Let’s kick-off my gift suggestions with a great product at a great price. MyMugs.com creates custom designed coffee mugs for individuals and businesses. It is run by my good friend and fellow entrepreneur Steven Benjamin. All you do is submit a logo, photo or design, and MyMugs does the rest.

For Black Friday, MyMugs is offering a special price - $.99 per mug! No special coupons or codes required. Ordering information and pricing is at MyMugs.com. This offer is only good today, Friday, November 23.

And not only am I a friend, see for yourself – I am a customer too.

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Happy Black Friday! Today is considered the official start of the holiday shopping season in the US, though from the look of everything from streets to stores you would have thought it started the day after Halloween, or even earlier.

In the spirit of the holidays and in promoting small businesses as I like to do here at The Hot Iron, allow me to suggest gift ideas. These suggestions will be of products and services from fellow entrepreneurs and businesses. As the reach of The Hot Iron goes beyond Chicago, I will be writing about gifts you can get here in the Windy City and beyond. Some are purely online, and others are retail establishments.

Happy Shopping!

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To all my readers and their family and friends, a safe, healthy and Happy Thanksgiving day! If you are traveling, by now – hopefully – you have made it to your destination and are well on your way to spending good times with those around you.

The accompanying picture is of the dining table and centerpiece from last year’s Thanksgiving, made by my lovely wife. This year I will try to get a picture of the complete feast to share next year.

Don’t eat too much, and a safe return trip!

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I am proud to announce you can read selected posts from The Hot Iron on Blogspot, the official blogs of Ashworth University.

Ashworth University, based in Norcross, Georgia, offers distance learning courses and distance education programs for home study career education. In developing their blogs, Ashworth sought out experts in various disciplines to contribute their content to their blogs to accompany the faculty of the school. They contacted me and asked me if I would like to join this virtual expert lecture, and I was more than glad to accept this offer.

The Blogspot is a great example of a win-win situation. For Ashworth and its students, they have the opportunity, in one location, to read a wide variety of information and opinion from real-world experts. For myself, it is a new venue of readers – not to mention potential customers of Dunkirk Systems! It is similar to guest blogging, and my posts show up on Google Alerts and Serph, so their blog is getting good reach.

Some of my posts are on their Business and Technology categories. Even if you are an avid reader of The Hot Iron, check out their feeds and gain some insight from my fellow contributors.

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