Tag: business

  • Life Tip: OptOutPreScreen.com

    If you’re like me and despise getting all of those “you’re pre-approved” credit card offers in the mail (waste of printing, waste of money, waste of trees, waste of my time!), then this is a website you must check out: OptOutPreScreen.com

    What you need to know:

    Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the Consumer Credit Reporting Companies are permitted to include your name on lists used by creditors or insurers to make firm offers of credit or insurance that are not initiated by you (“Firm Offers”). The FCRA also provides you the right to “Opt-Out”, which prevents Consumer Credit Reporting Companies from providing your credit file information for Firm Offers.

    What this website does for you:
    It allows you to opt-out of the selling of your information for this purpose for five years if you fill out the form on the website, which requires your social security number (submitted securely). If you take literally two extra minutes and the cost of a stamp, you can permanently opt-out via postal mail. I did this years ago and it has cut the crap in my mailbox in half.

    So worth repeating – go to OptOutPreScreen.com and get off those credit card offer mailing lists once and for all. 

  • What I’ve Been Up To: October Edition

    October flew by because it was packed with things to do, places to be, and people to see. My favorite ways to fill up a busy schedule!

    Johnnie Bud and I spent the first weekend of October visiting my little sister Mandy and her other half Joe up in Delaware are their first house. We got a special tour of Dover Air Force Base where my sister is a veterinarian and the officer in charge at the Dover Air Force Base Veterinary Treatment Facility – check out this great Veteran’s Day article on her and the patients she sees daily: Base vet supports mission, your pets. It’s a long 6+ hour drive (about 2 hours north of D.C.), but always worth it to spend some quality downtime with family.

    Johnnie’s brother got married the next weekend on a Sunday – congrats Christopher and Nikki! – and the very next morning was the WRAL TechWire Executive Exchange: Fiber Transforms the Triangle half-day conference held at SAS that I spent no less than three months working on. Every detail, from venue, down to nametags, was painstakingly planned for by my incredible team at WRAL.com and this high-caliber event went off without a hitch. It’s nice to occasionally have a nice, long planning and marketing timeline and a moderate budget to work with!

    Just four short days after the Fiber event, Johnnie Bud and I hoped on a plane bound for Louisville and not only traveled to see NCSU play at Louisville (notice I didn’t say “win”… bummer), but we spent a few days checking out a “new to both of us” city and toured and tasted as many of the stops on the Urban Bourbon Trail as possible. Louisville’s got a great food and beverage culture, but their downtown foot traffic is surprisingly slow on the weekends compared to somewhere like Raleigh. I would love to visit again in 5-10 years to see if that has changed.

    We wrapped up the month with more places to be at the UConn vs. ECU game in Greenville (thanks for the hospitality, Cory and Alison!), another lovely night of fundraising for the Rex Foundation at the Rex Gala, and as with every October, a quick visit to the NC State Fair!

    Business-wise, I’m thrilled to say that several projects were completed for Raleighwood Media Group clients and I even had the opportunity to develop three proposals for new business (social media management and email marketing projects) which are all coming to fruition now that we’re in November… also known at #Movember. So #LetItGrowRDU and I’ll check in next month. Thanks for reading, y’all!

  • And Tonight’s Super Bowl Menu Includes….

    The manfriend and I have been hard at work in the kitchen this morning. Here’s what we’ll be taking to tonight’s ITB Super Bowl gathering. Drumroll please…

    Four mildly healthy, but certainly better for you than the norm, appetizer-sized items, including:
    Deviled Eggs
    Mexican Roll-Ups
    Spinach Balls
    Dry Rub Grilled Wings

    I’ll be cheering for the advertisers tonight – the Super Bowl ads are my favorite part of one of America’s most-watched sports programs all year. This pre-released spot already has my heart: #BestBuds – with nearly 33 million views in just four days, I’d say it has also captured the hearts of many, many others, as well.

    What are you serving at or bringing to your Super Bowl gathering?

  • Local Job Opening

    This isn’t my typical blog post, but this isn’t your typical job opening either. This sounds like it would be a really fun and rewarding job.

