Free and Reliable Wake Up Call

This past weekend, I booked myself a flight for 9am Sunday morning. I didn't realize it was going to be daylight savings time starting that day. So I was losing an hour. Ugh. 9am flight. At least I live close to the airport.

I was worried about being awakened by my smart phone, because I didn't know if the clock would reset in time. So this time I used Snoozester.com.

Snoozester is free and it works. I signed up online, entered my cell phone number and my time zone and told them when I wished to be awakened.

I got a call at 6:30 (which was really 5:30 in the standard time I was used to), followed by an ad. Funny, I don't remember at all what the ad was for. I was ASLEEP!

Note to self: don't buy ad space on Snoozester.

Music Playlists For Kids

You know when you're in the car with your kids and you can't agree on the music? Yeah.

We all have good intentions. We know what music our children like, more or less. So for the little ones, I put "their" songs on the MP3 player. And when we're in the car with me, they complain.

Here's my solution: even though I could make the playlist in about ten minutes flat, when I do it with my kids, we're able to sample new songs (to see if they are agreeable) and then they feel like they have created something. It's totally worth the time invested on the front end.

We use Rhapsody, which is a music subscription service. This means that I don't own the music, but I have access to over (something like) 5 million songs. It's plenty. They even have story-teller tracks -- a favorite is Mark Binder.

It's like I always say: do the heavy lifting up front and cruise later. (theoretically)

Low Tech Fixes for High Tech Problems

From reviving cell phones to credit cards to hard drives, this New York Times article is chock a block full of interesting fixes. I can't let this go by without a shout out... Check it out here.