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Shipping a caravan

newpotato — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:45:36 -0800

What difficulties/expenses should I expect in shipping a caravan from the US to Melbourne Australia? We've been looking for a caravan here in Victoria to put on a block of land and the prices for what we are looking for are in the $20k to $30k (used) range.
The same styles, but newer, nicer versions with slide outs, etc, are being had on Ebay in the US for under $3000. I've bought a similar one on Ebay for some Upstate property I have with no problems, so I have no issues with the whole Ebay thing.
The style we're looking for are called camper trailers in the US, they get towed behind the car, and have hookups for water for the sink, toilet, shower, etc., LP, and electric.
I know shipping is expensive as I've had a half container shipped from NY to Melbourne and that alone was $2500 back before gas prices went through the roof, but I'm interested in other issues I might have bringing one of these from the US to Aus. as well.
Anybody out in mefi land ever done this before?

I need famous drinks from famous books.

Sully — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:16:33 -0800

I need famous drinks from famous books. Kind of like how Holden Caulfield always drank Tom Collinses in Catcher in the Rye. Or how the Famous Five always had Tea with their scones. Thanks!

Escape from Chase

zenpop — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:27:20 -0800

Credit union virgin. Several questions re CUs in Seattle area. I want to get out from Chase, who took over Washington Mutual this year. I can't stand them. Totally subjective reasoning, but that's not what I'm writing about. Would like to understand the benefit of using a credit union. And understand what credit unions are about in general. Totally innorant. And finally, can someone recommend a credit union in West Seattle or near that area (I live on Vashon Island). One that has online banking abilities and will be able to handle my personal AND business accounts.

Working from home. Need some serious inspiration.

Anonymous — Fri, 08 May 2009 15:26:59 -0800

Working from home. Need some serious inspiration. Ok, so in some ways the job is awesome, in other ways I feel like I'm going crazy. I work from home, the money isn't bad, and my job is pretty easy over all. That actually might be part of the problem though- not being challenged enough. I do research and personal assistant work for someone, and I can pretty much keep my own hours, and I never even have to see my boss because he's always traveling. He doesn't care when I "clock in" as long as I'm available by phone and like once a week I send him updates. Lately though, I've started to kind of hate it because I'm just so bored half the time and I feel really isolated working from home. I can't usually work from coffee shops because I'm sort of "on call", like when something comes up I need to have the stuff from my home office available.

How do other people deal with working from home? I thought this would be so ideal, but I'm starting to think the point of going to work is to have some kind of community. Maybe I just need to go out a lot after work and add some other structures to my day. Sigh.

I'd hate to walk away from a job a lot of people would find ideal (at least in this economy, and in the area I lived). I also just feel generally stagnant in my my life, and I definitely need a hobby. But that's another question, probably.

Any kind of feedback would be fabulous.

How to avoid politely replying to : Where are you from?

zulonline — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:52:27 -0800

How to avoid or smartly reply to the question : WHERE ARE YOU FROM ? I am fed up of having to reply to this question, specially because I was born in a Country which infortunately is known for not great archivements like many Countries in Europe. I don't want to feel stereotyped any more when meeting up people , not by educated , either by ignorants , which are the worse and they only end up mentioning nonsense about my Country.

I don't like get into arguments and hate polemics, and I don't feel either as patriotic as to be defending or changing opinions to other people about the conflicts that face the Country I was born. Also many times people when don't mention the most known couse about my country I feel they instanlty make a face which is not like if I said I was born in Paris or in Britain.

I wouldn't care to mention the continent where I came from, but people always keep answering more, like but where exactly? I feel always obliged to answer.. how annoying! I simply want to find a polite/ intelligent prhrase or reply when people ask me where I am from, or where I came from avoiding to say wich is my Nationality. Obviously I don't want to hide it from people in wich I am really interested of developing a friendship, but I don't feel I have to reply to every person I meet , and seems to be that I feel obliged to tell them as a simply reply like: I don't want to answer , would be to rude and I will push people away instantly, which is not my intention either.

