Archive for "Sponsored Post"
And the Filling went Pop!
Posted on October 16, 2007 by Ching under Sponsored Post.
Today at work I had a co-worker loose a filling while eating lunch. It looked so painful to him, he squirmed and winced while he tried to finish his lunch and finally just asked to leave to go get it fixed. It sparked a long conversation about times each of us had experienced something similar! I told them about a trip I had taken several years ago. I lived in Memphis and would fly back home every so often to see my family, on one of the trips my filling on my back tooth popped because of the pressure. I was in excruciating pain and I still had several hours to go before I landed and to top it off I would not be near a dentist that my insurance covered. It was a long, painful and expensive trip for me since couldn’t take it after the 2nd day and broke down and went to my dad’s dentist to get it fixed. My coworkers were all sympathetic and told me that they felt for me. This made me think of the future and how I like to be prepared for anything! My wife and i like to travel and i thought to myself that this could ruin an otherwise pleasant trip if this were to happen to either of us. After some looking I found this amazing product that I wish I had when my filling popped. Its called. Dentemp OS, this stuff is great it Provides fast, temporary relief of pain and discomfort. Just remove it from its plastic vial and it’s ready to use. No Mess! No Mixing! and there are several applications in each vial. You can replaces lost fillings and it can be used to temporarily cement loose crowns. I would have been able to eat within 30 minutes of setting. This truly is a great product for temporary dental repair and I plan on having it in my carry on from now on. Its better to be prepared than in pain and embarrassed by the loss of a filling of crown.
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Jenni’s New Hanging Bookshelves
Posted on October 15, 2007 by Ching under Family, Flickr, Sponsored Post, Web.
My spoiled little sister wrote about her new bookshelves the other day.
“Sunday Dad finished my bookshelves.. There’s another set just right beside it. Almost all my books fit, actually, I was way surprised. Dad says to keep an eye on it for the next couple of days to make sure it doesn’t give. That’s very reassuring, huh?
He also tried to charge me $150 for the materials, and $80 an hour for the labor.
Really, Dad? I don’t think I would have hired a programmer that cost that much to make my bookshelves for me. Especially since you did almost miss the stud.
You have to hand it to him though, the bookshelves look fantabulous. I’m so very excited.”
By the way, I’m really digging this Payperpost thing. So far so, good. I am almost a third of the way to earning $300 toward my new digital camera. I have received $80.25 since I first signed up. Then I have another $95.15 coming my way. Of the the $95.15 that’s pending, four blog entries (about $39.00 worth) have already been approved. So I am just waiting on the payment for those. The rest (about four more blog entries) are still waiting to be reviewed.
You guys should sign up for Payperpost and start blogging for bucks today. I’m not just saying this because I will get $15 out of the referral, either. It really works!
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Bathroom Fixtures
Posted on October 14, 2007 by Ching under Sponsored Post, Wishlist.
Brian and I went to Thuy’s this morning to setup the encryption for her wireless. Michael was there and made breakfast for everyone. I was really impressed. I was expecting donuts. We had wheat toast, eggs, bacon, and sausage. It was really nice of them to feed us. Thanks, Thuy and Michael!
Brian and I figured it would take two seconds to secure her wireless. It actually took a bit longer because we didn’t know the password to the router. It was no longer the default. I told Brian to do a factory reset so it would revert back to “admin” as the password. He did a reset several times, but he was doing a reset like he does on ours and it didn’t work. He kept thinking that the router was reset, but the default password still wouldn’t work. Anyway, I finally convinced him that it’s not reset so he read the reset instructions. For Thuy’s router it was slightly different. Once we restored the factory defaults, it took seconds to change the login for the router and setup the wireless encryption.
Once we got that up and running, we connected Thuy’s laptop, my laptop, my phone, and Thuy’s iPhone to the, now secure, wireless network. I’d never really played with Thuy’s iPhone before. It is really cool. Seeing how it connects to the Internet and displays web pages really sold me. Anyway, after all was said and done we there for about an hour and a half (breakfast, setting up the wireless, playing with the iPhone, and all). I promised Brian we wouldn’t take more than an hour but it actually worked out perfect because I managed to talk Brian into checking out the parade of homes entries on the West side of town and the model homes didn’t open until noon.
The models we visited today were in Hampton Lakes, Watercress (a very fancy neighborhood in Maize), Evergreen, Fontana, Ridgeport, and Falcon Falls. All were in the Northwest area close to Thuy’s apartment except for Falcon Falls which is on the Northeast side of town. We went to check it out anyway because it was on the way home.
The models varied from inexpensive to mid-range to really luxurious. What we noticed was that the quality of construction and materials were pretty consistent with the prices, e.g. the cheaper homes used low quality, low cost fixtures. It was amazing to see the variety of faucets, kitchen sinks, bathroom fixtures, and such. I think the homes in Watercress used Kohler faucets. They looked really fancy and expensive.
