Danish

Breweries in America are growing at an exponential rate. Beer brewing is becoming big business with a resurgence of traditional types of ales and lagers combining with more exotic offerings. With a colorful history, beer carries on its controversial way to regain the traditional role it’s always played as an every-day beverage, while taking on a more creative flavour to please every palate.

Back in 1620, when the Mayflower came to America’s shores, the boat fell a bit short of its destination due to a shortage of beer, according to a passenger’s journal. One doesn’t think Puritans would have drunk beer – they were Puritans, after all – however this was the every-day drink of choice. People drank beer as we drink pop, juice, milk and water today. Each tavern and inn brewed its own beer.

It is only in modern society that we see beer as having a perilous quality. There were no laws governing beer brewing and drinking. There were no police roadblocks to catch drunk drivers. How much damage could a horse and cart inflict? Certainly there were no scantily-clad women prancing about at parties, drinking beer and impressing men with their sudsy sexiness. Beer was an every-day beverage drunk by everyone in the household from adult to child. When the Mayflower arrived, the people discovered that the Natives made their beer from maize. Wonder which beer was drunk at the first Thanksgiving? This may have been the first ever “Bring Your Own Beer (BYOB).”

The United States has become an international contender in beer brewing and the country can hold its own when in competition with other countries that are notorious for making amazing beer. The U.S. prohibition slowed things down a little, but in the 21st century, things seem to be heating up for American breweries. According to the Brewer’s Association, nearly 7 million barrels of beer will be made and drunk by Americans in 2006. That’s a lot of kegs, bottles, pints and glasses!

Online there are multitudes of sites about beer: beer brewing magazines to read like “Yankee Brew News” and “Brewery News;” breweries to visit; associations for beer-makers to join like the Brewer’s Association; festivals to attend like the Barleywine Festival in Buffalo, New York; and competitions to enter like the World Beer Cup held in Seattle, Washington. Of these sites, about 85% are based in the U.S. so the Americans seem to be leading the pack!

During the 1960s, 70s and 80s, beer in America was primarily made and distributed by large beer brewing companies. In the early 1980s, many of the states passed legislation that allowed the smaller microbreweries to get in on the action. The large companies still do big business, but many patrons are fussy and want high-quality, exclusive beers; they are the “yuppies” of beer drinkers. In and around any city in America, there are anywhere from 2 to 20 breweries within a 15-mile radius of that city and the numbers are growing. Some states have more breweries than others. Each microbrewery has a family tradition they want to maintain and each beer is different; a return to the old days when two taverns a mile apart had two different-tasting beers.

The breweries have gone back to creating beers that are made from all-natural ingredients like malt, hops and yeast. They produce traditional lagers and ales together with exotic beers that have a hint of spices, vanilla, caramel, coriander and anise. One brewery, found online, uses rose hips in their beer. Usually used for tea, rose hips must provide an interesting taste to beer. Lemon coriander beer may be quite refreshing on a hot day.

Soon we will be having discussions about what type of beer goes best with chicken or beef. We’ll hear opinions like: “The caramel-flavoured beer would go great with that cheesecake; a sweet beer just made for dessert.” Is that beer good for pasta? Would it be better with a roast beef dinner? Already there are countless beer-tasting functions. Is beer the new wine? Is there a “twirl-glass-sniff-liquid-swish-in-mouth” process for beer? Like martinis, there are excessive amounts of beer types. Perhaps the process should be expedited; Beertinis for everyone!

The beer brewing companies in America, found online, emphasize the importance of quality. They discuss the importance of tradition. They discuss the importance of bringing beer back to its every-day role played for thousands of years. This time, breweries also seem to feel beer can be creative-tasting and still be in demand.

eBay Motors is currently one of the seven specialty sites of eBay, catering specifically to buyers and sellers interested in automotives and vehicles. First launched by eBay in 2000 as an effort to boost sales in its automotive auction site, the site has undergone many changes to become what it is now. Positioned at first as two separate sites, eBay Motors was combined with the eBay Auto-trader site and launched as one site under its current name. The company also added a slew of services to attract more users. Although the move upset some of the affected sellers, it proved to be a wise strategy as it boosted the sales of the auction site.

eBay Motors is currently one of the most popular online destinations for buyers and seller of automotives, parts and accessories. eBay Motors also goes beyond cars and trucks auctions: The complete category list includes motorcycles, powersports, boats and other vehicles such as buses, commercial trucks and even aircrafts. eBay Motors is truly the best one-stop online auction shop for anything and everything about motors.

Like other eBay sites, the eBay Motors’ special site is designed to make the buying experience very easy and convenient for the user. eBay has successfully created a simple process that works across all of their specialty sites, and eBay Motors is no exception. Online auction and buying experience doesn’t get any easier than the popular Find – Bid/Buy – Pay method.

