Universal Buy-In - The Michigan School Retirement System

So the school system in the State of Michigan has an option as part of it's retirement plan. You can actually "purchase" up to five years of work (called Universal Buy-In) and then then when you have twenty-five years of work into the system it actually counts as thirty so you can retire five years early. Now it's a convoluted formula based on your age, your maximum salary and how many years you have in the system; so the younger you are and the least you make they cheaper it is. Plus, they'll take the money out of your check pre-tax dollars so you can get into this deal for as about $35 less every two-weeks (that's $50 pre-tax). When I got in on the deal the plan was better, now they charge you interest on what you owe, so now you're better off paying it off fast, before you had to spread it out. (Warning: if you're bored now, the post really doesn't get much more interesting. The part in bold near the bottom is the slightly/semi-interesting part that caused me to write this post.)

I recommend this plan* to people who are in the Michigan retirement system and I always mention it to the new teachers at school. The younger you are when you start the cheaper this will be; I don't want to hear you say you can't afford it, you can start this at about $17 a week, that's not that much and it should really pay off in the long run.

In my case, I didn't hear about it until I had been in the system for a few years so it wasn't cheap but since I knew I'd get five extra years of retirement payments so it seemed like a deal to me. I had it spread out evenly over the years I had left so it's been getting paid down slowly.

More details: If you leave the system (aren't employed for a while by this system) they credit the years you've paid for and if you come back they'll redo the above calculation with you being older, making more, having more years in system and factor in interest. This didn't sound like such a good deal to me. Also, If you don't actually work the 25 years, you have to wait until you're sixty years old and it just increases your payment (or I think you can roll it in to some other kind of retirement).

So late last year I decided I wanted this paid off work was way too stressful late last year and I felt as if I could quit at any time, so I increased my contribution quit a bit. It wasn't going very fast so I stopped contributing to my other IRA/403b retirement-type things and put almost all of my check into paying this off (I lived off of savings in the meantime) and eight paychecks later I was done. Hopefully, putting that much in pre-tax doesn't goof up my exemptions come tax time.

This allowed me a few different things:

Blame is a Killer by Amy Ray - Free Song Today

Every day RCA has a free song download. Today it's Blame is a Killer by Amy Ray (one-half of Indigo Girls fame). Just thought you should know...

Technorati Tags: Amy Ray, Blame is a Killer, free music, Indigo Girls

Katy Perry's album for $2 (today and Sunday only!)

Okay, so I'm not a big fan of "I Kissed a Boy" but I've seen it so often at the thetop of the iTunes store charts I thought I would mention this sale: Katy Perry's MP3 album One Of The Boys is only $2 for today only at Amazon in 256kbps MP3 format and it has the "I Kissed a Boy" song on it. So it's a deal if you like her or this song...

I'm not even sure what else she plays but this seemed like a great deal so I thought I'd mention it. Usually their $2 or $3 deals are much older albums.

THIS DEAL IS NOW OVER AND IS BACK TO IT'S REGULAR PRICE.As of Sunday at noon (EST) it's still listed as on-sale.

Technorati Tags: I Kissed a Boy, Katy Perry, One Of The Boys

$3.79 for Gasoline

I felt like they were giving it away. That's really really sad...

Technorati Tags: gas, gasoline, gas prices

Grocery Store Prices

Since my local Farmer Jack closed and went out of business I've been paying attention to different groceries stores and prices. I didn't pay as much attention to pricing as I should since my mother worked at a Farmer Jack's and I wanted to support them (also, I felt they had good prices). Plus, it's just me and it's not worth driving around all over to save a little bit when I don't get that much (I average less than $30 a week but I do pick up some grocery items when on sale at Target).

My nearest FJ was purchased by Kroger. I'm not a big Kroger fan for two reasons: I've never been thrilled with their meat section that much and it always seems like their dairy products don't have very long life for their expiration dates. Also, they never seem to have Orange Juice on sale for very good prices (I drink a lot of it).

