The *BIG* Jewelry show in Las Vegas

While we have yet to attend the *big* jewelry show in Las Vegas in June of each year, we have many associates, clients and vendors who go to exhibit and participate for a variety of reasons. While in the jewelry district of Manhattan (or Diamond District as some people know it) yesterday I was surrounded by men with guns and huge 18 wheel trucks that went on for several blocks. It took me a few minutes to realize what was going on...then it hit me. The 'Vegas' show. Yesterday, during business hours, tons of diamonds, precious gems, gold, platinum and silver were being loaded onto trucks here in NYC (and in LA, Chicago and other cities all over the country) to be driven, under heavy guard, to the show in Vegas. Here are a few images showing a tiny bit of what I could see. The angles aren't the best on the shots, but you can see the trucks all lined up, and you can see some of the armed guards - between each truck was a group of 10-20 men.

Finalist for Biz Grant and Need Your Votes

It is so exciting to announce that we are one of the 50 finalists in the Intuit Small Business Grant Contest. In order to participate in the final stage of the contest I had to create a video that told my story and submit it to Intuit where people can vote for it over the next 2 weeks (voting closes on May 31, 2009). It went live on their site on May 18 at 9:30am PST. Now, I need your votes!

Visit this link:

http://community.intuit.com/contests/asKDwGzr0qllvkab8P4pmk

When you are ready to vote, click on one of the words, "inspiring", "useful" or "funny" (you can actually vote once in each of the three categories), you will be prompted to create a user name and password (for security reasons), then you will be able to register your vote. The internet votes will count as 40% of the overall voting for the Grand Prize and 4 runner ups. Please take some time and vote! Thank you so much!!

Payson