Aries (March 21-April 19)
Tap the keg. With Venus and Mars in Aries until June, you must decide what you want and how to get it. Your life can be transformed this spring. Intimidation works in business situations, but be sweet to loved ones. Confer with others on Wednesday. Love is the drug on Friday.
Taurus (April 20-May 20)
Think big thoughts. Eliminate private irritations and steel your determination to break bad habits this week. Cooperative efforts are favored after Wednesday, and a charming woman supports your goals. Insightful input from friends expands your potential after Friday.
Gemini (May 21-June 21)
Storm chaser. You encounter narrow passages this week, and have little choice but to keep moving forward. Hang tough and get it finished. Pressure eases up after Thursday. The weekend offers superb opportunities to meet new friends with common interests.
Cancer (June 22-July 22)
A fresh approach. Compulsory changes affect everyone this week, and cause grumpy moods or resentments to surface. Humor breaks the tension midweek. The focus shifts to others as the weekend arrives; accomplishments should be recognized and lauded.
Leo (July 23-August 22)
Tangled webs. Illnesses, sudden setbacks or people sandbagged with extra loads require accommodation as the week begins. Detours can turn out to be quite fortunate. Friday meetings produce desired results. Respect other people’s turf over the weekend.
Virgo (August 23-September 22)
Lesson learned. The coming month brings an intense focus on your give-and-take balance with others and your ability to retain clear goals and communicate in fast-paced situations. Marriage or other formal ceremonies are a major topic after Wednesday; keep it simple and sweet.
Libra (September 23-October 22)
Revised estimate. Complicated entanglements with others continue to present challenges this week. Carefully consider the consequences of your alliances, especially if your own resources are threatened. Joyful friend enliven your weekend activities.
Scorpio (October 23-November 21)
Cooking outdoors. New daily patterns require adjustments, and this will be more difficult if the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing. Repair faulty communications on Wednesday. Connect with nature and soak up sunshine with others over the weekend.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21)
In the hot seat. Friends or children may be restless or frustrated this week, while you struggle to accomplish various projects and tasks. Improvements arrive on multiple fronts after Thursday. A fiery moon helps you attract new friends and admirers over the weekend.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19)
Churning situations. People scamper off on various quests, so organizing gatherings may be like herding cats. Wednesday is best for practical group functions. Loved ones share excellent news as the weekend arrives; unconditional approval makes subsequent advise more palatable.
Aquarius (January 20-February 18)
The proper tools. Institutions may be a source of annoying demands or restrictions as the week begins. Good timing on Tuesday connects you with the right person or needed answers. Intimate relationships heat up as the weekend arrives, but tread carefully around touchy issues.
Pisces (February 19-March 20)
Surveying the property. Prioritize goals as the week begins; emotional concerns may have to be sidelined until the end of the week. Trade updates with good friends midweek. As the weekend arrives, lavish love and attention on kids and pets and expand outlets for your talents.

