Zen Garden > Monthorama - December 2005 Entries

Here you will find some occasional notes from me about matters pertaining to this website, its development, personal observations and whatever springs to mind that I feel needs to be recorded.

The most recent posts are first. If you want to follow the thread it might be better to scan upwards from the bottom.

31 December 2005 - This is my final post for the year and, as such, it will be short.

Christmas has come and gone. The New Year looms. What will 2006 bring for you?

Just briefly, Christmas in my part of the world was wonderful. The weather was fine but not too hot like it normally is. I received many books to read - just what I wanted. Already I have read two. I'll include some brief summaries in my first 2006 post - just in case some of you are interested in my recommendations - or otherwise!

The competition to win my "wealth" e-books was run and won. To see the names of the winners please go to the first post in MONTHORAMA for 2006. You might get a nice surprise.

Well, that's all for now. I said it would be short. Talk to you later. Gary. .............................................................................................................................................

19 December 2005 - Just a little reminder here that the competition to win a copy of "How to Save $1000's and Increase Your NET WEALTH" will close on 22 December 2005. You can read more details below on how to enter. Just look at the information under 10 December 2005.

This edition of MONTHORAMA is slightly longer than normal because, apart from some usual banter, it contains my 2005 Christmas Message.

We are now in the final countdown to Christmas 2005 - only six days to go. I finally finished my gift shopping today. What a hassle. All the major shopping centres are choc-a-bloc. Finding a parking space is like winning a lottery. People are parking all over the kerbs, in "no standing" zones, disabled bays and anywhere they can. I even saw somebody attempting to park in the entry lane - duh - until they noticed all the people honking their horns behind them. Really! Some people!

I finally finished reading the book I spoke about earlier - "The Broker" by John Grisham. It gave a great account of life in some Italian cities - all mixed up with elements of corruption. In all, I found it mildly interesting but it seemed to peter out at the end. It wasn't one of his best efforts.

Talking about books, that is what I tell all my family to buy me for birthdays and for Christmas. I LOVE reading. I reckon I would read somewhere between 30 to 50 books a year, maybe more. It is a great way to learn things - especially words. If you want to improve your vocabulary there is no better way - except maybe doing crosswords.

I've now started reading a new novel - "Prince of Fire" by Daniel Silva. I'm finding it difficult to follow as it covers several different countries in the first few chapters with a number of different Government entities and a host of characters. I've already put it down several times because it got so tangled. Nevertheless, I will persist.

As we close in rapidly on Christmas the weather has really started to get warm over here. I know that many of my northern hemisphere friends are shovelling snow and are experiencing freezing temperatures. Here, it is sunny with blue skies. Sorry.

Recently, on the other side of Australia to where I live we have had, unfortunately, race riots. From what I understand Lebanese gangs have been causing lots of trouble with their disrespect to Australian women and violence has broken out as retaliation has been meted out against them. Apparently, the Lebanese gang members do not like women wearing bikinis at the beaches and have said and done things which are extremely offensive. Then they bashed some lifeguards. Then they burned an Australian flag. Then they started roaming the streets in convoys smashing vehicles etc, etc.

Now we have two sides openly at war with each other. Every night for the last fortnight we have seen violence. Finally, the police seem to be gaining control. But you just have to question the intelligence of the clowns who perpetrate this. I saw on the TV news some of the weapons that police have confiscated - guns, knives, molotov cocktails and some evil looking baton with several hundred nails driven into it. Oh my goodness. Leave your brain at the door, let's go and fight. How moronic.

Onto something more virtuous... my 2005 Christmas Message.

I see so many people in need of help at this time of the year and it hurts me to know that I simply cannot help them all. However, each Christmas I search for somebody who truly does need help - always a total stranger - and I buy them presents or give them money, whatever I feel will help them most. Can I ask those people who can afford it, to bring some Christmas cheer to a person not quite as fortunate?

This year I have somebody in mind - a poor fellow called Robert who is in his 80's and has no family living here. He lives with his dog. He called a talkback station in Perth this week to say that all he would have for Christmas is a cup of soup.

No he won't! I will see to that. I even intend to purchase a nice, big, fat, juicy bone and some doggie biscuits for his faithful dog.

But what about others? What can you do to help a fellow human being this Christmas? Let me give you an example.

A couple of years ago a lady wrote a very impassioned letter into our morning newspaper. She and her husband had both been out of work for quite some time and were in rented accomodation. All their money was fully committed to paying the utility bills.

She wrote that ALL her available money was going into school books for her only daughter and that they were unable to buy her any presents for Christmas or the pair of jeans that she so desperately wanted.

I contacted the paper, gave it my telephone number and asked them to get the lady to call me. She did.

And here is what I did...

I made a time to visit. I met her on the porch of her rented home - a small, rundown little place in a suburb of Perth, Western Australia called Subiaco. I asked if I could give her daughter a Christmas card. When the daughter came to the door she was a strikingly beautiful young lady of about 15.

She stepped onto the porch, I handed her the Christmas card and wished them both a Merry Christmas. With a puzzled look on her face she began to open it as I walked back to my vehicle.

As I reversed out of the driveway I saw them hugging each other, obviously in quite an emotional state.

You see inside the card, along with a message of hope for the future, I had placed a brand new $100 note. I expect the young girl was able to buy her jeans after all.

I could tell you other stories about other people I have helped but I am not quite ready for sainthood yet. LOL!

So, when you have money you can do lots of nice things for people in need or facing a temporary crisis. And the great thing is... it gives YOU a good feeling inside too. If you are in the financial position to do so, why not try doing something like this yourself? And if you are not, then consider giving somebody who may be lonely another precious gift - time. Just spend half an hour or an hour with somebody. They will really appreciate it. There is so much grief and violence in the world, including the crap that I wrote about above. Let's spread a bit of happiness!

