I lived in Mexico & Guatemala from July 1985 to July 1986. I learned Spanish in Antigua, Guatemala at Centro Linguistico Internacional. I had classes six hours a day one-on-one with my teacher plus I lived with a local family. I learned it so well, I haven’t forgotten it! I do use Spanish regularly, too.

Coincidentally, Peter Greenberg wrote this on his blog, too:

“Families can learn Spanish at the Centro Linguistico Internacional in Antigua, Guatemala. With the Learn Together program, parents and children can sign up for language lessons.

Monday through Friday, each family member receives three hours a day of individual study and at least one hour working with each other to better than Spanish. The program also includes extracurricular activities like soccer matches, bicycle tours, museum tours and much more.

The best part is – these activities are all included in the price of the program. Families can chose from several different types of accommodations, including on-site apartments or living with a Guatemalan family. The price of the program is approximately $225 a week, plus $90 a week for each additional family member.”

I was named after my Grandpa: Steve Dasseos. My Grandpa was a Greek immigrant who came to the US when he was 14 years old. He built railroads and like many Greeks ended up in the restaurant business. I was blessed to have my Grandpa until I was 22 years old and my Grandma until I was 40, so I was able to get to know both of them really well.

For as long as I can remember my Grandpa always told me “If you want to get ahead, you need to be your own boss”. The key to my business’ success is the same philosophy my Grandpa Steve taught me: “give personal attention to each customer.’’

Now, the city we’re from is having a City-wide celebration. They are honoring my Grandparents as part of it. Here’s a copy of an article about my Grandparents - it’s called Steve’s Place Returns:

You can also read the article here.

Steve’s Place Returns

By Linda Tyssen
Staff Writer, Mesabi Daily News
Published: Tuesday, June 17, 2008

By today’s standards Steve Dasseos’ hamburgers could be called heart attacks waiting to happen.

But oh, the taste of those beef patties fried in lard in a cast iron skillet was, you might say, to die for, and for decades Steve’s Place was a mainstay on Virginia’s culinary scene.

Those good old days will be relived during the Great Virginia Get-Together when Steve’s Place will be recreated next to Bailey’s Lake between Natural Harvest Food Co-op and the Flags for Peace on Sixth Avenue North. The burger stand will be staffed by the Virginia Rotary Club from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, July 2-5, said Tom Nordling, a Virginia native who is helping organize the project. The burgers will be served from a trailer designed to look much like Steve’s Place in its final location.

Now don’t go to the modern Steve’s looking for hot dogs or sloppy joes. And surely don’t go looking for ketchup. The burgers will be served just as Dasseos and his wife Katherine did — mustard and onions and no red stuff. Mrs. Dasseos “felt the ketchup made the burgers too sweet’’ and the customers would fill up too fast, said Nordling. The goal, after all, was to sell beef and lots of it.

The burger shop was opened by Greek immigrant Dasseos and his wife in 1930 after he had worked for other vendors such as People’s Cafe at Fifth and Chestnut and the White Castle burger place. Next door at a coffee shop he met future wife Katherine. Early on he had known what he wanted to do in life — to feed people and be his own boss.

When he wanted to build a place to sell his burgers, the lumber cost $35, but he didn’t have the money. Katherine’s father gave him the cash, and the building went up in a day or two. “The day we put the key in the door, there was always a line of people waiting to get in,’’ Dasseos said in a newspaper story of several years ago. Over the years it was located at three different sites.

“It has become an institution in Virginia,’’ a 1977 newspaper story said. Loyal diners “have been raised on the ground beef fried in pure lard and smothered with onions, fried or raw, whichever the customer prefers.’’ Dasseos said back then, “Our ears are burning all the time because someone is always talking about us.’’ The key to the business’s success was “the personal attention they gave each customer.’’ The prices in 1930 — 5 cents for a burger, 5 cents for pop. Dasseos operated on the premise, “Make only one thing and make it good,’’ and he would say, “Virginia has been good to us.’’ Besides the burgers, customers got the coldest milk in town.

