One of My Inspirations

Those of you who know me and my writing and topics through the platform of Squidoo probably have seen two of my inspirations who are fellow lensmasters. I've written about Martin Stankewitz, aka editionh, as The Art of Zazzle. You might have seen The Wizard of Zazzle, ah Tickety-Boo that would be the Wizard Scott Morton.  Oh, there are other very special Squidoo lensmasters who are an inspiration to me, yes there are!

When I think of an inspiration outside of Squidoo and Zazzle, the very first person who comes to mind is someone that I know YOU would NOT expect.  An inspiration of mine, with whom I would love to have a six-month mentorship, or longer, is Michio Kaku.  Heard of him?  The Wikipedia reference for Michio Kaku gives you more detailed information than I could ever hope to give you here in my blog post; so I say, read that!

Michio Kaku, born January 24, 1947, is an American theoretical physicist specializing in string field theory, and a futurist. He is a popularizer of science, host of two radio programs and a best-selling author.

Michio Kaku, surprisingly reminds me personally a lot of my father who has been deceased for many years along with a hint of Guy Kawasaki!  Yes, good old Guy.  So, if I got that six-month mentorship, it would be quite a fulfilling experience, channeling my father, Guy and a whole lot of inspiration.  I think I need to make a point to attend one of Michio Kaku's talks.  If I had a bucket list, I'd add that!

P.S. I mentioned Guy Kawasaki. You know, I have written a bit about him. Maybe you have seen Best of Guy Kawasaki on Twitter, or The Art of the Start, or how about Reality Check by Guy Kawasaki?  You know, I would sincerely enjoy spending a mentorship with Guy, if he would have time what with all his twittering.  You know?

What would you do in these circumstances

In a January 9, 2010 blog post, Reflecting on 2009 -- It was a pain-FULL year for us!, I eluded to some of the difficulties that we had experienced over the past couple of years with, of all people, tenants. A little bit of what I had to say six months ago:

It's been a cost to us of some $20,000 plus out of our pockets for non-paying tenants. This has been a really tough "issue" for us as we have not wanted to evict these families, yet we have bills to pay ourselves. It would be too much information to talk any more about these rental matters ... just suffice to say that we are quite charitable people.

You see, I didn't share everything. We went through with only one eviction which ended up costing us a bit more than originally thought. That particular female tenant left us with a messy clean-up and probably not quite $10,000 in total losses. Unfortunately for us, with all the losses we incurred, we still had to pay out of our pockets on our income taxes! That's what I don't get, among other things.

It's pretty doubtful that we can expect to recoup any of those losses from that female tenant as we learned that she also owes a previous landlord about $6,000 for unpaid rent and damages.

Now, talking about that other tenant!!!! Here is where I would pose the question of my readers, "What would you do in these circumstances?"

You see, you really need to hear a bit more of the story to understand all the angst that I am feeling today and why I was unable to sleep much last night and over the past week or so. Last week, I got a phone call from our insurance company for the rental house. I thought that was odd. When I asked hubby about it that evening, he told me "You don't want to know!" Well, YES, I did. It seems the non-paying tenant that finally moved out at the end of 2009, he has secured an attorney! "Huh? I wonder if THAT attorney knows that he owes us over $20,000 in unpaid rent?" I replied.

So, for those of you who follow my Flickr photos, you may have seen that big old water oak that took out the tenant's van. There are lots more pictures of that water oak meeting the van and doing damage to the rental property.

It was, I guess, fortunate for us that our rental home insurance did cover the damaged driveway along with the damage to the carport and side of the house. The "proceeds" were nominal, but did help us to pay to have the repairs made. We then dug into our 401k to secure additional funding for fixing the interior of the home, to clean-up after the non-paying tenant.  And, we opted to NOT rent again, but keep the house "empty and clean" so that we can sell it and recoup our out-of-pockets costs AND losses from the non-paying tenant(s).  Hey!  That house is for sale!

I don't know about homeowner's or rental insurance, you know, about why they would not have paid for the tenant's damaged van. My hubby did say, at the time of the damage, that this tenant had NO insurance on his van which was totaled.  That tenant had someone take away his van and was paid some money for the van's tires, parts, and engine.

Well, it appears that said, non-paying tenant has secured an attorney who is now calling us and trying to submit a claim to our insurance company to pay for that van. "Hmmm," I said to my hubby, "I wonder if that tenant has told his attorney he owes us over $20,000 in unpaid rent?"

We have sure heard a lot in the news over the past year or so about tenant rights.  What the heck about landlord rights?  What can we HONEST landlords do about these tenants who are playing the system and going from one landlord to the next and NOT paying rent.  How the heck does that happen?  And, more importantly, how do these PEOPLE [the non-paying tenants] actually live with themselves? Do they have no sense of decency?

"What would you do in these circumstances?"  You know, I really need to bite my tongue these days and not say, "I told you so" to my hubby.  At these times, it is very important that I project understanding rather than personally want to kick the butt of that non-paying tenant.  You know???

"What would you do in these circumstances?" Take ... one, two, three, four!  So, time for a reality check I think?  Yes, let's get a life already!  Failure is NOT an option.  This is no time for tact, you think?

Has Social Media Contributed to Your Life Interrupted

Can we be honest? Answer this question, "Has social media contributed to your life interrupted?" Have you found that your daily schedule embraces a variety of social media platforms? That you perhaps kick your day off with some tweets to friends and followers on Twitter? Or do you perhaps connect through Facebook? Or, maybe you are connecting through Squidoo and the Squidu Forum? Or, some other social media platform? What happens to your routine when you find you cannot access those platforms?

Well such was the case on Thursday, August 6, 2009, at approximately 9:20am EST. For me, it was another of my multitasking days with my work job and my online job. I was communicating via tweets just like so many of you. However, when I was hitting the submit button on Twitter, it would spin and spin and spin without sending my tweet. Refreshing helped a couple of times until 9:20am EST. I typed in a tweet and found it wouldn't register. Then, I refreshed the page and totally lost Twitter. For me, I found I could not access Twitter for more than 4 hours; probably closer to 6 hours. OMG, did that NOT seem like a lifetime?

So, what is this all about? Why do we seem to have such a reliance on Twitter? And, would you have thought one year ago that we would be sitting here talking about this reliance that we have on Twitter? That Twitter has taken hold of our daily lives. Well, I think it is quite a phenomenon.

I've recently been addressing some topicable issues which all taken into consideration raise the need for a reality check! Yes, I think it is time to assess what it is that we are doing -- what really matters? And, maybe thinking to the extreme -- time to 'stop the insanity?'

While you are contemplating some of these issues, may I offer up to you some reading material?

1. First, you must recognize that you experienced this: Life Interrupted -- Yours, Mine and Ours!
2. Next, you want to have this: Reality Check by Guy Kawasaki -- Thank you Guy!
3. Last, go ahead and shout this: Stop the Insanity -- Feel Free to Vent!

Join me on Squidoo to express yourself and get a load off your mind! I know I've gotten LOADS off of my mind over the past several years thanks to Squidoo!

TWEET, TWEET, TWEET! -- Follow me, JaguarJulie on Twitter too! Let's kick our days off together!