May your deductions be many and your audits be few. I loathe filing my taxes so you will notice this is one area of finance I usually don’t touch in my blog! Now let the countdown begin till we receive those “economic stimulus” checks/direct deposits!
Happy filing!
Just wanted to post a quick message to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year!!!
Whether Christmas is a secular or religious holiday for you, I hope you are enjoying a peaceful time of rest. Please keep our troops in your mind, heart, and prayers this holiday season. Regardless what your political belief or take on the War in Iraq is, these brave men and women are far from home and loved ones doing a job that puts their lives at risk every day… may we pray for peace on earth and a safe trip home for our troops.
Looking forward to what 2008 has in store for us.
All the best,
Thomas S. Goodwin
Ok, I realize this is a financial blog and Chris Henry, the suspended Bengals football player, has absolutely nothing to do with real estate, insurance, or investments… but I just couldn’t resist.
According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Cincinnati Bengals have applied to the City of Cincinnati requesting permission to shoot pigeons. Apparently these pesky birds are creating quite a mess in the stadium, even during games. The Bengals are requesting permission to shoot the birds to remedy the problem.
One can’t help but think this is amusing given the fact that the Bengals’ players have some legal problems off the field, notably for weapons charges (that would be you Chris Henry!!!) I guess this will give Chris something to do during his eight game suspension… hey, he needs to make a living too ya know!
May I also suggest to the Bengals that they have Deltha O’Neal and Odell Thurman serving up beer in the stadium’s concession stand while they serve their suspensions?!
Here’s an excellent story on ESPN.com citing the problems with the Cincinnati Bengals and also pokes fun of this town in general! I think it’s rather humorous and I even live here so it’s healthy to laugh at ones self every now and then. Enjoy!
The only thing fitting that I simply have to add to the ESPN article is a quote by Mark Twain: When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati. Because Cincinnati is always 20 years behind the times.
As always, I welcome your comments and feedback…
I just posted an article about how I fought the law… well, the Ohio Administrative Code regarding open burning. It appears someone else has taken matters into their own hands when it comes to dealing with the law:
Yes, it appears that in Miami Township, Ohio (a suburb of Cincinnati) someone has taken it upon themselves to let the public know just how they feel about their police force… while doing so anonymously. I wish I knew why this person did this… there simply HAS to be a good story behind this. Was it a parking ticket? A speeding ticket? Or some other traffic citation?! Imagine the puzzled look on the officer’s face when the speeder grins and gladly accepts the $85 speeding ticket. The article on the Cincinnati Enquirer website said the police narrowed down the time of the incident to “between 8pm August 27th and 7am August 28th.” (Adobe .pdf version of the article). Wow. I’m going out on a limb here to say it will be hard for them to pin down a suspect on this one. I mean, even if they have a short list of people to choose from (the article states someone must’ve had a key to the backhoe and knew how to operate it), you are still facing a group of alibias where most of them consist of this:
Detective: “Sir/mam, where were you between 8pm and 7am on August 27/28th?”
Suspect: “I watched the 10:00 news and then I went to bed; woke up at my usual 5/6/7/8 or whenever”….
The point is… deep down someone is snickering and feeling vindicated. I can’t condone this kind of behavior, but I have to be impressed with the creativity and great length that someone went through to pull this off. It may seem juvenile, but what it really did was embarrass the local authorities. If you lived in Miami Township, or if you DO live in Miami Twp, how much does this make you believe in your police force?!
This should just be a reminder to people that we live in a society in which some people are not all there in the head. I can’t imagine a sane, rational person thinking this is a wise thing to do. Were there drugs involved? Was the person who did this high as a kite? We may never know. But next time someone cuts you off in traffic or lets their dog pee on your lawn, just remember they could be taking some kind of anti-depressant or on some type of illegal drug. It’s best not to instigate or fuel a volatile situation in this day and age in which we live. Ok, I will get off my soapbox, but let’s try to be respectful of one another and of course respectful of the law and those who are in power and risk their lives to enforce it.
