zac stiel’s Blog

Travelpro luggage isn’t just an ordinary suitcase dealer. With their exceptionally easy to handle luggage collection, they are taking over the market and captivating each and every customer. Over the years they have been in business, Travelpro luggage has ingeniously figured out how to integrate ease and style with quality. When you buy your luggage from a brand such as this, you can be 100% certain that you have made a very wise investment.

There isn’t one size fits all with Travelpro luggage. This company has come up with several different lines in their luggage, tantalizing each personality with what suits them best. For the regular traveler who accepts nothing less than the best quality, the Platinum 6 line was created. Only the best of materials have gone into this line resulting in the top performance among its competitors. Rest assured that the Platinum 6 line will hold up to most anything that comes its way. Reliability isn’t the only thing the Travelpro Platinum line was made for. Functionality was another key element that went into designing the Platinum line. Understanding the desires of an individual who travels on a regular basis, Travelpro knew that their Platinum line would have to be straightforward and simple to use. This line remains one of the best options in travel luggage.

It’s time to get a move on with the Travelpro luggage Crew line! This line is all about high adventure and a stress free trip. Who wants to worry about their luggage not being able to keep up when on vacation? Purchasing the Travelpro Crew line is the perfect way to start off a fun filled vacation. Besides holding a rugged charm, the Crew line is ready to stand up against anything that may come its way. The outside is made of durable nylon and the inside is fully protected against any water leakage that may occur. Whether you are headed down to the jungle or on an African Safari, the Travelpro luggage Crew line is the way to go. With their selection of totes, duffel bags and much more, Travelpro is ready to hold up against your toughest vacationing adventures.

The Lite lines in Travelpro luggage are phenomenally engineered. The Walkabout Lite is more focused to the professional traveler. The selection is sleek and attractive and offers a wide range of products. The XtremeLite collection is aimed more for the rough and tough crowd. Hiking, camping and backpacking have never been so easy with the XtremeLite Travelpro Luggage. The exterior is more playful and can take any beating that comes its way. Both selections are wildly popular and make traveling completely hassle free.

Rounding off their products quite nicely is the ExecutiveFirst collection. If traveling for work is what you do, this collection will suit you lovely. Made to keep any employee in line, your business dealings will never run so smooth. Dealing with the ExecutiveFirst collection is pure delight. With convenient storage for all those work supplies that need to be traveled with, this luggage collection is up to any challenge you throw its way. The exterior is sleek and will go with any business attire you may need to adorn. Whatever selection you decide to choose, know that Travelpro luggage produces only the best in the business.

This summer I have been catching up with my favorite shows by watch internet TV. There are a lot of websites that offer ways to watch internet TV. Some of the sites make you pay for it, like iTunes. There are other sites that offer to watch internet TV for free. Of course on the free ones you run into a lot of ads, which can be really annoying.

One site where I watch internet TV is Netflix, but you have to have a subscription in order to get to it. they have a lot of things you can watch on your computer over the internet in addition to the DVD’s you can rent through the mail.

Lately I have been hooked to watching Desperate Housewives online. The show has been on reruns of the second and third season over and over again and I wanted to get into the fourth and fifth. So I searched online for a place to watch internet TV and within seconds there were several sites that came up. Some were bogus ads but I also found a lot of good ones.

My advice is to first make sure that you have a good internet connection. It will be hard to watch TV online if you have a slower or interrupted internet connection. On some sites, you have to wait for the show to download onto your computer. At least give some time for buffering, that means it will transfer to your computer, or else it will stop every few moments and you will have to wait for the line to catch up.

Another thing you will have to be careful of is your security settings. Some of the sites are programmed to watch internet TV in a new screen. If your popup setting are set very strict, then they will not be able to see it at all. if you are having problems with it, check your popup settings. Another issue of security settings might also be a problem. Security settings may restrict video or certain types of content from being viewed online. Double check your settings, and also double check the content you are getting into to make sure that it is what you want to watch instead of an accidental advertisement or something else.

