It’s true!

If you found this website, it means that you could be the *only* person who has read it in months. I am the author of this blog, and I don’t even read it anymore.

What happened? Who knows. I guess it just got old. With MyFace, Twitter, and text messaging- why do I need to write in here anymore? I can’t even remember why I started this blog in the first place sometimes. I think it might have been to just keep a journal. I do that now but it is private. Imagine that! Something private in this era of electronic noseyness. 

If you want to know more about why it is pointless to keep a blog this day in age (unless you are going pro) I found a timely article on Slashdot today. Enjoy-

Most Blogs Now Abandoned

OK now this is crazy. So I thought that robotic exoskeletons were cool? What about robotic pack goats? Think I am kidding? No.

This is so strange, I really couldn’t even make it up. It is kind of like a smaller imperial droid.

It is official!

Actually, it has been official for quite some time now. I mean, after a month and a half of employment you would think that I would get around to writing this little piece and so now I finally am getting around to it.

The company I now work for is called Cision AB officially. It is a conglomerate owned by a Sweedish company that focuses in “media intellegence” which means that we keep tabs on what the media writes about and we keep tabs on the contact info for everyone in the media. So our services range from monitoring media coverage to providing a contact database, both nationally and internationally.

And by everyone, I mean EVERYONE. Cision’s media database is extremely robust because Cision purchased Bacon’s Media Information, which has been keeping tabs on press contacts for about 80 years now. Sure there are some competitors, but really nobody has been around as long as us. So I am not scared. I just have to say that Cision was formerly Bacons so that people don’t think I am some yahoo from a random company.

You can email me work related questions at travis.cannell@cision.com if you have anymore questions or somehow stumble onto this site looking for a media contact database.

It is official- I am currently looking for full time employement in Los Angeles.

I am pursuing a career in Software Sales that can utilize both my degree in Computer Science and my experience in sales. So far it is going great and I have met with some interesting companies. It seems there is plenty of work out there for an Anthony Robbins loving, quota breaking salesman!

I put my resume online in PDF format.

If anyone reading this thinks their company could use someone like me, please get in touch with me at travis.cannell@gmail.com. Feel free to forward my resume as well.

I still can’t believe it, but robotic exoskeletons are here! My friend forwarded me a link to this video:

Pretty cool right? Seeing these kinds of things always makes me feel like I am, indeed, living in the future.

Hey here is a cool little video of my father being interviewed by CBN about vitamin D. Its a nice little summation of what is going on in the battle to get more knowledge out there about Vitamin D.

What’s the Real Story on Vitamin D?

As a few of you may know, I have a side-project website that has been in the works for a little while now. I finally got the website to place where I am comfortable promoting it, but it is still very much an evolving idea.

I have been Type 1 Diabetic for about 10 years now (wow, its a little scary) and being the type of person that I am, I have constantly looked for ways to live my life the way I want and to not let Diabetes effect my health. That is not so easy.

Diabetic Vitamins is a website that will hopefully give the information that Diabetics need to combat the devastating side effects of the disease. I was always surprised that doctors were never willing to tell me about well researched herbs, supplements and vitamins that are beneficial for Diabetics.

My goal with the website is to provide relevant health information based on actual research. I will not make bold claims that are found all over the internet about to sell a product. I will simply and humbly show the factual research that has been done on each substance and let you decide whether it is something worthwhile.

I am pretty sure, if your diabetic, you will find this research well worth the read. Until I get my official list up (I might turn it into an e-book, I don’t know) you can read the Diabetic Vitamin Blog which stays up to date with Diabetic Vitamin research.

As some of you may know, my father Dr John Cannell is a big proponent of adequate levels of vitamin D for all. As we move into cold season this year and as winter sets in, it is a great time to get some Vitamin D supplements to protect yourself from diseases ranging from cancer to autoimmune illnesses. It is absolutely amazing how important this vitamin is for human body function and how few people really know its benefits.

So I decided to put together a top five list of reasons why to supplement with Vitamin D.

1- It decreases the risk of developing cancer by 50% in a recently released study. 50%! If you develop cancer after reading this, just remember you could probably (yea, probably because its %50) have avoided the entire illness with vitamin D. Read the press release from UCSD about the meta-study and learn about the powerful anti-cancerous effects of Vitamin D.

2- Vitamin D lowers mortality across the board by %7. While that doesn’t seem like much, that highlights the fact that Vitamin D really does fight off many different types of diseases. Don’t believe me? Go read the study, then get back to me.