So I've been checking out the other stores nearby: A Meijer which I like but isn't very close and a Wal-Mart closer and on the way home from work. The prices are significantly different between the stores, I need to hit these other stores on purpose and more often. I need a grocery web site when I can put in (and have it remember) my most often purchase items: OJ, milk, cantaloupe, bananas, jumbo eggs, etc. and have it tell me where I should shop this week.

When my kitchen gets a lot smarter with RFID this will probably be a breeze. It'll know what I need and tell me it's time to go shopping or (better yet) tell me to wait a few days since everything I need goes on sale at one of the stores. And tell me while I'm not low on cereal it's so cheap this week I should stock up.

Technorati Tags: budget, Farmer Jack, groceries

Free Phone 411 information. No Catch!

Have you used Google's Free phone information service at 1-800-GOOG-411 or 1-800-4664-411? It's voice activated directory service! They'll even connect you for free if you'd like!

If you're on a cell phone Say "text message" or "map it" and they'll text you the information with phone, address with web and map links (with driving directions too).

It's not new but I've never gotten around to mentioning it. Here's direct YouTube link to Google's Free phone information.

Technorati Tags: 411, free information, Google, Google 411

Where Do People Spend Their Money?

The New York Times did a really cool graphic last week on what Americans spend their money on. It's a big graphic and you can zoom in (one level) to read the parts you can't see and the colors indicate change in prices over the last year. I really like the way they did it.

I've say it's very Edward Tufte, except for the odd shapes of all the pieces. He would have put it down differently, something more symmetrical (or square) so that you could have more easily compared milk to dry cleaning.

Technorati Tags: american spending, consumer spending, Edward Tufte, inflation, puppy

I found this at Get Rich Slowly.

Free Star Wars Book (MP3, PDF, Kindle or Sony eBook)

I saw this on SlickDeals.net, get a free Star Wars book "Legacy of the Force: Betrayal") PDF, MP3, Kindle or Sony eBook through Tuesday, May 13, 2008. (If that link doesn't work try this link).

It looks like it's part 1 of a "Legacy of the Force" series that they're trying to promote, book 9 comes out on the 13th. The series is supposed to cover a "new era in the Star Wars universe and features the beloved characters from the original trilogy, answering the questions of what happened to Han, Luke and Leia after the conclusion of Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi".

Technorati Tags: Legacy of the Force, Betrayal, Star Wars, Star Wars Legacy of the Force

ATM Machines in Costa Rica (or 'A banking adventure')

So the Automatic Teller Machines have been when I generally use for ca$h when I travel. Travelers Checks have always been a hassle. Charging always works well too, I never seem to get any related fees (or the little fees I get are pretty minimal). And the exchange rate is usually really good on the charge or ATM cards.

But the only ATMs in the southern Nicoya Peninsula appear to Banco Nacional and they don't like my card (but they list my network). But it might just be their machines, since those machines are pretty inconsistent: sometimes it asks me for the language, sometimes it still gives me Spanish, sometimes the network just times out and other times it gives me a useless message (like 'you can only take out between $10 and $200 per day', but that's all I was trying to do).

So going inside the banco is a trip, guards with shotguns and you walk into a decompression-type chamber (closed in while they x-ray you, and then they open the second door, imagine walking into an ultra-secure government facility). Then it's kinda set up like the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) and you wait and try to communicate what you want. They have this neat system that you can phone in for live translation for English/Spanish, and when I say "neat" I mean if it worked. So after several tries, we determined that their ATM system was so crappy no one could say if it did / would / could work with the US.

So we decided to do a cash advance instead, we didn't know what the fees would be but we needed some more cash; not everyone takes charges and many charge premiums (and I think some discounts are because the money never gets reported somewhere down the line). This still took a while and they do everything in triplicate down there but I think it'd be hard for people to cheat the system since there are so many checks and balances.

Once we got much more north the other ATMs took our cards just fine (I had a problem in Jaco once and I think it was the same bank but I just went to a different companies machine and it worked fine).

Here's the problem: Being curious of the fees of the Visa cash advance, we got on-line to check and discovered that the advance was done twice on the card, the fee was done twice and since it went over the card limit, tacked on another $39 fee. FYI, the cash advance fee was only $12.58 for $400 (and the back charged a dollar). The bank's already been e-mailed and it'll probably be fine from here.