Now, there isn’t enough programming up to this point to make is so you can watch internet TV all day long, for all of your favorite daily shows. Only some of them are available online. Legally that is. Of course there are a lot of illegal downloads and pirated versions spreading through the internet, but they are not a good route. If you watch a pirated movie, sometimes it is as bad as being a recording from a cell phone video camera in the theater. You can imagine the backs of heads, the quality of the picture, and the shakiness of the film if it was recorded by a handheld camera smuggled in the seating of the theater. On top of that think about the sound quality! I know phone speakers have come a long way and all but not that good.

Really its worth it to pay the ten dollars to see it in the theater with the big screen and sound system that it was built for. Or at least wait for it to hit the cheapo theater and go for a dollar or two for a little bit less comfortable of a seat. Then it will be at the RedBox for a one dollar rental. Anyway, that’s for movies.

If you watch internet TV over a slow connection, you might also expect that the picture would be a little bit grainy, no matter on where you got it. that is just a consequence of slow internet connection or other programming glitches.

I love it when we can watch internet TV. Last year I took a college class about management techniques. We had a text that we turned to for weekly assignments. In addition to weekly assignments and papers on the text, we had to relate the things we learned to The Office sitcom. It was absolutely hilarious. The professor did not know all that much about the show in the first place, which is funny because it was all his idea. He wanted to get the students involved in something that would keep out attention and apply the principles of the book.

Every few weeks a different group of students was in charge of presenting some of the principles to the class. When the group presented, each member was supposed to watch internet TV or with DVD’s, find the clip that we wanted to use, then pull it up for the class. Because the teacher didn’t know much about it, we would always have to be explaining the humor of the jokes in the episodes. After explaining all of the jokes then we would have the chance to explain the real purpose of the episodes in the class material. We would watch internet TV for about four clips that were presented by the different students. Usually it was only three or four minutes of material, but it quickly added up to a hilarious class.

We most often used the show for anti-examples of the principles in the text. We would show the clip and say, if he followed the guidelines from the text, Michael would have led the group this way. I think it was still a good teaching moment. We brought some of our lives in connection with the material and that is always a great way to really learn the material instead of just getting through it. Now that the episodes rerun a lot I think about the times I would watch internet TV and remember the lessons I learned from the class. Sometimes it took awhile to find the right episodes, but I bookmarked a few sites that made it easy to watch internet TV and find what I was looking for, without having to buy the CD’s.

The internet is great because you can get any kind of information as soon as you want to it seems like. I found the other day that I could also watch internet TV to catch up on the Rockies game when I could not find the right channel for it. The online broadcast was nearly as great as the TV would have been. Online, the site I found was not a broadcast exactly, but it was a computer generated update of the game. Pitch by pitch, it even showed where each ball came in the zone. So it was the active game score, the score of the pitches and a simulated view from the ump’s position of where each pitch was coming through.

I’m not sure about where the copyright laws come in for this kind of stuff. I do not support illegal downloading. The sites I saw were sponsored from the broadcasting companies. It seems like a lot of them show things online to get more attention to their television broadcasts. When it is a sponsored site like that, its ok to watch it. Sometimes they have copyright agreements come up before you watch internet TV that you will not download and share the show.

Its great to tune in on internet TV when you want to look something up, or if you want to watch a show without waiting for it to come up on cable.

Recycled luggage? Think about it… not exactly what the traveling public is looking for (the concept of who owned this luggage and where has it been, is almost overwhelming - especially when I think about my own set of luggage)…but recyclable luggage, now that’s different. Heys USA, a leading manufacturer of hard sided luggage, has introduced the first eco friendly hardsided luggage set, made from 100% recycled materials… and it is 100% recyclable. Oprah Winfrey has picked the Heys EcoCase luggage set as a featured product on her highly coveted ‘O List’. The ‘O List’ is a regular section in ‘O Magazine’ and features items that Oprah and her team think ‘are just great’

The EcoCase is made from 100% recycled plastic. By utilizing recycled materials to create new durable goods, not only does it help to reduce the demand for new materials and new resources, but it also reduces materials that would otherwise fill a landfill, and all the while giving support to the re cycling industry as well.

