Digital Marketing

The amazing edible caption

Of course, you are familiar with the use of *headlines* to draw attention to text, brochures, articles, or web documents. But *subheadings* can be just as effective in highlighting key points for your readers. And they also help make any document easier to read, by breaking up long blocks of text into easy-to-digest chunks. (Hence my title “edible”. Hmm.)

Break It Subtitles

Subheadings are generally seen as goodwill gestures towards your readers, as they are most often used to break long articles into logical breaks. They can indicate a change of subject or just break a mass of type. Subheading every four paragraphs allows readers to skim through your article or document and skip through sections without losing their train of thought.

The next time you browse any magazine, notice how its editors use subheadings in longer articles. Readers are very reluctant to read large blocks of text, so subheadings break everything up into bite-sized chunks.

Subtitles have “idea power”

Since subheadings grab your readers’ attention, you should use them to your advantage! Read your document or article for its main promotional points, then summarize the ideas as subheadings. This way, your readers will absorb your main points in just a few seconds skimming through the entire copy.

For best results, subheadings should *not* read like a table of contents. To make your captions compelling, it’s important to include action or sales elements.

BORING CAPTIONS: “Our Story,” “50 Years in Business,” “Our Department’s Success.”

INTERESTING CAPTIONS: “Five Customers Who Saved $10,000 With Us”, “The Most Creative Solutions In The Industry”, “Let Us Do All The Work For You!”

BONUS TIP: These types of subheads also work wonderfully for *sales letters* and *proposals*. Experiment the next time you write a long letter: try looking at it with and without subheadings. You will definitely see the difference!

The rule of subtitles on the net!

When you’re writing copy to post online, whether it’s in an email or on a website, it’s even more crucial to use subheadings! People don’t like to spend a lot of time reading online as it strains their eyes. Subheadings help readers skim through the main points and get your ideas quickly. And if they’re looking for a particular piece of information, subheadings help them locate it faster.

If you’re writing an email that takes up more than one screen, try inserting subheadings every two or three paragraphs, if applicable. It only takes a minute, helps you organize your information, and your readers will love you for it!

Subtitles Add interest

Even if your document is a white paper that’s as exciting as white rice, don’t be afraid to use “summarize it all” subheadings to hold the reader’s interest and break up the copy. Remember, you want people to be drawn to reading your masterpiece, especially when it’s a formal document!

Examples: “Excellent Forecasts for Next Quarter,” “Management Improvements Needed,” and “30% Sales Increase Forecast.”

So consider subheadings your new best friend, whether you’re writing an email, web copy, brochure, or report.

(c) 2000-2003 Alexandria K. Brown. All rights reserved.

Relationship

Inside Tiny Houses – Are you ready?

Mr. Jay Shafer is the genius responsible for coming up with the idea for Tiny Houses! His company, known as Tumbleweed, is part of the tiny house movement. In 2002, he co-founded the Small House Society in Iowa City, Iowa. In 2003, he was commissioned by Gregory Paul Johnson to build The Mobile Hermitage, which became one of Tumbleweed’s first commercially sold homes.

When did Tiny Houses start to flourish?

It turns out that during the Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005, Marianne Cusato developed 308 square feet. On foot, construction of cabins for homeless victims and small house movements flourished.

Want one? What to do next?

Identify the square footage you will need. Visit local prefabs to get an idea of ​​what their minimum requirement is or rent a Tiny House for a weekend to get an assessment and experience hands-on life inside a Tiny House. Then start thinking and planning the setup and your storage needs. Slowly but surely you will begin to form your image of the interior of your Tiny House.

A prefabricated building of 320 m2. foot is enough to make it comfortable and the transition from large to small very easy. Some even include all appliances and HVAC systems. All you need to do is pay for the building (approximately $35K), plus taxes and transportation. Another alternative is to contact a builder of your choice.

You should also research the state laws and the requirements for these Tiny Houses. A good resource for information is through The American Tiny House Association.

