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My eyes are forever on housing information in the Tampa Bay area. Now that I’m divorced and starting a new career as a teacher, my next project is to build a new home for me and my daughter. I’ve looked at a lot of builders. You should see my bookmark list. It’s often confusing and I’ve been looking for one site where I can find all of the information I need all in one place.

The South West Florida New Homes website is absolutely my cup a tea, a possible Godsend, even. It very specifically focuses on home builders from Tampa to down along the southwest Florida coast into Naples. This is a huge boon to my efforts, because I am forever pulling over on the side of some road at the last minute to write down a phone number or a website when I see a builder’s sign. I’ve narrowly missed numerous accidents!

On the website, I was able to look at a map of the region and then mouse over various builders to see when on the map they are currently building. Once you find a builder you want further investigate, you come to a page where you can contact them, view model information, pricing information, floor plans and builder details.

Tomorrow there is a huge arts festival in our neighborhood. The artists are setting up their booths and tents tonight. Food vendors are parking their vehicles and all kinds of musicians are out at Town Hall getting warmed up and ready to go. We’re excited! This is all happening just about three houses down from us. I can’t think of a time I was able to attend a really great arts festival and not have to either pay for parking, ride a bus from a remote lot, or leave because I cannot find parking at all. This time around all I have to do is get up out of bed, drag a comb through my hair, and step out of my front door. Yay!

I do a lot of my shopping online for a variety of reasons. I like the convenience of buying while in the comfort of my office chair. I like that many of the websites through which I buy do not charge me sales tax. I like that by purchasing online I can compare prices at a dozen stores in a fraction of the time it would take me to shop around locally for any given item. I’m back in school fulltime and raising a child and running my household. So, saving time and money is important to me.

Speaking of being in school, have you seen the website Extrabux.com? It’s a free
Cash-Back website and most importantly, it’s run by students. You might say I have a whole new respect for students who are innovative enough to find a way to earn money while they are in school. When I went to school as an undergrad, by dad paid my way and I never had to think about money. It’s different for me this time.

All you have to do is sign up and remember to do all your online shopping via their links. They earn money through commissions and they pass along the cash to you, the shopper. You can take the cash or opt to donate your earning to a charity.

Choose from over 600 stores on Extrabux.com and don’t forget to use their coupons to find deals and bargains. They will send you a check or, if you don’t want to wait on the money, they will deposit your cash back earnings directly into your PayPal account.

He doesn’t know it, no any self respecting institution give him a certificate to prove it, but Mr. Fabulous is a statistician to envy. He may have his own dismissive view of numbers and hasn’t changed the battery in his calculator is 18 years. But that doesn’t matter, because when it comes counting on his fingers, ther’s no better man for the job. Take a look at his missive on how Florida bloggers are out to rule the world, or at least the net.

I love a good mascot. A really good mascot. The kind of mascot you remember long after you first set eyes on the character; a persona that not only draws an association for you, but also triggers nostalgia and good humor.

Backgammon Masters has introduced their own backgammon playing mascot to promote and establish their skill game software in the online game market. So, say hello to Jean-Claude the animated tiger. They’ve brought him to life in a five-part animation series called ‘Life According to Jean-Claude’. He’s suave, he’s clever and he is has a very cute French accent. Plus, he’s a whiz at backgammon and has a keen fashion sense (even though that fashion sense is stuck solidly in the 1970s).

The idea is generate a lot of buzz about Jean-Claude, and in turn generate buzz for BackgammonMasters. Jean-Claude is a viral internet phenomenon. His clips can be forwarded in e-mails and marketing buzz that only characters like Jean-Claude is capable of generating. There’s just something infectious about the combination of traits assigned to Jean-Claude. The bell bottoms, the accent, the flippant self esteem, the street smart grin and his big gold chains. He’s like the Energizer Bunny or the Snuggle Bear. You just take to Jean-Claude.

If you want to check out the first in the video series, take a look at the BackgammonMasters website.

I had to paint my front steps. This was mandated by my HOA. I finished most of the job Tuesday afternoon when the weather was sunny and cool, without a wind to blow bits of leaves into my handiwork. I left a narrow strip down the right-hand side of the steps so I could leave for class that evening and I left them to dry. Today I finally found some time to paint the remaining strip. The weather was cool, the almost-evening light bright yet not hot, and again the breeze had died down.

I painted the strip, put away all of my brushes and paint and went inside. I suppose the stairs would need an hour to dry nicely. At least. Not 10 minutes later I heard the telltale sound of an absolutely unforcasted downpour of rain. Rain!

That’s me and my timing.

You might think that because I live all of an hour from Orlando and all its great attractions like the Disney theme parks, Universal Studios, and all the themed dinner shows that I don’t vacation in Orlando. You’d be wrong. What could be better than eliminating the drive time, but still getting away to another city and losing yourself in all the family attractions Orlando offers?

And, along those lines, it may only take us 20 minutes to pull into the parking lot at Busch Gardens in Tampa, but that hasn’t taken any of the excitement away from going there often. My daughter and I are pretty much regulars there.