The EcoCase is a Spinner luggage set that is very durable, due to its flexible plastic material (ABS), that absorbs impacts. A new blend of ABS gives the EcoCase an elasticity effect similar to a rubber-band. Unlike other hardsided cases, the shell won’t crack… ever!

It is also lightweight, expandable, and is Hey’s first hardsided luggage set to have special ‘Piggy-Back’ straps - which are usually found on soft-sided luggage only. It has a fully lined interior with a built-in divider with a mesh pocket, and an internal telescopic handle system with a push-button locking system.

So the next time you are thinking about being eco friendly, think recyclable luggage that’s made from 100% recycled plastics. It’s a small step forward to help save our environment for today and tomorrow. And, at the same time you’ll be getting a great piece of luggage.

Yesterday I stumbled across a fascinating tool from AHIP (America’s Health Insurance Plans). It’s the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being IndexTM, which began in January 2008, surveying 1,000 Americans 350 days per year. Go to the site, generate a report, and it will break down, state by state, who the happiest citizens in the nation are. Not surprisingly, Hawaii ranks way up there at number 2. I sure wouldn’t mind being in Hawaii right now! A little less expected, Utah surpasses the island state as the happiest state in the US. The poll takes into consideration six aspects: Life Evaluation, Work Quality, Basic Access, Healthy Behavior, Physical Health, and Emotional Health. Utah’s “Work Quality” ranks 1st out of 50, where Hawaii’s “Work Quality” ranks 50th out of 50, which I’m sure is what knocked down it’s overall ranking. It’s an interesting split, though for the overall top two contenders Irv’s Luggage. For both “Emotional Health” and “Life Evaluation”, Hawaii ranked first, but Utah ranked pretty high on all aspects — the lowest was “Healthy Behavior” ranked at 13.

My own surprise at Utah topping the list made me stop and consider my own bias. I tend to think of destinations in terms of travel, but traveling somewhere and living somewhere aren’t necessesarily the same thing. Hawaii seems to have a corner on both markets, but it seems to be lonely in that position. According to a January report from U.S. News, two Hawaiian destinations are in the top 10 most popular domestic destinations of 2009. Topping that list, however, are Las Vegas and Orlando Irv’s Luggage. I’m sad to say, Nevada doesn’t rank so high on the Well-Being Index (38th to be exact) and Florida hovers right in the middle at 30th. New York is also in the top ten of places to travel, but ranks low on the Well-Being Index.

What makes a place nice to visit, but less pleasant to live in? You always hear about the value of experiencing a place through the eyes of a local, but would you really want to go to Las Vegas and side-step the glitz Irv’s Luggage to experience its local underbelly? How would the most popular international travel destinations rank on the Well-Being index?

It’s all speculation–even the “Well-Being Index” itself. I mean, how do you accurately measure happiness anyway, especially with such a slender sampling? But it does make you wonder Irv’s Luggage. How happy is your state, and what makes it so? Is your state a popular travel destination? Tell me about it!

Every year it’s the same thing. The start of school comes like clockwork. With it, comes the inevitable list of school supplies, the need for new clothes (when did those kids grow) and the search for a new school backpack. TBH, in my grade school days, we didn’t have backpacks. No real need. Books stayed at school and homework was mostly work sheets we could carry home. It was high school before we really needed a backpack from Irv’s luggage. The color choices were simple then: black, navy, midnight and the occasional red. Now there are so many colors and brands to choose from, it can make backpack shopping a real adventure.

So, what are the favorite brands? The North Face, Kipling, High Sierra, Jansport, Jworld and Heys USA are just a few for the back-to-school crowd. Buying a backpack is always an adventure at our house. NMW, the children seem to want a new school backpack every year anyway, even though last year’s backpack is still good. The major factor in the yearly backpack purchase is quite simply brand, color and style at Irv’s luggage. The words ‘Oh Mom, that’s so last year’ still ring in my head. So, what’s this year’s favorite?

I get to look at the big sellers for the Irv’s Luggage website. By far, the favorite this year is the Jansport Superbreak, white and lavender spots. These school backpacks have flown off the store shelves and out of the warehouse so fast, that we can’t even keep them in stock. Wow. A close second is the Jansport Superbreak White and Pink Square (definitely a girl thing). Popular for the guys seems to be the High Sierra Access bag, in black or dark blue.

