There is a really strong storm moving into the Lubbock area and it has caused the sky to look really neat. Half of the sky is black and the other half looks like a perfect blue. I wish I had a decent camera to grab a shot of it.

Now I am just praying that my truck doesn’t take any hail damage.

Well, Google has filed with the SEC for IPO status. Google says it plans to raise $2.7 billion from the sale of its stock. They will be offering the stock in an online auction, which is a brand new way of doing things. Google claims the method will make the stock available to more people.

Google’s net income is actually higher than Amazon’s (Amazon sees more revenue but has a lot more costs).

So how do I feel about this? Well, I do like the fact that Google’s numbers are available to the people but I also see that as a bad thing. Google has to release their advertising numbers and the numbers from their AdWords and AdSense programs, which will give the competition an insight into what to charge.

I do know for a fact that the average “Joe” will not be able to afford this stock for a while. I am expecting the price to rise immediately and not taper off for a couple of years. It will be a hot buy for a while.

Well, I was looking through all of the traffic I have been getting lately and I noticed that a lot of it was coming from Google.fr which is the French version of Google. It seems that there is a TV actor that goes by the name “Badice”… I found this about him. I do not really feel like getting it translated but I think he may be on a reality based TV show.

To all of you French visitors, I am not this Badice guy, nor does this site contain anything about him! =)…. Now in French:

So, I signed up for the iTunes Music Store today… Let me just say, I am very impressed. For $.99 you can download a song and not worry about the entire album, plus you can preview the song before you buy it. If you want the whole album, the price is usually $9.99 for 12-13 songs, which blows Best Buy’s prices out of the water. The great thing about iTunes is that I can then put the songs on a CD, add them to an iPod (when I get one), or share them over a network. I am just wholeheartedly impressed with Apple and the whole iTunes idea. If you have not checked it out yet, definitely give it a look.

Just a couple of classes tomorrow and this week is over, then the finals begin.

My programming teacher tried explaining databases today. Now, he’s not the most versed person in the world of databases so it was even confusing me, and I understand databases!

At work I am trying to get a update script to work completely. Basically I am having to update multiple records with different “keys” in different tables…. ugh…. The kicker is that all of the records have to be updated at the same time. Where’s Oracle when you need it!?

Well, that’s pretty much it for today…

School is almost out! I have about a week left of classes then finals, so the end of year 2 of college is coming to a close. I am not too worried about any of the finals except for of course, Managerial Accounting. Since it is cumulative it is a whole lot of information stuffed into an eighty question test.

The final for my programming class should not be too hard at all. It is basically common knowledge things that I already know.

Now Marketing, this is where it gets interesting. We are allowed to have 12 pages of hand written notes during the test. Now, I know this sounds great and all but trying to go through 12 pages of notes to find an answer is a little crazy. I think my strategy for this one will be 6 pages of notes with extremely important stuff highlighted.

My Business Law exam is not cumulative which takes a lot of stress off. The reason being is that this guy’s tests are insanely difficult and a cumulative test would be right up there on the impossible chart.

What else is going on in my life? Well, for one, my job is going great. I really enjoy working with these guys as the work is challenging but lets me do what I like doing.

I have also recently found out that I can paint the vinyl part of my truck’s top with spray paint to make the fade go away. This is probably an undertaking that will happen when I get back to Houston because if I do it here the chances of getting dust in the paint are 100%.

Adam Polselli, has posted some great new photos of spring and the spring feel. You can take a look a them here. Very nice work Adam!

Well I have been extremely busy lately with school. Accounting has eaten up a lot of my time with Marketing coming in a close second. These next couple of weeks are the last of this semester so things will start to slow down and I’ll finally get a break.

I somewhat have an idea of what I want to do with the site and have laid some of it out on paper. When things start slowing down and summer starts coming around, then I will be able to implement some of this stuff.

The Java programming class I am taking is going fairly well. We have covered error handling, which was something I think should have been done earlier and with more depth. I have a project due in there next week that deals with the Swing package and error handling, shouldn’t be too hard.

I think I know the absolute worst way to treat a customer now. I went to a food chain (that will remain nameless) and the lady taking my order just acted put out by the fact that I was interrupting her ‘doing nothing’ time. If I am interrupting you so much, just get someone else to take my order, do not try and make me feel guilty because you have to work. We have all encountered this scenario sometime in our lives, and we all hate it. It is very frustrating to have someone act put out with you just because they are working and you are not.

I am currently reading Creating Customer Evangelists and it brings up some good points about the 4 “P’s” (Product, Price, Placement, and Promotion) not always having to be the focus of a companies’ marketing strategy. Does a good product sell itself? Should it? Let’s say you are a bank, what are you selling? You are selling service, support, and satisfaction, so basically, nothing truly tangible. So does a bank need to advertise? Probably not as much as other businesses. Why? Well banks are a good example of word of mouth advertising. People who use a bank and are pleased with it will basically advertise to their friends, coworkers, and family members about your bank, even if you do not have the best rates. So you basically get FREE customers by keeping your exsisting customer base happy. Easy enough right?

Service is the name of the game nowadays. However, there are still a lot of people who shop based solely on price (homogenous shoppers), so how do you reel them in? It’s a hard problem to solve because lowering your prices too low causes your product to look cheap.