Visit my other sites:
WSLrss.com Apple related deals while they last.
iolaire.net my personal site.
For your enjoyment and education, we request goodies from manufacturers and update you on our search. We seek interesting promotional items, foodstuffs, and household items which strike us as innovative, unique, timely or quality improvements on a classic theme.
My deal sites:
More Goodies Articles
Super Bowl XL, check received for free soda and chips.
∗Now for Super Bowl XL, more free soda and chips!
∗Lots of Goodies at the Green Festival in DC this Weekend
∗Make some Watermelon Gazpacho!
∗Frugality for Small Family Reunions
* All Articles . . .
Shop at Amazon.com
I’m pleased to announce the opening of my new website – While Supplies Last at WSLrss.com. This site is a specialized deal site, focusing on Refurbished Apple Computer Systems from The US and Canadian Apple Stores. This will not be as opinionated as my current Goodiesblog.com site, but rather just a clean area to see the current deals.
My goal is to provide a regularly updated summary of the refurbished systems available directly from The Apple Store.
I’ve kept track of this section of the store for years. It’s very interesting to watch systems show up, then disappear as each sells out. With each system, there is a new computer to dream about. While watching this site, I’ve developed a need/desire to track what is changing. Quite often, I’ve had to ask myself the question – did that price go down or is it a lower value configuration of the system?
Because of my desire to see what is going on at the Apple Store, I decided to make a database of the current refurbished inventory. This database is interesting to watch – even more so than The Apple Store site. To me, having clean access to this data is worth much more than the time it takes to build and update the database.
Now that I have the database setup I’ve decided to go ahead and share it with the public via WSLrss.com.
So, please if you are interested in refurbished Apple systems take a look at WSLrss.com, subscribe to the RSS feed and dream of your next system.
. . .
This weekend, Friday to Sunday, the Green Festival comes to the DC convention center. This is a wonderful opportunity to sample healthy products, gather information on environmental issues, healthy living, and other green topics. Of course, there is even a two for one coupon.
Last year, we attended and my wife also went back to volunteer at some of the presentations on Sunday. She will help out again this year to gain free entry.
We really enjoyed all of the product samples. I’ve written about the following products:
Also Burt’s Bees will exchange any lip balm for a container of their own product.
The presentations on green topics are very good quality. We both attended a Fair Trade presentation offered by Green Mountain Coffee which made us more aware of the Fair Trade certification. I covered that topic in my post Choice Organic Tea – Moroccan Mint Green Tea and Fair Trade.
So go and enjoy, make sure you use the two for one coupon.
. . .
Wednesday morning, August 31st 2005, I arrived at working realizing that the Hurricane Katrina was a true national disaster. I received an email sent at 11:52PM on August 30th from the Democratic National Committee (attached 73kb PDF). The email offered two links, one to donate money to the Red Cross, the other was if you want to volunteer contact your local Red Cross Chapter.
This post is the second of a set relating to volunteering with the Red Cross’s relief effort. The initial post was Hurricane Katrina – Donate Cash or Volunteer.
The volunteer link was especially interesting to me as I have a general feeling that it is fairly easy to raise money for a good cause, but it is harder to find plentiful quality staffing. The Arlington VA chapter was already offering two classes on Thursday the 1st to train people for deployment. They indicated that they needed people for two to three week deployments in harsh conditions, with out A/C, no running water and such.
When my wife arrived at work I discussed with her if she would mind if I volunteered for deployment. Immediately she indicated an interest in joining me. We agreed that we would speak to our employers regarding taking unpaid leave to volunteer. This would be a good opportunity to volunteer really helping people. We help out at fund raiser events quite often, but at those you are far away from those with the true need.
My wife received approval from her supervisors quickly. My boss agreed that he would ask our VP if I could take the time off. My time off is a little more complicated because I supervise a quarterly statistical publication, so I could only commit for a deployment which allowed me to return by September 24th. By then end of the day, I was approved for time off also. We registered for the Thursday PM class and noted that the AM class was already filled up.
On Thursday night we joined about 50 other people at the Arlington Red Cross Chapter offices for a four hour training. They went over the basics of the Red Cross history, the services that the Red Cross (and Red Crescent) provide, and then the basics course content of Mass Care: An Overview and Introduction to Disaster Services. We filled out pages and pages of forms. The instructor told us that regardless of our skills, at this point they need shelter staffing, so that is what you should be prepared to do. He also said that the earliest we would get a call for deployment was Tuesday the 2nd.
We left the class excited to help out and with the goal of getting our home, cats and supplies in order for shipping out. It was convenient that we had a long weekend in front of us, we stocked up on some needed hot weather clothing and waited.
To Be Continued
Want to volunteer? People will be need for months, visit either Volunteer Match or your local Red Cross chapter website.
. . .
Remember the Flicker Swag that I requested, received and then never wrote the followup article with photos? Well here comes another one, FeedBurner Swag. This time they are asking for a self addressed stamped envelope, so you will have to dig up the second stamp. The international crowed is complaining about providing the shipping stamp – i.e. how do I get a US postal service stamp abroad. So something may be worked out. But if you send for it will get a Laptop Sticker.
I’m even more excited about this than the Flicker Swag (which was nice) because I’m using FeedBurner to track viewer ship on Goodiesblog.com. The goodies from FeedBurner look less bountiful than Flicker, but FeedBurner has brighter logo.
Take a look -FeedBurner Swag.
. . .
9/17 – More volunteering information here.
Today, it is important to think about what you can do to help in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
They need Cash. Maybe later as people have homes, they will need boxes of clothes and such. But until then, just send Cash. No one wants to ship boxes of unknown goods to the area and there are no people available to sort those boxes.
If you can get time off from work and family, in blocks of about three weeks, look up your local Red Cross to see if they are sending relief teams – this can be found on their homepage. In our area Alexandria, VA was not advertising for volunteers, but Arlington, VA was looking for untrained volunteers who can commit to a three week deployment. I’ve also seen a San Francisco press release, stating that they need volunteers from the Bay Area for deployment.
My wife and my employer both have agreed to let us take up to three weeks of unpaid leave to assist in the relief team deployment. I find this especially heartening as she works for the Government and I work for a Corporation. Additionally, I live by a quarterly production schedule which leaves two other team members covering all pre-end of the quarter functions. We will go, assuming that deployment starts this weekend.
So, please if you have flexibility, and your local chapter needs you, please consider Volunteering.
Update 9/1/05 Email Response Regarding Deployment Dates From Arlington County Red Cross – important because I need to be back by September 24. So for us to help we needed to be deployed quickly.
Re: Deployment Schedule for Relief EffortAt this point we do not have a definite answer on when volunteers would be deployed. We will most likely send people to the Gulf area in waves over the coming weeks/months. I would recommend you attend the training and specify any travel restrictions on your paperwork.
. . .
