Medical Equipment CEO, Entrepreneur Credits Dropping Out of College for Career Success  Written By: Fat Lester (with help from Peter Egan)
PART 1 of 2: In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Tulane University president Scott Cowen saw his school underwater. Mr. Cowen knew that many on-campus dormitories were damaged beyond the point of being inhabitable for at least 6-8 weeks, coinciding with a substantial portion of the student body residing off-campus suddenly finding themselves without housing. For some, this was merely due to the fact that the city was not open.However, for some other students like Peter Egan, the reason their residences were uninhabitable was that they were filled with anywhere from a couple of inches to eight feet of water, as was the case with Mr. Egan.
With the demand in the temporary housing market in New Orleans outpacing supply to such an extent in the immediate aftermath of Katrina that very few of those students who did manage to find an uninhabited dwelling that was on the market in hopes of attracting big-money tenants could even come close to affording the monthly rent.
In the months leading up to Katrina (beginning May 21, 2005 to be exact), Peter had been paying his rent, his living expenses, social life and then reinvesting what was leftover back into the eBay business he had started after quitting his job working for his father's Metairie, Louisiana-based home care / nursing firm, Egan Healthcare Services, Inc. The innate difficulties associated with working for family is the reason Peter left his position as an equipment technician working out of the company's then-warehouse in Kenner, LA.
Anyway, this eBay business Peter had started to replace the income he lost when he quit that job involved the sale of voodoo dolls, ceramic and feather masks, Mardi Gras beads and other New Orleans touristy "junk" for lack of a better term. As luck would have it, the all-eggs-in-one-basket approach worked quite well for Egan despite having no formal education in advanced information technology or any sort of internet technology including but in no way limited to HTML, CSS (which was brand-new at the time), JavaScript Dreamweaver, Photoshop or any other markup editor or media editing software. That is perhaps what made eBay the perfect starting point for Peter Egan: it was simple enough that he could do it without being taught, yet challenging enough that a 23 year old with no business and limited sales experience was driven to learn based solely on the opportunity that a marketplace the size of the world represented.
While he didn't know it as of the time he handed his landlord that first rent check paid using money he had earned working from home, Peter was about to see exactly how big the opportunity before him actually was (here's a hint: big enough that he didn't return to school when Tulane reopened). A close friend of Peter had recently acquired a job working for global, mega-conglomerate tanning salon franchising firm Planet Beach Franchising. The corporate headquarters is in Marrero, LA, just outside New Orleans.
EGAN Medical Equipment Store: North Shore Medical Supplies, Equipment - Located on Tyler Street in Covington near 8th Avenue across from the old Schoen Funeral Home, on the side of Tyler opposite St. Tammany Parish Hospital.
Impressed with Egan's ability to sell a $0.85 voodoo doll for $25-$30 (marketing it as a tool to enact revenge against one's nemesis), and a feather Mardi Gras mask costing him approximately $1.67 $20-$40 (marketing them to American women as wall decor and British men and women as "masquerade masks", which is apparently the term most often associated with masks used for purposes such as those depicted in the movie "Eyes Wide Shut"); he helped get Peter a meeting with the merchandising director for the parent corporation. She was interested in having him liquidate a warehouse full of the previous year's merchandise, worth an estimated $4-$6 million (wholesale cost - roughly 100%-150% markup for retail value). The deal was, we would split all net revenue right down the middle, and I'd have exclusive rights to sell the goods contained within the warehouse for a period of six months. The contract negotiated was to be signed and notarized on --- of all dates --- August 29, 2005.
The warehouse flooded, insurance made Planet Beach whole for its losses in terms of the value of the merchandise, rendering Peter and his services to be of no further use. - END PART 1
Peter Egan: Important PSA For All Federal Lawmakers and Unelected Government Officials
My disgruntled dissatisfaction with the results coming out of Washington D.C., particularly as it pertains to the Executive Branch, the U.S. Senate (with just a handful of exceptions) and House Speaker John Flaccid, is rapidly morphing into total apathy.
For the first time in my life, I do not identify with any political party, and for the first time in my life would consider the prospect of voting a waste of time and energy.
To all those who helped bring me to this point of total apathetic cynicism, I am of the belief that Mr. Red Peters is better able to articulate my opinions of you than even I am.
That said, without further adieu:
Alternate Title: How to Debate a Liberal and Win
 By: Peter EganIn this post, I am confronted by a liberal supporter of (I suspect) one of the Landrieus over the character of Congressman John Fleming (R-LA).
