Year: 2012

Virginia Beach Holiday Lights on the Boardwalk

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Over Thanksgiving in Williamsburg, we had an extra day to wander and decided to take a drive down to Virginia Beach, not only so I could see it, having never been there before, but also to see the Boardwalk Holiday Lights display.

Each night between November 16, 2012 to January 1, 2013, the Virginia Beach boardwalk is closed to pedestrian traffic, and you can drive your vehicle through the lights between 2nd and 34th Streets.

121124 Virginia Beach Holiday Lights Part 1

At first I was a little skeptical of how valuable the experience was going to be considering it cost $15 just to drive through. However, after spending over 45 minutes to drive through the displays, I was thoroughly impressed. The lights were plentiful and made great scenes of various themes. Now to figure out how to build some of them for our house.

121124 Virginia Beach Holiday Lights Part 2

Driving and videoing the event proved to be more of a challenge than I anticipated. First not checking my battery life, then realizing my camera only wanted to record in half hour increments. Not even to mention what the wind does to sound quality coming in from the ocean. At least the company running the Holiday Lights event gives you a Christmas music CD to listen to during the drive.

Nothing like a late November trip to the beach!

121124 Virginia Beach Holiday Lights Part 3

Happy Holidays Everyone!

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Delta Leaving Partnership with e-Miles; Time to Move the Miles Out

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e-Miles logo

As we near the end of the year, here is yet another story about needing to liquidate your miles or points so you do not lose them. I am one of the few people who tend to value the little bit of inconvenience of using the site e-Miles.com, where you can partake in some quick offers, and in return earn miles in your favorite programs. Several years ago I was invited to join e-Miles as part of the Delta Skymiles program.

So for every offer I viewed (I never even had to purchase anything) I would earn in return a minimum of 5 Delta Skymiles. I also have an account earning US Airways Dividend miles. Then for every 500 miles earned, I could convert them over into Delta or US Airways miles, 1 for 1. While I did not pay to much attention to my Delta account, and just let the miles accumulate, I did actively earn miles with the US airways program to keep a healthy stock for the US Airways Grand Slam promotion each year. However, with no promo in 2012, I have let my US Airways account grow too.

So I was surprised this week to receive the below message from e-Miles, effectively ending their partnership with Delta.

Dear Justin,

I am writing to inform you of an upcoming change to the e-Miles® program and how it will affect your membership. As of January 1, 2013, you will no longer be able to redeem e-Miles miles for Delta SkyMiles®. We are committed to providing you with the best possible experience and I am happy to share that you will now be able to redeem your miles from a rich catalog of options. If you are eligible and prefer to redeem for Delta SkyMiles, you will have until December 30, 2012 to request a deposit.

Beginning in January, you will be able to redeem your e-Miles miles for Amazon.com Gift Cards* and Restaurant.com gift cards. We will continue to add even more options in the near future that will include retail gift cards and many more exciting items. And we’re not done yet; we are also going to make it easier for you to redeem your miles.

To thank you for being a valued member of e-Miles, we are offering you a special bonus of up to 250
e-Miles miles. You can earn 150 bonus miles, 50 miles per month in the months of January, February and March, by reading and responding to at least five (5) offers each month. Upon earning the 150 mile activity bonus, you will receive an additional 100 miles for a total of 250 e-Miles miles.

To learn more, please visit this dedicated page that has been setup to explain the upcoming changes to the e-Miles program.

As the year comes to an end, I’d like to wish you a happy holiday season and a wonderful New Year from everyone at e-Miles.

Thank you.

Andrew Ellison
Executive Vice President, e-Miles, Inc.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect to me is the short time frame given to liquidate. I received my email on Friday, December 21, giving everyone just 9 days to make the transfer. Luckily, you just need to initiate the transfer prior to the deadline if you want to earn Delta Skymiles. Otherwise, you will be forced into an Amazon or Restaurant.com redemption.

I was fortunate that when I received the notice, I had 900+ miles sitting in my e-Miles account. Therefore, with partaking in a couple of free offers, I was able to bump up our balance to over 1,000 miles, allowing me to maximize my transfer.

While we do not know the reasoning that the e-Miles and Delta partnership is coming to end, it obviously must not have proven to be a profitable venture for Delta. What I hope is that other partners do not follow suit in the months ahead, as having free options to earn miles and points always has a value to the consumer in the marketplace.

So are you going to be making the transfer, or letting your e-Miles sit idle for a future better offer?

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Host Gator End of the World Sale; Now is the Time to Become a Blogger

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HostGator End of the World Sale

Ever have that burning desire to start your own blog? With today’s software interfaces, it is even easier than before. Even those with very little computer knowledge can be up and running with a live site after a couple clicks of the button. The most amazing thing is no matter what the subject, and how much you think you have nothing to talk about, there is an audience out there waiting to hear your voice.

Host Gator, which is the hosting company I use for all of my websites, is offering one of their best sales I have ever seen for today only. All day long you can register a domain name or purchase hosting for 50% off. Then, at some point today, they will bump up the offer to 75%, making domain name registration only $1.95 for the first year and hosting plans as low as $1.24 per month.

Let me say, this is honestly an incredible deal because when I purchased my 3-year shared plan about two years ago, I paid substantially more. I plan on going in and adding on an additional long-term plan today during the 75% sale.

Visitors do NOT need to insert a coupon code to receive the special. The correct coupon code will automatically be inserted on all orders placed on Friday.

The discount applies to the clients first invoice. Host Gator’s VPS and dedicated server hosting services are only available on a monthly basis, therefore the promotion will apply to the first month.

Think you have what it takes to be a blogger? Honestly, blogging has been one of the most rewarding things, from a career and hobby standpoint, that I have ever done in my life. It is liberating to be able to put words on the screen, make them look all fancy-smancy, and then have tens of thousands of people read your information each month. It is rather humbling, especially for me considering I hated reading and writing growing up, but maybe that is because I was always getting in trouble and being forced to write sentences, such as “I will not hit or spit on my sister” 100, 200, or even 500 times. My sister cherishes those moments now.

After you purchase your domain name and hosting, you can tell the interface to automatically install WordPress for you (blogging software), and from there, the world of possibilities is open to you to tell everyone about your knitting collection, or whatever suits your fancy.

If you take part in this promotion, please feel free to leave a comment below with a link to your new website, and we will help start driving traffic to that source.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

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