Comparison Between Two Stores

A decision that I am very frequently encountered with would have to be what sporting goods store to go to. I am a very big hunter, fisher, and overall outdoorsman so I frequent a variety of these stores. Some of the main ones that are around town are the Sportsman's Warehouse, Gander Mountain, and obviously Scheels. I often half to choose between these stores and I do take quite a bit of time in making my decisions. Some stores would offer a case of shotgun shells for 75 dollars when the other could be selling it for a 100 dollars. I'll use Scheels and Sportsman's Warehouse as the examples for this purpose. Obviously I think most people have either seen or been in the new Scheels. Now on the other hand, some people might not have even heard of the Sportman's Warehouse. I like going to the smaller stores because I feel like all the big businesses are kind of ruining things for them. It seems tougher for them to make it with competition like Scheels. Now I'm not saying I won't go and buy items from Scheels, but for the most part I usually shop at the Sportsman's Warehouse for all my outdoor needs. They seem to have the same quality of products as well as customer service. This customer service is also very important to me because if I'm not treated good or have a bad experience at the store, I probably won't go back any time soon. The prices of these stores are pretty similar, but the decisions that require more extensive searching are for those higher priced items. I tend to go from store to store, and then back to the original store when I'm making a big purchase, like a gun, or a hunting blind. Overall, I think these smaller businesses are going to have a tough time competing with the big ones, but hopefully with my support they can survive!

Comparing Stores

When I shop for anything electronic I will usually start out the hunt with Best Buy. I also like to check similar products at Radio Shack. I check to see if the similar products are of same quality, then if they are I will check prices to make sure that I'm not getting a bad deal. In a comparison the Acer 22" monitor at Radio Shack is $339.99 with similar options of the Westinghouse 22" monitor at Best Buy, but Best Buy has their monitor for only $259.99.
In any situation though I tend to buy from Best Buy for electronics. This could be in part from my parents shopping there for most of their electronics. I feel there products are tried and true, there is no worry of if they will break or quit working any time soon. All of the electronics that I have bought from them have lasted longer than they were expected too. The customer support of Best Buy is far surpassing any other electronic stores that I have been around here.
My choice for choosing one store over the other may not always be a logical decision. Radio Shack could have the product that I want for a cheaper price but I would most likely still buy from Best Buy. Mainly because i believe that Best Buy is a better store overall. It has everything I need for electronics and has quality name brands that are widely trusted.

Vacation

My son and I are planning on taking a vacation over Thanksgiving and we had two main choices, California or Texas. I wanted to go somewhere warm that was for sure since I can not stand winter. When deciding where to go I had to not only think about what I wanted to go and what I wanted to do, but I also had to keep in mind what my son would want to do and enjoy.
I thought about going to San Diego because it has an amazing beach and a huge zoo. I would love nothing more to be on the beach in November but I thought maybe this wasn't the best vacation place to take my 3 year old son. He loves to run around and is all boy so this made me worry about what might happen on the beach. I would be too worried about him drowning that I wouldn't fully get to enjoy my vacation. Also we would have to rent a car and find a place to stay and that would take away money we could use for other entertainment.
The other option we had was to go to Texas and visit family. At this time I figured it would be a better choice because we had family that lived there that could give us a place to stay and drive us around and that would give us an opportunity to spend money on other entertainment. They also know what kind of entertainment we would enjoy and where everything is located which would help out alot. Also, my family hasn't met my son yet so this would be a good opportunity for this before he gets too old and they don't get to see him as a young child.
All in all I would much rather have gone to San Diego and enjoyed the beach but I can put that off for another vacation either without my son or when he is older and won't be such a hassle to bring along.

vacation

BLOG UNIT 4

When my husband and I were thinking about where we would like to go on our honey moon a lot of places came into mind. We definitely agreed on one thin, we wanted to go somewhere warm. Also we wanted to make sure that we would be able to visit an ocean since my husband has never seen one. At the end of our search we rounded it down to two options. The first one was going to Hawaii. Our second option was going on a cruise to the Bahamas. We had a really hard time deciding which one to choose so we sat down and discussed what both trips have to offer. First off both places had a lot of similarities in the things that we were looking for in our vacation. Number one was that both were in a warm place and on both options we would be enjoying the view of the ocean. If we decided to go with the cruise we would be visiting a lot of different islands instead of just one. Also the cruise was all inclusive, which was kind of nice. On the other hand if we went to Hawaii we would e seeing a lot more of the beach instead of being stuck on the ship. We always wanted to visit Hawaii because we have been hearing wonderful things about the islands form friends and family. At the end we looked at all the similarities and all the differences of both vacations and came up with a solution. The main attribute that helped us decide was the reason that Hawaii islands had a smaller chance of having a hurricane than the Bahamas. We were traveling during the hurricane season so we had to weigh our options. Our trip to Hawaii was amazing. Making the list totally helped us put everything in perspective. When I look at this units material we could have used a comparison chart to help us make our decision.

