The Sports Card And Memorabilia Market Essays - Trading Cards

The sports card and memorabilia market The sports card and memorabilia market is as lucrative as ever in our culture today. The number of sports card and memorabilia stores, however, has never recovered since the backlash of the late 1980's and early 1990's. My business plan is to open ED'S SPORTS CARD The store-front will cost $400 per month. The sports card market has a year-round appeal but also has fluctuations by month. The height of business is found in November and December (holiday time) as well as in March and April (when the baseball season gets underway). An advantage to this business is the extremely low amount of advertising money needed. By accessing the Internet (through a $2500 computer and $20 per month America OnLine service), a card and memorabilia store can have virtually all the advertising they can put on-line at no extra cost. A webpage (through a provider like GeoCities or Angelfire) is free and posting in Usenet groups or on AOL's "Card Collector's Corner" is also free. All you have to pay is the monthly service charge. An advantage of using the Internet for this business is the profit margin. It is not uncommon to find cards on the Internet selling for 10% to 40% of it's actual value (i.e. a $100 card can be found for $10 to $40), or "pre-order" buys on upcoming products to be way below the market price (i.e. a $67 pre-order on a box that will sell for $110 wholesale). This enables the business owner to turn over inventory at a price that the consumer finds reasonable (under it's "value") and the businessman finds profitable. Start-up costs are pretty low for this business also. I figured that I can start a business for under $8,000 and maintain it for about $1,500 a month. This includes showcases, the previously mentioned computer, inventory, rent, advertising, supplies, and utilities. The average daily expense for maintaining the store is under $50 a day. What I have not figured into the amount to start-up this business is a sign outside the store. Many baseball card shop owners have told me that their sign was free! This was done by contacting one of the major card companies (Topps, Fleer, Upper Deck, or Pinnacle) and placing their corporate logo on the sign. I have been ivolved in this industry as a collector since 1985. I have been a part-time dealer since 1995. An average month as a part-time dealer (8 card shows and on-line transactions throughout the month), results in about $2,000 worth of sales and $420 worth of expenses (8 card shows times $50 per show, plus $20 for America OnLine). If my store doubled this pace (which would be still be slow for a full-time card store), it would take a little over four months to break even and it would make over $23,000 in profit in it's first year. The chart attached shows how this was figured. This business may not seem very profitable according to the figures I have provided, but these are low-end estimates. Many companies like L.J. Sands, Co. provide baseball card portfolios (like stock portfolios) for high-dollar investors. This involves finding cards of Hall of Fame caliber players that are undervalued and waiting for them to rise in value. A good example of this today is Ken Griffey Jr of the Seattle Mariners. His rookie card (1989 Upper Deck, card number 1) is valued at $70.00, in the past four years it has never been valued under $65.00, but as of April 25th he has 13 homeruns and is on pace to break Roger Maris' single-season record (61 in 1961). If this happens, the Griffey Jr card will soar to a new value. This will not be unprecedented. When Jose Canseco became the first player to hit 40 homeruns and steal 40 stolen bases in one season, his 1986 Donruss rookie card soared from $7 to $150, currently the card is available at $12. Two years ago, whe! n Cal Ripken Jr broke Lou Gehrig's "Ironman" streak of 2,130 consecutive games his rookie card (1982 Topps Traded) went from $150 to $300.

Vegetation, Weather and Climate, and Political and Economic essays

Vegetation, Weather and Climate, and Political and Economic essays What is Vegetation? Vegetation is the Earths plants, and vegetable structures. If you live on land you see some type of vegetation every single day, even if you are going to work or school, even playing football. What is Weather and Climate? First, Weather is the condition of the atmosphere with regard to temperature, moisture, etc... As most of us know rain is a part of weather as well as snow, hail, and wind. If you feel it outside thats weather. Second, Climate is the prevailing weather conditions of a place or region. Such as, Central Texas climate is hot and dry with not very much rain. There are all sorts of climates, like, tropical climates, cold climates and etc... Most people dont have any clue what Political and Economic Resources are. Well if you dont you are about to find out. P.E.R. is everything that has to do with business, or human interaction with each other. It even can show the population of a town. P.E.R. is how people make a living, and also what their salary is. But what do these have in common? Or how would they be affected by each other? If we have less vegetation in an area there tends to be less people and resources in that area. Also if you are in the lumber business your sales may go down due to supply and demand. Also if there were fewer trees there would be less houses being built and a lot more people that are homeless. If it did not rain enough than people may be out of water eventually and there would also be less vegetation in some parts of the world. Weather can also effect if people get to work on time, or if they make it to work. Weather can even destroy where you work. With our economic system and our automobiles, at the rate we are going we are causing the ozone to get thinner and thinner. This will eventually cause global warming. Making the temperatures drastically higher. If we keep cutting down the rainforests we will have less o...