There are several different resources and websites that sell plans, workshops, existing real estate for sale or even rentals. So these small homes have come to stay for a long time and a definitive solution to not pay a mortgage for 30 or 40 years.

Being creative inside tiny houses

Imagine yourself inside a Tiny House and exactly what you expect to feel and be comfortable. Let’s entertain our thoughts right now… think about having enough kitchen cabinets, maybe a pull-out pantry, small stove with oven, enough counter space for food prep, small sink, closets for your bedroom, and where would it accommodate? in your washer/dryer combo, oh…and don’t forget your bathroom essentials. Do you want a loft bedroom or on the same floor? If you have a loft, how are you going to want your ladder? Will you have storage under or inside your ladder? As for your living room area, get creative to save space with a small sofa with drawers or storage below, perhaps a drop-leaf table for dining or working with a laptop, and continue to work on all your ideas by jotting them down. Then, with all your ideas, prepare a design drawing and include measurements.

There are many ideas for small-scale furniture that saves floor space. Sofas with storage drawers, corner desks, floating desks, folding tables with drop leaves, storage chests, Murphy beds, beds that slide out or slide up and down from the ceiling and many more. The truth is, whether inside a Tiny House or not, these are also great space saving ideas for small apartments, small rooms, sunrooms, dorm rooms, guest houses, studios, and even studios. Lots of innovative and creative ideas come to life every day from different sources and all because of the need for them. Very well said by Plato “necessity is the mother of invention”.

Last but not least: a reality check

I recently read an article “Dear People Living in Tiny Houses – Medium” by Lauren Modery where she wrote this article about Tiny Houses and she brought up some stark realities of living inside a Tiny House that weren’t so great, but the truth is that depending on however many square feet your Tiny House purchases, these could be custom made to be very comfortable and efficient. You’ll enjoy many great experiences, such as being able to take off whenever you want to travel, enjoy mortgage freedom, pay very low utilities, and receive lower property tax bills. Without a doubt, a great blessing!

But, in the end, it all comes down to planning wisely ahead by staying within your budget and making sure your expectations are met.

Health Fitness

What does sleep deprivation look like?

Many people don’t realize how sleep deprived they are. Do you think that the moment your head touches the pillow you fall asleep is it normal? Do you think you should want to take a nap during your lunch hour or as soon as you get home from work? Do you get frustrated or angry easily? These are all signs that you are sleep deprived.

It is even more difficult to determine sleep deprivation in children. Many children act differently than adults when they are chronically tired. The problem is that sleep deprivation and sleep apnea symptoms in children are a lot like ADHD. Children will become agitated and have trouble concentrating. They become very active during the day instead of tired.

Sleep apnea also looks different. They will snore or breathe with their mouths open. They may have some interruptions during sleep, but not always. They can go round and round a lot. However, many times the lack of sleep is due to parents not sending our children to bed early enough. They may also be woken up too early. Children need longer hours of sleep, and if you keep them up too late, they miss important periods of sleep that allow them to produce growth hormone and consolidate their memories.

In adults, lack of sleep shows up as both short- and long-term memory problems because the brain can’t process memories. It can also prevent the brain from having the time it needs to clear out waste. This can affect memory and contribute to morning headaches.

You may experience other symptoms such as fatigue and sleepiness, headaches, and snacking. I am aware that snacking sounds like a strange symptom, however, when our brain is tired we often misinterpret the signal as being hungry and make poor decisions that lead to snacking.

Everyone has their own symptoms. This is not an exhaustive list of symptoms, but it does give you a place to start considering what in your life is caused by sleep and is it worth giving up 1-2 hours of sleep a night for your health?

Legal Law

Book Review Cool War: The Future of Global Competition by Noah Feldman

With a carefree and didactic style, the new book from Harvard law professor Noah Feldman Cool War: The future of global competition, looks at how China’s rise as a globally significant economic superpower has created an increasingly complex dilemma for the United States, both militarily and economically. Consequently, Feldman aptly coins the term “cold war” to describe a much more complex set of cooperation, competition, and tension between two enemies locked in an uneasy embrace of economic interdependence.

