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JerseySmarts.com

Summer Is Flying By Really Fast This Year

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Believe it or not, we’re in August already. I don’t know about the rest of you out there, but I think summer is flying by pretty fast this year. It seems like only yesterday that it was the beginning of June and everyone was wondering when it was going to get hot outside.

I think that’s part of it, though. Since the weather has been a little bit wacky and there really haven’t been that many prolonged stretches of “summer weather” in New Jersey, it does make the time fly by a little bit faster. Of course that’s just my reaction to the weather – some people may have viewed the cool temperatures as making it feel like summer was slowly rolling past.

Personally, I’m glad that summer is flying by this year. The two big events I had to look forward to this summer are both over (my buddy’s wedding and my trip to Nashville). Plus, the closer we get to September, the closer I get to teaching over at the local college again! Being the huge nerd that I am, I also view August as preparation month for my course. In the next few days and weeks I’ll start reviewing all of the materials that I use for my class and bring them up to date for the coming semester.

Also, I’m planning on going back to school for a class this semester, but more on that in tomorrow’s entry!

Review of My Trip to Nashville – 2009

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Alright, so everyone knows that I spent the last weekend in Nashville. I figured I would take a little bit of space to talk about what I was doing down there and how the entire trip went.

My purpose for going to Nashville was to attend the Board meeting of the Sigma Pi Educational Foundation. As I reported on this blog last year, I was elected to the Board of Trustees of my fraternity’s foundation; I’m also the Chairman of our Alumni Communications Committee. Since then I’ve attended a few different meetings and they’ve each been rewarding both personally and fraternally. Plus, we have a bunch of really great (and incredibly smart) guys on our Board of Trustees and hanging out with them is a lot of fun.

For lodging, I spent Wednesday through Saturday nights in the freshmen dorms at Vanderbilt University. I should note – while the Foundation has its Board meetings, the Fraternity itself holds its biennial leadership school on Vanderbilt’s campus. It’s one of the “features” of the leadership school that you live on the campus of the university for the weekend. And I’m all for the whole fraternizing with the different generations of the fraternity thing, but my back and body disagrees. In other words, if I have to go down there again I’m going to have to stay in a hotel!

Before I go on, I should also state that the campus is beautiful. The folks who manage Vanderbilt University have done a wonderful job in making that campus appear in tip-top shape at all times. Definitely a job well done.

Tracy Lawrence – a member of our fraternity – was in attendance at the leadership school. He gave a great speech on overcoming adversity. The undergraduates had some questions for him and I thought that his entire presentation was very well done. For a huge country music star, he’s a down to earth kind of guy.

I’ve been down to Nashville twice before and the downtown scene is always great. It was no different this time. Of course, we generally wound up at Lonnie’s Karaoke Bar in Printer’s Alley, but that’s because we’re a bunch of northerners who are fascinated by that whole scene. On Thursday night I may have had a few drinks which led me to get on the stage and sing Don McLean’s American Pie…but that’s another story.

I enjoy going down to Nashville. I can get a bit hot down there, but the people are really nice and the scene is wonderful. It’s definitely a place I would consider living outside of New Jersey. Anyway, I’m back now!

Asbury Park Brings in Big Bucks from Parking

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Who would have thunk it? Asbury Park brought in over $100,000 in parking costs alone in the last three months. The Asbury Park Press reports:

The city brought in close to $1,200 a day in three months of the new paid parking on the waterfront, City Manager Terence Reidy said in a recent report to the City Council.

Reidy said the system of parking pay stations using numbered parking spots brought in a total of $105,000 from the first two months of enforcement last summer and one month this summer.

For some reason that number strikes me as amazing. It’s the result of both people coming back to Asbury Park in the summertime and the town actually preparing to host these people in the proper way (which does include paying for beachfront parking). Also, this story is complimented by the fact that the downtown merchants have prepaid for consumers to use one of the city’s parking decks – free of charge – for the summer.

Asbury Park is putting together the right mix in their downtown and beachfront area. I hope the momentum continues and the City keeps bringing in more tourists and more dollars!

A Beautiful Day at the Jersey Shore

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Come on down! If you’re reading this from somewhere in North Jersey or Central Jersey (not near the Jersey Shore), you should come on over to the Long Branch, Asbury Park, or Ocean Grove beaches. It’s a beautiful day on the Jersey Shore – one of the best that we’ve had all summer!

This morning, I went to the Merrick Farm and picked up my half share of the week’s bounty. I picked up a bunch of interesting looking produce – some of which I know what to do with, some of which I have no idea. I’m going to take some time this morning and make a gigantic salad out of our existing produce from the farm. The new stuff I’m just going to “bank” at the bottom of the fridge in the crisper. Then I’ll be spending a portion of today down in Belmar at a friend’s barbecue.

My goal is to spend this evening relaxing. I’ve had pretty active, hectic weekends for the last few weeks and next weekend I’ll be in Nashville so relaxing will be a nice change of pace!

In the mean time, come on down to the shore!

Bringing on Some Help For Usable Web Solutions, LLC

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After some thought, I’ve decided to bring on additional consultant help for my website company, Usable Web Solutions, LLC. So I’m pleased to bring on Santi F. – a fraternity brother from Seton Hall and friend from back when I was in college. When I was running my chapter of the fraternity down at Monmouth University, he was running his chapter up at Seton Hall. We had a lot of good times with the two groups mixing around.

For those wondering, I now have over 30 clients in the website company and more than 10 pending requests (which would put me around 45 clients overall). For a part time gig, the website company really is heating up!