Asha Anujeeva

One of the things that has to be the most frustrating experiences, as a woman, is finding a good place to take my car for auto repair.  I’ve had a lot of experiences taking my car to a repair shop and being told that I need repairs that I really don’t need, which infuriates me.  For example two years ago I took my car to a national brand name oil change chain – just for an oil change and they tried to tell me that I needed a new air filter (the one on there was less than three months old) and a new battery (because there was a little bit of corrusion around the terminals.)  Well, let me tell you something – I told them I’d look into it (they wanted to sell me theirs for big bucks) and that battery is still going strong two years later!

So now I’m big into getting auto repair estimates before I get any work done – I’ve become quite suspicious since then!  I think that I may need to get a timing belt replacement estimate on my car soon (my owner’s manual is suggesting it) and I’m going to use this great website that I found called repairpal.com to help me find a repair shop to give me the estimate and do the repairs.

I’ve decided that this winter I am going to buy thermal underwear and wear it under my regular clothes at home so that I can turn the thermostat down a couple of degrees.  I’m concerned about the high price of heating the place this winter, and I think that by investing in some thermal underwear that I will be doing a good thing for the environment and a good thing for my checkbook!  I’ve found some thermal underwear that is smooth and silky to the touch that is only $7 for a top, and $7 for the bottom, which seems like a very good price at the local big discount department store.

I don’t like the waffle-weave thermal underwear because it is always too small, no matter how large a size I buy!  The pants only come down about half-way between my ankles and knees; I like the pants to come all the way to my ankles.  The kind that I like used to be called “Cuddleduds” but now it seems they’ve been renamed to “WarmWear.”  I don’t care – they will be comfy and help keep me warm!

There is a sweet Internet rave clothing store that sells a huge variety of rave clothing and accessories that I just discovered.  I’ve been spending a few minutes looking at the backpacks that I never knew existed – a Gizmo gremlin, an R2D2, a Yoda, a Darth Vader, and a Chewbacca!  I was also looking at the fuzzy legwarmers and fuzzy wrist cuffs – very awesome!  I have often wondered where the kids get such off-the-wall stuff; now I know!

I was quite disturbed to hear that the Republican National Committee decided to spend $150,000 on new clothes for Sarah Palin!  Isn’t she the one who has been campaigning as being the “average hockey mom” type of person?  I don’t know any hockey moms that have a $150,000 clothing budget!  Doesn’t this elitist purchase undermine the message that she is “one of us?”  I don’t know about you, but I spend less than $500 a year on clothes for myself.  I got the impression that she was trying to appeal to the people who make an average of $30,000 annual salary (or less.)  How is she going to appeal to them if she has spent five times their annual salary on CLOTHES?  The RNC is “justifying” it by saying that the clothes will be donated to charity after the election.  I’m not quite sure how that is supposed to make the purchase any more palatable to the average hockey mom voter.

Women and fashion are a funny thing.  Most women hate wearing clothes that are out of fashion, and I have to admit that when I open my closet doors and look at my clothes, there are quite a few outfits in there that although I love them dearly I won’t wear them because they are not the current “in style” fashion.

I’m so pleased that I’ve discovered a great website that sells Discount fashion!  Everything on the website sells for $17.95 or less!  How great is that!  I’ve been looking at some of their great Discount clothing to see what I’d like to buy for the upcoming winter season.  Since styles change so frequently, I like to buy Cheap clothing when I can find styles I like.  Why spend hundreds of dollars on something that is going to be out of style next year?

Last May I bought a Navigon 2100 GPS unit.  I was excited because it was on sale at Staples for $129.00 – a bargain!  The first time I used it (about a week later) it started out ok, but froze up after a few minutes of driving and then told me that it didn’t have the little card in it that makes it run.  (It DID have the card in it)  I had to take the card in and out a few times and then find a paper clip to unbend and stick in the little “reset” hole in order to make it work again.  Very upsetting, since that is not something you want to be doing while you are driving!  So I took the unit back to the store and declared it defective and asked for a replacement. 