So please , send me any ideas to be able to answer in a lovely /clever and polite way to : Where are you from darling? Thank you ;)

No Broadband

hophead627 — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 20:36:08 -0800

I have an Everex Stepnote, it came with linux os. I did not like the linux so i put windows xp on it. now i have no wlan connection or audio. i know it's a shitty computer but i need these basic functions. does anyone have any ideas on how to reaquire my wireless broadband? thanks

How can I work for myself?

Hellafiles — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 08:16:42 -0800

Help me build my sales empire! So I've been in sales for the majority of my working life. I've been mostly involved in selling to customers via the telephone, calling on "C-level" individuals and selling software etc. I've had about every good job in town, and currently work in the telesales department of a software company where I've made between $100-134K per year since 2004.

I have come to the realization that I would like to work for myself somehow. I would really like to get my own small office space, or even work from home and sell my "own" products. I figure that I'm currently selling millions of dollars of someone else's product a month, and if I could somehow find a service or product that I own or offer I could make a nice business for myself. I just have no idea what it would be.

I know the economy is in shitter right now, and I should probably just be glad that I'm making good money. But I'm reaching out to you guys for suggestions on what types of products or services I could sell for myself and make bigger bucks.

I don't want to sell insurance, or become a real estate agent / mortgage broker etc. I want to find some niche where I can become my own reseller or agent and take my sales skills to the next level with my own operation. Can anyone recommend any suggestions to me?

How does one hookup with someone from easily 8-10 years ago?

isoman2kx — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 17:31:19 -0800

How does one hookup with someone from easily 8-10 years ago? I've always wondered this as I see people here and there that I used to have a crush on back in like junior high or early high school, yet I'm just getting around to asking this now. I saw this girl that I went to school with today. She was a friend of my best friend's sister. I didn't really know her technically (10 years ago). So I broke out the yearbook after I saw her in church, looked her up on myspace/facebook and would like to talk to her with the intentions of eventually hooking up.

How does one go about doing this? Does it work at least some of the time or never? lol. My message so far to her on myspace was "Hey there. I saw you at St. Theresa's Church today. I swear you look familiar, were you in the same class as XXX's sister back at St. Ambrose?"

I think that's good enough for an intro. Not too creepy or anything. Yet, where do I go from here because technically I don't even know her?I've got like a 3rd degree of separation at best. This message goes for any situations similar too, like people you haven't seen in 4-5 years, people you barely knew but want to get to know. People you had like one class with 3 years ago, etc, lol.

-Travis

crunch-filter: how do I stop my stomach from being sore?

krautland — Wed, 21 May 2008 18:36:07 -0800

crunch-filter: how do I stop my abdominal muscles from aching? it seems I went a bit too far with my crunches this week and now I'm unable to sleep with an aching tummy. I realize there's probably not a lot I can do about that right now I'd like to keep this from happening again, mainly because a sore stomach feels horrible. it's as if you were sick and wished you could throw up but just can't.

so is there a way to stretch your abdominal muscles? especially the upper ones seem to be the issue for me.

Tabs in Filemaker not working

cg1 — Tue, 13 May 2008 08:34:19 -0800

When I try to create a tab using Filemaker Pro 8.0v2 on my Mac (OS version 10.4.11), it displays correctly in "edit" mode. But when I enter data-entry mode, FM "sees through" the tab - and displays all fields (from all the tabs) stacked on top of one another. Clicking the other tabs, I see the same thing - all fields stacked. The *first* time I created the tabs, I dragged all the fields into the proper place and went into data-entry mode. It worked properly. I then went back into edit mode and moved the tab window slightly, changed the color of the two tabs to make the display more aesthetic. *Then* it stopped working - and no matter what I do, won't display properly (all fields across tabs are stacked).

After hours of trying to re-create the tabular box and varying little things (not changing color, etc), I never got it to work again. I called my colleague, who I share the database with online, and asked her to try to set it up - thinking it was a problem with my local version of FM. She created the tab and it worked! I then changed one of the fields within the tab and it reverted back to the problem display (stacked fields).

She tried re-creating the tab from scratch... Same problem. Thinking that it only takes the first time created on a machine, we got all fields formatted exactly as we want them, and pulled a third colleague in - thinking we could have her create it for the first time and it work, then just drop all the pre-formatted stuff into the new tab. It didn't work.

I'm at wit's end. Any suggestions?

