CRUSH IT BOOK AND TEA TIME

I recently got the question by a former business partner if I had interest in participating in a new project regarding tea. I have been a tea drinker since my childhood. I started to import tea from Hong Kong and Taiwan after my trip in Asia in 1992. [Editor's comment: Here is a different way of brewing your tea...]

I will talk to a former classmate about becoming our tea expert and source of quality teas. She has worked with the promotion of Ceylon tea.



In 2006, I asked a tea shop owner to create Blue Chip Café tea blend (Ceylon, Darjeeling, Lapsang Souchong, blue malva, rum and vanilla).



About a month ago I sent some questions via Twitter to Chris Garrett in time for his interview with Gary Vaynerchuck.

Hi @chrisgarrett my #q4garyvee: Is it correct that you are a tea drinker too? Do you like other types of beverages, e.g. seabuckthorn juice? 12:36 PM Oct 1st from web

@chrisgarrett #q4garyvee: Re. tea & sea-buckthorn. I'm a passionate tea drinker & I will work as a social media enthusiast for a sea-b. co. 12:58 PM Oct 1st from web

Hi @chrisgarrett my #q4garyvee: I recently bought several books on social media and personal branding. http://bit.ly/gSm3a More book tips? 1:10 PM Oct 1st from web

I received Crush It on October 29 and finished reading it the next day.





[Editor's note: If you want to support my blogging in a monetary way, please feel free to click on above affiliate link and purchase the book at Amazon.]

Lo and behold! In appendix b: five business ideas I won't get to - they're yours, you could read the following on page 140:

a tea blog

I think the tea market in the United States is about to blow up, and for the person who wants to educate and entertain the masses there will be enormous opportunity to build a site much like Wine Library TV, Offer a tea-of-the-month club and you'll be in serious business.

Some ideas for the site:

• Tea reviews.
• Tea and food.
• Health studies on tea.
• Tea trade.
• Activities with tea enthusiasts.

[Editor's note: Here is a video clip and Halloween greeting! Please note the spooky "ghost filter" and the Halloween candle burning in the background.]





Related: My posts, CASH IN ON SOUR GRAPES and GOODTHING IN LIFE CARNIVAL AND CHAT.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Campus News Blog: Almost Time for Bubble Tea! (smudailymustang.com)

A LOVELY KITTY I SAW TODAY

Hello again to Martin's readers--I thought I'd post a little update from Hungary, where we are celebrating the anniversary of the 1956 revolution. It being a holiday, the traffic has been calm, so I decided to take advantage of it: I put on my inline skates and hit this road, which leads to a secluded little suburb called Pinnyéd. That is where I met this charming young kitty and her somewhat older brother, who were relaxing on a fence and seemed quite happy to provide me with a photo opportunity. Ain't they just cute?

UPDATE:
[Editor's note: Roland, Great catblogging! I have updated this post because I couldn't find the comment field at the moment. Maybe something has happened at Blogger HQ. I will submit your post to the Friday Ark #266 at The Modulator.]

GOODTHING IN LIFE CARNIVAL AND CHAT

Image via Wikipedia

After I read Gus Van Horn's post, Cooking as a Hobby, I have decided to "kick it up a notch" and start something called #GoodThing in Life Carnival & Chat.

I enjoy reading your "good eats" (to use Alton Brown's wording) posts. I haven't been able to find an ongoing carnival of recipes lately and I wanted to participate now and then in this kind of blogging. Maybe it is time to start a Good Life (#GoodThing on Twitter) blog series with recipes? For inspiration, read my post, Food Trip.

From FOOD TRIP:

I will start to write more posts on the culinary industry, gastronomy and other food related topics. My long-range goal is to write an e-book on the Good Life, e.g., tea, wine, chocolate and chile pepper. I am on the quest to find special "hot & spicy" places all around America. (EGO, July 25, 2009.)

The food recipes carnival will be mixed up with other good things in life as described in my post, NOTE FROM EGO EDITOR:

At the end of the week, I will use the odd phrase "Thank God It’s Friday" with posts on the good life, e.g. wine and other beverages, recipes, and "glorious lunch break" (quote by Mary Ann Sures) moments. (EGO, August 27, 2008.)

I am planning to kick-off the carnival during the Thanksgiving weekend. Please send your entries to me by email [Lyceum AT Gmail DOT com] before Sunday, November 22. It would be great to have some kind of chat in conjunction with the carnival. I am thinking of using Twubs or Tinychat. Please come with suggestions on how we could have a live session on this topic. If you are interested in hosting a carnival in the future, please send me an email or write a comment.

Here are some food for thought material and tasty links for your reading / viewing pleasure:

• Martini by Hot For Words.

Related: My post, PERSIAN LIME MARTIN(I).

• What Wine Pairs With Cereal? – Episode #734 by Gary Vaynerchuk.

Related: My post, CASH IN ON SOUR GRAPES.