UPDATEI received confirmation from Congressman Fleming that the reason Ms. Jensen was blocked from commenting on his Facebook page was not for the reasons she states below, but due to personal attacks like those directed towards yours truly in the below screen-shots of the Facebook debate she randomly initiated with me, I can only presume because no one else was willing to talk to her.I know a LOT of politicians. I have met very, very few with whom I've been as impressed on a personal level as I was Congressman Fleming. The man manages his own Facebook account and will take questions and/or comments from constituents at any time of day. He responds personally. This is very rare for Washington. Nearly everyone else has staff do the talking for them.
Not Rep. John Fleming, who is also a medical doctor. He responds personally to each Facebook inquiry. That alone, in my humble opinion, makes him more qualified than another John (Boehner) for the role of House Speaker.
At least in Fleming, we'd have a way to tell him how disappointed we are in the job he's done, although if Fleming were speaker rest assured we would not be so gravely disappointed as we are with Speaker Boehner. We'd actually be proud of the job he'd do in such a position.
Anyway, without further adieu, here's my obliteration of a liberal who attacked Congressman Fleming's character. She started the debate, and I won it.
If this were a football game, the score would have been in the neighborhood of 56-0 in favor of the truth (which in this case was on my side).
Capitalism Will Ultimately Prevail Over Democratic Socialism; But When? Democratic Socialism Vs. Free-Market Capitalism  By: Peter EganI came across a terrific site recently called Tea Party Tribune. This was the site that republished the article appearing on this blog relating to the reasoning behind the GOP's ouster of Michael Steele as RNC Chairman following the most successful election cycle in Republican Party history, and subsequent replacement with a man no one had heard of prior to his appointment. As it turned out once the 2012 dust had settled, there was a very good reason no one had ever heard of Reince Preibus until the day he was made RNC Chairman --- the man is a spineless loser, just like the two men (and I use that term very, very loosely) who head up party leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives and United States Senate, respectively.
The article at Tea Party Tribune took the approach of pitting free market supply-and-demand economics (capitalism) against democracy, with an assumed premise that only one of the two could ultimately "prevail". The article touches upon some very good points, most notably that with a little help from their (deceased) friends, democrats have figured out a way to vote money away from those who earn it in order to redistribute it to the lazy, slothful and gluttonous in exchange for votes.
The article left readers with the question as to whether or not Capitalism has what it takes to ultimately take back economic freedom for the citizens of the United States of America, and/or if the country was doomed. Eventually Capitalism will prevail, it always does - and must, as it is just one of the laws of nature by which our universe is governed. The better question is how much wealth must be destroyed and how many lives must be lost before the pendulum starts to right itself before shifting momentum back towards the opposite direction from the trajectory it finds itself on today.
All of nature is governed by the laws of supply and demand. All evolution among all species is the byproduct of competition within and among species. What science terms "evolution" is merely a term to define a species' ability to make inter-generational, fundamental changes in the manner in which the species competing within the marketplace that is nature is best able to adapt to changes in the environment, which includes but is in no way limited to the number, type and degree of threat posed by the competition. For a wild rabbit, competition may refer to such creatures as hawks, owls, coyotes and even herbivores like armadillos insomuch that the two are often times both competing for the same food sources.
Anytime supply far outpaces demand or vice versa, the marketplace will inevitably correct the discrepancy. However, the amount of time required for it to do just that can vary from several days, weeks or years to several generations depending upon the nature and severity of said discrepancy.
Bicyclists Have Right to Ride in Road, But Should They?
 By: Peter EganI hate sharing the road with bicyclists. I know they've the same right to use it, I just wish that wasn't the case. Too often, I see cyclists endangering their own lives and those of others by riding their bikes down some of the most dangerous roads in the United States, such as Lee Road (Hwy 437) in Covington, Louisiana, a road considered among the nations most dangerous in terms of mortality rates relative to the amount of traffic.There are alternate routes to all the same places that are much safer, but I get the impression these cyclists do this for a power trip. They know that although permitted, passing on Lee Road is like playing Russian roulette, and that their exercising their right to ride in the roadway will inevitably amount in a mile-long line of motorists, all forced to drive a fraction of the speed limit because some control freak decided to take his bike out and hold up traffic.To be clear, my reasoning is not that I hate having to share the road with them. For the record, I don't like to see other people get hurt, and yes, I am aware that I own a business that sells medical supplies to people who among other things have suffered minor-to-moderate injuries to their bones and joints. I take no pleasure in someone else' pain, and were all my orthopedic customers to disappear I'd find another way to earn a living. My preference would be that the customer who calls up in need of a cervical collar (a form of neck brace) not do so because he or she was involved in a collision with a motor vehicle that occurred while riding a bike.
