Author: RosioC

My family and I just relocated from another state to the area. We were recommended a real estate agent and given another name to give us options. Both agents represented two different companies, Irongate Realtors and Big Hill GMAC. My husband and I were motivated, pre-approved buyers but were still looking to find a value so that we weren’t over-extended and our kids could have most of the comforts of our last home. We went on the advice of a trusted person and tried the first agent. She took us to about 16 houses in 2 days. On the second day, we made an offer on a house and it was accepted. Good for us I thought, until I asked about the 15 days of rent free living the previous home owner had. This indicator became quite obvious by the end of our buying experience. Here was the deal. I asked about the 15 days of free living they had and she became hugely defensive and said, “Well you should have thought of that and put it in the offer. Too late now.” I swear I could hear her cackle after I got off the phone with her. Initially, the agent was fine, but slowly became more aggressive, impatient, and condescending. Red flag! Make sure that your agent is looking out for your best interest – we don’t feel we were so lucky. Be leery of those representing both the buyer and the seller. Needless to say, we won’t be using this agent or recommending her to anyone and I have forgiven my trusted friend.

Tips:

• Go meet more than one real estate agent.

• Be patient; unless you have to move in ASAP – then consider renting.

• If the air is turned down so low your nose turns red or your fingernails blue, Ask why – it could be because they have pets and it keeps the smell down. (We learned the hard way)

• Ask about pet stains, carpet cleaning, and age of carpet. You may need to get new carpet if the pet stains are untreated. Remember to add this into the offer – or it won’t get done.

• Ask about the wood working or trim work in the house – was it by the home owner or the builder? Shotty workmanship can be a cover-up for something else.

• Schedule carpet cleaning, painting and all before your move your stuff in. This was something new to us, but we are glad we did it. It gave us a chance to clean up the HUGE mess left us by the previous home owner.

• Use Kilz paint in all the closets and other spaces where there are stains, mold, or other spots that don’t look normal.

• Have your ducts cleaned.

• Question your inspector about everything – the furnace, where the filters are, ask him to open it up and look inside.

• Remember to put everything in your offer that you want done. For example, if you give them 30 days to get out – ask for rent. If you want carpets cleaned, replacement screens or handles, your water tested, whatever – put it in the offer. There is always negotiation.

• If the house is on the market for a long time – ask why….and ask again and again to different people. The previous owners were at the house a couple of times and we got three different stories – another red flag.

• Ask why a lot.

• Ask about the minutest details – even if they seem trivial.

• Remember it is your money and somebody else is trying to get. Hang on to as much as you possibly can!

One of the best brands to try out this season is blaux portable ac as they have a limited period offer where you can purchase it at a price bargain of your choice apart from benefits like super cooling mechanism and adjustable temperatures where even the pet issues get sorted out.

For many years now, we have seen sellers on the Amazon platform selling “penny books” and driving down the ability for many sellers to develop a profitable business. Amazon has started to combat this process by raising their fees on some of the process of the Fulfillment by Amazon platform. If you are looking to get into selling used books on Amazon and turning it into a business, learning how to list your items correctly is essential.

Why Sell Penny Books in the First Place?

This concept became popular as many once realized that Amazon would credit sellers the $3.99 shipping fee when they sold their book on their platform. When media mail shipping was rather cheap, sellers could profit from this process. If a book sold for $0.01, there was no referral fee as 15% of a penny is nothing. Then they credited you the $3.99 shipping fee and took from that the $1.35 variable closing cost fee. This left the seller with $2.65 in their pocket. A few years ago a book less than one pound could ship media mail for about $1.80, plus an envelope that cost about $0.10. At the end of the transaction, a penny book would net the seller $0.75. With most books costing the seller less than a quarter, they made a $0.50 profit from this deal. In 2012, media mail costs much more to ship and the shipping fee has not increased. The profitability of this method is all but dead.

The Fulfillment by Amazon equivalent to this concept was to sell a book for $4.00, and in many cases less than that. Before 2012, FBA charged fees of $0.60 to pick and pack the item, $1.35 for a closing cost and a $0.40 per pound shipping cost based on the weight of the item. After fees on a one pound book, FBA sellers would net a profit of $1.05. With the recent increase in pick fees (now $1.00 per item) and the shipping fee of $0.37/lb rounded to the next whole pound, this method has become less profitable at the penny book price point.

How to Combat Low-Ball Pricing

When you are pricing your inventory, develop a spreadsheet that will enable you to calculate all of your costs into the retail price your books. In that calculation, include a flat rate that you would be willing to make as profit per item sold. If the spreadsheet is done right, the only variable you would need to enter per book is the actual weight. When you enter the actual weight of the item, it will give you the retail price you need to charge to clear your desired profit amount per book.

