T3C Idea Exchange

When I saw this I watched in awe. Recession etiquette? Really? It seems that there are so many people in America that don’t realize that “if a person is in a difficult situation” due to the recession, the last thing you can do is speak like a total dolt!

Are you one of them?
Watch the piece and see what they’re telling you.

People…you need to pass this around so those who don’t know what to say and how to act to get them in line pronto!

What’s Next? Berivement etiquette

I mean really….after a spouses widow dies, do you have to tell someone not to ask the survivor if they’re dating?
What has happened to us? Where’s Amy Vanderbuilt when you need her….dig her up please.

Miscellaneous job searching etiquette, recession etiquette

Coast Guard’s Barque/Eagle Tall Ship Sets Sail

To a sailor, one of the most impressive sights is to see a classic tall ship under sail. It has to be one of the most impressive sights ever. And if you want to take a trip aboard the Eagle, booking a trip is simple….just fill out an application to join the US Coast Guard Academy in New London, get accepted, and you’re in for a free ride! 

The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle, known as “America’s Tall Ship,” and is normally home ported in New London, Conn. where isitors to the Eagle often wait in long lines for the opportunity to walk her decks. When in port, the tall ship Eagle is open for tours from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Call (860) 444-8595 for more information and directions to Coast Guard Station New London.

Take a look:

Where wil the Eagle land in 2009?

The US Coast Guard’s training ship is one of the best examples of active tall ships on the planet.

Check their website to learn when the Eagle is in port.

• April 20  Depart New London, CT
• May 8  Rota, Spain
• May 17  Monaco
• May 23  Cassis, France
• June 11  Bermuda
• June 25  Charleston, SC
• July 8  Boston, MA
• July 17  Halifax, Nova Scotia
• July 24  Rockland, ME
• July 31 Portland, ME
• Aug. 7  Portsmouth, NH
• Aug. 14  Arrive New London, CT
• For additional details – Click Here

The USCGC EAGLE serves as a seagoing classroom for future Coast Guard officers. A permanent crew of six officers and 48 enlisted men and women maintain the ship year around and provide a strong base of knowledge and seamanship for the training of up to 150 cadets or officer canidates at a time. The Blohm & Voss Shipyard in Hamburg, Germany built the USCGC EAGLE, originally named Horst Wessel, in 1936 as a training vessel for German Naval Cadets.

President Kennedy visits onboard Eagle and speaks to cadets

Crew description:A permanent crew of six officers and 48 enlisted men and women maintain the ship year around and provide a strong base of knowledge and seamanship for the training of up to 150 cadets or officer canidates at a time.

Name: USCGC EAGLE
Class: A
Rig:Barque
Homeport city: New London, Connecticut, Germany
Year built: 1936
Shipyard: Hamburg, Germany
Tonnage: 1,800 tons
Power: sail
Length Over All: 295′
Sail area: 21,000 sq. ft.
Crew size: 54

For additional information: website

USCG Campus – New London, CT

The campus is in New London, Connecticut, on the western shore of the Thames River. It has 26 buildings on 120 acres of land. Halfway between New York City and Boston, Massachusetts, the Academy is easily accessible by plane, train, bus or car. Our address is:

U.S. Coast Guard Academy
Admissions
31 Mohegan Ave.
New London, CT 06320

For hours and tours: Click Here

Travel Eagle sets sail, Eagle Tall Ship, Tal Ship Eagle Tours, USCG American Eagle

Technology Gone Bad!

Call it extreme robocalling and Chris Christie is a big fan.

Have you been hearing from Chris Christie lately? How about his wife Mary Pat? Rudy Giuliani?  All of them have been taking part in a massive robocall effort on behalf of Chris Christie, former US Attorney General for New Jersey, who’s running as a Republican candidate for Governor against opponent Steve Lonigan, Mayor of Bogota.

Two, three, and even four times a day, cell phones, yes cell phones, and home phones are getting the robocall workout commenting on everything political about Christie. Even his wife goes into details about the private catholic schools their kids go to and why he’s a pro-lifer and a “real conservative”.

Have you gotten any of these calls?  You know he’s running for Governor of New Jersey and hopes to win the primary so he can go up agains John Corzine, the standing Governor. Maybe he’s nervous about the election and needs the additional coverage. But in reality, he’s really starting to piss many voters off.