3- Our modern environment has totally decimated our natural ability to produce Vitamin D. Working indoors, behind glass (glass blocks the spectrums of the sun’s rays that produce Vitamin D when they hit skin) and with clothing on, modern man gets little to no Vitamin D naturally. Even with fortified foods, we are woefully deficient because the foods are not nearly fortified enough, which brings me to my next bullet point.

4- If you walk into the sun with a significant portion of your skin exposed to summer sun, your body manufactures around 10,000 units maximum in 20 minutes if your fair skinned (it takes longer the darker your skin). That is before your burned. So with enough sun to not even burn you, your body will naturally make 10,000 units of the stuff which is so much that the FDA believes it to be toxic and it is 50X more than the Daily Recommended allowance for an adult of 200 units/day. Is the government wrong? Or did our bodies evolve to be toxic if they are exposed to natural sunlight? I will let you decide.

5- And finally- Its cheap as hell! Goodness people, it costs about 5 bucks for a bottle. Yes- FIVE BUCKS for bottle of 250 1,000 IU tabs from Swansons Vitamins Online. If you get it anywhere else, just make sure that it is cholecalciferol or Vitamin D3.

My dad has a complete website with great information at the Vitamin D Council. If you look on the bottom of the homepage you can see he recommends around 4,000 units a day. Most of those studies used less, around 1,000 units a day, but people please take your Vitamin D. And tell your relatives (especially older ones you know). Getting sick is not fun for anyone.

More about Prosper-

My friend linked this video to me. It is a panel talk with Propser’s top three lenders. They are getting over 25% on their portfolios of $750,000. Is this good? Sounds good to me. That is beating the pants of the stock market.

I really, can’t, for the life of me remember how I found Prosper. But I did. It is a very interesting idea that I liked immediately after I poked around the website for a little bit. Here is how it works.

Prosper connects people who are looking for money with people who have money. If you have money, you are usually looking for a way to get a good return on said money. I mean, you worked hard for that cash and now it is time that it works for you. How about returns of 8-12%? Does that sound like something Daddy would like? Indeed it does. Here is the Prosper creative for people who have money:

Now how does Prosper allow you to get a return like that? How risky is it? What is Prosper smoking? Well what are you smoking?

Now for some answers- Prosper is what you call a peer-to-peer lending establishment. Or at least that is what I am going to call it. The buzzwords are peer to peer lending. Prosper connects investors looking to get a good return on their money with people with varying credit scores who need money.

The key is that Prosper allows an investor to invest micro loans ($50-150) across all of Prosper’s members who are looking to get funded. It is called diversification, and usually is only something that people do with large amounts of money get to do. Prosper has enough people looking for loans for it to work though so it is great.

The investor can look at the person’s loan information ala facebook style to see their picture, their recommendations from other members and their loan history. They can also look at a stripped down credit score of the person looking for a loan, giving them a rating from AA down to E depending on a number of factors. Prosper really does pull credit.

And you guessed it, people with lower credit ratings have to pay higher interest rates, but if you as an investor are willing to gamble, you could get those higher rates in exchange for the risk. It is like a bond market for the masses! Prosper even has automated tools you can use to automate funding small loans with “standing orders”-see Prosper Portfolio Plans.

Prosper has some great historical information on their website and about $98 Million has already gone through the website already. Look at Prosper’s historical charts on their performance page. It is like MySpace meets Chase-Manhattan. Its absolutely brilliant! Now on the other side of the coin, look at Prosper’s creative for people who need a good peer-to-peer loan:

It looks deceptively like an ad for some skeezy credit card refinance sort of sham, no? I thought so! Shame on Prosper! Happy people smiling with APR rates is never a good way to go. Sigh. But you never can have it all. And for most people the rates you are getting are much better than credit card debt. And you can get loans that might not even be possible.

So how does it look as a borrower? You simply put in your personal information, much like getting a regular loan and then create your loan profile where you can describe your financial situation, why you want the loan, what you are going to use it for and why you are able to pay it back. You can put up pictures and really lay on the sort of story that will get a loan funded- family problems, divorce, children with sicknesses, you name it. Then people can bid on your loan and take part in the interest rate that you are offering. Once enough people have placed their little micro-bids on your loan (usually around $50-150) and it is fully funded- bam. The money is wired to your account minus an origination fee (I think its $45) and you are ready to go.

The small business loan possibilities for Prosper are endless. Housing remodels, new business loans, existing business loans and even non-existent business loans. At the end of the day your loan will or will not get funded based on your credit score with the pictures and stories only helping to establish your character. I already put a profile on here to fund a small loan and I will certainly look for Prosper in the future when trying to get some financing for my online business endeavors. I will also look at it as a sound place to get over 10% on small amounts of money as I build wealth.

Anyways- check out Prosper. I double dog dare you too.