Feldman points out that the interrelationship of the two nations is new by historical standards. For example, throughout the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union were clear military and political rivals, with few or insignificant economic interactions. By contrast, communist-controlled China is currently America’s largest trading partner. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese students study at American universities, and the two nations have become stakeholders in a shared cultural and economic experiment.

In addition, China quietly accumulated a staggering amount of US sovereign debt. Even in the 20th century, Feldman points out, nations never invested significantly in another country’s national debt.

Acting like the world’s last remaining superpower, Feldman rightly points out, means having to spend like one. And, after several costly misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US population is clearly in no mood to spend trillions more on a massive military buildup, especially one that relies on borrowing from the very nation it ostensibly against. seeks to defend itself, to finance that.

While China has not yet sought to achieve military parity with the US, that strategic goal is not out of the question. The bottom line, Feldman observes, is that a shooting war is not inevitable, but some form of ongoing conflict clearly is.

It illustrates how the status of Taiwan represents a major potential sticking point for both independent nations, as Taiwan’s current diplomatic posture involves an ambiguity that suits both Chinese and American wishes. For one thing, foremost among Chinese ambitions is to bring Taiwan back into its own orbit. On the other hand, a visible failure to defend Taiwan in the event of a crisis with China would effectively end any semblance of US global hegemony in the Far East. This imaginative moment may actually come sooner than anticipated, as many experts have contemplated that the US might realistically have to abandon any hope of continuing to treat Taiwan protectively, in light of larger global realities than they involve North Korea and other hotspots.

China’s global ambitions are hiding in plain sight. The populous nation has already poured billions into a conventional military buildup. In practice, China’s foreign activities are in line with the government’s intention to eventually align its geostrategic position with its economic one.

Regarding China’s weaponization, Feldman astutely points out that that empowerment occurs over decades, not a few months. And unlike the US, which vests its powers in officials after a publicly visible election in regular 2- or 4-year cycles, Chinese military plans can be more gradual and without the need for sudden policy changes afterwards. of a contested election.

Furthermore, China only needs to increase its military capacity to the point where it is large enough that it does not have to use it. China ends up winning a war without even firing a shot, as the US suddenly finds itself uninterested in fighting a serious war that it might actually lose.

Feldman also correctly points out that modern acts of “cyber warfare” are a form of non-traditional, asymmetric combat that allowed the Chinese to exploit non-traditional weaknesses in the US security infrastructure without a realistic threat of military retaliation. In addition, covert cyberwarfare enables intellectual property theft and corporate espionage, where corporate America’s trade secrets and other valuable data are compromised and stolen. Feldman predicts that the regular and ongoing acts of cyber warfare emerging within China are likely to continue in this “cold war” phase.

In particular, Feldman’s book does not explore the prevalence of Chinese counterfeiting as a source of ongoing contention with the US corporate world. Counterfeit products are widely viewed by US corporate interests as a serious and covert form of economic espionage that is causing significant damage to commercial interests. While human rights are certainly a major source of Chinese criticism from the West, China’s tolerance of intellectual property theft is a sore point for thousands of American companies, which routinely push for tougher, harsher sanctions. against such violations of the WTO rules.

Feldman also points out that nationalist sentiment exists on both sides of the coin, with the citizens of China probably feeling proud of China’s rise to global prominence, and the frustration of Americans with the manipulation of the Chinese currency and the growing trade deficit. , equally solid. He points out that economic interdependence does not eliminate this tendency toward silent conflict.

Another interesting area that Feldman discusses is the conflict between American and Chinese ideology, such as it is. The core ideology of today’s Communist Party represents a strange experimental pragmatism in economics summed up in Deng Xiaoping’s quote: “It doesn’t matter if the cat is white or black; if it catches mice, it is a good cat.” Even the goal of maintaining the communist party apparatus is viewed with such harsh pragmatism that it puts China in a very different ideological place than the Stalinist Soviet Union in the 1960s.

