The goal here is to get into some kind of rhythm getting the pictures uploaded to Flickr and posts to my blog. I figure if I can add a few pictures every couple of days then I will eventually get through all of my pictures and be caught up. One can only hope!
OK, so I am a few months late. However, the very fact that you see this post means that I am taking some effort to get my pictures off my computer and out to the internet where other’s can enjoy them. I guess that is what happens when your family takes off for a month.
There are a lot more pictures on Flickr that are only available to Family and Friends, so sign up for an account (it’s free and they won’t bug you after the initial confirmation email) and let me know and I will invite you to see the rest of the pictures.
Kind of. I’m going to give Flickr a fling for posting my pictures on the web. I like all of the organization options they have and they aren’t pushing all sorts of other services at you. And, as an added bonus, I can actually post from Flickr to this weblog. Two birds at once. Awesome. So, this picture is just a teaser. You would need to get an free account with Flickr to see the rest of them. Once you do, just let me know and I can get you access.
If you’ve watched any TV around the first of the year, you probably saw the new BLOCKBUSTER® commercials touting “the end of late fees.” Glenna and I got into a discussion about what exactly that meant. Of course, it was prompted by the presence of two videos that I was pretty sure were overdue.
I figured that BLOCKBUSTER® was just making a semantic change. Instead of calling it a “late fee”, it would now be called a “rental extension fee.” Glenna believed that it meant that there were no more fees. Ever. And you could keep a movie as long as you wanted.
Neither of us were right. Here is what the BLOCKBUSTER® FAQ has to say:
Movie and game rentals are due back at the date and time stated on the transaction receipt. There is no additional charge if a member keeps a rental item beyond the pre-paid rental period. However, if a member chooses to keep a rental item more than a week after the end of the rental period, Blockbuster will automatically convert the rental to a sale on the eight (8th) day after the end of the rental period. Blockbuster will charge the membership account the selling price for the item in effect at the time of the rental. The selling price will be discounted by the amount of the initial rental fee paid by the member at the time of rental. If the member returns the item within 30 days of the sale date, Blockbuster will credit back to the membership account the amount previously charged to the member’s account or the member’s credit card, as applicable, for the selling price of the item, but the member will be charged a minimal restocking fee.
So, there are still fees, but they do allow you to keep a movie out for an additional seven days without getting charged. Overall, I think it is a pretty fair policy. We’ll have to see what it does to their bottom line since we had a Trivial Pursuit question the other day that went something along the lines of “What company made $800 million in late fees in 2001?”
While I’m here making posts, I think that for this year I am going to try to do things a little different on this site. I’ve gone back and forth over whether I should try to keep it a site with little tidbits about the kids or whether it should be a broader site about things related to me. I think that I have finally reached a point where I want to move beyond just the kids and post about other stuff that interests me.
Like what kind of stuff? I want the dialog on the site to be similar to a conversation between two good friends (albeit a one-way conversation, but you can do two-way with the comments feature, you know what I mean) where one person is busy doing something and the other is reading the newspaper and throwing out little pieces of information to the other guy to keep him informed. For instance?
I will probably have some better category organization so that you will be able to just jump to the things that interest you most without having to read all the stuff that doesn’t interest you.
