Well we have just over one week, give or take a few days, before our lives are going to change for the better for many years to come. To say I am excited is a understatement but you can say I am terrified. I mean I got some one to take care of now. This past weekend a bunch of friends threw me a diaper party. If you don't know what a diaper party is; its an excuse for the men to have a party and drink, and they all have to bring a package of diapers to the father to be. So I ended up with close to 1000 diapers, so we should be a good for a while. A big thanks to Geoff for organizing the party and to all of the guys showed up.
Up to this point I think we have everything ready for the lil bundle when she arrives, and by god I know Jodi has the clothes situation taken care of, the kid has more clothes than me all ready and she is not even born. Although while I was in San Jose, CA visiting Google for a week in March for work, I made it to the Google store and did make some clothes purchases. I got to turn her into a Google fan right away. :-) And again just yesterday I was on thinkgeek.com browsing around and did end up buying a few more things for her that I though was cute, see images below.
So there you have it, our lives will soon change, Jodi has been eating spicy food and pineapple all week to hopefully induce labor and make our bundle show up sooner.
Bio Hazard
Rock, Paper, Scissors, Spock, Lizard (From the Big Bang Theory)
Have you really ever noticed how much your bank charges you in fees? Because if you are like me and my wife we were spending about $50 - $60 a month on regular banking fees (See below of breakdown of fees) and even more if one of the accounts dropped into overdraft by even a $1.
About 10 years I became a client of ING Direct and opened a High Interest Savings account. ING continues to pay about 2% or more interest on any savings which is much higher than the norm for the big five Canadian banks. Over those 10 years there was not much more that you could do with a ING Bank account but transfer money into your savings and than later came the ING Mortgage, but most recently (last fall) came the ING Direct Thrive Chequing Account.
In the fall of 2010 I was one of the lucky 10,000 people who got to be in the test group for the Thrive Chequing account. I received my nice new debit card and a few weeks later received my PIN in the mail. I started to transfer money into the new chequing account and started using the debit card around the city, and paying bills online. But I was still a bit leery about moving my payroll and all of my banking to ING since this was still a new service ING was providing. I done a couple blogs (Post 1, Post 2) on my first impressions of the service and some things that ING needed to focus a bit more on.
Since that time last fall, the Thrive chequing is now open to all Canadians. Jodi was able to sign-up for an account in March and than we were able to create a joint chequing account together. Next came the fun steps to move over our pay roll, direct deposits and direct debts from our CIBC accounts to the newly created ING Thrive accounts without causing any overdraft issues with CIBC and having money in both.
So first we moved Jodi's pay over to the new joint Thrive account (JTA) (FREE money tip: ING gave her a $100 bonus for the pay roll change), and changed all direct debts to the JTA except for the mortgage payment. Next up change any direct deposit information with such places as Sun Life, Gov. of Canada and Great West Life for those times when you may get money from somewhere else. (Helpful Note: Do a search with your current bank (CIBC for me) for the past year to see what gets deposited and debited from your account. This will help you in the move) After about a month with Jodi's pay being deposited into Thrive, I brought the switch form to my HR department to have my pay roll changed to Thrive and called the bank to have the mortgage bank details changed to the new Thrive account. It now has been about three weeks since everything has been changed to Thrive and we couldn't be happier with the savings and I also got the $100 bonus for changing my payroll to Thrive.
Helpful Note: ING Direct with help you with changing your banking to them even as much not to have any debts declined. Though I did not take use of this service.
Is this your Bank? Old CIBC Fees broken down, for our normal account usage:
$12.95 per month for 3 accounts = $38.85
$1.50 per use bank machine fee (about 8 a month each) = $24.00
~$62.95 a month = $755.40 a year
That's $755.40 a year that can be going into your savings with an ING Direct Thrive chequing account.
