“Green Friday”
Although I understand the origin of the term “Black Friday” I never liked it. I propose we start calling the day after Thanksgiving “Green Friday” instead. Money seems to fall out of the sky on this day as shoppers line up early to start their official Christmas shopping.

The RUSH!
I like the term Black Friday even less this year after reading about the Wal-Mart employee in New York that was killed by stampeding shoppers within an hour after opening the Long Island Wal-Mart store at 5 AM to Christmas a mob of shoppers.

Early Bird Parking
The parking lot at Ala Moana Shopping Center was nearly full by 6 AM today, and by 7 AM the mall was full of shoppers. I spend a lot of time (with clients) in that mall, but today was different. The coffee shops and seating areas had room; no one goes to the mall at 6 AM to relax. These shoppers were on a shopping mission. Yes, people do have money, and they will spend it when motivated to do so.

“I start buying when I meet people that are selling.”
-J. Paul Getty

As you scroll down through these photos taken at 7 AM, think about the doom and gloom holiday spending projections put out by the media. These people are not at the mall worried about the economy. Christmas has not been cancelled this year.

Happy Holidays - Sell - Sell Sell!

Kazumi Morohoshi
While at the pool today Masae recognized Kazumi Morohoshi, who is a part-time Hawaii resident. Morohoshi is very well known in Japan, performing with the very famous pop group Hikaru Genji. He was kind enough to pose with me and give his permission to post this photo in order to surprise Masae’s nieces, Mari and Hana in Japan. 

Scareware Interview at Uraku
I got a call this week from Jim Mendoza of KGMB News asking if he could interview me about the recent scareware attack I had experienced.  I’m always up for any sort of publicity, so I said, “Sure, come on over.”

This is what happened:
I was searching through various images on the Internet looking for photos to use in my Blog, when suddenly I got a pop up telling me that I had a virus, and could remove the threat by clicking on the “Yes” button. When I did that, strange things started happening right away. It said that my existing virus protection could not handle it, and asked me to purchase new software. By now I was suspicious, and didn’t do that, but it was already too late.
The pop ups kept appearing and I couldn’t get rid of them no matter what I did, so I shut down. But, when I restarted, it was still a mess. It was late at night, but I called a good friend (a night owl) who is a computer whiz. He went to my PC from his computer and installed a new free spyware, ran it a couple of times, and cleared things up (I thought).

Chief Geek
The next morning I coincidentally received Jim Kerr’s SuperGeeks newsletter with this warning:

* You’re using your computer, minding your own business, when suddenly an alert pops up on your screen.
* The alert says there’s a virus on your computer and urgently requests you to take action.
* You click ‘OK’ or ‘Yes’ or whatever seems like the right thing to do and then you’re prompted to purchase the software to remove the virus.
* Wanting to take care of the problem, you pay for it and download the ’software.’
* The end.

That Wasn’t the End
The next morning the pop ups started coming again. I contacted Jim about his newsletter story and he sent “Geek Max” over to my house to fix it completely. My computer was full of Trojan viruses and other spyware software that the scareware had installed. In the process it had uninstalled my other virus protection. Max installed Avast, ran a scan and I am back in business.

I Wasn’t Alone
When I showed Jim and his cameraman what happened he said that the KGMB computer is at Supergeeks being treated for exactly the same thing. We sat down and talked about what happened, and the story appeared on the evening news. If you missed it, just CLICK HERE. It’s safe, I promise.

“Don’t Buy Today!”
Jerry and Terri Kohl, the owners of Brighton Collectibles paid an impromptu surprise visit to their new Ala Moana store enroute to Maui today.
While there we walked around the mall looking at the various sale signs in the windows. As we walked past this sign in Nieman Marcus, which said, “Pre-Sale in Progress”, Jerry asked me, “What’s a Pre Sale?” and he laughed when I commented, “I don’t know.” It was as if they were saying, “Don’t Buy Today!”

The Man’s In Town
Terri was here a month or so ago, but this was Jerry’s first visit to the new store. He was very impressed and as you might imagine, the salespeople were thrilled to meet him and pose with both of them for this photo.

The Place To Be on Maui
Lahaina Grill continues to be the restaurant of choice for distinquished diners on Maui.

Good Food - Good Wine - Good Company
I was honored to dine with Jurg Munch, the owner of Lahaina Grill and Howard Ka’ai, who manages the Lahaina Ice Cream Parlor. Jurg treated us to a bottle of Domaine Serene Evanstad Reserve which is rated by the Wall Street Journal as the #1 Pinot Noir.