Blocking E-Mail Spam

I'm a huge fan of SpamArrest, a mail program that uses challenge/response CAPTCHAs to only allow mail from humans, instead of from spammers. It works great but the price has gone up from $60 for two years to $90, so I'm checking for other options. It's only an additional $30 but if the price jump is $30 (or worse, 50%) every 2 years, it's gonna get kinda pricey in the next few renewal cycles. The price jump is kind of large after a few years especially since I know many of their costs should have gone down (disk space, servers and bandwidth); the software is already written and has had minimal user changes over the last two years.

Honestly, I'm sure it saves me more way than $45 a year worth of time. But can something save me more time, I know in the past MailBlocks saved me more time. So I'm looking for suggestions for some other Challenge/Responce mail system.

There is one thing I really dislike about SpamArrest, while I can use any mail client to read my mail, to check and approve spam I have to go to their web site and that takes a lot of time (and this is a feature I miss from the now deceased MailBlocks). The reason I have to check it is for mailings from new companies that I deal with and for people who don't pay attention to the e-mail that gets mail back to them immediately to ask them to confirm they are human (I even have info about me and a picture of me in the e-mail so they know it's really me).

In the meantime, I'm using my free gMail account. I want to see how well that works, they give me all sorts of space for free and it's pretty fast and it works well on cellphones (their client, their web interface and should work with phone clients). They've got a fancy web interface and plain web interface so it works pretty well everywhere. Although, with my client I can't see the spam folder there either. Google lets you create additional addresses for the same account and have decent filters. Plus, they will let you use your own domain if you'd like to; so if it really works out, I'll attach my GaryLaPointe.com domain to it and use it for my mail (as long as that supports IMAP). And if it works as well for me, it's free! There's some weird mapping between GMail and the Mac Mail.app (I think by default you get duplicates of the mailboxes) but there's some work arounds, or maybe the new Mail.app in Panther fixes it...

Also, I figure after trying it for a few months, SpamArrest might send me a promo to lure me back. If that's the case I'll know I've done due diligence to try another option and I'll have possibly saved a few bucks in the mean time.

Actually, I have one other minor complaint about SpamArrest, the interface could be faster. There's something about the web interface that slows things down. I notice when I travel, it's unbearably slow and I'm not sure why. But it's a huge minus when I travel...

I do get some referral dollar$ from SpamArrest (maybe $8.75 a year?), so I figure if I'm sending clients to them, so are others (therefore, they're likely growing).

Technorati Tags: gMail, Google, spam, SpamArrest

Gas at an all time high...

I can't believe these prices. I only paid $3.23 yesterday but I paid $3.25 on Friday. I think that's the highest I've ever paid. And "they" say it's going to keep going up...

I'm so glad I don't drive far. Generally, less than a tank gets me through the week.

Technorati Tags: gas prices, oil, gasoline

Free Credit Karma

So I found a free offer code for CreditKarma. They're offering free daily credit scores (from TransUnion). Use code CKFRND as invitation code at https://www.CreditKarma.com/ (I'm not certain I should be giving this code out, so I'm not hot-linking the site address) I found this at SlickDeals.net. The site is appears to besponsored by advertising and you will not be required to enter your credit card information or sign up for trial offers, but you will receive relevant partner offers (i.e. junk mail) based on your profile. This will not affect your credit rating (other than you paying attention to it).

I've always wondered how much my credit score fluctuates but even when I've had free offers before, but I've never bothered to log on every day to check. This looks like that on-line they give you a nice progressive graph from when you started (it's hard to tell since I'm just on day one), hopefully it keeps a daily tally even when I don't log in. Plus, they rank you to national stats and other members; their community has a some good credit, I actually score better nationally than with their membership (and I've got great credit).

UPDATE: So I've done this for a few days and it looks like the graph is just going to get me monthly averages, although it appears to pull the score daily (but it hasn't changed for me yet).

UPDATE 2: I did ask for a credit increase on Wednesday, I was charging a few vacations so I wanted some wiggle room and I noticed my score went down three points today. I'm not sure if that's for the credit check or the one vacation I already charged and sine it's raised my debt level a tiny bit...

