Don’t get me wrong, I’m not “hating” the lawn roller business, or anything that will make people defensive about the practice (god knows there are PLENTY of other businesses I could harp on about to do that) – no, what I’m wondering is what is it that makes people think it’s a good idea?

The way I look at it – lawn rolling compresses the soil and the grass together.

So what? Why is this important? Well first, this means less air is getting to the soil. As Ricky would say “It doesn’t take a rocket appliance to understand this” – Obviously this is quite important as air meeting the soil is essential for good solid root growth. Secondly, water “rolls” off the lawn and down into the drain.. umm.. so less water is also getting to the roots and soil of the grass (still waiting for this to become a good thing). I can’t think of something more dumb than to roll the lawn, then fertilize it, then have it rain or something.. say goodbye to all your fertilizer! It’ll all be washed away with the rain and not get to the roots.

I’m not saying that I’m an expert in the field of lawn care, take a look at my lawn and you could figure that part out. But I do have to say that the main reason it’s not in great shape is in my lack of time to properly take care of it. I’m hoping that this year will be a great time to start the multi-year process of building a great thick turf of grass. Ironically enough in the back yard (where the beagles basically live), I have a VERY healthy lawn, with few weeds. I think the reasons for this are partly due to the natural ‘fertilizer’ which is “dropped” randomly around the yard – and the fact it gets more sun than the front of the house (along with the fact it’s not next to the street). In any case – it’s the front which I want looking great, so I’ll keep you up to date with my progress.

Dandelions

Ha, want to know some fascinating stuff about those garden pests that you want to get rid of?

Dandelions (Taraxacum officinale) are a curious plant in that humans have deliberately spread its cultivation around the world.

You see, this plant has been historically considered one of the most edible of plants in the vegetable gardens. The Celts ate it and introduced it to the Roman legions when Caesar invaded the north. Anglo Saxons and the Normans used it as a preventative for scurvy. It was a staple food and medicine (diuretic) in the monastery gardens of the middle ages. Puritan settlers brought seeds to North America as a common garden vegetable.

• Treat the young leaves of dandelions as you would spinach. It can be used fresh or stir-fried and I’m told that they taste best when grown in the shade and are blanched.
• Slice the roots and peel them; they can be eaten raw in salads or roasted/fried as part of a vegetable dish.
• The yellow blossoms can be eaten fresh, fried, mixed into breads or made into wine.
• When we were kids we discovered that eating the blossoms made our spit turn a fascinating yellow (the flowers are slightly bitter).
• Dandelion leaves can be made into a health tea and the roots dried and ground up for coffee (like chicory).
• Just to make your day, this plant is a fine source of iron, copper, potassium and half as much phosphorus as spinach and twice that of cabbages. It has the same calcium content as spinach and is an excellent source for vitamins A and C. The roots are said to be a digestive stimulant.
• And its name apparently is a corruption of the French “dent-de-lion” (lion’s tooth).
• Depending on which botanist you consult, you’ll find there’s 50 to 60 species and in almost every country of the world, it is considered a weed.
• They produce new plants by either seed (those fluffy seedheads) or by vegetative means (if the roots are broken, each bit will produce a new plant).

Read more: http://www.beginner-gardening.com/dandelions.html#ixzz0noLlEz8v

Anyone out there have some great tips and tricks for a perfect lawn? Some great products that you’d like to promote?

Long story short, I had two FREE items shipped to me from a company in the US… keep that in mind, I did not pay for these items, they were sent to me for free.

Two days ago, I received a yellow delivery notice on my door and at the bottom of the notice they had a Brokerage Amount owed to UPS in the amount of $33.52. My first thought…. you have GOT to be kidding me… not only was this item free to myself, but the shipper had already PAID for the shipment to Canada.. and now they want ME to pay for the ‘brokerage’ of getting it across the border?? If I was to pay it, why then do we pay more for International shipping?? (US to Canada is considered International).

Ok, that’s not the truly ridiculous part however.. get this.. the VALUE written on the shipping invoice when they originally sent the package was $50…. sooo, doing the quick math here… UPS wants to charge me a 68% TAX for taking it across the border!!!! But wait.. it gets better!!

