Many online universities are now employing a customer satisfaction survey in order to plan for the future and find what is working with their current offerings. Because there is so much competition in the online education space colleges and universities have to be able understand what their customers need and how the work place is changing in order to offer the latest courses in technology and business.

We all know what vowels are right? The “a”, “e”, “i”, “o”, and “u” letters in the alphabet. It’s hard to find words that don’t have vowels in them. Sometimes we include the “y” as part of a vowel. You often hear our vowels are “a,e,i,o,u, and sometimes y”. For those that like to play Scrabble, knowing what words don’t contain a vowel can be very important. If you’re stuck with no vowels in Scrabble; then I sure hope you have a “y” as one of your letters. The “y” can help you spell many words.

When I was younger, I would try to think of words that didn’t have a vowel in them. I finally discovered that “sky” didn’t have a true vowel in it and figured it was probably the only word in the world with no vowels in it. Well I was wrong and there is actually a lot of words that don’t have a vowel in them. How many words do you know with no vowels? Thanks to a recent discussion on Yahoo, I can now give you a pretty good list of words with no vowels in them. According to one person, the word “cwm” is a real word and one that you could use in Scrabble. Finding a little Scrabble help is always wise and you may want to save this blog post to your favorites, so you have a little cheat sheet playing Scrabble.

Here are some of the words with no vowels. Please let me know if you are aware of any more words that don’t contain a vowel in them.

Did you know any of these words? I never knew there were so many words with no vowels in them. A word like “pfft” can be helpful in a game of Scrabble. Anyone that can remember these words with no vowels in them, will be someone you wouldn’t want to play Scrabble with. Be sure to reply back with anymore words that don’t contain a vowel in them.

Free online math help is available if you know where to look for it. Solve math problems can be a simple solution.

Are you smarter than a 5th grader? I think most have watched this TV show and even as adults we are not always 100% sure on our answers. They offer questions in math that will range from grades 1 through 5 and I like to watch the adults struggle in this category. It is funny to see older people messing up on 5th grade math or a lower grade, but maybe we should be crying when we see this. I know it’s no fun for the kids in elementary school that have trouble with math. It will only get worse in their high school years; if we don’t correct the problems now. Help math to be fun for kids and this can be a way of teaching them something without them knowing they’re actually learning.

A Math problem solver could get a really good job later on in life.

Now when the children get older and start looking for colleges to attend after high school, they may still need online tutoring to get passing grades in college. The higher you go in math, the more difficult it does get. Free algebra help is available online and all college students should take advantage of it. I think most high school students get a good dose of pre-algebra and regular algebra too. Free college algebra help can be used to help us remember the algebra we did learn in high school. If your high school didn’t do a good job with teaching algebra; then you may need the free help online to actually learn algebra for the first time.

Math is an important subject and everyone from K-12 and even the college students need to continue learning and developing their math skills. Help with math is available online for anyone that has the desire to seek it. I hope your next math test gets a passing score and you can learn new ways to use your computers for help in math.

The star gazers will be happy to know they can see dozens of shooting stars each hour in the overnight hours tonight. The peak will be just before the sun rises on Wednesday morning. For those that don’t want to spend a lot of time looking up, may just want to turn in early tonight and get up before the sun rises to see the shooting stars at their peak. This is an annual event and it’s called the Orionid Meteor Shower. I have spent my time on a few of these meteor showers or shooting star events. There seems to be one every couple of years that is a “once in a lifetime” opportunity. When I hear things like that, I do try a little harder to watch the shooting stars in the sky. I may be awake in the morning around 4 or 5 AM east coast USA time to see a few of these shooting stars. I won’t make any special arrangements to see it, since this one is an annual event.

Do you ever recall a big meteor shower? Some have been really nice over the years and worth the drive to a dark area where you can see them the best. People that live in cities or near big cities can’t see the stars at night due to light pollution. If you plan to watch the stars tonight or in the very early morning hours of U.S. time zones, you will need a good dark sky to see the event. If you live near a city; then you will need to get in the car and drive to an area that is away from the city. Be sure to come back here and let me know if you seen any shooting stars and how this meteor shower event ranks with other ones we have had in the past. The one tonight is probably not worth the time waking the kids; since this is a school night for most children. You can get them out once it gets dark and see if they can get a glimpse of 1 or 2 before they go to bed, but the peak will be later on in the night, just before the sun comes up on Wednesday morning.

