Vacationing in a recession

Even in an economic downturn, as long as you still have an income, you can take some pretty nice vacations. And depending on what you do, this economy may have placed enough stress on you that a vacation is needed. A little research and some phone calls or emails can yield you some pretty nice results. In researching this article I used a number of sources including booking each piece individually.

The prices I have here are from Priceline which does a pretty good job of “negotiating” as they put it.

The first example is a trip from the east coast using Baltimore as the departure airport and I came up with a price of $550.00 flight plus hotel staying at The Stratosphere from March 23 and departing March 27.

That is an extraordinary price for a trip that would take 37 hours to drive and cover approx 2400 miles one way.

Another excellent things to look at is a cruise. There are some very affordable cruises if you do some looking. You can get a 3 night Bahans cruise for as little as $99.00 a person. That, of course does not include the cost of getting to the embarkation point but any way you look at it that is a good deal. That particular deal sails out of The Port of Fort Lauderdale. That is very convenient for flights because the Fort Lauderdale International Airport is almost right next door. It would be I would guess perhaps a 10 or 15 minute cab ride to the boat.
Using Baltimore as the example again you can get to Ft Lauderdale for as little as $144.00 per person round trip flying Southwest Airlines . You may very well be able to find a somewhat lower price but Flyinf Southwest for that next last week in March there quite a few nonstop flights which means that you can leave Baltimore and be on the ground in Ft Lauderdale about 2 ½ hours later.

The point to this article is that you can have some stress relief during the recession without spending an arm and a leg.

Blogging for fun and profit

Blogging has become very popular among almost all ages. People like to give their opinions on just about anything under the sun. Blogging is also now a way to pass on the news of the day with news outlets having blogs that are added to at least several times a day.

One thing to remember is that you can also make some money blogging. You are not going to get rich overnight but you can start small and as you build a following you can earn more money. There are many sites that claim to pay you for blogging but one that I particularly like is called Blogsvertise.

This site gives you the opportunity to earn money by getting assignments from companies that would like you to blog about them. It is a very interesting concept and I think has a great deal of merit. You can find more information about Blogsvertise by going here.

If your questions are not answered there you can contact Blogsvertise by clicking here.

I think that this is a great idea for both bloggers and the companies involved. They get legitimate feedback from people not related to the advertising companies and you get paid.

Brilliant!!!

Who I am

I have made two relatively short posts and it is time to let everyone know who I am. My name is Tom and I am a White Middle-Aged male living in Pennsylvania. I am 49 years old. I decided to start this blog not because I am an expert on everything but because I have substantial amount of knowledge about a number of things and because I have been reading, watching and listening since I was old enough to decipher what was going on.

I read anything I can get my hands on and I watch television and listen to the radio (music, variety, news and talk shows on both) because I refuse to let myself be limited to just one source of information. I do not feel that I can be truly informed on a subject unless I am aware of the opinions and, in the case of politics, the policies of all parties involved.

You will be seeing regular posts on a variety of subjects. You may agree with me and you may not. That is a good thing. Disagreements, communicated in a civil manner and with open mindedness on both sides, can many times result in a compromise position that is superior in many ways to either original suggestions or thoughts.

The bane of all societies everywhere is the group or groups who absolutely refuse to even discuss alternatives and who are convinced that no one could possibly have any ideas or beliefs that are superior to theirs.

Online games

Many games require that you join in a group to be able to really accomplish anything substantial and that can help someone learn team work, it can teach leadership and it can teach problem resolution.

Online gaming can be a very good thing. You will hear and see new reports of someone that has some kind of medical issue or loses a job because they spend most of their waking hours gaming.

For those people I would say the problem is not the gaming. The problem is one with setting priorities for adults and if this is a child then I would say the problem is parenting. If you allow a child to spend that much time gaming and never set boundaries then there will certainly be problems.

My point is that these are games. They have good points and, in some cases, bad points but they are games none the less.

When problems arise please try looking at the people that have the problems not the games.

Disrespectful Attorney General?

Do we really need a public official, particularly a cabinet level public official, that trashes the entire population of this country?

We do indeed still have problems with racism and it absolutely needs to be addressed but to call an entire nation cowards steps far beyond the role that was provided to this man by our president. We have troops overseas fighting and in some cases dying together no matter what their race may be and I submit that those men and women are not cowards.

The cowards in this are our elected officials that look at laws and enforce those laws based on personal beliefs rather than what the laws actually say. If we could get an entire government (local, state and federal) that can read and understand what has been written and act on it as it put forth in the law then we would be far better off than we are now.