My Son is Off to Camp "Wannahonkaloogie" or "Chippawah" or Something Like That

Hey there. We've decided... Our son is going to camp. A friend of ours presented us with an opportunity for our boy to go off to camp and learn a few things. My wife and I briefly talked about it before deciding that he's going. I've never been to any kind of camp as a kid and my wife says that she went to a "fake" camp for a week. lol I think this will be a great experience for him to get out and do something while he's on vacation.

Our boy can be timid, but at the same time, he can be very outgoing. We feel that sometimes he's just not in the mood to play with others and would just rather stay in his room. Reminds me a lot of me when I was young. lmao The difference, though, is that while I was out, I was out playing with kids and doing stuff with friends. When our boy is out, he's either sitting by himself playing video games or sitting there looking bored as hell. Mind you, this is not all the time. There have been occasions where he's out and about playing with other kids and he practically disappears until it's time to go. We figured that maybe camp would be a good way to help make a dent, if not break, this shell that he hides in at times.

We spoke to my son during our lunch break to get his thoughts on the whole thing. I talked about camping and what not to see if they were activities that he would enjoy. He said that they were cool. So I mentioned a camp for a week, and he shot it down, saying he wouldn't want to go. I told him that he just said it sounded like fun so why would you not want to interact with other kids his age and do fun activities? (This is that shell I was talking about) He couldn't really answer me so I told him that that is the very reason he is going to camp. He should want to go out and have fun with kids his age instead of passing up these life experiences. I never got to go to camp and I would have loved to have gone. He didn't seem to receptive to the idea that he's going, but I have a feeling it's because he won't be able to play video games. I'm sure that once he's there, he'll have a blast and one day, many, many moons from now, he'll look back on that thank us for giving him that experience. Until then, later!

Get Ready for Back To School with Sears' Campus Ready

This post was sponsored by Sears. All the opinions are mine.

Hey there friends. We are now in August, which means that many retailers across the country and gearing up for "back to school" sales. While retailers generally target the elementary school kids, those of you that are getting ready for college can be left out in the cold. Going to college and living is a dorm room is a huge transition and our good friends at Sears are here to help with their CampusReady website. Sears makes it extremely easy to get your dorm room furnished with what you need. Below are some of the highlights of the site:

*You can shop by dorm room

You can view pre-furnished dorm rooms and pick and choose items from that dorm room that you like. Considering that Sears went all out and created more than a few dorm rooms, you should be able to find a style that suits your needs.

*You could shop by coordinating dorm room products and design ideas

If you select an item that you like, Sears will automatically display several other products that coordinate with the item that you chose. Making it extremely easy to have a well organized dorm room.

*You can shop using the interactive checklist

This handy tool organizes strongly suggested items that you will need to make college life that much easier. All items needed will be neatly categorized for easy check off.

*You can shop by necessary items

This is a god send for all parents that are about to see their child off to college. This interactive list will display all necessities for college life. The items are organized into the 5 categories of eating, sleeping, studying, playing, and cleaning.

*You can shop for clothes

Campus Ready not only offers furniture, but clothes as well. Keeping the clothes simple, young men and young women can shop by tops, pants, and t shirts, among other categories. It also provides tips on how to keep your clothes lasting the longest, offering advice such as this tip for jeans, "wash jeans in cold water and turn them inside out".

*Sears provides financial tips

The "Money Sense" tab is there to help students with tips on how to be money savvy. It emphases on the importance of a budget, but offers such money saving advice, such as "buying used books", and "search for free entertainment".

You can't go wrong with a site that goes of it's way to make things simple for a college transition. As an added bonus, you can check out CampusReady on Facebook and make things even easier with their facebook application.

College tuition is on the rise all over the country. Sears is doing it's part by offering a great site where a soon to be college student can get a grasp of what's going to be expected of a soon to be adult. For all us parents out there, be sure to sign up, for free, at Upromise.com to help pay for tuition costs. The program is extremely simple. You make purchases through Upromise.com to online retailers and a portion of the purchase will be returned to you in the form of an online account. And to sweeten the pot, Sears has teamed up with Upromise.com to give away up to $25,000 in cash for college tuition if you make a purchase through the Upromise.com website. Free money for college is not easy to come by so make sure you get your entry in for your chance to score money for college. Later.

Blogs of the Month of July

Hey there. I missed on showing recognition to my top droppers last month. I completely forgot about it. Not this time! Here are my top droppers for the month of July.

Nevermind... Stupid Entrecard will not let me see my statistics... How am I supposed to know who are my top droppers... Ugh..

Once I can log on, I'll post them up, but I can't believe that I can't see them now. Later.

UPDATE: Several hours later....

Looks like I can log on now. Here are my top 5 for the month!

Lisgold
Your Fun Family
DedeAndro
AddYours
The Ad Master

Check out their sites! They have now been added to my blogroll for the month of September. Also, Lisgold gets the top spot winning 1000 ECs. The runners up each get 500. Thanks for your support! Keep on reading and keep on dropping. Next time, it could be your site on my blogroll. Later!

Cat is missing... And its time to go to the concert. We are now worried and wont enjoy it...