I know that people will always find a way to harm themselves, I just think that bicycles in the roadway is a bad idea. Too many drivers get road rage too easily these days, and a person is in no position to flee a road raging driver while seated upon a bike.That said, that is not to say that Lee Road is the only road where I object to seeing bicyclists, or even that bicyclists should avoid dangerous roads, highways and other thoroughfares on which automobiles travel in general. Truth be told, if it were left up to me, people riding bicycles would be required to ride on the sidewalk anytime a sidewalk is present, and in cases where there is no sidewalk, people riding their bikes would be expected to use the route (if more than one is available to reach the bicyclists' target destination) with the lowest speed limit (which usually translates into the least amount of traffic) of those routes available.
Bicyclist Hit by SUV While Riding in the Road
Pedestrians would have the right-of-way on sidewalks, and aside from that bicyclists would be expected to have a horn or bell to warn pedestrians as they approach to pass on the left.
Bicyclist Fail
I've never understood laws (at least in Louisiana) which prohibit cyclists from using the sidewalk but allots them equal rights when it comes to riding in the street with the cars, trucks and SUV's.
If politicians can take the time out of their busy schedules to talk about banning guns because some idiots misuse them and there are consequences for people besides the idiots who misuse the guns, they can take the time to address this important issue. If banning guns is a practical solution to stop violence in which a gun is used in committing said act of violence, banning bicyclists from riding on streets, in roads, on highways, parkways, drives, boulevards thoroughfares and ways is an even more practical approach to putting an end to unnecessary delays while on the road, and unnecessary injuries suffered by the drivers and the passengers of the vehicles involved in the accidents caused by idiots who misuse bicycles. Accomplishing the latter wouldn't even necessitate the complete and total destruction of the nation's founding document.
Peter Egan: Why I Blog
 I can only speak for myself, but... I worked in print media journalism since age 17, starting our as a sports stringer, eventually working my way up to beat writer and feature columnist for a local newspaper.
I attended a prestigious liberal arts university often referred to as "the Harvard of the South", where I studied media arts, specializing in journalism and minoring in marketing.
Upon completion of my college days, I quickly realized that the journalism field was not what I expected. It didn't take long before it was made perfectly clear that stories were covered and reported on in a manner consistent with how the editor demanded it be done, truth and accuracy be damned. Essentially, there seemed to me to be very little journalistic integrity in much if not most of print media at the time I began seriously contemplating what I would do for a living upon the realization that I couldn't stomach working for a newspaper.
I found that in blogging, I could put my investigative reporting skills to good work, covering stories covered elsewhere in the news but doing a much better job of writing them, particularly as it pertains to translating the abstract of a clinical trial into terms regular people can understand, while keeping the story interesting and the facts straight.
In health news (mainstream media), in my opinion far too often the story reflects inaccurate data as a result of the story's author lacking the fundamental ability to comprehend what was said in the abstracts, as well as how to phrase that same information so as to maintain factual accuracy while making it readable to a general audience.
Blogging affords me the journalistic license to report the truth without an editor getting in the way, putting my name on a factually inaccurate story that I was told to write if I wanted to keep my job.
Competitive Sabotage in Online Business: What to Look For and How to Protect Your Company  I recently encountered a discussion in a forum on eBay in which an eBay seller described a scenario I was all-too familiar with: that of a competitor engaging in a sabotage campaign by pretending to be a buyer and placing orders, demanding refunds and writing bad reviews about the company.While I've observed this at eBay, the problem is far worse on eBay's competitors' websites (like Amazon for example - which is the main reason we do not sell there), it is not an uncommon practice for some unscrupulous sellers to engage in a tactic known as competitive sabotage as a means of preventing a new entrant into the marketplace from becoming established.
What they do is create faux accounts from which they make one or two legitimate purchases of items they most likely would buy anyway in order to establish some measure of credibility with the account. Then, they buy something from a competitor and either attempt to cancel the transaction after it has already shipped, or find something wrong with it and demand a refund. Of course, they also demand that the seller pay for the return-shipment, and even if the seller agrees to all of this they'll leave negative feedback (of a negative Seller Review, as is the case with the other marketplace mentioned above).
It's a catch-22 for the legit seller. Even if you adhere to their unreasonable demands, you lose money by paying for not one but two shipments, not to mention the time required to process the order, prepare the shipment and deal with all the emails exchanged between parties. Then you've got the negative feedback/review to deal with.
If you stand on principle and fight back their attempts at bullying you out of the marketplace, it gives them the ability to create doubt as to which party is really the nefarious one.
"What should have been a simple return turned into a nightmare..."
