and the wine selection was delectable. The video entertainment system was excellent. I caught up on four movies I hadn’t seen: No Country for Old Men, The Bucket List, There Will Be Blood and some documentary. Bose noise canceling headset provided. What’s in the travel kit? Perhaps the most color coordinated travel kit with mouth wash, tooth paste, creams, napkins, long haul socks and eye covers all in red!

Emirates - The staff on Emirates was exceptional. Not only do you get a warm towel before meal service, it has a tinge scent of something very pleasant. Emirates staff actually came to my seat and set down a cushion pad for me to sleep in overnight. The seats were large and comfy and reclined 180 degrees. The inflight entertainment system was amazing. A full 22” LCD TV monitor with THOUSANDS of movies to watch arranged in a neat library with a wireless PDA controller. Bose noise canceling headset standard. The airplanes feature a forward and down looking camera on the planes which can be displayed on the LCD so you always know what’s going on outside - even in the middle seat! The meal and service was excellent along with scrump-diddly- dicious wine. I had ZERO complaints about anything on Emirates except that they don’t fly domestically in the U.S. otherwise they’d earn all my business! What’s in the travel kit? Amazing! I was actually surprised at what was in the travel kit. First, the Emirates kit has a leather covering with a gold embossed logo. Second, I never expected to find Bvlgari cologne and creams inside the kit. Shaving cream AND a razor? Qu’est-ce que c’est? Who do these people think they are? Deodorant, tooth brush, tooth paste and tissues provided in the elegant bag. The eye covers were made of some type of soft leather not your typical vinyl like everyone else. Quite a difference no?

So in this round, Emirates is the clear winner and the only other airline that comes close is British Airways but they still have a lot of work to do if they want to provide the level of service Emirates does during their flights!

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This is the second anniversary of Get Rich Slick.   I hope you’ve enjoyed and learned something useful over the past two years.   I’m looking forward to completing year 3 next year!

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I’m in Asia right now which will make this my second trip to the Asia/Pacific region this year and I’ll likely be back in Africa again in a few weeks then possibly back to Asia. All this international travel gets old really fast and one of the things that makes it bearable is my trusty Mac Powerbook with built in iSight and an application called SightSpeed.

I’ve been able to video conference with my wife and kids almost every day. The kids tell me what they did the previous day while I tell them how my business trip is going and what “goodies” they can expect when I get back. The cool thing about SightSpeed (like my Mac) is that it just works. No firewall mumbo jumbo, no jumping through hoops to configure cams, no port configuration, nada! It just works!

In the rare instance when I didn’t get to video conference, I was able to leave a video voicemail message for the family. I’ve also used it to conduct video conferences with people back in the office stateside without any hassle.

If you do a lot of international travel or want a cheap, free and effective way to talk to people, I highly recommend SightSpeed.

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I’ve been receiving e-mails from people wanting to sell ads on my site and others solicit me with the claim to have the ability to increase traffic to my site. I’m not interested in increasing traffic or serving ads on my site for a few reasons.

First, I’ve noted that PF bloggers that do have ads often have conflict of interests. I’ll occasionally read about someone concerned that Google has suspended their account or warned about suspension for this or that. I like to speak my mind about whatever topics I want to write about and not worry that its not hitting the right “demographic” group to appease google or some advertiser.

Second, in order to really make ads worth it, the writing must cater to a large audience so writing about specific topics is usually skipped over in favor of more crowd pleasing generic topics. This is part of the reason you’ll often read, “Spend Less Than You Earn” or “invest in your 401k” over and over again; the breadth of topics must be limited to generic articles that appeal to the masses. I can imagine people’s eyes glossing over as I begin to write about complex matrix arbitrage theory or even something as simple as ETF covered calls - it frightens way too many people.

Third, blogging takes a great deal of time and when I compute the ROI it’s fairly weak especially when the competition caters to the masses where I do not. So because my intended audience is those in the 100k+ income range and this represents a small portion of the populous it would never be feasible or profitable to allow ads on my blog.

Lastly, in many ways, this blog is hopefully a legacy (good or bad) for my kids and perhaps maybe future grandkids to read about their old grand pa when he was young. Perhaps when I write that a gallon of milk cost $6 it will be looked back upon as a bargain as milk costs $40/gallon in 2040 or perhaps milk won’t exist at all!

Now if you are an advertiser or have a product or service that you would like for me to review, I would be happy to take a gander at it and write an unbiased review. The best way to get free advertising on here is to have superior product or service that exceeds expectations and I will likely write accolades about it.

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I’ve flown multiple legs on BA business class and must say that I’m fairly satisfied  but I do have a few gripes which I’d like to air out.

1. I had a connecting flight in London and unfortunately I had the misfortune of having to travel from Gatwick to Heathrow and I couldn’t get a straight answer from anyone at BA regarding the best way to do it.

Our on board flight attendant claimed a free interconnect ticket would be available at the ticket counter at the BA customer service.   Upon landing, customer service kiosk claimed that there would be no free ticket for transfer.  Upon asking a ticket counter customer service rep, we were told a discount ticket would be available.   Upon finally arriving at the interconnect bus station, we did receive discounted ticket but ended up paying 35 quid.

2.  Business class is inconsistent depending on the type of plane you fly.  A 747 business class seat is MUCH better than a business class seat on a 777.   AVOID 777 business class if you can find 747 business class on similar route!

3. BA lounges are pretty good but rather inconsistent - please standardize around the world!

4. It would be really nice to have plug adapters for your lounges.  I forgot to pack the 10 way adapter plug to charge my laptop and ran out of battery after 70 minutes!

5. Wine selection was excellent - perhaps too excellent as it kept running out!

6. Food selection was excellent - perhaps too excellent as I kept getting my second choice!

7. Please, please, please find a way to put internet access on those planes!  Yes, I’ll pay for it!

My biggest gripe is with Gatwick airport - You’re allowed only ONE carry on bag  at Gatwick - even business class passengers!  I threatened to ban my staff from traveling on BA unless they fixed that rubbish.    Customer rep. said they were working on addressing that issue.

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