We are proud to invite you to the launch of a new organization called Odanadi US, http://www.odanadi-us.org.  Odanadi US is dedicated to raising awareness of human trafficking and sexual exploitation and providing monetary and other support to Odanandi Seva Trust, a non-profit located in India that rescues and rehabilitates victims of sex trafficking and raises awareness and sensitivity to the issues of human trafficking and bonded labor.

Odanadi means ‘soul mate’, one who walks hand in hand with you through life’s journey. For the past 19 years Odanadi has been committed to providing a safe haven for victims of human trafficking, sexual exploitation, slavery, domestic abuse and destitution.  Many of the victims have been rescued from the hands of brothel owners and sex traffickers, others from abusive homes, child marriages or domestic servitude. At Odanadi residents are provided with the skills they need to heal, empower, educate and eventually reintegrate themselves back into mainstream society. But rehabilitation only represents a small percentage of what Odanadi does. Over the course of almost two decades, Odanadi has worked ceaselessly with communities, organisations and individuals across India, to raise awareness and create a people’s movement against the rise of human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

Please join us on Thursday, March 10 for Odanadi US’s first STOP TRAFFICKING fundraiser at George Washington University for an evening of testimony, empowerment and inspiration as we learn more about global and local efforts to end human trafficking.  The reception begins at 6:30 p.m., with appetizers and beverages served. Come mingle with fellow activists, organizers and leaders before the program begins at 7 p.m.

George Washington University
Marvin Center – Grand Ballroom
800 21st Street NW
Washington, DC 20052

Tickets:

$30 for general admission, $35 at the door
$15 for students with ID, $20 at the door

*For in-person tickets before the show, please email info@odanadi-us.org

**Tickets will be sold at the door for an increased price.

We hope to see you there and are grateful for your generosity.

Thank you for joining the fight against human trafficking.

Mariner Finance
3301 Boston Street
Baltimore, MD 21224

www.marinerfinance.com

Josh Johnson
President, CEO

I wanted to write about my recent excellent experience with Mariner Finance.  Back in 2008, I had bought a Tempurpedic bed and had it financed through Mariner Finance.  The loan was no interest if paid off in 2 years.  I had been making the payments on time and was set to pay off the loan this month (March).  When I had called to get the remaining balance there was a mistake on how much was left on the loan.  After talking with the branch manager and trying to correct the situation, nothing was resolved in over one week.

I ended up emailing and calling Josh Johnson, the CEO of Mariner Finance.  He immediately took my call and listened to my concerns.  After hearing my case, he wanted to research my case and said he would call back immediately.  He did call me back immediately and had the situation resolved.  EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE by Josh Johnson.

Although I wish that this matter was handled on the branch level, it is good to know that a CEO like Josh Johnson can quickly resolve a customer concern and he actually helps his clients.  He is definitely setting an example that all Mariner Finance employees should follow.  To me, it’s easy for me to see why he’s the CEO.

I have already recommended Mariner Finance to a few of my friends and now I put it out for the rest of cyberspace.  If you ever need a personal loan, go to Mariner Finance.  They are very reputable and have great customer service as exhibited by their CEO, Josh Johnson.  I am planning on getting another loan with them because they are a great company.

If you are ever in Annapolis stop by and patronize this great franchise …. They deserve it!

Here are some pics that Ria wanted me to post up.

1312 East-West Highway Silver Spring, MD 20910 (301) 608-0300

I think my cousin-in-law Danny summed it up best when he said after our meal “When I go to dim sum places like these I pretty much expect the service to be bad.”  I wouldn’t say the customer service at Oriental East was bad … it was atrocious.

Today was our first visit to the popular Oriental East in Silver Spring.  We were going for my sister’s birthday and we were reminded to arrive early because of the wait and that they will not seat anyone without their full party.  True to their policy, we arrived on time to a long line.  Luckily we had 3 tables in the back “reserved” for our party.  The last table we were sitting at had 4 of us sitting and 3 more just about to walk in.  This is where the fun begin.  The lady manager begins to tell us that we can’t sit down because our whole party wasn’t here.  We explained several times that the other 3 are walking in but she said “I’m giving this table to someone else.”  After a short melee, the other three arrived and we all sat at the table before the Dim Sum Nazi (equally bad as the Soup Nazi) declared no dim sum for you.  NOT a good way to start lunch.

The carts eventually came out with the standard variety of dim sum – shrimp in rice noodle crepe, fried shrimp, shrimp dumpling, shu mai, fired rice, green leek sprout with shrimp paste, chicken feet and more.  Word to the wise – sit near the front because by the time the dim sum carts came to the back they were empty.  All dishes were good, not great, but not as good or original as Hollywood East Cafe.  Because service was bad because Dottie had at one point grabbed a place mat, a plate, extra chop sticks, and a pitcher of water because no waiter was around.

Because our party was big, there were of course kids – 5 kids under the age of 6.  And with kids, they tend to roam around from table to table and explore.  What was pretty alarming was when one of the other dim sum Nazi managers was seating another party, he yelled at the kids and shooed them away with his hand for them to move.  NOT COOL!