Technorati Tags: Credit Karma, credit rating, credit score, CreditKarma, transunion

Did they cancel "How I Met Your Mother"?

At Amazon Unbox they have 4 FREE missing episode of 'How I Met Your Mother'! At least I don't think I've seen them before. You can download these to your Windows based computer or TiVo for free! The 4 missing episodes cover Marshal and Lily's honeymoon...

You can get the Infamous "Robin Sparkles" video too!

UPDATE (Sunday evening): So I finally watched these "episodes". They weren't real episodes, they were just a few minutes long and they were "videos" of they're honeymoon. They're pretty bad too, but then again aren't home movies supposed to be? I'm not sure what kind of promotion they shot these for, but they end with a still frame with an advertisement for the show. It was the fact that these appeared to be "lost" episodes that made me ask if the show was canceled, since these aren't much more than some kind of odd promo/commercial I retract the original question.

Technorati Tags: Amazon Unbox, Free, How I Met Your Mother, Robin Sparkles, TiVo, Unbox

United Airlines to charge $25 for checking extra bags

As reported on msnbc.com, United Airlines will charge fliers an extra $25 per bag to check more than one bag starting May 5th, 2008 ("silver" and "premier" frequent-fliers will not be charged).

It's a bit, but it's cheaper than paying the overages for the first bag being over the weight limit. If your itinerary includes international flights you will (may?) still be able to check the second bag for free; this will help me, probably more than half my air travel is international.

Found at DealMac.com.

Technorati Tags: extra bag, extra baggage, fee, luggage, travel, United Airlines

Local Homeless People

So I was Burger King today and once in a while I'll see one of the local homeless people in there (usually it's when it's really cold out), I think there's 3 in particular that I recognize. Today, all three were in there (actually one was on the was out as one came in) which I thought was strange since I've been at BK a little more than usual lately and today it's nowhere near as cold as it has been. Two are schizophrenic, not that I'm qualified to judge, and the other is kinda quiet. The one guy just seems to drink his coffee and step outside for a smoke and talks to himself, he seems to be the most well off, I've even seen him get a beer or two at the bar before (it's possible this guy isn't homeless). The quiet guy seems to have all his stuff with him (3 big bags) and he must have been there for a while, I saw someone ask him to leave after a while. The woman, I've seen her pull stuff out of the trash, and she asked me for my left over fries one time and I gave he those and some cash. Today I intentionally left my uneaten onion rings and my half-eaten Whopper on my tray at the table and she had grabbed it before I got out the door; I'm not sure why it's a problem for me to just offer her a few dollars.

When I'm out of town if someone asks nice (even semi-nice) for some money, I'm easy to cough up a buck or two; and in some places, that's every block or so. I always make sure I have some cash on me for that reason. But the local homeless, I never know how to deal with them, actually they've never asked for money at the Burger King but I'd be glad to give them some money, but I hate to offer and for some reason I'd hate them expect it from then on (not that it'd really be a problem).

If I'm somewhere around town and someone asks for cash, I'm more likely to buy them a meal if there's an opportunity, I'd rather spend $5-10 on a meal then hand them a few dollars cash if I can (especially if I can smell alcohol or see bloodshot eyes).

It's when it's the locals that I see often when it throws me. And I'm not sure why this keeps me so off balance...?

It all makes me sad and feel pretty ungrateful when I complain about stuff in the wonderful life that I have. I've got a nice paying job, no debt (other than my house) and I've been doing pretty good at saving for my retirement someday. I give money to the shelter when they are doing fund raisers and to school when they're having auctions and other things when they are happening around town; I could do more I'm sure, but I could certainly doing less too.

Technorati Tags: homeless

Understanding Social Security

So I went to the Social Security Office with my Mom today. There are just so many (too many) scenerios with all of it! It's interesting how they talk about it, they think of everything as the number of checks you get, not so much as the money you get (months, not dollars). If you work more after you retire, they hold back checks, not dollars. It's odd, but I guess every job has it's own language.

