See Jupiter and Venus March 10th

Jupiter and Venus in the night sky above New Haven, CTSaturday night had some curious night sky tenants. Heading out for some much appreciated time out, Amy & I noticed to bright lights in the night sky, and knowing they had to be planets, we stopped to check them out.

Turns out they were Jupiter and Venus and they made quite an impressive duo! My phone did it’s best, but definitely not the easiest shot. The image seems to show, perhaps, some of the moons around them!

ZipCars Go Municipal

The City of New Haven, CT is looking for ways to scrounge money.

Public Works Director John Prokop told the New Haven Advocate that the city is considering a pilot program to ditch its fleet of municipal vehicles and start using ZipCars for official business. The city currently owns 25 Chevrolet sedans, many of which are well into the six digits on the odometer. The cars are expensive to maintain and fuel, and some of them hold together with spit and baling wire.

By switching to ZipCar, the city expects to score savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars; similar programs have launched in a number of cities nationwide, without obvious negative results. Connecticut auto transport companies will miss hauling inoperative government vehicles back to the parking lot, but applaud any responsible way for the city to save the long-abused taxpayer a few bucks.

Do you do things a bit differently?

If you think out of the box then you’re not alone. Recently we came across a story about flat hot dogs in The Star. It highlighted how off beat and original ideas can really turn into prosperous decisions. You compete with thousands of other businesses and the only way to win is by taking your own angle on a common offering. Differentiating yourself from your competition pays dividends. By doing this you create buzz for your business and you give people stories to tell.

There’s a similar article in the New Haven Independent about the Caseus Cheese Truck–which uses Twitter to relay its location every day and in doing so has garnered a loyal following. This shows that you’re bound to see increased profits whenever you’re able to get people excited about and involved with your brand. So if you do things a bit differently just think about the burger shaped hot dog and say “why not?”