China’s ideological pragmatism leads to the result that it will gladly do business with countries like the United States, as long as American democracy respects the way it does things. Therefore, the ideological divide between the United States and China is much less a moral chasm than the disagreements that separated Kennedy and Khrushchev. However, to the extent that Americans perceive China as unwilling to compromise Western values ​​like human rights and the rule of law, it is hard to imagine how continued ideological conflict is not inevitable.

cool war skirts an interesting theme: Feldman points out that as long as the United States can preserve the rule of law for itself, it has no absolute need to export it. For example, he points out that Western investors have an interest in seeing their investments in China respected, but would still enthusiastically invest there if China’s legal establishment were based on coercion (or even outright corruption).

The problem with this observation is that it ignores the reality that in this current state of economic and fiscal interdependence, the American rule of law must be exported elsewhere, under the weight of its own legal system. Take, for example, when an American business executive invests in a Chinese-run factory to make his company’s devices. His business is subject to, among other things, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and a wide variety of statutory, contractual, and tort doctrines that would apply in US courts against him and his business.

Suppose your Chinese-run factory ends up hiring some underage workers to make some substandard gadgets, which are then imported and sold to US consumers, and your manager pays a Chinese official to keep you out of trouble. This situation can be rigor in Chinese businesses, but in the United States, it can lead to that executive being fired, sued and even prosecuted. This culture and legal clash is not academic.

Illustrating this culture clash through diplomatic events, Feldman also looks at the anecdotal example of Wang Lijun, the Chinese police chief who sought asylum in the West after uncovering a murder case involving Bo Xilai and a dead British expatriate involved in a bribery scandal. The story confirmed several widely held beliefs: first, that senior Chinese Communist Party officials engage in widespread corruption, and second, that these party officials and their family members act as if they are immune to the rule of law.

The modern twist is that the Chinese party ultimately tried to use this scandal to bolster its own party apparatus, citing the sordid affair as evidence in the alternative narrative that Chinese corruption will ultimately not stick. Whether anyone really believed in the party is another question entirely.

Lifestyle Fashion

Need a real escape, know where Fiji is?

So you’ve been living the city life and you need a real escape, then the answer is Fiji. Fiji is not a difficult place to party, it is known for rejuvenation and relaxation of the soul. The whole place has a sense of peace and harmony that money cannot buy. The people of Fiji are well known throughout the world for being the happiest and most easy-going people.

Resorts in Fiji are great, and at the same time, they are known to be expensive. However, if you feel comfortable moving away from the tourist centers and into the smaller town or city areas, you will find the depth of culture.

Fijian culture gives you this sense of peace, happiness with nature and life that most places in the world cannot provide.

The entire island is tourist friendly and is also known to be a safe place.

Now the reason most people go to Fiji is to experience the beautiful exotic beaches, coral life, fishing, culture and coastal lifestyle. The quality of most of Fiji’s beaches is truly the best. Visit the link at the bottom for a review guide to some well known islands.

On your journey home, you should feel more centered and rejuvenated with energy, happiness, and a sense of peace.

Fiji is located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It is just above New Zealand and northeast of Sydney, Australia. From Sydney, the flight averages 3-4 hours one way.

There are a couple of well-known cities that fly into Fiji, including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, London, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Auckland, and many more.

There are more than 332 islands and most of them are inhabited by people. The main cities or towns in Fiji are Nadi, Lautoka, Suva, Nasinu and Labasa. Don’t think of them as big cities like Los Angeles or Sydney, but much smaller in size and density.

The islands are known to be volcanic and the native vegetation consists mainly of tropical forests. There are periods of heavy rain between December and March. Since the island group lies close to the equator, you will most of the time find a tropical climate, which means sunny on most occasions, and sometimes it suddenly changes to rainy weather.

As beautiful as Fiji is, you want to go prepared. Read reviews from Trip Advisor and other travel blogs about Fiji. There have been cases of lost or opened luggage, so have a lock and locks that leave a message when your bags have been opened.

Also, once you move away from the mainland, the prices also increase suddenly. To better prepare yourself, purchase alcohol, sunscreen, summer clothing, water, snacks, and food and basic necessities before entering Fiji.