In the category of inexpensive homes, Hampton Lakes and Falcon Falls are pretty comparable (no fancy fixtures or anything, just the basics) but we both agreed that the homes in Hampton Lakes were constructed better. Anyway, it will be a while before we are in the market to buy. We were mainly just curious to see what’s out there. Brian and I have a long road of home rennovations ahead of us. We’ve set a pretty agressive target of having our house ready by next selling season. I think by then there may be new neighborhoods in our price point that won’t se so disappointing in terms of layout and construction quality.
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Wealth Management
Posted on October 13, 2007 by Ching under Life, Sponsored Post.
Everyone pretty much agrees that there won’t be any social security benefits for our generation. They’re estimating that this will occur about 2040. Just about the time that I will be retiring. Brian and I both know that it will be up to us to ensure that we retire comfortably.
For this reason I’m investing heavily on my 401k. I’ve start a Roth for myself and we are also starting on for Brian through Intrust Bank. We meet with the financial planner at the Tallgrass branch on Wednesday.
I’m also keeping my eye open for valuable information about wealth management, which is why I’m excited to share information about the Wealth Expo in New York next week. The Expo is sponsored by MyWallSt.net: Your Financial Social Network. The three-day Expo is jam-packed with seminars. The hours of the event are as follows:
- Friday, 10/19: 1:00 PM to 6:30 PM EDT w/ a cocktail hour to follow
- Saturday, 10/20: 9:00 AM to 6:30 PM EDT w/ a cocktail hour to follow
- Sunday, 10/21: 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM EDT (no cocktail hour)
The seminars I found most interesting on Friday are “Making Money in the Markets Is Not That Difficult-We Will Show You How” and “Tax Free Wealth Accumulation” in Breakout Room 1CO2 and “Chasing the American Dream” in the Main Stage.
“Making Money in the Markets Is Not That Difficult- We Will Show You How” also repeats on Saturday, but there are many presentations that day as well. Among them are “Structured Products: Strategic Investment Vehicles for the 21st Century” and “How to Call Market Turns Using Inflection Points,” which are both paid seminars. Helpful presentations in the exhibit hall include, “The 12 Secrets of Millionaire Traders,” “We Systematically Tripled the S&P 500 Since 2000. You Can Too!,” “Keeping It Short: Short and Long Strategies,” “Creating Wealth through Multi-Units in Today’s Market?,” and “Your Next Great Stock.” The following are presented in Newsletter Stage 2, “Trader Secrets,” “The Next Three Months: What to expect from the stock market,” “Effective Retirement Planning for Financial Independence,” and “Safe, Defensive and Profitable Investing.”
On Sunday we thought of “How to Become a Millionaire in a Troubled Real Estate Market” and “How to Find Big Trends in Stocks and Options.” All of these seminars provide valuable information to all investors, not just those of us who are planning for retirement.
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Raleigh, North Carolina
Posted on October 4, 2007 by Ching under Sponsored Post, Travel.
North Carolina is one of those places that I’ve never been but have always been intrigued about. I have read of how beautiful it is there and, from what I’ve seen on TV and the internet, this no exaggeration. It makes my list of places that I would be willing to relocate to if the opportunity ever arose. Although, Brian says that the cost of living there is really high. Then again, the cost of living everything is high compared to the cost of living we are used to in Wichita. No matter what people say about Wichita, how boring it is, how much they hate it, how much they want to leave — we are blessed to have the quality of life that we do here. In that sense, I find it hard to justify moving elsewhere. It would be nice to check out what it’s like in North Carolina, though.
For a city that has about the same population as Wichita I think North Carolina has a lower crime rate, which is nice. Crime in Wichita scares me. I don’t know if the news just sensationalizes these occurrences, but it really does scare me. It makes me not want to leave the house. Of course, if you’re like my dad and you work from home, you really wouldn’t need to leave the house. Unfortunately, we don’t all have that luxury.
Anyway, back to North Carolina.. There are several big companies that are based or operate there. These include Nortel, Cisco, IBM, Lenovo, Red Hat, Progress Energy, First Citizens Bank, just to name a few. Incidentally, I checked the stock price of Progress Energy (PGN). It’s trading at about $47.52 right now. Not bad. Okay, more on that later.
The thing is, you can read about what a place is like but nothing really compares to going there and experiencing it for yourself. My advice would be to actually go and check it out. Now would be the best time because they’ve got several things going on right now in Raleigh. Plus, it is a beautiful time of the year there.
The Visit Raleigh web site actually has a special promotion going on right now for a free fall getaway which includes accommodations for two at the Courtyard by Marriott Raleigh Crabtree Valley, a $25 gift certificate to Bloomsbury Bistro (never been there but supposedly really good), free VIP admission for two to Rum Runners, two tickets to the North Carolina Theatre (if you are into that sort of thing), two tickets to the North Carolina Museum of Art’s Landscapes from the Age of Impressionism, and two tickets to Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. You can register for this free Raleigh, NC getaway by clicking on the link. It’s not a shabby getaway package. And you get to check out the area, just in case you decide you want to move there permanently.
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