I have up until this point been unsure of the direction of this Blog.  I have been reading many other Blogs written by landlords and I would also like to share my experiences as they happen daily.  There are always new challenges to deal with and new obstacles to face.  I think that many people young and old could learn from my experiences and I encourage all of you reading this to add any advice that you have.  I'm very young, 24, and I know I have lots to learn.  Let’s get started!
        The last few moths have been crazy, hens the lack of posts.  I had a tough time with the apartments as far as renting them and closing in general, and retaining tenants which I will get into.  The house on Sandringham is fully rented, with 2 great sets of tenants who are very respectful and honest.  The house over Greeley S is another story all together.  The house on Greeley Street has had some issue from the difficult closer (damn sub prime) to tenants abandoning the property and leaving everything behind.  I had to recently send an abandonment notice to them and there mail has already been stopped.  I have been dealing with this very well and have taken all of the legal actions and precautions necessary to insure that I go about this the right way.  I have heard many stories, one from my dad, regarding this issue and how if not taken care of properly can cause many problems for the landlord.  I have recently decided to start making video segments of different events at the house.  I will start taping everything from installing items to tents moving out and maybe some tenant interviews. 

Regarding Greeley St. I have removed all of the items from the previous tenant and gave most of them to the Salvation Army for a tax write off.  The other items were placed outside of the house for WM to pick up.  I have placed a desk, night stands, old radios, and even a mattress outside of the house.  On Tuesday evening to my surprise they took all of the items including the mattress, thank god.  I removed the rug from the kitchen area to reveal a much neglected vinyl floor.  Over this week one night I hand scrubbed the entire floor, vacuuming the excess water as I went.  I then re-cleaned the floor with pine sol and a small amount of bleach.  The next steep is for me to use a product called rejuvenate.  Another individual I work with has used this product and he say it works quite well, we will see. (I’ll take some pictures before and after)  This Saturday I have 3 different couples coming to look at the property and decided if they would like to rent or not.  I have had a number of people tell me that the property is way under market rent.  This does not concern me to much because I would just like to rent the property out to a good tenant.  But at the same time I'm wondering if I raise the price of the apartment if I will be able to attract a different segment of renters?  I will have to play with that at another time, right now I just need it filled.  The next time I post there will be pictures as well as a video maybeJ.  Until next time

        

    Another week has past at Hope Global and more issues have been resolved wit the beaded profile. We have successfully found a bonding agent to weld the synfab with the plastic bead. The only problem now, is the cost. The material we are going to use is very expensive and will significantly drive up our production cost, which in US manufacturing is a very bad thing. We are also looking into another product, which is not only cheaper, but is also already automotive approved. Well enough about work. Over the weekend I went to see the movie 300 in IMAX. I guess the movie had not received the best reviews, but that’s because they didn’t see it there. O’Man that movies was awesome on the big screen. The battle scenes were spectacular and so was the fact that all the scenery for the movie was computer generated. It was spectacular, and for those that know me, they know I hate going to the movies, but this movie was very worthwhile.

So other then that my weekend was not to bad. Went to a fun gather on Friday night where they had a DJ and I was able to see allot of people I had not seen in a long time. And Saturday night just went out with a few of the guys, and we went into Providence. I cannot wait to move into my House in providence. If you don’t know about they house or have never seen them you can check out a few pictures on my web site www.urbanandrew.com. I have found this other really great site for advertising apartments for rent and its also great for tracking property income. This site is www.iiproperty.com The best part about his site is after you set up a account and list your properties you are able to create a flyer. The flyer looks great fro one thing, and is also posted to 4 or 5 different rental sites all at the same time. All you have to do is create one flyer and iipropety will take care of the rest. Web sites such as this one are what Web 2.0 are all about. They take all these places on the web, which are all very similar and make them easy to work with, utilize, and in this ace make you money. The more and more I think about starting my own web site, and the more and more I see sites open up based around my idea, that more I just want to go for it. Many sites have opened with a similar idea to what I have, but are only a fraction as powerful as my idea.

For those of you who use a palm or if you use one of the windows pocket PC, I found a great open source browser. The Browser is called Universe www.wapuniverse.com. This open source web browser features tabbed browsing, resized web contents, and even RSS feed capability. I have used it for a few days now and it’s a very nice clean, light program. I would really like to download Opera for my palm but it does not look as though they are ever going to release a palm version due to demand, o well. I have been using the Palm T|X for about 6 months and its great. I get all my mail, docs, calendar, contacts, it def organizes my life my better for me. I recently had one of the IT guys hook up with my computer at work, and while he was syncing it up he deleted all my calendar dates, amateur. After all that he still couldn’t do and it left up to me. I was able to sync it up in about 20 mins, and then continue on my regular job, HAHA.