My Mother did make a decision today. As a bonus, it's the same one I would have told her to do if she had asked me to make the decision so that worked out well. Without getting into too much of my mother's details:

Gas Prices and Food Prices

I know everyone keeps their eyes open for good gas prices and will hit one gas station over another since it's a few pennies different. I'm sure some people sometimes waste gas by driving a little farther. I know I'm always happy when I can save a few pennies per gallon (I usually fill up on Tuesdays since I'm usually over by some cheap stations). Here's something to keep in mind, 6 cents more a gallon (if it's around $3) is only a 2% difference (12 cents more a gallon is only 4%).

Normally, when I eat at McDonald's I get a number 3 meal (Quarter Pounder - no pickle, no mustard which includes a 20 oz soda and medium fry). At the McDonald's by work (Plymouth/Beech, Redford, MI) it's $4.77 (tax included); at the McD's by my house (Michigan/Greenfield in Dearborn) it's $5.36 (tax included). That's a 59 cent difference! That's 12% more at the more expensive McDonald's. FYI, both the McD's I'm referring to have been renovated in the last few years and the cheaper one has a playland.

So keep in mind if your $3 gallon of gas was 12% more at a nearby location it would 36 cents more per gallon! Now it's not cost effective for me to take the time (and gas) to drive home to save 60 cents, but maybe I should check out the other two nearby McDonald's to see what they charge. Plus Kelly always refers to the Redoford one as an expensive one (that's the one I say is cheap).

When they talk about fuel price gouging, maybe we should consider all types of fuel...

Technorati Tags: fast food, gas prices, McDonalds, McDonalds prices, Quarter Pounder, Redford

Skype update

So I've always liked Skype it's a great backup for my phone and it's great for calling home when I'm on vacation. At 2.1 cents per minute, it's hard to beat the price as long as you've got a semi-decent internet connection. Not that I talk a lot when I travel but I always feel like I'm being initiated when trying to figure out long distance calling when in a foreign country. They 2.1 cents is just for calls to the US, other countries have different rates.

The goofy^* thing is that it's 2.1 cents to call the US wherever I am, from next door, Egypt or Costa Rica it's all 2.1 cents! But with the same reasoning it's 6.4 cents to call Costa Rica, that's if I'm here in Michigan or down there. Of course if I'm calling someone else's Skype computer it's free from anywhere to anywhere.

I just upgraded to the new Mac version, I was 1.1 versions behind. I think the call quality is significantly better and I noticed the touch tones work better, so now I can call my (misplaced) cell phone and listen to my messages.

* - It's not really goofy, it's what they pay for phone calls at the destination, the Internet probably doesn't cost Skype any more regardless of where I'm calling from.

Exchange Rates in Costa Rica

So the exchange rates are pretty good for people from the US traveling to Costa Rica these days. You can see from the graph it's been going up ever since my first trip in 1999, prices have gone up there too, especially costs for tourist type things, but it's still been a decent value. Especially when you compare it to Britain or Canadian exchange rates, where the dollar has considerably dropped in value lately. It hasn't really changed much since my last trip but it should be pretty good for my next one, it's about 520 to $1.00 today.

Technorati Tags: Colon, colón, Costa Rica, currency, Exchange Rates

Free magazine subscription to Details, Lucky or Teen Vogue

Get a free magazine subscription to Details, Lucky or Teen Vogue from Amazon.

What is the catch? None. We are pleased to offer you the benefits of our partnership with top magazine publishers. Your credit card will not be billed for this subscription, and there is no automatic renewal.

And get a free digital subscription to MacWorld (from Zinio digital Magazines).

Fined $222,000 for sharing music.

So MacWorld reports that 'a U.S. jury found her guilty of copyright infringement and fined her a total of $222,000'.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota could have fined Jammie Thomas as much as $3.6 million, but opted not to. The mother of two was found guilty of stealing and giving away via Internet peer-to-peer Internet file-sharing service Kazaa a total of 24 songs from companies including Capitol Records, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Bros. Records.- Macworld Oct. 5, 2007

I'd really like to comment that all of that is pretty harsh. But she was breaking the law so I guess there isn't much to say. Actually, I will make a comment, file-sharing is bad, but she'd have to share an awful lot for the record companies to lose that much money. Although, 24 songs is probably what they specifically proved, she may have done thousands of others that they just didn't have the details on (but that would probably be inadmissible too). How would you even pay a fine like that?

