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Donna Gunter for President

Still undecided in the Nov. 2008 U.S. Presidential election?  Now you have a new candidate -- me!  See my video here.

Wedding Planned in an Hour

With less than 7 months remaining until the big W day on August 8, Eric and I had a serious discussion about our wedding plans.  We both have unpleasant memories of our first weddings -- too much hassle, too much stress, too many people.

span face="Verdana">Eric threw out the idea of a beach wedding, which I found very appealing, and so a beach wedding it will be.  I did a quick Internet search on "Galveston beach wedding" and came across a great little business called The Wedding Chapel (kudos to Nathan for great SEO on his site! <g>). For a modest fee they'll take care of the minister, photography, flowers, and setting, and all we have to do is show up. You can see a pic of a couple getting married on the beach here, and this is what sold us.

Eric is quite happy that he can get married barefoot and in shorts, and I'm happy that all the arrangements are taken care of -- I did everything from booking the wedding, the hotel, and things to do all in about an hour --thank goodness for the Internet!  We're going to honeymoon for a few days in a Jacuzzi suite at Moody Gardens, have a dinner cruise on an old paddle wheeler, visit a winery in Santa Fe (TX), and get a great couples spa treatment at the hotel.

In all honesty, I have been dreading this day because of the level of stress I experienced the first time around, but now I'm actually looking forward to it!  We won't be sending out invitations, as it'll just be Eric, me, the officiant, and a couple of witnesses.  Now I just have to figure out what to wear...;->

To your online success!

Buying a Piece of Art

Fall has finally arrived here in SE Texas (days are in the mid-70s with low humidity and nights are in the 60s).  For some of you, that may still feel like summer weather, but it's a great relief to our dog days of August and September, when the heat and the humidity (and mosquitoes) are brutal!

Eric and I took advantage of this short spurt of beautiful weather and attended the annual Art in the Park event here last weekend.  Sponsored by the Orange Chamber of Commerce, the event provides the opportunity for local artists to strut their stuff.  Amazingly enough, this event drew artists from as far away as the Dallas area.

We were surprised to see as much local talent as we did, as there are few venues for local artists to display their work and wares.  Eric was particularly taken with the pottery made by an art faculty member from Lamar University (my alma mater).  After seeing the price on one of the pieces, we started to walk away and think about the purchase, as neither of us has ever spent several hundred dollars for a piece of art before.

However, just a few steps away from the booth, Eric decided that the piece "spoke" to him and he had to have it.  He's been wanting to buy a nice piece of pottery for a year or so now (this is one of his measures of adulthood), and to think we found a piece he loved right in our own back yard!

Guess it pays to get off the computer occasionally and tour your local area..:)

The Gong Show

This week Eric and I became the proud parents of a....gong.  Yes, you read it correctly.  Eric has wanted a gong for a long time, and over the weekend he decided now was the time to stop thinking about making this purchase and actually do it.  We searched a couple of sites (including Amazon.com, where Eric does ALL of his shopping).  However, he didn't see anything appealing.  I had gone gong shopping a few years ago with a good friend and her husband when I went to MA to see them (actually, we were shopping and went into an Asian antique store that happened to stock gongs).  I told Eric that a big part of the gong buying experience was hitting them and listening to how they sounded, as there is a vast difference in tones even in gongs that look similar.  Who knew??

After looking around a bit more on Google, we found the online gong Mecca site (it's Gongs Unlimited, if you're interested).  Not only did they have a variety of gongs in every shape, size, and color, they had all types of gong accessories, gong movies and pictures, a gong newsletter, the ability to personally engrave your gong, and believe it or not, several references to the TV classic, The Gong Show.

There were 4 things that this merchant did that made it easy for us to decide to buy from him:

1.  He had sound files on the site so that you can actually listen to the sound of the gong you're buying (major kudos for that feature!).

2.  He provided stellar copywriting to describe the gong mallets (the instrument you use to hit the gong), which caused us to buy a higher-priced one that we had originally planned.

3.  He had lots of gongs from which to choose in all size and price variations.

4.  He let us pay through Paypal, which we like to do when buying from a merchant we don't know, as we typically use a debit card for our transactions and wanted similar purchase protection that buyers usually receive when they use a credit card.

