SHOPPING ON THE INTERNETAPOTHEKE
Recently I was diagnosed with some serious health issues and the cost of my prescriptions even with my health insurance were costing me too much. I was getting help from my family to pay for the medications I needed, but then a friend of mine told me that several years ago someone in her family told her about getting prescriptions online and that they were much less expensive if you ordered them from outside of the US. I was a little concerned about purchasing medications from overseas, but she said that she had been doing it for years and that most countries actually took drug safety very seriously. She gave me information about the website that she had been ordering her prescriptions from in Germany and she told me not to be surprised when I got to the website, that the whole thing was written in German, but she told me how to go about translating it, so that I could read it and get the information that I needed about the company before placing my first order.
When I got to the website it read like this:
Herzlich Willkommen bei einer der zuverlässigsten Internet Apotheke im Web. Wir sind darin spezialisiert, Ihnen den bestmöglichen Kundenservice, sowie die günstigste Preise in unserer Internetapotheke zu bieten.
Wir haben unsere Produkte in den letzten Jahren in die ganz Welt verschickt und freuen uns darauf, Sie heute und zukünftig zu beliefern. Klicken Sie hier um die Produkte unserer Apotheke anzusehen.
When I looked at it, obviously I didn't understand what it said but I did what my friend said and translated, it simply said;
Welcome to one of the most trusted pharmacy sites here on the web. We specialize in providing you with the best possible customer service and the lowest prices of any internet pharmacy. We have been shipping our products all over the world for the past decade and we look forward to serving you now and in the future. Click here to see our pharmacy products.
Well, just to let you know I received my first order right away. I was so pleased with not only the prices and the service on this site, but the products work just the same as what I bought right here in the US. I would recommend buying pharmaceuticals internationally to anyone, it is very simple to do, with the help of the web.
Posted on Thursday, November 27, 2008 @ 6:38 PM by Brian
Finance and Health Insurance
In my finance class this year we did a whole chapter on health insurance (which really doesn't seem like enough information since it is something that every person thinks about or needs sometime in their life and could be essential to survival). But we did a project where we took different people and their lifestyle and looked up insurance quotes for them so that we could see just how much the decisions we make now will affect us in the future when we are adults and have to pay for our own insurance.
The first person we looked up was a 25 year old man who was 6 feet tall and weighed 190 pounds. He was a non smoker with no medical conditions. He had no children and wasn't married. His quote came out to between 35 and 95 a month.
The second guy was the same height and age with no medical conditions, non smoker and wasn't married with any children. The only difference was that he was 300 pounds instead of 190. This man's range was 65-135 a month.
Just from being overweight, this man increased his insurance payments about 30 dollars each month. That is an outrageous amount of money for something he can control. Not only does he spend a great amount of money to support his habit of smoking, he also has to pay for it with his health insurance for the rest of his life (or at least that term).
I think a lot of us don't realize that the choices we are making as teenagers and young adults are going to affect us for probably the rest of our lives. We smoke and drink and don't take care of ourselves and end up paying for it (literally) in the years to come. Not only are you hurting yourself, you are hurting your wallet. While some aspects of health insurance quotes cannot be helped, like if you had a genetic disease or an illness that was not at all caused by you, your rates would go up and although that seems unfair, it is part of the package. But staying in shape, not smoking, driving carefully, being a responsible citizen are all things that we have complete control over and are things that will determine how we live (and pay for our lives) in the years to come. Making the right choices now will benefit us in the near future.
Posted on Monday, November 24, 2008 @ 11:52 AM by Brian
Graduation gifts
Sometimes I can't believe some of the things that kids get for graduation. When I graduated from 8th grade my dad got me a tiffany's necklace (which was obviously a very nice gift). And from college I got a laptop. Both of these gifts I thought were great and I was so happy to get them. Now I am seeing kids that are graduating from 8th grade getting laptops (the gift I got when I was going into college). And I think it is absolutely crazy.
I have also heard about kids graduating from high school and getting plastic surgery as their graduation gift. I thought it was crazy when a friend of mine got a huge lcd TV for their dorm room, but plastic surgery? That seems a little out there to me. Why would a parent spend that much money altering their child's body when they are 17 or 18 years old only? College is a time to find yourself and become comfortable with who you are. Is getting plastic surgery going to help that?