Forwarding emails to your phone patents

lundman — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:41:07 -0800

ISP, OpenSource options that can forward emails to your phone/alternate-address, so that when you reply, the replies are sent from your email address (and not from your phone's email address), and threats of patenting said idea. Friend Bob sends email to Fred
ISP receives mail, forwards it to Fred's Phone.
Fred reads email on phone, and just hits reply to send a reply email.
ISP receives reply, and forwards it to Bob, re-writing the From address from Fred's phone address, to Fred's address.

To me, this is nothing special. I could see several ways to develop this,
1: with a 12345@isp.address encoding, where "12345" is mapped to original From. Means you have to store it somewhere, and for how long?
2: Encode the original from, (plain, or something more compact like bas64) BaSe64MsGAddREs@isp.address. But, email has a max (64?) so whatever you encode, PLUS your domain might be an issue.
3: Add an X-OrgMail: header line. Will all phones keep X-Header entries?
4: Encode the original email in domain: user@original.com.isp.address and has *.isp.address MX point to MX server. Since domain max length is greater than username, it should always fit.

So, this company is trying to sell us this service, I consider is simple/banal to the point that I would not ask for more money for the feature. But they claim to be going through the patent process for it so we should not even try to have this feature (although, we already do, but not using #4). I believe they are to use method #4.

I could imagine there are a huge amount of ISPs with this feature already in existence., maybe even using #4 as the method. There could even be OpenSource software that does it. Does anyone know of any? If I can show it is really an old-hat, then there should be no need to fear their threats of "patent pending". With all the crazy patents approved these days, one can not feel confident that trivial "ideas" like this don't get approved.

Strange noise emanating from woman

Jesco — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 16:40:06 -0800

I just started dating this woman. She is 36 year old and has coeliac disease (although I don't think that is related to this question). A strange vibrating noise comes from her. The noise sounds almost like a pager set to vibrate or the sound windshield wipers make when moving across a window that is not we enough (only much fainter). The sound is intermittent, yet frequent. I know for a fact that she doesn't carry cell phone or pager and I am pretty sure she does not wear some sort of a medical device. I can't tell where the noise is coming from exactly, but I know is coming from her. I have heard this noise come from her in different locations and at different times. She does not react at all to the noise and can carry on a fluid conversation during the noise. Any ideas?

The sky is falling…

kmadd — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 15:20:56 -0800

(Two part question: part 1 – help me find a reference, part 2 – am I crazy?) I know I have read somewhere that on rare occasions fish and frogs can be dragged from their watery residences by waterspouts and deposited miles away. There are many references on the web referring to this type of phenomena, but there is a particularly extreme example which I seek… The reference that I recall includes the story of a jet that lost an engine due to inhaling a small animal and loosing the engine. When the residue was gathered from the engine in question, the animal which the plane hit at altitude was confirmed to be a small non-flying mammal (squirrel?). Has anyone ever heard of this particularly extreme case of flightless animals at high altitude?

The reason for my sudden interest in this topic is due to a rather strange guest in my yard over the most recent weekend. Sunday morning, after an unusually heavy summer storm (the patio furniture was knocked over for the first time in years) I awoke to let the dogs out, and when I went to let them in and one had a rather large turtle in her mouth (dead).

This was unusual for a number of reasons…

The turtle did not appear to be a terrestrial turtle, such as those commonly kept as pets (Mud or Box). I have had pet turtles as a child and would recognize a familiar species.

The turtle was large enough (7”-8” L, 5”W) that it would have been impossible for it to gain entry through my cedar privacy fence without going over or under it. Which I’m sure a turtle cannot do on its own power. The turtle was also of a size that I have never seen from an aquatic pet turtle. Only in the wild have I seen a turtle of this size.

The turtle shell was partially broken/cracked near one edge, which may have been the dog’s doing, but she is almost never rough with things that are already dead and I doubt that she would try to tear through something so hard. This suggests that there was some forceful impact involved with the turtle entering my yard.

Access to my yard is very limited; from the street side, there is no way someone could have thrown the turtle into the dog area of the property, plain and simple. The fence in the rear is surrounded by neighboring properties, consisting of mostly elderly folks and one young couple, so it is highly unlikely that that a neighbor chucked it over.

