Today I (Mick) joined 519 other people from 78 countries at the Tampa Convention Center, took the Oath of Allegiance and became an American Citizen. The ceremony started with us registering and surrendering our Green Cards (goodbye old friend). Followed by a short video "Faces of America" , then the National Anthem. The Assembly and Presentation of Applicants for Naturalization was next. As your country was called you stood, 22 other "Brits" stood as the United Kingdom was called. Next was the all important Oath of Allegiance, followed by a message from George W., then a music video "Proud to be an American". Finally the Pledge of Allegiance and presentation of our Certificate of Citizenship.
Vicki was there with me taking photos and smiling at her new American. Following family tradition (important occasions are marked by decorated front yards) Vicki had our front yard decorated with American Flags.
A lot of phone carriers now charge for 411 information, especially on cell phones. Here’s how to avoid the fees!
Dial 1-800-466-4411 for the google free information service. you will only pay your standard per minute charge. You can view a short video by google on how it works. Program this service into your phone and save yourself anywhere from .50cents to $2 per 411 call.
We spent last weekend at South Seas Island Resort on a an incentive trip from Vicki’s employer Stewart Enterprises. Leaving on Thursday at 11am we drove to Captiva, normally a 3 1/2 hour journey…….we arrived at 4:30pm! The day before a fuel tanker had crashed and exploded damaging the south bound lanes of I-75, we had to detour through Bradenton which was excruciatingly slow.
The last time we had visited this resort was just after 9/11 and a hurricane came through and left us with no power and wading through knee deep water in the car parks….not very good memories!
This time the resort and our room looked spic and span. Our room overlooked the yacht basin which was nice. In the evening Mike Kersey, Stewarts Area Sales Executive hosted a get together in the Harborside Bar & Grill, people were arriving well into the evening because of the traffic problems.
Friday morning we went out to the pool and snagged some deck chairs facing the ocean, there was a very nice cooling breeze and music at just the right volume….very relaxing. At lunchtime we decided to drive into Sanibel, we found a restaurant called the Island Cow, the food was great…highly recommended. After lunch naturally there were some shops that required Vicki’s attention, amazingly no purchases! Back at the resort we relaxed on the balcony of our room and in the evening we had a picnic of, hard boiled eggs, sausage rolls, Irish cheese, pickled onions, and crackers! Very British!
On Saturday we spent the morning and early afternoon by the pool, it was a bit busier , with lots of families visiting for the weekend. We just lazed around, reading, watching the fishermen and the boats leaving the harbor. Later in the afternoon we drove into Sanibel so Vicki could go to church, on the way back we stopped and had dinner at the Bubble Room, a restaurant in Captiva. The Bubble Room is a quirky restaurant with a Hollywood theme and Bubble Scout servers! The food comes in large portions and was good, especially the desert which was an enormous slice of chocolate strawberry cream cake! By chance Vicki’s workmate Louisa and her boy friend Billy were also there having dinner with an old school friend of Louisa’s who lives in the area.
Sunday morning Vicki managed to slip in the bathroom, she stuck her arm out to brace herself and sprained her wrist (found out on Monday it was fractured), undeterred we had arranged a late checkout and stayed by the pool until noon, and then it was time for the drive home. A very relaxing long weekend.
I had previously made a couple photo book using Shutterfly, and was very happy with them. However I had to produce a photo book for work and I needed the size to be larger than Shutterfly offered. MyPublisher offers a book in a 15″ x 11.5″ format which is excellent.
Making the book:
I downloaded the MyPublisher 2.3 software, it downloaded and installed quickly and easily. Following the step by step guide, I downloaded the photos I wanted to use into the program. The program is intuitive and easy to use, however you will need a fairly fast computer as the software can be painfully slow at times.
