about gas prices!  Don’t get me wrong, I am over joyed with the recent decline in the price at the pump!  But here is my rant, why haven’t we lost the “fuel surcharge” that many companies implemented when the  gas prices were so high?  I really don’t understand.

Our garbage company issued a “fuel surcharge” a few months back.  I totally understood the reasoning even though I did not like it much, but now that gas is at a super low, why do I still have to pay the surcharge?  I just don’t get it. 

If they truly need to raise their prices, then just say it.  UGH!

Again, we are traveling for the holidays, and we bought our airline tickets back in September and were charged a good lil chunk for fuel, yet I am sure we will not see a “refund” for our charges. 

Oh well, I suppose I don’t make the rules, I just have to follow them.

Even better then youtube, check this out! 

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Nov 11, 2008 4:10 PM EST
By JESSICA MINTZ AP Technology Writer
SEATTLE 

The U.S. military, with help from Seattle startup Delve Networks, has launched a video-sharing Web site for troops, their families and supporters, a year and a half after restricting access to YouTube and other video sites.

TroopTube, as the new site is called, lets people register as members of one of the branches of the armed forces, family, civilian Defense Department employees or supporters. Members can upload personal videos from anywhere with an Internet connection, but a Pentagon employee screens each for taste, copyright violations and national security issues.

Part of Delve’s work was to build speedy tools for approving and sorting incoming videos. Its technology also crunches video files into several sizes and automatically plays the one that best suits viewers’ Internet connection speeds.

But the startup’s real forte is making sure searches on the site turn up the best video results. Delve’s system turns a video’s sound into a text transcript. It pares unimportant words like “this” and “that,” then compares what’s left against a massive database of words commonly uttered in proximity to each other, collected from crawling hundreds of millions of Web pages.

The result: Even if speech recognition software trips on the one word someone is searching for, there’s a good chance Delve can still deliver relevant results.

In May 2007, the Defense Department banned employees and soldiers from accessing sites including YouTube and MySpace, citing security and bandwidth issues. Delve Chief Executive Alex Castro called TroopTube a “retention tool” aimed at a generation of soldiers who bring laptops to the front lines.

“A lot of people are excited in the company to be doing something for the people who make sacrifices,” said Castro, his eyes tearing. “We’re proud of this.”

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Until We Blog Again…

P.S.  Here is a fan-tab-u-lous link to check out:  promotional pens.  I think I might want to buy some of these to promote the new site that I am working on…Stay tuned for more details. 

WoW!

I am sitting here in AWE with a tear in my eye!

It was just announced that Barack Obama is the President-elect of the United States of America!  What a day in the history books! 

I am off to watch more of this historical event! 

Until We Blog Again…