Staples was very nice and they gave me a replacement.  Which I did not use until yesterday.  I had to go a few places I had never been before and even though I had maps I wanted a GPS with me to let me know when my turns were coming up.  This one worked great for the first destination.  When I was almost at the second destination it froze up again.  I was so close to the destination that it wasn’t a problem, and I really didn’t realize that it was frozen up quite yet; I turned the unit off for a while.  When I was ready to go to the third destination I turned it on again, and saw the screen was still frozen where it had been when I turned the unit off.  I had to search through my purse, looking for something skinny to stick in the reset hole.  I tried the tip of a pen – no luck.  I couldn’t find a paper clip or safety pin or hair pin, but I tried the tip of a nail file and that worked.  This was highly aggravating, and I’m not inclined to believe that I can get a refund on this critter since I bought it last May.

When I was ready to come home, the little machine was very insistent that I go fifteen miles out of my way to get home, and even when I ignored it and when the way I KNEW would get me home quicker, it never changed its mind and kept insisting that I turn around – even when I actually GOT HOME!  Even when I turned it off and on again, it insisted that I go the long way around.  When I reached my street it wanted me to drive right past it and go to some other destination where I would then have to turn around to come back to my street.  When I actually got go the end of my driveway it told me that I still had twenty one miles to drive and thirty minutes to reach my destination.  I was very under impressed with that situation, let me tell you!  And when I got inside my house I turned it on again to see what it would tell me and it still told me that I had twenty one miles and thirty minutes to go.  This time it was NOT frozen up (I’m sure of that, the screen was interactive.)

My advice to anyone thinking about buying this little GPS – if you DO, make sure to always have a paper clip ready to stick in the reset hole!  And don’t trust it to get you there the fastest way possible.  It has a mind of its own and it is unreliable.

Real Estate Asset Management is the target market for the Siterra Corporation.  The Siterra Corporation develops and sells web-based software that helps major global corporations such as energy suppliers and wireless carriers, utility companies such as oil and gas, and retail outlets to manage their assets, leases and sites.  Their software helps their clients to manage, plan, and grow their projects, assets, real estate properties and operating sites.

The movie “W” is out now, and my friends and I want to see it. I can’t decide if I want to spend the money going to the movies, or just wait until it comes out on DVD and rent it. It says it’s based on a true story, I wonder how much of it really is factual. I’m really surprised that it is being released so close to the elections; I have to suspect it was produced by someone who wants to influence the election in a major way!

As fast as technology is changing, I seem to notice that there are more options “out there” in regards to computers and their peripheral equipment.  There are so many different products out there that it gets overwhelming at times!  And I’ve found that often times when I try to find out the answer to a question I don’t understand the “lingo” that is being used.  Sometimes the answer confuses me even more than the question!  Sometimes I just get tired of having to try to learn all of this new “stuff” and I’d appreciate getting a straight answer without having to learn a “new language!”  I guess I’m just not a big enough computer geek to understand a lot of that.  And that bothers me a lot, because I don’t like to feel stupid!

The Answers Portal is a website that I found that I have bookmarked for future reference when I have a computer related question.  What I like about this website is that it is a FREE reference that answers questions about computers and the related technology in easy to understand language, so I don’t feel even more confused by the answer than I was by the question!  The site is designed to be understood by the novice, yet is sophisticated enough to help the consumer that is already computer-savvy.

For years I’ve been hearing on television shows, and from my own doctors, that taking one low-dose aspirin a day helps to prevent heart attacks.  For the most part I haven’t taken aspirin at all because it irritates my stomach.  It irritates my stomach BIG TIME!  And I know that the so-called “prevention” factor is that it acts as a blood thinner.  Ibuprofen ALSO acts as a blood thinner, and relieves my headaches better than other pain killers.  I tend to take a couple of ibuprofen almost every day, so I figure that the advice to take one aspirin a day really does not apply to me.

Today I was reading an article on the Time.com website that a study done in England has concluded that aspiring does not reduce the risk of heart attacks in people who are prone to be diabetic.  Well, I think that news is going to shake up the medical community!  I wonder what I’m going to be hearing on the television news (and from the doctors) NOW!