For the buyers, the Search function and the Category list both serve as an excellent starting point. If the buyer has a specific idea of something that he’s looking for, the search function is probably the quickest way of finding it. If not searching for something specific though, browsing through the categories may be the best option for prospective buyers. Browsing also has the added advantage of seeing items or options that the users wouldn’t have seen using the specific search function. “Surprising discoveries”, as the eBay search help page says.

Then the buyer can proceed to the actual bidding for the item or, if the seller of the item allows it, buy it directly through eBay Motor’s Buy It Now feature. Buy it now is an eBay-wide feature that was introduced by the company as an alternative to the normally used bidding process. With Buy It Now, you can buy an item instantly at a seller-defined price without going through the bidding process.

Paying for items you bought can be done through different methods, depending on the seller. Usually Credit card and electronic checks are accepted. You can also use PayPal, eBay’s own payment system.

Although in the ideal world the three-step process enumerated above should work flawlessly, actually buying vehicles through eBay Motors entails additional steps for the buyer to avoid frauds. The general rule is that the more the buyer knows about the seller and the items that’s being are auctioned, the safer the buyer will be.

Getting to know the vehicle that you’re bidding on or buying means an extensive research must be done if you don’t know much about it yet. Do research on the particular model that you are interested in and make sure that it meets your needs as well as the requirements that your state has set, such as emission efficiency. It is also imperative that you have a good knowledge of actual value of the vehicle. Beware of vehicles that are listed significantly lower than that of the manufacturer’s suggested retail price. As for the actual vehicle being auctioned, it would help a lot if you can personally visit and see the vehicle to ensure it is accurately represented. If this is not possible you can have an inspection service check the vehicle for you.

The next important thing to know is the seller of the vehicle being auctioned. eBay Motors has an excellent feedback rating system that will let you gauge the seller’s reputation on eBay. Make sure that you get to know your seller well before bidding or fully engaging into a deal. It is also important to contact the seller and to ask more questions about the auctioned item. Make sure that he replies to your inquiry and questions.

Although care should still be taken by the buyer, eBay Motors has a free Vehicle Purchase Protection Program that protects the buyer’s vehicle purchases from fraud and material misrepresentation. This is granted that the transaction is eligible. The vehicle purchase is protected for up to twenty thousand dollars or the vehicle purchase price, whichever is lower.

There are also other services offered by eBay Motors for the buyers. The PayPal buyer protection program gives protection to users who use PayPal for their parts and accessories transactions. As mentioned, there are Vehicle Inspection programs that provide detailed and thorough mechanical and cosmetic inspection on auctioned vehicles. The Vehicles History Report shows facts about a pre-owned car before the buyer buys the item.

Buying vehicles or parts online gives you the advantage of a consolidated data about vehicles that is very helpful in comparing various items or vehicles that you are considering. Make use of this advantage really well. Compare and always find the best price for items that you’re bidding on. The excellent and proven auction system can also give you possible big savings when buying vehicles in eBay Motors.

After getting all the relevant information go ahead and place your bid. Remember that when bidding on eBay Motors you only need to enter the maximum amount you are willing to pay for the vehicle you wish to buy. This doesn’t automatically mean that that would be the price you are going to pay for the vehicle. eBay Motors will do the bidding for you and stop bidding and notify you through email once your indicated maximum amount is reached. Bidding on eBay Motors is just as easy and hassle free as bidding on any eBay auction site.

For buyers of collector cars eBay Motors has a special feature called Roadside Assistance. Roadside Assistance provides buyers throughout USA and Canada a free 30-day roadside assistance via the Hagerty Collector Network. The free roadside assistance also covers the first $100 worth of other roadside services such as battery jump, fuel delivery, tire change and lockout service. This feature lets buyers enjoy the first 30 days of their collector cars worry free and can then later on sign up with Hagerty Collector Network if they want to continue with the service.

Buying a vehicle in eBay Motors is surely not only very easy and hassle free but offers very good perks as well. If you need to buy a vehicle and choose to do it online, then eBay Motors is the place to do it.

“Where do you work?”

“Planet Earth.”

Sound familiar? No? Well, it should. More and more people are working from home on the Internet, and there are two things you should know about your office when you work on the Internet.

First, your office will be very, very small and very, very lonely, as I chronicled in my “hermit” articles.

Second, your office will be very, very big and full of many, many people from every corner of the planet, mostly trying to sell things to each other. That is because when you work from home, Planet Earth is your office and theirs.

For instance, would you believe that a man on the Internet in the Ukraine delivers the local weather forecast in Sydney to Chicago? So much for sticking your head out the window.

I have a client in the UK who sells machine parts through a website selling ceramic & ball bearings to every country in the world … except the UK, of course. Doesn’t that make the local hardware store redundant?

With so many clients crowding into my office, I could use some stress-relief techniques around now.