Technorati Tags: copyright infringment, file sharing, Kazaa, P2P, peer to peer, peer-to-peer, RIAA

Get Paid $9557 to Sleep!

So you have to spend 47 consecutive days and nights living at the hospital in your own room but it does pay you $9557. I thought it might be interesting, especially if out of a job (or really bored). But here's the downside:

You will not know what time it is during the 47-day study, and the room has no windows, clocks, TV, and you will not be allowed to bring devices that tell time. You will also not have access to a telephone during the 47-day study.

You will be told when to go to sleep and when to wake up, when to shower, and when to eat your meals. You will also have to take performance tests on a computer in your room many times each day. In between these study activities you will have free time, but your free time will be interrupted frequently.

Technorati Tags: paid to sleep, sleep study

Amazon MP3 store - 89 cent songs!

So Amazon opened the Amazon MP3 store which has been getting some good reviews and (most importantly) it semi-integrates by pushing your purchases into your iTunes which is great for automatic syncing with your iPod. They've had tracks for download for ages, but this is their big jump into the market (you do need their downloader for this).

I actually spotting it yesterday when searching for some music but I didn't realize the format change of my search results indicated a whole new service. I did notice that the tracks were only 89 cents though!

Keep in might for 89 cents they are a dime less than the iTunes music store for regular tracks but since there is no encryption (DRM) and it's encoded at a higher quality (even than Apple I believe) these are 40 cents less than Apple's $1.29 a song. That's about 1/3 less if you've been getting the DRM-free higher quality songs (and that's what I've been getting lately). And they are MP3s, so they play on just about anything (but higher quality does mean larger songs). Buying whole albums will generally discount the price.

There are exceptions to the 89 cent price for the individual songs, but I can't figure out the rules to tell you. And like the iTunes store I believe there are tracks that can't be purchased separately from the album, I thought I saw that yesterday but I can't find an example of that today.

And to be fair to Apple, their DRM free $1.29 songs are generally much cheaper if you buy the whole album (the 14 track One Cell in the Sea - by A Fine Frenzy is only $7.99 (which I think is the same as the iTunes DRM version) which is the same price as the Amazon mp3 store, except Amazon doesn't appear to give you the booklet.

So the end result, IMHO, it'll never beat the seamlessness of the iTunes Music Store but but with it's downloader (which does give you a free song), Amazon mp3 might be a good alternative or at least a second place to check when shopping for songs. If you're not an iPod user it's probably a great place to consider for your mp3 shopping (I think the downloader will push the tracks to other players but since I don't have any I"m not certain). The downloader does work pretty good, I did try it. It would be nice if it were smart enough to add it to an "Amazon Playlist".

I fully expect to see them selling movies, television, music videos, audio books or distributing podcasts via the same mechanism in the future....

Technorati Tags: amazon, Apple, download, iTunes, iTunes music store, mp3, music store

Tech Deals Today

These deals probably won't last (especially the cables) but I thought I'd mention them:

More winners!

So I mentioned the other day that as an assignment I made the students in the Tech Leadership class I taught write a grant (submitting was optional) and three students won. I just found out there was a fourth winner!!!! That's brings the class total up to about $5,300. I think only seven applied so that's awesome (at most ten applied since that's all I had in the class).

I'm so geeked!!!

Technorati Tags: education, grant writing, grants

Free Magazines

So someone mentioned AdPerk as a way to get free magazines. As of today the only have Dwell and Popular Science. I sat down and watched a few videos (10-15 minutes?) while eating breakfast and earned a free subscription to Popular Science. If they had a little more selection of videos it'd be more interesting. They did make me answer a very easy CAPTCHA at the end of each one (no swirly colors, just tilted letters). It was really easy and painless and it worked on my Apple Macintosh with Safari (you can't always count on that).

