Home-based businesses take root in the Northland

For decades, the Twin Ports' economic landscape was planted firmly in big business such as manufacturing, shipping, and mining. Although these trades are still vital to our economy, today's technological advances are sowing the seeds of a new entrepreneurism that is allowing more people to jump the corporate ship and test the waters of going into business for themselves. Home-based businesses in our region have emerged from the shadows in recent years and proven that they can have a measurable impact on a local economy. We spoke with several area home-based business people about why this impact will continuewow power leveling, to grow in coming years. In addition to offering tips on how to start a home-based business, they also explain why membership in the Chamber of Commerce is even more important to those who go it alone. Mark Anthony, president of the Home-Based Business Association of Minnesota, operates an extremely infon-native web site on the subject (www.hbba.org). Anthony believes that Duluth is ripe for more home-based businesses. He says, "Duluth and the Iron Range are explosive right now in regard to this trend. We've had a lot of inquirie from the area." Anthony says that a bias once attached to this type of business is eroding.
"There is still a stigma with home-based businesses among dyed in the wool corporates," begins Anthony. "Just five years ago, it was like pulling teeth to get someone to admit that they worked out of the home. Now, it's become almost a status symbol." Perhaps the image of home-based busi ness is improving because more people are realizing that its contribution to the community is no nickel and dime matter. "Home-based business people spend their money locally and it adds up to thousands annually," says Anthony. "Cities need to encourage these businesses, because they help sustain a local tax base." One local entrepreneur who agrees that these businesses are vital to the economy's health is Ken Nebel, of K.H. Nebel Associates, d/b/a Nebel Financial Services. "If you look at the statistics, businesses that employ one to five people represent a huge segment of the economy," he states. "A lot of these businesses are home-based. We are lucky here, because we don't have the zoning restrictions and other obstacles that home-based business faces in the Cities." Nebel affirms that home-bworld of warcraft power leveling, ased business people are strongly committed to their communities and prove that with their spending habits. He says, "I've found that Samls Club has terrific deals on office equipment. Sam's Club is the home-based-business supplier for Duluth. Its manager, Jim Caesar, another Chamber memher, is very supportive of the small businessperson." John Pegg started the Entrepreneurs' Connection organization in Duluth two years ago. "We are definitely growing," Pegg says. "We have about 100 people on our mailing list and I continue to meet more people who are looking for more options." Home-based businesses are also changing how larger companies operate. Mary Smestad owns Positive Solutions, and is a customer service consultant. She points out that more corporations are turning to contract services to protect their bottom line. "It's a great selling point for my business," explains Smestad, "To tell a company that, by hiring me on a short-term basis, they save money on taxes, annual salary and benefits. I think home-based businesses in Duluth will really take off when more companies learn the benefits of using their services." All of our contacts agree that Chamber membership is not just for storefront businesses and large corporations. "The smaller the business, the more important Chamber participation is," says Ken Nebel. "My best clients came from referrals from other Chamber members." Mary Smestad adds, "The networking is so important, and so is the education about other companies. It's also a great morale boost for me - the Chamber is sort of my cheerleader." If you are considering starting your own business, heed the seasoned advice of those who have gone before you: get informed and be prepared. "You're going to be blindsided some months, no matter how good your business plan looks on paper," says Smestad who attended classes at The University of Minnesota Duluth's (UMD) Center for Business Development before starting Positive Solutions. "All of the freedom - flexible schedule, being in wow power leveling, charge of my own destiny - comes with a price; you're giving up the security of that monthly paycheck. Discipline and selfmotivation are key. For every day you take off, there's an 18-hour day to make up for it. Know there's a big learning curve at first; learning when the slow months will occur, so the next year, you can plan ways to fill those gaps." Smestad says that the classes at UMD and at Lake Superior College provided her with excellent preparation and support. Beth Travis-Betts, owner of Art Direction and Advertising agrees. "I took small-business classes at UMD and at Lake Superior College. You learn how to determine profit and loss statements, how to mark-up a product, how to register with the State as a business, and how to handle tax issues. In fact, the instructor actually comes to your house once a month for the first year to assist you with start-up." Travis-Betts explains why education is so important to a home-based business. "One gets pretty isolated working at home, and these days you have to keep up with new technology to stay competitive." She also offers a little advice on how to create a business image without spending a lot of money. "The phone company has resources such as market extension lines. They allow you to have two numbers, world of warcraft power leveling, a residential and business phone number, with only one phone line. That way, you r business can be listed in the Yellow Pages. Home-based businesses have sparked entire industries that cater to them. Use the Internet to find better rates on fax lines, phone systems, and other tools." Marge Johnson has operated a management consulting firm out of her North Shore home for four years. She stresses the importance of research to would-be entrepreneurs. "Be sure there is market demand for what you're doing. Does the market need your service?" asks Johnson. "I interviewed other consultants and potential customers before starting my business." Again, all of our contacts concur that involvement with the Chamber is crucial to building business. Says Johnson, "The Chamber provides the most current, succinct information about the local business climate. It's a critical place to meet potential clients." Beth Travis-Betts notes, "It's where I get most of my business." In addition to referrals from Chamber members, Mary Smestad started building a clientele with a letter-writing campaign. "I wrote a lot of letters to past contacts from my previous job and asked for referrals." "People buy from people they know," quips Arlene Soden, a local business development consultant and home-based business owner. Entreprenuerism is part of America's heritage and today's technology-based economy is allowing more people to realize their dream of working for themselves. Many believe that the future of the home-based business culture in Duluth is taking shape right before our eyes on a construction site located in the old downtown. Mark Anthony comments, "With the new Soft Center coming to Duluth, home-based businesses will be called upon to help develop software that will place businesses, both large and small, on the cutting edge of technology and help transform this area into a major telecommuting center." [9 Julie Munson is a freelance writer in Duluth.

