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06/29/2006
The gang at TheBigDay.com
Three of the gang (Arletta, Ann and Jared) at TheBigDay had birthdays the 27th of May. Needless to say, we decided to have a party at our regular weekly meeting, which gives me the perfect opportunity to begin to introduce anyone out there who reads this to the cast of characters at the office and give you links to their blogs so you can find out more about them.
First up is Jared, our resident tech dude who hails from the Rochester, New York, vicinity. As you can see, Jared has no fear of taking a dive into a bit of dessert!
Jared is pretty new to the Portland area and has been exploring Oregon in his spare time. He moved out here from back east with a couple of his friends and found a job with us pretty soon thereafter! We're happy to have him around to bug when something is amiss tech-wise.
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06/15/2006
Heifer International makes it on a registry
Heifer International has long been one of my very favorite organizations. Their mission is to bring an end to world hunger - a rather daunting task, eh? How do they plan to do this? They take the old approach that giving a man a fish will feed him for a day, but teaching him to fish will feed him for his lifetime. For nearly 60 years, Heifer has been helping people obtain a sustainable source of food and income.
So, how did the Heifer Project come to be on a honeymoon registry? One of the couples at TheBigDay chose to list "Sheep and goats" as one of their registry items. Their rationale for this is found in the description of the item: "Living in the Middle East has created a soft spot for sheep and goats in our hearts--after all we met while hanging out with them in Palestine, and here in Jordan we must walk through the flock in order to hail a taxi. All sheep and goats will be purchased through Heifer International and be donated to needy families and communities. To learn more about Heifer International's approach in providing aid see www.heifer.org"
The couple is getting married this weekend - congratulations to them!
As an afterword - one of my friends gave me a flock of chickens one year - it was great! I never had to clean out a hen house.
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06/14/2006
What to register for
Just when I think I've seen everything on the registry, something new pops up! My all-time favorite item, though, was the snake charming lessons that one couple had several years ago. They were going on a rather extended trip that included some time in India, where they planned to take up a new hobby (??) it seems! This is the picture they used for their item.
Some people are confused about what to put on their registries. While it is possible to put anything you wish on them, some things are more appropriate than others. Michael has created some guidelines to help you decide what to register for.
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Honeymoon registry etiquette
Honeymoon registries are sufficiently new to the marketplace that the etiquette that guides them is still in a state of flux. We at TheBigDay hope that the hints we have listed under "Honeymoon registry etiquette" will help answer some of the questions you might have.
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06/07/2006
TheBigDay gets international recognition!
Toronto is not only the largest city in Canada (remember Canada? It's the other country, besides Mexico, that borders on the US. There are no current plans to build a fence of any kind between us, though.). It also has two of the major newspapers in the country, the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail.
This past week, the Globe and Mail ran an article that featured some of our registered couples. (As an aside, we always check with couples before we release any information to them to the media. We do not give out information on either couples or guests to anyone without permission.) Canadians are the second largest nationality who use the Honeymoon Registry at TheBigDay.com.
We lived in Waterloo, Canada, for several years when first married and have a daughter with dual citizenship to show for it! At the time, the University of Waterloo was one of the leading computer schools in the world. That was in the days of huge mainframe computers, and Waterloo had a great showcase of its computing power - a room full of machines (bright red, if I remember correctly) several stories high and visible from a couple of floors up through large windows that looked down on all that power. My current laptop would probably be a pretty good match for what was there at the time. Rumor has it that Microsoft still recruits very heavily from their graduates.
Toronto is a great city to visit. Located on Lake Ontario, it is a business and cultural hub. Dominating the skyline is the CN Tower from which you can get a panoramic view of the city and the lake. It's a clean, safe city with lots to do. Among the attractions are a ride up the CN Tower, a visit to the Ontario Science Centre, taking in a night of theatre, skating in front of city hall (in the winter), shopping in the downtown area or checking out the architecture in the city.
If you're a sports fan, Toronto is home to the Maple Leafs (somehow, it's not the Maple Leaves), if you like hockey - and if you're in Canada and don't like hockey you might not want to mention that - and also the Hockey Hall of Fame. Should you be visiting in warmer times than hockey season, you could take in a Blue Jays baseball game.
You can also rent a car for the day and take a quick ride down to Niagra Falls and take a ride on the Maid of the Mist and stop in Niagra on the Lake on the way back for dinner.
About an hour out of Toronto is St. Jacob's, which hosts a large farmer's market where you are likely to find Mennonites who still drive horses and buggies, like the Amish in Pennsylvania. If you are interested in some more exotic means of travel than this, you might look into the hot air ballon rides in the area!
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