This year since we will not be with my parents they just asked for something simple and something that contains pictures. Since they are only able to visit with the kids 1-2 times per year they are always asking for recent pictures. Thanks to digital photography we have been able to share photos almost instantly with them. We are going to be creating a 12 month calendar of the kids and sending that out to Grandma and Grandpa so that they have them available all throughout the year.
Keeping in the digital theme we are going to be sending out Photo Cards in custom photo mailers to our friends and family to keep them up to date on how we are doing in our new location. The great thing about photo cards from vendors where you can upload your favorite print and customize the card in minutes. There is a great selection of templates to choose from to make the most impact for your Christmas or Holiday cards. So this year do something a little more personable and send out a photo holiday card to your friends and family.

Believe it or not there is a such thing as “talk like a pirate” day. It just so happens that it is today; September 19th. This is the day that everyone is encouraged to talk like a pirate. This special pirate holiday started back in 1995 and it occurrs every September 19th.

A pirate is a criminal that use to rob other ships on the high seas of all their precious cargo. We really don’t think of pirates still existing, but they do. In 2008 off the coast of Somalia there were 95 sea attacks blamed on pirates. It is believed that these pirates made around $30 million dollars in ransoms that got paid to them. We also have another modern day pirate and that is someone that steals information over the Internet and makes illegal copies of it. The baseball team Pittsburgh Pirates do not get their name from the modern day pirates and their piracy is based on the pirates of story book legends and in the past. Blackbeard and his gold is one of the most famous pirate stories and legends on the high seas. People are still searching for some of the suspected treasures that Blackbeard has believed to hidden or his ship sank to the bottom of the ocean with.

I wish all the pirates out there a Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day and don’t forget to go back to your regular voices tomorrow!

Breaking News! Adventures4U is a scam!

Adventures4U isn’t the first website to scam it’s members and it certainly won’t be the last. This money making website that was created by Steve Smith, may just be the worse one ever. Sure, there have been thousands of other websites that have ripped people off, but none of them did it as well as Steve Smith and his family did. All of the signs were there. Why did 61,000+ people get fooled by this website called Adventures4u.com? Perhaps it was the daily emails we got by Steve Smith that screamed this site is honest! It’s going to be around for a long time! It’s not like the other programs! So why did 61,000+ people lose their spot in this revenue sharing program?

Let’s first start with Steve Smith and his explanation. One day we get an email saying that a hacker had tried to break into Adventures 4u last night, but have no worries or fears. They didn’t succeed and no one is going to run us off. The very next day and I mean the very next day after those words were spoken; Steve Smith tells 61,000+ members that his family is receiving death threats and he will be closing the website. So 1 hacker attempt won’t shut the website down, but a couple of death threats did? If they were 2 death threats to Steve Smith and his family, he let the person or persons making those threats, out weigh the hard working and good integrity folks that numbered-out at over 61,000 members. Does it really seem logical that you would turn your back on 61,000+ members, due to a couple of online death threats? Well that is what Steve Smith was hoping you would believe.

The truth is that Steve Smith is just a sorry piece of white trash that ripped thousands of people off; due to poor math skills, technical issues with Adventures 4u, and shutting down the site when it was most convenient for him. The warning signs was all there. The message on the homepage that read “This is a Panama Business“; when all the members knew Steve Smith lived in the United States of America. These revenue sharing websites, ponzi websites, randomizers, and other websites do their best to skirt U.S. laws. It’s illegal in the USA, but apparently a website that appears to be in Panama could get away with it.

Another big clue was when members would request their entire earnings for the week; which they had the right to do. It was their money and their earnings and the option to request 100 percent of your earnings was there for the taking. You would get subtracted some Ventures for doing it, but it was allowed by Steve Smith and his family. After one particular payrun, Steve Smith sent out an email condeming these folks for taking 100 percent of their earnings and even took steps to enforce tougher penalties on your Ventures for the people that were just taking their earnings.

A common clue with scam websites is the emails that tell their members NOT to send in a support ticket about a certain thing or issue. We got several of these types of emails from Adventures 4u. Yes Steve Smith, that makes sense, if you’re a member here at Adventures 4u and don’t understand something; then please don’t send in a support ticket. An honest website with a honest admin on board would want to help each and every member they could and asking people not to send in a support ticket is just rude and shows how little Steve Smith really cared about his members.