I do not live very close to water, or at least far enough that a turtle could have strolled over. There is a small branch of the Chicago river about a mile away, the North Branch of the Chicago river is about three miles away and the Des Plaines river is about three miles in another direction. There are several small lakes and man made bodies of water within a few miles, but none are within a mile and all have obstacles such as train tracks, major streets and bridges that would need to be overcome. I would be hard-pressed to walk directly to a nearby body of water without getting killed and I look both ways.

Am I crazy or did this turtle fall form the sky?

Does this happen with any frequency?

Opinions, thoughts and any personal experiences are appreciated.

Name this Tune

Oriole Adams — Tue, 15 May 2007 09:39:09 -0800

What is the title of this common piece of music? Here's a sample of the musical notes in question - it is the introduction to Billy Preston's "Nothing from Nothing." The very beginning of the tune utilizes a common introduction used on other (often old-timey) songs. I just wondered if these notes are from a longer piece, a la "Shave and a Haircut"?

Opening a PDF from a Flash projector?

andrewzipp — Thu, 10 May 2007 13:38:03 -0800

Opening a PDF from a Flash projector? I've tried all the obvious stuff.

I set up .bat files for all my .pdfs, but they didn't like that flash of the black command line box.

So I used a launcher.exe program from flashgeek that works...but for whatever reason, Acrobat takes _forever_ to load using that method. So that won't work.

I'd just use getURL, but that dosen't work if you've got Firefox as your default. I know there's a work around, but it didn't work at all for me.

Any ideas?

Help Me Identify two obscure songs from the 70s!

storybored — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 08:49:36 -0800

Can you name these two songs from around 1971? They were taped from a campus radio station but defy all efforts at identification. Help! I've put short .mp3 excerpts here

Romantic week away for a disabled traveller

kairab — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 15:44:57 -0800

Disabled travel. Direct flight from Dublin for one week in any direction. Wheelchair user. Five star hotel and interesting things to do. Can you help? It's difficult to find places that are genuinely wheelchair friendly. Many places say this but when you get there it's a question of them being "helpful" which really means lugging you around. Not conducive to dignity. Max. flight time from Dublin Ireland 7-8 hours. Two adults (one wheelchair) looking for a romantic but unusual destination.
This will be between October and December. We don't want to freeze but also not interested in very hot places. Links to disabled travel sites very welcome. Personal experience even more so!

Los Angeles driving question

humpy — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 04:41:10 -0800

OK I am arriving in LAX (and the US) for the first time *ever* on a Sunday morning next month. Once I pick up my rental car I am headed out to the Howard Johnson at Anaheim. This would not be so stressful if it weren't the first time that I will drive a car with the steering wheel on the other side (I am from Australia, we drive on the left here). What tips can anyone give me on a) how to successfully navigate from LAX to Anaheim, and b) driving on the "other" side of the road? Thanks heaps :-)

How to cope with boss from Hell?

NorthCoastCafe — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 06:22:42 -0800

What coping strategies will help me deal with a new boss (on a much-needed temporary job) who is admittedly "anal rententive." She is anxious, rude, insecure, demanding, disparaging of my judgement and predicts my ultimate failure. If I didn't need the money so much I'd move on, but I want to keep this job. It's not a career move, just a matter of income. How can I manage and tolerate her and or cope with what seems to be a difficult situation? TIA

brooklyn to newark

alkupe — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 08:22:59 -0800

park slope brooklyn to newark airport by car service. how long should i give myself, given the transit strike flight is at 4:30 pm. what time should i leave for the airport?

Server service monitor

bright77blue — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 07:18:26 -0800

Hi I am looking for a way to monitor a few servers - HTTP, POP, SMTP from the Internet and receive an email when a service goes down. Is there a free service? Or perhaps a simple script. I do not want to install Big Brother. Thanks!

What if I get spam from myself?

Doohickie — Sat, 09 Apr 2005 22:34:34 -0800

Both at work and at home, I occasionally get spam where the return address is my own. I'm guessing spammers mine for valid email addies to make their messages appear more legit, but it still kind of bothers me that spam is going out under my name. Should I be worried about this, or is it just a case of harmless techno-stress? Is there a fairly simple way of preventing this?