Contest #02- A Brand New Wheelchair

Let’s do this!!!!

So I received a brand new wheelchair today, which was free of charge to me.

Someone generous went out of their way and had purchased a wheelchair for their wife when she was in the hospital and going through a period of recovery and therapy.

Very sadly though, his wife developed a blood clot in her leg and she did pass away very quickly after the discovery of the clot.

Today however, he gave me this new wheelchair.

Now I don’t have to worry about falling or having struggles trying to move forward or having it turn when I am trying to go in a straight direction.

But as with all wheelchairs in the past 20+ years… I name them. I mean after all, men name their cars, I name my wheelchairs.

However the past two wheelchairs have been named “Dark Knight” & “Dark Knight II” so if I was to name this wheelchair “Dark Knight” it would be III. It already was given as a suggestion on my personal Facebook page. As well as “Rawkin’ Roller” and “Panty Remover.”

But I decided to bring this idea to the blog.

What would be on the minds of my readers???? What would YOU name this wheelchair????? And I think that I will even go as far as to say that I will make this a contest.

So its pretty simple. Name the wheelchair. Leave your suggestions in the comment section. I will pick the BEST named suggestion before I leave for the NSP show on Saturday, the 13th of September.

RULES: 

• If you have already given a named suggestion on Facebook and are reading this, then comment your suggestion. Only suggestions listed in the comment section of this blog post will be considered. NOT what was on Facebook. So the person who named it “Panty Remover” will have to leave that suggestion as a comment to this blog post in order to win.
• Also tell me WHY you think I should name the wheelchair along with your suggestion.
• Leave as many suggestions as you wish.  The more you enter, the better your chances.
• You do NOT have to be subscribed to enter/win. But if you wanna take your chances at future contests, and be entertained… then subscribing would be a good idea. Its just not mandatory for this contest. At the very most, you’ll need to leave an e-mail address, which will NOT be shown publicly!! 

Pretty easy!!! Deadline is the 12th of September 2014 at 01:59 AM Eastern Time.  The winner will be notified by e-mail upon my return home of the NANCY SILVA PROJECT show which will probably be really early on September the 14th at the very earliest.

Prizes will vary. Meaning if I know you personally, then I’ll select something that I can hand to you personally. If you’re not someone that I know personally or are not living in this area, then I will have something that can be sent to you via e-mail, like a gift card or something.

Everything is subject to change. But until then. Have fun loading up the comment section of this blog post. And of course: GOOD LUCK!!!!

Ice Cream Saved Me $60 And About Three Hours of Grief

“It is only when the rich are sick that they fully feel the impotence of wealth.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

My home health nurse adores me. Let’s just leave it at that.

Today she brought me ice cream and it saved me so much money and I got to keep my sanity as well before heading into this upcoming weekend.

How?

It was late enough in the afternoon and just early enough in the evening when she stopped by with the dessert that my stomach was starting to tell me that I was getting hungry.

Having to eat all of that ice cream began to fill my stomach with food and the thought of eating anything else was not as pleasing any more.

But how is it that so much money was saved?

Pretty simple. For those of you who don’t know or don’t know how to pay attention…. I don’t drive. And today would have been one of those times where I was feeling like cabin fever was setting in and I was wanting to actually GO OUT and sit down and eat somewhere.

The only way to do that is to have a neighbor drive me somewhere. The only person with the capability to deal with storing the wheelchair in the trunk or in the back of their vehicle is a guy who is married.

And of course it would be horrible of me to ask this guy to drop me off at a restaurant by myself and expect him to pick me up when I was finished. Of course, I’d have to have him come along with me. But then again this is food. And these vultures here at SGC are all the same. They lose themselves when it comes to food. Whether its homemade or going out to eat.

There is only so many times a person can eat here and not go crazy.

So the outing would be a party of three. And here’s the kicker: the couple has a short list of  “approved” restaurants.

For example, if I was to go to them wanting a ride to go out to eat at some fast food place and I knew that I was going to have to take them with me and said “Hey, I want to go to McDonald’s…” they would decline the entire adventure and I would not go.

If my taste buds were not in line with what THEY cared for, I would not be going out to eat. Pretty sad.

