Window Shopper

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For those who have no clue what I’m talking about, these two sites supposedly bring together those who are looking for long lost members of usually their high school graduating class or the college graduating class. Often you get emails telling you that someone from your class is looking for you. They send out thousands of emails with that same line. In this case, both sites are wanting to match you up with your class. Both make sure you give your information before they give you theirs. What is wrong with this picture?

What they are looking for is for you to pay them to see who is looking for you. Now, if you are desperate to find someone from that class, by all means, go ahead and get the upgrade they offer….with a little caution here. Remember why they actually sent you the email in the first place.

More often than not, there will not be anyone that has tried to contact you. I am not saying that no one is looking for you but both those sites send out emails stating that someone is trying to contact YOU. That is the incentive to buy their membership. Oh, they tell you that you can be a member for free. However, any relevant information that you want on those people from your class will not be there until you pay out money to be a gold member or whatever they call it. At some point, you realize that they are not all that but you already paid your money. They will not refund it.

Warning here. When you have paid out to be a gold member, check the options on your profile page or your account page. There will be an option to do an auto pay or manual pay. Do yourself a huge favor and select manual pay. Trust me, they will bug you about your account. You do not have to fear that they will cut you off from their site. But please put in the manual option. Why? I did not do that until the last month of my membership with Classmates. I had bought a year which was okay. I did get together with a couple of old classmates but I also ran into some guy who was a total stranger to me. It’s a trolling place for people too. But since I did not take the option until the last month, apparently their software did not notice that option and charged me the whole year’s membership at a time that I really did need the money. I argued with them about it. They did see the light for me. I received my refund in about four days. That is not the case with most of the people or so I assume since I saw several forum comments concerning them.

On Reunion, I simply kept getting the messages about people looking for me. When I clicked on the message to go to the site, I found myself at a place where they expect you to sign up for the paid membership. If you do not, you cannot see who is looking for you. The fact is, it is more likely that there is no one looking at that particular time. They simply want your money.

I am not against these sites. But I am warning people against their tactics concerning money and memberships. If you like the membership, that’s great. I did see some people on the site that I used to know but it was not the big deal I thought it would be. For one thing, most people do not visit there every day. In fact, sometimes they took a week or more to answer me when I wrote them. These folks are otherwise busy. Classmates is not a high priority in their lives. Neither is Reunion which is not as popular as Classmates. In both cases, they expect you to be curious enough to sign up for the upgraded membership to find out. Now you are warned.

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Ariel’s Journey, The Ice Horse Adventures begins a new series of books written by Doug Kane and ChristyWood. While the book says that it’s for pre-teen and teens, I found it to be enchanting and fun. At my age, you would think that I could be past all the exciting stories but I love them nevertheless.There is no sex involved in this story which makes it refreshing but there are wonderful tales of love, action, adventure and time travel, perhaps more adventure than the girls really wanted.

The journey begins amid extremely high emotions coming from two of the girls who have been at odds with each other for quite a while. With the parents tired of all the backbiting and fighting, they send the five girls off on a trail ride that will change their lives forever. Soon the girls realize that there is something quite different about their Icelandic horses known to the girls as “Iceys”. Powers unimaginable come from the most unlikely sources. Horses and girls find themselves in a time and place that the girls had no idea they could go to. Challenging an enemy for the life of a young lady becomes the goal of the now intrepid travelers who are somehow turning into the most unlikely warriors. Will horse and warrior win the battle? Does love cross the lines of time?

I recommend this book since I could not put it down myself. Personally, I cannot wait to see the next book in the line called Prinsessa’s Mission coming out in April 2009. You will be able to find the book at Amazon.com on November 1st.

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First, I love contests! If I can find a contest relevant to things I like, I’m there. And at this time, I have been remiss at thanking Lisa Cooking for her wonderful contest for Pizza Hut’s Tuscani Pasta - Premium Bacon Mac ‘n Cheese. She required people to simply put in a comment on her blog to have an entry. However, you could blog about the contest too! That got more entries. It was an awesome contest with three prizes. All three prizes were certificates to receive a free pasta dinner, in this case the Tuscani Pasta called Premium Bacon Mac ‘n Cheese.

Recently, I received a letter from Pizza Hut informing me that I was the winner and that I was getting a Pizza Hut card entitling me to a $20 gift card so I could try out their newest Tuscani Pasta. Fantastic! We did try out the pasta dish. It is very good. Definite bacon flavor and really good mac and cheese!

Thank you Pizza Hut for the gift card and thank you to Lisa Cooking for the contest that made this happen!

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Recently, we were able to partake of the lunch buffet at two different Pizza Huts. I just thought I would comparison shop. Having done so, I am now able to give a review of both places. And I thought I would share that so that you, the reader, may be able to see what is going on at your own Pizza Hut or other buffet offerings wherever you live and eat. The two Pizza Huts in question are the store in Batesville, Arkansas and the one in Ash Flat, Arkansas. And I want to be perfectly clear here, we are not in any way affiliated with either store nor are we affiliated with Pizza Hut on a national level. We are simply consumers who saw things that we are reporting to you.