School kids would head to Steve’s after football games to get burgers and popcorn from the little shop painted orange and black. “Simple and primitive as that little place was, Steve Dasseos was clean enough and gave his customers full measure with plenty of salty opinion at no charge,’’ Virginia’s Chuck Pottsmith said in a newspaper story several years back. “He could handle rowdy kids or the boozy types in no hurry to go home.’’ His big trade was the lunch crowd. “That black fry pan was deep enough in grease to drown the patty, and the top half of the bun was just dipped long enough to get hot and spongy,’’ said Pottsmith. Dasseos would buy whole pickles, stand them on end and carve them in slices across a cutting board.

It was all part of the charm of “Greasy Steve’s,’’ as some would affectionately call the little burger shop. As years went by, meat prices went up and finally Dasseos had to charge a dollar for a burger. Then one day he said, “It’s not right to charge so much. The time has come for us to close.’’

But for a time during Virginia’s celebration, Steve’s Place will be up and running again, so put your cholesterol concerns aside and enjoy.

Do you use Microsoft Internet Explorer? I do and I’ve used it for years mainly because it came with my Microsoft Windows. But, a few years ago, my friend Amrit suggested I start using Firefox. I was lazy to switch to it, but that was a mistake! Now Firefox is my main browser.

Why do I like Firefox?

Better Security
If you look around you find that better security is often the main reason users switch from Internet Explorer (Microsoft) to Firefox (Mozilla). And, why not? You want to be sure you are safe and secure online if you are conducting high security risk activities like online banking.

Firefox has fewer security holes and a tighter schedule of disclosing them. The enhanced security in Firefox is due to a multitude of factors the system’s inclusion of more source code reviewers and a better bug reporting system and exclusion of VBScript/ActiveX, often the source of vulnerabilities.

Firefox uses much less memory
Our computers at TripInsuranceStore.com have 2 GB of RAM so it’s not like we’re hurting for memry. But, as often happens to me, I have too many windows or tabs open at the same time (too much multi-tasking). Right now I have 12 Firefox windows open.

Browsing speed
Internet Explorer loads all the page elements before the page is displayed. This means if the page has a lot of images and elements in it, you’ll have a delay after you type the address in the address bar. Firefox shows the page elements and images immediately after they are loaded, and you will see first the header, then the menu. You don’t need to wait to see the header until the footer is loaded.

I’m sure Firefox enthusiasts can come up with many more things they like about Firefox over Internet Explorer, so you’ll need to forgive me if I didn’t mention what you like best.

If you want to try out Firefox, you can download it for free here.

On April 8, 2008 I wrote a post called “Does Somebody Want to Transfer Millions of Dollars Into Your Account?“. Since I hate phishing scams and all other fraudulent uses of the Internet I always forward a copy of the suspicious e-mail to the companies that are being defrauded.

For example, at PayPal the e-mail address is spoof@PayPal.com, at eBay it’s spoof@eBay.com and at pretty much every other company it’s abuse@(companydomainname)

Another reason why I stay up too late
Late last night I received an e-mail supposedly from FedEx. I put the entire email at the end of this post so you can read it at your leisure. I naturally went to www.FedEx.com and found this:

“If you believe that you have received suspicious e-mail, or have any questions or concerns, please contact us immediately at 1.800.GoFedEx / 1.800.463.3339 or via e-mail at abuse@fedex.com”.

Being the nice person I am, I immediately forwarded that suspicious e-mail you’ll find below to abuse@FedEx.com. Guess what? Almost immediately I received, in my inbox, this delivery failure message:

“Hi. This is the qmail-send program at ______. I’m afraid I wasn’t able to deliver your message to the following addresses. This is a permanent error; I’ve given up. Sorry it didn’t work out. abuse@fedex.com: failed after I sent the message. Remote host said: 554 The message was rejected because it contains prohibited virus or spam content”

More than a surprise
That was a surprise. No, it was a shock! - how stupid can that be for FedEx to reject emails it tells you to send to them! Since I wasn’t completely frustrated I went ahead and called FedEx’s toll-free number 1.800.463.3339 at 1:03 am. Eventually, I got to speak to someone live in their customer service department. I explained exactly what happened and they told me that FedEx doesn’t accept spam.