Making it the most loved experience is a skill to do. It requires not only a “to do list” but a special mindset to enjoy anything. It’s like watching a movie preview, the consequence is that you already know the best and worst parts of the movie even before you watch it. So what you want to do is assume it’s going to be a great time, but you don’t know how or what or why.

Pets

California Dog Bite Cases: You Better Keep an Eye on Your Pup

There is no doubt that Americans love their pets. Humans and dogs have been living together for tens of thousands of years. There is a saying that “a dog is man’s best friend”.

I myself have three dogs; two siberian huskies and a good old fashioned american mutt that i rescued from one pound.

Although a dog can be your best friend, a dog could become your worst nightmare if the dog bites and/or attacks a person.

In the state of California; Dog owners are strictly responsible for the actions of their dogs. In other words, if your dog bites a person, you are strictly responsible for all damages caused by the dog.

No matter how well trained your dog is, you never know when it will bite you. Even small breeds can cause bites that result in permanent scarring and significant damage.

It is your responsibility as a dog owner to ensure that your dog does not bite another person. You should always walk your dog on a leash; secure your garden and house so that the dog cannot escape and bite someone; and secure your dog in a room when he has visitors in your house. If you don’t take precautions when it comes to your dog, you could receive significant damages in a lawsuit if your dog bites someone.

In some cases, your owner’s insurance policy may cover you if your dog bites someone in your home or on your property. In some cases, it may not. If you have homeowners insurance that will cover a dog bite, that’s great, however, in the end you’ll probably end up paying a higher premium for homeowners insurance, or your insurance will be canceled entirely. If you do not have insurance, you could be stuck with a massive lawsuit in a lawsuit that you must pay out of pocket.

There is another issue regarding dog bite cases that affects landlords who rent their property to people who have dogs; A landlord can be held liable for their tenant’s dogs under the theory of negligence and premises liability. I have successfully handled cases against owners whose dogs bit a person.

Landlords are not strictly responsible for dog bites caused by their tenants’ dogs, however they could be held liable under the theory of negligence and liability if they know or should have known that their tenants’ dogs had a propensity to be aggressive and/or bites people.

The conclusion is the following; love your dogs, enjoy your dogs, but be sure to keep your dogs under control at all times. The consequences of not doing so could be disastrous.

If you are an owner, you may want to exercise caution when renting to people with dogs.

By Norman Gregory Fernandez, ESQ © 2006

Real Estate

Simple French Mortgage Tips

Real estate in France has been a firm favorite with the British for many years. Fueled by strong growth rates and good investment returns for second home owners and investors alike, non-resident property in France has been growing especially over the last 10 years. Traditional ferry routes enhanced by cross-channel rail and road links, extensive road networks and ever-expanding budget airline flights to a greater number of French airports have made cross-channel travel more accessible and even cheaper.

This proximity to the UK has made French Property one of the most popular choices for investment property buyers. The French property market is extremely diverse and offers a lot to the potential investor in property abroad. The South of France is a prime example and the airports of Nice and Marseille offer excellent access to the French Riviera all year round and are serviced by low cost airlines such as Easyjet and Ryanair.

The good news for investment property buyers in France is that there is an abundance of property throughout the South of France; a restored Mas, stylish new constructions, a pied-a-terre, family villas or even apartments for winter sports. Capital appreciation is good and rental returns are strong. The Côte d’Azur is second only to Paris in price, but you don’t need a fortune to buy. A good rental return on investment property can be achieved with the large number of tourists and large number of conferences throughout the year, especially in Cannes, making the South of France an excellent choice for your real estate investment in abroad.

Unlike the UK, a long history of prudent lending in France (lenders do not allow the borrower’s total expenses on finance payments to exceed 1/3 of their total gross monthly income) has meant that mortgage financing in France is still easily available and is of great value. Coupled with an approximate 10% discount in French property prices compared to a year ago, there is no better time than 2010 to purchase an investment property in the South of France.