Amazingly enough, the Gong Store doesn't have a very attractive website.  However, it offers what gong aficionados need and want. If you're in the business of selling products instead of services online, visit the Gong Store to see how you can apply their Internet marketing strategies to your product.

Stay tuned for pics of proud papa and Baby Gong when Baby Gong is delivered...LOL

A Day at the Office...and a Show!

Eric, my fiancée, is a shift-worker for a local synthetic rubber manufacturing plant.  This means that when he works, he works 12-hour shifts for 4-7 nights in a row (and some days). Because of this work schedule, he gets roughly a week off each month at the end of his shift cycle (if he's not called in for overtime).  This means that he is home when I'm working in my office.

And that's where the entertainment begins.

To a large degree, Eric is a little boy trapped in a man's body.  He has a great sense of playfulness and fun, and enjoys his free time to the fullest when he's not working.  Part of his downtime duties (self-appointed, I might add) include engaging in wild antics to either make me laugh or get a rise out of me.  When I'm in a bad mood, he's been known to tie a bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper (a major vice of mine) to a broomstick and wave it in the shower at me or through my office door.  Full mooning has also developed into a daily habit, and yesterday he wore a pair of my panties on his head and did a Cleopatra-like dance down the hallway adjacent to my office.

What's challenging is that many times he pulls these stunts while I'm on the phone with clients, and I'm having to choke back snorts of laughter while in conversation with them..LOL

Who knew that running a business could be such an adventure?? And, before you ask, I have Eric's full permission (and blessing) to tell this tale..;->

Unique Valentine's Day Gift

I read an article over the weekend in the Houston Chronicle about a very unique Valentine's Day gift produced by a Canadian company, BookByYou.com.  It's a personalized romance book starring my finace, Eric, and me.

Patterned after children's personalized books (and much more expensive than children's books as well), visitors are offered a number of romantic scenarios from which to pick and "star in".  After filling in a number of personal details like name, eye and hair color, and best friend's name, the company produces and ships a personalized soft cover book to you that features you and your significant other as the hero/heroine of the novel.  The stories are along the lines of a Harlequin romance, which may be a bit racy but never get terribly profane or erotic.  And, the sender can further personalize the book by having his/her picture on the back cover, much like an author would for a traditional book.

They do almost all of their business online but do offer telephone support during the week if you need additional assistance.  They've designed a very intuitive interface that  makes the ordering process pretty painless. However, I would've have like to have known sooner in the process that I'd be able to proof my order prior to paying.  Since I didn't know, I tried unsuccessfully to use the back button on my browser.

And, if you're in the U.S., you may find that your bank or credit union has universally blocked online transactions with Canadian companies.  I had to call my bank to unblock this feature on my debit card for about 15 minutes so I could place my order.

If you order today (Monday, 2/12) there's still time to get yours before Valentine's Day.  Unfortunately, if you're part of a same-sex relationship, it doesn't appear that there are any stories available for you. Now, how's that for an idea to appeal to a particular target market?? <g>

Superb Viral Marketing

This is one of the best examples of viral marketing I've seen recently.  Fellow blogger Susan Falter-Barnes mentioned it in her blog, and I had to check it out. Office Max is providing a fun way to get traffic to their site and have people pass along the fun to all of their friends.

What is it, you ask?  Why, it's a little elf-amation starring yours truly.  Check it out here.  And, you can be elf-ized, too!

Remember to turn on your speakers! :)

Free Hugs for All

I just saw this video on Michael Port's Book Yourself Solid Blog. It's taken from YouTube.com, where it's been viewed over 250,000 times.  It's heart-wrenching and uplifting, all at once.

Would you give this guy a hug?  I would.

