ShieldSafe offers free identity protection service

Last night when I was watching "Money Talks" during the local news, Stacy Johnson mentioned a website http://www.shieldsafe.com/ that offers free fraud alerts to anyone. Stacy pointed out that this website is the one used by all of those services like Lifelock that offer to protect you from identify theft. But he said don't waste $10 per month with those services, just sign yourself up for free.

So I went online and checked it out and he was absolutely right! It's sort of like signing up for the do-not-call list. Apparently, as part of some government regulations that were passed to control credit reporting, everyone is entitled to request a fraud alert on their account at no cost. The fraud alert expires in 90 days and must be rerequested but the ShieldSafe service sends you a convenient reminder email every 90 days with a quick link to the fraud alert renewal form. They also send a quick link to request a free credit report every year that you are also entitled to by law. I enrolled then, as an extra precaution, set up a reminder in my email to watch for the email coming from ShieldSafe every 90 days just in case my spam filter snags the reminder email from Shieldsafe.

CSI: The Experience Looks like Fun!!

Wow, it looks like the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas has booked a great interactive guest activity, CSI: The Experience. I thought my trip to Las Vegas last September to attend Photoshop World would be may last for quite a while since I was bummed out about the closure of Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton and the de-Egyptification of the Luxor Hotel. But I may need to reconsider.

Test your inner crime-solver at the blockbuster new attraction at MGM Grand Las Vegas, CSI: The Experience!

Survey the crime scene, gather the evidence, solve the case! This dynamic interactive experience offers visitors a hands-on challenge to solve a hypothetical crime: 3 murders, 15 lab stations, 15 suspects, 3 killers.

Guided by videos featuring cast members from the hit TV show, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, alongside real-life forensic scientists, you’ll be the latest recruit to the world of forensic science. Examine bullet casings, match DNA to potential suspects, identify the source of a single strand of hair as you complete the investigation process. Includes state-of-the-art forensic equipment and displays. Recommended for ages 12 through adult.

“CSI: The Experience was the fruit of a truly unusual partnership,” says Charlie Walter, the Fort Worth Museum of Science and Industry’s chief operating officer. “Our partners included the Science Museum Exhibit Collaborative, media giant CBS and the National Science Foundation, which provided $2.4 million in funding for both the exhibit and a ‘CSI’ ‘Web Adventure’ targeted to underserved youth.

I see it will be in Philadelphia in October 2011. If I don't get a chance to get to Vegas to see it maybe I can go to the presentation in Philadelphia with my grandson! (If a fifteen-year-old doesn't mind being seen in public with his grandma!)

Beatlemania Show creates treasured memory

As a child of the 60s I was raised during the years when the Beatles soared to stardom and I collected all of their albums until they drifted into the drug culture in the late 60s and embarked on their "mystical" journey with the Maharishi Yogi.

However, as much as I loved their music, I never had the opportunity to see them live, in concert. I was raised in a little logging and fishing community on the southern Oregon coast (Bandon) and there were no casinos outside the state of Nevada then and no real concert venues anywhere close by. I didn't even get a chance to watch the Beatles perform on the Ed Sullivan Show because we could only get one channel on the television set in our little town and the Ed Sullivan Show was not on it.

Of course I went to the movies and saw "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help" but never had a chance to taste the sheer exhilaration and magic that only a live performance can bring. So, when I saw an ad in the paper all these years later for a "Beatlemania" concert starring the original Broadway performers I mentioned it hopefully to my husband. He sort of grunted but didn't say anything more about it until the day before the concert was to take place. Then, when I had reconciled myself to missing my last chance to see "sort of" the Beatles in concert, he pipes up and says, "Well aren't we going to Florence to see that concert?"

I could hardly believe it - I thought he wasn't listening and really wasn't interested since he was slogging through the rice paddies in Vietnam during that time of his life and the only Beatles song he and his hooch mates had was an old 45 of Yellow Submarine that he says got played over and over again.

So, I threw some necessities into a suitcase and away we went. I wasn't going to give him a chance to change his mind!

As it turns out, Joe was more than just a little anxious to go to the concert himself although a Vietnam Vet with PTSD does not usually let on when he is more than casually interested in something. He insisted that we get there early so we ended up in Florence just before lunch. We decided to go down to the waterfront and have chowder and seafood at our usual place, Mo's. When we got there we found there was a custom car show set up along the street so we got an early taste of nostalgia as we walked among the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s hotrods with peach paint jobs, chromed engines, and lavish tuck-and-roll interiors.

The lady at the cashier's desk of the Three Rivers Casino cautioned me that if I wanted a good seat at the Beatlemania show, we'd better show up about an hour and a half before hand. I thought my husband might object since he doesn't like standing in line for anything but he seemed willing to do whatever was necessary to ensure the best experience. Fortunately, they let us in after only thirty minutes so we sat and listened to a mix of 60s music from such artists as The Monkees, Hermans Hermits and The Dave Clark Five".

When the moment finally came and the stars of Beatlemania (Alan LaBoeuf as Paul McCartney, David Leon as John Lennon, Carrol Parker as Ringo Starr, and David Brighton as George Harrison - I think!) dashed on stage and struck the first few cords of "I Want To Hold Your Hand", I was instantly mesmerized and couldn't get enough as the group tripped through song after song of my old favorites. I noticed that they even used the same mannerisms as I had seen the Beatles exhibit in video clips of their performances. "Paul" stood with his knees and feet together rocking his head from side to side and "John" stood with his legs apart with one leg slightly forward and his knees bent just as I had seen the real John stand in videos I had watched.