What did Steve Smith do with our money? He spent it! He even told this through his daily emails he would send out. One week it was a “badly needed vacation” and they wouldn’t be around to answer support tickets, but don’t worry, “we rarely take trips and when we get back, we will be back at it for a long time to come“. Just a few weeks later, a new email arrives saying “don’t send in support tickets this weekend, the family is taking a weekend vacation“.

I’m not sure why Steve Smith continues to say he never missed a payrun in 10 months. In the logic he uses, he’s not missed a payrun as long as you do eventually get your money. We had a certain time our earnings would appear each week. This was at midnight server time on a Monday. Often it would be 30 minutes or 2 hours past midnight when these earnings would appear. Hey Steve, even if your 1 minute late, you missed a payrun. The few times you were days late, you missed a payrun. The time we waited 8 days to get our earnings, yep you guessed it, you missed a payrun. Steve Smith did miss payruns!

So why did Steve Smith shut things down at Adventures 4u? If he was scamming so many people out of money, why did he stop? What ended the faith of Adventures4u.com? The website was slowing down; due to the 61,000+ members. The surfing there was getting slower by the day and he had to fix the lag every member was experiencing. This was the beginning that led to the end of the scam website we know as Ad Ventures 4U.

Once the computer programmer got to working on things, the site would have to go offline and shut down. So that the bugs could be worked out. Since members didn’t have a website to login in to each day, this led to fewer members buying Ventures. When people don’t keep flooding in or spending new money in this revenue sharing program; then the earnings are just not there to pay. A lot of people knew this, but apparently the math skills of Steve Smith didn’t. This is where he learned he couldn’t pay everyone their earnings, because the site had missed too many days, and there was just no money there to give back to members, because Steve Smith and his family was spending it. It was during this time he knew he would be closing down the program, but waited a couple of weeks before doing so.

Everything was running fine and people were buying up Ventures left and right; at least this is what our emails were saying 2 weeks before the website would be shut down. Then Monday arrives and members took a 75% pay cut from their normal earnings. How could this happen? No warning signs that sales were slow and purchases were far and few between. This is because Steve Smith wanted to pocket as much money as possible. He may have even thought he could slip this 75% pay cut by us. Not a chance! People left and right wanted to know why their earnings had drop so much without no warning. In his usual unbelievable logic, Steve Smith explained this dramatic pay cut quite easily. He simply took your earnings, I repeat “YOUR EARNINGS”, and invested it into his new Trading Gold 4 Cash website. He said this was a move to secure our long term future, so without ever asking his 61,000+ members if this would be all right, he just took your money and put it in the website. Several days later we would learn that people in profit would not receive any more earnings and there would be 1 last cashout for those that were not in profit. The final cashout was another missed payrun and Steve Smith blamed the payment processor Alert Pay for this.

Anyone that has seen the Trading Gold 4 Cash website, you know this is a website you could get up for less than 100 dollars and with a year of hosting paid. You need the packets to send folks and you could spend another 100 bucks getting you started off with a good supply of these. Steve Smith took 75% of members earnings to invest it in a website that costs 200 dollars to get started? I was only 1 of the 61,000+ members at AdVentures 4u. I was pretty low on the totem pole there, but my earnings alone paid for about $22 of the new Trading Gold 4 Cash website. Steve Smith and his family probably cleared close to $100,000 on the week we all got shorted 75% of our earnings. The money spent on Ventures after that and before we received the shocking email on that Friday that the site was shutting down, I’m sure the Smith family cleared enough money that put them over the $100,000 mark in a 2 week period.

Another big rip off we see these days on the computer and on television is the Cash for Gold companies. These companies will take about $200 worth of gold and send back $5 in cash for your gold. They create one way systems; where you send in your gold, and they send you back cash. You have no chance to bargain or deny the money they send you back. Once you send in the gold, there is no way to retrieve your gold back. This is the next thing this white piece of trash has went to and no surprise that Steve Smith is now running a Cash for Gold website. These websites make awesome money for the people that run them, but they are ripping people off. Don’t help Steve Smith continue to sucker people out of their money and you will get burned in the end.

The best way to combat Steve Smith is to keep up with him and warn people about his past history. He has already sent an email saying not to ask for gold packets if you don’t plan on sending in your gold. I encourage all 61,000+ members that got ripped off at Adventures4u.com by Steve Smith and his family; that they do send in for a request packet. Don’t pay no shipping costs, because these Cash for Gold sites are suppose to send you these packets for free. It’s not a large amount of money, but these packets are a small way of making Steve Smith and his family pay for the $100,000+ he has stolen from the people that use to make up AdVentures4u.com.