The downside is the magazines they have (and plan to offer) aren't particularly expensive or anything. I'm not interested in Dwell so I have no reason to go back to their site anytime soon. I don't think I can earn and save points for the future or at least I could watch for now...

I have a few suggestions for them:

eBay faux pa

Uh oh! I just bid a maximum of 50 dollars instead of 50 cents on an eBay item! I sure hope not many other people bid on this item. At first I freaked since I thought that was my bid, and then I remembered it'd bid up to that amount. There's only a little bit of time left so cross your fingers for me!

LATER: Whew! No one bid higher than the 50 cents!!! It was just for a Beowulf (Neil Gaiman and Roger Avery) movie tie-in advance six page comic that I thought might be interesting. This guy was charging a little more for shipping ($4) than the others so no one even beat my 50 cent bid....

Technorati Tags: Beowulf, eBay, Neil Gaiman, Roger Avery

Teachers are Winners

So I teach a Leadership in Technology graduate class at a local university in the summer. One of the assignments is to write a grant; there is a $1,500 grant due at that time, so the timing is perfect. We review them in class, make suggestions, and we evaluate each other's grants using the actual grant rubric. And then I grade it based on the same criteria of the grant.

I think about seven of them applied, not everyone could apply, you needed to be an employed K-12 educator and you need to be a member of the organization we applied to (which costs $40-ish). You probably see where this story is going...

The other day I got an e-mail telling me that one of the students was awarded one of the grants. I was pretty excited, I wanted to write the rest of the class but I was too busy at that moment. When I looked at my mail later I had a message that one of the other students had also won a grant! So I sat down to write the rest of the class, while I was writing I got a third message telling me another student had won!!! I was floored. I'd guess they only awarded 25-35 of these grants and we got three of them! I think the three of them totaled about $3,800, that's all equipment they'll be able to buy for their school classrooms and use for the project they wrote and any other uses they'll come up with.

As a result of winning they'll also have to present at the next conference (which they get to go for free) and maybe write a short article for the newsletter. Very exciting!

Technorati Tags: grant writing, grants, education

PayPal Suggestion

If you use PayPal, this suggestion is for you as an individual (not for the PayPal company itself). PayPal lets you add several e-mail addresses to your account to send/receive money. My suggestion is to add a few other addresses that you use to your account. If someone sends you money to one of these other addresses it's way easier to claim it!

And I also think it might be better for you if your current e-mail account ever goes under, the other e-mail will already be on file.

I just had the first problem, and PayPal phone support resolved it for me pretty quick (if I would have shut up and stopped asking questions they probably would have resolved it even faster).

Technorati Tags: PayPal, Pay Pal

$150 in Free Gift Cards

I can't promise long this offer will last, but I personally have done it before. They really gave me the 15,000 points!

This gets you $110-$150 in free gift cards (Target, Macy's, Amazon, Best Buy, Circuit City, Home Depot and many more) after applying for a card from CitiBank (and after making one purchase). Really the only way you get $150 is with a few certain stores, but you can mix and match and probably get $125+ pretty easily from the stores above. I got this offer from SlickDeals.net

Step 1 - Turn off your pop up blockers (or use Internet Explorer)
Step 2 - Go to this link
Step 3 - Click on "Apply Now"
Step 4 - Follow step 5 very carefully.
Step 5 - Then close the application window, a popup with a new $150 gift card offer will appear. (If you don't follow these instructions it's only for $80-$100 in gift cards).

Technorati Tags: credit card, free gift card

Free Skype On Mother's Day

On Mother's Day (May 13) you can make unlimited free Calls (from US/Canada Skype) to anywhere in the world!!! Check out the Skype page for more details. Actually, it's not really unlimited it's only 200 minutes free, but that's still a pretty good deal.

Post edited to not incorrectly refer to "today" as Mother's Day...

Offer valid from May 13th 2007, 5:00 am (Eastern Time GMT-5.00) to May 14th 2007 4:59 am (Eastern Time GMT-5.00)

Technorati Tags: Mother's Day, space

Free Comic Book Day

Today is Free Comic Book Day so head on up to your local participating store and get some free comics.