If they're really sinister (we're talking complete sociopaths, but in business one must be prepared to not only encounter but deal with people like this - both in the form of customers and competitors), they'll badmouth you all over the web at every third-party business directory, review site and so forth.
The best way to fight back is to keep meticulous records so that you can win the chargeback dispute should you decide to refuse the refund request, which is highly advisable that refund requests (they're really more like demands) from suspected competitors be refused. Otherwise, they'll bleed you dry with them, taking up all of your (or your employees') time dealing with preparing their orders, replying to the emails, processing returns/refunds, etc.
Also, make sure your online store has a blog to accompany it. A blog is a great way to get your company's name out there, and provides a forum whereby you can control the content and the nature thereof. You may even want to consider having more than one blog.My company has two blogs:
If you're a small business, the resources simply aren't there to continuously absorb those blows (shipping fees do add up, as does the human capital which could otherwise be used to grow your business). Additionally, they want you to issue the refund, and by doing so you're enabling and encouraging them to continue the fraudulent activity.
To fight competitive sabotage, here's what to do:
- Learn how to identify it when it occurs.
- Don't allow the competitor to bleed you dry: Don't give in to their demands for refunds, returns, postage and time spent dealing with them. All of this costs you money - money that your company needs in order to meet financial goals on time.
- Get good at managing your own reputation online: If this requires hiring an SEO / Reputation Management firm, be sure to properly vet them and make sure they abide by Google's Webmaster Guidelines in doing so. This applies as well if the reputation management / SEO is done in-house as well. Never engage in anything considered to be "black hat" in terms of tactical procedures.
- Open an eBay account and preferably also an eBay Store: eBay is generally pretty good at weeding out those members who engage in such tactics as those described herein. If our company were to be the victim of competitive sabotage and defamation (we've dealt with it in the past), all we'd have to do is point to our eBay feedback score of 99+ percent customer satisfaction in order to establish that either the bad review was at worst an aberration, or more likely the product of a sabotage campaign. For anyone interested, our medical equipment eBay store is located at the following URL: http://stores.ebay.com/egan-healthcare.
- Actively monitor your own reputation: When they post negative reviews, if the site allows the seller to respond, do so and make clear that the review was written by a competitor. If the site does not allow seller responses to negative reviews, ask your legitimate customers to go to the site(s) at which the review(s) were written and counter them with reviews written by real customers. Don't ask for a favorable review. Simply request that they be totally honest, and if you're good at what you do the customer will write a review that reflects well on your company. Enough positive reviews eventually will make the negative one appear to be awfully suspicious.
- Create (or claim) a profile at every third-party business directory available: Pay for featured placement at those in which doing so creates additional links to your profile from within the same site, thereby increasing the strength of the profile as it pertains to search. For every such profile you create, you get one more web page that is under your control that can appear within the first or second page of search results whenever someone runs a search for your company. Ideally, you'll have control of every page customers can conveniently find should they search for information about your company (sure, they'll be able to find the negative stuff if they spend enough time looking, but they'd have to be specifically looking hard for something negative associated with your company name in order to find the reviews written by competitors).
- Don't let them get to you: If you become discouraged because your company's name is being unfairly ruined by competitors deliberately seeking to crush you while you're still small enough to do so, ultimately they will succeed.
- Make a decision to stay the course and endure: Sure, it is extremely frustrating to have to deal with, but in this era of global commerce conducted online via the internet, one must be prepared to stare adversity right in the eyes and refuse the temptation to blink.
- Put it into perspective: The fact that your competition has dedicated an employee to harassing your business by placing fake orders with a refund demand (and possibly provoking a response that legitimizes a bad review in the minds of objective readers) being the whole point of the order is ultimately a compliment to your efforts thus far. They wouldn't be devoting time, energy and resources to damaging your business if they didn't genuinely believe that your company poses a legitimate threat to their own status within the industry and within the marketplace in the long-term. Keep that in mind, and use that as a means of remaining positive throughout the ordeal.
- Remember that this too shall pass: Remember that their efforts to destroy you are costing them money too in the form of human capital. However, since they're presumably larger and more established, they can afford to take the short-term blow if it means preventing a new entrant from becoming an established competitor long-term. That said, they can only get away with doing this for so long. If it doesn't work after enough tries, they'll eventually have to give up. Don't assume that your business will have to deal with issues like this forever. It won't. Make clear to the competitor in your dealings with the "customers" placing the fake orders that you're here to stay, and ultimately if you play your cards right they're the ones that lose the money (by having to pay retail costs for products they presumably sell and by wasting employee time attacking a company strong enough to endure the assault.