Golden Corral is in fact one of the top approved places that they enjoy eating at. In fact that’s all I ever hear them talk about . With the exception of this afternoon when I heard the husband say that he and the wife was taken out to eat as a treat and they went to Red Lobster.

Ummm huh??

And yet an adventure or trip to the Golden Corral would have cost me about $20 a person. So about $60. Meal and drinks and then tip included.

Not to mention the awkward socialization on the way to/from the restaurant and the not so small talk that they consider dinner conversation which is hardly things that people would want to discuss while “going out and having a good time.”  All of that time of wanting to stab myself in my full stomach to just get away from the mind-numbing conversations.

And to be honest, the last SEVERAL times this same arrangement happened that I am talking about  it was a poor experience overall. I often get tired of having these bad experiences and then having to come home and tell you all about it on this blog.

Now I could take the metro bus system but that’s tricky as there’s no worth while restaurant that would be close by and therefore I wouldn’t know what the routes would be and I would hate to be sitting on a bus just to go one way for an hour to reach a place to eat.

The saving grace of the ice cream being bought earlier saved it all from disaster. I am soooooooo thankful!!!!!

Last Minute Opportunity

“Fundraising is very, very time-consuming.”~Arlen Specter  

Dear readers: 

For most of you who have been around long enough, you know that I have been doing my best this season to raise enough funds so that I and the other assistant captain of the team can go to the USA HOCKEY DISABLED FESTIVAL  in Boston this  coming April.

Our original cut date was supposed to be the 31st of January. However with just a week and a half remaining and the lack of donations in the past few months (sadly), the two of us honestly did not see that we would reach our goal in that short amount of time.

We had even trimmed our goal by $1,000 and we’re still under 25% of reaching the full amount. We just did not know the right people to ask for donations and the nation’s economy is still pretty bad.

But all reasons and politics aside, we still want to thank those who read about our campaign through the blogs and thank those who tried to help spread the word. 

We also want to thank Author Jodi Ambrose and those good people up at Cape Cod Cookie Company for offering their personal incentives for this fundraising campaign. It was a fun deal for those to give to a good cause. 

Now we know that the website link will always and forever be available to receive further donations. We haven’t figured out how to “delete” the campaigns.

I will have it in the Blogroll for a little while longer, but I after this post …. I will not be advertising the link. Eventually though, it will be removed from the Blogroll. Unless its found a different purpose later on in the future.

If you still wish to donate or are the kind of person that likes to wait until the last minute, NOW IS THAT TIME!!!

We will be letting the ship sail at MIDNIGHT PST…. tonight!! For those of you who do donate and I receive the e-mail that you had done so before the cut off date, then your donation amount will be considered towards those incentives. 

And for those of you who find it too late and still wish to donate, I think that the idea that we had was to hold the money for the next season in case there are plans to go to the next tournament in 2015. So your donation money will still go towards the Austin Blades sledge hockey team, specifically for me and for my partner in crime in this adventure. We thank you in advance!!! 

No matter what, we will always be thankful to everyone who supports us, whether it be financially or moral support or whatever. We love you all. Thank you most sincerely!! 

 

Our donation page:

http://www.gofundme.com/2t2pvs

 

3M Challenge

“I get half a million just to show up at parties. My life is, like, really,  really fun.”~ Paris Hilton

There is a bus stop in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada where the maker of this particular kind of security glass has offered anyone who can break the glass is more than welcome to take the money.

3M is so confident that this challenge became a part of their ad campaign for the security glass that they were making.

I just found out about this today. I don’t know how long this has been there in Vancouver.  Nor do I know for sure if it still stands today. If you want to find out for yourself, its at the corner of Broughton and Pender Streets.

Some say that inside the glass case is three million dollars, thus taking the amount from 3M.

Others aren’t so sure, but their eyes sparkle in wonder when they come across this tantalizing deal.

Are you ready for the buzzkill? OR the “fine print” as I call it??

There is a security guard there watching over it. And there are rules to this endeavor should anyone wish to attempt to breaking the glass and walked off with the stash.

Here are some of the rules that I found on the Internet while searching to see if this was or was not a joke.

While there is a security guard standing nearby. If you wish to attempt to break the glass, you can only use your feet. You cannot punch it, you cannot throw anything at it, you cannot ram it. You may only use your feet to try and break the glass.