As always I welcome your comments and feedback…
It was a draw. Stalemate. While I am preface this by saying I am NOT an attorney, I do feel that through my business law classes and experience in government regulated businesses (real estate and insurance) I think I have a good handle on how the legal system works. But recently I discovered a new part of the law that I had previously not been exposed to: the Ohio Administrative Code. Did you know… “With few exceptions, most types of open burning are prohibited in Ohio“… this is a quote directly from the pamphlet entitled Open Burning - A Guide to Open Burning Safely and Legally, published by Hamilton County [Ohio] Environmental Services with input from the US and Ohio EPA.
This past Sunday I decided it was time to get rid of the six-foot tall pile of tree branches and yard waste in my back yard. Yes, it’s been a busy summer of trimming pine trees here in Cincinnati. I did not want to send all of this to the landfill, and I did not want to pay some tree trimmer to haul it away. Why not burn it? Well, apparently this is against the law… er, administrative code… in Ohio. One of my neighbors called the police on me for having an “open burn” as the officer called it. I didn’t see what the big deal was… I had two fire extinguishers, a charged hose, and two buckets of water. Doesn’t matter, even if the fire is well-controlled I did not have a permit.
The Permit Process:
1) Call the local fire department and request application for the Open Burn. You must specify what you are burning and when you will burn it. You should schedule this at least two weeks in advance I’m told.
2) Submit application to fire department. Upon fire department approval, go to step 3.
3) Submit fire department approved permit application along with any county fee to the county’s department of environmental services division for final approval.
Either one of the two government entities (the fire department or the county environmental services division) can deny the application for a permit, for virtually any reason by the way.
So how does anyone ever get to burn yard waste with all that red tape?!
Ah ha! There are exceptions to the Ohio Administrative Code regarding open burning.
Quoting once again from the same Hamilton County Environmental Services brochure:
The following exceptions are allowed: “cooking for human consumption (e.g. barbecues), heating tar, welding torches, smudge pots, and heating for warmth for outdoor workers.”
Guess who had his 1st Annual Thomas Goodwin Labor Day Cookout this year!!! That’s right… there were hot dogs, sausages, cheddarwursts, and s’mores served up over a pile of burning pine needles. And not only did I make sure I notified the fire and police departments in advance of my legal cookout (as a courtesy of course), I went one step further and invited these two fine public servant departments to my cookout. I would love to see the neighbor’s face when he or she called to report the second fire in as many days only to see the police arrive to partake in a hotdog and Coke.
The moral of this story… wait, let’s not call it a moral. I know what I did was legal but let’s not get into morals and ethics just yet… the little nugget of wisdom I took away from this event was that sometimes you have to look for the legal way to do things even if means making the simple task more complicated. Both days I had a fire. The second one was more work and more involved as it required me to go buy hotdogs, buns, condiments, etc. It made my fire legitmate though, and it was more enjoyable, too. I got to have a cookout with some close friends and even invited (some of) the neighbors.
As always, I welcome your comments and feedback…
I don’t like to write about my accomplishments. It makes me feel like they are not as impressive when I have to broadcast them. But then I guess if I don’t tell people about them, how will they ever know when I have achieved something!?!
So it is with great reluctance that I post this to my blog. This week I completed my Accredited Advisor in Insurance (AAI) designation. While this may not exactly rival completing my MBA at Xavier University (which I am set to do within the next year… or so… as I only have 5 courses left), this is still an important designation that builds on my existing coursework in insurance. Not only does it satisfy my continuing education requirements for the state of Ohio, but it has also provided me with a much better understanding of how to manage an insurance agency should I ever choose to do so. As many of you know, right now I am not actively selling insurance as an agent, but it’s something I might do (again) in the future.