So I called and didn’t get upset, but advised the agent whom was quite nice as to the problem I have with this, to which he replied that “smaller items generally do have larger brokerage fees” (again.. making no sense to me, but whatever).. so I told him that I’m not going to be accepting it, and that they can ship it back to the original sender.. I said “I hope it costs them $100 to do it too, bunch of crooks”.. Anyhow, he told me that it would likely be an ‘abandoned shipment’ and not returned to the sender!!! To which I then replied.. “So, let me get this straight.. since I don’t want to pay the almost 70% tax you are charging to deliver it, you aren’t going to deliver them item to anyone?”…. “yep”.. I then laughed at him.

He then offered to transfer me to an agent in the brokerage in hopes that I could likely get the brokerage amount reduced, I laughed again.. I said.. “I am not paying YOU for something I didn’t even have to pay for in the first place – didn’t they already pay for the shipping??”.. he apologized and we hung up, quite civil actually.

So in summary.. UPS employees at the brokerage or some big warehouse are getting extremely rich and obtaining an extremely large amount of goods that people are refusing to pay the outrageous brokerage fees for. What a SCAM! Good for the investors I’m sure though.. hell, maybe they’ll end up on Ebay and they’ll turn a big profit from all the items that don’t belong to them.

I’m still in disbelief….

Personally I think it’s hard to judge what is the ‘real story’ of the Olympics due to the fact that everyone is interested in different things – I can tell you that I personally got very caught up with the hockey of course, and the ski/snowboarding cross (very exciting to watch!), and Joannie Rochettes’ skating to a medal.. all of those things still give me goosebumps when I think about it.

The article mentioned that during one very large game vs Britain – the crowd in Vancouver actually just randomly started singing Oh Canada! How awesomely cool is that???

A quick youtube.com search later.. here’s your video folks J Happy St. Patricks Day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDn28RwwfhQ

In a time when flag waving and patriotism is at its peak with all the Olympic coverage going on.. remember that it’s all in fun, in sport, in game.. and when it comes down to push and shove – we’ve got each others back.

Me being one of them.

While looking up information on the packages and such, I decided that I’d go to my local online classifieds to see if anyone was selling any online… this is when I came across the following ad:

Charlottetown UsedPEI Ad

The email came from someone called Roza and the email was (rozaazura@gmail.com)

Hi,

Have only black available right now.We offer local pickup in Chambly (about a hour away from Montreal) and shipping. You can pay cash with local pickup (there is a atm machine around the corner from me) and with shipping we use interac email transfer. Everybody in canada can do it as long as you have online banking. Please let me know something a.s.a.p because have about 35 mails to answer and only 3 phones left.  O and shipping is standard delivery, express would be between 5-8$ extra depending from where you are.

Best Regards, Roza

Immediately I thought this was a scam, but a clever one. They know that I’m from PEI and not local, so they offer local pickup knowing that I’m not going to take advantage of it. So I emailed back asking how I knew he or she was legit, I noticed that when I did a lookup on their email address (quick google search), it came up as Charlottetown, PE.. I didn’t think the search was accurate, however wanted to play dumb.

Odd, it appears your email address is from Ch’town, PE..

How do I know you’re legit?

And recieved another reply quickly:

Hi Len,

China, no way? I’m from Chambly, is about a hour away from Montreal. The phones i get are also not from china get them from a guy in Vancouver. Sold over 30 phones the last 2 weeks. And about payment i asked for interac you can only use this within Canada, outside from this i listed very clear in the ad I DO NOT SHIP OUTSIDE CANADA. No way how i can proof to you that i’m legit, could do 50% upfront and 50% after delivery? Risk for me to because i only make 55$ profit on every phone.

Best,

Roza

Now I’m starting to really think they are a scam, so I sent the following email back to them:

Umm.. Charlottetown, PE.. as in Prince Edward Island.. Canada?

How about a few pictures of you and your stock? Facebook pages? Web sites? And realize that the 1/2 and 1/2 deal doesn’t exactly set my mind at ease.

How about the supply company? Or name? I don’t know.. anything other than your word which, not to be rude.. but on the internet doesn’t mean anything.

Thanks,

Len

PS: What about paypal? At least it offers buyer protection..

