ABOUT MEHi, my name's Durand Demlow. This is about me, working for myself and how it came about that I'm smiling out at you from this web page. I've had a pretty diverse career. Advertising, college professor, writer, real estate agent and, for a decade or so, full time licensed remodeler. I always seemed to remodel every house I ever lived in anyway, though. And not because they necessarily needed any remodeling, either. I love transforming houses. I like the smells, the sounds and even the challenges of remodeling. At times its more like play than work. I'd hire professionals to do the things I couldn't, then watch and ask questions. The more I learned, the more I could do myself, so soon, my little remodeling business started to grow and started actually making a profit. I also began working on more than one project at a time, and hiring more workers. A little risky, but the housing market was great. In the Summer of 2007, however, I could see those markets crumbling about me and within a few months, I was robbing my investment accounts and credit cards to stay above water. Unfortunately, within a year my finances and everything else I'd worked for was gone. You've probably seen stories like mine on the news. I really had nothing. I didn't even have health or life insurance. Here I was, looking into my "retirement" years and not knowing if I'd be able to pay next month's rent on my one bedroom apartment! What I DID have was a nice computer and a faith that somehow God would be with me through this. It was now about me and basic survival. MAKE MONEY ONLINE!!! ... AND OTHER LIES  I needed to make a living, and more importantly, make something that could provide some sort of "retirement" income! Look at these flashy, smiling faced come-ons! Can any of their claims be real? Well, after a year of wasting all the money I could scrape together and thousands of hours online, I can tell you the answer is NO!!! Absolutely ALL of the cyber promises telling me I could work in my jammies and make money with little to no work were SCAMS!! That's right. NONE were honest. SOME simply took money out of my account without my consent. Most will say anything to get your information. Once I emailed and even called "Customer Service" before signing on to one scam and was reassured in writing that my $149.95 was COMPLETELY refundable. Of course I never saw one thin dime. You mean they don't care about me? They use eBay, Amazon, Google (Google's a big one), bank logos, As Seen on TV and anything else that will put you off-guard. But, "isn't it illegal to try and fool people into thinking you're honest when you're really a lowlife, piece of dog-mess trying to rip them off?" It certainly should be. But, if their name is "Google Big Money Maker", or "Ebay Success System" then, no I guess its not illegal. But, you say "isn't it illegal to fool people with logos that look like the original?" It must not be, either. It IS illegal to scam you, but they have to catch them first. And, that's nearly impossible. "They are ALL OVER the Internet. [People who are] hell-bent on Well, that certainly was my question! Somebody's making a living on the internet. Lots of somebody's it looks like. I mean besides the scammers. I was then working two jobs and searching the internet every night for something real. I mean, it can't ALL be crooked, can it? Then I stumbled onto something that was different. So, here's where I finally get around to how I got here, smiling out at you from a web page. This is my own web site, completely developed by me. I build my own pages, write my own content and create all the links. Now I share what I've learned from the remodeling business with the world. What makes this amazing is that just a short while ago, I didn't even know how to send an email with an attachment! You too could share a hobby or your knowledge of something with a real internet business that you develop. I'm not where I want to be yet, but I now have several thousand visitors each month and that number continues to rise (along with my attitude ;-). I'm really excited about me and my future and soon, thanks to SBI, some maintenance, a little ongoing development, a bit of writing and publishing my e-zine will be all that's needed. And I can do that from a laptop on a sailboat! That's as close to retiring as I can now imagine. |
"Your home is the
best and smartest
investment you can make,
and remodeling is the
best and smartest thing
you can do for
that investment!"
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