Clean and Efficient
After dinner Jurg took me on a behind the scenes tour of the kitchen and supply areas. I commented to Jurg that even Chef Gordon Ramsay, the star of Kitchen Nightmares wouldn’t be able to find a single flaw here.

Lahaina Ice Cream Parlor
The Lahaina Ice Cream Parlor is also owned by Jurg Munch. We started the Morning Report at Lahaina Ice Cream Parlor this month and fine tuned it over this great meal at Lahaina Grill. Mahalo Jurg and Howard.

Fat Chance at at Macy’s
I really do try to avoid shopping, or I should say “attempting to shop” at Macy’s, at least at Ala Moana. The reason is that they do not have salespeople on the flooring looking for opportunities to give customers information.
The glass door on my microwave oven mysteriously shattered in the middle of the night recently (Haloween) and we are still awaiting repair. In the meantime I am missing my popcorn. I was told that Macy’s sells popcorn machines, so I ventured into the store to check them out. I found three different models. I was interested in the one that aip pops without oil, but there were no directions on the outside of the box. I tried my best to figure it out from the open model, and tried even harder to lure a salesperson over to help me.

Oh Well; Chance Em!
Please pardon the blurry photo. I didn’t have a steady hand by the time I decided to buy this without help. After more than enough time to get help, I elected to buy it anyway. At the register we found a very sweet woman camped out awaiting us. She didn’t know how the machine works however, and made no attempt to find out, or add anything on to the sale, like packaged popcorn. All I saw was some that was packaged with oil. I am off to Maui for a few days so it will be a while before I know if I made a good purchase or not. Stay Tuned! 

GET POSITIVE - WE NEED IT
An economy article in today’s PBN was entitled:
Retailers Brace for Ho-Hum Holiday Sales
My problem with these negative, sensational headlines is that some, if not most people don’t bother to read the entire article, but they do “spread the news.”
As is so often the case, this article has a silver lining. I’d love to see that “lining” be the headline.
It could just as easily have read:
Holiday Spending Will Exceed Last Year
You see, if you were to read the article it reports; “U.S. consumers will spend an average of $832.36 on holiday-related shopping, a 1.9 percent increase over last year.” But it then goes on to say that it would be the smallest increase in six years. The second part got the headline. Give us a break!

Less and Less For Just As Much
There is something wrong with this picture. No, it’s not the product appearance, althought that could be better. It’s what I got today for the same old pay.
I have a meeting the first week of each month in my conference room with one of my long time clients. I always send out for a Starbucks traveler to get them wired up. I have considered this product to be one of the smart products that Starbucks has. Today we noticed something different. First of all we ran out of coffee. Normally I have so much left over that I treat my front desk staff with the overage. Next we didn’t get any napkins like usual, and third we ran out of cups.
Since the number of people at the meeting hasn’t changed, nor has the price of the traveler, I assume that this is one of those “economy cutbacks” that could end up costing them customers. Of course there’s a chance that we just got poor delivery by the employee ”working” this morning, so I’ll give them another chance before jumping ship. While they are convienant, they are surely not the only coffee company in the neighborhood.

Way Up There?
I have the highest respect for people that do important jobs that I couldn’t or wouldn’t do myself. Imagine that your job is painting the outside of a 30 story building, while “cooking” in the Hawaiian sunshine.

Always Be Appreciative
When I saw Jeff and Georgie out there painting my 29th floor lanai, I stepped out and thanked them with the offer of some coffee and signed copies of Success Made Easy for the good (and risky) work they were doing.

Somebody Has to Do It
I didn’t approach this guy I saw on Maui, but I’m sure you will agree that he has an important job most of us wouldn’t want to do as well. When you see someone doing a job you wouldn’t do, send me a photo of it and I will add it to this post.

Busy, but…
I stopped in at the new Ala Moana Brighton Collectibles today and found them to be busy as usual. I normally won’t interupt that, but today I was a real customer, not just an observer.

She Just Had To Have It, but…
You see, while in the store a few days ago one of “Jerry’s Angels” showed Masae this new bag and she loved it. She didn’t want to use up what she had left of her “Brighton credits,” so she passed. But, she hasn’t stopped talking about it. So today I chose to buy her one of those “No Special Occassion Gifts.”

Ring It Up
Store manager DeAnne Imamura agreed to help me with the “surprise” by taking my ctedit card, ringing it up, and then holding it in the store until Masae sees this Blog post and then goes to get it.
You see, I am trying to condition her to pay close attention to this Blog. We’ll see how long it takes.