Lessons from my colouring adventure

A while back, I posted a YouTube video about my colouring book.  I have been diligently colouring away, sending my cards and envelopes out from time to time.  I even bought another one as my original colouring book containing cards and envelops is starting to go into the red, as in I'm almost out of pages to colour.

As Christmas is just around the corner, I bought two new editions into my collection of colouring books containing things you can easily put to use after you colour.

One of the new colouring book i bought is drastically smaller in size which makes the colouring a lot faster and easier to complete.  I was able to look at each piece I completed and see my improvements.  Most notably, I decided to colour in background colour and that made a huge difference.  Sharpening my pencil crayons also helped me with colouring within the line.  Although, some pencil crayon breaks easier than others.

Anyhow, I'm still using pencil crayons I got for elementary school.  Pencil crayons last for a long time.

In case you are wondering, my colour choice is very boring and not creative at all.  I have posted one of my work in progress colouring page on Instagram a few days ago.

Advertising

YouTube generates revenue in many ways.  One of its ways of generating revenue is by putting advertisement before a video or interrupts a video with an advertisement.

I hope most people don't advertise this way because I will remember the short advertisement and not go to such businesses.

Good advertisements are fun to watch and enticing.  If you are going to advertise before a short video, your advertisement video better be able to capture your audience attention almost immediately and hopefully in a positive way.

My reaction to advertisement videos before or during a YouTube video is usually one of dislike and irritation.  Sometimes I go on YouTube to search for old advertisement to have a good laugh, be amazed, for a nostalgic feeling or to see how a long standing business presented itself in the past.  Perhaps a rerun of advertisement for long existing business would be advisable.  After all, you already paid for the work once and I wonder how much has your business really changed. 

Gas Stations

I have been a user of gas stations since a long time ago.   By the time I started using the gas station, the option of paying at the pump was available so I have always paid at the pump.

Within the last year, I have noticed errors on less than a handful of transactions.  Once, the pump continued to pump even though my tank was probably already full.  For whatever reason, it wanted to continue to pump until it got to the maximum amount I have authorized.  This has only happen once.

Another time, I was forced to pay inside with a person because the payment option was not available at the pump.  The person inside up sold me a lottery ticket.  I don't know why but such person allowed me to pay for the lottery ticket with a credit card.  I didn't say anything but I am absolutely sure you are not allow to buy a lottery ticket with a credit card.  I hope the attendant at that station did not know better.   FYI, the ticket was a losing ticket.

Puzzle Time

Currently spending some quality time with my mother, each of us is playing with our own puzzles.  What I like about this activity is that we are both fully concentrated, we can talk when we are tired but there is not excessive talking and we get to admire the picture as we put it together.

I enjoy her quiet company very much.

Investing 404

If my non-existent readers have been diligently following my blog, you would have already read the first three parts of my investing series.

This fourth entry to the series brings my reader to a different direction.  Another way to invest, is to invest in the place you live.  To the outsider, there may be no return in investment but at the end of the day, at least you have a place that you like or love spending time in.  This could mean properly maintaining the home you live in, doing upgrade to your home or investing in nearby places that you enjoy visiting.

Remember anytime you invest in something, it takes time to see any return, so don't rush to spend so that you don't regret what you parted with later down the road.  You can't invest in everything.

Public Meetings

Dear my non-existent readers:

As you may know, I was unemployed for a short period of time.  I use the word short because that period of time represented less than 5% of my life.

Prior to that, I was working full-time in a micro size company.  Gone were the days when you get to gather in the gymnasiums for public announcements from the principal.

As I was unemployed, I submitted the necessary paperwork to see if I was eligible to receive employment insurance.   I was so I was summoned, along with other people eligible to receive employment insurance, to listen to the one hour presentation delivered by some government employee (most likely younger than me) about my responsibilities as I receive EI.  I have never applied or recieved EI before so this was all new to me.  I don't know how familiar everyone else in the room was with the EI process.  All I remember about the presentation was that we have to look for a job everyday and submit resumes and etc.  The presenter even said we are allow to leave the presentation anytime; for example, if someone calls us to give us an interview.  The presenter understood that we may all have diligently been applying to jobs prior to attending to his presentation (which I believe the presenter probably thought was unimportant).*

At the end of the day, I didn't take the presenters advice because looking at job advertisement actually made me felt stressed and inadequate.  They were either too detailed or lacked information.

Thinking back, I wish someone sat with me and spoke to me about my last job.  What did you liked about it, what did you not like about it, what do you want in the future, what went wrong, etc.  I went to other places for help but no one spoke with me.  I ended up having the conversation with myself.  It is an ongoing conversation still.

I guess when you are first out of a job, it's a good time to sit back and think for a little before diving back again.

I am envious of people who are more confident than I am and won't feel as much stress as I would in the same situation.

*During the presentation, I also learnt that they were phasing out SIN number which was new to me and I think to a lot of employer as well because I still see job ads requesting applicants to bring their SIN card.

The leafs are falling

I just came home from a short walk with my dog.  As we were walking, I was enjoying the quiet morning as well as the view of the falling leaves in autumn.  The colour of fall gives me a nostalgic feeling for some reason.

The leaves were falling every second, slowly gliding down to the ground.  If you have some time today, I would recommend that you enjoy the view of nature as oppose to the screen saver on your computer screen, which is just a copy of what is real.

Buyers beware of Canadian Taxes

I have never understood taxes in Canada.  My first experience with taxes in Canada was when I bought something for the first time ever.  I thought it was 10 bucks! What's with the extra 5%, 8%, or 13%, etc. on top of the 10 bucks?  

In Ontario, there was a GST which means good and services tax and then there was a PST which means provincial sales tax then one day the two combined and now there is only an HST which means harmonized sales tax.

This morning I was thinking that it would be funny to collect taxes in terms of inventory or services instead of cash.

For example, let say I sold 100 chairs, I would keep 13 chairs for the tax man when he shows up.  If he is unable to bring the 13 chairs back, I will offer delivery but I will have to take a few chairs back for delivery services I provided.  This way, I can offer my customer tax free purchases.

Or let say I provided services to someone, when the tax man arrives, I will let him know what 100 percent of my work is and that I can only do 13 percent of the work I performed as payment for the taxes.  The tax man will have to wait till I have performed the same service 13 times before I can give the tax man 100 percent of my service.

I hope my examples made sense.