Cookie Please
Little Anthony looks at you and then looks at the little bag of cookies that you are holding. He holds out his hand and says "please"... sounds more like "wheeze" It's very clear that he is politely asking for a cookie.If you ignore him, he holds out his hand and says "na" In baby talk, that "na" means "I want it". Try and ignore that and the "na" gets a lot louder!
Hello?... Hello?
Yes, Anthony still loves to play with telephones. Real ones are of course superior to play ones. while I am writine this short article for the Bau Family Online News, Anthony is happily pushing all the buttons on his father's office phone. He hasn't figured out yet how to make a real call so the telephone bill will still be in check.He talks a lot more when no one is on the other end of the line. Too bad, as he does have a lot of interesting viewpoints to share! :)
Handyman's Helper
It's winter time and the house air gets dry, so the Gladwyne house has several electric hot air humidifiers. As soon as the Handyman fills the largest one in the living room, little Handyman's Helper(aka Anthony) runs for the stairs. He darts into one of the bedrooms and comes out with another humidifier empty cansister to be filled. As Grandpa takes it from him and goes to fill it in the bathroom, little Anthony smiles and smiles.Grandpa now replaces the full canister back in the humidfier, and who should appear at the door with another empty cansister? Why the little Handyman's Helper of course. This must be a routine extablished by his father, for each time the Handyman reloads the downstairs humdifier, little Anthony darts for the upstairs bedroom and you know what... ;)
Bargain @ Priceline.Com??
For Paul's trip to Philly in March, he turned to Priceline.Com for a price which wouild beat the 21 days in advance, spend a Saturday night and non-refundable fare of USAir. Paul put in a bid of $110. Having done this a couple of times before, he expected to have the $5 fee and taxes of about $12 tacked on top of the $110.00. Oh great, priceline.com responded in their less than 1 hour with a congratulations, you've got your ticket at the pirce you wanted! But surprise, this time they also added an "Airline Fuel Surcharge" of $20.00!!! Oh well, it still seemed like a good bargain. USAir was probably like all airlines, adding a surcharge because of "high winter fuel costs" Was this so? Paul's curiousity couldn't be contained. He called USAir reservations directly and asked for the current cost of a round trip ticket for a trip 21 days in advance with a return after spending a Saturday night and non-refundable. The price was $169.00. Was there an additional fuel surcharge or was this the total ticket price. There was no fuel surcharge! O.K. to Paul, Priceline is still a pretty good price, but buyer beware! These are some pretty shifty tactics, when the bidder get "his price" and then unclear taxes, fees, and surcharges are added at the end. The price from the airline directly might be a bit higher, but the price is the price.Filing with the IRS
Paul is trying to get his income taxes completed and filed early this year as he and Rachel will be in Australia the month before April 15th. So, while in Gladwyne, he went to Costo to purchase TurboTax 99 and got a $30 savings and a coupon for a free Turbo Tax State for Windows. Sounded pretty good.In late January, we called BJ's in Framingham and they had no stock of the Turbo Tax State... it was on order. Quicken gave the option of downloading the program from the Internet. How would Paul get his rebate from a program he paid for over the net with no proof of purchase nor a receipt? Also, could Paul be sure that he would be able to receive and use the downloaded program... no David nor Kevin in the house. Oh, oh!
Well with a bit of luck and a bit of help from Rachel, Paul was able to download, retrieve and use the Turbo Tax State. Martha Tzau's '99 taxes were completed that weekend. Also, Quicken gave an order number when the purchase was made over the Internet. You simple filled in that Quicken order number on the receipt coupon and mailed it to Quicken. They say to wait 6 to 8 weeks and you'd get your refund for $27.95. Pretty cool.:-)
Oh yes, when you download the program from the Internet, you had better remember where you stored it. Otherwise, it goes to the Cyberspace kingdom of no return.
Delta Express
Hey, the Delta Express flight from Boston to Philadelphia on the 5th of Feb was not bad. Recall, we "chose" Delta Express via our purchase of an inexpensive ticket through "priceline.com". Whereas American Eagle and United Express fly turbo props (propeller airplanes) on the communter fights, Delta Express flies small jets... much smoother and a bit quicker, even on these short flights.That was the good news on the 5th. Arriving at Philly Airport, Grandpa Paul proceeded to the Baggage Area to make transportation arrangements to Gladwyne. Super Shuttle was called at the transportation desk, and they promised a shuttle bus in less than 40 minutes ( that's a pretty long wait period). Well, they were more than 60 minutes before a shuttle came to Terminal E. Then too, the shuttle bus was full. Yup, you guessed it. Gladwyne was the lass stop on this run. More than an hour later, Grandpa arrived at the house in Gladwyne. Portal-to-portal time for this trip was 4 1/2 hours! One can drive from Weston to Gladdwyn in 6 hours if the traffic is good!
Movie Review
"Snow Falling on Cedars" is a beautifully photographed cinema and story about a love that couldn't be realized between a young Japanese-American girl and an idealistic son of a small town newspaper editor in the 1940's. Shot in the Pacific Northwest, it reminds one of the concentration camps many Janpanese-Americans suffered during this period and the loss of property and the prejutice and injustice that pervaded the land.My movie companion asked why he didn't just marry her when they were young and so much in love. The Weston movie critic wanted to remind her that the world has changed a lot in 60 years in the USA. In the '40's, perhaps 1% of Asian-Americans had inter-racial marriages; in the '60's , less that 10% had inter-reacial marriages, and in the '90's, more than 50% of Asian-Americans marry caucasians. A lot has changed in 3 generations.
