Since I’m considering setting up what is considered to be a high risk business on line, I’m researching my options for payment processors. Many US merchant account providers for credit card processing won’t work with high risk businesses such as entertainment and some travel businesses.

So, this leads me to look at offshore merchant accounts which often will work with high risk businesses without any hassles. However, the problem I’m finding is being able to determine which provider is legitimate. I’ve read about account providers who hold your money, don’t pay out or close business without sending the funds that are due.

Many of the high risk off shore merchant accounts are probably very reliable and professional, but I’d rather  not lose any money to a crooked account processor if I don’t have to. It is one thing to lose money to customers who aren’t honest, but not to be able to trust your business partners is a really worrisome thing.

During the week I have a regular job and I have little time for my online business.  It is a hobby of sorts for me, so I am forced to work on it on the evenings and weekends.

On the weeknights, I spend my time promoting my sites.  The reason I do it this way is that I only have an hour or two each night, so that limits the time that I can spend on them.

But on the weekends, it is a different story.  I can sit at the computer for a few hours each day, which gives me ample time to create new web designs.  It helps that I have some quick and easy web design software to make the complex task of creating layouts much easier.

In fact, I depend on the JavaScript menu builder in the software to create my menus as having good site navigation is one of the most important things that a website needs.

On that note, I should get back to work.  I only have a couple more hours before I need to do chores and I need to get this work done.

My friend asked for help in buying his wife an anniversary band for their 5th wedding anniversary next month. Normally, he would have gone to her mom, but her mom probably would have given away the surprise and so he came to me.

He had been looking at anniversary rings in diamond, cubic zirconium and colored stones in order to compare prices along with looks. Of course cubic zirconium has no real value while diamonds and real colored stones like rubies and emeralds do. His wife wouldn’t care no matter what he picked, but I advised him that down the road it would be worth his time and effort to invest in the real thing.

After looking at several styles of solitaire rings, diamonds was the choice even though solitaire is normally the choice for an engagement ring. He picked out a very nice large half carat diamond ring for her and I’m sure she’ll be happy.

My husband and I have been discussing buying a new television for a few years now. It was something that we always ended up putting on the back burner, but this past Christmas, we found a deal that we could not refuse.

An electronics store close to us had a promotion on that if you purchased a new LCD TV through them than you would get a free PSP. We could not pass this opportunity up, as we needed a new TV and my son wanted a PSP for Christmas. We thought it would be a good idea to kill two birds with one stone.

My son was so happy to have the system, as he was not really expecting it because they are expensive. The new TV was a family favorite as well and we enjoy watching on the bigger screen, without all the interference that we were starting to get from the old one.

As I am just about to leave home for work, I thought that I should talk about the big walk that the head honchos of our company are doing today.  They come about four times per year, and today will be one of those times (provided that they show up).

I find it so funny that our management at the store gets into a panic whenever one of these days come.  You see, we have been cleaning everything from top to bottom, so that the store is in pristine condition.  Forget that normally you might find some dust on the shelf - no, we need to show complete perfection.

Even worse, we need to know the sales figures for the best selling products in our department.  So I have made sure to know what the best selling GPS is that we sell as well as how many we have sold this period.

So, as I head off to work, I know today will be an off day - thankfully, we don’t have to be perfect every day of the year.

When my friends and I were planning our trip to Europe, we decided that we were going to do everything in style. We looked into limousine hire for all of the stops we were going to make. We thought that if we were going to be spending the money, we would go all out.

We booked a limo hire Kent to pick us up at the airport and take us to our fancy hotel. I knew that I would feel like a celebrity riding around England in a fancy hired car and my friends agreed that this was absolutely the way to do it.

We traveled throughout Europe and had the greatest times of our lives. When it was time to head home, we got a limo hire Surrey to take us back to the airport. We felt like princesses for one last time and I would say it is the greatest trip that I have ever taken.

I am a big fan of action games on the computer. I found that I was spending a lot of money on them and even a lot more time. I decided to see what I could do to try and find the games for less money. Most of the sites that I download the games from give you sixty minutes to play for free. By then, I am hooked and end up paying for the game.

One of my favorite sites to download from was BigFish Games. I decided to see if there was a way to pay less for my games and I learned about their affiliate marketing program. I thought it would be good for me to write reviews on the games that I had played and I knew that I could earn a commission if anyone purchased the games through my links.

It sounded like a good idea to me, so I decided to give it a shot. I have earned several free games and I am happy that I am now only wasting my time and not my money.

I’m a dreamer by nature. My book collection is heavily on the fantasy side, although I also love science fiction as well as mysteries. I suppose I must also confess to being a children’s literature buff — especially young adult fiction.

It probably won’t come as much of a surprise that I appreciate a good love story. See, I told you I’m not only a dreamer, I’m also into fantasy. Sorry. My disillusionment with the possibility of falling in love again goes through cycles. Right now it’s in the “It will never happen in a million years” phase.

So anyway, back to being a dreamer. One of my dreams is to go to New York to see a Broadway show. Barring that, I’d like to be able to afford a Broadway touring company production locally. I’ve been hoping to use my new-found knowledge of presale passwords to get discounted tickets before they go on sale to the general public. Right now my hopes are pinned on seeing “Wicked.”  Please, don’t tell me it’s “so last year.” I don’t care. I’m a dreamer.

When my husband and I started our first company, we decided that we were going to offer a twenty-four hour toll free help desk for our customers. We were fairly new to the computer industry and we thought it would help our rapport if we were able to help our customers anytime of the day.

We soon realized that this was not a good idea, when we were getting out of bed a dozen times a night to help a customer who was having technical difficulties. It would not have been so bad if it had been legitimate problems with our software or hosting accounts, but a lot of the questions were really stupid and it made us grumpy to have been dragged out of bed for it.

We now have people that are hired to handle all of our toll free service calls. It saves up some time for us and we are now able to get a good night’s sleep.