This place is like a cattle herd, they get you in and out as fast as possible and treat you disrespectfully.  To me the most important part of the dining out is the overall experience … not just the food or the service.  Mediocre food can be good dining if the service is great.  If the service is great and the food is mediocre, the meal can still be good.  But if the food is good and the service is awful, the dining experience is awful.

Looking at it from a different perspective, I came to this conclusion.  In any business, your customers are your greatest assets – they buy from you and keep your business going.  Without the customer, your business dies.  So you would think that any business would want to give the BEST CUSTOMER SERVICE possible.  Now in the case of Oriental East, obviously based on my experience and of the majority of the party, they could care less about customer service and don’t even make an effort to make you feel like a valued customer.  But it goes even further!  If Oriental East management treats their customers like crap, how do you think they treat their employees?  This was evident from the rude, un-attentive waiters and servers.  Even further, if the management treats the servers terrible, how do you think they treat the cooks – the people preparing our food???  It is this trickle down effect which clearly made this visit to Oriental East an unpleasant one.  Luckily for me, time with the family made up for it.

I will not go back to Oriental East.  I much prefer Hollywood East because their food and mostly their service is superior.  Parents – Oriental East is not kid friendly.  Readers – Oriental East is not adult friendly.

.25 stars out of 5 stars

Minh’s

2500 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA (703) 525-2828

For our first official dine out of 2009, Dottie and I had the pleasure of introducing soon to be newly weds, Josh and Kim, to Minh’s in Arlington.  At first, we had initially spontaneously decided on Ray’s Steaks but when we arrived at Ray’s at 6 PM the hostesses informed us we wouldn’t be able to get seated until after 9 PM … boo.  Since we were in the neighborhood and starving, I suggested Minh’s or as Kim heard, Mince.  So we headed up Wilson.  I first thought we could walk it but I’m glad we rode up in Josh’s car because the walk would have been long and cold.

Minh’s has been consistently listed in the Washingtonian Top 100 Restaurants for years.  Dottie and I have eaten at Minh’s numerous times and for me it is by far the BEST Vietnamese Restaurant in the area.  And yes I have eaten at Four Sisters in Eden and also in their new location in Falls Church which is also considered the top Vietnamese Restaurant in the DC area so I come from that experience.  But for me, Minh’s is tastier and more authentic than Four Sisters.

When we arrived we were seated quickly and it was nice to see Minh’s had new menus that were really authentic, something I’ve never seen before.  Instead of your normal standard print menu that come in the big folder, these menus were on torn paper to give that feeling of reading an ancient manuscript and were printed landscape.  It’s these small details which make dining out memorable.

Josh ordered a beer (unfortunately they were out of 33), Kim and Dottie had Chilean red wine and I had an ice coffee.  Note – if you order an ice coffee at night from Minh’s don’t plan on sleeping any time soon.  The ice coffee was potent as NoDose.  Dottie and I did the ordering of food because we know their menu well.

We started off with shrimp-and-sweet-potato cakes.  This is a wonderful appetizer accompanied with fresh lettuce, mint and a vinegar sauce.  It was delicious and had us craving for more.  

Next arrived sizzling catfish and from what I heard Minh’s is the only Vietnamese restaurant that serves this dish.  The sizzling skillet of catfish perfumed with dill is also served with vermicelli, fresh lettuce and mint and fish sauce for dipping.  Kim got hit with a piece of the sizzling shrapnel.  Another fish dish was also served, the catfish in claypot.  This bubbling cauldron of catfish in a sweet sauce is a great contrast to the first fish dish.  We started dining when the remaining dishes arrived.  Shaky beef (Bo Luc Lac), my favorite dish, comes with tender marinated filet mignon, peppers, onions, mushroom with a pepper lemon dipping sauce.  And lastly, tofu with lemongrass, a dish with some kick.

With all these 4 dishes on our table, we had to clear our waters and anything extra in order to make it all fit.  The feast began and our conversations went from long dialogue to “Wow!  MMMM!  Sick!  Oh my gosh.  Can you give me some more of that?”  

Kim at one point had to leave the table because her nose was running from the spiciness of either the tofu with lemongrass or the lemon pepper sauce for the Shaky beef.  Haha.

The meal was absolutely delicious and only 2 dishes had barely enough left over to take home.  We finished the meal with fried bananas in rum, flamed tableside  with green tea ice cream.  

Overall it was an incredible dinner.  We finally got to spend time with Josh and Kim and it was all adults, no kids.  Thanks Josh and Kim for a memorable night.

Minh’s is one of favorite restaurants in the DC area and I give Minh’s my highest recommendation.

4.5 out of 5 STARS

A personal interview with the Silver Lotto System’s creator, Ken Silver.

Q: Hi Ken, thanks for joining us in this interview. Before we talk about your lotto system, tell us a little about your background.

Ken: It really all started with the lotto system. I first developed the Silver Lotto System in the early 90′s, and it sold really well through direct mail. After a couple of years success with it I wrote a “how-to” manual about my experience and how others could do it–which also sold well. In fact you can still buy it today. Then I went on to sell it over the internet in the mid-90′s and sales increased massively. I wrote another, “eBook Secrets” about writing How-To ebooks, and together my manuals have sold around a million copies from myself and other marketers who bought the limited number of Rights.