So, I explained again why was trying to forward them this because someone was impersonating FedEx, but they told me abuse@fedex.com is the only e-mail address Fedex has to receive these complaints about scams. After I asked “doesn’t this sound silly that abuse@FedEx.com rejects all forwarded spam e-mails?”, the kind man I was speaking to put me on hold for a few minutes to see if he could find anything else out.

When he came back he told me that I had to wait until after 7 a.m. Central time to call the Technical Support Department at 1-877-339-2774 and maybe they can figure out how to email Fedex.

I called FedEx’s Technical Support Department this morning. They said that abuse@fedex.com is the only e-mail address Fedex has to receive these complaints. And they wanted me to call Customer Service again!

Oh well, I guess FedEx doesn’t really want to know who’s impersonating them and damaging their good name.

PS - here’s that email that FedEx won’t let me give them:

Subject: FedEX PARCEL DELIVERY NOTICE
From: “FedEx Online Team Management.”
Date: Tue, May 13, 2008 11:34 pm

Dear Customer!

We have been waiting for you to contact us for your Confirm able Package that is registered with us for shipping to your residential location.We had thought that your sender gave you our contact details.It may interest you to know that a letter is also added to your package.However, we cannot quote its content to you via email for privacy reasons.

We understand that the content of your package itself is a Bank Draft worth of $120,000.00 USD, FedEx do not ship money in CASH or in CHEQUES but Bank Drafts are shippable.The package is registered with us for mailing by your colleague, and your colleague explained that he is from the United States but he is here in Nigeria for a three (3) months Surveying Project as he works with a consultant firm in Nigeria West Africa We are sending you this email because your package is been registered on a Special Order.

What you have to do now, is to contact our Delivery Department for immediate dispatchment of your package to your residential address.Note that as soon as our Delivery Team confirms your informations, it will take only one working day (24 hours) for your package to arrive it’s designated destination.For your information, the VAT & Shipping charges as well as Insurance fees have been paid by your colleague before your package was registered.Note that the payment that is made on the Insurance, Premium & Clearance Certificates, are to certify that the Bank Draft is not a Drug Affiliated Fund (DAF) neither is it funds to sponsor Terrorism in your country. This will help you avoid any form of query from the Monetary Authority of your country.

However, you will have to pay a sum of £82GBP to the FedEx Delivery Department being full payment for the Security Keeping Fee of the FedEx company as stated in our privacy terms & condition page. Also be informed that your colleague wished to pay for the Security Keeping charges, but we do not accept such payment considering the facts that all items & packages that is registered with us have a time limitation and we cannot accept payment not knowing when you will be picking up the package or even responding to us.So we cannot take the risk to have accepted such payment in case of any possible demur rage.

Kindly note that your colleague did not leave us with any further information.We hope that you respond to us as soon as possible because if you fail to respond until the expiry date of the foremost package, we may refer the package to the Nigerian Commission for Welfare as the package do not have a return address.

Kindly contact the delivery department (FedEx Delivery Post) with the details given below:

FedEx Delivery Post
Contact Person:Daniel Christopher
Email:dchristopher1960@gmail.com
Tel: +2348053062492

Kindly complete the below form and send it to the email address given above.This is mandatory to reconfirm your Postal address and telephone numbers.

FULL NAMES:
TELEPHONE:
POSTAL ADDRESS:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:

Kindly complete the above form and summit it to the delivery manager on: dchristopher1960@gmail.com

As soon as your details are received, our delivery team will give you the necessary payment procedure so that you can effect the payment for the Security Keeping Fees. As soon as they confirm your payment receipt of £82GBP, they will not hesitate to dispatch your package as well as the attached letter to your residence. It usually takes 24 hours being an over night delivery service.