One of the worst things that a homeowner can discover when they walk in the door after a vacation trip, or even just after a long day at work is a Sewage Backup in their house.  Of course the way they discover it is by the nasty smell in the house, along with a puddle of sewage on the floor.  If the homeowner is lucky, they discover it early enough in the day that they can get the problem fixed before they want to go to bed that night!  And hopefully they’ll discover it the same day it happened, before the mold and bacteria start to make themselves comfortable in the nooks and crannies along the seams of the pipes and the floors.

The waterrestoration911.com is a valuable resource if this ever happens to anyone you know that needs help with water and sewage problems. They have a hotline that takes calls 24/7, and they cover just about every town in the country!  They can get professional help to your house quickly to help with the cleanup, disinfection and mold control that is so important in situations like this.

I have several friends who are “snobs” in that they will only buy “brand name” products at the store.  A few days ago I went shopping with a friend, and I noticed that everything she bought was brand name, yet there was “store brand” equivalents right next to the product that she was buying.  In some cases (such as allergy medicine) the store brand she was buying was more than double the price of the store brand!  I asked her why she was buying the more expensive product and she answered “only poor people buy the store brand!”  I can’t understand that type of consumer snobbery.  The next time my friend complains about money being tight, I’ll remind her that she could cut her grocery store expenditure drastically by buying store brand products!

There is a new website called petwave.com that is still in its beta stage that I’d like to tell you about.  The site is dedicated to being informational regarding dogs and cats.  It has a section dedicated to the different breeds (not yet all inclusive) and has a fairly comprehensive section about medical problems  I used the site today to look up labrador retriever medical problems to help out my neighbor today.  She is thinking about buying a labrador puppy and wanted some information about what she might be able to expect as far as health issues are concerned.  This new site is still expanding and it’s looking good!

I was reading a story on the yahoo news website about how 170 wedding guests were rushed to the hospital after someone mistakenly added powdered rust remover to the stew being served to the guests, thinking it was salt.  What is up with all of these problems with food products and poison and China?  Don’t they label their products?  For crying out loud, someone should have put the skull and crossbones on that package of rust remover!

Debt Negotiation is one method of handling debt that many people don’t even realize is an option for them when they are trying to figure out how to deal with their mounting debt.  The website thecreditexchange.com is a unique website in that they are not a debt management company.

They are a referral service for debt for consumers that are seeking help with debt management and debt consolidation. Their affiliated companies provide financial services such as credit and debt counseling, financial analysis, and debt settlement. Debt negotiation is recommended for people who have lost their ability to pay their minimum payments on their accounts but want to avoid bankruptcy.

Well, today’s big news seems to be how the stock market has enjoyed the biggest increase since the Great Depression – it went up almost 1,000 points!  I imagine that the people who bought stock during the past week must be ecstatic over how much money they made today!  What an incredible game the stock market it.  I hope that all of the people that just held onto their stocks instead of participating in that panic selling off are proud of themselves for being smart enough to just hang on!

Personal Loans seem to be the short term answer to many people’s financial problems at this point in time.  With the economic instability going on, the rising gas prices, and the insecurity of what Wall Street is doing and whether or not any of us will have jobs in the near future, people are moving beyond the “concerned” stage and entering the “panic” stage.  I have a friend who is thinking he might lose his job soon, and he has bad credit.  So he’s started looking for another job and in the meantime he is applying for a couple of
bad credit personal loans to help him over the “hump” where he expects to be unemployed.

The PersonalLoansLeader.com website is the website to a national loan company that gives loans up to $15,000.  Applying online is quick and easy.  They give personal loans, auto loans, payday loans, bad credit loans, and debt relief loans.

We’ve been getting a lot of telephone calls everyday from political pollsters, wanting to know who we are voting for.  Although I guess some aren’t really pollsters, they are working for one side or the other and are soliciting donations and asking people to volunteer time to work on the campaign.  I do find it amusing that we are getting so many calls!  I will be very glad when this election is over and we can have a sense of where the country will be going when all is said and done.

A friend sent me an email yesterday with a link to it for me to click on.  When I clicked on it, it took me to a video that somebody had created where it looks like a television news broadcast talking about the person who sent you the email is a 3rd party candidate for president.  It has the person’s name plastered on billboards, on the sides of buses, and on bumper stickers.  The story interviews people about the “unknown” candidate making a real threat to the republican and democratic parties.  It really was a riot!