If you plan to join and help promote TradingGold4Cash.com; please keep these words in mind and these are the exact words Steve Smith said to his 61,000+ members at AdVentures 4u:

“You think I am doing this because I am a scammer? Think again, I am doing this because I cannot control the issues of hackers, scammers and the threats.”

These words were spoken by Steve Smith in his response to closing down the revenue share portion of Adventures4u.com. This was in an email that got sent out on 8/28/09. If he can’t control hackers, scammers, and threats; why on Earth would you want to join any website he is associated with?

There hasn’t been 1 email or even 1 sentence where Steve Smith has taken the blame for the abrupt end of AdVentures4U.com. He has only blamed others; while it was mine and your earnings that ultimately paid the price. Steve Smith is the worse of the worse and he truly is just a white piece of trash that has no business being online. I encourage all websites and TE Owners to look down on Steve Smith and recognize his scamming techniques and the shady business of Cash for Gold websites. Don’t allow his TradingGold4Cash website to be seen on your traffic exchange, blog, ptc site, or any other advertising platform. Surfers should report Adventures4u.com and TradingGold4Cash.com to the admin of these advertising platforms. They will take action once they see the level of damage Steve Smith has caused to money making websites and marketing online in general.

The use of led home light bulbs was one such example where you can get as much light if not more while reducing your total energy costs. The LED technology has been mainly used in specialty lighting and has now started to become used in homes more and more. The styles and price now make it economical to start thinking about adding LED lightbulbs to your homes fixtures.
I have attached the music that is behind the series that is played by Cinematic orchestra and has now been heard on various shows on ABC and NBC.

A problem with drugs or alcohol can dramatically affect a person’s life and their family’s life too. It isn’t easy to stop a drug abuse problem, but it is possible to rid yourself of drugs forever. By reading this blog post now; perhaps you’re the person wanting to quit or you may be looking to find help for a friend, relative, or someone you know that is addicted to drugs.

The first step is always the desire to want to quit drugs or alcohol. The person that is addicted to drugs is the one that needs that desire the most and it all starts with them. A Drug Treatment Center is the first place the patient or the person addicted to drugs will need to visit. This will put them in touch with professionals and people that care about trying to get them on the path of a drug-free life. It is very difficult to stop using drugs without help and everyone should find that helping hand to stop their drug-using problems. The success rates and stories go way up; when people reach out for help and don’t try to stop using drugs by their self.

A person on drugs must change their living habits and environment to be successful. Drug rehabilitation should always start with the home or the environment these individuals are a part of everyday. Our surroundings is often a big part of why we became addicted to drugs in the first place. A good Drug Treatment facility can give us an escape and put us on the right track to recovery. Changing your environment is so important to the recovery process, that often you can take up residence at a drug treatment center and they will board and feed you for the initial phases of your drug rehab. The first few days is always the worse and a person that is addicted to drugs will need the most restraint possible to get over the side-effects from not having drugs in our system no more. Trying this process alone or at home doesn’t always work and people do much better at a facility that is designed to deal with these specific withdrawal problems.

The people around you are very important too. Keeping the same friends may prove to be difficult if they are abusing drugs too. Surrounding yourself with non-drug users is the best recipe for long-term success. Family members and neighbors can be a bad influence to a recovering drug addict. If these people have access to drugs or have helped you in the past; then it is important to know these are the people that present the most danger to you. Normally you can do a better job with distancing yourself from friends that are users and it is good that you do so. Staying away from anyone that might tempt you with drugs or alcohol is the best move any drug addict can make.

There is help available for people that want to stop their drug abuse. That first step is often the hardest and if you can make that step today; then you can start that road to a recovery process. This will do you and your family a lot of good and there is never anything positive that comes out of a drug abuse problem. It isn’t easy to do, but people do recover from drug problems. Just take the day-to-day approach and each day you go without using drugs, that will be one day you’re closer to rejoining society again. All of those depression feelings will clear up, after you have stop using drugs for an extended period of time. You can get your life back starting today!

A new school year is now in progress and many changes have come for the kids. They have new teachers, will need to make new friends, their classrooms are in new places, and they probably have a  new Locker too. It can be a little stressful with so many new changes for our school children. If we can find any ways to relieve those stresses any; then we really owe it to our kids to do so.