One would think that having the highest prices in town, not having all the answers to customers’ questions or telling the bold-faced truth would be reason enough for your customers to take their business elsewhere. No luck?
I guarantee that, using these seven proven profit repellents, you’ll successfully lose your pesky customers (and all of your profit) in 10 days or less:
Profit Repellent No. 1: Memorize your company’s literature and prepare yourself to regurgitate information about your company, your products and yourself. While it may seem that having the right answers to every question imaginable may just cause them to want to spend their money with you, it is actually the fastest way to flash freeze any rapport you may have accidentally created.
Profit Repellent No. 2: Remind your customers of how long your company has been in business, how powerful your local presence is and how many trucks you have on the road. You may think that customers will find comfort and security knowing this information, but rest assured offering them this useless information will remind them that you have nothing of substance to talk to them about.
Profit Repellent No. 3: Be the first person to always bring up the price and take it a step further by offering unsolicited advice on how to save money by cutting out services and options they do not need. Contrary to popular belief, customers are not as price sensitive as you think. Therefore, if you obsess over it, you have a surefire way to reaffirm that you do not feel the price is fair and reasonable.
Profit Repellent No. 4: Remind yourself daily that your customers are always shopping your competition and make sure you aggressively point out how inferior they are to your company. You may think that educating your customers about the competition would be something that would help the relationship, but if you’re serious about losing them as customers, you should really focus on making yourself look like an insecure child by obsessing over your competition.
Profit Repellent No. 5: Practice your negotiating skills with colleagues and friends. You need to be ready to drop your price, increase your offer and ask them, “So, what is it going to take to earn your business today?” Despite what you may have learned, this “always be closing” mentality works like a charm to completely shatter any modicum of respectability you may have had leading up to the negotiation.
Profit Repellant No. 6: Always agree with your customers because customers are always right. If you disagree with your customers, they may accidentally get the impression that you know what you’re talking about, or heaven forbid, that you are actually an expert in your field. By always agreeing with your customer, you are all but guaranteed to lose customers the moment somebody demonstrates competence and expertise, even at the expense of telling customers that they’re wrong.
Profit Repellant No. 7: When talking to customers always follow the k.i.s.s philosophy, “keep it simple stupid.” Instead of being transparent and thorough, just summarize your entire value proposition into a cute acronym. If you make the mistake of explaining your recommendations and methods to your customers, they’ll understand why you charge so much, how you’re different from your competition and why it makes sense to do business with you; Then, you’ll never be able to get rid of them.
These recommendations are not for everybody; they are only for those salespeople who are trying to lose their customers and repel anything that resembles a profitable relationship. If you are trying to keep your customers and make a profit, then simply reverse these recommendations and you’ll have all of the customers you can possibly handle.

For more ways to lose customers, go to www.boltfromtheblue.com and enter the word LOSE into the blueprint box.

It’s a miracle. I realize it may be beyond cliché to say so, but a new baby is an absolute miracle. I could delve as deeply into the science behind it as humanly possible and still not have the experience of a new human being emerging from my body be any less surreal.
All of the pregnancy books in existence simply cannot prepare you for the eventual reality of a miniaturized reflection of yourself actually staring back at you. I personally have a difficult time getting over the fact that one day I’m waddling around feeling like my hips are going to fall off and the next I’m someone’s mother. Wow, I’m someone’s mother.

Lucy Jane Szyperski

You would think that going through the process twice before and already being someone’s mother would take away from the amazement factor. After all, the fruition of pregnancy does not exactly offer much of a surprise ending. And, yet, each time I am somehow surprised at just how amazing the whole thing is.
There was a point in this last pregnancy that I almost forgot. I almost forgot the miracle in the end. I’m not sure if it was the having two other children to care for or if pregnancy over 30 is just harder, but the morning sickness and fatigue certainly took their toll this time around. The toll was so much so that I began to wonder if it was all worthwhile.
My husband and I had our doubts about a third pregnancy long before making our family a five-some was even on the table. After a second rushed c-section and 11 days in the neonatal intensive care unit with our second child, we weren’t sure that we even had it in us to go through it all one more time. Actually, we were sure during those first few postpartum months after Elaine was born prematurely; we were sure we were done with the baby-making business.

And then time started to do its job. My incision healed, we waved goodbye to the apnea monitor and measured feedings, Elaine lost all indications that she had missed out on her last six weeks in utero and life went back to normal. Once we were out of the metaphorical woods, having another child seemed like a much more plausible idea.

Still, we wondered if we would be pressing our luck to try again.
What if I wasn’t made to have three c-sections? What if this baby came even earlier than the last two? What if we didn’t get our happy ending?
Nine weeks into my third pregnancy we wondered if we had, indeed, pressed our luck too far. I started bleeding and cramping and we thought we were losing her. We thought we were going to lose our miracle this time around. The doubts I had had all along seemed to be culminating into one big biological I-told-you-so.
How could we have thought that we could be so blessed as to have everything go just right three times? Who did we think we were to be given yet another miracle?
Aside from fearing that my doubts would become reality, all I could think of was how guilty I felt for spending so much time focusing on my own temporary misery instead of the lifelong gift I would be given in the end. Nothing makes you rethink any doubts you may have and realize just how worthwhile something is until you think you may lose it altogether.
Nine weeks into my third pregnancy, I stopped wondering if it was all worthwhile. I’m embarrassed to admit that I ever wondered in the first place.
Sometimes we prepare ourselves so much for what could go wrong that we fail to prepare for what can go right. We made it to our happy ending. Now I wonder who we were to think that we might not.
Who we are now are Lucy’s mom and dad. Once you hear that first cry and see that little face, you realize that there is more to it than what you can reason through in your head. There just might be a greater purpose. There just might be a Lucy who is hoping to love you as much as you are hoping to love her.
In all of my doubting, I definitely neglected to consider all of the things that could go right. My c-section could go well, the baby could go to term, we could experience our third miracle and all live happily ever after. And we are.