Q: Tell us how you developed your special lotto system.

Ken: Well, for several years in the late 80′s I had been looking for ways to turn the lottery to my advantage, and I studied a lot of material. It was an interesting period. You wouldn’t believe the weird, off the wall theories out there. I even read one book that claimed several thousand people could ‘will’ the numbers they wanted through mass ESP – Extra Sensory Perception.

Q: Strange solutions indeed. How did you figure out your own system then?

Ken: Through a lot of hard thought and lateral thinking. It helped that my late father was a brilliant optical engineer, and some of his analytical mathematical abilities might have rubbed off me! When I found the “eureka” solution that seemed to work, I spent a further couple of years researching and checking it. Although at that time I had computers that might have sped the whole research process up, the Silver Lotto System doesn’t actually work on patterned or computed numbers. So it had to be done by hand. Took a while.

Q: Why is your system so different that you couldn’t use a computer?

Ken: I found that despite the blinding speed and computational abilities of modern systems even back then, no-one had actually come up with a way to predict a win from past draws. This was the breakthrough for me. It simply told me this: That no-one can actually predict winning numbers through analysing and extrapolating past results. And when I realized this, it made my own system solution much more valuable as a result. So, although it took a while to figure out, suddenly I had found the ‘missing link’ to winning lotto.

Q: If you say that no-one can predict a win, how does your system work then?

Ken: The system works mainly by eliminating the millions of number combinations that won’t win. For example, you’ll never see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 in a winning draw… that is pretty unlikely. And there are countless other losing combinations too. My Silver Lotto System identifies these, leaving the potential winning combinations. Easy–once you know how!

Q. How is the Silver Lotto System different from other systems out there, like Wheeling?

Ken: Wheeling just gives a variety of number combinations. It doesn’t make any distinction between good and bad number combinations, so most times you are wasting your money on the many poor number selections in them. With the Silver Lotto System, EVERY line has the best number combination you can find, which hugely increases the chances of winning. That makes it different from almost every other system I’ve studied. (And if you find a system that works like the Silver Lotto System, you can bet your bottom dollar that is was adapted from mine!)

Q: OK, that sounds good. But has anyone won with your system?

Ken: Yes indeed, many people. An Australian guy who recently won AU$$537,396.59 using it. Another won $281,183.09. And another won $70,634.60 on the Canada 6/49. Many people around the globe have covered their costs, and won smaller amounts up to $50,000.00. One of the main advantages with my system is that you can be winning moderate amounts WHILE you are waiting for the Big Win to come along–as it eventually will.

Q: Is waiting part of your system? Why can’t we get the main prize straight off?

Ken: What many folks don’t realize is that when a system like mine can’t predict a winning game, the next best thing is to ‘wait in line’ for your winning turn. So what you’re doing here is still winning while you’re waiting for the big one. The Silver Lotto System puts you in the win line, right up near the top of the queue. When the right combination of winning figures strikes – you will have the correct number combination to win it. The best thing about my system is that you don’t have to wait several thousand years – as one academic predicted for other systems. It could be just a small number of games before the right combination is hit.

Q: So we might have to be patient? That’s hard to do!

Ken: Many people don’t have the patience to keep going, and going, even when the draws go against them, but the real winners will persist. There’s a story I read in a book about the first British Camelot lottery. Two partners in a double glazing window business took out over a thousand pounds a week (that’s about US$1400) to play the game. They were almost broke at the 3 month mark, but – luckily for them then – they won several million pounds! This is an extreme example of how persistence pays off.

Q: I was going to bring that up, Ken. Is there another way we can win lotto quicker with your system?

Ken: Sure. Just increase the number of tickets you play. For example, when I play in my country, I buy 120 lines. My chance of winning is very much less if I were only able to take out 2 lines a game.

Q: Are you saying you’ve got to spend a fortune each week then?

Ken: Definitely not. Every single line using the Silver Lotto System gives you a better chance than any other system I know. But the more lines you have in each game, the higher your chances become. So if you can’t afford many lines each week, you should maybe wait a month and play then what you were going to spend each week. But I emphasis to everybody playing any lotto game at all–make sure it is money you can afford to lose. Because it might take weeks before you make it back or get a major win.

Q: From your website and what you’re saying here, you sure don’t sound like someone trying to sell your system. You’ve covered the downside of playing too.

Ken: Sure. Most other systems out there are highly optimistic about you winning, but they’re mainly based on guesswork and wrongly-calculated maths. I believe mine is the first representation of what you can and can’t do with a system.

Q: Thanks for your time here. Is there a last word you want to say?

Ken: Yes, I’d like to say to all future Silver Lotto System owners this… take a good look at my system. Don’t spend your last cent on playing. And above all, keep going – - even when your wins are small or take a while to come through. You WILL eventually triumph!

Q: Thanks! Readers can see Ken’s Silver Lotto System website here: 

http://rlagdameo.kensilver.hop.clickbank.net

UFC 88 Live and Free at Velocity Five with Big O and Dukes

September 6, 2008