SWCAMBORNE

Last Thursday on Thanksgiving we had a traditional sit down Thanksgiving Dinner with the extended family and it was wonderful.  And then on Saturday we had a non-traditional, gourmet, small bites Thanksgiving celebration courtesy of Lillian and Rebecca.

Lillian and Mary Ann

It was amazingly good.  I only took a few pictures because I was to busy eating, drinking and grousing about how badly USC was beating UCLA (final 50 – 0).

Food

The food was super and the small bite part of it made it possible to taste everything without getting stuffed.

Album Here

Rebecca and Nurit

There is an opportunity here for rethinking Holiday food away from quantity and towards superb taste.  And I think the small bites idea makes it possible.  For instance Lillian made a wonderful Pumpkin Bean Soup but instead of serving bowls of it, she served it in stemmed wine glasses.  It was just a taste that was easy to hold and it was amazingly delicious.  I them still had an appetite for the rest of the meal

Free postcards, almost as much of an anachronism
as free matches.
 Loews Hotel

Change is….

In the last year I have posted about 40+/- items in the ideas category.  Some are repeats,  some are maxims about ideas but it looks like there are about 30 new ideas and some of them are pretty good ideas.  There are social ideas as well as product and service ideas.  Some of them are original like the Israeli Student Marching Band in the Rose Parade and some of them are giving publicity and perhaps a tweak to an idea that someone else is developing on a regional basis like Cereal Boxx in Tucson.

a wreath by Lillian

To See All of the new ideas in the last year click here

My top ideas from this last year:

• Tears of Affliction  a product
• What is growing there?  an iPhone app
• Guilt Free Garage Refrigerator a product
• Cereal Boxx a restaurant concept
• Emergency Preparedness personal readiness
• Spanx Improvement a product for those of a certain age
• Hamburger Phone the product you need to drive and talk
• A New Rose Parade Entry a marketing idea for Israel
• Charity Christmas Card Combo a fund raising idea for charities
• Zip Lines of Pasadena urban zip lines what a great idea

Let me know which one you like or hate by leaving a comment below.

Thanks

Simon

Want to know the average daily wage in the USA?  This chart has it and hundred of other interesting and addictive facts:  Money Chart

http://xkcd.com/980/huge/#x=-4832&y=-2560&z=2

Be careful it is addictive.

Back in 2006 I claimed the title of Ideapreneur.  And then basically did nothing with it except have about 240 new ideas in the ensuing five years.  Which turn out to be almost 50 ideas a year or almost one a week.  So I’m going to make the ideapreneur a regular weekly feature on swcamborne.com.  Like the weekly maxim or Simon says Postcards.  I think it will be scheduled for Saturdays.  Sometimes it will be a new idea sometimes I’ll recycle one of those 240 ideas that you ignored last time around.

An example is theServer School. Tag line: “Get more tips tomorrow guaranteed.”

On the recycled ideas: Copy and Paste, an update or just add a link to the original? Your thoughts?

Next Saturday top ideas from 2011.

Yesterday Nurit excitedly called me to the back window.  “He’s back!”  Sure enough a Great Blue Heron had stopped by the pond to investigate.

Unfortunately because of Koimageddon the pickings are slim, unless you like frog legs.

Happy Thanksgiving to All!

I am thankful that I can live in beautiful Southern California

with the resources to have an urban lifestyle and a rural ecosystem. 

Life is Good!

From:

Great Jewish Quotes

by Noah ben Shea

Since we must all die in the end,

Hoarding is folly, enjoyment is wise.

Jean-Jacques Boisard

1743 – 1831

There is talk about taxing financial transactions as a way to punish those in the finance business and to raise revenue.  Without taking sides I discovered today that this idea has been tried before with varying results.  I was looking through a baggie of 1930′s stamps that I bought at a yard sale and came across this one:

It turns out that from about 1909 to about 1930 New York State did charge brokers a stock transfer tax.  There was also one in the 1960′s and for some of that period the Federal Government also had a transfer tax.

I’m not sure what the rates were in the past but there is no question that if you make something more expensive by taxing it you will have less of it.  Financial transactions would move to where they were treated better, maybe Singapore or Belgrade.  Is this the result we want? Here is a link to an article that strongly opposes the transaction tax.  And another one on the pro side.  I’ll have to think about this one some more.

Which was named first the “beehives rock or the Beehive State?

Life is Good!

Answer Here

Utah Drive By