Security cameras have already caught a few people attempting this. I am sure that you can find them by doing a search online.

All that money, seems like millions.

Not exactly. The pile of papers inside is exactly that: paper. It is lined across the top with $500 in real currency and the rest is fake.

So you’re going to basically risk breaking your feet for only $500 in Canadian currency.

And if what I read from yet another web article is true, if you are able to break the glass….. congratulations. You have proven to 3M that they need to re-think their strategy in making this security glass.

But remember that security  guard that I spoke of? Yep. He’s going to be there to STOP you from reaching inside and removing any of the real money.

All in all, its a lesson in futility. The only thing  that it proves is whether or not 3M was successful in making a security glass that cannot be broken. There’s no real money waiting for you in this adventure whatsoever. Only jail time.

 

Money For Blogging & The Chicks For Free!

“The use of money is all the advantage there is in having it.”~
Benjamin Franklin

So in the past few days, I’ve received several comments about my blog as a whole. The overall opinion was that my blog is good and enjoyable. And just recently I was told that I should be proud of my blog. It was probably the best compliment about it that I have received since the Great Adulation E-mail of May of 2011.

I was also told that it is consistent. Thank you!

Don’t get me wrong, I AM very proud of my blog. I just sometimes wonder just how well it is doing. Not so much by how many times a day its being viewed but if whether or not the information that is within each post is actually helping someone out there in this world. It is very much so consistent as I have more time to work with it than others do. That’s just the way it is.

Millions of people have blogs. I know several people who do. But they don’t have the opportunity to write as much as they want. And I think that is okay. There are no rules when it comes to what a blogger must do and how often they must do it.

But because I am in a very unique situation, it got me thinking. So I did some research about getting paid for blogging. Sadly though, there are a lot of misconceptions when it comes to the thought of getting paid for your blog posts.

There are numerous people that will pay you for your blog. But it is not as simple as writing, submitting, and getting paid. Almost all of the websites that I searched are looking for specific material within a blog post, and your post has to be reviewed then ACCEPTED before they even pay. The key there is that your blog post submission must be approved first. And chances are that you might not even be considered. There’s always that possibility.

Most that I saw said that you would get paid “within two weeks” or even “in about a month”. Which is fine if you have the patience to wait. But it is for sure that not everyone who is going to accept your blog post will be desperately trying to get to the post office to mail you a check that very moment. If you are hoping to receive a quick and immediate response then you are probably going to be disappointed.

The other thing that I found is that your dreams of making tons of cash aren’t really all that realistic. A majority of those companies and websites that are willing to pay you for your blog posts offer “up to $100 per post.”

$100 could be a lot of money to someone. But there is no guarantee that you are going to receive $100 for each post, the catch is in the phrase: UP TO that much money. So they could accept your blog post, decide to pay you, send a check in the mail, and you have received only $10. And that will put a damper on your dreams about becoming rich within a year having lots of cash and a myriad of girlfriends at your disposal.

Suddenly, your hidden desires of starting a harem don’t seem all that obtainable.

None of this is to say that you WON’T make good money for blogging. Only that you won’t become instantly rich. A person probably could make a decent amount of money in blogging, but they’ve got to have the patience and the fortitude to keep at it all of the time, even if they are rejected. Sending submissions to more than one place would be the thing to do. The more you send, the better your chances of becoming approved.

Being discouraged at constant rejection will not get you anywhere. You have to be able to dust yourself off from each rejection and keep trying until you are able to be approved. Your goals should be reasonable as well. If you are okay with making a few hundred dollars over the span of several months, then it could be very beneficial for you.

As always, you must always read the fine print before submitting. Certain websites have certain guidelines. If you don’t abide by their guidelines then you won’t get paid. So always read everything you can about the website and what they are looking for in a paid blog post. Make sure you have followed everything as they are expecting and you will be fine.

Like I said, I do not know if I have ever helped anyone in any situation from them reading any of my blog posts. I do know that a few people enjoy reading it because it gives them the opportunity to get to know me better. I’m not sure if I could say that I’ve made someone’s life better because they read it one of my posts.

And I have not made up my mind about whether or not I will try submit a blog for pay. I would not want to end up having this blog become lacking. I just realize the fact that I’m not going to end up being able to buy a new home and have tons of money to spend. And the women won’t be knocking down my door either.

