The birds in my yard have been pretty active lately too. The chickadee chicks that were nesting in a small birdhouse hanging from my crape myrtle just left the nest but before then I would hear them cheeping everytime I walked past the trees. It was funny to watch the parents follow me and fuss every time they saw me walking near their nest. My parents got to watch the chickadee chicks that were nesting in their summer kitchen take their first flight and leave the nest. One day last week I saw a medium sized woodpecker, several bluebirds, mocking birds, and cardinals all gathered on the power lines by my house. Wasn't sure why such a wide range of birds were all gathered together until I saw them taking turns beating up a couple large crows. I assume that means that all of them are nesting in the area. The mockingbirds have also been harrassing the pair of red-shouldered hawks that live in the area and like stake out my front yard. At night I get to listen to the barred owls calling back and forth. I haven't seen them yet but my parents who live next door see them in their front yard in the live oaks on a nearly nightly basis. Those owls sound like a bunch of demented monkeys when they really get going! John, that is a really neat picture of those parrots!

The salesman intially said the demonstration would take an hour. 3 hours later they were still at my house, convincing me to purchase this vaccuum. Dont get me wrong this was an amazing Vacuum!!! However the salesman had no concerns that i most likely couldnt afford this vaccuum. He had all these different priced plans, advising the price would normally be 3000.00, however he would bring it down to 2500.00 with fewer payments. He could see that i was still struggling to figure out how i was going to finance this vaccuum, He appeared to be making phone calls to head office to bring the price down and at the last minute bought it down to 2000.00 After calcluating the interest, it ended up costing 3000.00 anyway. My main problem with this is that it felt rushed. I couldnt find 3 forms of ID and desperately wanted him to leave after 3 hours and done a stupid thing like sign the forms just so they could leave. He didnt care that i didnt have ANY form of ID, he didnt care that i didnt know my bank account number, he advised as long as i purchased and signed on the dotted line, then everything else would fall into place. He advised he couldnt come back again as this needed to be done asap. They also took my old vaccuum with them. Everything seemed dodgy, and i had my kids running around hungry so i felt extremely pressured. After they left i sat down looking at this machine thinking what the hell have i purchased??!!! I looked around on websites like trademe (nz) and found other types of machines at the price of 500.00. By this time i was pissed! I immediately called headoffice and cancelled the order and they advised someone would call me to inform me of cancellation procedures. The next day after work these two guys came over again. (no call or notification to say they were coming) They were standing asking me why i wanted to cancel the machine STILL trying to convince me that there is no other like this. They even had the nerve to sit inside and say they called head office and they would lower the price another 200.00. I ended up telling them to take their vacuum and leave my house. I asked them where my original vaccuum was and they asked me what colour it was? I told them to leave and advised them to bring back my original vaccum or else i would make a complaint and slammed the door. 5 days later i still havent recieved my old vaccuum. This whole ordeal was a horrible experience for me and these salesmen were dodgy as!!! Never again

Akpparently this won't help you, but this is my DD's recent email: "This is why technology is awesome: I lost my phone at a concert last night. As soon as I knew it was gone, I started calling it. Whoever had it was not answering. I set it to "lost phone mode" from a friend's phone, which sent a display message to my phone saying that it was lost and giving a contact number to reach me. This morning I used the Find My iPhone app, which pinned it to a house in Littleton, giving me an address and a map. After I filed a police report online, I called the Littleton police, who went to the house (which turned out to be a duplex, but Find My iPhone was pretty specific, pinning my phone's location to the northern unit in the building. I took a screen shot of map and texted it to the officer.). So the cops walked into the apartment and let the ladies living there know that they'd tracked a stolen phone to their house. There was some go-around, but after they were told that a stolen phone carried a grand larceny charge (which actually isn't true, the cop was bluffing), they managed to find the phone and give it to the officer. So I got my phone back and didn't have to drop $400 at the Verizon store"!

I have AT&T. I lost my new phone after having it less than a month! I was so mad at myself. I'm pretty sure I know where I lost it, but of course, someone else more than likely picked it up before I got back to check. I did not have insurance. DH does, since he is hard on phones - but I certainly have insurance on the replacement, LOL! Anyway, my contract would not allow for a new phone for free (or greatly reduced price) until this coming October, no exceptions. So I got a less expensive (translated nicer/user friendly) phone than I wanted for now and will get the one I want in October. Yes, AT&T sells refurbished phones, but the irony is that the phone I had sold new for $160 and the refurbished one sold for - get this - $160! For real.