Many Different Callers

Is your phone ringing? It's probably Chris Christie

Here’s just a few of Chris’s friends and family that you might hear from:
(you can even listen to Rudy at the top of this post)

Chris Christie
Wife, Mary Pat
Bret Schundler (R-Jersey City)
Steve Forbes
Rudi Giuliani
Mitt Romney
Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen (R – NJ)

and I’m sure there’ve been more!

I’m waiting for when Rush Limbaugh is going to give a call?

And not that it’s bad enough, they’re using all kinds of dialing schemes to get you to take the call: local numbers, 866 numbers, Private Numbers, Unknown Numbers, to generate the call. It’s a really bad situation here.

For christ’s sake Chris…and all your friends….lose my number!

How do you get off this list? What list is it?

Make sure you’re on the Do Not Call Registery List – https://www.donotcall.gov/ 

Who’s getting abused?

Has anyone else been getting abused like this?

Just because of this garbage method, you’ve lost my vote.

Steve. I’ll vote for you! But DON’T CALL!

If he wins, does this mean that it’ll happen all over again?
Please, if there is a god………

Information Technology Christie Robo Calls, Killing Chris Christie Robocalls

So you’ve lost your job and you’re behind on the mortgage. About to lose your house? No savings left. No credit cards to borrow. Under 59 1/2? How about tapping that 401k or IRA? Well, up to now you’re permitted to, just so long as you pass along 10% to Obama and the Feds in addition to being taxed at your normal federal income bracket.

C’mon folks, it’s time to remove the 10% penalty and let people access what’s rightly their money without the penalty. It’s time to get rid of the 10% penalty for hardship situations AND allow loans on IRA’s

Limited Options

Basically, this article is for those under age 60 because if you’re over 60, go have at your money, penalty free!

But if you’re under 59 1/2 (who came up with that anyway), you’ve got a few options, but lots of them steal 10% as a penalty for early withdrawal.

 Yes there is the ability to take out a 401k loan which is a good idea if you have to.  It’s fairly simple and you’re basically borrowing money from yourself tax free. But there’s a hitch. You have to begin paying the loan back immediately. So make sure you’re borrowing enough to begin paying it back. Default on a payment, and your administrator has the ability to call the loan in it’s entirety, or call it a pre-retirement distribution, and you’ll get the penalty and the tax.

Here are some of the options you’ve got.

Read more…

Business Reengineering 401k hardship withdrawls, IRA hardship whtidrawls, IRS IRA penalties

Bill Griffith's Zippy the Pinhead, based on Liberty Corner resident William Henry Johnson

“Bet you didn’t know that ” series continues

Liberty Corner’s Most Famous Resident? You decide.

 Cartoonist Bill Griffith’s comic strip entitled “Zippy the Pinhead” was inspired by Liberty

Liberty Corner, New Jersey

Corner’s William Henry “Zip” Johnson, a local resident born back in 1842. Known as the son of a former slave, and the “Dean of Freaks” in P.T Barnum’s freakshow,  Zip Johnson might just be the town’s most infamous resident.

Born in 1842 to Liberty Corner, New Jersey parents William and Mahalia Johnson, former slaves, William Jr. was know to be a microcephalic (pinhead), a person with a small, tapering cranium and impaired mental faculty. It is arguable, however, that William Henry was not mentally deficient.  Today, in cartoon and in real life, Zip and Zippy continue to hold cult status, fame, fortune, and those tiny little heads. Even famed writer Charles Dickens coined Zip as the original “What-is-it?”.

A strange twist came when we found that cartoonist Bill Griffith’s real name is William Henry as well (is that just a coincidence?) You can’t make this stuff up.

So Zippy may have been drawn in California, but the real “Zip” was born in New Jersey!

Read more…

Local History, Miscellaneous famous Bernards Twp residents, Zippy in Liberty Corner - Yow!, Zippy the Pinhead Liberty Corner New Jersey

Did you know that US Route 206 actually used to be Route 31 and what is US Route 202 was actually Route 32?

Here are the signs!

So now you tell your friend “Take Route 31 North Thru Bedminster
and Turn Right onto Route 32 straight into Bernardsville.” Huh. “Route 31 goes to Clinton right? Left? WRONG! Confused?

