Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

An expression of dismay! I was just on Orbitz, Expedia, Travel-Ticker and several others whose names have slipped into obscurity.    I was doing a search for an extended family vacation.   The sites provide spots to put in how many kids, how many adults and how many rooms.   Then when you do a search you get an error message saying they can’t book more than 6 or 7 or whatever freaking arbitrary number that tickles their collective funny bone.    Why do they provide spots for data input if they can’t handle it?     It is astounding that these giant, sophisticated web sites are incapable of handling reservations at resorts for no more than 6 or 7 people.    Bottom line is that the idiots that limited the web sites have also limited the business for the resorts that use them.    I’m calling my travel agent and going old school, in spite of how difficult it is for me to admit it, this time the Internet sucked. ...

This is cool technology, not a recommendation but just recognition that this is very neat tech.   See the October issue of Wired Magazine for a great article on how this was developed and some hacks for current Nerf guns. Hail-Fire It’s the highest capacity NERF blaster ever. The N-STRIKE ELITE HAIL-FIRE tops out at an astounding 144-dart capacity (with the purchase of additional clips and darts). It holds up to 8 clips, and delivers a semi-auto barrage of darts as fast as you can pull the trigger. When you’ve got the HAIL-FIRE, you’ve got the ultimate in high-capacity blasting! Join the N-STRIKE team N-STRIKE ELITE blasters are the ultimate in blaster performance. Featuring upgraded distance and the revolutionary Elite Dart, this is the final word in today's blaster technology. The HAIL-FIRE blaster puts elite dart capacity under your control with a unique rotating ammo rack that can carry more darts than any other NERF blaster! Plus, motorized se...

The replicator is not far away.    I’m talking about buying it for a Christmas gift, it is that close.    MakerBot is selling the Replicator 2 right this minute.   This is the beginning of the newest industrial revolution.    Watch this video and be amazed.   There is nothing more exciting than seeing science fiction I read as a kid becoming my reality.   I have no connection to MakerBot and I did not receive any compensation for this post. If reviewing a product, it may have been received free of charge. That will NEVER have a bearing on my recommendations.

This blog post is simply a link to a good article on kids.    The title of the other post is 30 Blogs for Helping To Teach Kids to be Thankful.     No matter how you cut it, kids are just fun! I read some of it and it does seem to have a lot of good stuff on kids.   I do not recommend the blog or the organization that sent me the link.  I don't use them nor do I know anyone that uses them.  However the link does provide some good info for kids.   If reviewing a product, it may have been received free of charge. That will NEVER have a bearing on my recommendations.

  In the age of email, instant messaging and instant gratification it is shocking for a company such as   Jamie Sadock’s Designer Golf Apparel  to have such abysmal response to customer concerns.    My wife is an avid golfer who delights in the colorful clothes offered by Jamie Sadock’s Designer Golf Apparel.    She purchased an outfit at the proshop of our club in Naples Florida.    The outfit is cute and colorful and disturbingly poor quality.   It has silver looking accent trim that is glued on, apparently with a child’s glue stick for the apparent lack of adhesiveness.    The first time she wore it several of the circles fell off.    She glued them back on rather than returning it.    We returned home from Florida and the weather was not conducive to golf for several months upon returning home.   When she wore the outfit again, again she lost silver trim through normal wear.    Sh...

An Excellent Metaphor on Life! If reviewing a product, it may have been received free of charge. That will NEVER have a bearing on my recommendations.

1 TB drive Keep in mind that I am a dinosaur as far as computers go.    I have clear memories of the Ti-99/a, the trs-80 and my favorites the Atari and C64.    I sold CPM computers before DOS even existed.     When I got my first 10mb hard drive, I wondered how I would ever fill it up.   The drive I got and tested today is barely larger than one of my 230mb Bernoulli cartridges or a couple of 3.5” floppies and yet, it is 1TB!   I am sure that the younger folks reading this are going, so?    Well when you remember that I started with 8” floppies holding a whopping 80Kb then you must stand in awe of a 1TB drive that is 3.25”x4.75”x.5” in size and is USB powered.    I pulled this out of the box, plugged in the USB cable and plugged it into my Vista laptop.    It was immediately recognized, I set up a subdirectory and copied some files.    I then moved it to my Win7 desktop and did...

This book may have been received free of charge from a publisher or a publicist. That will NEVER have a bearing on my recommendations.

This is a Thomas The Tank Engine competitor.    My grandchildren have made me aware of many things and Thomas and Chuggington are two of them.    This is a high quality wooden railway system that is compatible with the Thomas track.    That is very important as kids end up with parts from multiple sets and they always want to combine them.    I’m a bit cheesed at the die-cast Thomas as I did not realize it was a different scale than the wooden Thomas.    That is beside the point in this review except I want to point out that this track is compatible with the standard wooden Thomas set.    The set includes two engines named Koko and Wilson.    A Vee, a clock tower tunnel, a bridge tunnel and 17 pieces of track are included in the set.    It sells for $39.99 at Amazon.    As disturbingly high as that seems, that seems to be what the market will bear in these wooden train sets. ...

Every car owner must purchase auto insurance as required by state laws. Start by getting auto insurance quotes from several companies. You may be surprised at the savings you can achieve simply by shopping around for affordable car insurance. And only take the insurance coverages that you are required to take by state law and by the lending or leasing company you used to purchase your vehicle. One of the best ways to save money is to take an approved defensive driving class. They are usually six hours and many states allow you to take them online. They give you valuable information to improve your ability to drive safely and they ask you to answer questions so that you can learn. you submit your course completion certificate to your car insurance company, you will receive a substantial reduction on your rates. Another important way to save money on your auto insurance is to manage your deductibles in a way that makes sense to you. Your automobile financer will require...

Check it out! I’m featured on Story Plant blog today. http://tinyurl.com/9x8yaer If reviewing a product, it may have been received free of charge. That will NEVER have a bearing on my recommendations.

Sands of the Solar Empire - New from author, Ren Garcia, the creator of the League of Elder Universe FREE 10/1 /12 & 10/2/12 FREE Sands of the Solar Empire, the first book in The Belmont Saga, begins a new adventure in the universe of the League of Elder. Can a masked Paymaster, a thief, a coward and a once great warbird face the unknown gulf of the Sands of the Solar Empire? Title: Sands of the Solar Empire Author: Ren Garcia ISBN#: 978-0-9850817- 6-8 Retail Price: $14.95 Paperback, 300 pages Genre: Science Fiction, Space Opera Publishing Date: August 2012 Publisher: Loconeal Publishing, Amherst, OH Contact:  James O. Barnes, (216)772-8380 james@loconeal.com www.loconeal.com About the book: Sands of the Solar Empire, the first book in The Belmont Saga, begins a new adventure in the universe of the League of Elder. GET THE BRANDY TO BAZZ . . . That’s all Paymaster Stenstrom, the Lord of Belmont-...

Weebly provides free websites for little more than a note on the bottom that the web site is a Weebly site.    I recently made a change to one page on my site and it took less than one minute.   I used Front Page when it first came out and used it through multiple renditions.    I used Dream Weaver and other “big” name products and they all worked and all were really powerful and most were really expensive.   In addition there was frequently a learning curve that was simply gruesome.    Weebly is none of those and it is not for developers.   However if you want to do a web site yourself and maintain it yourself, I have found nothing better.    Check it out! Weebly   If reviewing a product, it may have been received free of charge. That will NEVER have a bearing on my recommendations.