The quality of the 15″ x 11.5″ book in my opinion was very good and it was received in 8 days from the ordering date, std shipping. The book can be viewed here. Having said that I also ordered 11.25″ x 8.75″ book for another project and the quality was not very good, high contrast and dark. Customer service via email was prompt and courteous, they offered me 50% off reprints. I replied that this was not acceptable and they responded that they would reprint the book for free, they also paid shipping both ways. The reprinted book was slightly better but still was not as good as the larger book in quality. I accepted the reprinted book but I am sure they would have offered a full refund if I had wanted it.
For the smaller size I think I will try Blurb or Shutterfly next time.
Tip: If you have problems saving a project, turn down your privacy settings in your web browser and everything should be OK. I don’t like doing this but its the only way I could get the program to save and upload.
Averie Luella Siegle was born at 11:55am today, Mothers Day, May 11th 2008.
She weighed 7lb 6oz. Mother Christina is doing well, the very happy and proud father Todd, is also doing well.
It is so obvious that Averie is destined for great things that the local Fox affiliate (Fox 13) rushed a news crew to the hospital to interview the proud parents. The interview was broadcast on the 10pm news.
We just got back from an enjoyable 5 days in Las Vegas, attending the Stewart Enterprises (the company Vicki works for) , annual event recognizing the top sales people.
When we arrived at US Airlines check in counter last Wednesday there were only a few people in line. It was a bit different over at American Airlines, there were hundreds in line (the FAA had demanded that they do extra inspections on their aircraft). After an uneventful flight we arrived in Vegas on time. As we came in for landing we could see how much the"Strip" had changed since we were last in Vegas 10 years ago, major new construction. We were staying at the Paris Hotel on strip, just opposite the Bellagio, we could see the fountains from our room, this was a pleasant surprise as we normally "draw the short straw" and have a wonderful view of the car park and or air conditioning units! In the afternoon we walked over to the Forum shops at Cesar’s Palace. This is still possibly the top shopping venue in Vegas. In the evening we walked down to the Wynn Hotel, perhaps the most upscale hotel in town. The interior is very clean and spacious, without the "just cram everything in" feeling you get a a lot of the hotels. We had a drink in the Parasol Up Bar (slow indifferent service), then went down the escalator to Daniel Boulud, a french style brasserie overlooking the lake of dreams. I decided to splurge and have a Original NY DB burger, this is a 9oz sirloin burger stuffed with braised short ribs, fois gras, black truffle, on a parmesan bun, with fries!! $32! But well worth it. Vicki had Pan-Roasted Loup De Mer (a Mediterranean Sea Bass) and pronounced it excellent. All through dinner Vicki could see the light show on the lake of dreams (my back was towards the lake). Back to the Paris hotel and a quick go on the slot machines.
Thursday: We took a shuttle bus to Primm, about 40 mins out of town to Fashion Outlets Las Vegas, this mall is out of the way but it turned out to have some great shops and deals. When we got back we took in some sun and relaxed by the Paris pool.
Tonight is our big show night we are going to see The Beatles Love by Cirque du Soleil . We left Paris at about 6:30pm and took the shuttle bus over to the Rio Hotel for dinner at Gaylord Indian Restaurant, Vicki had a creamy shrimp curry, and I had a Tandoori Chicken Combo, the food was good and I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I was expecting it to be better.
When we got to the Mirage for the show we bumped into one of Vicki’s co-workers, Louisa and here boyfriend Bill, who had been to the early performance, they gave a glowing review. We took our seats, about 4 rows from the back with great views of the X shaped stage. Tip: I don’t see any reason to buy the top end tickets with a lower position closer to the stage, our view was great and we could see everything.
The show was fabulous, the Beatles music, and choreography of the Cirque du Soleil performers was incredible, lots of unexpected happenings throughout the show. A great night out and a great value.
Friday: We decided to take it easy today, walked down to the Venetian Hotel to look at their shops and canals, shops were OK, but the Hotel did not have much atmosphere. Relaxed by the pool in the afternoon and Vicki picked up a "swag" bag from her company hospitality desk. In the evening we had dinner at the outdoor cafe at Paris, Mon Ami Gabi, overlooking the strip and the Belaggio fountains. The food was classic French Bistro and very, very good (also reasonably priced by Las Vegas standards). Before we went to bed we stopped in the casino area to play the slot machines, including a $5 play for David one of Vicki’s coworkers………sorry David no luck !