Shannon Szyperski and her husband Michael are raising three children in Sylvania. E-mail her at letters@toledofreepress.com.

Should I feel guilty? My “sin” doesn’t bother me in the least. Nor is my conscience acting up over my transgression. I don’t wake up in the middle of the night with a cold sweat, scared about the potential consequences. The preaching and the altar calls from the “Buy American” pulpit are making no difference in my life.
Maybe I’m stubborn. Maybe I have a hard heart. Or maybe I just like my Honda. Should I trade it in, repent and buy a car from the Big Three?
Big Three auto dealers certainly wish I would. Recently, local car dealers were running commercials urging customers to support the American economy and buy American. The tone of the commercial seemed desperate, as if the fate of the American economy and the middle class rested on whether I would buy a car from the Big Three … now. I won’t dispute that GM, Ford and Chrysler make quality automobiles. Certainly now seems like a good time to buy from the Big Three as the auto industry is offering myriad deals.
I am going to run my ‘04 Honda into the ground, and then I will shop as an informed buyer and buy what is best for me. I really do not have a preference. I am not a “Ford guy,” a “GM guy” or even a “Honda guy,” and whether I buy from a foreign or American manufacturer really does not matter anymore.
These terms don’t matter for one main reason. In many instances, “foreign” cars are made in the United States, and all “domestic” vehicles are not all produced domestically.
The foreign and domestic labels are lies, making them irrelevant and unnecessary. When someone claims a car is American-made, I assume the car is physically made in America. I was told to never assume, but isn’t this a safe assumption?
Apparently not. The Buick Lacrosse, Chevy Impala, Dodge Charger, Lincoln Town Car, Pontiac Grand Prix, Ford Edge, Lincoln MKZ and other vehicles are made in Canada. These cars are foreign, not domestic. By buying a Dodge Charger, I support Canadian not American jobs.
Conversely, the Honda Odyssey is built in Alabama, and the “foreign” Toyota Corolla is built in California by the UAW. Other foreign cars built by American UAW workers are the Mazda 6, Mitsubishi Eclipse, Mitsubishi Galant, Isuzu I-Series Truck, Mazda B-series Truck, Mitsubishi Raider, and the Toyota Tacoma. Buying these “imports” supports American workers.
Why would American manufacturers and UAW workers preach about buying American when the Chevy Aveo is manufactured by Daewoo, a Korean car company? Does Chrysler have any standing beneath the “Buy American” mantra while having the PT Cruiser made in Mexico? Why are the Big Three selling foreign cars while telling us to buy their “American-made” product? I guess you can trust them just about as far as you can throw a Hummer.
When I think of typical all-American cars produced by the Big Three today, the Dodge Ram and Ford Mustang certainly make the list. However, the Ram and Mustang are disappointingly produced with less American content than Honda’s Civic and Pilot.
The Big Three should be ashamed for misleading Americans into thinking that any car produced by the Big Three is made in the United States. The anti-import attitude hurts American workers that manufacture and sell these cars, and many of them are UAW members.
I’ve held jobs associated with the auto industry and even worked at Toledo’s Chrysler Supplier Park, parking my Honda behind the mammoth Ford truck with the threatening bumper sticker, “Out of a job yet? Keep buying foreign.” If only the terms were not so convoluted.
But Chrysler and GM’s shame shouldn’t stop at their misleading “Buy American” campaigns. The pride and integrity of these two auto giants took a huge hit when they accepted government bailout money. As with any money borrowed whether from a bank or relative, the loan didn’t come without strings. I pray to God the strings and regulations are pulled so tight that the decision makers at GM and Chrysler and other big companies see their folly and never take taxpayer dollars again.
For me, the reasons to not buy a GM or Chrysler product are twofold. I’m not necessarily supporting American workers, and they’ve already taken my money in the form of bailouts. But the new GM or Chrysler is missing from my driveway.