“To be or not to be”. Outside the Bible, there six words are the most famous in all the literature of the world. They were spoken by Hamlet when he was thinking aloud, and they are the most famous words in Shakespeare because Hamlet was speaking not only foe himself but for every thinking man and woman. To be or not to be－to live or not to live, to live richly and abundantly and eagerly, or to live dully and meanly and scarcely. A philosopher once wanted to know whether he was alive or not, which is a good question for everyone to put to himself occasionally. He answered it by saying:“I think, therefore I am.”(world of warcraft gold)

But the best definition of existence I ever saw was one written by another philosopher who said:“To be is to be in relations.”If this is true, then the more relations a living thing has, the more relations a living thing has, the more it is alive. To live abundantly means simply to increase the range and intensity of our relations. Unfortunately we are so constituted that we get to love our routine. But apart from our regular occupation how much are we alive? If you are interested only in your regular occupation, you are alive only to that extent. So far as other things are concerned－poetry and prose, music, pictures, sports, unselfish friendships, politics, international affairs－you are dead.buy wow gold

Contrariwise, it is true that every time you acquire a new interest－even more, a new accomplishment－you increase your power of life. No one who is deeply interested in a large variety of subjects can remain unhappy, the real pessimist is the person who has lost interest.

Bacon said that a man dies as often as he loss a friend. But we gain new life by contacts, new friends. What is supremely true of living objects is only less true of ideas, which are also alive. Where your thoughts are, there will your life be also. If your thoughts are confined only to your business, only to your physical welfare, only to the narrow circle of the town in which you live,cheap wow gold, then you live in a narrow circle of the town in which you live, then you live in a narrow circumscribed life. But if you are interested in what is going on in China, then you are living in China; if you are interested in the characters of a good novel, then you are living with those highly interesting people; if you listen intently to fine music, you are away from your immediate surroundings and living in a world of passion and imagination.

To be or not to be－to live intensely and richly, or merely to exist, that depends on ourselves. Let us widen and intensify our relations. While we live, let us live!world of warcraft gold

The view over a valley of a tiny village with thatched（草盖的）roof cottages around a church; a drive through a narrow village street lines with thatched cottages painted pink or white; the sight in parts of England.Most people will agree that the thatched roof is an essential part of the attraction of the English countryside.
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　　Thatching is in fact the oldest of all the building crafts practiced in the British Isles（英论诸岛）. Although thatch has always been used for cottage and farm buildings, it was once used for castles and churches, too.　　
　　Thatching is a solitary（独自的）craft, which often runs in families. The craft of thatching as it is practiced toady has changed very little since the Middle Ages. Over 800 full-time thatchers are employed in England and Wales today, maintaining and renewing the old roofs as well as thatching newer houses. Manyproperty owners choose thatch not only for its beauty but because they know it will keep them cool in summer and warm in winter.
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　　In fact, if we look at developing countries, over half the world lives under thatch, but they all do it in different ways. People in developing countries are often reluctant to go back to traditional materials and would prefer modern buildings. However, they may lack the money to allow them to import the necessary materials.2moons gold, Their temporary mud huts with thatched roofs of wild grasses often only last six months.Thatch which has been done the British way lasts from twenty to sixty years, and is an effective defiance against the heatThe researcher organized an experimental tournament（锦标赛）involving four youth teams. Each match lasted an hour， divided into three periods of 20 minutes during which different referees were in charge.
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Observers noted down the referees’ errors， of which there were 61 over the tournament. Converted to a standard match of 90 minutes， each referee made almost 23 mistakes， a remarkably high number.