Saturday: Today was pretty much Vicki’s company day, in the morning we attended breakfast and a talk by the VP of Sales and the President of Stewart Enterprises. Another afternoon by the pool.
In the evening we attended the gala event where all the sales people are recognized. Stewart planned this one very well, the trophies were all located at the respective seats of the recipients and every one was recognized by standing up at their seats by sales area. An excellent idea, no more hour upon hour of people going up to the stage to receive their awards. The food and service were very good and we were entertained by some Chinese acrobats/tumblers and the Rat Pack; Frank, Dean and Sammy. A very good show. This was followed by dancing to a very good and energetic band. A great night!
Coupon clipping websites are great places to find savings. Just like clipping coupons from your Sunday newspaper, or, some sites will have discount codes that you can use at the online check out. The following sites are some we check before ordering on line, or going to the store. We never order online without checking these sites for extra savings.
Retailmenot.com is a searchable site with coupons and coupon codes.
Bradsdeals.com good site, has its own staff that searches for deals. Also has discount coupons to stores like, Best Buy, Dicks, B&N, Target etc. Usually one of our first stops.
Currentcodes.com mainly a discount code site fopr online shopping.
The family gathered on a hot sunny day at Chris & Cindy’s house on Easter Sunday for good food and an Easter egg hunt. Meanwhile in England the Corby family had an Easter egg hunt in the house and built a "Snow Bunny" outside. Different ways to spend Easter, but enjoyed on both sides of the Atlantic!
The last couple of Quicktime upgrades have offered to download Safari for me, with the acceptance box already checked. This really aggravates me. I though Apple was above these sort of "tricks". They are probably trying to get their user numbers for Safari on Windows up. I also got stuck with Pictureviewer (part of Quicktime I believe) as the default photo viewer, took me awhile to deactivate it. I’ve been thinking of getting an Apple, but if these are the games they are up to, I’ll need to think again. Oh yeah Safari on Windows is not a good choice IMO, Firefox & IE 7 much better.
My brother in law, who is deaf, emailed me last week about Imperia Invest IBC, asking if I thought it was a scam. Apparently a lot of people in the deaf community are signing up for the program.
Here are my thought:
1. The web site is in broken English (remember the Nigerian diplomat scam?)
2. No contact phone numbers, address appears to be a drop box in the Bahamas.
3. The web site states that they left Germany because of over regulation. If you are not doing anything wrong why be afraid of regulation?
4. They do not disclose the offshore bank involved.
5. The “referral” system is obviously a pyramid type payout scheme.
6.Web site is run off a server in Singapore.
I deliberately have not put a link to the web site as I do not want to facilitate what they are doing.
Is it a scam? Make up your own mind, but the above would definitely warn me off.
If it seems to good to be true, it probably is!!
Update: 7/13/08
Remember when contacting people who post a comment on this subject that although the majority are honorable, be aware some may be trying to lure you into yet another questionable scheme. Please don’t throw away more of you money on pie-in-the-sky offers.
Vicki’s computer started getting the blue screen of death with the warning kernel_date_inpage_error last week. The notes on the page indicated that it could be one of the following problems, memory could be going bad, bad disk sector, or a recent software download. The ‘puter is 3 years old so I suspected a disk drive problem. First I did a full back up while the thing was still working!
Vicki swore she did not download anything, so I ran a disk check program, no problems. I fiddled checking various stuff and came to the conclusion that the memory was probably going bad. Since a meg of memory was going to $80, I had pretty much decided to buy a new $500 laptop for her. Next day just before going to Best Buy I decide to check Windows Restore - Programs/Accessories/System tools/System restore - low and behold there had been a Microsoft update downloaded the day before the computer started acting up. So I restored the System to a Restore Point the week before and presto! it now works perfectly.
If you have a similar Blue Screen problem, BACK UP FIRST then try System Restore!