    Please pass this along to anyone who may be interested.

    Open job position from SEEDS (1998 NC Peace Prize winner)
    From Lucy Harris, SEEDS Executive Director,
    706 Gilbert Street, Durham, NC 27701
    919.683.1197
    www.seedsnc.org

    SEEDS is hiring a co-coordinator for Durham Inner-city Gardeners (DIG) to start in March 2009.

    Come join our multi-generational team of youth and adults working together to increase food justice in our community by:
    -Growing healthy, sustainable food on a 1/4 acre lot in northeast central Durham
    -Selling it at the Durham Farmer’s Market every Saturday
    -Learning about the importance of food and sustainability
    -Cultivating self-confidence, inter-dependence, solid community, and a strong value for all life
    -Primary responsibilities would be:
    -Sharing knowledge of sustainable gardening, cooking, and healthy living with youth;
    -Program development;
    -Youth leadership training;
    -Working with volunteers;
    -Garden stewardship

    Required Skills:
    -Experience working with youth, especially in leadership development;
    -Some gardening experience;
    -Creative problem solving and conflict resolution skills;
    -Ability and interest in doing physical labor;
    -Commitment to social, economic, and environmental justice;
    -Ability to work well with a multi-racial, intergenerational staff and desire to interact with a wide range of people
    -Flexible schedule, driver’s license, sense of humor and the ability to think on your toes

    Strongly recommended:
    -An understanding of and interest in food systems and food politics;
    -Cooking skills;
    -Carpentry skills;
    -Creative self-expression;
    -Morning person

    We encourage applicants to get a feel for the position by volunteering during a Saturday work day.

    Starting salary $12/hour + paid sick, vacation, and holidays
    Average of 28 hours/week including Saturdays

    Job starts mid-March

    Interested parties should send a cover letter and resume to Lucy Harris, lharris@seedsnc.org, or 706 Gilbert St, Durham, NC 27701.

    SEEDS is a non-profit community garden whose goal is to teach people to care for the earth, themselves and each other through a variety of garden-based programs.

    The Durham Inner-city Gardeners (DIG) program is a youth-driven, urban farming leadership development program. DIG empowers teens by teaching organic gardening, sound business practices, healthy food choices and food security values. The program emphasizes sustainable living and growing practices, ecological balance, and the natural recycling of organic materials for plant health and nourishment. DIG youth are paid a stipend to cultivate fruits, vegetables, herbs, flowers and mushrooms, which they then sell at the Durham Farmer’s Market.

    Today’s beautiful local weather should definitely encourage some good applications for this position – plus, just think about all the amazing things you’d learn about in this position. I’ve never heard of this before seeing this posting come across the Chix email list, but now I’d love to volunteer sometime.

  • I Promised Myself I Wouldn’t Blog Today…

    …because I have SO much to get done right now, but this was too juicy to only share with Adrianne (my fellow Google-addict).

    Now, brace yourselves, this is not very Southern-girly of me, but like my profile says: I’m at home in the modern world. And I absolutely love the convenience of the Google Toolbar (as a preface to the following…) and how it lets me basically “take everything with me” when I switch from IE to Mozilla or between computers.

    Here’s the email I just sent Adrianne, because I knew she’d literally laugh out loud in her newly upgraded cube (baller-status in less than 6 months? Atta-girl!!) at work:

    So I wanted to add the “add to google reader” button to my google toolbar (assuming there is one, I haven’t gotten past the first page yet).

    Anyways, I digress; I just wanted to point out the #3 most popular button that users are adding to the google toolbar:

    Most Popular Buttons
    YouTube Search – Add
    Gmail – Add
    Better Sex Tip of the Day – Add
    Wikipedia – Add
    WhiteSmoke: Check Your English Grammar and Spelling – Add

    Scandalous!My, my, my! I hope everyone else enjoyed the same little snicker that I’m 99.9% sure Adrianne just had at work. And don’t worry – I won’t check my Google Analytics to see how many people clicked “Add” next to #3 on the list. 😛

    Update: Naturally, Adrianne blogged on the subject, too!