Mary Fisher Design

The Chicken Man Of Panama City

2010-05-30T19:25:50+00:00

Shooting ruffles neighbor's feathers

A neighborhood feud turned fowl Tuesday when a Bay County man shot and killed three chickens and a turkey with a .357-caliber Magnum during an argument in his neighbor's front yard.

Ron Daniel, 54, said he got into an argument with Sandra Lawrence when his birds wandered onto her property near State 22 in eastern Bay County. Daniel said he couldn't catch the birds, so he got angry and shot them.

Daniel, who was raising the birds for food, said he had every intention of eating what he had killed, but he was arrested and charged with one count of misdemeanor animal cruelty before he could put the birds in a pot.

"I intended to take them to the house and make chicken and dumplings out of them," Daniel said. "They never knew what hit them. I'm one hell of a shot."

Lawrence said she demanded that Daniel remove the birds from her yard, but was appalled and disgusted at his methods.

"It's not hunting season," she said. "I didn't even comprehend what he was doing until I heard the bang. My mouth fell open. You don't expect somebody to do something like that. It was just uncalled for."

The neighbors both admit having a problem keeping their animals on their respective properties. Daniel said Lawrence's dog has come onto his property several times and killed his chickens.

"I'd go out in my yard and find a dead chicken here and a dead chicken there," Daniel said. "I told them I've got a problem with your dog killing my fowl. I talked to them three times, and got a good cussing out."

Daniel said he has called Bay County deputies and animal control out to his house on several occasions to report problems with Lawrence's dog. Needless to say, when Daniel's chickens wandered onto Lawrence's property Tuesday, they were not well-received.

"I was going to get those chickens," Daniel said. "I took my cane and started over there to catch them, but they ran from me, which is natural."

Unable to catch the chickens, Daniel, a disabled veteran, admits that he lost his temper and told his son to bring him his gun.

"We used to call it 'going south' in 'Nam," Daniel said. "She (Lawrence) said, 'Get your chickens off of my property or kill them.' These people have aggravated me and aggravated me. I had to put a stop to it.

"I thought well I can shoot my neighbors or I can shoot my chickens, but if I shoot my neighbors, I won't have any dinner," he added.

Lawrence said her 19-year-old daughter, an animal lover who was horrified by the shooting, called the Humane Society.

Animal control officials responded to the scene with Bay County deputies, who took Daniel into custody. Two chickens and a turkey were found dead at the scene. One chicken was rushed to Parkway Animal Hospital where it died in surgery.

The shooting, Daniel said, was more humane than euthanasia practiced in animal shelters, and it had a purpose - food.

"Some people may think it's cold-blooded, but those same people will go to the grocery store and buy chicken wrapped in plastic," Daniel said. "I'm a country boy. I was raised on a farm. If you didn't raise something to eat, you didn't eat."

According to Florida Statute 828.12, misdemeanor animal cruelty is defined as unnecessarily mutilating or killing an animal. The offense is punishable by up to a year in jail or a fine of not more than $5,000.

Setting It Straight

A News Herald story Wednesday on the shooting of three chickens and a turkey should have said one of the chickens was euthanized at Parkway Animal Hospital because it could not survive its injuries.
Follow up story:

Local News: Chicken killer flies coop after state drops charges
Saturday, July 13, 2002

DANIEL JACKSON

The News Herald

The State Attorney's Office cleared Ron Daniel of animal cruelty charges Friday, three days after he was arrested for shooting three chickens and a turkey with a .357-caliber Magnum in his neighbor's yard.

Assistant State Attorney Zachary Taylor filed a "no information" in the case, saying the state could not prove the incident was malicious. "It is not a crime for the owner of chickens to kill them when attempting to do so in a humane manner," he explained.

Daniel said he plans to get his gun back from the Bay County Sheriff's Office on Monday.

After The News Herald reported his arrest on Wednesday, Daniel said the state attorney's office called him for an interview, and people all over Bay County started calling him the Chicken Man.

"I'm not guilty of animal cruelty," said Daniel who raises the birds for food. "Now, everywhere I go people are asking me for fried chicken. They want me to open a chicken franchise."

Daniel shot the birds after they wandered onto the property of his neighbors, Sandra and Richard Lawrence. He said he'd been feuding with the Lawrence family because their daughter's dog had killed some of his chickens.

Sandra Lawrence, who witnessed the shooting, said she feels she is now the laughingstock of Bay County, but she can't find the humor in a man firing a gun in her front yard. She said Daniel shot the birds in an effort to intimidate her, after she asked him to get them out of her yard.

"I feel like our judicial system has failed us," she said. "I don't even feel safe in my own yard anymore. People aren't taking this seriously. We're scared that it's open season on us."

