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In the Kladar family, it has been a tradition that their five children do not receive gifts from their friends on their birthdays. Instead, they will be the one who will share their God-given gifts of talents and compassion to the world. In 2008, three of the five Kladar children decided to create their own charity after their visit from a poor medical clinic in a rural part of Mexico where they’ve known children their own ages in desperate need of life-saving heart surgery. The kids then think and work on what they could do to help. They came up with the name “Kids Helping Kids Fix Broken Hearts” and then created an artistic logo to start with.

Working for funds for the charity, the Kladar kids started with printing the charity’s logo onto dishtowels and sells them for $5. Since August of 2008, they have sold approximately 6,000 dishtowels and have been raised over $55,000 to help more than 25 children. At present, the Kladar children continues to help children in need across the United States. The charity has expanded to help not only children but as well as families. In 2009, the charity partnered with Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital’s Foundation so they can help kids through the Northwest. In 2011, they partnered with Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, TX.

The money the charity raised from selling dishtowels were the ones used to pay for travel, food and lodging expenses for the parents of children needing heart surgery away from there hometown. The charity also cover other expenses related to the surgery not covered by insurance. Now, the charity has helped families from six states of the United States and aims to help at least one child from each of the 50 states.

With only selling dishtowels for funds, the kids in the Kids Helping Kids Fix a Broken Heart has already helped alot of kids and families in need. No wonder, they have been awarded as winners on the recently held 2011 Chase Youth Awards in Spokane, WA and a Finalist for the National Small Charity of the Year Award in San Diego, CA. Sarah, 10 also won a $10,000 scholarship and a $1000 donation to Kids Helping Kids Fix Broken Hearts from Kohl’s Cares Scholarship Program. I hope this will serve as an inspiration to all of us especially to the children that in order to help people in need you don’t have to be an adult, a celebrity or a millionaire. Because if you have the gift, even if you’re still a kid you can already help through the little things you do. Whoever thought that through selling dishtowels, the Kladar kids can help lots of kids and families in need.

The Kladar kids sells their dishtowels at churches, schools and community events.o show your support to help the kids raise money, please feel free to contact them. If you would like to have the Kladar kids speak at your church, school or event, they can do that just contact them at 208-772-3022.

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No wonder it took me so long to write this post. I have stopped and started this post so many times. Today I decided to finish it. I thought I would do a little more fact checking and bone up what I wanted to write about. There is a lot to write about, this is not going to be easy.

Basically I wanted to post my thoughts on Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz and there American Pickers show on the History Channel. I have heard “Oh yea that’s a great show” or “I like such and such better” and when I searched Google I found some really mean spirited blogs. As a small business owner I think the show has great value. Not only is it fun to watch but there is a lot to learn.

First of all these guys are “Buyers” not pickers. But the show would not sound as appealing “American Buyers”, and most business have trade words, in their business they probably are called “Pickers”

You have to separate TV and the business part of the show. The show is meant for entertainment not business education.

Making a living from this type of business is not easy, especially since they have a building, an employee and other business cost. This is called fixed and variable expense. That means they have to keep the money coming in. They have to have a solid game plan to keep the cash flow coming in.

Garage sales and road side flea markets will not cut it for the type of business they run. They know this, and what they do is they “buy” Meaning they have certain customers around the country and they know what they want. One time they mentioned a prop company in Nashville. That makes sense, college and local theater need props. Another might be a restaurant designer. High end antique stores or antique stores that want the one piece they can put in the window, that can get you to stop and come in. When they go into a house or barn they are looking for certain things. At first I thought if they drove that far how come they did not buy more stuff. They know what they are looking for and what their customers want.

One thing you will see is they buy motorcycle stuff and old bike stuff. I think this is from years of doing this and they know the market. Plus I think Mike and Frank like that side of the business. The funky lamps that puts food on the table.

Take some time and watch the American Pickers clips on History Channel dot com, this is a business, and if you watch and listen closely you will learn a lot from these guys.

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That is how the newspapers and TV commentators dispersed there opinion this week when a new book about Google came out. Scott Cleland book “Why You Can’t Trust Google Inc.”. In all fairness I have not read the book. I did see his interview on Fox morning show. The author did say he still used Google.I found that interesting, I think he is saying, use Google but understand they collect a lot of information. True but most websites do, that is the advantage of the web versus other media. That is where I think I can put my two cents in. Our company has an online store, soon it will be 10 years we have had an online marketing site. We have spent thousands of dollars on ad expense, research and development of Google and other web products.