Do not concern yourself with low-ball pricing competitors. In most cases, the sellers have not bothered to go back and manually recalculate the prices of their existing inventory after the price increases and they know they are taking a loss on those sales. Once those lower priced items are sold or returned to the sellers to update the pricing, your prices will sit better on the page. In addition, by providing more accurate item descriptions and looking into some of the other Amazon marketing programs, you will find a way to sell your items faster despite the higher retail prices.

Amazon is the best platform that you can find online where you can get renowned products of the highest order right from a glass vase to a helium container that are quite popular. Are you looking for alternatives to Helium 10? Then you’re in luck coz your search ends at Amazon.

Balance Your Deck

One of the most important tips for you to become a successful player in Clash Royale is to know how to strategically balance your deck. It is crucial to have balance of units when playing the game. Having a deck that is made entirely by fragile range fighters of ground-based melee is definitely not a wise strategy. If you have range of units in the game, You will be able to impose damage to your opponents, counter their attacks and have weapons that can destroy towers of your opponent. 

Know How to Pair Units

Apart from the balance of your deck, it will help you win battles if you strategically know how to pair units. Sending out units’ solo is absolutely not a wise strategy because they might just get clobbered by your opponent. You should send out pairs or combinations that when combined, can really make a strong pair. For instance, since giants take lots of damage from your opponent, it is wise to stick toe of them in front of a balloon in order to protect it until it reaches the tower.

Use Spells

Spells are also very crucial in the game. If you know how to use your spells properly, then you have high chances of winning a battle. The common benefits that you can get from using spells are boosting your troops during an attack or scupper advances on your side. You have to familiarize yourself to the different kinds of spells, so you’ll know how to use them properly. For example, Freeze is used if you want to stop the troops of your opponent for a few seconds. Zap is used if you want to stun elixir nukes of your enemies or other troops within its range for a second.

Play the game with Audio On

There are some benefits of playing Clash Royale with your audio on. While the game may not have the best sound effects but putting your headphones on will help you to be mindful and keen in the game. For instance, playing with audio on will let you know quickly if any of your towers have been destroyed or if your troops have destroyed the towers of opposition. It can also call your attention when units are plonked down. Hence, this is the reason why playing with audio on is included in the clash royale guides.

Know How To Distract Your Enemy

Lastly, you should know how to distract your opponent. This will allow you to easily destroy the towers of the opposition. For example, it is wise to drop a cheap unit towards the middle of the filed when there is a powerful unit heading towards one of the towers of the arena. This can distract your opponents attention, catching him off guard with no decision or action right on hand. Always keep in mind that being strategic could be your way to becoming a successful Clash Royale player. 

I know getting your dog to go potty outside is challenging enough at times, but getting them to go potty quickly is a blessing in the cold or wet weather. I know that when I finally got my dog to go potty outside I would be outside typically for ten to fifteen minutes at a time when I took him out. I know that I would always come back in from the cold weather in winter or rainy weather during the summer thunderstorms either soaking wet or froze to the bone. I did find a couple of ways to finally get my dog to go potty quickly outside though without freezing to death or coming in looking like a drowned rat. This article is all about the tips that you can get follow to get your pet potty trained in a lightning-fast way.

The first tip that I have is after you know for sure that your dog is potty trained that you can take them out and encourage them to go potty quickly. I know if your dog is anything like mine they have a favorite spot for peeing and going poop. I know that if I walk my dog to the pee area if I think that is what he has to do first he typically will go pee within seconds of reaching that area. The same goes for getting my dog to go poop quickly as well.

The second tip that I have is if you do manage to get your dog to go potty faster than normal outside you will not want to waste as much time outside. Some dogs will like to go potty really quick then stall outside by acting like they have to go again. I know that one of my dogs does this and he will stop and sniff every few seconds then act like he is going pee again to throw me for a loop. However, he doesn’t do anything else. So you will want to try to bring your dog in as quickly as possible after making sure they are done going potty.

The third tip is that if your dog does go potty quickly when you tell them to you will want to reward that with a treat. I know that it sounds pretty straight forward, but some people will forget to give your dog a treat. I know that when I started rewarding my dog more often for going potty quickly he would keep in that habit, but if I slacked off or forgot to give him a treat the next time he would take a little bit longer.

Getting your dog to go potty quickly outside is not that difficult to do. The hard part is first getting them potty trained and figuring out where the certain potty areas are that your dog uses. While all of these tips helped me get my dog to go potty quickly I am sure you will find some additional ones to add as well that help you get your dog to go potty quickly outside so you no longer come in as a popsicle or drowned rat.

Joining a bowling team typically is a normal, middle-class thing to do, but as the token straight man in a league filled with gay and lesbian bowlers, it became less of a sport for me and more of a weekly education in tolerance.

James, my best friend who also was a co-worker in the Information Technology department at my company, invited me to fill a vacancy on his team. The last time I had bowled in a league setting, however, was the summer before my freshman year of high school and I was concerned about my ability to compete after a 20-year hiatus from the sport.

