Merchants & Commerce

Porsche makes some of the best sports cars on the planet. The depth of engineering combined with meticulous attention to every build detail, makes Porsche's unique combination of sports and luxury one of the most satisfying driving experiences money can buy.

Unfortunately, if you've ever shopped for a Porsche sports car (I'm specifically excluding the heavy-weight Volkswagen-derived Cayenne SUV), you will know that there is a reason Porsche proudly trumpets that it's the most profitable car manufacturer on the planet ... [full story]

“Don’t take anything personally.”

Which I believe in practicing in day to day life with loved ones and significant others; it has been a relationship-saver on more than one Chardonnay-filled night of conversation.

But I am going to tell you a secret. This particular covenant does not apply to business development ... [full story]

If you are one of the MANY car shoppers dying to get our of your gas-guzzler, wait, take a deep breath, and try to understand just how much money you will lose just to get a fuel efficient car.

In most cases, the money you lose by dumping your car now will wipe out any gas savings for at least a year or two.

In Los Angeles, some dealers may not take a truck or big SUV as a trade ... [full story]

What do a tee shirt and a beaded bracelet have in common? Darfur. That grief-stricken region in western Sudan is the thread that strings Mr. Brian Steidle and Brett Taylor together.

After witnessing and documenting the atrocities, Mr. Steidle felt helpless. He mulled over how one person, like himself, can aid so many desperate refugees and inform Americans about the genocide.

He wrote a book, “The Devil Came on Horseback,” Sudanese’s slang for the marauding nomads, the Janjaweeds, from the North who terrorize Southern government rebels with artillery supplied by the government... [full story]

went to a school of 38,000 in Florida. I remember having a poster up on my dorm-room wall which I kept up all four years.

The poster was overflowing with black and white cartoon penguins. But there was one lone penguin sticking out his bill singing “I gotta be me…I just gotta be me!”

So do your clients. They need to stand out from the pack and eliminate themselves from the competition... [full story]

Toyota has a new city car that will debut in Europe next year called the iQ.

It's what you'd call a super-mini car, like the Smart ForTwo as it's only 9.8 feet long while the Smart is 8.8 feet.

In that extra foot, you get two back seats and a small space behind the seats for some grocery bags!

The iQ works magic with space, making the new Smart look, uh… dumb!... [full story]

For the life-long, dedicated surfer who had grown into a man of sophistication who needs a spiffier wardrobe that radiates his fit, youthful outlook but in better tailoring, French surfwear outfitter, Oxbow has arrived for the gentleman surfer.

Getting the impression that surfers beyond the age of twenty have be neglected by the big American surf lifestyle companies, Oxbow is here to save them from the clichéd Hawaiian shirt that most mature surfers are relegated to.

The people behind Oxbow want to prove surfing is not just for kids... [full story]

Gas price panic in the U.S. is in overdrive. US auto sales for the first six months of 2008 were dismal.

Congress is holding hearings and fingers are pointing everywhere from hedge fund speculators to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The oil companies' executives shrug their collective shoulders while they report record profits.

I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s when the Detroit Big 3 ruled the road; however, I began to drive in 1976, just as the first gas crisis gripped the country... [full story]