For our little family, though, it’s a very mixed bag… we have three kids and three schools. It will be quite a year…

The middle school kid, soon to be an 8th grader, is actually leaning away from the traditional school backpack… he thinks it would be cool to carry a messenger bag for all his school stuff. Right now, the choice seems to be the Timbuk2 Messenger bag, largely because it is a laptop messenger bag. The kid no longer carries books as his laptop actually has all the text books loaded, so he really just needs enough space for the computer and what he calls ‘his school supplies’ aka: junk. Timbuk2 messenger bags are actually on sale on Irv’s Luggage, so maybe he’ll be a little cost conscious for the mom who has to pay the bills. We’ll see…

The other middle school kid, has clearly become very fashion conscious. In no time it seems that we’ve migrated from the ‘whatever’ to actually caring about what’s ‘in’ or ‘fashionable’. Now for the girl, mood plays a huge role here… no more bright, happy colors as we have clearly reached the teenage angst years. Last year’s choice was the empire blue North Face Slingshot backpack… largely because it had cool places to put her cell phone, calculator and water bottle. This year’s choice appears to be another North Face backpack…the North Face Recon backpack which a laptop backpack, for her laptop. Fortunately, there are eight colors to choose from, and I’m guessing (given the mood lately) that we’ll opt for a darker color. No more pink backpack, definitely not a flower backpack or even the plaid backpack… at least not in the foreseeable future. I was actually hoping she’d pick one of the hugely popular and colorful Jansport Superbreak backpacks from Irv’s luggage. No luck, though, it’s way too colorful, I guess.

Last, the grade school kid, our youngest. He’s wheeled around his favorite backpack so much last year, that the bottom had to be replaced. The bottom ‘plate’ of this wheeled backpack actually wore off and had to be replaced by the Irv’s Luggage repair guys. His choice last year was the High Sierra Fastforward backpack with wheels. Now, let’s remember that as a grade schooler, he basically wheels his lunch to school. Homework when there was any, was largely provided on tear-off sheets. No books, no computer, nothing… just lunch and that’s it. However, for the few times that he actually needed a wheeled backpack for books, it was the High Sierra wheeled backpack was the perfect choice. The kid is not into color, style or brand… he’s about as plain as unlined paper, so I’m guessing he’ll stay with his favorite High Sierra wheeled backpack for next year.

Last but not least is the niece who lives with us. She’s in her final year of college and finishing nursing school. No more school backpack and definitely no bright colors… after all, this is college. Her choice is a leather backpack from Clava Leather. She chose the Clava Leather mid-sized backpack. It is the perfect size, has lots of pockets and is a beautiful leather bag. Most importantly it holds her laptop and, of course, her myriad of nursing tools. This leather backpack will be carried long after her graduation and it’s from <a href=”">Irvs luggage.

Lots of choices, great values and plenty of great brands to choose from… Mom could pick the perfect backpack for each kid in a heartbeat, but then again, I’m not ‘cool’ anymore and the backpack would probably sit in the closet. Guess I’ll just give the kids my credit card and hope for the best. Irvs luggage is one place I’ll let them buy backpacks.

Okay, I’m about to date myself, but do you remember that scene from Back to the Future when Marty jumps back in time, meets his mom’s teenage self, and she’s convinced his name is Calvin Klein because she saw it on his underwear? That gag garnered big guffaws in the theater, simply because EVERYONE knows the name “Calvin Klein!”

It’s true internationally. I remember walking through the night bizarre in Chiang Mai seeing t-shirt after gymbag after jean bearing a big CK or with the name Calvin Klein emblazoned across the front — sometimes spelled correctly, sometimes not. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If that’s so, Calvin Klein must be blushing.

The brand is a big name for a good reason. They are more than a clothing company, but a lifestyle and design company, and now they also offer luggage! Calvin Klein bags are clean, classic, and aesthetically functional–pretty much just what you’d expect from the name. Crafted of ballistic nylon, the luggage styles come in mostly natural hues.

