The Moody Blues are wrong

Ten years ago The Moody Blues sang the tune "You Can Never Go Home," but they're dead wrong.

This week I had meetings in Cincinnati, and two customers have offices just 5 miles from my home town of Reading, Ohio. I had some unexpected time to spare, so on a whim I decided to call two people who made a strong impression on me growing up.

I had the opportunity to catch up with my 7th and 8th grade Latin teacher, Don Lucas, over burgers and Coke. He's been retired from public teaching for 20 years, and his gain was their loss. For someone I so admired, it's almost serendipitous that we're both now in the same line of work--he owns a travel agency while I work for a dot com travel company. My next stop was Reading Junior/Senior High School to see my 8th grade English teacher, Ronda Eisenhard, who is now a counselor and coach.

My visits with Don and Ronda reminded me that I don't want my life measured by professional or financial accomplishments but rather by the quality of my relationships. They lived their lives as examples to thousands of kids, and their influence is still bearing fruit today.

FREE Software from Microsoft and Intuit

Microsoft is giving away software?! It's true. They're giving away Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007, but of course they're hoping that some percentage of customers will want to upgrade to their Professional version for $149.95.

Comparing the Express against the Professional version as well as Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting, though, and it's hard to understand why a small business would want to pay to upgrade unless they're in manufacturing, in which case you're probably going to want a more robust accounting product anyway.

For those who prefer to use Intuit's products, there is a version of their QuickBooks product that is free--QuickBooks Simple Start 2008. We've been accounting for our real estate investments in Quicken, but I'm going to try both Microsoft Office Accounting Express and QuickBooks Simple Start to see if either might be better.