Continue reading »]]> It’s time for my weekly update.  Thanks to New Years, this week has been a pretty short week again.  It’s weird how fast the week goes when you’re really only in the office a few days.  Also this week, I had an auction on Tuesday.  It was well attended, and prices seemed to be strong.  Could it be a sign of a rebounding economy?

New Year’s Eve was nice and mostly tame – unlike some of the stories I’ve heard from CTP.  On New Year’s Eve, DPE and I headed out to one of our favorite local watering holes.  As expected, it was a bit less crazy there compared to past years at the more “main-stream,” popular bars.  Overall, it was a nice change.  In my older age, New Year’s Eve is really beginning to become overrated.  I can have as much fun, or more, on regular nights out.

The rest of the week was spent working.  I mixed in a two days at the law office, with one day working the phones drumming up auction business for this winter/spring.  At the moment, it looks like we’re going to have a good run of auctions starting in February.  We’ve got a large two-day coin auction, a Hamm’s Bear Art auction, our annual Spring Rendezvous (Native American and Western Collectibles), and a sporting goods auction (firearms, decoys, fishing tackle, et cetera) in the works.  We’re also looking at a antique auction with items from several different parties.  The volume of auctions should make for good momentum heading into the traditional busy spring market.

You’ve likely noticed the new site design around here.  When I first launched the redesign, there was a small error that was causing the site to render incorrectly in Internet Explorer.  It seems instead of typing “=” in some code, I typed “-” – oops.  That made for a weird looking site in Internet Explorer only.  I’ve since caught the error, and now the site is rendering correctly in all three browsers (Internet Explorer 7, Firefox, and Safari).  Yep, three browsers – all of which I have used over the years.  Of the three, I started with IE6, then switched to Firefox when it was first launched, then went to IE7 when it was launched, and have now settled on Safari.  Although, it’s not very popular, Safari is by far the best browser with load times and graphics.

On the social networking front, I activated my otherwise dormant LinkedIn profile.  Now, I’m on Facebook and LinkedIn – not to mention Flickr.  As always, if you’re on any of these sites, please feel free to add me to your contacts.  At the moment, I’m liking LinkedIn – especially the Outlook toolbar.  The toolbar allows me to update my contacts with current information from LinkedIn, and reminds me to communicate with my contacts at least once every 60 days.  I think it will be a good application for farming my “sphere of influence.”

Not much else is new with me.  Today is Saturday, and I’m sure you’ll find me watching some football, and hanging out with friends.  I hope you had a great week.  See you next week!

Continue reading »]]> It’s been a pretty slow writing day for me today.  I’ve been reading a lot online about various topics.  Below is what’s caught my eye in the past few days (minus of course the unusually high amount of items that have been out on the Twins in part to Santana, Hunter and Garza).

Is Johan Santana Declining?

Healthy, wealthy and wise

Bad ideas whose time came: All-time worst company domain names

Foreclosure: Daily Doom and Gloom

More Stats for Your Next Cocktail Party

Now A Second Auctioneer Gets It

Falling prices may lead to higher sales

As you can see, I’m all over the board with my reading.  Although, I didn’t list even 1/3rd of the articles I’ve been reading about the Twins.  In those readings, I’ve heard it all – the Twins got robbed, the D-Rays got robbed, Santana is over the hill, the Twins trade demands are crazy, it’s all there.  I’m not sure I can remember a time the Twins were more talked about besides the days of contraction.

Most of my reading has been sports related.  However, I’ve been ratcheting up my attention to the sub-prime mortgage situation and the effect it is having on mortgage foreclosures.  It’s been an interesting few months.  It’ll really be interesting to see how things play out into the spring market.  Interestingly enough, our phone is starting to ring with people ready to sell, some ready to buy, and an assortment of tire kickers.  Maybe, just maybe, we’ve hit peak?