Right now, Irv’s Luggage is offering every Calvin Klein bag at a huge discount. You can save up to 60% on bags from either the Soho or Thompson collections. I’m partial to the Soho collection, partially because it comes in a really pretty dark green, but also because of the minimalist design. That’s not to minimize the Thompson collection, though, which comes in classic silver or black, and is also sleek and chic.

At these discounted prices, you win either way. And if you ever travel back to the past, and are lucky enough to have your luggage with you, the laughs and confusion you’ll cause your historical hosts are limitless! Be sure and pack fresh underwear.

Like lots of college kids, I opted one year to skip the traditional summer job and decided instead to backpack through Europe. Staying at youth hostels, traveling via Eurailpass and eating at lots of street vendors helped to keep my limited funds in check. I schlepped a traditional backpack throughout the gorgeous wine countryside of France, through the clean and efficient Dutch villages and through the glorious mountains of Switzerland. By the end of my six week journey, my backpack looked pretty ragged. And, despite multiple washings my clothes all smelled like the old shoes that were crammed in the bottom of the pack. To tell the truth, I was pretty tired of carrying my backpack from Irv’s Luggage. My trusted ‘friend’ and constant companion had suddenly become the one thing I wanted to avoid.

Fast forward to 2009: check out the Victorinox Emotion 360 Trek Pack from Irv’s Luggage. This is the ‘backpack’ that I should have had. It’s built to withstand the rigors of travel, from wheeling across airport terminals and tarmacs, to bumpy city streets to traditional ‘packing’ along rugged trails.

‘Rugged elegance’, that’s the words that Victorinox uses to describe this wheeled travel pack. The Emotion 360 Trek Pack easily makes the transition from wheeled pack to one of the most comfortable, ergonomically designed backpacks. With inline skates and a 360 degree swivel handle, this is the perfect pack for long distance travel, and for when you’re simply tired of carrying all your belongings. And, for the trails, this backpack has padded straps and lumbar support belt that are designed to distribute the weight evenly. Whether wheeled or carrying, it’s the backpack that every adventurer needs from Irv’s Luggage.

What I like best about this travel backpack, is that there are numerous compartments to keep those items separate, that need to be separate. The dual access sleeping bag /boot compartment is designed to stay separated from the rest of your belongings. And, good news, it features an anti-bacterial lining treatment to prevent the growth of odor, mildew and mold causing bacteria. There is plenty of space in the main compartment for lots of clothes and travel accessories, plus, there is a detachable front daypack to keep tickets, PDAs, iPods and the like safe and accessible.

So, for my next backpacking experience through Europe, I’m all set. Ok, well maybe it’ll be my kid’s turn instead. I’m moving on to the more luxurious route, nonetheless, I’ll still have my Victorinox Emotion from Irv’s Luggage by my side. After all, a good bag is good for any sort of travel at any age. This one suits me fine!

When you get into a time where you are looking to buy a house, you may hear a lot about a real estate buyers agent. Spend some time getting familiar with the roles, responsibilities and advantages of working with a real estate buyers agent while still in the beginning stages of the house hunting process. They can help you out in a lot of ways, with insider experience and connections to help you get what you are really looking for for your family and need in your budget.
To start, lets begin answering the question what in the world is a real estate buyers agent? I am going to take this as if you are completely new to this field with a basic explanation. The first step is understanding a real estate broker, or real estate agent. This person works as a middleman between buyers and sellers. Often many sellers come to the real estate broker to advertise their properties for them, for a commission of course. At the same time, many buyers are attracted to the broker to try to find the right property for them. The needs of buyers and sellers are brought together through a traditional broker.
A real estate broker in the U.S. must be licensed. The licensing requirements vary from state to state, but usually include classes that last a few months. When brokers are looking for more agents in their office, they often provide these education classes. After taking the classes there is a state exam. Once passing the exam, you would become a real estate agent. All real estate agents must work under the direction of real estate brokers. Usually it takes several years of experience to qualify as a broker. Its like being the manager or owner of an office, with the agents working for you. There is also another test with more material in order to obtain the additional license.
To become specifically a real estate buyers agent, the agent has decided to not take listings from sellers or work for them, but work strictly for the buyers. They still must obey all the proper laws of buying a home, but their experience in strictly buying is advantageous to first time homebuyers to the seasoned.
There are other additional certifications, professional organizations and credentials they can add to their title and credibility, but the only required one is the state certification for the level that they are working on. Some of these include GRI, CRS, and ABR. I’ll explain them so that when you see this you know what it means, and decide how important it is to you in working with them. GRI means Graduate, Realtor Institute. The Realtor Institute is run by an independent organization, National Association of Realtors (NAR). The NAR offers GRI designation on the state level, and it includes an additional 90 hours of coursework through the Realtor Institute on marketing to real estate law.
CRS stands for Certified Residential Specialist. This means that they are first members of NAR. The additional coursework and certification for CRS focuses on the common struggles and needs in specifically residential markets.
Getting back to the main subject of our discussion, a real estate buyers agent would particularly be an ABR, an accredited buyer representative. Where CRS trains in residential circumstances, ABR is training all from the perspective of helping a buyer find and buy the right home for the right price. A real estate buyers agent that is both CRS and ABR would be a great person on your team.