1) The Ash Flat Pizza Hut-Fairly new, built a few years ago. The buffet is in a good place in the room and accessible from all areas of the restaurant. We noticed that the buffet table was clean, neat, appealing. The person in charge of the getting the pizzas out so that there are no spots without pizza evidently knows their job. With few exceptions, the table was quite full for the lunch time. They had a full house during that time.

At frequent times, the person watching the table would come out, look the table over, combine pizzas onto one pan and leave room for more. The “more” was quick in coming. The person came out with the new one. The pasta dishes were treated exactly the same. When the pasta was getting less than half a pan, it was replaced with the person putting it into the next pan. Rarely were there any spots open on the table. They used one place in the six place table for dessert pizza. The rest were for the regular pizzas. Nothing stayed on the table for long whether because the customers took it or the person who watched the table took it because it had been there too long.

The salad looked appetizing and fresh. The person that looked at the table cleaned it when necessary. When we sat down at the table, the waitress asked us what to drink…water….which she brought right away along with silverware wrapped in a napkin very neatly. The waitress was very attentive. If we had had any problems, she would have addressed them. We asked for a special order on the buffet. They had no problem. It was there very quickly. And last but certainly not least, our waitress was very attentive to our needs. And very nice.

Result: We were quite pleased with all parts of the visit, at the way we were treated, the buffet table both in appearance and the way it was not allowed to be empty at any time. Very nice. It was just great to go there and eat from that buffet. You knew that they would not serve anything that was very old because it was not allowed to be old. Cost: $5.99. We give it a 5 out of 5 pizza rating!!

2) The Batesville Pizza Hut-When we went into the store, the buffet table was somewhat messy with food on the counter part of the table. We were asked before we sat down what we wanted to drink. As we sat down, she brought the drinks. We were not served any silverware or napkins. The silverware, we noticed, was sticking out of a container that are usually used for the salad part of the table. They were not wrapped but were out there for any food to drop into the container. We got our own napkins from the buffet table. We did ask for fresh silverware which the waitress, who was surprised at the request, brought out and it was wrapped in a napkin in haphazard fashion. We think she wrapped it as she brought it out.

The pizza side of the buffet table was messy. When we got there, there was a dessert pizza that ended up being there the whole hour we sat in the place. There were six places for pizza as before. They used four for regular pizzas and two for dessert pizzas. The second dessert spot was for cinnamon rolls. They appeared to be more interested in the cinnamon rolls getting there than the other things although that space stayed empty for the better part of almost twenty minutes before cinnamon rolls were put there even though there was little to no pizza on the table at the time. It seems to me that since they had a full house that more pizzas, not dessert, would be in order. The salad side of the table was not only messy but the salad appeared to have been there awhile. I wondered about that since we arrived at 11:15 am. It looked limp and not very appealing. There were almost empty containers on that side as well.

The house was full. Most of the time, the four pizza pans were nearly empty. It was obvious that the pizza maker could not keep up with the crowd. The usual was that there might be between a half and a whole pizza on the table if you combined the pans. Most of the pizzas contained sausage. There was little variety. No one seemed to be watching the table because at no time did anyone come out to inspect it. Once in a while someone would bring a single pizza out. Never did they have two new ones at once. Never did anyone think to clean the table. It was messy when we got there. It was messy when we left.

We asked for a special order. It came out fairly quickly and was very hot. Nice. We liked that. They ran out of pizza plates, the oval kind. People had to use the salad plates for pizza since they have a clean plate rule which I, by the way, agree with. The pasta pans were nearly empty when we got there. At no time during the hour we sat there did they change those out. In fact, by a half hour, they were empty and stayed that way. When we left, a person was putting a new pan in…after we mentioned that fact at the register, I might add.

When asked if everything was all right, I said no. They wanted to know what was wrong. I told them a couple of things. My husband mentioned a thing or two. Nothing had been done prior to us mentioning those things. Right before we left, what I heard from one of the people behind the register was “we do the best we can.” Hmmm.

Result: Unsatisfactory visit. Too many things wrong. No attention to details at all. No cleaning of the table. No interest in keeping it stocked well. Not very good service at all. The only bright thing was that the buffet was cheaper than the Ash Flat Pizza Hut. This cost $5.49. This would be about a 2 out of 5 pizza rating. And the only reason it gets that is the cost, the special order and the waitress who was attentive.

These visits were totally different. It shows what happens when people are happy where they work, are attentive to their customers and care that the customer gets what they order or want. Pizza Hut execs, you should take note of the vast difference in the way the stores are handled. Amazingly, the store that worked the best is in a rural area but is still quite busy at lunch time. They were not pressed to get it right. They had it going on. The other store which is in a larger town with a college, could not handle the crowd in a much smaller dining area. And the tables appear to be similar in size. I should mention this one thing too. If I am not mistaken, the rural PH is larger than the other one. That means that they are far superior in all respects to the other PH that’s in a city.

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