Personal Blog
Here is an actual conduct note I recently received from my son Victor’s kindergarden teacher. I swear I did not teach him the behavior described in the teacher’s last entry, but I can’t wait to show this to him in about 10 years! Can anybody tell me how to have a “serious talk” with him about this without bursting into laughter?
Vic
Posted in Victor.
Is an extra $50 bucks worth 5 minutes of your time?
Every month I will be giving away a $50 gift card. Winners can choose between Wal Mart, Target, or a Shell gas card. Drawings will be held the first week of each month and winners will be notified immediately by email or phone.
Here’s how you enter for the drawing: Simply click on this link to watch the 4-minute video, then fill out the short form below it. Be sure to put my name (Shayne Hall) in the last box under “Promo Code/Agent Name.” You must type my name in that box to be entered in the drawing. That’s all there is to it. Watch the video and fill out the form and your name will be placed in the next month’s drawing for a $50 gift card from your choice of Wal Mart, Target, or a Shell gas card.
You are not required to register for my free e-newsletter on this blog to be entered into the drawing. That said, I encourage you to sign up for the newsletter while you’re here because it has some great stuff in it for you every month and you can always “opt-out” and cancel your subscription at any time. I’m just giving away the monthly $50 gift card as a way to say “thank you” for helping me spread the word about how I help people secure their financial future.
Thank you and good luck,
Shayne Hall
Posted in Financial Security, Uncategorized.
In a minute I’m going to tell you how to turn $10 into $8,470, and for a really great cause.
But first, let me tell you about my friend Danny Landry, who is currently helping to raise $20,000 by June 5, 2009 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. The money will be used to fund cutting-edge research to eradicate the number 1 cancer killer of children, leukemia. Over the past few weeks, Danny has had the opportunity to meet a few of the children and adults in Lafayette, LA whom this disease has affected.
Danny told me that one child in particular, Devyn Abshire, lives so close to him that she might as well be his next-door neighbor. Her Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia was successfully treated and she is now in remission. Danny credits his cousin Katie, whose leukemia is in remission, as the reason he decided to accept this fund-raising challenge. Personally, I have a sister-in-law who has battled the disease for several years. She has been in remission for over a year now.
So how can you help turn $10 into $8,470 and help Danny help children with leukemia? A link to this blog post is going out to my 739 Twitter followers and 108 Facebook friends. If all 847 contacts send a small gift of $10, we would add $8,470 to Danny’s efforts. I want to help him, not just because he’s a friend, but because I admire someone who accepts such a challenge. It’s not easy to raise money in tough economic times, no matter how good the cause.
If you would like to contribute by check please make it payable to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, write “Danny Landry” on the memo line, and mail to:
Danny Landry
2851 Johnston Street
Lafayette, LA 70503
If you prefer to make a secure donation online, please visit his page on the Leukemia & Lymphoma website.
Danny told me that he would not ask anyone to do something that he himself is not willing to do, so he has donated a gift of $100 of his personal funds, $500 from his business, and about 20 hours of his time. I agree with that philosophy, so I am also making a donation of money, time and resources (like this blog post, and using twitter and Facebook).
In the past, I have responded to requests for donations from friends online and forwarded emails about worthwhile charities to some people in my email address book, but this is the first time I’ve used my blog and linked it with Twitter and Facebook for a charity. I hope you’ll join Danny and me and help make it a worthwhile effort.
Posted in Uncategorized.
I’m not a native (I was born in Arkansas), but I’ve lived in southwest Louisiana since I was 4. I don’t remember how old I was when I had my first taste of boiled crawfish, but it was a long time ago. Over the years, I’ve been to countless crawfish boils and have seen, and eaten, crawfish cooked many different ways. Some people just boil the mudbugs, drain the basket, and dump them out on the table to eat. Others boil first, then put the crawfish in an ice chest to steam them. A few years ago, I attended a crawfish boil where they put a jar of sliced jalepeno peppers in the ice chest with a just-out-of the-pot boiled batch to steam in some extra flavor…if you haven’t had them that way, I highly recommend it…delicious. Everybody’s got their own little special ways to season and cook boiled crawfish.
But yesterday, I was introduced to a shocking method for boiling crawfish. Well, actually it’s The shocking method. A bunch of us went to my buddy Jeremy Guidry’s house for a crawfish boil and his little brother, Jonathan (the guy in the middle - he’s definitely got a shocking personality - in a fun way) volunteered to do the cooking, and he showed us how to shock crawfish. Apparently, shocking refers to the process of dumping ice into the boiling pot water after boiling a batch of crawfish, letting the ice melt for a couple of minutes, then dumping the crawfish into an ice chest for steaming for a couple more minutes.
Shayne, Jonathan, & Donald
What happens is the quick temperature change causes the head and the tails to separate. That, in turn, lets in more of the seasoning while they’re steaming in the ice chest, and it makes them very easy to peel and eat. It’s an extra step and it slows things down because you have to wait longer than usual for the water to return to a boil for the next batch, but you can definitely tell the difference when you eat shocked crawfish.
D, Cliff & Me
Posted in Uncategorized.