Daniel, a disabled veteran who raises chickens, ducks, quail and turkeys, said he got mad trying to catch the birds, and decided to have them for dinner instead. He got his gun and shot them in front of his neighbors.

The Lawrences' 19-year-old daughter, Shonda, made an emergency call to the Humane Society that was answered by Bay County Animal Control and deputies, who took Daniel into custody. Two chickens and the turkey died immediately. One chicken was taken to Parkway Animal Hospital, where it was euthanized.

After he was released from jail Wednesday, Daniel told The News Herald he'd planned to make chicken and dumplings, but animal control took the chickens before he could get them back to the house. "They never knew what hit them," he said. "I'm one hell of a shot."

Richard Lawrence said he doesn't care if Daniel kills his chickens, but he should do it on his own property. He said if he'd been home at the time of the incident, he'd have probably gone to jail too - for fighting.

"He never should have brought that gun down here," he said.

Mary Fisher Design on Google Stories

2010-05-17T18:38:59+00:00

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Is your website iPad ready?

2010-05-13T14:54:36+00:00

Apple has already sold 1 million of iPads in the U.S. and in the next weeks they will start to deliver millions of iPads outside the U.S. Ipad is an ingenious touch-based computer that lets you surf the web, listen music, watch videos, write emails. But if you are not aware Apple decided to not support Flash, so if your site is built using this technology, 1 million iPad users will not able to view your site.

Apple CEO, Steve Jobs explained in detail why he doesn't want to support Flash on Apple's devices. He says is not touch compatible, it's slow, it's an Adobe's closed proprietary technology.

On the other hand, Adobe responded about his technology. However many major companies don't want to lose any iPad users and they have already started to build their sites without using Flash, using new standards as HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript, for example, Youtube, Vimeo, CBS, ABC, Netflix are totally compatible with Apple products.

Mary Fisher Design already started to avoid flash technology when possible. Most of our sites use html/css/javascript to emulate what flash can do. In my opinion, Flash is still a good web development tool and it won't disappear in a few weeks or months, also because the new html5 and css3 are not fully supported by the most used browsers on earth, Internet Explorer, but flash technology will die sooner or later.

Is your website iPad-ready? Are you ready to lose 1 million+ potential visitors to your site?

Lynx browser: how Google sees your website

2010-05-13T13:55:42+00:00

Learning how Google and other search engines, see your website is the key to a good search engine optimization of your site (SEO).

One way is to view google cache text-version.

However this method won't show the cache unless Google has crawled your page.

The other way is to use the Lynx browser. It is a text-based very ugly looking software, but it will show exactly how spiders will see your site. Check your site with Lynx and discover new way to optimize your site!

Trendler USA, compatible toner cartridges

2010-05-04T22:21:29+00:00

We had the great fortune to work on Stephen Trendler's website: TrendlerUSA.com. The company will begin to save costs immediately because of the flippable catalog on the homepage. They will no longer have to print and mail out catalogs. And their compatible toner cartridge customers will have a catalog immediately without having to wait on the postal service. And on top of that, he is saving trees. We will call this the "Trendler Green Initiative". We have also used Trendler's toner cartridges in our Xerox 7300 machine. Color is critical to us. They work as well as the manufacturers' cartridges and save us a ton of money. And in this economy, who doesn't want to save a little "green".
http://www.trendlerusa.com