• What I Learned From the Food Channel About Developing a Niche by Anita Campbell.

• Good Things by Amy Mossoff.

My posts, CARNIVAL OF THE DANISH RECIPES and CARNIVAL OF THE RECIPES.

Cheers!

• Say What? by John Cox.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Crush It! (800ceoread.com)

MELTING POT AND INNOVATIVE IDEAS

Please read my new post, The Melting Pot Bubbles with Innovative Business Ideas, on Open Forum.


Image source: screenshot of Open Forum.

Related: My posts, IMMIGRANT VISA PROGRAM and USA - LAND OF OPPORTUNITY.

BAD BLOG ACTION DAY

I found out via Chris Guillebeau's post, Avoiding False Dichotomies, that it is Blog Action Day (BAD) today. The topic is "climate change"... I want to change the intellectual climate by publishing this post!

Related: MICHAEL GRIFFIN ON CLIMATE by Roland Horvath.

Related articles by Zemanta

• "Blog Action Day - climate change" and related posts (samizdata.net)

EXPLORING AMERICA ON COLUMBUS DAY

Image via Wikipedia

How did you celebrate Columbus Day? I paid a tribute to the great explorer by reading passages from Thomas A. Bowden's book, The Enemies of Christopher Columbus, and thinking of my future exploration of the land of opportunity.



In the news: Is Columbus Day Sailing Off the Calendar? - The Wall Street Journal.

UPDATE 10/13/09:

Columbus Day Celebrates Western Civilization

Related articles by Zemanta

• DENVER COLUMBUS DAY PARADE IS ON, despite hoax. "A Denver parade in honor of Christopher Columbus i... (pajamasmedia.com)

BACK TO BASICS

I am glad to see that my post on Open Forum, Productivity Tools For Your Worklife, has been "retweeted" so many times. I want to highlight C. Scyphers, who gave a short & sweet summary of my post:

scyphers says: Tips for managing time: (OpenForum) Recap; Actual inbox, empty email, mindmap, small tasks, take notes, always improve (1st October 4:19, Tweetmeme / Twitter.)

Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends, wrote the following comment on my post:

Martin, good article! I have tried, but I find it impossible to a zero inbox -- or even close to zero, say 30 unread emails. Unfortunately, my unread emails number in the 3-figures or 4-figures. Of course, most of those are monitoring emails, such as Google Alerts, or newsletter subscriptions, or email notifications about comments on my various blogs. I've tried setting up special folders and automatically pushing certain emails to those folders so I can review them later. That helps. But even so, unread emails just accumulate in my inbox. Then eventually they get archived, and that helps keep the numbers down. Of course, my business is mainly Web-based and 99% of everything we do involves email. But I wonder if others have the same problem? -- Anita (Open Forum, idea hub - topic: innovation, October 2009.)

As I said in my post, I have struggled with maintaining an empty email inbox for a long time. At the moment, I have 8794 messages in the inbox... I have to archive them and start from scratch again. I am sure that the GTDInbox is a great application and solution to this problem. Please read, Why Email is Addictive (listen to the rats), for a possible explanation to the email "problem"...



Amanda Stillwagon, editor of Small Business CEO, has used an excerpt of my post in her post, Work Smarter With Productivity Tools. Please feel free to leave a comment here, at SMBCEO.com, or a vote at bizSugar.

I will go back to basics and use a low-tech solution:

• Stack of index cards with a clip, a.k.a a Hipster PDA. I am using pre-printed to-do cards by Stiernholm Consulting.
• Small pens. I am using a TEC pico pen and a Fisher space pen.
• Notebooks. I am using Moleskine notebooks.

For inspiration, I will participate in Stephen Smith's "work.life.creativity" forum and continue to read Todoodlist by Nick Cernis. [Editor's note: If you are interested to read Todoodlist and at the same time support my blogging, please click the "buy now" button. I wonder if I have to add a disclosure to this post? Read Duncan Riley's post, My FTC Disclosure, and have you done yours yet?]

Related articles by Zemanta

• Is the FTC being used to marginalize independent bloggers? (inquisitr.com)

MICHAEL MOORE AND HIS HATE STORY

Here is an excerpt from Jonathan Hoenig's article, Michael Moore Is Clueless on 'Capitalism':

After making an unpaid cameo in his last movie, I have no interest in seeing Michael Moore’s new film bashing capitalism. But even from the few interviews I’ve caught, it is quickly apparent that Moore is ignorant – obviously willingly so – of exactly what capitalism is. In a popular clip now circulating online, Moore incoherently struggles to describe capitalism as “the legal system which allows this greed to take place,” quickly suggesting that “the regulation and rules that used to keep these people in check…” -- businesspeople we can presume -- is “no longer is keeping them in check.” (October 1, 2009, SmartMoney.com.)

Related: My post, PICK A BOOK.

UPDATE 10/05/09: Read mtnrunner2's post, A Review of Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story" at Fun With Gravity.