Tom Morrissey is a Lucas County resident and lifelong Toledoan. E-mail him at letters@toledofreepress.com.

Somalian pirates have been making headlines lately, but a different group of pirates were scuttled April 17. That day, a court in Sweden convicted the operators of Piratebay.org for damages to worldwide copyright holders. The site was famous for its booty of illicit copies of music, movies and software that could be downloaded through BitTorrents. The trial sparked an ocean of conversation about copyrights and the sense of entitlement to free access that many Internet surfers feel.
The conversation doesn’t stop with stealing; there is great debate raging over content for newspapers that is currently available online for free, and whether people would pay for such content. The April issue of Editor & Publisher discusses such payment options as micropayments, a small amount that would be charged to readers seeking specific content; subscriptions for specialized content, such as local sports coverage; subscriptions at the “digital entry point,” a fee added to one’s monthly Internet access bill; and donations and gifts.
All of this is dubious at best and pie-in-the-sky dreaming at worst. The revolution has occurred, yet many in the daily newspaper industry are making plans as if it has just begun. The inability of the industry to adapt to the new models of information dissemination is as big a mistake as some traditional camera film companies made while ignoring the digital photo evolution.
You get daily local Internet news for free; you get daily local radio news for free; you get daily local television news for free. Why would you pay for a daily local print product that contains a lot of content you already know from the other local free sources? If advertising and the market won’t support it, why should consumers subsidize it? This is the reality that has driven such stalwarts as the Detroit Free Press and The Ann Arbor News to cut circulation back to two or three days a week, and that is the model of the future, no matter how vehemently the industry protests it or how desperately its members try to out-zig a movement that has already zagged.
Stealing and illegally distributing copyrighted material is one problem; trying to jam the free daily content genie back into a paid bottle is one that cannot be solved by traditional daily products.
The seas have changed, and no ancient vessels will successfully navigate the waters until they adapt to the new ways of thinking, sharing and funding their own way.

Thomas F. Pounds is president and publisher of Toledo Free Press. Contact him at tpounds@toledofreepress.com.

Shortly after winning the seventh season of “American Idol” last year, David Cook started swapping notes with a few of his heroes: Raine Maida of Our Lady Peace, Goo Goo Dolls’ front man Johnny Rzeznik, Kevin Griffin of Better Than Ezra, The Nixons’ singer-guitarist Zac Maloy …
“I got off the show and (the record company) asked me for a wish list,” he said. “To walk into a room with … guys that I grew up listening to and kind of learned music by emulating their records, it was just kind of a trip to pick their brains and have them treat me as a peer.”
First up was Maida.
“He was actually my first writing session, and not just for this record, I mean ever; I’ve never co-written with anybody,” Cook said calling from a tour stop in Tyler, Texas. “And he immediately made me feel comfortable. I remember I went to his house and met his wife and his kids, and we knocked out three songs in six hours.”

David Cook

The two penned four tracks for Cook’s self-titled CD – “Heroes,” “Mr. Sensitive,” “I Did It for You” and “Permanent.”
“Light On,” the first single from the disc, was written by Chris Cornell, the voice of Audioslave and Soundgarden, and Brian Howes.
“That was one of the first songs we listened to for the record and it just immediately grabbed me,” Cook said. “I think musically it was kind of a rock history lesson. I think it spoke to me in the sense I could hear a lot of my favorite bands in it – Soundgarden, Guns N’ Roses and even back to Led Zeppelin, so it seemed like the perfect song for this record.”
The 26-year-old rocker wrote “Declaration,” the first track on the CD, with Rzeznik.
“I think it was a great opener for the record in that coming off the show, I felt that people had seen an accurate depiction of me or as much as they could, you know, tuning in a couple times a week, but I wanted to show more of myself and wanted this record to be a reintroduction and a more concrete definition,” Cook said. “I think it’s a declarative statement on where I’m at right now.”
He will be in Perrysburg on May 6 when the Declaration Tour comes to Owens Community College Student Health and Activities Center for a 7:30 p.m. show. Ryan Star will open the concert. The show is sold out.
“I expected to sell more records than I did on my first solo record [2006's "Analog Heart"], which I think sold 1,000 in a year,” he said. “But past that, I really tried to not have any expectations at all. So when I got those numbers, it was mind-boggling to call my dad and say I think the only people who have sold more are The Beatles. It was a little weird.”
Kind of like the singer-guitarist’s last 18 months, which he wrote about with Maloy in “Life on the Moon.”
“I wanted to talk about all that I experienced over the last year and a half; this has been amazing but also a little unnerving to go from relative obscurity to this, so it turned into this deal, feeling like living on the moon,” Cook said.
What did he learn from the “Idol” experience?
“Not to get caught up in everything … whatever’s going to happen is going to happen, so you may as well just enjoy it,” he said.
Right now he’s having a good time on the road.
“The response has been great across the board, which makes me feel cautiously optimistic for the future. I just hope I don’t screw it up.”

