my review of the Motorola Droid

I posted my review of the Motorola Droid on suite101.com. What would be really neat if the revenue from this article equaled the cost of the phone and data plan. Although my company partially reimburses the monthly cost of the phone, so once I subtract the extra cost of the data plan from the reimbursement, the phone will pay for itself in 7 months, and then after that, I come out ahead. Which is a pretty nice perk.

But anyway. I'm very happy with the phone, as you can read in my review.

Affordable Christmas Gift Ideas

Christmas is coming, and you're on a budget! How can you find cheap Christmas gifts that are still meaningful and useful to your friends and family?

(That's an article I posted to Suite101.com - my newest freelancing project.)

happy veterans day

In honor of Veterans Day, I'd like to honor my favorite sailor:



This photo cracks me up because that's so them. All of them. Individually and collectively.

full moon

Did you check out the full moon tonight? I don't even want to admit how many photos I had to take before I got some good ones. HOWEVER I am still impressed that a point-and-shoot could yield a photo like this! A point-and-shoot mounted on a tripod.

Halloween

So I decided not to be Sailor Sweetie for Halloween. I wanted to wear a wig. So I was Velma Kelly, or some sort of classy 1920s jazzy flapper.



Anywho, I went to my lovely friend Teresa & Donovan's house for a Halloween party. We compared cameras.



And then Teresa and Donovan decided to take us into their basement .... to show us the "secret room" in the back of the basement, which turned out to be .... a racquetball court. I lucked out and snapped this photo:

six degrees of H1N1

So two people I encounter on a regular basis have what is/was probably H1N1 flu. Joy. One was a co-worker who returned to work today after taking most of last week off. The other is someone from my concert band (we practice weekly).

I have been washing my hands so much. In addition to what is socially expected, I also try to wash my hands anytime I get somewhere (home, work, friend's house), before I eat anything (with my hands or not) and I also regularly use the hand sanitizer on my desk at work.

And I am NOT a germophobe.

cutting costs

Should have done this a long time ago, but I'm working on cutting costs where I can right now. So far ...

- Call two of R's credit card companies, pretending to be him, to remove those account protection fees. On the first call, I didn't try to disguise my voice. So I got called "ma'am" and "Miss W-----" by one customer service rep, but "Mr W-----" but another rep. But, after I answered all their security questions, and they did what I wanted. So when I called the second company, I dropped my voice a little bit. And guess what ... no hassle.

- Went on comcast.com to see what cable package we have and what cheaper ones are available. While I was on the site, a customer service rep started chatting with me online. I told him I wanted a cheaper package, he offered instead of knock $32 off my monthly bill for the next 6 months. Which is twice what I would have saved if they switched me to the cheaper package. And I don't lose any channels! Sweet! Note to self: do this again in 6 months ... putting it on my iCal right now ...


Next step: get our family cell phone plan in my name so we can use my employee discount.

I'm also debating canceling our gym membership. We hardly ever go anymore, however, winter is coming. And it's only $30/month ... total. For both of us. Dirt cheap for a gym! We used to pay $110/month for a swanky gym, but realized we only used the weights, weight machines and cardio equipment. Our cheap gym isn't much more than those three things, but who cares? They are close and cheap.

a quarter of the way through it

I realized today Rob will probably be in Florida for a total of 13 weeks, and we're only about 3.5 weeks in. Oh man. 9.5 weeks to go. This is going to take awhile.

hello sailor!

I was at Target this morning, you know, to buy two things but came out with 10. Anyway, I bought my Halloween costume (well, if it fits).




Represent! Besides, I could wear this for other occasions (ahem). AND it's less trampy than most other sailor costumes for women.

PS the costume is called Sailor Sweetie, and well, I'm a sailor's sweetie, so it's very appropriate.

The long haul

I miss Rob. We don't know when he'll be home for good. It's looking like early to mid-December ... but it just depends on when he can get a spot to start the classes he needs, so for now it's just day by day. He has to take three sessions - the first one is one week, the second one is two days and the third one is eight weeks. But as each session ends, you have to wait for a spot in the next session to open up. So once he starts the third session, we'll have a better idea of when he'll be done. And HOME!!! Hopefully home for awhile.

Also, if he wants to come home for Thanksgiving, we have to pay that. The military only pays to fly him there for training and fly him home when he's done. And I assume to fly him home for Christmas, since that is mandatory that he comes home. But coming home for Thanksgiving would be his decision, and thus, on his dime. Hmm. This changes some things.

Boot camp was tough because we could only talk on the phone once every couple of weeks, and through letters. But it was only 8.5 weeks. This might shape up to be 10+ weeks apart. At least we can talk on the phone and text each other. I still miss him tons though.