The researcher then studied the videotapes to analyse the matches in detail. Surprisingly， he found that errors were more likely when the referees were close to the incident. When the officials got it right，2moons dil, they were， on average， 17 meters away from the action. The average distance in the case of errors was 12 meters. The research shows the optimum（最佳的）distance is about 20 meters.

There also seemed to be an optimum speed. Correct decisions came when the referees were moving at a speed of about 2 meters per second. The average speed for errors was 4 meters per second.
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If FIFA， football’s international ruling body，wants to improve the standard of refereeing at the next World Cup， it should encourage referees to keep their eyes on the action from a distance， rather than rushing to keep up with the ball， the researcher argues.

He also says that FIFA’s insistence that referees should retire at age 45 may be misguided. If keeping up with the action is not so important， their physical condition is less critical.
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Black Holes

What is a black hole? Well, it's difficult to answer this question, since the terms we would normally use to describe a scientific phenomenon are inadequate here. Astronomers and scientists think that a black hole is a region of space (not a thing) into which matter has fallen and from which nothing can escape - not even light. So we can't see a black hole. A black hole exerts a strong gravitational pull and yet it has no matter. It is only space - or so we think. How can this happen? (wow gold)
The theory is that some stars explode when their density increases to a particular point; they collapse and sometimes a supernova occurs. From earth, a supernova looks like a very bright light in the sky which shines even in the daytime. Supernovae were reported by astronomers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Some people think that the Star of Bethlehem could have been a supernova. The collapse of a star may produce a White Dwarf or neutron star - a star, whose matter is so dense that it continually shrinks by the force of its own gravity. But if the star is very large (much bigger than our sun) this process of shrinking may be so intense that a black hole results. Imagine the earth reduced to the size of a marble,but still having the same mass and a stronger gravitational pull, and you have some idea of the force of a black hole. Any matter near the black hole is sucked in. It is impossible to say what happens inside a black hole. Scientists have called the boundary area around the hole the "event horizon." We know nothing about events which happen once objects pass this boundary. But in theory, matter must behave very differently inside the hole.wow gold
For example, if a man fell into a black hole, he would think that he reached the center of it very quickly. However an observer at the event horizon would think that the man never reached the center at all. Our space and time laws don't seem to apply to objects in the area of a black hole. Einstein's relativity theory is the only one which can explain such phenomena. Einstein claimed that matter and energy are interchangeable, so that there is no "absolute" time and space. There are no constants at all, and measurements of time and space depend on the position of the observer. They are relative. We do not yet fully understand the implications of the relativity theory; but it is interesting that Einstein's theory provided a basis for the idea of black holes before World of warcraft Power Leveling,astronomers started to find some evidence for their existence. It is only recently that astronomers have begun specific research into black hole. In august 1977, a satellite was launched to gather data about the 10 million black holes which are thought to be in the Milky Way. And astronomers are planning a new observatory to study the individual exploding stars believed to be black holes.
The most convincing evidence of black holes comes from research into binary star systems. Binary stars, as their name suggests, are twin stars whose position in space affects each other. In some binary systems, cd keys,astronomers have shown that there is an invisible companion star, a "partner" to the one which we can see in the sky. Matter from the one which we can see is being pulled towards the companion star. Could this invisible star, which exerts such a great force, be a black hole? Astronomers have evidence of a few other stars too, which might have black holes as companions.
The story of black holes is just beginning. Speculations about them are endless. There might be a massive black hole at the center of our galaxy swallowing up stars at a very rapid rate. Mankind may one day meet this fate. On the other hand, scientists have suggested that very advanced technology could one day make use of the energy of black holes for mankind. These speculations sound like science fiction. But the theory of black holes in space is accepted by many serious scientists and astronomers. They show us a world which operates in a totally different way from our own and they question our most basic experience of space and time. Runes of Magic gold