I’m planning a trip and have spent countless hours trying to find the right flight combinations so that the travel itself doesn’t kill me. I’ve managed to come up with something that’ll work I think. Man, trip planning is no fun!
Tag: Other
Restaurants.com Rip Off
My wife recently bought a coupon at restaurants.com and when she was done clicked on some ad. As it turns out restaurants.com gave our credit card info to mvq-shopessplus.com who started charging us a monthly subscription (shown as SHOPESSPLUS on our cc bill). She did NOT give them our cc number or agree to any subscription. She was NOT told that restaurants.com was going to share our cc info with some other company so they can rip us off or that restaurants.com gets a kickback from SHOPESSPLUS for giving away our credit card information. How can this be legal?!?! I called and got the charges refunded and complained like mad. Stay away from restaurants.com and watch your cc bills for these subscriptions that you didn’t sign up for. I just saw something about this type of fraud on the nightly news a week ago. We are pretty computer savvy so if they got us they can probably get most people.
Kia Rondo – A Mini MiniVan
We bought a new car last week – a new 2008 Kia Rondo. We looked at a bunch of cars – Honda Odyssey (mini van), Toyota Highlander (SUV with 3rd row seats), Toyota Camry (and hybrid), Kia Optima, etc. We settled on the Rondo because:
- It has good reliability and safety ratings from Consumer Reports and it was one of their recommended cars
- It has the 3rd row of seats so we can put extra people in the car if we *need* to. These seats are tight so it would work fine for kids (our kids’ friends) or adults for a very short distance.
- It was a great time to buy.. Kia was giving a $4000 rebate and the dealers needed to get rid of the old 2008 models so this model was nearly $9000 under the MSRP
So far we’re both pretty happy. I traded in the old 1997 Geo with 135000 miles. Now my car is the 2000 Honda Civic with 60000 miles and D will drive the Rondo since she has the kids most of the time.
My main goal was to get D and the kids into a bigger and safer car than the civic. The Rondo has all sorts of safety features that are new to us – stability control, tons of air bags, anti-lock breaks, etc.
I had my reservations about Kia since they have had some bad reliability ratings in the past. Consumer Reports says this model should be reliable so I hope it is true.
We got the tricked out version (EX) with leather, heated seats, moon roof, power windows, power locks, rims, roof rails, 6 disc changer, etc, etc. We weren’t shopping for the upgraded model but as they flew off the lots because of the huge price discounts we ended up getting a better deal on the EX model than the normal model. Total price was $15,200 after trade in (They gave me $700 for the Geo after a fight).
Tax Prep
I’ve been working on my taxes in the evening hours over the last week or two. Preparing for taxes is getting easier each year but it is still a pain. I wish my credit card companies would provide a yearly csv export so I didn’t have to go download the statements each month. My previous credit card company offered that but they were purchased by another company that doesn’t offer that. The same goes for my bank accounts. PayPal offers an annual export of all information so why can’t banks and credit card companies?
Tax Time
Geez.. today I realized it is tax time again. I have not done any prep work yet so I still have a good 8 hours of prep work ahead of me I think. I really don’t feel like doing it 😦 Tax time stinks.
Contacts Kinda Suck
I went back to the doctor on Friday and got a new left lens. It is more comfortable than the odd one they gave me to begin with but there are still problems. I just don’t see as well as with glasses. The doctor told me that would be true but I didn’t realize how true it would be. With contacts I feel like the prescription is wrong – like how it feels when my glasses are old and my eyes have gotten worse. So I think either my prescription in the contacts is actually wrong or I just wasn’t meant to wear contacts. Right now I’m wearing my old glasses and they are still better than the new contacts 😦
Contact Lenses
I just got home from the eye doctor and I’m wearing contact lenses for the first time. It is a strange feeling. I can feel them in my eyes and when I blink it re-aligns them so my vision changes (gets better when I blink). I also feel very naked without my glasses on. I’ve been wearing glasses for about 20 years now so not having them on makes me feel like I can’t see (even though I can see) and I feel exposed. Strange. So far it is OK. I have to go back in a couple weeks for a follow up to make sure I want to keep them.
Voted
We went and voted this afternoon around 1:30. I waited about 10 min and then voted. D didn’t have to wait at all. She went about 15 min after me. They were out of stickers that say “I voted today” so I guess could mean that a lot of people voted.. or maybe they didn’t have many stickers to start with.
I had to stay away from home for a bit while someone was looking at it with their realtor. I went to Starbucks but the wifi connection kept dropping me. I eventually gave up and went home. They had come and gone so who knows what they thought.
Snow!
This morning I woke up and saw that there is a few inches of snow on the ground outside! We didn’t even have fall.. we just went from summer to winter. Cleveland.
Cold!
Man it is cold today! Maybe after our house sells we should move to a warmer location.. I hear housing prices in Florida are becoming reasonable 😉
Monty Kamath 