My youngest of the family came to me so very upset late last night, it appears that the computer that is in her room has died and she is not a happy camper. I spent over two hours trying to get it back up and running and only accomplished getting my temper under control in front of such a youngster.

Guess I will have to get on-line and she if I can come up with something for her real quick like, for such a young kid she has gotten herself very attached to her PC that she has all to herself in her room.  I’ll see what I can do for her.

Never could get a grip on how the Public Education System rated students using the SOL tests. My twelve year old daughter just took her 6th grade Sol’s and scored close to 400 or something like that , well anyway it turns out she came out with a D+! I realize that that is passing, barely, but passing none the less. She actually gets pretty good grades in school in most all her classes. She has several B’s and a few As and a couple of Cs too. I just don’t want her too feel like she didn’t cut it when she tries so hard. I think it is probably something like test anxiety or nervousness that makes her not do so good on those kinds of tests, I never paid much mind to them myself, matter of fact I don’t believe I ever took one when I was in school.

I’ve been checking out local Flea Markets of late and have been surprised at the number of them around at the local level. While some are quite well known others appear to be a well kept secret of sorts. It seems that those considered, “inside” markets, meaning those held within the confines of a structure, (usually some warehouse type of building), are the most likely to be little known. There is one at the local fairgrounds that has been operating for over fourteen years now, that even many locals are oblivious of! While asking around I discovered that the biggest problem was advertisement! While many market owners simply won’t put out the money to advertise well, if at all, others simply cannot get the cooperation they’d need. I suggested that those markets located within driving distance of each other, which is usually just a few short miles in many cases, combine their efforts and post bulletins at each others site informing the public of the other markets., Simple enough, inexpensive, and would promote business by word of mouth while increasing visitation by new customers, who may otherwise not have even known about a particular market. But much to my surprise, while a few owners think the idea is worth the while, others are extremely against any interaction whatsoever! Fearing competition I presume. Congenial enough when one is speaking with them on a one on one level, but when it comes to mentioning other flea markets they become defensive and sometimes a bit hostile even!

Another thing I’ve learned is that the dealers that frequent said markets often complain on how the market management is constantly raising the space and/or table rent regardless of the fact that there are fewer customers for the dealers, which makes it difficult to sell merchandise when there are fewer and fewer customers due to the cost of gas and the floundering economy. So, while customers are becoming fewer and fewer and the dealers themselves are obviously making less but spending more, the only ones making a profit are the market owners who really don’t seem to care as long as they get theirs! Just thinking about it gives me a headache.