 

Jewelry Confliction

So here’s a story that I never thought that I would ever tell, much less experience.

It is no surprise that everyone gets to the point at the end of the month (or two week pay period) where they just find themselves low on cash. I most certainly have. Getting to the first of July has been something of a head scratcher in my book.

So I went to the nearest pawn shop in my neighborhood this afternoon and took a men’s gold ring with a garnet stone to fetch a few dollars. Knowing full well that I would be back for it in a few days after I had reached the month of July.

The thing of it is that I had never had any luck with this particular piece of jewelry as far as pawn shops were concerned. I’ve been all about town in the past few years and nobody would take it. Some of them wouldn’t even look at it. Many times I’ve been told that it was a fake and the stone was fake too. But had the looked at it, actually taken the time to do so, they would have seen the stamp on the inside of the ring that marks that it is 14K gold.

But today was a different story. I was met up by one of the many pawn brokers and I just walked in and created a swath behind me as I looked at their jewelry display cases to see just what they were SELLING as far as jewelry was concerned. Mainly men’s rings.

Once the broker was able to catch up to me, I handed over the ring and my ID and asked what I could get for it. They always ask you the same question, “How much do you want for it?”. I learned the hard way that you NEVER, NEVER, NEVER answer that question directly.

If you are looking to pawn or sell something at a pawn shop and you want $50 for it, you never tell them that! You will get what you asked for, even if it means that the pawn broker was willing to give you more. But now, you’ll never know because it was you who set the price.

So I didn’t answer this time. I handed it over and let them do their thing. I was in fact a bit nervous that they were going to come right back and give me the same old story about how it was fake or whatever. But they didn’t come back right away. This broker was seriously looking into it.

When the broker came back, I heard “Two twenty-five.”

I did everything I could to keep my wits on the price that I was quoted. And because of the fact that this ring in particular has had a history of nobody wanting to touch it, I had assumed that the broker was telling me $2.25!! I seriously wanted to vomit. But then this was the first time that I had ever had a pawn broker consider a loan on it.

I snarled a bit. But then the broker said, “No sir. Two hundred and twenty-five dollars is all that I can give to you on a loan.”

I could not believe my own ears. NOT $2.25, but $225!! (Clearly, decimal placement is really important.)

I know that a lot of people would have taken it right away. Especially during these times. But the loan was up to that much. I do not know how much that they would have offered to me, had I told them that I wanted to sell it.

So then I did not take the full amount of the loan. I only took $60. It was what I felt I could easily handle while paying back the loan and getting it back before the due date and then losing it forever. All the while them making a nasty profit from it.

I kept getting asked time after time if I was sure that I did not want more. I could have taken the entire amount. And they did say that if I wanted more, that all I needed to do was pay the interest on the loan and they would re-finance it so that I could take more.

But now I have enough money to make it until July. So I’m good. And the loan is not out of my reach to pay back.

But when I got home, I started to think about it. I do not have a lot in the way of jewelry. I have a watch, I wear my U.S. Army dog tags around my neck. And I have two gold rings with garnets in them. Well, one for now.

I used to have three, but the third one was stolen. The second ring that I have, I am thinking that I could probably get a little bit more than $225 for it at that pawn shop.

It is very conflicting as I have both good and bad experiences with this ring. Well, mainly just bad memories. I’ve had wonderful experiences with the ring because a lot of people have given me compliments on it over and over again when I wear it. So I’ve been wearing it all of the time now, even though it is plagued with bad memories.

I bought the ring when I was still with my ex-girlfriend. It was really expensive and it looks great. Similar to the one in the photo included in this blog post. But at the time, I was saving some money to buy tickets to go see a concert back in 2008 in Boston. I was more than willing to pay the $375 for a pair of tickets to be on the floor right up next to the stage! But she was not a fan. A complete & total “hater” of that kind of music … if you will.

So when I had found this ring, she pushed and she pushed and she pushed for me to buy it. She knew that I did not have a lot of jewelry to call my own. She also knew that it would be something that I would wear a lot. And… she knew that if I bought it, that I would not be able to purchase the concert tickets that I had been wanting to buy. 

So I bought it. It looked great. Still does. But because of her hatred towards something that she knew that I would enjoy, her influence was heavily put upon me to buy it every time we went into that store.