Sometimes the best way to invest money has little or nothing to do with what the so-called experts are talking about. Now, before qualifying the meaning of that statement, let’s qualify what we mean by expert: Experts, in this case financial experts, are those whose experience and education give them the credentials to be trusted in a given case. As we are talking about finances, financial experts are those who, through their monetary success and upwardly-moving careers, gain the ear of the media and of the public. Interestingly, though, those upwardly-moving careers usually don’t teach the experts the best way to invest money; rather, they teach the experts the best way to talk about money.
Let’s take the stock market, for example. A fifteen-year study by the reputable firm Dalbar, Inc., involved in mutual fund research, shows that the stock market has-after being adjusted for inflation-lost approximately 1 percent of value in that time frame. Rather than providing a secure financial footing, then, the stock market seems to give an almost surefire slip-n-slide course right off a cliff. It may not be a very high cliff, and it may be a long and gradual slip-n-slide-after all, 1 percent isn’t 10 percent or 50 percent-but the facts are there. The average person is not making money in the stock market (it just isn’t the best way to invest money).
Why do experts talk about the stock market, then? It’s not necessarily because they believe it’s the best way to invest money. While some of them certainly do hold to that view, the problem in their paradigm is that they also espouse certain principles that few average investors are capable of upholding. Take, for example, that oft-repeated mantra to “buy low and sell high.” This is absolutely sound advice. The problem?
People panic. Experts give plenty of advice on what to do with your money; they just don’t provide the character-creating solutions that give their followers the fortitude to stick it out with the stock market. Right now, for example, would be a bad time to sell-the market is bearish-but many people are desperately cashing out and hunting for a new investment route.
This is where Bank On Yourself comes into play. Bank On Yourself offers an alternative investment route that is not subject to the same winds of change as the stock market. Bank On Yourself shows-through its current use by 100,000 Americans and by study-supported statistics-that you can indeed invest your money and come out ahead. The key is to not listen to the majority of the experts.
Experts are not inherently bad people; they’re just sometimes a little out of touch with their expertise. Now, don’t let us be caught accusing financial greats of having no money sense. On the contrary, it’s their money sense that makes them their money. The thing is that the money sense of someone with sufficient financial stature to be an expert is not the money sense that average working American needs. Experts play in a completely different ball field, and their rules just don’t work.
Now, Bank On Yourself actually deals in being expert. As well, we deal in explaining the best way to invest money. The difference is that Bank On Yourself practices what it preaches. In one of our blog posts (http://www.bankonyourself.com/think-you-have-to-risk-your-money-to-get-big-returns-hogwash.html) we mentioned Suze Orman’s inside-out expert advice. Her career is built on being an expert, not necessarily on playing the stock market-and so it is with most experts.
That’s how it is with Bank On Yourself. Our careers and our success are built not on playing the stock market, but on being experts. The difference, though, is that our expertise really does yield the best way to invest money-and stocks just aren’t quite it.