Free Comic Book Day is an annual promotional effort by the North American comic book industry to help bring new readers into independent comic book store.
From Wikipedia

It's all sorts of comics, don't just think Archie and Spiderman, scroll down the Green Brain page to see everything they have going on (and how to get more free comics) so stop by and get a few...

I'm on my way right now...

Technorati Tags: free, free comic book day, green brain

Comcast Cable and Internet

So I've gotten more than a few people hitting my site from search engines from the word "Comcast" and since I just adjusted my plan (again) I thought I'd mention my current Comcast plans and maybe save y'all a few bucks. First I'll mention that I try to pay attention to recurring costs and utilities especially paying attention to my cable / internet bills since they are more of a luxury that heat or electricity.

If you don't care about (possibly) saving money, don't read the rest of this...

Cable TV - I generally just get econo-basic, it's generally available on most cable systems (I think many cities/townships require a cheap plan in the contract), it's just generally the first 20-30 channels on the cable system, it's on $12 (on my system) and usually doesn't require a cable box (on most systems). I don't want many more channels than that so it suites me fine. I think the next package up these days is $29.99 so that's a big jump if I don't want all those channels anyways. Here's the thing if you want internet, the prices there quote for internet are $15 more if you don't have cable so it's really $3 cheaper to have cable TV with your cable internet.

Remember, just because one sales person doesn't know about a service doesn't mean it doesn't exist. If someone can't help you, call back later and check with them.

HD TV - So on top of the econo-basic I pay $7 a month for an HD box (it just jumped up from $5), this gets me most of the major networks and a few more channels in HD. Please note, I do not have a HD TV, so I don't get the full benefit, but it does look like it's DVD quality (it's definitely better than digital cable).

Cable Internet - Every 6 to 12 months I call and complain about the rates ($43 a month 6,000 down/384 up). I mention other offers (competing companies and DSL) and they usually drop my bill about $5-$15 a month for the next 6-12 months. Last time I called they offered me the deluxe service for $30 a month and this was 8,000 down/768 up so I took the offer. It's normally $53 a month but it was a promotion and this expired this week so I canceled it. I do notice it's a little slower (I actually think it's the slower up speed that I'm noticing) but I'm debating if it's worth $120 a year for the faster speed...

And don't forget you can buy your own cable modem and save $3-$5 a month. If signing up for new service (via Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, etc.) you can generally get these for free after rebate so it's really worth doing...

Here's the thing when I called yesterday to change the plan they said they didn't have any other packages (besides these 6,000 and 8,000) but I just checked my bill to verify these costs for this post and I seen they have a 4,000 (4 meg) plan (the bill was clarifying the names of the new plans starting May 1). FYI, they usually offer a $25 service too that's 384 down (I think it's 384 up), that's not too fast but it's better than dial-up (and it's always on).

UPDATE: Tonight, no one seemed to think the 384 down service still exists, which is very funny since they just renamed it to "Economy". So I've had two people tell me the Performance Lite at 4,000 (4 Meg) is $25 ($24.95 actually) in my area so I switched to it (that would really be some savings from $43 a month). But when they switched me I'm just getting 384 up and down, I've had this happen before when they've offered plans to me. So, it turns out that he thought that it's an either the Economy (384 down) or the Performance Lite (4,000 down); both are $25 a month, I will be calling back in a few weeks to double-check that is really the case. But they did give me $5 off a month for the next 12 months for the time it took (about 50 minutes) so that's something; I'd rather have had 4,000 down for $25 a month...

So the end result of tonight's call is that 4,000 down for $24.95 (performance lite from Comcast) is not an option in my area but it might be in yours (or a similar plan from your company). Just test it while you're on the phone to make sure it's really that fast before you hang up...

Technorati Tags: cable modem, comcast, Internet, recurring costs, utilites

Complete My Album - New iTunes Feature

It's about time! Now you can go back and buy the rest of an iTunes album at a discount if you previously bought one song. Just go to the iTunes Music Store and in the upper right choose “Complete My Album”.

This is great mainly for several reasons: If you bought one song off an album that had 12 songs on it (for $9.99) you can now get the other 11 for $9.00 instead of having to buy the whole album (it looks like i