Jeremy's Weblog

I finished my last final of undergrad last night. More to come on this after I receive my grades.

After some searching for a new online savings account, I settled on ING Direct. A few reasons include a competitive interest rate, good user interface, ability to create sub-accounts (I use these for different savings goals), & most importantly a $25 bonus from using some one else’s referral link. It took me until the 4th page on google to find a working link.

So, if you are looking for a new savings account or just a quick and easy $25 dollars, do consider using these below. However, you must fund the account with an initial deposit of $250+. As a bonus, you get $25 (an immediate 10% return ) and I get $10.

Referral Link 1 (Expires 5/15/09)

Referral Link 2 (Expires 5/15/09)

Referral Link 3 (Expires 5/15/09)

Referral Link 4 (Expires 5/15/09)

Referral Link 5 (Expires 5/15/09)

Edit: No one used my links, so leave a comment if you want one. thx.

Leave a comment if they appear to be all used up. I will try to monitor it and refresh them as needed.

PS. Welcome to the first post in my new financial catagory. I apologize if it bores some of my regular readers but I plan to journal some of my insights, goals, and financial mishaps here.

(This post may come off even more ranty than normally seen here)

Charles de Gaulle Int’l Airport in Paris, France is really bad. CDG is reported to be the busiest airport in Europe. No wonder it sucks. Here is some real life experiences..

1. It is a freaking maze to get around in the terminals. Different floors to check-in vs security lines, etc. After landing, I am greeted to a bus to bring me to the terminal..lovely. Then you must stand in line for hours to get through customs. This alone is not shocking but the fact that there are no signs in that airport stating where you have to go makes things stressful. In the course of my 2h50min layover, I barely made my connection flight because I had so far to walk (customs only did take an hour or so).
2. After boarding my plane (for my 1h50min flight), we literally taxied for 20 minutes to get to the active runway. As in, we were moving at 10-20 mph, not stop-n-go. The pilot got on the intercom and said that we were stopped because we were #6 in line to takeoff. At this point, I shut my eyes. Then wake up when I hear the engines come to life because I like to watch the takeoff and to my dismay, we were turning around. I checked the time and it was 40 minutes later. By the way, we were still #6 in line because I could see all the aircraft when we were turning. Apparently, they closed the runway while we were waiting.. So, taxi for another 20 minutes to the new runway and finally take off.
3. On my return visit back to this crappy place. Same thing, different day. Wheels touch the ground – taxi 20 minutes to the “gate” – take bus to terminal. Walk a mile to get to my check-in spot. Stand in security line for ~50 minutes. Walk a mile to the gate.
4. Ohh, goody, finally boarding the plane. *Thinks to self* – “My these gates are awfully close to each other – I wonder how they fit planes between them” Bah. Another damn bus. Taxi 20 minutes to runway, take off.

The moral of this story. Leave at least 2.5-30 hours between connecting flights if it is your first time there and you need to traverse customs, and the maze that is CDG. Oh, and get plenty of rest and try to be in a good mood.

PS. Feel free to take a look here and notice the 4 runways in the same direction. WTF.

Spring Break trip this year was to Montpellier, France.

I was in France for 8 days. The whole point of the trip was to see Kelli. She showed me around the city and was my personal tour guide. French towns are very interesting, small streets, 6-spoked intersections (non-right angles), old buildings, etc. I will eventually post pictures of the trip. Overall, great trip. My only complaints are that it wasn’t long enough and everyone there smokes cigarettes.

I’ve completed my new project, finally. I am proudly releasing http://planetskydive.net to the world. Planet Skydive is simply a one stop for people to read skydiving blog posts.

Have you ever wanted to blog about skydiving but thought it was pointless because no one would read it? Well, now you have an audience.

I wanted to have a place that I could subscribe to that would aggregate all the skydiving posts that people wanted to contribute. Anyone can contribute, the only thing that you cannot do is advertise products for sale. This is not a classified page, for that you can use dropzone.com

If you would like to be added to this site, send an email to “jeremy at jolexa.net” with your blog address, point of contact email address, province/state & country if you want a flag by your posts. Then you can make a post and it will show up here. This index is updated hourly, so it is not instant.

Some post ideas:

• Your journey at your first bigway camp
• Some achievement (being selected for a world record attempt, first 4-stack CReW, first otter jump, whatever)
• Objective review of a new dropzone
• Your dog’s first skydive
• Your goal for becoming USPA dictator, I mean, what you are doing on the USPA BOD and why we should care.

If you don’t have a blog yet and want one. I would highly recommend either wordpress or blogger. (both free)

So, you know those “gift cards” that are made by Visa/AMEX/MasterCard and can be used anywhere? Well..they are sneaky, here is why. You must have a balance on the card that covers the cost you are trying to purchase! Otherwise it is ‘denied’ like a credit card is. This is real annoying when you have less than a dollar on the card and you can’t use it anywhere! Money down the drain for me and making money for them. grr. Buyer Beware – I would much rather receive a gift card to a specific store and actually be able to use all of it, wouldn’t you?

About a month ago now, my girlfriend and I went to Chicago. We choose megabus because we heard ‘ok’ things about it. All I have to say is ‘buyer beware’ – avoid at all costs!

At first glance, megabus looks great. Cheap-ish rates, direct service, better than greyhound, wifi on bus, etc. However, the real story comes out once you start your journey. Enroute to Chicago, the ambient temp on the bus was ~50 degrees or so. The wi-fi wasn’t equipped or wasn’t turned on. It was packed (this was expected though). On the way home, well..the freaking bus was 2 hours late to get to our pick-up spot! WTF. The driver didn’t know how to drive a bus, it seemed. He also got lost in Milwaukee.. WTF #2. Wi-fi was on, but we couldn’t associate with the access point…the driver “didn’t know how to work such fancy technology thingies” – FAIL! – get trained in on your equipment, sir.

Ok, rant about megabus is over. Bottom line: You will probably be disappointed with the service. Google search for “megabus sucks” and see all the other stories of how bad this company is.

Chicago was neat though – we got to see “The Bean” (below)

And we ate at a bunch of restaurants, went shopping, saw a protest, walked around the city, among other stuff. Cool place there.

One final down – no problem.

One final tomorrow – medium difficulty.

One final a week from tomorrow – sad face.