Cook likes smaller audiences

By Nicholas Huenefeld, TOLEDO FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER, news@toledofreepress.com

David Cook said he is trying to stand out in an era of music that has become disposable.
In an effort to reach fans on a personal basis, his Declaration Tour is featuring stops at many colleges with smaller audiences.
“We have very intense, passionate fans and it makes for a fun show,” Cook said. “It’s nice to have the faith that if we can’t sing one night, the fans could sing the songs for us.”
That intensity is evident at Owens Community College, where the 660 non-student tickets for his concert sold out in seven minutes, according to John Byers, student activities manager at Owens.
It’s the kind of impact Cook is looking for with his tour, and it’s the one that he didn’t get coming off of “American Idol.”
“You know, coming off ‘Idol’ and the massive venues, I had a blast and the crowd was great, but I came away feeling that I hadn’t reached everyone,” Cook said.
Therefore, prior to performing at summer fairs, Cook will be performing at a couple of smaller colleges in Ohio. Following his stop at Owens, Cook will be at Lorain County Community College in Elyria, Clark State Community College in Springfield and The Ohio State University’s Newark campus.
On tour, Cook and his band members try to stay active by playing basketball or throwing a football around at college stops. During that time, Cook meets faculty, students and fans.

“It’s actually amazing,” he said. “People get these ideas of celebrities, and people assume I’m not a talkative person. I consider myself a pretty personable person.”

Aside from his scheduled Ohio tour stops, Cook said he has actually been to the state quite a bit, but not necessarily Northwest Ohio.
“My dad has friends there,” he said. “I went to a summer camp in Ohio. I’ve been to Kings Island and the Idol tour was there.”
Cook said he would likely be bartending if he hadn’t won “American Idol.”
His biggest honor was seeing 11 of his songs debut on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending May 25, 2008. That was the most since The Beatles had 14 songs on the Billboard chart in April 1964.
“Dude, I’m gonna have to get that tattooed on myself,” Cook said. “I think this whole last year has been nuts. I’ll look forward to being able to sit back and process it.”

On April 23, Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner released the Toledo Police Department contingency plan, which details how the department will operate following the announced layoffs of 150 police officers.

Mayor Finkbeiner released the following statement: “I do not wish to lay off any member of our Safety Forces or other City personnel that provide service to our citizens. Yet, I must take this action in order to balance a $20 million deficit that is growing by $500,000 each week. However, it is not too late to greatly reduce the announced number of layoffs. To City Council and the members of our Unions: The power is in our hands. I again appeal to you to join with us to reduce the number of layoffs through passing our entire Balanced Budget Plan. The Balanced Budget Plan will balance Toledo’s budget with few layoffs.”

Chief of Staff and Public Safety Director Robert Reinbolt released the following statement: “These announced layoffs can be greatly reduced in number. This administration has put forth a Balanced Budget Plan to City Council requiring reductions in benefits and salaries for all City of Toledo employees, as well as modest revenue enhancements that would avert the staffing changes now required for the Toledo Police Department. City Council has adopted what is commonly known as “The Szollosi Plan,” which calls for layoffs in all departments, with the Police Department being impacted the most due to minimal manning requirements of the Fire Department. This administration has done all it can do to avoid these layoffs. It now rests on the shoulders of Council and our Unions to prevent this from happening.”

