Archive for July, 2011
This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Straight Talk for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.
You have to wonder what life would be like these days without the unlimited plans that the cell phone companies offer. I have read news stories before about families having to pay thousands of dollars because their teenager racked up tens of thousands of text messages to their friends in just one month. Another way the cell phone companies get you is when you dial 411 for information. I will take the extra minute to open the browser and do a search now to avoid that $1.99 charge.
Straight Talk has everything you need for your cell phone at a very reasonable price. Take to heart that you will not get gouged on price. For the conscientious consumer you are offered reconditioned phones starting at $10.00 and for the savvy folks, assorted smartphones. I'd call a friend that I know needs a cell phone to inform them of the no contract plans Straight Talk has available with unlimited monthly service at $45.00 which includes unlimited calls, texts, picture messaging, and web. For a more reasonable plan you could opt for the "All You Need Plan" which consists of 1000 minutes, texts, and 30 MB of web data. There is also no credit check or activation fees. I never really understood the activation fees. They should be thankful we are choosing them for their service and give that as a free item to begin with. Never fall hook, line and sinker for some of the deals you might see. Always shop around until you can find a deal that fits in your budget. After all you are the one going to be using and paying for the phone and service and most sales representatives are just out to sell you the most expensive phone and plan without a care in the world if you cannot pay for it.
Check it peoples. Soon after I got back from camp my 2004 Pontiac Sunfire hit 100,000K and I put every last mile on it myself (yes that’s dust on the steering column ignore it). I’m proud and horrified all at the same time because it is only a matter of time when the car will go kaput and I will have to start shelling out for another car payment. Here’s hoping this happens none too soon though.
I have already sunk in quite a bit of money repairing stuff on it since I only got a 30K warranty on it. At least I got some of my money’s worth before the 30K hit. They learned what to fix from when I had my first Sunfire – yep this ones my second one. The reason being around 20K the car would cut off as I was driving it. Dead. Let me tell you the power steering does not work when the cars off. So that was a computer issue they fixed immediately when it happened again on this car. I’ve had about 5 horn replacements and need to get it fixed again as a matter of fact. There was an A/C blower motor replacement and something else too but for the life of me I can’t remember what it is now it has been so long ago.
Now what I have paid for since the warranty has been a master clutch replacement, which by the way, costs fricken huge! I was so used to just replacing the cable when the clutch goes out but these new cars now do not have that and they have to literally take the engine out to repair it. So $1000 later I’m back in business. Then I paid close to $800 to replace the dashboard console because the only thing I knew was that the car was not overheating *snort* Makes for an interesting conversation when the cops pull you over for speeding, which I am prone to do anyways. The conversation goes something like this. Cop: Do you know why I pulled you over? Me: Speeding. Cop: Do you know how fast you were going? Me: Haven’t a clue! Now you can take that one to the bank and put me under a lie detector because it was true lol Now I have no excuse on how fast I’m going because I can see it. Next weeks repairs will be the drivers side power window button. It has no issues going down but takes F O R E V E R going up and I could sit there for well over 15 minutes trying to get the window up. Got an estimate already and they think it is just the relay switch which is probably right and that will cost me close to $200. Then to repair the horn is about $100 which will wait until I get paid next in August. Then I can go back to blaring the horn at the asinine drivers around here. You have no idea how much I use my horn. 
Beyond that I still have to figure out why my reverse lights do not work because the fuse is fine as well as the bulbs themselves. There is a short somewhere. Gonna take that to my trusty mechanic friend to find as all the other repairs I’m letting GM fix. Oh, another thing I found out too since I hit 100k was that I was going to get my timing belt replaced because that is when you are supposed to do it. Surprise! you have a timing CHAIN. Umm, okay? Anybody know when you replace one of those suckers because the auto parts store dude was clueless.
And without further ado – My own version of Bumblebee
Recently one of my coworkers has had a rash of her family and extended family die from either natural causes or accidents. Makes you wonder what it will be like when you become older, if not ancient, by the children’s standards of age. Will there finally be those flying cars? Will there be a cure for cancer and any other disease out there? Who knows but it will be an interesting time to say the least.
Back to my coworker though. I have to wonder, as some of them were fairly old, if they had Medical Alert Buttons. You may have seen some of the commercials out about them. They might look silly to some of us but I know they do work well. One of my other coworkers father had one before he started becoming senile and needed a sitter with him during the day. He ended up using it a couple of times when he fell and could not get to a phone because they called me first to track down my coworker. Just makes you wonder if any of the elderly take for granted that they can live by themselves without a full caretaker. I know when I become old I will probably need one of these because I am not one who likes people coming to visit me all the time. I am a loner, have always been a loner, and always will be one. So this will help in case I fall down and need help. I can totally understand why some of the elderly get so ornery now because it is almost like losing some of your freedom when you end up having a caretaker of some sort even if it is for your or our own safety and health.
