I’m going to start off this post with telling you what my family did last night.  Hang in there, I think it will all make sense in the end.  

We’re spending more time in San Diego these days.  We have a place that’s a half block from a secluded beach.  Only the neighbors seem to go there and it feels like it’s our own private beach, although it is open to the public.  It’s on the bay side at San Diego, so the waters are pretty still. Lately when the tide goes out, sea lions come up and sun themselves on the beach.  

Our 17 1/2 (don’t forget the half!) year old son David is fascinated with the sea lions.  To be honest, I am too.  David spent the first 13 years of life tossed around from orphanage to orphanage in Juarez, MX and had actually only seen the ocean once before we adopted him 4 years ago.   To a desert kid, creatures of the sea are pretty amazing.  Last night the three of us walked our dogs on the beach after dinner.  The tide was in, so the beach was pretty small but there were still rocks to scamper around on.  

All of a sudden, David let out a yell, “Mom!  Dad! Come quick!”  It didn’t sound like danger, but it was definitely urgent.  We rushed over there and David was staring at a spiny lobster that was on a rock.  The water was gently swirling around him and so at first we thought he was alive.  That wasn’t the amazing thing.  We see spiny lobster around here all the time.  They don’t have the big claws like a Maine lobster has and there are spines down their spine.  The meat is all in the tail and it’s sweeter and I think more flavorful than Maine lobster.  I’ve never seen a lobster more than about a foot, so I thought that was how big a spiny lobster got.  This one, though, was almost 3 feet long!  He was a monster.  

When David realized he was dead, he nudged him with his bare foot and the shell flipped over.  That’s when he realized all the meat was gone.  We’re guessing a sea lion had a nice dinner there earlier when the tide was out.  All the way back along the beach, David chattered on about the spiny lobster.

So what on earth does this have to do with BusinessToInvestment and the Million Dollar challenge?  Just this - as I’ve learned about the Internet and new technology, I’m working less and less.

I became more accessible (ala Information Age marketing advice) and took out the layers of people between me and the TaxLoopholes community.  I didn’t get more emails than before,  I get less emails and they are all just plain nice.  

We’ve had ONE customer service challenge in the past few weeks, which is an incredibly low number.  She posted on Tuesday’s blog at TaxLoopholes about her problem and I left the comment up. Why not?  We mess up and as part of the “transparency” of the new Information Age companies, I don’t want to say we don’t.  The thing though, is that I’m so proud of how so many TL people jumped in and resolved the problem for her.  

A year ago, I couldn’t have taken the time to go for a walk on the beach with my family just because we felt like it.  A year ago, I didn’t have the mental space to appreciate the little boy still inside David who got to investigate a sea creature. A year ago, the Information Age didn’t feel real.  It is real and I’m astounded by how easy it can be to make money, once you get the formula down.  (The $240 check came for my last week’s earnings.  Small, to be sure, but this business is less than a month old and I haven’t even turned any marketing on yet.) 

Hang in there all of you who are struggling with the new technology.  There is a learning curve, without a doubt, but it works to make your life better.  It really does.