Another thing that I have noticed is that children are getting rewarded more and more now for their grades. When I was in grade school (I sound like my dad or even my grandpa when I say that) we worked hard in school and getting good grades were expected. We weren't rewarded when we got good grades, we just avoided being grounded. Now I am hearing about how kids are getting video games for good grades or money. It seems so weird to me that they are getting paid to get good grades (especially when they are in grades like 5th and 6th) when the homework is super easy.
Overall I think kids now are expecting more things and parents are giving them to them. I think it just comes with the time changing and it might not just be their fault. But I know if I pulled the same things that my youngest sister pulls now my dad would have had nothing to do with it. He would have had no problem saying no to me. But to her, probably because all of the other kids are getting new phones and iPods, he feels like he needs to give her things like that. I didn't get a cell phone until I was 16, but my sister is 10 now and she has had one for 2 years. She probably doesn't have many people that she calls, but she always has it with her. I guess times are just changing.
Posted on Monday, November 24, 2008 @ 11:44 AM by Brian
Translation Services
Professional translation services are available everywhere, even online on the internet. When I was in high school I used the online Spanish translation service almost every night to do my homework. Even though I'm sure that was considered cheating in some way or the other, it helped me out seriously when I went on to Spanish AP my senior year. I probably would not have been able to get through the class without it. The problem though was when I went to study abroad in Mexico for a few weeks the end of my high school experience. We didn't stay in Cabo or in fancy hotels; we stayed with actual families that spoke Spanish, all the time. Thankfully I lucked out in a way. My family had a huge really cool house with an in ground pool and an awesome pool. They had also lived in Chicago for a few years a while ago so they spoke some English, so when I had trouble, they would help me out. A lot of people think that since my family spoke Spanish when I was there, that meant that I didn't learn any Spanish, but I think it actually helped me learn more because when I didn't understand something they would explain to me in English how to say it or conjugate it. So instead of not understanding when they explained in Spanish, they would help me out in English. A lot of my other friends that went on the trip had families that didn't know a single word of English, so if they didn't understand them, they just nodded and didn't really learn anything or know how to correct what they did or said incorrectly. I really do think I learned a lot from my studying abroad experience and I would recommend it to anyone thinking about doing it.
So now I am in college and I am currently fluent in Spanish (finally after so many years) and I am going on to a different language (scary). So I picked German. I'm not really sure why, because I probably won't use it ever, but it fit into my schedule this year and I want to eventually take courses in many other languages, so why not start with that. Although I am sure I will probably spend most of my time now on the German translation services online instead of Spanish, or facebook ha.
Posted on Monday, November 24, 2008 @ 11:32 AM by Brian
HELPING SHOP FOR WEDDING GIFTS
Recently when a friend of mine was getting married, she asked me to come to the store with her to register for some wedding gifts. I had known about this process, but really had never done this before in my life, so I thought it would be fun. I wondered why her fiancee wasn't going with her, but she said he really wasn't into the things that they needed for their house, so he said that it would probably be best if she took me instead.
When we got to the store, there were so many amazing gifts that I didn't have any clue how she was going to choose which items she wanted and which ones she didn't. They handed her this cool little gun and she was able to go around the store and zap the UPC codes of the items she wanted and the little gun kept track of them all. I never heard of such a thing and thought that she was going to have to write down all the things that she wanted, but to my surprise this was really a very simple process. She told me that she wanted to make sure that there were some more expensive items and some less expensive items so that people could find something in their price range no matter how much they wanted to spend. She chose a toaster and a blender. Then she went on to pick some dishes, silverware and glasses. Her tastes were nice and relatively inexpensive, yet very simple. Everything that she chose was on the moderate end and she chose carefully only adding on a few little extras at the end. She did put a rather nice entertainment unit on the list, but she said that would probably be a gift from her soon to be inlaws as that is what they said they would be getting. She said that she would bring Joe over to look at the items on the list in a few days, so he could add anything that she had overlooked and so that he could change the entertainment unit if he was not happy with her selection. In all she chose about 100 different items and the list ranged in price from items that were $15-$3000. Obviously the one that was $3000 was the entertainment unit.
I really had a blast shopping with her and registering her wedding gifts. I can't wait until I can do this for myself.
Posted on Monday, November 24, 2008 @ 11:10 AM by Brian
Starting a Business
I know nothing about starting a business. My major is pre-pharmacy and I dread having to take my econ classes, and while I like the one finance class that I am in, it is more on the personal financial planning side than business. So I did a little research about the important steps that you need to take to get yourself in the right direction. One of those steps includes toll free numbers. I guess I've never really thought about it before, but every big company has a toll free number for you to call. Whether it is the one in the yellow pages or listed at the bottom of their website or in their store, or a contact if you have any questions or technical problems (and most people dread having to call it) all companies have one.