Note that we were not instructed to email you, but due to the high priority of your package we had to inform you as your sender did not leave us with his phone number because he stated that he just arrived Nigeria and he hasn’t fix his phone yet. We indeed personally sealed your Bank Draft and we found your email contact in the attached letter as the recipient of the foremost package.

Ensure to contact the delivery department with the email address given above and ensure to fill the above form as well to enable a successful reconfirmation.

Do not reply this email because this email account is not monitored.Send your details to:dchristopher1960@gmail.com

Yours Faithfully,
Mrs. Margaret Blaire.
FedEx Online Team Management.
All rights reserved. © 1995-2008
———————————————————————————————————-
This E-mail is only for the above addressees. It may contain confidential or Privileged information. If you are not an addressee you must not copy, distribute, disclose or use any of the information in it or any attachments.
———————————————————————————————————-
FEDEX INTL>>>

As you know, there’s unimaginable human suffering in Burma after the devastating cyclone. And on top of that the evil military junta that rules Burma is preventing most aid from entering the country. In fact, the UN had two shipments seized by the government at the airport.

I personally have never lived in a disaster zone. I did, however, volunteer for six weeks with the Red Cross in Mexico City after the September 1985 earthquakes. I was living in Monterrey, Mexico and as soon as I heard the news myself and my friends went down to Mexico City to help. Nobody knows what the final death toll from the Mexico City earthquakes was, but after what I saw I know it was well over the estimate of 25 people dead.

As bad as it was in Mexico City, it’s multiple times worse in Burma. Mexico had an earthquake which is clearly a disaster, but a cyclone is worse. You have rain, high winds, storm surge and lots of standing water around afterwards. It destroys bridges, roads, railroad lines and makes the country impassable.

But a least, Mexico City was easy to get to and in the days after the earthquake the weather was warm and sunny. Just think of Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans and you’ll get an idea on a small scale of what’s happening in Burma.

You personally can help the cyclone victims in Burma. 100% of your contributions go directly to Burma. My family and I have known Steve and Kathy Gray since 1998. Steve & Kathy have a long-standing relationship with a Burmese pastor, Timothy Laklem of Asian Tribal Ministries, one of the few Christian ministries with access into the country.

TripInsuranceStore.com’s clients and visitors are generous and kind people. Even though budgets are stretched, any amount of money you give will help. No gift is too small. Click Here & You Can Help The Burma Cyclone Victims

PS - I’m not pushing any religious agenda. My purpose is to see people get help without administrative expenses & advertising dollars eating up the donations.

And, if you want to know more about Steve & Kathy Gray, go here: (it’s aways a good idea to know something about any organization you give money to)
http://www.steveandkathygray.com/index.php - you might be suprised to find church leaders who will openly say “Yes, the churches in the USA have problems…”

If you’ve had an email address for a while, you’ve probably received an email that sounds like this:

“Hello sir/madam,

Before I start, I must first apologize for this unsolicited mail to you.I am aware that this is certainly an unconventional approach to establishing a relationship, but you will realize the reason for my action after going through this email…” or:

“To whom it may concern:

I have a transaction of mutual benefits, which I like to share with you. It involves an amount of Nineteen millions Five Hundred Thousand United State Dollars only,in our Bank, which I like to acquire with your help and you will be compensated adequately as your commission.”

These are typical opening lines of what’s known as a “Nigerian Scam”, or “419 Scam” (so named because of the Section Number of Nigerian criminal law that applies to it), an “advance fee fraud” scheme that has been in existence through regular postal mail for more than 20 years, and which has been multiplied many times over since the advent of the Internet and free e-mail.

There are many helpful resources you can find online to protect you, your family & friends. Here are two places I find helpful (you’ll like the the 2nd one if you have a sense of humor):

1) From Penn’s (Univ. of Pennsylvania) Computing Department

2) 419Eater.com - Welcome to the world of Scambaiting! When I need a good laugh, this is one of the sites I visit. I start at the Letters Archive

Seriously, 419 Scams are very dangerous. People have lost their lives pursuing these for the hope of wealth. I personally know 5 families who were involved in one. They lost over $105,000 and one person was lucky to escape Nigeria with his life.