Something lumpy in your direct mail

2010-04-05T00:34:33+00:00

does_your_mktg_stink.pdf
Lumpy Mail: An Engine for Lead-Generation
By Steve Cuno

There’s nothing quite like a box or bulging padded envelope in the mail. It makes your inner child hop up and down, tug your sleeve and ask — nay, nag: “What’s inside? Huh? HUH? WHAT’S INSIDE?” This happens even when the package contains something you ordered. The effect is multiplied when it’s something you didn’t order.
An eager, inner child dwells within us all. Even hard-to-reach corporate curmudgeons, who take pride in chucking unopened direct mail or delegating the task to administrative assistants, harbor such a child. And that is precisely why well-executed lumpy mail works. It has the uncanny ability to find its way to the curmudgeon’s hands — and heart. It even charms their administrative assistants, some of whom, rumor has it, also once had hearts.
If you want to reach business decision-makers, lumpy mail is your secret weapon. (I could use the more common term, “three-dimensional direct mail.” But my own inner child, who likes saying “lumpy,” begs your indulgence.)
How powerful is lumpy mail? Consider a credit card provider seeking face-to-face meetings with bank CEOs. Our agency mailed each CEO a box containing a sales letter and a First-Class Mail® reply card. I should also mention that the box was five feet long, to accommodate the pair of stilts that we enclosed. The sales letter promised to help banks compete with “the big guys.” Our client set appointments with 40 percent of the mailing list and booked more than $65 million in business the first year alone.
Not that lumpy mail must be so elaborate. For a client with a tiny budget, we mailed a letter, reply card — and fake mustache — in a Number 10 envelope. The envelope headline read, “Clever disguise enclosed.” The pitch? That retailing our client’s product would be immensely profitable. The mustache? To hide from long-lost friends showing up for a handout. The package pulled a 25-percent response.
Then there was the air horn we mailed for a community bank (36-percent response), the kazoo for a business service (25 percent), the Lone Ranger mask for a half-million-dollar software product (25 percent), the beanbag elephant for a regional bank (56 percent), the two-headed coin for a transit company (47 percent) …
I’ll resist the temptation to keep raving. Let’s move on to what makes lumpy mail work from a strategic standpoint. Here are six musts:
1. Mail something of value. Junk doesn’t impress. Neither does a pen or mug with your logo. Note that “of value” needn’t mean “expensive.” The mustache cost our client less than a buck. Recipients kept it because it was fun. Many donned it and paraded around the office.
2. Mail something with “head-scratcher” value. The last thing you need is for recipients to know what you plan to say before you say it. Make them scratch their head and wonder, “Why did XYZ Company send me a hockey puck?” (The hockey puck mailing, by the way, pulled an 8-percent response.) To find out, they will have to read.
3. Write a darned good sales letter. The lumpy enclosure charms, grabs attention and makes people read, but the letter sells. Do not enclose — and for heaven’s sake do not substitute — a flyer. Not even a really cool one. It will drive response down.
4. Don’t tell too much. Too much information relieves prospects of having to meet with you. Tell enough to create curiosity. Then invite the reader to contact you to learn more. Keep the letter to a page, and add no literature other than a reply card.
5. Be relevant. “Now that I have your attention …” isn’t strategic; it’s juvenile. Your lumpy enclosure must underscore a salient point. When we mailed high-end wooden puzzles to hospital-based pathologists, we likened the puzzle to laboratory management challenges. Recipients could receive the puzzle’s solution by meeting with a sales rep. (15-percent response.)
6. Follow up by phone. In every case cited here resulting in meetings with more than 25 percent of recipients, there was telephone follow-up. Lumpy mail generates inquiries on its own, but you’ll double or triple results by calling every name on the list. Try opening with, “I’m the one who sent you the [life preserver].” (Yes, we mailed those, too. 40 percent.) Then ask for an appointment. (Hint: Limit mailing quantities to what you can realistically follow up.)
A rare stick-in-the mud may say, “If you must do this to get my attention, you can’t be any good.” Should that happen, congratulations. You’ve just identified someone you don’t want for a customer. Move on to the next name.
Lumpy mailings are powerful, effective and a blast. Right now, we’re preparing to mail deodorant soap for a high-end audio products manufacturer. Next, we’re mailing volleyballs for a law firm.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
Steve Cuno heads the RESPONSE Agency in Salt Lake City. He is a popular speaker and the author of the book Prove It Before You Promote It: How to Take the Guesswork Out of Marketing (John Wiley & Sons). E-mail him at Steve@ResponseAgency.com. Read his blog at http://www.responseagency.com/blog/index.php.

Picerno Construction Company Jacksonville Florida

2010-03-21T01:34:33+00:00

Rick Picerno, a commercial and residential contractor in Jacksonville, is one of the most honest and talented craftsmen I know.
There has never been a better time to build or purchase the home that you have always wanted. You will find that the market is ripe for buyers, and Picerno Construction is the perfect partner to help you achieve your goals.

Picerno Construction, a family-owned business, has been a premier designer, builder and renovation contractor throughout the Florida area for over 40 years. Being a turnkey operation, they can build a new home for you and your family, or remodel your current home to your specifications.

http://www.apchome.com

New Website for Pioneer Technology Group of Orlando Florida

2010-03-21T00:10:29+00:00

We were tasked with developing a website for a government software developer and records management company in Sanford Florida. Pioneer Technology Group develops software for municipalities all over the United States. If you have ever been to your city's website and found that it was hard to navigate and didn't work well, they can do it better. Pioneer Technology Group helps county and local governments increase productivity and reduce costs.
Pioneer Technology Group

Dynamic website for Katherine Ashley CPA

2010-03-20T23:41:44+00:00

Now, this is not your typical CPA website. Katherine Ashley wanted a site that was not your usual stuffy CPA site, but instead had vibrant colors, unusual photos (no stuffy shirts, no tax forms, no pens and glasses) and made prospective clients feel comfortable. She also wanted it to be a good resource for her current clients. This website even works on the iphone. Katherine B. Ashley CPA

The Savannah Project book cover

2009-10-07T14:43:16+00:00

The Savannah Project, a thriller by Chuck Barrett
Book cover design by Mary Fisher