First of all, every business has to deal with Google, if it’s Joe the Plumber or Donald Trump. It’s not just Google, which is my basic point. The search engines Yahoo, Google, Bing and any others are just too easy to use. And now most cell phones have internet access. A couple clicks and you can Google or Yahoo the weather, directions to a restaurant or any other info you might need. Do not forget Twitter and YouTube. Because technology is a huge capitalist success the products have become cheaper and better. Not only websites, web services, hardware and software you name it, all products in the technology arena are better and cheaper. Every person on the planet has benefited.

The last thing we want to do is get scared of Google and get the government involved. We do not need regulation of Google or any other internet search engine. And it’s not just Google that has information on your web searches or buying habits. So does YouTube, Yahoo and Bing, Amazon, and many more. Even your local grocery chain is trying to gather as much information about you as they can. Unless you live in a cave your information is out there. The US government has a ton of information about you. You are not going to get away from it. If anything with better technology and a free market somebody will market better products to protect your privacy. I think in the grand scheme there are more important things to worry about like your anniversary or your son’s soccer game on Saturday.

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I was watching the television show on the history channel called “Ice Road Truckers”. Hugh Rowland one of the veteran drivers was talking about how he has to watch the soft snow on the edge of the road. The reason is, the soft snow will pull the truck off the road into the deep snow. I was to thinking; this man has to watch that for hours on end, plus all the other things he has to keep track of while driving. The next time you watch the show; notice these men and women are driving only 40 or 50 kilometers a hour. Which is 25 or 30 miles an hour in the US. That is how fast or slow we drive in school zones. This is very slow. And these men and women do this for hours on end.

That got me to thinking about all the men and women that drive the big trucks on our highways. If you think about the transportation system we have in the US, it’s very efficient. How else are you going to feed and clothe millions of people? For example, the New York City, New Jersey metro area. There are millions of people living in that area. How are you going to get the goods the people need to survive to them? You cannot have a train pull up to their house and unload a box car. If you central plan or central locate all commerce, it would take people hours to get to one location to get the goods they need. In the US we have a mix of trains, trucks, airplanes and boats that transport commodities. If you think about it that is the best way, to use each system to the capabilities it is good at. The items people need, not everything can be made locally, it’s not practical and would make items too expense to purchase. Some items like refrigerators are made in Iowa and transported by train and truck to the northeast area. It’s cheaper to make a refrigerator in Iowa than New Jersey. Oranges and orange concentrate is hauled by train from Florida to New Jersey. Bananas are brought in by ship.

The men and women that handle the trains, trucks, boats and airplanes, my hat is off to them. Think about all the responsibility these people have. Not only the safe travel of the goods but the general public they have to operate this equipment with.  Think about all the responsibility the men and women that work on the airplanes, how vital their job is, and each part they fix has to be perfect.  Or the people who fly the airplanes and the responsibility they have. The long hours most of these people spend away from their home and family. Truck drivers spend days and sometimes weeks away from home. I know it’s a career choice. Every day I am thankful there is gas at the gas station so I can drive to the store,  airport and my job; the stores will be stocked with clothes, food and other items so I can live comfortable and not like in medieval times.

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We have been selling Microfiber cleaning towels for a while. The first time, we were introduced to the Mystic Maid® brand micro fiber towel, we immediately fell in love with it. It is amazing how this towel cleans, especially in glass, mirrors, and tile. It just leaves a streak free clean that I’m sure you’ll truly love. What makes this cleaning towel amazing is that it is made up of soft woven micro fibers that creates a dramatically increased cleaning surface area with millions of tiny threads and channels which enables it to pick up more dirt and absorb more water than many other cleaning towels can. The original Microfiber Cleaning Towel is Mystic Maid® that is constructed from a patented nylon/polyester fabric, originally developed for “Clean Room” applications in the semi-conductor industry. The cleaning towel is a handy 19″x13″ sized which is ideal for cleaning eyeglasses (including plastic lenses), mirrors, stove tops, CDs, DVDs, computers, photography and video equipment. So, if you want a cleaning towel that does all the cleaning for you, try Mystic Maid® Microfiber cleaning towel. One pack of 10 cleaning cloths for only $9.50. For more information about Microfiber Cleaning Towels, check out Maid in Chicago Blog. This blog talks more about microfiber cleaning cloths, how to use them and the best way on laundering and drying the microfiber cloths.

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