Since TripInsuranceStore.com is open 7 days a week including holidays, somebody has to be available to answer the phones. So I worked on Easter. In case you’re wondering if I spent time with my family, yes I did. I don’t sit by the phone the whole time. I use voicemail if I’m unavailable and of course I call everyone back.

Yesterday I had 2 calls from unrelated people who had their wallets stolen. One was in Rome and the other was in Paris. That got me thinking about Pickpocketing.

I found this wording at How Stuff Works: “Pickpocketing is one of the oldest and most widespread crimes in the world. The appeal is its relative safety: A skilled pickpocket can make off with just as much money as an armed robber, without much danger of confrontation or risk of being identified in a line-up. By the time the victim realizes what’s happened, the pickpocket is long gone. And since no weapons are involved, pickpockets who do get caught face minimal jail time.”

And another blog I follow had an article called “How To Avoid A Common Trick“.

I hope what I wrote today protects you and your loved ones.

Most of the United States begins Daylight Saving Time at 2:00 a.m. on 3-9-08. This is 3 weeks earlier than in past years. In August of 2005, President George W. Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This Act changed the time change dates for Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. beginning in 2007. Daylight Saving Time is extended one month and begins for most of the United States at 2am on the Second Sunday in March to 2am on the First Sunday of November.

While in Paris, Ben Franklin was the first to propose the idea of Daylight Savings Time. By increasing the available amount of daylight during the summer and decreasing it during the winter season, Franklin hoped to provide the world with a greater opportunity of doing productive work during the summer months, as opposed to the cold and dreary days of winter.

During Daylight Saving Time, the sun appears to rise one hour later in the morning, when people are usually asleep anyway, and sets one hour later in the evening, seeming to stretch the day longer. The reason DST works is because its saves energy due to less artificial light needed during the evening hours—clocks are set one hour ahead during the spring, and one hour back to standard time in the autumn.

A few weeks ago (2-25-08) I wrote a post telling you I decided I would learn to type better. And I’m doing just that.

I have 2 more tips for you. Over the years I’ve used two “tricks” to avoid using my mouse. That takes stress off my wrists which is always a good thing to do. Here are those tricks:

1) Trackball mice
2) Keyboard Shortcuts

1) Trackball mice: I use the Kensington cueball-sized trackball mice. I don’t get them new, since I’m more of a cheapskate (read: frugal). I always get used ones on ebay. I use the Kensington Expert Mouse on my Windows computers & the Kensington Turbo Mouse on my Macs.

2) Common Keyboard Shortcuts For Windows Operating Systems: Instead of using your mouse, try these shortcuts to save time and a whole lot of hand action!

#1 CTRL z - undo
#2 CTRL y - redo
#3 CTRL a - select all
#4 CTRL x - cut
#5 CTRL c - copy
#6 CTRL v - paste
#7 TAB–VERY USEFUL. takes you from one field to another, one “button” to another, one icon to another etc.
#8 SHIFT+TAB — it tabs you backward
#9 ESC — to cancel, or get rid of something like a box or window that popped up when you don’t need it.
#10 CTRL+ALT+DEL–reboots the computer – eventually. First, it’ll tell you what’s stuck.

The Mac uses similar Keyboard Shortcuts, though I didn’t list them here since different operating systems have different shortcuts.

I hope you find these tips helpful & they improve your wrists’ health.

I’m not much of a typist, though I am finally going to make the effort to get better at typing. I was using Mavis Beacon’s typing course in 2001, but once TripInsuranceStore.com took off, it seems like I haven’t had the time to learn to type. Truth be told, I have had the time, but this hasn’t been a priority (it was never even on my list).

Now my 10 year old’s learning typing in school and he’s at 35 wpm. I, on the other hand, just took a typing test and, without looking at the keys when I type (as I’m doing right now), I’m at 11 wpm with 12 errors which means my “calculated speed” is 0!

The website they use at his school is FreeTypingGame.net. It’s easy to use and if you need to get better at typing, it’s a good place to start.