A Late Encounter with the Enemy by Flannery OConnor

An analysis of this short story that delves into questions of truth and illusion and how people prefer to live by illusion when the truth is too prosaic. This paper examines this short story and delves into questions of history, the meaning of history, the meaning of time, the way human beings shape their lives from whatever material they can find or assume, the way society at large reacts to certain events and the void that often exists at the center of a family. The story revolves around a grandfather and his granddaughter who both need some glorious past to justify their existence. The paper describes the two characters as well as the other characters that appear in the book. The paper analyzes the themes found in the story. Flannery OConnor develops her story using a comic tone and building on a series of ironies around the distinction between reality and illusion in terms of the glories of the Old South and those in the present who need some glorious past to justify their existence.The story involves two major characters and several peripheral characters, but only the two major characters are developed in any significant degree.

History and Development of W Retreat & Spa Case Study

History and Development of W Retreat & Spa - Case Study Example He was responsible for looking after the music affairs of the resort. In 2011, the resort appointed Marcus Reinders as the Managing Director of the resort, Mauro Gomez as the Chef Executive, Jennà © Lombardo as the Fashion Director of the resort and Joseph Boroski as the Director of Cocktail Culture. The resort was voted as the best by Lonely Planet Magazine in 2012. Nikolaj Retpen replaced Mauro Gomez as the Chef Executive and DJ Truck was appointed as the resident DJ of the resort (Etihad Holidays, 2012).   W Retreat & Spa – the Maldives, cast away in the blue waters of the Indian Ocean, lies dexterously in the immaculate beauty of Fesdu Island. With a perfect weather, as well as a never-ending sunshine, the spa is an ideal water sports playground and retreat (Flyer Talk, 2009). Below the surface of the hotel lie clear waters where residents can observe sea turtles as well as the starfish poses, whereby they can take pictures. From Malà ©, the capital city of the Maldives, people must fly in a seaplane in order to reach the small Fesdu Island. The luxurious resort is a small but jawdroppingly picturesque 25-minute seaplane journey from the town of Malà ©. Unlike many island spas, the travelers are lucky there are no such things as bridges because, apart from the guests and staff of the spa, this part of Indian Ocean is uninhabited. However, people should make no mistake as taking a trip to this tropical heaven is far from roughing it. The hotel’s bi-level beachfront rooms roost on soft sand. The rooms also have a constant supply of warm water taken straight from the Indian Ocean. It also includes smart amenities such as sundecks, private plunge pools along with outdoor rainforest showers. All these were made possible by the fact that the hotel is surrounded by an ocean (Asia Web Direct, 2013).

Managing organisational behaviour Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Managing organisational behaviour - Essay Example The concept of distribution of ‘power and pay’ was first introduced by Frederick Winslow Taylor in the early twentieth century. According to him, the total planning and control of an organisation should be in the hands of the owner and the worker should simply perform as per the commands of the owner (Robbins and Coulter, 2006:58). He further added that this concept would lead to maximum productivity and maximum profits and therefore it was widely accepted all over the world. It still continues to be used today in big organizations and banks where senior level executives hold explicit power and enjoy exorbitant income in comparison to their employees (Kular et al, 2008). However, before the analysis, understanding the concept of Organizational Behaviour, Taylor’s ‘Scientific Management’ theory and the ‘Needs Theory’ in brief is deemed necessary. Organizational behaviour is a subject that is concerned with studying the actions of people at work. It focuses on the fact that managers need to understand the elements which influence how employees work. Also, a manager’s success depends upon how well he can manage employees’ behaviour and gets things done through them (Robbins and Coulter, 2006: 372). ... He incorporated his concepts in his book, The Principles of Scientific Management (1911) which became a guide book for every manager in every company across the world especially UK and US. Soon ‘Taylorism’ spread to every corner from the workplaces to larger and bigger organizations and became one of the most acceptable patterns of working in the twentieth century (‘Frederick Winslow Taylor Criticism’, 2011). While working in a factory as an engineer, Taylor realized that workers lacked efficiency and wasted a lot of time. He started a series of time management studies and brought forward a system of work which would accomplish organizational goals efficiently without wastage of time. His theory consisted of four main principles – to determine the most efficient way to perform each task; assign work to every worker according to his capability; closely scrutinize each worker’s performance and empower the management for planning and control of th e organization (Walonick, 1993). In other words, he suggested that it is the sole responsibility of the manager to make a complete plan of every single task that every single worker needs to accomplish and also plan the procedures and means to fulfil the task. According to him this system would lead to maximum profitability. Every single business house organized themselves according to the principles of ‘Taylorism’ and the top executives and managers were handed full control of the employees and the workplace, thereby curbing the independence of the employees (Pizzigati, 2004:159). The main objective of Taylor was to achieve maximum satisfaction and profit for the owners as well as to provide

Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia Essay Example for Free

Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia Essay It is commonly accepted that the research of the great historian of Jewish mysticism, Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia, opened the doors of the academy to Qabbalah. Far from us the intention of dulling the luster of his prodigious contribution in this respect, but it is a fact that at the time the young Berlin student set about writing his first essays, the critical study of the Qabbalah had already made great strides. Moreover, its trail had been partly blazed by Jew scholars who can claim to have played quite a considerable role, particularly in connection with the central problem of the Zohar, in forming the point of departure of the modem study of this discipline. Indeed, so distinguished by characteristic traits and original solutions is their contribution that it would not be an exaggeration to speak of a Jew school of Qabbalistic studies. Is it not highly significant that the central piece of Qabbalistic literaturethe Zoharwas twice translated on Jew soil, first into Latin by G. Postel in the sixteenth century and subsequently into Jewthe first into any modem languageby the mysterious Jean de Pauly at the beginning of this century? Fostered by a congenial intellectual atmosphere peculiar to the Jew, the study of Jewish esotericism got off to a precocious start in France in comparison to other European countries. The attainments of the humanists and evangelists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries paved the way for the mystical philosophers and Martinists of the eighteenth century, who in turn ushered in the occultists of the nineteenth century. (Sassmitz, 1990) The present essay is an attempt to Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia who was a Jewish Sage in the years of his life, his character, and what he believed in and why he believed. Let it be made quite clear at the outset that our concern relates to the historical-critical study of the question and consequently deals all but incidentally with what A. E. Waite calls Kabbalism. Hence the theosophers and mystagogues of all shapes, from Eliphas Levi to A. Grad, not forgetting Papus and C. Suares, will only be of secondary interest to our theme. Though in many respects deserving of attention, their literary activity will be taken into account only insofar as it had real repercussions on the development of the Qabbalah as an academic discipline. That the theosophists and occultists did indeed exert such an influence is undeniable, even if it is solely through the efforts deployed by the scholars to dissipate the veil of confusion with which the former had enshrouded the whole question. In Jews two periods can be distinguished in the development of this field: on the one hand, an historical phase, preoccupied with the question of the antiquity of the Zohar, followed, on the other, by a bibliographical and doctrinal phase. The work of Adolphe Franck (1809-1893) marks the beginning of the first of these two periods, whereas the second was initiated, a century later, by the research of Georges Vajda (1907-1981). The latter, already under the sway of the impulse given to Qabbalistic studies by Abulafia, worked in harmony with both the school of Jerusalem and Alexander Altmann, of Manchester and later of Brandeis University. But these two tendencies also possess their pre-history, and it is first necessary to describe the framework within which each of these two schools evolved. At the outset of its diffusion in Europe, the Qabbalah was submitted to censure. One could almost claim that from the chronological point of view it is on Jew soil that the critical study of the Qabbalah was born. Indeed, it is in thirteenth-century Provence that the first critical appreciation of the Qabbalah was written by R. Meir ben Sim on of Narbonne (active 1250), who, in his Milhemet miswah, vituperates against the polytheistic implications of the sefirotic doctrine. (Sassmitz, 1990) But no real analytic debate got underway until the awakening of Christian interest in the Cabale in Renaissance times. Whereas the Platonists believed the secret doctrine of Israel was meant to conceal the primordial revelation common to all religions, for the Christian esotericists it prefigured the mystery of the Trinitarian doctrine, the very foundation of Christianity. In the Qabbalists they perceived the forerunners of the Christians and in Qabbalah, a secret justification of the evangelization of the Jews. In tenth-century France, the study of the Cabale occupied a place of honor amongst Christian intellectuals. Mention must above all be made of the orientalist and philosopher Guillaume Postel (1510-1581), to whom we owe the first Latin translation both of the Sefer yesirah (Paris, 1552) and of the Zohar (unpublished) prior even to the appearance of their printed texts. (Sassmitz, 1990) However, the evangelizing zeal of his compatriots and their theological prejudices hampered any critical perspectives in relation to the study of the Jewish esoteric tradition. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, opinions became increasingly diversified. The Qabbalah was thought to have in fact taught an elementary form of Spinozism and pantheism, and the Qabbalists were considered atheists unaware of their own irreligion. Of the scholars of this period, the academician Louis Jouard de la Nauze (1696-1773), defender of Newtons chronological system, stands out as an exceptional figure. Whereas his contemporaries ingeniously endeavored to demonstrate the Qabbalahs christological affinities, De la Nauze upheld in his historic article, Remarques sur lantiquite et lorigine de la Cabale, that the foundations of the Cabale [were] layed by the Saracens at the time the Jews lived in the Orient under their domination. The Saracens were Cabalists, and so were the Jews. (Sassmitz, 1990) At the beginning of the nineteenth century with the blossoming of the history of ideas, though the critical study of Qabbalah progressed, it nonetheless remained profoundly tainted by the spirit of the Renaissance. Depending on which scholar one was reading, the Qabbalah could become anything but Judaism. For Ferdinand Bauer it was an offshoot of Christian gnosis, while J. Kleuker assigned it a Persian origin and Augustus Tholuck pinpointed the preponderant influence of Sufism. (Sassmitz, 1990) A new era in the study of the Jewish mystical tradition was ushered in by the critical investigation of Judaism advocated by the Jewish intellectuals of Central Europe, partisans of the Haskalah. Though in addition to a solid rabbinical and general culture, these masters were possessed of scientific methods, they often exhibited an irrepressible repugnance towards Qabbalah. With few exceptions, the great scholars, such as L. Zunz, S. D. Luzzato, A. Geiger, H. Graetz, and M. Steinschneider, considered it an alien thorn in the side of the Synagogue, incompatible with the conceptions of the progressive rationalism they were striving to attribute to the genius of Israel. In the era of Aufklarung and the struggle for Jewish emancipation, it was imperative to represent the Synagogue as the standard-bearer of regeneracy and rationality in order to be accepted into modern society. The parsimony of references to Qabbalah in Julius Gutmanns Philosophie des Judentums, published in 1933, still reflects this contempt. For similar reasons, the contribution of German scholarship to this field, despite its abundance, was relatively thin and narrow in substance and incapable of casting off the tethers of tendentiousness. These scholars were principally concerned with minimalizing the importance of Qabbalistic influence on Jewish culture and with demonstrating the late composition of the Zohar in order to loosen the grip of its authority and domination, upheld in Europe by the hasidic camp, considered retrograde. The scientific paradigms elaborated by the Wissenschaft des Judentums served as an epistemological framework upon which the Jew science dejudaisme was to build. The first major Jew work specifically devoted to a detailed study of the Qabbalah, though not a direct offspring of the Wissenschaft, nonetheless partook of this current of investigation. La Kabbale ou la philosophie religieuse des hebreux, by Adolphe Franck, published in Paris in 1843, is a milestone in the annals of Qabbalistic research. Assuredly, it contributed more to the modern study of Qabbalah than any other single work prior to the labors of Abulafia. In addition to the fact of its having been based on philological, historical, and conceptual criteria, the originality of this book resided in the obvious empathy that the author displayed for his subject. Indeed, in contrast to many maskilim, Franck considered the Qabbalah to be an authentic Jewish phenomenon of major spiritual importance; hence he affirms: It is impossible to consider the Kabbalah as an isolated fact, as an accident in Judaism; on the contrary it is its very life and heart.