Travel back to 1935 and you definately would have been.

Maybe you could travel down Mine Brook Road to Bernardsville and the directions read take Route 32 south to Bville and stop at the dairy. Or maybe you’re coming down from Chester and you wanted to visit the Brady’s Hamilton Farm in Peapack/Bedminster and you actually have to go down Route 31. Well that was actually the case right up until 1935 when the transition began to change these two crossroads across the Somerset Hills to Routes 202 and 206.

How Confusing?

Have you ever had such a major roadway change names in your lifetime? Your whole psychic changes. Think about how much confusion there is when the Department of Transportation changes highway exits and how long it takes you to forget the old ones and replace it with the new numbers. Geeze, I think there’s still exit signs on the southern end of Route 202 South that still say Old Exit 2B.

Read more…

Local History, Miscellaneous, Travel Route 206 changes Number, Route 31 Bernardsville, Route 32 Bedminster

How General Henry Knox
got a Profile on Facebook

Hey General Washington, was the water cold when you were crossing the Delaware? Hey Socrates, do you really believe all of the stuff you came up with? Don’t go to a seance. Don’t go find a psychic. Want to find a historic personality and chat about their life? You can go find these personalities on Facebook. Yep - Facebook.

Social networking takes a new twist when you get the chance to network socially with some of the most famous people in history. You gotta love Facebook. While it’s become the market leader for kids and even a few adults, a twist comes when people start building historic celebrity facebook profiles.

We went into Facebook and created a profile for General Henry Knox, on of the less noted Generals of the Revolutionary war under Commander in Chief George Washington. Go ahead…click on the Facebook badge and “friend” him! (He needs all the friends he can get).

Henry Knox’s Profile

The badge above is something anyone can create if they have a Facebook profile.

The fun comes in when you get to start looking for your friends. John Adams – friend? Sure. Alexander Hamilton – absolutely. What about Benedict Arnond? Do I (General Knox) really still like this guy enough to “friend” him? Sure why not – he’s on Facebook and really liked my wife Lucy. It’s a way that we’ve begun to use social networking to teach tweens that are on facebook about a bit of history. Funny how those kids take hold when their “friending” these famous people. It’s like they’re proud and have accomplished something!

Using facebook for stuff like this might sound like a waste of time, but it’s actually a deleberate effort to promote history, historic sites, museums, and events.

Never underestimate the power of a social network. Just look what now President Obama did with it! OK, I’ll give his handlers credit.

Facebook sure – go find your historic favorites.

Twitter? I’m not so sure. We just don’t have that much time!

No go out there and find some of your historic celebrities!

Look back when we discuss using Facebook for Non-Profits and the benefits of creating a Facebook Group vs. Facebook Fan pages. There is a difference.

Information Technology, Local History facebook general knox, facebook historic profiles, general knox on facebook, historic figures on facebook

Forget about “Information Technology”, you can just throw that term out the window. The term used today is “Business Technology” and it’s showing up all over leadership boardrooms. Why? Businesses have begun to rethink just how valuable IT is to their business. Sure, there’s modernization, and that’s just to get institutions off legacy systems. It could be technology, applications, infrastructure or whatever. But how much are businesses supposed to spend on IT? Read more…

Business Reengineering, Information Technology Business IT spends, HP ALM modeling, IT spending as a percentage of Revenue

So the common folk wants to upload and present video without being held to the limitations of youtube.com. There are a number of alternatives that have been recently introduced including vimeo, blip.tv and daily motion . Next question will have to address how corporate viewers are going to get beyond the firewall.

Social networking and video sites are being blocked at the firewall, preventing users inside the corporate domain from socially connecting “on the clock”. Read on to see a few tests becuase there are a few video upload site options that might be better suited for you than something like youtube. If you’re behind the firewall….our apologies – send yourself the link and check it out when you get home.

Read more…

Information Technology free online video streaming, Online Video streaming for free, youtube alternatives

Major props go out to the Navy for this presentation that was posted to youtube. With over 5,000,000 views, it’s no wonder why these young men are the best of the best.

Navy Ceremonial Guard Silent Drill

What more can you say? Outstanding. Click the read more to see the video.

Read more…

Miscellaneous Navy Drill, US Navy Drill Team, USNA Drill Team