5 Things You Probably Don't Know About Me

Inspired by Dental Coach Chris Barrow's blog post, here's my list of 5 things you probably don't know about me:

1.  I wanted to grow up and marry Donny Osmond (yes, really!).  Thank goodness that never happened -- I'd have a bazillion kids and grandkids by this point..LOL  I was so in love with Donny that my bedroom had purple curtains and bedspread, and I had Donny and Marie pics from Tiger Beat (anyone remember that teen magazine?) all over my wall.  The only compulsion that survived out of this strange chapter of my life is my love for the color purple and all varieties thereof..:)

2. I graduated salutatorian (#2) of the Jasper High School Class of 1981.  My best friend from jr. high and high school, Terry Ferguson (now Terry Eddy), graduated #1.  I think we were only a couple of tenths of a point apart in our GPA.  I was one of the graduation speakers, along with Terry, and my speech was based on a song by the rock group, Styx.  For the life of me, though, I can't remember which song it was..;->

3.  In my first month of college as a freshman at Lamar University, I was almost arrested, along with my other Alpha Phi Omega pledge class members (this was a service fraternity, not a social fraternity), as we were returning the 700 lb., 12 ft. tall fiberglass cardinal (Lamar's mascot) that we had stolen as a prank after a football game.  This was the same cardinal that we as pledges had to run across the field on the rare occasion when Lamar made a touchdown.  Unfortunately, Lamar's football prowess never improved, and they pulled out of the football business in the early 1990s, I believe.

4.  My now ex-husband and I had taken a day trip to a local lake over the border in NY (about 45 minutes from where we'd lived in western MA) and had brought our dog, Brandi, with us on the trip.  Brandi and I were playing on the beach, and she was running around.  Somehow with her running and my running, we ran into each other and she managed to make me flip in the air (now, I'm no gymnast and have NEVER played one on TV!) and land on my back on the sand.  I hit the ground so hard that I was seeing stars.  What I didn't see at the time (my ex told me about it when my head quit ringing) that there was group of Asian/Japanese? tourists there as well and they started snapping pics of me as soon as I started my airborne journey!  Guess I became their strange and unusual American freak sideshow that was the highlight of their trip..LOL

5.  Back in 1999 or so, I flew to New England to see my best friend, Jacque, in Massachusetts.  However, at the time, Southwest Airlines (if Southwest doesn't fly to a destination, I figure I don't really need to go there <g>) didn't fly into Albany, NY, which was the closest airport to where she lives in western Massachusetts.  So, instead, I flew into Providence, RI, about a 2.5 hour drive from her home. 

I became fascinated with Providence because I'd been watching the TV show, Providence, and really related to the character Dr. Sydney Hansen, who was back living at home after a failed relationship (I had lived with my mom for about a year after filing for divorce in 1998), and she struggled, just like me, to find her place in the world again. Providence (the city) had just undergone a major economic revitalization, and I wanted to walk the canals in downtown Providence where Sydney walked. 

So, Jacque agreed to meet me there and pick me up.  We walked all around downtown and on the riverfront, ate lunch and had a really great time.  It was getting late (around 4 PM) and since we had almost a 3 hour drive ahead of us, wanted to get on the road to her house. 

As we started walking to her car, we both suddenly realized that we were having such a good time talking when we parked the car that we had paid no attention to where we were when we parked the car, and now neither of us had any idea where we parked! I can laugh hysterically about this now, but it was frustrating as hell at the time..LOL.  And, we couldn't even call the police for help, because that would have been just too humiliating!  So, we walked around for an hour, trying to retrace our steps, and finally began to recognize some scenery and then located our car about 30 minutes later.  Where's a good GPS system when you need one??? LOL

OK, now it's your turn..:)

 

What's In a Name?

A friend recently sent me this, and I thought it was pretty funny, so I decided to share.  Here's your chance to come up with a new name for yourself for any number of situations.  My new names are noted below:

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet's name & current street name)
Frisky 23

2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fav ice cream flavor, favorite cookie/cracker)
Chubby Hubby Nutterbutter

3. YOUR "FLY Guy/Girl" NAME: (first initial of first name, last three letters of your last name)
Dter

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)
Purple Giraffe

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)
Lee Jasper

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: ( darth + the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first)
Darth Gundo

7. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite drink.  Put "The" in front of it.)
The Teal Margarita

8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers)
Joel Eli

9. STRIPPER NAME: (the name of your favorite perfume, favorite candy)
Opium Reese

10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother & father's middle name)
Helen Lee