For southern France second home owners and real estate investors, 2010 is the perfect opportunity to buy in some of the most desirable towns and cities such as Cannes, Nice and Antibes in the south of France. French banks have not suffered like their UK counterparts, meaning they are more inclined to lend to foreign or non-resident property investors who might not have considered France before. Coupled with some extremely attractive loan rates (2.7% interest for non-residents only plus the ability to pay anytime WITHOUT PENALTIES), France is quickly becoming a savvy investment for foreign and non-resident real estate investors.

Considerable mortgage product innovation by some leading banks such as Micos Banca and BNP, along with a wide range of properties available in the South of France that can generate good solid returns and investment growth, is boosting the UK property investor. United to look across the channel. Property in the south of France continues to favor buyers, and 2010 could give the foreign property investor a firm footing in the French property market.

It is important to deal with an independent mortgage broker registered in France with a Siret number. The company must also have a Carte Bancaire/Financial; this means that they are professionally registered with the Bank of France to carry out and advise on Mortgages in France. The advisor must also have ORIAS membership; Registration in this register is compulsory for a natural person residing in France, or a company having its registered office in France, to be able to carry out the activity of insurance or reinsurance intermediation. Professional liability insurance is crucial and a company must have it to register with ORIAS.

Shopping Product Reviews

Content Management Systems: The History and the Future

Content Management Systems (CMS) are any method of organizing electronic information. With the rise of the Internet, the phrase was adopted as a whole to describe a wide range of systems that allowed users to create, edit, manage, and publish website content.

Although in the early 1990s people could update some form of online content with Microsoft and Lotus products, the first example of a pure content management tool came from Vignette with StoryServer around 1996. they released many CMS packages. from the likes of Documentum, Interwoven and Broadvision.

Between 2000 and 2005, the industry went through a massive wave of mergers and acquisitions that left a number of users without support after packages were abandoned, and difficulties arose as packages were merged.

By 2007 there were 3 types of Content Management System:

1) Software Edition

These systems deal with editing on a local machine or network and then rely on publishing to upload the new content to the website. Typically, these offline systems require software to be installed before editing can take place.

2) Online Edition

These systems typically do not require software to be installed, giving you the flexibility to edit on any machine, as long as the user has password access. Online content management systems can be very simple, like Wiki, to sophisticated CMS editor features, like Vx.

3) Hybrid Systems

Hybrid systems allow users to edit content online through an online editing system, but allow “verified” content to work outside of the system before the content is put back into the online editor.

2008 and the future…

Content management systems have become extremely sophisticated, allowing users to manage and manipulate text, images, documents, audio, video, and animations.

New developments have taken the concepts behind content management systems (non-technical or design staff managing your websites) to other fields of the marketing mix. Several systems have integrated email marketing functionality into their CMS, allowing for tracking between email and website functions.

Cutting-edge systems have started to bring the offline to the content management platform. Printed materials, PDFs, and other offline communications are now managed through CMS systems in a similar way to websites and emails.

Sports

George Steinbrenner coached Ohio State Football under Woody Hayes and won a national championship

George Steinbrenner is famous throughout the world as the owner of the New York Yankees, but very few people realize that in the 1950s, George Steinbrenner served as an assistant coach to legendary Buckeye icon Woody Hayes at the University. Ohio State (OSU for short). In fact, George was even part of the 1954 Ohio State national championship team that went undefeated.

The New York Yankees organization that Steinbrenner has owned for decades has been valued by Forbes magazine as a $1.5 billion organization, making it one of the five most valuable sports teams in the world worldwide. sports. Before making his fortune in the family shipping business, he lived a somewhat pedestrian life that included college, a stint in the Air Force, marriage and a brief stint as an assistant football coach at Ohio State. In some respects, George Steinbrenner has led an almost Forest Gump-esque life that has involved playing on his college football team, joining the military, falling in love, making a fortune, numerous chance encounters with historically iconic figures, and a variety of unique businesses. Business

Born in Rocky River, Ohio, in the far north of the state, the area that is now a thriving suburb of Cleveland is the area where George grew up before attending military school in northern Indiana. After graduating from Williams College in Massachusetts in 1952 and spending a couple of years in the Air Force based in Columbus, Ohio at Lockbourne Air Force Base, the Ohio native decided to stay in the area following his honorable discharge. in 1954. Over the next two years Steinbrenner earned a master’s degree in physical education from nearby Ohio State University.