And while all of this might sound like a dream come true, I still have to watch my budget when it comes to attraction ticket. They can add up and prices seem to increase annually. That’s why I make sure I keep on top of the specials and discount tickets available on sites like Theme-Park-Tickets.net, because there is absolutely no reason to pay gate prices when you can buy from this trusted, local ticket provider. Rest assured you’re not buying from some massive reseller located on the other side of the world. Theme-Park-Tickets.net is located right in Kissimmee.

Plus, their prices INCLUDE tax, so what you see is what you pay with no hidden fees or catches. They guarantee the best value of any local ticket agent. I’m particularly impressed with their price for the Arabian Nights dinner show. They can hook you up for less than half of the regular price.

And while I’m sure you’ve heard horror stories about unscrupulous ticket sellers in the area, all of their tickets are purchased under contract directly from the attractions with a guarantee to be new and unused, backed by a 22 year track record.

There’s a new website on the horizon and if you’ve ever wanted a place to vent about your cell phone or wireless carrier, this is the site for you. Cell Rants is launching on May 1, 2007. Click on over and bookmark it now so you don’t forget to go back and add your rant.

And this isn’t just a place for cell phone users to rant. You can come and rant about a rude cell user you’ve encountered. You know the ones — talking too loud in a room full of people who could care less what they are saying about their business meeting or what they found in their baby’s diaper. And how about you CSRs? Have a rude customer you want to rant about. Have at it.

Why do I love Six Neat Things? Because there is always something to chew on that is, indeed, neat. I’m adding a plugin to nix the automatic NoFollow tag on comments and would not have thought about it, if not for Friday’s Neat Thing. :)

I moderate comments, simply because spammers are relentless and I don’t want their garbage on my blog. So, only the good stuff makes it through. Now if you comment on my blog, links you leave will count in various rankings. How cool neat is that?

I like specialized search engines. It helps narrow the results when you know the field you want to be in. Masterseek is a business search engine where you can look at company profiles, products, news, management and websites for over 45 million companies in 75 countries.

To get a feel for what the search engine has to offer, I did a basic search for “hair bows”. I know it is not the kind of search term most people will be looking for in a business situation, but my interest lies in finding products for a small boutique business. Where do I go to find hair bow manufacturers? I found 22 matches. One of the companies is right over in Winter Park. I’d say that’s about as useful a tidbit as I might need. It saved me from wading through thousands of useless links on a typical search engine.

A cold front in April! Maybe not such a foreign concept to many of you. But, this is Florida. And not north Florida, but west-central. By now, we have usually bopped right past spring and into summer. I can imagine how my spring breakers out there are trying to swim in the water. Too cold for that.

I dressed my daughter in long pants and long sleeves, then we stepped outside and I realized we needed a jacket, too. I’m actually enjoying it, since it means I can put off using the a/c a little bit longer.

With the fast paced changes of the internet has come a whole new way to earn money. Online revenue is supporting a whole generation of web savvy individuals. The latest trend in online marketing is making sure your site is well linked on blogs and other websites. Advertisers are approaching bloggers with offers of compensation for anything from a simple link to product reviews to endorsements. One of the newest companies on that front is Bloggerwave. They connect advertisers with bloggers on high-ranking blogs to help get the word out about companies, products, and services. It’s word of mouth advertising at its absolute finest.

Ann’s got a new blog and it’s making me hungry. She’s blogging all about food and kitchen-ness. The problem for me right now is that I have not eaten today and she’s got the most wonderful, detailed entries about hearty meals and particular recipes. She writes about everything from cooking rice properly to her favorite peanut butter cookies.

I really need to go fix lunch!

I think I have a salt habit. Seriously. I’m not just being ironic, though I can see how it may sound that way. I have always liked my salt, but lately I’ve been compulsively craving salty snacks and chinese food and other foods that are only serving to make me retain water and have higher blood pressure. Right now I feel like I could drink a pool full of water and I know it’s absolutely my own fault for eat all those Honey BBQ Fritos. Ick. If I could go back in time, right?

Anyone ever hear of a particular condition that causes such salt cravings?

Since I am in the middle of making a career change from graphic design to teaching, I was quite interested in Money Magazine’s article about second careers. They named the top 20 careers they think are good for career switchers, but teaching was not on the list. All of the jobs they listed would pretty much take going back to college. Does anyone really have the time or money for school once they are working and paying for life in general? I’ve been fortunate that I can go to school this second time and not work full time, but money is super tight and I worry a lot. *sigh*

Here are some of the jobs they suggested:

• CPA (very specific schooling need)
• RN (again, you’re not going to walk into a hospital and apply for this job if you’ve been a sales manager for 15 years and aren’t certified)
• Brand Manager (seriously, marketing assistants wait years for a job like this, so why would it be offered to someone out of another field?)
• Nonprofit Manager (better start your own non-profit then. These are coveted positions)