Needless to say that later on I would purchase tickets for that concert out of some money that was owed to me from a settlement. But we were so far back, that the view wasn’t all that grand. I actually saved myself about $100 on the total, however everytime I think about it, it just bugs me. That’s all. Just bugs me.

So now that I have gone on and on about this and probably lost half of the readers by now, I am conflicted with whether or not to go ahead and try to sell this ring for a much higher price or keep it because my jewerly collection is small and I don’t have much.

Clearly with the money, I could put it aside and be able to have a nice start at some kind of savings so that I can do some traveling to see some people that I have been wanting to meet for a very long time. Or maybe get something that I would enjoy for me in my home. The possibilities would be endless.

For sure, I would be able to get back the ring that I’ve had for nearly ten years that I bought for myself and be free of one less thing that would remind me of a situation that was less than happy.

What would you do?!?

Gratuity

One of the things that eludes me in life is the knowledge of what exactly should be given for gratuity. I question whether or not there is a standard scale for certain services. And I also get very confused at times on knowing when to tip as much as I get confused on how much to tip.

I have my doubts on whether or not that standard actually exists because the gratuity is based on so many different factors. Certainly, it boils down to the kind of service you receive that will determine how generous you are feeling when leaving gratuity. Many services require many various services. Sometimes it is a lot, and sometimes it isn’t. So then, how do you know and what is fair, what is good, and what is considered a moral faux pas?

Restaurants and other food services are probably the most well known places in which a person leaves a tip. The things that I believe are factored in, are the total amount of the bill, how many people in the party, and of course how well the waiting staff had offered service and help.

Some say its 15%, others suggest that you should give 18% of the bill, and even still others are now saying 20% of your total bill is what is acceptable gratuity rates. And even though I have only had a couple times of experience, there are some places that actually INCLUDE a certain amount of gratuity and include it in the total bill. Does anyone think that is right or fair? And if so, do you leave even more cash gratuity… or is that just another moral faux pas?

I am definitely not the world’s best person or authority when it comes to leaving tips and gratuity. A lot of the time, I do not leave a tip simply because I either cannot afford it or do not have the cash. If it was a scenario of not being able to afford it, that means that I have only budgeted so much money for the total bill, and have money left over to go about my business and be able to live. Mainly though, I tend to lose cash if I am not paying attention and so I don’t carry it all of the time. But I am more than happy to leave something extra on the credit card slip.

On the other hand, I have gone out of control with tipping. Once I’ve established some kind of a relationship with waiting staff, I am more than happy to let them have more than what would commonly be considered your usual tip.

I once tipped one waitress over $200 in a span of six months, all because I enjoyed her repeated awesome service for one. And because we had established a friendly connection. After frequenting the restaurant many, many times in that time span, I dumped so much cash on the table or just given it to her directly that I literally had to stop and think, “Why am I giving THIS MUCH to her? Was her service that valuable?”.

Probably not, but that’s what I had done.

Needless to say, that since that awakening I have only given her up to $5 on top of the usual gratuity.

Tipping is also important because you will want very awesome service should you happen to be in a situation where you are again with the same waiting staff. If you want their service to be the best it can be, well… let’s just say that they will remember you by what you tip. Believe me, its true.

Waiting staff, taxi drivers, bartenders, and deliver drivers all work solely on the tips that they receive. I have experienced in some ways, both sides of it. One half as the person leaving the gratuity, and the other person having hearing about how crummy people can be when they stiff the people in which they have been receiving service. These people receive squat in terms of wages, and they must live on what they receive for tips. So I really just do not know if there is a rate that is “set in stone” when it comes to gratuity.

This afternoon, I had ordered some fast food delivery. I signed off a tip on the credit card slip AND I gave some extra in cash. The delivery person looked at me like I was handing over the keys to the kingdom with his eyes bugging out of their sockets when I handed him the cash.

There are websites that try to help you determine what you should leave for tips, but again, I question it. According to this chart I read online, it said “$1.00-2.00 or 20% of total, whichever is greater.” I calculated what I had given as gratuity and found that I had given 24.5% of the total bill. So I guess I’ll live to see another day of food service delivery, if I chose to order from them again.

All in all though: I just don’t get it.