My friends who I worked at ski market with are here for the week, so we are all going out tonight which should be alto of fun. We might go to this place called The Abbey, which is in providence, RI

        

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     life

    So I finally decided to start a Blog online.  The biggest reason for me doing this is to raise exposure of who I am and what I'm about.  Let's start from the beginning.  I'm a 24-year-old male who grew up in Rehoboth, MA.  Rehoboth is a small town consisting of 1 traffic light and probably about 10 streetlights.  I went to DR high school, which was a combination of Dighton and Rehoboth.  High school was fun, and always interesting.  I played soccer my first two years in the fall and winter track, and then tennis in the spring.  I switch from soccer to cross-country during my last two years of high school, which I enjoyed very much.  
    I was actively involved with DECA my junior and Senior year, which is a marketing organization for high school students.  This organization helped to build me into the individual I am today.  Up until joining DECA I wanted to be a chef, I still cook very often, but I decided to go for business instead.  During DECA I placed 2^nd, at the state level, 2 years in a row and then placed 3rd at the regional level while competing in Anaheim, CA.  My project in Anaheim, CA was in the entrepreneurial franchise category, and my business was to open a Krispy Kreme Donut shop.  I will never lose my entrepreneurial drive and will grow stronger as I get older.  I'm contently conceiving new ideas that only get brought to market years latter (makes me wish I had started them).
    After HS I enrolled at Johnson and Wales University where I majored in Business management and minored in HR and leadership.  Johnson and Wales was an excellent choice for me and was a great school.  I learned about many ideas and concepts and had the chance to perform them in real world applications.  During my time at JWU I had the opportunity to work on many committees and participate in many out of class activities.  Some of the activities I was involved in were:

• Collaboration between JWU and Autocrat to create a approved transporter list and determine the most efficient way to deliver product between RI and Mexico
• Worked on a marketing committee to help retain and attract local companies for co-op or collaborative learning opportunities.  The strategies implemented were surveys, promotional flyers, direct marketing campaign, and a convention where students and potential companies could come together to share ideas (not a job fair).
• I worked at Texas instruments on an educational enrichment program.  This program was designed to get us into a management type position, and to get us looking at process improvement.  Our project was to take a process that took an average of 25 days to complete and bring that down to 5 days.  Not only were we able to reduce the process but also we were able to apply the process to another product line and bring the total time from 45 days to 12 days, thus greatly increasing their productivity.
• I was able to go on a work aboard program to Almelo, Holland and work at Texas Instruments.  Our concentration in Almelo was to prepare TI for their ISO TS 16949 Audit.  Working overseas was an amazing experience and one that I would do again in a hear beat.

After my three and a half years at JWU (because I graduated early), I decided to continue my education directly after graduating.  I enrolled in JWU's fast track MBA program and was accepted.  I was accepted into the program based on my grades and my participation in their undergraduate program.  My concentration in graduate school was in global business marketing.  During my one year MBA program at JWU I learned core business concepts in:

• Branding
• E-commerce
• Importing and exporting internationally
• Advertising
• Accounting
• Finance
• Marketing
• Technology
• Management 

I develop a comprehensive understanding of how each of these business disciplines function individually and interdependently.

During my years at JWU I worked many part time jobs included a ski shop during the winter and lifeguarding during the summer.  I was head guard for 4 years at various pools, finally ending my lifeguarding career at 2nd beach in Newport, RI.  I also had the great opportunity to work at Hope Global in Cumberland, RI in various positions. While working at Hope Global I had the chance to start off in their QC department and assisted them with a variety of systemic issues involving customer specifications.  From there I working in the Marketing department and created a unique and well laid out product brochure as well as beginning to design a new more interactive web site.

    After I graduated from JWU Hope Global offered me the position as Environmental, Health, and Safety manager.  This was a position that I was very unsure of taking, but the pay was really good, so I went for it.  I have now been the EHS manager for approximately 6 months and have completed two ISO 14001 audits.  During my first audit only 2 nonconformance’s were found (this after being there for 2 months) and my second (4 months later) I had zero non-conformances.  The very first ISO E14001 audit the company had 18 non-conformance’s and they had the assistance of a ISO consultant.  Needless to say I did an amazing job that was recognized by the CEO as well as the owner of the company.

Well that about brings this Blog up to speed, somewhat.  Now I cans start to talk about daily events and the future instead of talking about the past.  I hope that you enjoy reading my Blog and post as many comments as you wish.  I will try to answer all questions asked as soon as I can.