Pretty home on the beach

When I was a kid growing up in Virginia Beach, we sometimes took trips to nearby Kill Devil Hills which is a stone's throw from some Nags Head vacation rentals that Carolina Designs is fronting a weekend getaway for some chosen online content writers in a contest.

Times and places can diminish in a person's mind, becoming grayed out past the memorable incidents affecting the senses. The scent of salt spray lingering in a child's nostrils, the feel of fine sand between toes after running behind a kite turning circles, things that stay with a person for ages in flashback vignettes.

In an era that we live filled with technology and marvels unrealized just decades past, there are still places available that families can go for themselves to get away from it all. While Disney, Epcot, and Universal venues are closer...there are times I yearn for the touch of morning sun on my face at the peak of day's break.

With a cup of coffee and my kids still snoring inside, bliss.

Opinion: online versus real world shopping

Doing the daily schedule of survival whether sheltered or streeted, I get questions from both sections of how and where I get the stuff I use for my blogging and online content writing. Fact is, I get it wherever I can the cheapest.

On some occasions I've been known to dumpster dive when seeing a computer carcass sticking it's backend out of a box. On other occasions I've come across finds dirt cheap while window shopping. And on one occasion I've gotten things online like with tiger direct coupons.

Now in the grand scheme of things, getting items online CAN be the cheapest and easiest...IF...a person isn't hungry for something. The main factor in all of this is I make a list of things I 'need' as well as 'want' for any time I'm in a position of rummaging anywhere. Grocery shopping is a matter of weekly need, but computer and system upgrading is a matter of 'wants'.

And no, I haven't practiced this much of my life. I found when I 'did' start managing my purchases this way, I was less prone to hoarding unnecessarily. There was a time I kept computer components in a closet, much like the rhetorical example of the bag lady or man/woman pushing an overloaded shopping cart of items they'd never use.

McDonald's: Homeless Protest End of Dollar Menu

San Francisco franchise of the popular chain is starting to get harassment and publicity regarding changes to what many Americans have come to take for granted, or so the press at that Fox affiliate would have people believe.  I picked up on this from a Twitterfeed coming from Mark Horvath who's the writer behind Hardly Normal.

While the reporter and writer of the story 'may' have spoken to disgruntled people affected by this, it's implied that people 'need' this location.  No mention was made regarding distance or location of chain grocers, no mention of the income threshold or Food Stamp assistance dollars received by any of these people, or what time periods they were frequenting the location and the impact on their lives whether as ad hoc day center or nighttime shelter.

The story itself only gives merit to further questions be asked.  Sloppy 'blog entry' reporting on major affiliate websites constantly abounds, but when it paints a one side picture that's biased…that's not transparency, disclosure, or ethical writing.

Mentioning something having to do with people experiencing homelessness has been a recurring trend, but it's increased exponentially over the last decade with the amount of news aggregating by media using Google.  What's worse is when a news agency takes the viewpoints of a select microcosm and places a generalised label on it.

I doubt just the people experiencing homelessness affected by this price increase had issue.  I'm sure there's a number of people served by this location that budgetted their finances and will feel the pinch as well.

If homeless people had money to afford a dollar and tax for an item at McDonalds, you can bet they can go to their local grocer and with some time walking the aisle buy something just as filling if not more nutritious.

It just won't be fast food convenience.