The perks of bleeding Orange with Thrive:
Here is just a small list of what you will receive when you bank with ING Direct for your chequing needs:
No Fee Chequing Account;
50 Free Cheques;
Pays Interest: $0.00 - $49,999.99: 0.25%, take a look at what you get now with the big five;
Free email alerts for everything from, debts, deposits, overdrafts and much more;
Free ATM access at over 2500 across the country, you'll be surprised at how many there are;
Free overdraft or Whoops protection as ING calls it for up to $250, meaning you'll never be shorted changed;
Free mobile banking, not only free but the best mobile banking;
Free email money transfers offer an easy, secure and free way to send money to anyone;
Free Drafts.
Some things that I still would like ING to provide sometime in the future:
Ability to "Save the Rest". Just like what ScotiaBank does where you can have your debit purchases rounded up to a specific dollar amount and placed in a savings account;
More FREE Cheques than the first FREE 50. Yes, I use cheques quite often;
Ability to add more than one chequing account to the client card;
Ability to add a savings account to the the ING client card;
A Visa or MasterCard. I just moved from a CIBC Visa to a MBNA Mastercard since CIBC would not reduce my interest rate after being a customer for ~15 years (thats a whole new blog at some point).
Savings with a twist of easy:
I now have five opened savings accounts that I deposit money into automatically from my Thrive account every two weeks. These were all a breeze to set-up within 10 minuets and you can name them what ever you want. I have a emergency fund, vacation, pet fund, personal savings and a joint savings, but just remember you can only open five as I found out after trying to open more than five.
ING pays you to be a client:
What other bank in the industry pays you to become a customer? Well the answer to that is easy, NONE. When you sign up for an account at ING Direct and use another customers ORANGE KEY you will both get $25, no strings attached. But the FREE money does not stop there, when you are ready to move your payroll into your ING Direct Thrive Chequing account, they will give you an additional $100 just to say thanks. Now I'm not saying you have to sign up with my ORANGE KEY but I would certainly love to get the bonus $25 just like you. My ORANGE KEY is: 14477247S1. http://www.ingdirect.ca/referafriend
On the Go and Mobile:
I haven't been a mobile user for very long, if you must know its only been since December 2010. I never seen the need for people to reach me where ever I was. This changed when I bought my first "Smart Phone" a Google Nexus S powered by Android. Since getting the device I have now been using it more than my laptop and I have come accustom to wanting apps that provide me access to anything on the go. I was sadly disappointed at the offering from CIBC since it was nil, but happily excited to see ING Directs offering in this field. ING has come to the forefront with technology and had provided the best mobile app I have seen for all platforms giving you easy access to your account and money anywhere at anytime.
What else can Orange do for you?
ING Direct also provides other services outside of the Savings and Thrive Chequing accounts that I have explained, being very competitive in all of them:
Mortgages;
Mutual Funds;
US Dollar Saving Accounts;
RRSP's;
RESP's;
TFSA's;
GIC's;
Business Accounts;
and I'm sure you'll others in the future.
Go ahead view the short video about ING Direct Thrive Chequing and sign-up today:
So there you have it how we moved all of our banking to ING Direct and have been saving all those banking fees eversince. Just remember if you are new and signing up to go to: http://www.ingdirect.ca/referafriend and use the following ORANGE KEY: 14477247S1
Well time for bed and dreaming about all of the savings I'm getting from ING. :-)
Some of you may be aware that I am a fan of Google. As I sit here and look at my screen I notice I have five tabs open in my browser. Four of those five tabs are Google products that I use most days. I thought I would give a quick run down on these and how Google is slowly getting its hands into everything.
Tab #1: iGoogle
iGoogle is a Google product much like your start or jumping off page for your browser. I can sign in with my Google account and add items to the page that I want to see on a daily basis. Some of these gadgets or items that I have included on my page are: Gmail, Calendar, RSS reader, and Finance. Go visit iGoogle and add and create the best start page for yourself from their thousands of items that you can add. I must add that all of those gadgets I have on my page are Google gadgets to pull from Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Reader and Google Finance.
