To rest easy, my mother always said she had to see where her babies, no matter how old, laid their heads at night.

With that in mind, Grady and I made a trip to Urbana-Champaign, Illinois to see where son Jack was now living. If you remember the past few months, he graduated from Ohio State University, got married, accepted a new teaching job at Illinois State University, and moved to suburbia.

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It may seem too early to start planning for Christmas. But for us retailers, it is late. Most retailers buy their holiday stock in January, with a late fall delivery schedule. Though FAB doesn’t have all its holiday inventory on display yet, we still need to start planning our advertising campaigns, buying ad space, and ordering print material for our December mailers.

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Kerry McCoy and French Hill

We’ve had 5 months of a writer’s strike, 2 months of talks with auto workers and, according to CNN on Wednesday, more than 75,000 employees of Kaiser Permanente walked off the job, marking the largest healthcare worker strike in US history. And don’t forget, the actors are still on strike, and after this week’s brouhaha in Washington, I guess you could say the House of Representatives are too, creating the biggest chaos and a potential government shutdown.

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Whether you’re running a small company in America, starting a war in Ukraine, or defending your property, the requirements for success are the same.
To project the power needed to attract talent, motivate people, and promote good-will, you need three things: economic strength, technology sophistication, and a compelling story.

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Why is New Year’s Day so full of optimism? It’s just another day on the calendar; or is it?
On New Year’s Day we close the books on business, Christmas, and the Winter Solstice. Though the days from January through March are often cold and snowy, they are also getting longer and brighter, so it feels better; like a time for self-improvement, a time to plan for springing into action.

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Covid has reared its ugly head again and so have my sleepless nights. Another COVID-19 outbreak will not only cost lives but, again, effect the world’s economy. In the microcosmic world of FAB, the concerns are the same. How would a Covid outbreak affect our company productivity and financial health?

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It is not an easy decision to retire from a life of work. Besides the obvious monetary changes to be considered, there is also the uncertainty of an idle lifestyle, and the connection between your ego and the question “What do you do for a living?” If one is retiring from a business they started and built from the ground up, one’s considerations and emotions could become even more complicated.

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