 Campus Gun Bans: While We're on the Subject
Peter Egan - Re: Hullabaloo
The three letters (or more accurately pieces of coordinated hate mail) made up the entire op/ed section of the February 04, 2005 issue of the Hullabaloo, Tulane University's student newspaper. That particular week, the editorial staff made the decision to devote the entire section to a small sampling of the hate mail that had been pouring in since the moment the previous week's issue first hit the press.
The hate mail is directed specifically at yours truly, and one of the students who wrote for the paper told me privately that they received about 450 in all, the overwhelming majority of which were far too vividly worded to publish.
The reason? In light of a months-long spate of violent crimes against female Tulane students occurring as they were walking from campus to either their homes or vehicles (about a 15 total rapes and/or armed robberies occurring within about a 12-14 week period leading up to the issue preceding the Feb. 04 edition), I had the audacity and the gall to suggest that the Tulane campus gun ban was at best not helping put a stop to the violence, at worst (and the far more likely scenario) was a direct contributing factor to the confidence and opportunism armed robbers and rapists were so inundated with during this period in which every 100 yards throughout the campus there were signs announcing that guns on campus were strictly forbidden and that your right to keep and bear arms ends when you step foot onto the Tulane campus.
My editorial - which curiously vanished from the paper's archives though the response the following week has remained online for the better part of a decade - concluded with an assertion that not only should the campus gun ban be repealed, but that Tulane be held liable for damages to the persons, property as well as punitive damages incurred by the victims of these violent crimes who were attacked while leaving campus unarmed en route to their home and/or vehicles.
I still believe that colleges and universities which prohibit firearms in the possession of students on campus should be held liable for such damages and be court-ordered to offer the victims financial compensation for their suffering.
The student body at Tulane in February of 2004 was so outraged that approximately one in every 12-14 students wrote a letter the following week denouncing me for my flawed thinking and even more brazen willingness to express such an offensive opinion.
Of all my accomplishments in my 31 years, few mean more to me than having offended thousands of liberals, at least 600 or so (450 by the print deadline) of which so much so that they felt compelled to write and submit a direct response, almost all of which were unfit for print for reasons you can imagine.
To this day, I take a tremendous amount of pride in the article the Hullabaloo won't show you because it is too persuasive for lefties to allow it to exist under the guise of free speech or freedom of expression. Few moments of my life have been more enjoyable than opening that February 04 issue and looking with shock at my own name in extra-large font sprawled across the top of the page as a shared headline for everything published in the opinion/editorial section that week. At no point during my five or so years attending that school did I ever walk so tall on campus or with such a spring in my step as during the time between when the below issue was released and eventually replaced the following week.
The least profane of the 450 submissions received by the print deadline are below. To read them in large font, run a Google web search for "re: peter egan jr".
For what it's worth, I emailed Kira McCalister after reading her letter. She declined to accompany me on my walk home from campus.
 The first of the Hullabaloo's three least offensive letters objecting to Peter Egan's proposed lifting of the campus gun ban.  The second in the series of angry students' denouncements of my audacity.  The third letter denouncing Peter Egan Jr.
 Sunset in Long Beach, Mississippi during a late summer day.
I moved to Long Beach in the early part of 2012 and regard it as among the best decisions I've ever made. Not only is that the view from my kitchen table at dusk, I can walk out my front door and fish or go to the beach, plus I get to enjoy my lovely girlfriend in a bikini all the more often ;-).
 New Video of Reverend Wright's Lunacy Breaks Just Before Election!
By: Peter Egan
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2012 - New Orleans-based talk radio personality James Parker of the John Osterlind Show, the James Show and Living at Life - all of Rush Radio WRNO - has uncovered a new and extremely shocking tirade by President Barack Obama's pastor of twenty years Jeremiah Wright.
Of particular interest as it pertains to this video is the fact that to the best of the collective knowledge of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (Facebook Group), this clip has yet to air on any mainstream media outlet, or if it has, coverage has been fleeting at best.
The video is truly outrageous, and serves as further evidence that Reverend Wright is an out-and-out lunatic without speaking for those who revered him as a holy man.
All the credit for this tape goes to James Parker of Rush Radio WRNO New Orleans, who as best I can tell uncovered this little gem on his own.
More Craziness From Rev. Jeremiah Wright
Could tapes such as this one be the reason Andrew Breitbart was murdered shortly after threatening to "vet" Obama this go round? I sure hope not, but I'm afraid that people's fear of meeting a similar fate has something to do with the fact that this video was only first released in late September and has only been viewed by 113 people as of the time of this writing.
I wonder how they were able to shield the public from this doozy for so long. This is one of the men whose influence helped shape and define the man we know as Barack Obama.
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