While doing his graduate work at Ohio State, George Steinbrenner signed up to help the football team as a graduate assistant, where he went on to coach under legendary college football coach Woody Hayes. During the only season George was with the Buckeyes, the team went undefeated with a perfect 10-0 record that included a 20-7 Rose Bowl victory over the University of Southern California (USC) on January 1, 1955.

Capping off a picture-perfect season with a solid Rose Bowl victory, Woody Hayes, George Steinbrenner and the rest of the Ohio State Buckeyes surpassed UCLA for the number two seed to capture the second national football championship for the Buckeyes. In addition to the seven World Series victories (1977, 1978, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2009) that George Steinbrenner has been a part of as owner of the New York Yankees since January 3, 1973, the man who was born again on July 4, 1930 can also claim a college football national championship from the 1954 season under iconic College Football Hall of Fame coach Woody Hayes.

Tours Travel

NASCAR Legend – Ernie Irvin

Like so many other great racing drivers, Virgil Earnest Irvan, better known as Ernie Irvin, began driving go-karts when he was just a boy. He won the California Championship at the age of 15. At 16 he had already switched to stock cars and won his first asphalt race at Stockton 99 Speedway in California. That was just the beginning for Irvin; he made it a point to race every weekend in Madera and Stockton and was no stranger to victory lane. He even missed his own high school graduation to run at Riverside.

In 1982, Irvin headed to the heart of race country: North Carolina. He left California with just $700 in his pocket, but made a pit stop in Las Vegas and ended up with $200 more. Arriving in Charlotte, he supported himself by doing odd jobs, most of which were centered around the race track. He did some welding on the grandstand seats at Charlotte Motor Speedway, built race cars and unloaded Ken Schrader’s moving van.

Irvin’s debut in Winston Cup racing was in 1987 at Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway driving the #56 Chevy Monte Carlo sponsored by Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet. He was nominated for Rookie of the Year in 1988, but lost to Ken Bouchard by three points in the closest battle in Cup history. In 1991, Irvin won the most prestigious race in the sport: the Daytona 500. Just four years earlier, he had watched the race on a small black-and-white television while working at a car wash to support his family and his early career.

Irvin began to develop a very aggressive driving style and earned the nickname “Swerving Irvan” from his fellow drivers. Some of his controversial maneuvers led to a televised apology at one of the drivers’ meetings before a race. Irvin was driving for Morgan McClure Motorsports when his friend Davey Allison was killed in a helicopter crash in 1993. To honor his friend, he wanted to take over Davey’s car at Robert Yates Racing but MMM wouldn’t let him go free and an unpleasantness would soon follow. demand. He ended up taking the #28 Texaco/Havoline Ford after being fired by MMM and made it to the winner’s circle in just his fourth start with RYR. He dedicated the win to Davey Allison.

In 1994, Ernie Irvin was in a near-fatal accident when a flat tire sent him into a wall at over 170 mph. He suffered critical brain and lung injuries that left him with only a 10% chance of survival. With medical intervention and therapy, he recovered and was able to go on stage and receive the True Value Hard Charger Award just 2 months after the accident. Irvin’s focus was on a full recovery and regaining his strength and after months of rehab and strength training, NASCAR cleared him to return to the track.

Exactly five years after his near-fatal accident, Irvin hit the wall again in a practice session and was airlifted to hospital with brain and lung injuries. Less than two weeks after the accident, with his wife and his two children by his side, he tearfully announced his retirement. As of 2007, Irvin was still involved in racing, serving as crew chief for his son Jared’s quarter-midget team. Today he promotes Race2safety, a foundation he started that advocates for awareness and prevention of head injuries, especially in children.