Well, here are quite a few photos from the prom at camp which is always the last night there. We had a Tower O’ Flip Flops that got taken down the last night and passed out to whomever wanted a pair or 5 there were that many lol Even though I despise flip flops I grabbed a couple pair because I do wear them in the shower while I am showering at the YMCA. The actual shower shoes I had bought didn’t last but a couple of months they were that bad. And I am not one who would like any sort of foot fungus so flip flops it is. From the look of some of the items, they have been recycled from a couple years back. I remember the little totem dude when we had a Hawaiian bbq for one of the theme nights.
The pool was open the first day we got there thankfully because it was blistering hot. We also had the campfire that same night at the pool so it was a win win situation for all. I was in a cabin with 6 kids (3 little ones, 3 teens) and 1 intern who was dead to the world when sleeping. I heard pretty much everything like I normally do as I get even less sleep while there for the week than I do at home. On the second day though one of the little ones got an ear infection so she wasn’t allowed back in the pool and was on antibiotics. So I would hear her in the middle of the night when the Benadryl wore off because her ear hurt only to go find out she was laying on it so I’d get her flipped over and that helped somewhat to where she could get back to sleep. One night though she was startled awake, ran to me and hopped up in my bunk (which are old and rickety barely hanging together with springs) asking if Hannah (her sister) was an alien. She didn’t even get Benadryl that night – go figure. So I had a bunk mate for the rest of the week because she would crawl in with me.
We had the usual fan fare at the camp, a climbing wall, canoes/fishing on the lake, movie time, jewelry making, arts and crafts, tons of color war games and A LOT of pool time. The start was a bit rocky though as one child missed his flight but his parents drove him to camp and then he ended up in the hospital in TN because he got ill. Rough week for him. Other than that the kids had a blast like they always do. We got on a nonstop flight this time thanks to Southwest going to Nashville from here. So glad they came to our state.
Once I got home, I picked up my puppies and crashed on my bed for like 4-5 hours. I got a report card from puppy jail this time around. Apparently they played well with others and were not homesick. Well, considering I’ve been going to that vets office for umpteen years and they all know each other there’s no surprise there. They also got a spa day the day before I picked them up. Wish I got a spa day upon my return but alas no such luck.
Well, more pics below if you are interested. Maybe next year I will get this up in a reasonable amount of time or even while I’m at camp because I still did have my 3G signal while in BFE.
This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of TracFone for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.
Once upon a time I was even poorer than I am now if you can believe it but needed a cell phone for my own piece of mind while traveling. As much as I pay now, there would have been no way I could afford having a cell phone on a contract way back then. I have actually used TracFone before, in fact, for years before I finally broke down and bought one on contract. I bought a Motorola phone from one of the supercenters before there were so many features on phones. It just made calls, that is it. Of course, that is all I needed it for too so it did its purpose well and cost effectively I might add. The reason why I chose TracFone was the fact that I was not locked into a contract which alleviates the cancellation fees, no credit checks needed, and no activation fee either.
Being one of the real TracFone customers I can honestly say I never had an issue with the phone service at all. I am glad to see that they are still in business and have expanded because I believe only US phone calls were allowed when I had it before. You can now call internationally and still pay the same rate as if you were calling your neighbor. Some of the specials of the service cards include for the 1 year service card double minutes for the life of the TracFone and 800 minutes for $119.00. My current monthly cell phone bill is about $20 shy of that. It's insane how much we pay for service while in a contract. If that does not appeal to you and you just need the phone for short traveling trips you could buy a monthly plan of 200 minutes for under $30.00 or 50 minutes for $9.99.
I have a lot of stuff to post but unfortunately no time to do it in. I decided to do some summer classes to get my degree by the end of spring next year and essentially started a week late due to going to our kidney camp we have every year in June. Summer classes are only 2 months verses the normal 3 month semesters for fall and spring so it is a lot of homework in a short amount of time. I have tons of pictures from camp as well as other ongoing nonsense just as soon as classes are over with which will be at the very beginning of August. Then I get almost 3 weeks off and start back for the fall session.
And yes for the few that check in, the blog did go down for some hours over the weekend due to a technical issue on the server the host had me on. They swapped servers and all is well.
That being said, I got invited into the Google+ beta and have over 300+ invites. So if you want one just leave me a message with a valid email address and I’ll shoot one your way. Do NOT spam my blog with asinine links in the URL because I’ll almost surely delete the comment and no invite for you either.
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