Asha Anujeeva's Attitude

i was reading an article in the BBC news that China has been given permission by the The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species to import “legal” elephant ivory.  According to the article, there are several countries where the government legally owns stockpiles of elephant ivory, and that ivory was obtained legally.  Considering the decreasing elephant population, and the poaching problems for illegal ivory it made me wonder exactly how does a country obtain “legal” ivory?  Do they wait for elephants to die of old age and then go to the elephant graveyards to get it?  Or do they hunt the elephants?  This story disturbed me; I thought that all ivory was illegal everywhere.

As the economy appears to be at a standstill, I’m considering getting some online free auto policy quotes. I’ve been loyal to my discount auto insurance company for many years, but I keep seeing so many commercials and advertisements that encourage me to switch to a different company, I think I’ll spend some time trying to find a more affordable car insurance plan.

I know that one way to save money on auto insurance is to raise the deductible, but that is not a step that I want to take. With my luck, I’d probably raise the deductible and then within the week I’d have some crazy thing happen and end up paying something extra out of pocket!

One way that I know I can save money on the insurance is to drop the collision coverage on the car that gets stored in the winter. Just drop it during the storage time, and keep the comprehensive. As long as the car is in the storage barn it’s not going to be colliding with anything!

Recently 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.

I was reading an article on the New York Times Website that was talking about the probability of many consumers disconnecting their landline phones in favor of using only their cell phones.  I understand that IS probably going to happen, but I don’t plan on doing it myself.  Here’s why:

If we lose electricity in our house for more than a few hours, our cell phones will be useless because their charges don’t last very long.  Landline phones are usually good for the duration of an electrical outage.

Our house is a complete dead zone for cell phones, so we can’t use cell phones in our house.  That is also the case for our cell phones from our house to town, and back again.  In fact, our cell phones are pretty useless to us.  We are thinking about having them disconnected altogether this coming week, as our two week contract has just expired.

So, for this telephone consumer, we will stick with the landlines for a while to come yet!

I was delighted to read on the health.msn.com website that researchers now say that full fat chees is good for you!  They say that it does NOT raise cholesterol levels, and actually helps dieters to lose weight!  That is really good news because I love cheese!  I have tried the low-fat stuff and I don’t like it – it has no flavor (except for cream chees, which is yummy!)  So I will no longer avoid cheese (I HAVE been avoiding cheese!) and can start buying it (and snacking on it!) on a regular basis again!