Email

I really don't use email that much for sending things to other people, its usually me receiving things from other people or businesses. Email is less informal then an actual letter, and therefore people tend to forget proper grammar, spelling, and above all, abbreviating things that in normal society would be spelled out properly. Of course, its hard to keep any correspondence with anyone as most email inboxes now a days are flooded with spam and other worthless junk.

When dealing with writing, I don't think anything has harmed the American public's ability to write properly more then Instant Messaging. The abbreviations, the net speak, the emoticons, they have all slowly made their way into other places in our culture. School age kids are especially susceptible to this as this is where they do the majority of their writing early in life and fall into the bad habit.

I personally have realized how bad I have gotten and have slowly been working on getting back to proper writing, however it is a long process that will take a lot of work.

"Pay attention to the world around you"

Some ideas I got throughout the week dealing with this subject matter dealt with student loans and financial aid, as I have been working with that, and credit card debt which is suprisingly mention by a lot of individuals. It is interesting how I could take almost anything I heard, read or saw and make that into an essay.

Different topics...

"Is there anything more frustrating than student loans?" and "Since I had my identity stolen I will never be the same."

I recently dealt with this so called "easy process," of student loans and I have learned it is anything but easy. I started out by first, applying for my loan. This actually was fairly easy but its that steps that follow that really get you. They need to call and clarify and all that, for me this takes longer than most. I had my identity stolen last year so for the next 7 years I have what they call "fraud alert" applied to everything in my name. I am not so sure that this a blessing or a curse? For the loan process, I spent countless hours dealing with the application process alone. Then I get a call stating that they were unable to access my credit information. So, there I was on the phone yet again answering question after question, (which all should have been answered by someone I dont even know at the Credit Bureau, but that would be too easy!) On top of all the countless hours on the phone, they needed me to send in pages upon pages of things to varify the information on the initial application. Contrary the statement, "it's so easy, apply and be approved in just 5 minutes," it's not true!

Another thing about identity theft, if I go shopping and apply for a credit card, you know that ones that "save you 15% if you apply today," I get a call the minute they put the information into their system or they call the store itself. They call, asking more questions, to varify that it is really me asking me for keywords and passwords and where I am at?
- Note to self - Do not leave you car doors unlocked with valuables still inside, even if it's only for 3 minutes. It happens that fast!

While still on the subject of vehicles I will move on to my 3rd and last point. Life would be easier if only... everyone would wear there seatbelts. I am not only saying this because I am the Daughter of a Police Officer, it is also because I am also the daugther of a nurse. Hearing the many stories of both my mother and father, I do not understand why anyone would go without wearing a seatbelt! I do not want to wear out an old saying but, "seatbelts do save lives." It amazes me that something that takes no more than 5 seconds to fasten and can save your life is not even noticed! Think of it as a life line... in essence it is! Please buckle up. Do not do it for me, not to avoid a ticket from the police, and not just for the nurses in the emergency room who dread hearing that another person has not made it due to no seatbelt. Rather, do it for you. You owe it to yourself! You might spend 5 seconds each time you get in your car, but it could save you your life...

email

Email helps us stay connected to the people we know. I use the email for many different purposes. Some of them are just to chat to my long distance friends; some are to stay in touch with my teachers; some are to pass on information to my coworkers and so on. The other day I sent an email to one of my friends that lives in Florida. The purpose of that email was to let her know how I was doing and also to find out how everything was with her. I could have sent her a letter but email lets me get in touch with her much faster. I tend to write more freely when I’m talking to friends. I don’t always watch for spelling or grammar mistakes. My whole email to a friend will look like a one big paragraph. That all changes when I’m trying to email my teachers or my boss because then I try to follow all the right rules of writing. Instant messaging most definitely hinders my academic writing. A text on my phone would look something like this “Hi when r u gtn of wrk?” as all of you can see I don’t even bother spelling out my words. A big part of my writing is done on the phone or over the email. If I don’t practice the right grammar skills over my phone or email sooner or later it’s going to have an effect on my writing skills in life

Paying Attention to the World Around Me

This week I was pulling on to interstate and noticed ahead of me a semi truck had to slam on their brakes because of someone else in a little car had pulled out in front of him. This made me think, why are people in such a rush that they would be their lives at stake to get one car ahead on the road. I think road rage would be a good topic to write about.
Another topic I ran across was a Buffalo Bills football player had got hit by another player in the helmet that caused him to be temporarily paralyzed. Should football players be required to wear neck braces of some sort.
In the Fargo Forum I found an article about helmet laws that are being proposed. Is it right for the law to enforce the use of helmets? I believe that people should be able to decide if they do or do not want to wear a helmet.