I also had reservations about being the “odd man”, so to speak. During our long friendship, James and I only had one big fight about my attitude towards alternative lifestyles, an attitude that I didn’t know I possessed until he called it to my attention. He said I was stereotyping, thinking all gay men were “Nelly Queens” and called me homophobic. In retaliation, I told him I was fed up with his “heterophobia” and fear of the straight world. James and I later made peace about this, each one accepting and respecting the lifestyle choice of the other.

After voicing my sports and sexuality concerns, James took me to a local sporting goods outlet and, after parting with about $100 of my hard-earned money, I became the proud owner of a custom-drilled bowling ball engraved with my initials, a bag and a towel to wipe off the oil that bowling alleys use to condition the lanes. Though James and I had talked at length about the habits and customs of his friends, I wasn’t exactly prepared for the folks who were proud members of the “Monday Moaners,” the gay and lesbian league that took control of Carriage Bowl (and later Western Lanes) from 7-10 p.m. every Monday night.

Things that turned out were quite unexpected that night as nothing could have prepared me for this and I had butterflies in my stomach about facing the best players in the game that I had done research about at aboutbowlingballs.com and therefore I had no choice but plunge into the picture and give my best.

On that first night, all my fears seemed unfounded. Except for a few flamboyant bowlers, the folks who showed up could easily have been members of my church congregation. There were no flashing neon signs screaming “Yeah, I’m Gay” above anyone’s head and no one was running around the alley wearing pink taffeta or feather boas.

Most players were dead serious bowlers, though. An older gentleman named Ran always brought a customized suitcase filled with balls for every situation, including a specially-drilled one that he called a “fingertip ball.” This one, he told me, was for converting a tricky split into a spare. I even spent one summer bowling on Ran’s team and it was there that I learned that he truly agonized over every pin and every frame.

Being the new guy in the league, there were, of course, a lot of questions asked about me, James told me later. A few of the single guys inquired about my dating status and were disappointed when James revealed that I was 100% straight. There were no hard feelings about my orientation, though, since we were all there to bowl. The only real complaints came when my league average for that first night was a less-than-impressive 70 pins.

Over time, I did become a better bowler, but the team’s dynamic changed. James left the league over a disagreement with our team captain, which I thought would also end my association with the league, but the captain assured me that I was always welcome. New members joined us, some of whom were incredibly gifted bowlers and made us serious contenders for the first place trophy. At the start of one season, though, all my teammates abandoned me to bowl with their friends, leaving me floundering for a few weeks before I found a slot on another team. Loyalty, it seems, is a fleeting thing in the world of gay bowling.

At first, I kept to myself and listened to the stories my teammates would tell about their lives. To my heterosexual ears, some of these tales seemed scandalous, especially our team captain’s thrilling account of his dalliance with the bellman at a vacation resort. It seemed that the entire league was preoccupied with sex, especially various bowlers who hooked up during the games and shared a bed later that night.

That’s not to say that I didn’t fall in love myself, especially since there were a lot of attractive ladies in the league. One evening, Kim, who everyone simply called “K.Y.”, was shocked to learn that I was heterosexual and spent the rest of the night kissing me square on the mouth after each of her strikes and spares. That turned out to be a one-night fling for Kim, though, since she was devoted to her life partner Carla. I was more than just a little heart-broken, though.

I soon learned that several bowlers were HIV-positive or had full-blown AIDS. One friend who used prescription drugs to control the virus in his blood showed me how his hands swelled in reaction to a new blood pressure treatment prescribed by his physician. Kim also recited a disturbing list of ailments and cancers that she had battled for years.

One teammate even routinely took a break between the second and third games to go out to his truck and smoke marijuana to relieve his pain. Other friends and acquaintances suffered from what are called “opportunistic infections,” which can take months to recover from. Some good friends never returned after our summer break, having quietly let go of life before the league started up again in the fall.

After changing teams and teammates many times over a 7-year period, most people simply assumed I was gay, especially since I returned to the league like clockwork every September. At that point in my bowling career, it became easier to maintain an illusion of homosexuality than to keep reminding them that I was straight. I was just one of the boys and that was fine with me; I looked forward to hanging out with them on Monday nights after work.

In a league such as ours, however, there was little chance of me finding someone to date seriously, so I made a tough decision in the summer of 2004 not to rejoin the league. I wanted a girlfriend and, if things worked out, a wife, something I probably would not find on Monday evenings at Western Lanes.

Looking back on those days, I can see that my heart and tolerance grew a lot more than my bowling average. When listening to my friends and teammates complain about their relationships, I realized that their gripes were the same as mine with the exception of the genders involved. Straight and gay couples deal with issues in pretty much the same way; we’re all human beings after all and we all suffer from the human condition.

I do miss my bowling buddies, but this token straight man needed to spare himself some grief and strike out on his own.