The group divides their act into three parts that they call "Coming to America", "Psychedelia" , and "End of an Era". Of course I loved the first act the best since I knew all the songs by heart and found myself clapping and singing along. I did get a bang out of the "over the top" costumes of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" in the second act and loved how the group belted out that classic song too. They didn't even stop singing when they changed costumes. One of the group would stay on stage singing a famous solo like "Yesterday" or "Imagine" while the others hurried off stage to change into outfits appropriate for the next segment.

I looked over and even Joe was grinning although I couldn't quite get him to join in when they sang "Hey Jude!" It was like being 16 again (without all the angst!!) for a brief hour and a half. I looked around at the rest of the audience and although most of us had silver in our hair and couldn't see or hear as well as we used to we were all swaying, clapping and in some cases, wiggling and squealing (I didn't go quite THAT far!!) like those teens all those years ago on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Maybe Bread and Circuses would win over poorly informed townhall mobs

A friend recently wrote to me about her philosophy that each person creates their own "truth". I have observed this phenomenon often, especially lately listening to all the uproar over health care reform. The sad "truth" (my truth I guess) is that many of these agitated people don't bother to examine the policies they criticize and just spout rumor fed by self-serving interest groups like the pharmaceutical companies and for-profit health care services providers (and the Congressmen who collect from their lobbyists!). I have friends in the UK that have government-provided health care and they seem quite satisfied with the level of care they receive. Likewise I have talked with residents of Canada and Australia that also have government-managed health care systems and they are not dissatisfied either. My husband is a 100% service-connected disabled Vietnam veteran and receives quality care from the health care providers at the Eugene VA Clinic and the Roseburg VA Hospital. As his spouse, I am covered under ChampVA, another government-managed heath care program, and choose my own doctors and, to my knowledge, have never been refused any treatments or medication my primary care physician thought were needed. In fact, ChampVA functions very much like private health insurers like Blue Cross/Blue Shield except for prescription pharmaceuticals that I get totally free from ChampVA by using their Meds by Mail program.

The dynamics we see surfacing in this debate are the same tired "fear factor" politics of the extreme right wing conservatives that brow beat the poorly informed during the Bush administration. I noticed that in one of the news reports about a health care town hall meeting the other day, one of the ranting rabble rowsers had most attendees agreeing that they didn't want the government interfering with their health care decisions. The congressmen conducting the meeting then asked how many of those in the room were on Medicare and OVER HALF raised their hands! What??? They obviously were not even thinking about their own health care - just caught up in the emotional mob mentality of the situation. The ancient Roman emperors knew the secret to political power was to control the Roman mob so they bought the mob with free bread and handouts at entertainments that included gory spectacles to satisfy the mob's blood lust. Perhaps the Congressmen holding these meetings should break out the bread and shower the attendees with lottery tickets or something. I'm sure he/she would have them on the side of health care reform in no time, especially if they hired a couple of WWW wrestlers for the featured entertainment.

Perpetuum Jazzile - Africa (live, HQ)

Not only beautiful singing but terrific sound effects!!

United Breaks Guitars

A friend sent me a link to this video and I cracked up. I, too, have been a victim of United's outrageous so-called customer service. When I was fell in Naples, Italy in 2007 and tore both left and right rotator cuffs in my shoulders, I had to book a flight home to have the damage surgically repaired. I requested medical assistance when I booked the flight. The leg of the flight from Naples to Munich was AirItalia and I was treated with the utmost kindness. Then in Munich I transferred to a United plane for the flight across the Atlantic. When I asked for assistance with my carryon bag - and I was trussed up in a sling applied by the emergency room doctors in Naples - a snotty United stewardess told me I'd just have to try to find some other passenger to help me because she had a bad back and stalked off.

The Eagle Has Landed --Again!

When Apollo 11 launched its lunar module to make the first landing on the moon back in 1969, I had just had a newlywed tiff with my husband and had stalked outside to cool off. We were visiting his grandparents and his grandmother called to me and urged me to come back inside to see Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. Being young and hot-headed I stubbornly refused. I have regretted it ever since.

Now, today, 40 years after that historic touchdown, I got to relive the moment thanks to a wonderful website called "We Choose the Moon" that virtually recreated the experience. A new friend I met on the web just a couple of weeks ago happened to send me the link and I checked it out earlier but was several days away from the actual landing. Today, I'd been in town all day running errands and had just sat down and picked up the paper and saw a short blurb on the front page about how 40 years ago today at 1:17 p.m. PDT, the lunar module had landed on the moon. I asked my husband (yes, the same one!) what time it was and it was 1:15 p.m. so I raced back into my office, navigated to the website and downloaded the graphics just in time to see the lunar module kick up the dust of the moon's surface and descend to Tranquility Base. How thrilling!! At last - I feel I really witnessed it live!

The website designers had live streaming audio of the simulated broadcast from mission control and it made it feel so real! I loved how the virtual landing was timed to coincide with the actual event at the same real time pace. Looking forward to the virtual event just as I had the real event truly heightened my anticipation. What a wonderful way to relive history!

This website is chuck full of videos, photos, and audio clips from the actual experience as well as offering widgets to track the mission on your computer, etc. As I have only marginal DSL service at 1.5 mbps, I had problems with the volume of data transfer that has to occur between the website and my workstation and kept losing my connection. But at least I saw the actual landing and listened to about 15 minutes of post-landing transmissions before I started experiencing data overload. I would love to have the opportunity to relive other historical events in this way. Can you imagine how exciting it would be to witness one of Julius Caesar's triumphs or the crowning of Thutmosis III recreated at a date corresponding to the same date in history and paced in real time?