Ghost Story of Bloody Mary :: Ghost Stories Urban Legends

Bloody Mary I remember enacting an urban ritual with my friends back in middle school. Giggling and squealing, running in and out of the bathroom, not really believing but still terrified by the possibilities. It was less a story with a moral than it was just a sleepover prank. Needless to say I wasn’t surprised that when I asked a roommate to relate an urban legend to me over lunch one day that she chose that of â€Å"Bloody Mary." The storyteller is a 20 year old woman studying psychology at the University. She transferred to school after one semester at another college. She is of French descent and her parents speak French at home. She has conservative to moderate political beliefs and is Lutheran, although does not regularly attend religious services while she is at school. She is in a long distance relationship with her boyfriend of two years who is in the Navy and stationed at Virginia Beach. When prompted for a story she was initially hesitant but finally responded with, â€Å"‘Bloody Mary’, I guess.† You’re supposed to like, go into the bathroom in front of the mirror and turn around saying â€Å"Bloody Mary† three times. Then she’s supposed to come. I asked what happened after that and she replied with a mouthful of food, â€Å"She kills you.† This story was told; it seemed, with the assumption that I should know the story. As if it was more a matter of public knowledge than a personal story. This was an accurate assumption on her part as not only had I heard the story many times before, but I also found frequent references to it online. The narrative from my storyteller differed slightly from others I read online, be it the number of times â€Å"Bloody Mary† was chanted or supplementary actions that were or were not included, each story had slightly different elements. "Bloody Mary† is often confused with Mary I, the queen of England from 1553-1558 who restored Roman Catholicism to England, which resulted in many Protestants being burnt at the stake as heretics. While she was referred to as â€Å"Bloody Mary†, in very few variations is it the queen who appears in the bathroom mirror (Mikkelson & Mikkelson). Some stories identify Mary as a woman specific to the storyteller’s own community, such as a girl killed in a local car crash or other such tragic accident. In other cases Mary is just a woman of myth; an executed witch, a woman murdered on her wedding night, a mother who killed her children, some tragic or horrific figure that appears in a mirror upon being summoned (â€Å"Bloody Mary [person]†).