Hawaii bottles for bucks?

There was a time, while I lived on the Big Island, when bottles completely mesmerized me. Milk bottles. Soda bottles. All those bottles from the 1950s and '60s. The notion that each little plantation town made its own bottles, bottled its own beverages, I couldn't help but fall in love with it.

Now, though, I have no bottles. They've been left to history and I regret it. But there are some folks around the islands that do sell their bottles and made a nice amount of profit, I'm sure.

Ukulele.com has a nice listing of Hawaii bottles, along with pictures and listed prices. I don't plan to buy these, but the sight of them in photos brings back some nice memories for me.

War correspondent turned Brooklyn Brewery king

Steve Hindy went from war correspondent in the Middle East to desk guy back in New York to beer master. All in the blink of an eye. Or rather, 10 years.

Sounds like a path I would take, though as a journalist, I've never covered a war or any event outside of Hawaii. No complaints, just saying ...

Brooklyn Brewery was born out of a love, dedication and passion for great beer. Hindy's story on The Big Idea was so compelling, it made me want to explore his brewery and even more breweries than I had in mind. What started as Hindy's homemade beer in a New York apartment had its roots in Saudi Arabia. It was there that he learned the mechanics of home brewing from other Westerners, all living in a dry nation.

Underneath the business success — $15 million in revenue last year — is Hindy's passion and perseverance. His company was one of the first microbreweries to sprout on the East Coast during a time when the West Coast was the bastion of the movement. Hindy left a good-paying job with Associated Press to pursue his dream, but I wonder if he ever imagined in the early years that it would blossom like this.

Just one more reason to visit New Yawk City!

Tea please

OK, so she made $1.5 million last year in tea and tea-related sales. But it started when she was a child tagging along with her parents, who liked touring Europe in search of antiques.

It's always nice to have parents support your hobby, as was the case with Tracy Stern. Her hobby turned into a business, and at 24, she's loving life. I'm no tea fanatic, but loving what you do and making millions sounds pretty dang cool to me.

Tracy Stern's SALONTEA

I wonder what she's done with her humongous teapot collection.

Piece of cake: Joke turns into a million bucks

Johnny Cupcakes. What started out as a joke has turned into a $1.2 million T-shirt business for a dude in Boston.

That's right, people at the record store he used to work at would call him Johnny Appleseed, Johnny This, Johnny That, but it was Johnny Cupcakes that stuck. So the guy decided on a lark to make it a T-shirt. Easy enough since he makes T-shirts for his band. Next thing he knew, he was selling T-shirts out of the trunk of his beat-up '89 Camry.

Next thing, he's raking in $1.2 million in 2006. Opens a store in his town. Sure, it was more than luck. The shirts are cool and amusing. He struck a nerve with all kinds of people in Boston, and it all started with a joke.

The Big Idea's host, Donny Deustch, is excellent, energetic and smart. But he actually said, this goes to show that you don't have to be corporate or have thought something out deeply... Uh, Donny, give Johnny Cupcakes a little more due than that.

His visit to The Big Idea got me thinking of all these little ideas I've had for T-shirts. Maybe I should look into investing in a computer program and T-shirt making machine or whatever they're called. Hmmmm...

Visit the site: JohnnyCupcakes.com. Sheesh, even the site is cool.

Sex toy retailer launches unique job search

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The self-made millionaire: Farrah Gray

OK, there's more to life than painting rocks and selling them hard to your neighbors. Especially when the rocks came from their yards. But Farrah Gray found a way to make that work while he was still a kid.

Whatever it took, he used all of his charm, wit and persistence to turn his painted-rock business into a life up the ladder to riches. Read about the kid who overcame life in the Chicago projects to become a teenaged millionaire.

Fluff vs. Execution

I'm all for great products that came from great ideas from regular folks. That's why I enjoy watching The Big Idea hosted by Donny Deutsch.

I don't really care for the generic, loud mantra that spouts out of some of his guest hosts, but that's what the remote control volume button is for. In all, I like the show a lot, especially when the business owners are humble and confident, not obnovious and repetitive. I don't watch the show to hear someone's lecture. I just like to hear about the execution of the process and the fun people had along the way.

Then there are sites that show up that proclaim how important it is to develop your idea, yet won't go any futher. PowerHomeBiz.com is one. It's not a bad site. There are certainly pointers along the way about marketing and using the internet. But everything they try to say could be done in a few paragraphs instead of millions of words.

Just my take. As I learn more about people and how they went from Point A to Point Z for success, I'll post the info here.