OK. Let me practice what I preach. Put my suggestion into action for you. Since it is going to be Christmas soon I have decided to give away not just one but THREE of my books this time. Same rules as before. If you're not sure, see below for how to enter. It's very simple - one letter and three numbers. So, this time three lucky people will each receive a book. I will announce the winners here, same as last time.

Just think - you could start to implement some of the ideas for 2006. You could start building some wealth for the future.

Merry Christmas to you all. Gary.

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10 December 2005 - My sincere thanks to everybody who entered the competition to win a copy of my ground-breaking e-book: "How to Save $1000's and Increase Your NET WEALTH." This book explains wealth creation in simple terms and gives people what no other book of this kind does - a REAL "wake up" call. If you don't respond to this book then, I'm sorry to say, you are destined to stay poor all your life, barring winning money or inheriting it. Yes, the FIRST technique that it uses is THAT POWERFUL!

Before announcing the winner, I have to say that even though I was trying to make this competition so easy for people to enter, quite a few still managed to mess up a simple entry that only required a single letter of the alphabet followed by three numbers from 0 to 9 to be emailed to me. That was it. Sorry folks but I had to scratch my head at some of those entries. Hmm. How do you expect to win something if you don't follow the rules? Tsk. Tsk!

Honestly, I don't know how much easier I could make it. Some people even missed the deadline despite me sending out a reminder two days before the competition closed. Consequently none of those entries could be considered.

Ah well, there was a winner. The winner was Lyman Reed. Lyman's entry was L718. The answer was, in fact, L837. Lyman was closest to that so he wins.

Oddly enough, I used to email back and forth with Lyman a few years ago. The fact that he won quite stunned me. It must have been destiny or something. So, I think Lyman is really going to benefit from this book. I hope so.

Now, I'd like to explain how the answer was arrived at just to keep everything above board. After the competition ended I asked four random people, consecutively, to give me one letter and three numbers. As I asked I wrote down their replies. I figured that you couldn't do it any fairer or make it more random. None of them knew what I was using this code for beforehand so it was very fair.

The competition drew lots of responses so I'm going to do it again - soon - hopefully before Christmas. I'm thinking about making this page the competition page for each new month. I was going to have a separate section but this site is just getting too big.

If you want to win some of the products that appear on this site then keep checking the current MONTHORAMA page. This is where I will have all the details.

OK. I might as well announce it now. Let's do it again. Same book. Same rules. The new deadline is 22 December 2005.

Just to make sure EVERYBODY understands - all I require is a single letter of the alphabet followed by THREE numbers from 0 to 9 emailed to me ON but preferably BEFORE 22 December 2005. Here are THREE examples: X224, T197, A865. But they are only examples. Use your own letter and numbers. I guess I also need to say that you have to be a Zenspiration member before you can enter. If you are reading this website for the first time most pages have a sign up panel. It's easy and you can get some pretty amazing information just by becoming a member.

By the way my family had the audacity (LOL!) to ask me what I wanted for Christmas. I gave them the same answer I always give - BOOKS! I love reading. I love writing. I love books. So I marked up a book catalogue with several titles that I just have to have. If they buy me other stuff then I will go and buy them myself. I told them that.

Finally, I am now half way through that John Grisham novel that I was reading - "The Broker." As Schultz, from "Hogan's Heroes" would say, it has started to get "very interesting!"

Well, that's it for now. Talk to you later. Gary.

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01 December 2005 - Well, it's here. December 2005. The countdown to Christmas and the New Year is now on in earnest.

Have you achieved everything that you wanted this year? Have you put the effort in?

Just a quick reminder that I am running a competition to win one of my e-books - one on "wealth" to help you move forward financially in 2006. The competition closes in the next week, so if you want to be in the running then you will need to get your entry in soon. Already I have an email folder full of entries.

Rather than waste more space here detailing the competition and the requirements I'll just refer you to the last entry for November in the Monthorama.

The weather has changed here and we now have clear blue skies and, on some days, a fair bit of heat. I'm looking forward to Christmas as we have several nice get-togethers planned plus a "pool party" at my place on Boxing Day.

I finished reading "The Last Juror" by John Grisham. All in all I quite enjoyed it and gave it a rating of 7.5/10. It was a bit slow to start but Grisham did a good job on developing the characters in the book and in the end I found it "quite sad" to say goodbye to them. I always find that the mark of a good book.

I am presently reading another Grisham book called: "The Broker." I'm only 20 or so pages in but already I do not like the fictitious US President or his advisor. Hmm.

In Western Australia we continue to be plagued by paltry, niggling, mud-slinging politicians who seem hellbent on attacking each other's credibility rather than getting on with the job that we pay them so handsomely for. I guess you might be nodding your head reading that. What is it with these politicians anyway?

Last night we took our daughter to the airport to fly interstate with her friends for a short holiday. I bought a round of drinks at the domestic terminal and saw very little change from $20. Then when we left we had to do the usual waiting in line and trying to negotiate the stupid parking vending machine. For an hour of parking we got slugged $7.

Have you realized lately how expensive everything is becoming? Every company and indeed every government instrumentality is getting greedier and greedier. They want more and more for less and less. Leading the charge in Australia are the banks and insurance companies, not to mention the oil companies. Heh! maybe you need to get my wealth book - or at least enter the draw for it.

Well, that's it for now. Talk to you later. Gary.

Gary Simpson is a 7th Dan karate master who teaches self defense, motivation, self help and wealth building to students around the world through home study courses. You may reprint this article as you include this author credit and an active link to his web site. Finance - Self Help - Motivation - Self Defense - Personal Growth MotivationSelfEsteem.com