Office Politics in the Global Office

My clients live on almost every continent, and the only thing that occasionally gets in the way of seamless communication are time-zone differences. (If Columbus would have minded his own business, we wouldn’t face even that challenge!)

What’s more, my clients are not always English-speaking, and neither are all of my clients’ websites. Can you say netzwerk überwachung & netzwerküberwachung? I do search engine optimization in four languages – English, French, Spanish and German – which tells you something about the global office in which some of my clients sit.

But there is more than just language that makes the global office a tricky workplace to navigate. Aside from the lack of water coolers and washrooms, most of the world works in metric, but the biggest Internet market works in imperial. So some customers won’t know what a mile is, and others won’t know what a kilometer is.

And everybody spells funny to someone else. Is it honor or honour? Center or centre? Folks or peeps?

Fortunately for me, I live in Canada. 95% of Canadians live within a stone’s throw of the US border. (They are all folks, by the way.) So we officially learn to spell and to count the way the British do (but they are still not peeps). Nevertheless, Americanisms sneak across the border by osmosis, perhaps due to an attack dog budget shortfall at the illegal aliens department.. At least I’ll know what a mile is – it’s that thing people want to take when I give them an inch.

And what about currency? I make it simple. I use US dollars, because that really is the currency of the Internet. But I also accept Paypal payments, so anybody can input their favorite currency and out pops US dollars on my end. I wish more people would do that. I could use more dollars.

If none of that phases you, consider time zones. Just as a client in Australia is waking up, your client in the United States is going to bed. And how will they reach you when you are not in the office. Tools like email to phone can help. So can insomnia.

Nobody twenty years ago would have imagined that you and I could sit at home and type words into a TV screen to make a comfortable living. Welcome to my office – Planet Earth.

Hmm. Right now I am reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy…I wonder if I can work from home on the Internet on any other planets…

Jay sought my help because he wanted to get married and have children, yet the relationship of his dreams seemed to elude him. When I first met Jay, he was an attractive, creative, brilliant and successful businessman in his middle 30’s. And he had a great sense of humor. It wasn’t that women weren’t attracted to him. He had no trouble having first dates with interesting, intelligent, and attractive women. But it never went anywhere. Jay was baffled.

When I first started to counsel Jay, he was very quiet. It felt like pulling teeth to get him to share anything with me, especially his feelings. He stayed in his head, brilliant in his ability to articulate, but flat and unemotional. He words were carefully planned out and delivered. He seemed to always be tense. It was very hard to connect with him.

“Jay, something seems to be in the way of your spontaneity. Are you aware of how carefully you pick your words?”

“Yes.”

“There must be a good reason you do this. Do you know what that is?”

“I don’t want to say the wrong thing. I don’t want to make a fool of myself.”

“And what are you afraid will happen if you say the wrong thing or make a fool of yourself?

“I will be rejected.”

“So most of the time in conversation your intention is to avoid rejection?”

“Yes. I’m terrified of rejection. I will do anything to avoid it.”

“Jay, what are you telling yourself it means if someone rejects you?”

“It means that they don’t like me because I’m inadequate and unworthy.”

“So in your mind, everyone, especially attractive women, have the power to define your adequacy and worth?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“So when you are with women, your intention is to have control over how they feel about you so they won’t reject you. Yet you seem to get rejected over and over. How do you account for that?”

“ I guess I’m just inadequate.”

“Jay, how old do you feel when you are being so careful about what you say? How old were you when you started to do this?”

“I guess when I was about 14, when I started being interested in girls. I wanted to make sure that I made a good impression.”

“What made you believe that they wouldn’t like you if you were just you?”

“Well, for one thing my older brother was always putting me down, telling me I was a dork.”

“So you learned to believe that you were not okay for who you really are – that you had to pretend to be other than you are?”

“ Yes, I think that’s correct. I always feel that I have to impress people.”

“Jay, when you then get rejected, aren’t they rejecting your created ego self rather than your real, authentic Self? Isn’t it your wounded 14 year old ego self that is inadequate, rather than your brilliant, creative, funny, successful Self? Aren’t you trying to hide your true Self because you decided, from many early experiences such as that with your brother, that you are inherently inadequate?”

“Yes, I don’t think that who I really am is good enough. So I always have to be careful about what I say.”

“Yet the few times in our sessions when you have forgotten to watch what you are saying, you are incredible – funny, insightful, interesting, and totally endearing. Your true Self is completely lovable and worthy. Yet you spend so much energy trying to hide him, squashing him down in your efforts to avoid rejection. If you were to really get to know and appreciate who you really are, you would stop worrying about rejection! You would know that you are just fine, and that if someone rejects you, it’s more about them than it is about you.”

As Jay did the inner work to reclaim his beautiful essence, his true Self, his fears of rejection gradually diminished. And, of course, when he was able to be authentic instead of controlled and controlling, everything in his life changed, including his relationships with women. After two years of satisfying dating, Jay found the woman of his dreams.