Gold has been rocketing in price over the past few years, it is currently at $988.00. If you have old gold jewelry laying around that you no longer use, now may be a good time to turn it into cash. The Wall Street Journal had an article by Ann Zimmerman that details what she did to turn some of her old bling into new green $$$$.
I have excerpted part of the story below. As you will see there are a great range of prices but the company in New York seemed to have given the best deal.
“”My answer arrived in the weekend newspaper, where I noticed a loud, four-page ad screaming, “BUYING 7 DAYS ONLY — INSTANT CASH FOR ALL.” A group of 25 independent buyers was setting up shop in a local Dallas hotel, buying diamonds and gold and select antiques.
I took my bag of jewelry and headed to the hotel, where I met Harrisburg, Pa., antiques jeweler Rodger McKinley. He told me he travels 30 weeks a year buying gold. He resells some pieces and melts down the rest.
From Mr. McKinley I learned I had exactly 60 penny weights, or three ounces, of gold jewelry, which included one five-penny, 18-karat bracelet, with the rest 14-karat. He offered me $750. I was ecstatic — until I began to wonder if a 50% discount was the going rate. That day gold was selling for $902 an ounce. Three ounces of my jewelry at 58% of the market price would come to $1,569. I knew Mr. McKinley deserved to make a profit, but how much was fair?
I decided to keep looking. My next stop was the Dallas Gold & Silver Exchange Inc., a huge store that sells used jewelry and watches on its premises and in online auctions. A jeweler there looked at my four pieces through a jeweler’s loupe, weighed them, and then offered me $600. No good.
Next, I turned to the Internet and found a Dallas gold broker and wholesale jeweler who offered me $730 over the phone after I gave him my weights and karats. I told him I’d already received a $750 quote when gold was at $902, and prices had gone up to $939 that day. “Oh, I didn’t realize it was that high,” he explained hastily. “I’ll go as much as $1,000 then.”
Overnight Jewelry
Not good enough. I went back to the Internet and found a gold broker in the heart of Manhattan’s diamond district, U.S. Gold Buyers, which buys and refines precious metals. A customer-service representative said the company pays 96% of the spot price for five ounces or more and on a sliding scale for lower weights. I could overnight my jewelry at the company’s expense, and a representative would give me a quote the next day. If I declined the offer, the jewelry would be sent back at no charge to me. If I accepted, I could expect a payment to be processed within 24 hours. I could choose a wire transfer, or have the money sent via PayPal or by postal mail.
As reassurance that the company could be trusted, she gave me the company’s license number with the Better Business Bureau and the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs.
Using the company’s Federal Express account, I sent off the loot, and the next day a salesman called with a quote just as gold hit its new $949-an-ounce high. U.S. Gold Buyers’ offer: $1,570.17.
Sold. My check arrived the following Tuesday.
I would advise checking into any company you might be planning to use.
Last Thursday, 28th February Marguerite celebrated her 80th birthday !! Eldest son Joe came from South Carolina, daughter Mary came from Wisconsin (do you really need an excuse to leave Wisconsin in winter time?). All the children and spouses went to Troyer’s Dutch Heritage Restaurant (Amish) in Sarasota (a Marguerite favorite). The food was very good and at the end of the meal a birthday cake was presented. Friday the sisters had a small pajama party for Marguerite at Vicki’s house….. Mom, would you like a Martini? "No, No, I shouldn’t…… No, really, NO. Oh OK just a small one maybe" ! Lucky no one counted the refills !!!
Saturday son Tommy arrived from Virginia and in the afternoon the girls went on a shopping expedition finishing up at The Crab Shack for fried oysters (another Marguerite favorite) and a another Birthday Cake.
Sunday everyone went to the Isis Hotel on Reddington Beach to take family photos on the sandy beach. Then we all went to Virgil & Patti house for a cookout and party. At the end Marguerite opened her gifts including a flat screen TV with DVD player from her children and we all finished off with yet another Birthday Cake!!