To which they finally replied:

Hi,

Just leave it have 35 emails even local but offer between 500 and 525, With shipping it doesn’t really matter anyways. Will sell local.

Best,

Roza

I didn’t get any response from them again.. but I did send the following to them:

You say you’re a commercial seller but have no information to pass on?

Good luck with your scamming.

Now I was going to just leave it at that, and I did report the ad to the UsedPei ‘report this’ feature they supply at the bottom of every listing, however I wanted to see if they listed in Montreal.. and guess what? They do, I found the ad on UsedMontreal and decided that I’d use another email address of mine to write and see what they said as in this ad they have it listed they have references.

UsedMontreal Ad

Hi there.
Interested in the iphone 3gs.
Can you pass on the refences you speak of?
What is your address for pickup?
Nervous about buying something online. Do you accept Paypal?
Is $550 the best price you can give?

To which I recieved the following:

Hi,

No paypal, is good for buyers but no seller protection. Cost me 1200 in the last 10 months. The references yes sure, will give you 2 from people that got there phone this week or last week. Check up on me make a lots of $ on the side but a honest business.

Best,

Jonas

Robert Sieter

montrea1@aol.com

Roza.azura

Roza.azura@gmail.com

You can see the last ‘reference’ they list eh? The same person that emailed me the first time!! I’ve reported both ads, however as of this writing they are still online.

I will hand it to them though, the scam is a good one.. considering that there is likely plenty of people whom are looking for new iPhones both for Christmas and due to the new Bell/Telus HSPA network, so the market is there. The Interac Online is an immediate payment processor and would put money immediately into one of their bank accounts without every revealing whom it was sent to.. all they’d have to do is run down to the bank machine and they’d have their money… so the funding gateway is there, and their ads are good… they offer things that don’t exist.. and use each other as references.

I just sincerely hope and pray no one sends money to these crooks.

Here’s the latest chart chart from yesterday I have with the latest price and you can see that 1 Canadian Dollar will buy you 0.946 of a USD right now. That’s pretty good.. but I think it’s only starting.. (As of this morning October 9th.. it’s at $0.955)

One of my favorite bloggers Tim Knight at www.slopeofhope.com also thinks that we are in for one good push up, then the equities are going to reverse quite hard (stocks/funds, etc). You can see where he’s calling for this type of movement here and here.

I’m with him.. very cautiously waiting.. I’ve been playing oil like a madman lately.. and I’m thinking it’s due for a reversal back to the 50′s level again.. we’ll see what happens. *Update - I wrote this blog article 2 days ago.. and yesterday was a pretty big push upwards again.. one has to wonder when it’s going to correct a bit.. everyone is calling for it.. perhaps that means is may not happen? Yeah, I don’t think so either.

The Chicago Tribune says that when 17-year-old Brianna Rice was diagnosed with celiac disease in February — she had insurance. Her insurance company, however, has rescinded that coverage because her parents allegdly lied on her application — by neglecting to mention her troubling medical history of dizziness, elevated cholesterol levels, ongoing fatigue and a persistent cough.

The girl’s father says that these symptoms were cherry-picked from various doctor visits.

Dale Rice said the insurance company cherry-picked from various doctors’ visits, and that none of his daughter’s health problems were ongoing. He attributed the dizziness to dehydration, the fatigue to his daughter staying up late surfing the Web, the elevated cholesterol to an inaccurate test, and said the cough is now gone.

The rescission has left the family with over $20,000 in unpaid medical bills racked up when they thought they had coverage. The next step for them is bankruptcy.

We are livid,” said Dale Rice, who, along with his wife, is out of work. “When a private insurer gets legitimate claims and seeks to find excuses not to pay them, they are clearly demonstrating morally and ethically bankrupt behavior.”

The company, American Community Mutual Insurance, (advertising slogan:”People who care. Policies that protect”) disagrees.

“The coverage you applied for would not have been issued for Brianna if we had known this medical history at the time of application,” said a letter announcing the rescission. The insurance company is within the law, and the practice of rescinding coverage on individuals who were obviously not intentionally attempting to defraud the company by leaving out relevant medical history is standard, if sleazy.

Firm cancels health insurance coverage for girl, 17, after celiac disease diagnosis [Chicago Tribune]