Tollfreenumber.ORG is a website that tells you all about toll free numbers and how to go about getting one. I had no idea that people actually ordered phone numbers (I guess I never really thought about it). It is funny, because when you go to the website to order your toll free number, you have to call a toll free number to do it. You can also customize your number too, which is really kind of cool. Like I know our cable company is 1800 then their name (the reason I know this is because I have to call it because of problems so much). But the process is kind of cool, you click on choose a number and you can try out different combinations to see how you like them or if they are already taken or in use. I guess it's nice to be able to do it right away and see how you like it.
The reason I really like this website is because it gives you so much information in a way that you can understand it. A lot of websites are really ‘techie' and people like me (who are terrible at technology) have a really hard time understanding what is going on or what the product is even about. On one of the links you can ask questions and it has frequently asked questions from other people too which is nice (all of them are questions I already had in mind when looking through the website). But thankfully there is a place where they answer them and of course, a toll free number to call if you have any more.
Posted on Friday, November 07, 2008 @ 10:28 AM by Brian
SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING THE KEY TO AN INTERNET BUSINESS
When I first set out to start my own online business, I really didn't know anything about the internet world. I did however know about running a business, as I had run my own business before. I knew that I would need to have a website and find a server to host my website. I laid the whole thing out, but once I laid it out I started getting contacted by companies that wanted to provide me with search engine marketing. I didn't really know much about it, but one day when I had a little bit of time, I went online to find out more information about SEO marketing and what it really meant for me and for my new business.
I learned a lot as there is a lot of good solid information on the web about it. There were lots of companies advertising for these services and gradually I learned that these were the companies that would get my website the attention that it needed to make my business soar. After speaking on the phone with a few companies that provided these services I began to realize that some companies offered different other services like text link services and ppc management, which were additional ways that they would get my web site seen by everyone. I knew that choosing a company to handle my website marketing was going to be a big decision, as this is the best way to get noticed and make the sales. After all, people can't buy from you if they can't find you, and let's face it if you aren't ranked in at least the top ten on the major search engines, then no one is viewing your site. Just think of how it goes when you look up stuff on the web, do you ever go past page 2 of the search results. Well, with all the competition out there I figured that I had better pick myself a really good company to make sure that my website gets the most possible exposure on the web.
After careful consideration, I chose a company that I thought would provide me with the most comprehensive services available, and so far they are doing a wonderful job. My number of visits are improving and so is my website ranking on Google. I am really impressed.
Posted on Friday, November 07, 2008 @ 10:16 AM by Brian
OUR CUSTOM MADE HOUSE, BY SCHUMACHER HOMES
If you are relocating or thinking about relocating to the Ohio area, then you must consider contacting schumacher homes. When we first were told that we were going to have to relocate, we were devastated. Leaving our friends and family, we were all a bit shaken and quite a bit negative when we went to see where we would be moving to. We went with a real estate agent around and saw a few homes in the area, but none just seemed to be the perfect fit, and we loved our old home so much that we really wanted a fabulous new place if we were going to start over. We also knew that it really needed to be a great house for the kids, who were really anxious about the move. Well, after looking around and becoming a little discouraged, we went to a local place for a bite to eat, and while we were there the waitress overheard us talking about how we couldn't find just the right home, and she suggested to us schumacher homes. We thanked her and when we got back to the hotel, we called them and set up an appointment to meet with them the very next day. We were both a little bit hesitant, as having a home built can get pricey, but we knew we needed a really great house to start over in.
I was excited but I didn't want to get my hopes too high. From the moment we arrived, I really felt they could help us get the home of our dreams. We looked around at some of the amazing floor plans and layouts that they had available. Many of them with vaulted ceilings and lots of windows, very beautifully done and just what we were looking for. My husband and I had looked at each other in disbelief and excitement, still sitting on pins and needles wondering how much having a beautiful home like this built was going to cost us. We were pleasantly surprised that the prices were so reasonable and the layouts so beautiful. We set out to find the land that very same day. We are now beginning to really look forward to moving day and our new schumacher home.
Posted on Friday, November 07, 2008 @ 10:11 AM by Brian