You can read more about the Accredited Advisor in Insurance designation by visiting the AICPCU.org website. The complete list of my academic accomplishments and professional experience can be found on the About the Blogger page of my website. I am continuing to make progress toward completing my MBA, obtaining the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) designation, as well as various other designations. The next thing that I absolutely must complete though, is my required 30 hours of real estate continuing education that is due on my birthday this year. Once I complete that, my real estate license will be valid through 2010.
Oh, and I am also proud to be associated with the Xavier University School of Business and particularly the MBA program. Once again, and for the second year in a row, the part-time MBA program is ranked as one of the best in the nation by US News and World Report, 26th overall.
As always, I appreciate your comments and feedback…
There’s an old saying Change is good. I’ve continually added more financial topics to this website and received an increasing number of emails and feedback about its content. But it’s not enough to simply add more topics or to post more articles to my blog with increased frequency though. I am now striving to add valuable content that is original in thought and provokes a great discussion.
To help keep the audience as up-to-date as possible, an RSS Feed has been added to the website. By clicking on the Subscribe button you can receive the latest updates in your email or through your Yahoo!, Google, etc. homepages/accounts. I want you all to know that I do not have access to a list of my subscribers so I don’t know who is “accepting the feed” and therefore I do not know who my subscribers are (unless they of course email me and indicate that they are a subscriber). I mention this because I don’t want people to be concerned that their personal information will be passed on to others and also that it is strictly anonymous. I don’t who reads this blog, and I like it that way because then it is no different whether you simply visit my website or receive the content via email.
I do however appreciate any and all feedback, comments, criticisms, etc. And to provoke a great discussion about current events related to my website’s theme All Things Financial, I would envite you all to let me know what financial topics and which events in the stock market or real estate market are of most importance to you. These comments in the blog or emails are a great way for me to tailor the content to the readers’ interests and I hope you will make this website an interactive and fun financial resource for all to share.
Thanks for reading, I appreciate you visiting my website!
I am pleased to announce that with the help of Aaron Forgue, we have launched a new website for Northern Pine Properties, Inc. As many of you know, Northern Pine Properties is the company that I founded for my real estate holdings, only to evolve into the company that I am using to launch additional ventures.
While the company website is still very static and will require additional work to fill in the content as well as adding additional features - such as a Contact page, etc., the “bare bones” are now in place and I appreciate any feedback or comments you might have. If you have an interest in real estate and/or alternative energy, the Northern Pine website is where I hope to update my activities in these areas - such as investing in land and my interest in solar power.
As always, I appreciate your comments and feedback…
A sure sign that we might be heading back toward another dotcom bust… my dog has his own website now. He just started it so let’s try to be encouraging and supportive. Please take a moment to hop on over to GarbanzoTheDog.com. I know it doesn’t look like much when you click around but keep in mind that he doesn’t have thumbs so it’s kind of hard for him to do a lot of this stuff.
Or if you’re more interested in making the Internet work for your small business take a moment to look at the recently updated Solo Signal website. It features a good explanation of how to structure your links instead of simply typing “Click Here“. It’s worth a read.
Ok, ok, so this blog entry was mostly shameless self-promotion. But I will be taking a short break from blogging due to the July 4th holiday. I hope you all have a great holiday and I look forward to reading your emails and comments when I get back.
As always, I appreciate the feedback!
Most people don’t know that I’ve spent several years in the big leagues. I try to be low key about it, but then someone like ESPN goes and creates a webpage devoted to my career and my statistics. I guess it’s good to show that I’m a well-rounded person and not just a talking head on the Internet…
Tom Goodwin, Major League Baseball Veteran Player
Ok, so if you see the picture you will realize that there is more than one Tom Goodwin in this world. But it’s nice that we share a name where each of us is a good, upstanding citizen. I would probably not be too happy if I shared a name with someone like Chris Henry, or similar pro athlete that always seems to make the news for reasons other than his or her athletic talent.
As always, I welcome your comments…
Thomas Goodwin
1440 S. Breiel Blvd. Middletown, Ohio 45044
Phone: (513) 307-3177 • Fax: (513) 424-0386