Tab # 2: Gmail
If you have never used Gmail for your email, your being left behind. Google was the first to offer 1GB of free email storage and now their up to somewhere around 7 or 8GB free. Gmail is easy to use and has allot of customization options to make it look and feel the way you want it to.
Tab #3: Google Music Beta
This one is a fairly new Google product, since it was only announced in May and it still in a U.S. Beta invite only stage. But there is a way around all of that, I will explain later. Google Music is a online music storage service that allows you to upload your entire* music library and have access to it anywhere. When say entire music library I mean there is a 20,000 song limit. I have so far uploaded about 5000 songs with the easy to use music manager and I can now access all of my music from the web or my Android powered phone. Right now the service is only open to the U.S. but if you know how to use the software called Hot Spot Shield you can connect to a U.S. based proxy and I can send you one of my 4 invites. Once you sign up with the invite through a U.S. proxy, you can than access it anywhere without using a proxy.
Tab #4: Google+
Google+ is Google's newest addition to its product line. Google+ is a social network much like Facebook but with many superior features. Circles: Circles allow you to only share certain information with certain people. Some of my circles include: Family, Friends and Work. I can add people to these circles and only share certain posts and images with who I want to be able to see it. Hangouts: Hangouts is much like Skype but better. Hangouts allow you to have a video conference but not only one on one but you can have up to 10 people in one video conference. With Skype someone must pay for the service to get more that one on one chat. This works great with families that want to meet online for special events like Christmas, birthdays and such. Google is promising many great features with Google+ and they are making improvements daily and integrating Google+ with all of their other products. Google+ is still also in Beta invite only but you can sign-up here with one of my 150 invites.
And all of those tabs are open in Google's browser Chrome. One of the fastest browsers available on the market. It is also good for security and segregates threats within each tab, so if anything happens only that tab will crash.
There you have it four out of five tabs in my browser are all Google products plus the Google browser Chrome. And if you must know the fifth tab was Blogger where I am writing this blog, so since Blogger is also owned by Google, that makes it five out of five tabs.
I will touch on some other Google products I use at a later date.... Stay tuned.
Not sure how or where the weekends go to so quick, but it seems like the same story each weekend. Sitting on the couch on Sunday night with the Monday work day only a few hours away wondering where the weekend went.
This weekend though was a little more entertaining and relaxing. Friday night was a bit quiet, a few friends dropped by and we had some drinks outside listing to some music.
#47 Chicken Curry
Saturday started early, Jodi had a appointment booked to have maternity photos taken at Baby and Belly. So we arrived at about 10am for an hour and half photo shoot. She took about 100 pictures and we should get some of them by Thursday this week. Next up was Shaan Curry House for a great lunch together at the best curry spot in the city. Make sure you take a visit here if you like curry. :-) I get the #47 which includes chicken curry with rice, naan bread, salad and a drink for $10.50. Saturday night we headed downtown and picked up a friend who is here for the month of August for work and met some other friends at the Irish Village for some supper and some ice cold drinks.
Sunday was a day to relax and to get some house work done and groceries picked up.
Google+ is now offering invites for users to sign-up. I received 150 invites, visit the invite page to use an invite and sign-up on Google+.
With S&P downgrading the U.S. credit rating to AA+ from AAA, some Americans may have to look at reducing their house size to something smaller.... check out the video below:
Its been quite awhile since I have done a update, so I thought it might be about time for one, but this time I am going to use Blogger. Up until now I have always designed, developed, and hosted all of my sites over the years since about 1995, now since I use Google for most everything, I figured now its time to try blogger.
The summer has been going quick, and it does not seem like we have done much but wait for the little one to arrive. If you are unaware, Jodi and I are expecting our first baby in the next month or so. Its been a bit busy prepping for the arrival of a new heart beat at the Sooley house. Our little bundle of joy will be a girl and she is due on September 8 but I think Jodi at this point is hoping for her to come a bit earlier.