Yahama's NeoHD - Technology Simplified

Hey there friends. How many times has this happened to you:

You sit in your favorite chair to watch some TV. You lean over to your coffee table and grab a remote to turn on the TV. You push the power button, only to have turned on your stereo. You shuffle through the remotes and after 2 or 3 minutes, realize that the TV remote is not on the table and you start looking for it.

It's a scenario that I've seen many times. An uncle of mine even went as far as to buy Velcro and tape some to each home appliance that has a remote so that when he tapes some Velcro to the remotes, you can stick it to the corresponding appliance. It was a good idea, it looked extremely tacky, but his system worked for him. But it wasn't without flaws, he still needed to get up and get the remote and when we was done, he had to put that remote back before grabbing another or he'd be in the same boat of having multiple controls in front of him and having to shuffle through them to find the one he needs. Is it not the point of a remote control to turn on the appliance without having to get up? If my uncle is getting up to grab a remote, he might as well turn it on while he's up, defeating the purpose of a remote control.

Not only for him, but for anyone that has way too many remote controls. Take a look at my stash of remotes, and that's not all of them! I couldn't find about 3 of them so add that to the mix and I have at least 8 remote controls! The XBOX 360 control works as my DVD remote so I included it, since it counts as an extra remote to me.
This is where a Yamaha neoHD would be perfect. It is an easy to use, all in one entertainment system. You can program anything and everything into this innovative device. You can connect your DVD player, your TV, your stereo, and for those of you with a gaming console, like myself, can program that as well. And the best part? It can all be controlled using 1 remote. 1 single remote! Now, you're thinking, "Metallman, I don't need a neoHD when all I can do is buy a universal remote." You're wrong, my friend. Have you seen the universal remotes? They have so many buttons and are so complicated that you'll be mulling over the instruction manual for months before you even get comfortable with it and even after many months of use, you still will have no idea what many of the buttons on that thing do. That's not efficient. The Yamaha neoHD remote is extremely simple. It only has a few buttons and that is all you need to control all your of your appliances that are programmed into the Yamaha neoHD. Just look at what that web of applications that are compatible. No more shuffling through many remotes when all you need is one!

And to make things even better, Yamaha is having a sweepstakes so that you can be a proud owner of your very own Yamaha neoHD. You can get all the official rules and information at Yamaha neoHD Sweepstakes Entry page. Don't forget to leave a comment! That's one of the ways that you can enter into the sweepstakes. For all you Twitter addicts out there, another way to enter the sweepstakes is to send a Twitter message with the following Tweet, "I just entered to win a #neoHD b/c I have too many remotes, visit http://bit.ly/JMsW3".

Let me know if you guys are planning on entering the sweepstakes. Don't forget to leave a comment here on how you feel about this technology, whether or not you think you need it, and if it's worth entering a sweepstakes for. I think it's well worth the few minutes it takes to send a Tweet and leave a comment. I've gotten 2 entries in so far and can't wait to see if I'm a lucky winner. Also, don't forget to check out the official Yamaha on Facebook page and become a fan. This way, you can be up to date with all the contest information on this and possible others in the future. Best of luck, friends. Later!

"Deliver Me" a Parking Ticket

Hey there. We went to see our doctor this morning so that she can check up on the baby. We left at a good time and got there at a good time as well. Because we to the doctor early, we tend to rush so that we can get to work and only miss about 30 mins of work. I walked in and took a picture of the names of the doctors. Figured it would be a good Twitpic of where I was at the moment. There were no TV cameras (they are the doctors of Deliver Me) around, figured because it was early morning. Doctor Bohn (pronounced "bone") checked out my wife and baby to make sure all is good. According to Dr. Bohn, we'll be entering our 30th week tomorrow. Only 10 more weeks to go! All checks out well and then we go to set up our appointment for our next visit. The reception told us to take a seat so we did... And waited... and waited... and waited. I was getting restless. It doesn't take more than 2 mins to check the appt. book to find an empty slot, yet, there we were sitting for over 10 mins. I told my wife that the receptionist must be slacking off since I heard laughter and I saw coffee being brought in. We ask her what's the hold up and in no more than 30 secs, she has our appointment ready. We walk briskly to our car so that we can be off to work and what do we see? A damn traffic officer pacing around our car. Oh no... I rush up there and ask him if there's a problem. He says that there is no money in the meter. I look at it and sure enough it's red. Literally, one min late. I tell the cop that it's only a minute late and we're already leaving. He was being a pain and shrugged me off and handed me the ticket... That bastard. That killed our mourning. And the funny thing was that I told my wife to put in extra money in the machine cause you never know if we'll be held up. AND WE DID put in extra money. Guess it was enough. Now, we're stuck with a $50 parking ticket that could've been avoided with an extra quarter...

What are the chances of that happening? I mean, we were literally 1 min late. We placed 3 quarters (45 mins) in the machine at 8.10 AM. The traffic ticket says that the infraction occurred at 8.56 AM. That's one minute!!! Unless the bastard was hanging out and waiting for meters to turn red, it's HIGHLY unlikely that you will get a ticket for being 1 minute late. It was extremely upsetting after realizing it was a minute but after talking and joking about it, we realized that that's just how the ball bounced this time around. We had absolutely no room for error and it just so happened that the dude was walking by the moment it turned red. *sigh*

Well, at least the baby is OK. I'll give you guys more updates as they happen. Until then, later.