I hesitated to put this blog post here because this site is generally just a personal blog, and not a commercial site. Be that as it may, I am a small business owner and I get many visitors here that are small business owners as well. So I wanted to let you know about BizPack, a system that can save you both time and money in your business, as well as add to your existing revenue. BizPack is the latest offering from United First Financial, with vital functions which are absolute necessities for today’s small business owner.
BizPack includes:
On top of that, BizPack is a web-based application, so you can access your BizPack programs from any device with an internet connection. Obviously, a huge convenience. As for security, your data is always safe and password protected with 128-bit encryption and a constant back-up system.
United First Financial is the first company to put all of these important functions into a single product, making it very affordable for the small business owner. You get all of these for $129/ month and if you sign up before March 16, 2009 United First Financial will waive the $299 start-up fee.
If you’re curious, you can test-drive BizPack for free until March 16th.
If you have any questions, please leave me a Comment.
Posted in Uncategorized, United First Financial.
Here are some brand new pics of Vic (age 4)
riding in his first Mardi Gras parade
(at his daycare). He had a blast!
Posted in Victor.
Everyone uses Twitter their own way. For me it is a great way to connect with many of you.
In order for you to know what to expect, what I am posting about and whom I’ll follow, I found someone else’s “Twitter Policy” that resonated with me and made it my own with their permission. I have modified it here slightly to make it fit exactly the way I currently use Twitter:
1. Confidentiality
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. If you tell me something that is not meant for the public it will stay where it belongs.
2. Subject of postings
I post about what I am passionate about. I am passionate about a wide variety of things: marketing, parenting, staying in shape, dogs, sports, sports cars, deep-sea fishing, Jesus. I am not posting about every leaf falling off the trees in my yard. You can learn more about my personal interests at the About section of this blog.
I am not using 5 different accounts to serve 5 different purposes. Sometimes my postings might seem rather irrelevant to you. Just wait for the next one;-)
3. Conversations
I am trying to limit the amount of time I spend daily on twitter to 30 minutes max. If we get engaged into a longer conversation I will resort to DM, email, or phone.
4. Me following you
If I follow you then I checked out your postings on Twitter and probably your website. There could be many reasons I am following you.
There is a catch though: If I follow you and you don’t follow me back, you have a higher chance of being removed from my follows list when I clean up once in a while…for a couple of reasons:
1) I like to use DM when I see or notice something that is not meant for the public but just for you.
2) I may have been following you for several weeks without reciprocation (when it’s obvious that you normally reciprocate), we obviously have something in common, and I see we have many of the same people in our followers & following lists. Generally, I’m going to lose interest in someone who’s not interested in me.
There is one exception from this rule: If you are a very unique thinker that I consider totally essential you are fairly safe on my follows list. That is your call;-)
5. You following me
I check out my new follows quite often. If you are of interest to me you’ll most probably get a follow back.
I look at the relevance, the quality and quantity of your tweets. I’ll also look at your profile and your website if you have one posted there. I do block spammers and wish I could remove them from my list of followers to keep things clean.
6. Monitoring Twitter
I follow Twitter on my Laptop only so please do not expect me on 24×7. There are other things to do in life. I block time in the mornings and afternoons to check out any new followers, search for new follows of my own, and read DMs and @Replies. If your DM is personal you’ll most probably get a reply. If you send me a reply to @mshaynehall I’ll read it for sure. In many cases I will reply - sometimes as a direct message.
7. Protected Postings
I don’t like that feature too much. It is like a Twitter within Twitter to me. I won’t knock at your door (ok, I did once, but never again). You’ll have to follow me first.
8. Uncopyright - You can copy this!
I borrowed most of this Twitter policy from Klaus Holzapfel with his permission so I wanted to give him the credit and a link back to his blog. I modified his original “My Twitter Policy” blog post to fit the way I use Twitter (which happens to be very similar). He is actually one of my favorite peeps I’ve met on Twitter. Thanks Klaus!
So I invite you to check me out (Klaus too) and if you see a like minded person(s) it would be nice if we hook up on Twitter. It is also TOTALLY ok to respectfully decline.
Quality should come before quantity. Both ways. Makes sense?
As Twitter changes my policy will be subject to change as well…
Posted in Uncategorized.
If you have an affinity for deep-sea fishing like me, the next time you’re out on the water and the fish are not biting, it might be because of killer whales. Wait a minute? Aren’t killer whales only found in cold ocean waters, not in warm waters like the Gulf of Mexico? Well until very recently, that was thought to be the case, but check out this news story from Orange Beach, Alabama.
Personally, I think killer whales are beautiful creatures, but I hope they find another part of the world for their hunting and feeding soon. I like my Tuna fishing. Hopefully by September, when the Tuna fishing gets cranked up in the Gulf of Mexico, they will have moved on.
If you like deep-sea fishing and have a comment about the Killer Whales in the Gulf of Mexico, I’d like to hear from you, so please leave a Comment on this post.
Thanks & happy fishing!
Shayne
Posted in Deep-Sea Fishing.
Read the ezines article I recently wrote about maintaining a gas golf cart.
Please leave me a comment and let me know if you think the information is helpful.
Thanks,
Shayne
Posted in Golf Carts.
