Disappearing Satellite Dishes!

For the best few day I’ve been browsing around different weather sites. See, eventually (in a few months or so) I’d like to build my own weather portal for my friends and myself so all the data I need is in one place. Today I was checking on Intellicast.com. Intellicast is owned by WSI, who is a sister company to The Weather Channel. WSI is a big name in the weather business and I was thinking, hey, I wonder where they are headquarted- I bet it would be a fun place to visit with my fellow MET majors! So, I found their address and decided I wanted to see what their building looks like. I visited AccuWeather when I was in middle school and wanted to see how WSI’s building looked. I check out Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft’s Live.com. It all looks pretty cool. Then I find something really weird.

I was lucky to find out that the location was available in “Bird’s eye view” on Live.com. These images are taken with an airplane that criss-crosses the land and makes for a neat feature. Anywho, I was looking and saw a small road that lead to a grassy area where some satellite dishes were. Kinda weird, since most places keep them on the roof (WSI already had several on their roof), but not entirely unheard-of. I proceeded to rotate the image (you can rotate the images to view from the North, East, South or West) to find that they had disappeared! Check out the image I made below:

Check it out for yourself:

• Google Maps
• Yahoo Maps
• Live Local (Click on “Bird’s eye” at the top left)

Not really weather related, but interesting nonetheless.

Textbook Leasing: My business plan so far

I’ve been thinking about this for the past few weeks and wanted to write it all down and hopefully get some feedback. I’m going to make a group on Facebook sometime soon, but wanted to get some pre-initial feedback first and make sure I’m not forgetting anything. Without further ado, here’s my plan:

I want to create a business that will lease textbooks to students, at a flat rate of 20% of the books retail cost. Books will be leased out for a semester at a time. Books must be returned during the week of finals, with the deadline being the last day of finals at a certain time (say, 3:00pm).

Acquisition of books in the first place

How am I going to get books to rent in the first place? Well, I have a two ideas.

• Purchase books from friends and others who are interested in renting, with myself paying no more than 50% of the retail price for books, and a minimum of 30%. I believe the minimum would be a big selling (well, buying) point, since often times the book store will only give you a few dollars for a $60 book!
• Buy used books from online sources. Not the best, but if I can get some good deals with books in good condition, it might be worth it.

“Why lease when I can just buy and sell a used book?”

I want to do this because it eliminates the stress of buying and especially selling. I was so frustrated for find out that my $168 Chemistry book would only get me about $50 to sell back, even if I tried to sell it online. What?! With my leasing service the book would have been about $35 for the semester! That sounds like a better deal to me.

What if someone doesn’t return a book or returns it with damage?

I’m still up in the air about this. In a perfect world, all of the books would be returned on time with minimal damage. Unfortunately, we don’t. In one case I read about where a school started a textbook rental service, nearly 20% of the books were returned late or never at all! I don’t want to deal with this, but I also don’t want to have to take credit card numbers and deal with all that crap. In fact, I don’t want to take down every little bit of information about you like most places do. I’m here to lease you a book at a great price, not to know every little thing about you.

Now, there are four things that can happen with each leased book: (a) books are returned on time, (b) books are returned late (c) books are returned with damage and (d) books aren’t returned at all.

• LATE: If a book is just late, I’m thinking a penalty of 10% of the price, plus the cost of shipping it to me if necessary, provided the book is returned (or shipped) within a week of the deadline. Past this, I’m thinking 20% of the cost.
• DAMAGE: If the book has severe damage that renders the book unusable, an extra 30% of the retail price.
• NEVER RETURNED: I will track down the person (using home and cell numbers, Facebook, school and personal email, etc.) to determine what happened. If it’s just a matter of the customer forgot, then the late fee will be applied. If the book has been lost not returned, then it will cost them another 40% of the retail price, bringing the total price up to 60% of the retail cost. I just don’t want to worry that people will abuse this and just use it as a cheaper way to buy.

Security Deposit?

A security deposit sounds like a great idea to me. To make sure people return books in proper condition, I’m thinking an extra 10% of the price, which would cover any late charges. I could also just charge a flat fee of $100 for leasing services, which would be given back at the end of the semester provided all books borrowed are returned in good condition and on time. What would you be willing to pay?

Other issues

To start up, I need books. To get books, I need money… or do I? As I was writing this, I was thinking that instead of paying people for books with cash, I could pay them with “store credit” that could be used to rent books. I think this could give me the start I need to start getting books. (I would just make this an option, not mandatory.)

Accepted forms of payment? Cash. And, as mentioned above, possibly books.

Shipping? I don’t want to deal with shipping and stuff right now. For my first run at this (hopefully this semester with some books from my fellow ripped-off freshman), I’m only offering this for active students at Millersville University. At first, I’m only looking for books used by many students (General Education classes, Speech, Wellness, English Comp, etc.). I need to make a database of what classes/professors use what books to know what people will want. I also don’t want to go buy 10 books for a class that only occurs every other year, or a class with low enrollment.

Legality of it? Chegg.com does it. (Though they are the only company I have found other than University store’s that do it.) I’m leasing out books. I (or the company I start) will still own the books at all times.

Interested?

Please comment or send me a message on Facebook telling me what you think. Also, if you are interested in helping me in any way (or have an idea… such as a name suggestion), let me know. I know I can’t do this alone, which is why I’m asking everyone I know for help. Thanks in advance, and I hope by starting this business I’ll be able to save you tons of money!

A different kind of part-time job over winter break

So I need to make some sort of money over break. I have about a month. My summer part-time gig said they have no work available for me, which stinks. I might get a job working with my Dad’s employer, but I’d rather do something else to be honest. Then, I had a stroke of genius… or greed, depending on how you look at it.

The Wii is as hard to find this year as it was last. Last year was fun- I got one. My Dad and I slept out at target, where we were about 5th in line (we got in line as the store was closing), out of which turned out to be well over 100 people. When morning came, they handed out tickets which, when the store opened, would be good for the purchase of one (1) Wii. I didn’t need two, and since my Dad had a ticket already, we had an extra. A guy comes up to me as we are walking back to the warm car and offers me $300 cold hard cash for it. (It might have been more- can’t remember exactly.)

Here’s the thing: this weekend, all the major retailers will have the Wii in stock come Sunday morning. Christmas is just over a week away. Do I do it again? I figured out I could bring my little brother and maybe some of his friends, pay them $50 each or something, and keep the rest of the change? I know that by being first in line, then selling it to people who “only” got up and got in line at 4am might be a bit immoral, but I mean, it’d be like sitting in line for someone… and hey, I could do that to. Just find someone in line, say I’ll sit all night (in the rain, for that matter) and get them a ticket to buy a Wii might not be a bad deal, and wouldn’t be as bad. Hmm…