Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Karen is in Italy!

Well I tracked Karens flight the other night, watched her go across the Atlantic. I found some really cool webpages that do this. First off was FlightView, which gave you a fairly straight forward radar tracking screen as seen below.
And then I found FBOweb, which is a really cool website that Google referenced. And you can open a flight tracker in Google Earth, which is really cool! I took a screen shot as Karen left U.S. Airspace, the plane path tracer is not very long since I found this a little bit late into her flight.

I got a voice mail from her about 20 minutes after I went to sleep last night, sounds like she had a good flight across and even got some sleep. Alitalia's computers were out so she didn't get onto her Rome flight until noonish (suppose to leave at 9:30). So I bet she got into Catania a little bit tired. I am sure as soon as she gets situated she will post on her blog about the trip across.

Monday, September 04, 2006

Camera Update

I went in today to get the price for the camera altered since it went down to $199. So the lady at the counter "returned" the one I bought at $238, and rung up "a new one" at $199. They were then offering a free printer after rebate with a camera purchase of $199 and up. So naturally I purchased it, since it looked like a really good printer.

Well the deal was that the printer was on sale for $129 and then there is $130 in rebates. So my total for the exchange and the printer should have been $129 - ($238 - $199) = $90. For some reason my total was $42.49. The cashier then asked the manager if this was correct, and he stated it was, it was the exchange that made the difference in price...

I paid with my credit card and watched as the rebates printed up. I was keeping my cool, since I did the math quickly in my head, and knew there was a mistake somewhere. When I got outside I looked at my receipt...

I was right, there was a mistake! Somewhere in all of the code entering in the cash register someone pushed in a Promo Code to give me an extra discount of 15.15% off of both my camera and the printer!

So I paid $238 + $43 = $281, then after $130 in rebates, I will have paid $151 for our new camera. And if I can get Best Buy to give me store credit for the printer, which is like $180 there when not on sale, we will have made $30 on this purchase.

I am the King of Thrift, Slick Nater, is my name...

NATER

Sunday, September 03, 2006

RIP Steve Irwin...

I was cruising the websites late tonight and noticed the posting on Google News about an hour ago. Steve Irwin died in a diving accident this morning off the coast of Port Dougles, on the North-East coast of Australia. He was punctured through the chest by a Stingray. It sure is a bummer, he was a blast to watch, and his zoo was incredible! I feel fortunate to have seen his Croc Show. And I think he did a lot of good things for wildlife. Almost his entire zoo is made up of animals that he and his team have rescued...

Rest in Peace Steve...

NATER

Friday, September 01, 2006

NEW CAMERA!!!

Karen and I bought a new camera the other day, since our old one is 4 years old and only 2 megapixels. We picked up a Sony CyberShot DSC-W50 at Office Depot for $235, and I just found out it is going on sale for $199 so I will get that price-matched next week...

So far its a pretty sweet camera. You can't use it for a webcam though, so no video-phone calls to Karen until she gets a cheap webcam.

NATER

Thursday, August 31, 2006

VOIP Here I Come...

Since I get so many phone calls a day, and talk hours on end, I went and got a couple of headsets for Karen and myself.

Click on the picture and it will take you to Newegg to purchase your own set. They are like $14 with a $7 rebate, and so far work great... If you don't have a set, get one. Plus Newegg rocks and sent me mine in 2 days!

With a cool headset like what we got you can make internet calls, and leave voicemails to Gmail accounts, and sound like Darth Vader... And all for free! So talking to Karen in Italy = NO COST (just to let you know). So if you want to call me (and who doesn't), feel free on my Google Talk account. Or at my Skype account, email me and I will get you my ID...

NATER

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Fantasy Football

So I am officially in two leagues this year, one with Karen's brother Brian, and then one I created myself. The online draft for Brian's was last night and it was a lot of fun! Can't wait for my live draft. So here is my team...

QB:

Peyton Manning - Colts
Mark Brunell - Redskins
Phillip Rivers - Chargers

RB:

Jamal Lewis - Ravens
Ahman Green - Packers
TJ Duckett - Redskins

WR:

Darrell Jackson - Seahawks
Antwan Ranel El - Redskins
Isaac Bruce - Rams
Sinorice Moss - Giants

TE:

Jeremy Stevens - Seahawks
Dallas Clark - Colts
Courtney Anderson - Raiders

Kicker:

Adam Vinatieri - Colts

Defense:

Seattle Seahawks

And now the hard part comes, trying to figure out who and when to play...

NATER

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Google Analytics

I signed up for Google Analytics a few months ago since I thought it would be cool to see from where in the world people view my blog from. Well looks fairly quiet lately, but I did see some unusual locations. I had 3 hits from Beverly Hills and 1 from Massachusetts. I think the one from Mass. was just a "Next Blog" click, but 3 from Beverly Hills.... hhhhmmm.....

Its a fairly cool app if you are interested in stupid stuff like this. Here is my Geo Map Overlay for the last 3 days, do you see yourself....?

Nater