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Enjoying the Weekend with Family
Did gas prices put a dent in your weekend travels? I figured we have the time let’s take a short trip and have fun as a family.
Before I get into what we did, here’s how to save a little money on your trip:
- Traveling by Car- Use the more fuel efficient one for longer trips. Our Dodge Grand Caravan gets about 18 miles to the gallon and the Honda Civic gets around 34 to 35 miles to the gallon. The trunk space on the Civic is huge.
- Hotel costs- You should get a AAA (Automobile Association of America) membership, or your local equivalent. Many hotels have special rates for AAA members that save you 10-15%. You can also get special rates as military, government (state and federal) and check the hotel websites for other online only specials
- Museum and Zoo fees- Ask for a military or student discount if it applies to you. If you plan to go to the same place alot, some places have annual memberships which will also save you money.
Here’s what we did:
Friday night I looked at flying to Orlando for a short Disney trip. Just flights would be $317 per person each, let’s see what else. Busch Gardens Williamsburg looks good, but it is about five hours away, too long in the car for this short of a trip.
How about about a two day trip to Columbia, SC? It’s only one and a half hours away, sounds good. We slept in a little on Saturday and headed down to Columbia. We ate lunch and spent the afternoon at the Edventure Museum. (http://www.edventure.org)
Some of the exhibits at the Edventure Museum include:
- A three story boy named Eddie, you can crawl inside him and see his spine, stomach with food inside, his brain, etc.
- World of work- Be a farmer and milk a cow or pick peaches, put on a fireman’s jacket and ride in their truck, build at a construction site and more.
- BodyWorks- Brush Eddie’s teeth, find out what food is good for you, play a large game of Operation, and see how your joints work.
There’s more, look at their website to see what else they have. On Sunday we went to the Riverbanks Zoo. (http://www.riverbanks.org/) It was a good Zoo for kids and had lots of animals. We were there about four hours and then headed for home. It was a good short trip and we have Monday to just relax around the house and at the community pool.
Take time with Family,
Sam Carrara
Save Time with LeechBlock
I found another good way to reclaim your time in the form of a FireFox extension/plugin. LeechBlock lets you set times and domains to block to help you get more accomplished.
Really it helps you to avoid looking at the newest Anime episode when you should be working.
To read the whole review see it at LifeHacker-
http://lifehacker.com/374812/save-yourself-from-time-sinks-online-with-leechblock
Save Time,
Sam Carrara
Cold and Raining
Two days ago I told you about the nice weather in Charleston, South Carolina. Well, now it’s cold and raining. You have to make sure to bundle up.
This reminds me that not everyday will be sunshine, both with weather and mental state. Sometimes I am up and ready to take on the world. Other times I feel like doing nothing. What can you learn from this? When you are energized, get alot done.
Many areas in the Southeast need rain and still have water use restrictions. The water is needed for these areas. When you feel down, recharge. You don’t have to be moving every single second.
Recharge,
Sam Carrara
Microsoft is Buying Yahoo?
I’m either late to the party, or it really doesn’t matter. Are you a news junkie? If you are accustomed to getting your daily 5,000 forms of e-mail, fax, RSS, telephone, television and other forms of news; then you know what the title of this post means.
So you say, Sam… You’re late to the party, Yahoo said yes, no or too low… It doesn’t really matter either way. “Resistance is Futile.” (Sorry I harken back to my days of Star Trek and the Borg/Microsoft.)
Does that news really affect you? Probably not. If this doesn’t affect you, then other news probably won’t affect you either. We all have 1,440 minutes in everyday (that’s also 86,400 seconds in the day). Don’t waste them. Focus on the activities that will give you the most future value.
Will Microsoft prevail? Will some other newsgroup buy Yahoo? We shall see.
Don’t waste time,
Sam Carrara
Blog Now or Blog Later?
That is the question, Dear Shakespeare. Whether ’tis nobler to write the post now or would it be better to do it later. The slings and arrows of other commitments, like spending time with family.
It case the above is unfamiliar to you, its a very paraphrased quote from Hamlet. Here’s the question in plain English:
Should I write this post and then put it on the web while I have time,
Or fear that I will not have time to do it?
To let you know I am writing this post on Sunday (a little while before the Super Bowl) and it will appear on the site Monday morning. Why would I do this? There are a multitude of reasons:
- The search engines like content regularly.
- I don’t want to be writing this while I should be working.
- What if I was on vacation for a week and want to keep giving out gems of info. Do I cry and complain until I get to a cyber cafe? No!
- I’m sometimes not in the mood to write.
- Making money on the web is supposed to being freeing, I’m not creating another job. I make this on my schedule and post it when I want.
- It saves time to batch activities.
- There’s more, but that’s enough for now…
So how do I do this trick? › Continue reading
