LKL’s Blog

Got an invitation to join Plurk, and even though the interface seems a little strange, decided to go ahead and do it. Come visit me: LKL at Plurk

OK, I’m going to do a little free publicity for something that I couldn’t live without - my mailbox. When I moved to Costa Rica last year, I realized that I needed a permanent solution to the mail problem. While I pay all of my bills and check my bank accounts online, and I got rid of all the junk mail, there’s still always a bunch of stuff coming. The post office will only forward it to an address in the US, and I didn’t really want to ask a friend to take care of that for me, so instead I researched mailing services. The one I chose was USABox, and I couldn’t be happier. (more…)

I went to an acupuncturist last year, and it was one of the weirdest experiences of my life. My lower back was spasming (due to a bizarre sort of injury I’d apparently sustained on a zip line) and I was in agony. (I was also in Maine visiting my mother-in-law, but I don’t think that had anything to do with it.) I decided to try acupuncture, but the “recommended” guy was unavailable, so I had to pick a name out of a phone book. This person practiced out of his home, which in theory I have no problem with. However, his kids were there too, and no one was there to take care of them. So he cracked my back (which was fantastic - I wish I could have that done every day) and then stuck me with a bunch of needles, hooked me up to this electrical impulse that pounded through my body, put a heat lamp over the whole shebang, and left me to “heal.” Nothing hurt, exactly, but it was so strange that I felt uncomfortable. (The crying baby a few rooms away didn’t help a lot either.) He came back 10 minutes later with his daughter, aged 7, who asked if she could take the needles out and actually started reaching toward one. This startled me, to say the least, and my subsequent jump probably undid the good (if any) that the treatment had done, because the next day my back spasms were worse than ever. This time, though, I ended up just loading up on painkillers and moving as little as possible.

I know that this wasn’t a normal acupuncture session, but I’m still a little hesitant to try again. If my allergies don’t improve soon, I’ll reconsider.

I decided to bite the bullet and join the social networking bandwagon, starting with Twitter (LKL @ Twitter). I haven’t decided yet whether to go for a hat trick with FaceBook and MySpace.

Long before spam, junk mail was - and continues to be - a huge waste of resources. Most people just throw it away, some recycle it, and a few think it’s the height of cleverness to send it back to the company. Personally, I think the best solution is to cut it off at the source. You have to do a little bit of legwork, but the end result is virtually *no* credit card offers, flyers, and unwanted catalogs. I think it’s well worth it - maybe you do too.

Note: When you fill out one of the US Post Office’s change of address forms, they immediately sell your new address, so be sure to head to the DMA right away to get your new address removed too.

• Direct Marketing Association - Start here by letting them know you don’t want any junk and it will start to slow down
   
• ADVO - Stop getting stuff addressed to “Resident” or “Occupant”
   
• Catalog Choice - choose which catalogs you actually do want, and the rest will stop coming
   
• OPTOUT - Call 888 5 OPTOUT (888-567-8688) to tell the credit reporting agencies to stop sharing your financial info - this will cut down on the credit card offers you receive (not to mention maintain your financial privacy)

If you continue to receive garbage, look for contact information (phone, address, website) and let the company know directly that you don’t want their stuff.

I know, you’re all wondering whether I dropped off the face of the earth. No, but close: I had no internet access for a month. OK, sure, I could go to cybercafés and use a friend’s computer, but seriously, when you’re used to being able to go online at any time of the day or night, not having your own connection is a real drag. It finally got connected on Tuesday and since then I’ve been dealing with a huge backlog of email, forum posts, and the like.

So anyway, we left Costa Rica on 28 February, spent the weekend in NYC, and got to France on 4 March. Info about all that soon.

Good-bye 2007 (does anyone else notice that could read Good-bye to 007 [double oh seven]? Is this a sign of James Bond’s future?) and hello 2008. It was a good year - I spent more than half of it in Costa Rica. But this year will be even better, as I’ll spend the majority of it in France. I hope you too will have some long-cherished dreams come true.

Here’s some reading material and ideas for New Year’s Resolutions for you:

New Year’s in France
French New Year’s Resolutions
Veggie Table New Year’s Resolutions

I don’t “celebrate” Thanksgiving per se, but I certainly agree with taking a moment to be thankful. I hope that all of you have many things to be thankful for - I do.

Linked In is a networking site where you can connect to present and past colleagues and classmates in order to build your own network for professional purposes. I don’t remember when or why I joined originally, but I now have over 50 connections, and have found and been found by several old friends through it. I don’t know how useful it is for work-related networking, but for personal networking, it’s great.

It’s been ages since I blogged anything, and you’ve all probably given up on me, but now that I’m done with my book, things have settled down and I’m ready to blog again. Coming soon are more pictures of Costa Rica, details of our trip to Nicaragua, and other assorted goodies. LKL’s blog will live again!