Their new lockers will need a new lock for this year and buying a padlock with a key is not the best choice. The combination locks are the best ones to use for School Lockers and this is the ones the parents need to buy for their kids this year. Most of these combination locks have a 3 number system for opening up the magical combination. There usually isn’t a lot of time between classes, so kids need to figure out their locker combinations quickly. This will allow them to access their lockers as fast as possible and get the things out they need for the next class or store books they don’t need anymore for the school day. Remembering their locker combination can be difficult and its no fun when you can’t recall your locker combination. You need to make sure your kids understand how to work their combination locks and which numbers they need to turn the dial to for opening the locks.

Perhaps you have had trouble in the past with remembering a locker combination and could give some good tips on how you remembered your locker combination? Please feel free to offer any tips or advice for remembering a lock combination on your locker at school or your Gym Lockers. I have always liked sports, so I could just remember jersey numbers from my favorite sports players and know which 3 numbers I needed to use to unlock my lock in high school. This worked well for me and remembering things by association is a good way to remember locker combinations or things on a school test too. If your son or daughter doesn’t play or watch sports; then you may have to try another angle with this method. The most important thing is that they do remember their locker combinations and don’t have it written down, where other school kids can get their combinations. It’s not a good idea to write it on a piece of paper or in a book. This isn’t good for security purposes and can easily be lost. Using an ink pen to write your locker combination on your skin is not good either and this presents health concerns and should be avoided by all students. The best place to store your locker combination is in your head and this will prove to be the best way for students to get fast and secured access to their lockers.

Yes, the kids are back in school and parents are free to have their homes back to normal now. I’m sure some parents will miss the kids; while others are glad to see school start back and give them a break from the summer madness, that’s been going on for the last couple of months. Most parents have already gotten a few pencils, pens, notebook paper, and folders before the first bell ever rung. Usually 1 or 2 teachers will require a few extra school supplies that parents didn’t buy for the Wilson Backpacks and they will need to return to the stores.

Before you rush off to pick up those supplies, you might want to check online first. They are some special deals now; since school has started back, and lots of good bargains can be found online. Buy.com is a good source to look for a sale on back to school supplies and lots of items available with free shipping included! Once you compare prices and see the cheaper rates for online school supplies is at Buy.com; then you will want to do more shopping online as the school year continues.

Did you find a good back to school sale before school started? It is always wise to check with different department stores on clothing items, so you’re not overpaying for the kid’s school clothes. The same can be said for the back to school supplies too and every penny counts right now. Some school kids may not be wearing new clothes on the first day this year or had to use notebook paper and pencils from last year’s school year; due to the tough economic times. Our older children may understand this, but the elementary-age kids may wonder what’s going on. Parents can help prevent some of these concerns, by saving money on school supplies. I’m glad we can shop online in 2009 and can find places like Buy.com, that offer very competitive prices on school merchandise and other everyday items. Good luck on your shopping trips and the school sales are still out there to find.

Where do you go to find Celebrity Speakers? I was always curious about this and often you see politicians or stars speaking on a high school or college campus. I know Evander Holyfield, the championship boxer, came to my high school and gave us a speech many years ago. It was nice to see someone as famous as him at my high school. Our assistant principal had a connection and was able to land him at our school. If you don’t poses those “connections”, I wonder how schools do get the celebrities to visit? On the flip side, it does make me very jealous to see this. Most of these people have made huge amounts of money in their lifetime and now they get to go speak to others and get paid for it! No celebrity should ever run out of money. As long as they can still tallk, I’m sure someone is around that will pay to have them speak.

In sports we always see Motivational Speakers that will find their way to a locker room and pump up the team before the big game. Often these are people that attended the school or played on the team in the past, that will go motivate the athletes. It’s a good strategy for coaches and some of these motivational speeches can be a big help. Just a few words from someone that is famous or respected can motivate someone to do more than they normally could. The Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward does this a lot for his high school located just south of Atlanta. It does make you feel good to see famous athletes returning to their high schools and offering their services. I don’t think all athletes could be motivational speakers and some may need speaking tips before they talk to anyone.  

Some celebrities enjoy speaking at events or for good causes and will do their appearances for free. They are some that want big cash payments for their words of wisdom. I know Bill Clinton is someone that a lot of colleges try to book, but he costs a lot of money for his speeches. Former presidents are probably at the upper end of the food chain; when it comes to public speakers. I would be happy to go speak to a large crowd for some extra money, but I don’t think too many people would care to listen. I still would like to know where you could go to hire celebrity speakers. I would love to be the hero one day with the connections, like my assistant principal was, when he got Evander Holyfield to Cherokee High School.