Chief of Police Michael Navarre released the following statement: “The loss of 150 officers on May 1 has required a restructuring of the Police Department. Every effort will be made to continue our success in reducing crime as we have done in each of the last three years.”

New nonstop air service between Toledo and Newark, N.J., will begin one month later than expected and under a different name.

The port authority in Toledo said Thursday the charter service that had called itself Air Azul — taken from the Spanish word for “blue” — has canceled all tickets already purchased and will announce a new operating name May 4.

Air Azul had planned to begin three-times-a-week service between Toledo and Newark on June 1. A letter to customers says flights will now start July 1 and says tickets will have to be rebooked. The letter tells customers their credit cards were never charged.

Airline officials say next month’s naming news will be accompanied by word of introductory fares as low as $9, before taxes and fees.

Hart Associates of Maumee was selected by the Ohio Lottery Commission to be among three integrated marketing firms that will provide creative work for its statewide advertising campaigns.

“I’m excited about it not only for our agency but for Toledo and Northwest Ohio getting this business from the State of Ohio. We’re proud to bring some of it back to Toledo,” said Mike Hart, president and CEO.

The lottery commission employs multiple agencies to provide integrated marketing services for its annual campaigns. It selected one primary agency from Cincinnati and two secondary agencies, Hart Associates and a firm in Columbus.

The two-year contract will begin July 1, 2009 and continue through 2011 with about $3.5 million in business each year divided among the three firms, Hart said.

“These contracts were awarded after an arduous but fair process over the past five months. We worked very diligently to get this business” said Hart.

He also said it was premature to know if the new business will require any additional manpower. They will be meeting with the other agencies and Lottery Commission in the near future to determine how the work will be divided among the three firms.

Hart Associates was selected as one of the top business-to-business agencies in the country by BtoB Magazine for the fifth consecutive year earlier this month. The magazine’s editors pick the agencies which orchestrated the most challenging, inventive and effective campaigns, according to the published criteria for it.

“Being named one of the top business-to-business agencies for five consecutive years shows that our firm has a strong, ongoing dedication to serving our clients with outstanding solutions-driven creative,” said Hart. “It’s much more than a plaque to hang on the wall.”

Mike’s father Tom Hart founded the firm in the early 1960s in Toledo. Tom headed the business for many years up to his death in 1998.

Hart’s client work is divided equally between business-to-business and business-to-consumer accounts. The integrated marketing communications firm serves clients in Northwest Ohio including Glasstech, Image Integration Systems, Jones & Henry Engineers, and ProMedica.

Hart has also done creative work for nationally know brands such as La-Z-Boy and Rubbermaid’s new Hydrogear product line.

Tom Schlachter, chairman of Take Back Toledo, the group that organized and conducted the recall of mayor Carty Finkbeiner reacted to the mayor’s recent challenge of the legitimacy of the effort as well as individual signatures and petitions in an April 21 news release.

“Mayor Finkbeiner has the right to challenge this process,” said Schlachter. “However, a third-party attorney hired by city council has already ruled in our favor. The Lucas County Board of Elections, which has a great deal of knowledge and experience in validating petitions and signatures has already validated more than 20,000 of our signatures. Therefore, we’re confident we’ll prevail against any challenge the mayor launches.”

According to the news release, “Take Back Toledo was organized in January 2009 to recall mayor Carty Finkbeiner as well as work toward electing a new mayor who understands economic development and is more ‘business friendly’ than Carty Finkbeiner. The group cited among its reasons for recalling Mayor Finkbeiner his fiscal irresponsibility and penchant of embarrassing the city on a national and international scale.”

Schlachter was quick to dismiss being labeled a “malcontent”. “Carty said he would not leave the city to a group of ‘self-interested malcontents from outside the city’. If Carty is recalled, Mark Sobczak will become mayor. As far as I know, Mark is a resident of the City of Toledo and I’ve never heard anybody call him a malcontent.”

Schlachter added that the group is still examining the issue of placing the recall question on the November 3 ballot as opposed to the September 15 ballot. “We’re consulting with legal counsel, but we haven’t decided whether or not to challenge the clerk’s decision to place it on the November ballot.”

“This has been a steep mountain to climb,” Schlachter added. “I will say that the [Lucas County] board of elections and [clerk of council] Jerry Dendinger have been exceptionally professional through this entire process.