Mr. Nice Cream is now in its second season of providing ice cold treats delivered in Riverside South on those old time Ice Cream Bikes. This year we have three students working and providing service on three different routes in the neighborhood. Only one of the students from this year is a return worker and he also provided us with a great reference for his friend who is also working for us. Make sure you check out MrNiceCream.ca and keep an eye out for us in the neighborhood. We recently had the bikes at the Riverside South Canada Day festivities and donated a portion of our sales to the Riverside South Community Association.
Now on to Google. Over the past few months I have had the chance not only to visit the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA for some training for work, but I have also been using the Google Music service and got an account on Google+.
First the Googleplex; I was at the Googleplex for a total of a week and it was an eye opening experience. Google really knows how to treat its employees if it not their multitude of restaurants and cafeterias providing FREE food all day long, or their FREE laundry service, or their FREE cars and bus service to San Fran to the ability to bring your dog to work with you. It was an awesome experience that everyone should experience, but unforgivably most will not.
Now on to Google+. Google+ is a product that has launch with much fan fare. It is a social network much like Facebook right now you can sign up to get access. Google+ will over time become a a threat to Facebook. It has enhanced on some Facebook's features and has some nice new ones that Facebook does not have. One of these is the use of "Circles", Circles allow you to place your friends in a group so you can share information with only certain or all circles, like "Work", "Friends" and "Family" this way you co-workers do not need to know about family related things. Another great feature is Hangouts; Hangouts allow you to do a video chat with up to 10 people at the same time. Now you might be saying, hold on here, Skype can do this. It certainly can but in order to do it with Skype, someone must have a paid account. These are just two of the new features of Google+, with more available and many more to come. Make sure you visit http://plus.google.com to sign up for an account and visit and add me at: http://gplus.to/acsooley
Late last year I was going on in a few blog posts about have good my Thrive Chequing account was working for me from INGDieect. Well now the Thrive Chequing accounts are available to all Canadians. It offers FREE checques, with NO FEES and a high interest rate. They also give you $25 for signing up for an account if you use my Orange Key 14477247S1 and you visit http://www.ingdirect.ca/referafriend. Plus if you have you direct deposit payroll moved to ING, they will give you an additional $100. What other bank does that? NONE.
Let me know what you think of the use of blogger instead of my regular site for my blog, at some point I think I will move the AdamSooley.ca domain name to point to here but I still have a lot of information I want to port and move over to here.
Pot List update: See below for the items in italics of what I have done. Yay me!!!!
I thought I would do a bucket list and see what I can mark off of that list over the rest of my life. Since it seems, lots of people have bucket lists, some write them down others remember them in their head. When I was thinking of what I could place on this list, not a lot of things come to mind (guess I done it all). It seems most bucket lists have 100+ items on them and that seemed like a lot to me to add to a bucket list. So I have decided to create a POT list.
Now you may be wondering what a pot list is. Well a pot list is a smaller bucket list. It will include only 10 things that I would like to accomplish of the next year, instead of 100+ things over a life time. My thoughts, ambitions, and dreams always change, so why create a list of things to do over a lifetime when I can create a list of things for each year to complete.
So here it goes with my list for this year:
Get a new Tattoo
Travel down east - Done this, but it was on a bit of a somber note.
Travel Down South Heading to the Dominican Republic Feb 21 - Feb 28
Write a blog entry that reaches 1000 hits. (you all can help with this one) Pass this link on. Done (See the post here)
Loose 10 pounds or more (Current weight 190 lbs) - I went the opposite way on this. I have gained a few lbs due to #6 below. But I am now eating less than 2000 calories a day, to get back down.
Quit Smoking (Lots of people will like this one) - Done. 2 big months so far smoke free. I quit on November 25, 2010 and now the reason for gaining a few extra lbs.
Watch more movies (take advantage of our theater) - We have been using it quite a bit more and usually have been spending Friday or Saturday night watching movies.
So there you have it, my POT list for the next year.
So comment, pass on and enjoy and make your own POT list.
So five of the ten marked off so far is not too bad. I will be getting another tattoo. See the two options I have below and vote on the one you think I should get next.