Dairy Queen the home of the tasty frozen treats we love to eat in the summer time did a very nice thing recently. I wasn’t aware of it at the time and just saw a TV commercial last night about their latest promotion with the Childrens Miracle Network. The promotion was for August 7th and I had no idea what they were doing. I wished they would have advertised for this better and I think the results could have been much better. Perhaps they will do their Blizzard promotion again and I can take advantage of this worthy cause.

The Dairy Queen Blizzard is now a staple product for this company and if you haven’t never tried a Blizzard before, you really must give it a try. I love the chocolate chip cookie dough Blizzard, but really all of them are great! Now on August 7th (which has already passed), the people from Dairy Queen was going to donate 1 dollar for each Blizzard they sold on that day. All of the money was going to go to the Children’s Miracle Network and this was a very nice gesture. I wish more fast food establishments and places like Dairy Queen would donate to charities like this and get the public involved. Most of us don’t have huge sums of money we can donate to a charity, but we still want to help. A promotion like this gives us a tasty frozen treat; while we know $1 of our purchase would be going to the Children’s Miracle Network. A very worthy cause and one that does need our support. Let’s hope this promotion was very successful and Dairy Queen can alert more people to this promotion if they decide to do it in the future. I also challenge other restaurants to select an item on their menu; where some of the money can get donated to a worth charity.

Wrestling Trophies is a great way to reward that son for a job well done on the wrestling mat. Volleyball Trophies is perfect for the daughter that went to practice everyday and did her best to help the team win. It’s great that America is filled with all kinds of sports and that our school systems support most of these sports. Surveys and studies have both shown that kids that actively participate in sports are less likely to get into trouble. All parents should try to find a sport or a hobby that their kids can get excited about and it’s really great when they can achieve some level that is worthy of a trophy.

I grew up playing sports and it continues to be a big part of my life. For the most part, I have stayed out of trouble and I’m sure sports had a lot to do with it. The first sport I ever played was baseball. I was in 2nd grade and half the team went to the same school as I did. We had a perfect season as the Yankees team in the local Pee Wee League. After our perfect season of 16 wins and no losses, we all got trophies for our first place accomplishments. I was so excited to get that trophy, I couldn’t wait to get more. I wasn’t that talented in baseball and soon learned basketball was more my sport. I got several trophies for basketball over the years playing on teams or in basketball camps I attended. By the time my teen years and sports playing years were over, I had racked up about 10 trophies. I still have them today and each one holds a special memory for me.

Your child may play with a good football team and earn a trophy on their own, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea to give them an individual trophy if the team didn’t succeed. I don’t think it’s bad for a soccer coach to buy his team soccer trophies; even if they don’t win a single game. We can reward our youth for effort and it isn’t always measured in wins or loses. I hope parents do encourage their kids to play sports and will reward them with trophies when the time is appropriate.

I can’t believe the kids are already preparing to go back to school in July. I guess you have to now with school starting much earlier than it use to. As a kid, I would always do my back to school shopping in late August. We always got a summer vacation of 3 months (June, July, and August) and now school vacations only last 2 months. Our kids are still in class at the first of June and hearing those school bells ring again by the middle of August. It seems so unfair to them and I do feel sorry for them. The parents might like the short summers and this may work out better for them, but I know the children didn’t have a vote in this educational decision.

I have a lot of good summer memories as a kid and may have lost some of those with today’s school schedule. I would imagine the shorter summers lead to more families visiting the popular vacation spots near their hometown at the same times. These vacation destinations may have to seek more hotels and restaurants to accommodate the fewer days parents have to plan a family trip. I could see it being a short-term strain on them, but fewer days they can make money off the tourists. They may be other things that have a domino-effect from the shorter summers kids have now. Some of these are probably negative; while others are to the positive side. The stores will have to get their winter clothes in sooner to meet the demand of back to school shoppers. On the other end of the school year, they can wait longer to stock up on summer items. I guess the retail sectors will adjust accordingly to the school districts they provide for.

I always loved the first day of school; even though it meant summer was over. That first day of putting on your new clothes and shoes did make you feel good. Usually that feeling wore off by the second day, but starting a new school year was fun. You would get to see your friends again and hang out with them. It was always exicting to see how many friends you would have for a certain class, but it seems there was always one class that you wouldn’t have any friends in. I guess that “first day feeling” is just around the corner for most students. The kids living in my area have about 10 more days of their summer vacations left and they won’t enjoy them too much knowing school is about to start once again.