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October 04, 2004
Endorsements
From time to time I find things I really really like out there in consumerland, so today's supplementary post gives honor to some recent finds:
I'm the "team manager" for middle son's soccer team, and it's a piece of cake since discovering My Team One Call. It's a web-based service where you set up a phone roster, and then when you need to call everyone on the team ("today's game has been cancelled!"), you simply call a toll-free number, record your message, and press the # key, and voila, everyone's instantly notified. Previous team managers attempted to set up phone trees (they never worked) or would take it upon themselves to call everyone (I refuse to do that!) This service is $39 for a six-month sports team roster; you can make an unlimited number of 30-second calls. Everyone on the team loves it. The system is smart enough to leave messages on machines or voice mail.
For some reason, yogurt is a food that I absolutely love, and it seems to calm down my digestive track whenever I eat it. I bought a yogurt maker from amazon.com and I am now making my own yogurt that is far tastier and more nutritious than anything you can buy at the store. The ingredients? Whole milk, a bit of gelatin, and some powdered milk. I use the store-bought plain yogurt as "starter." Though some may consider whole milk to be too fattening, I find that it makes the yogurt much more substantial and satisfying and fills you up instead of leaving you hungry for more. Add some fruit and some Splenda sweetener and it's better than dessert.
My oldest son and I have cell phones on a Verizon family calling plan. We just figured out last week how I can send text messages to him, allowing me to communicate small bits of information ("Aunt Sue will pick you up after practice today") without spending too much in the way of "minutes" and without interrupting his class work. He figured out how to text back from his handset and can send it to either my phone or to my email. I inadvertently selected cell phone numbers that are in a different calling area from my husband's office, meaning that he has to place a long distance call to reach me on my cell phone. Well, now he can send a text message instead! Usually the calls from his office to my cell are pretty brief ("do I need to get anything at the grocery store" or "yes I can pick him up at practice today") and it's so much safer to read a text message at a convenient moment than to flail around trying to answer the cell phone while driving in traffic.
I love technology.