Ed Icionsub

The Broadway stage troupe of the hit play, Wicked, celebrated its 1000th performance on March 23, 2006. It has been going strong ever since, with both a Broadway show and a national touring troupe.

Wicked, an open-ended show, has enjoyed capacity crowds for almost every performance and it’s weekly gross  is over a million dollars. It broke the record for the highest weekly box office gross in Broadway history.

Based on the character in The Wizard of Oz, it is set in the days prior to Dorothy’s arrival from Kansas. It’s a great idea brought to life on the stage and deserves it’s long running success.

The economy is still a mess, but it seems that we aren’t hearing as much about big swings in the stock market lately. I hope that is a good sign. I was just about to get started in the stock market a couple years ago when the banking crisis hit and I decided to wait.

Now I am looking for an online broker to get my start with investing. I don’t really want to call a local brokerage office and hear a lot of sales pitches. I think I know which stocks I want to buy and I would rather try online trading and see how I do on my own. If I mess up, it will be my own fault and I am OK with that.

Stock Trading is still the basis for a lot of people’s retirement plans. I don’t want to be retired and start learning about the market. I want to learn now and get the learning curve behind me before it is critical to my financial health.

I bought the Epson® Stylus® NX305 Color, All-In-One Printer

This printer was on sale for $39 and the box had a bonus of the serial cable included. This machine is a Copier, Scanner, and Fax, and does a good job on photos. It even has a preset button to print on 4 x 6 photo paper, which is what I prefer to use.

I’m looking forward to hooking up this baby and giving her a test run tonight!

Just got back from Office Depot. They are the only big box store that had any decent prices on printers. I read the entire Sunday newspaper looking for any mention of good deals on printers. I guess the printers are just not as sexy as the flat screen HD TVs that everyone is pushing.

Before heading out to Office Deport I checked the web sites for HP and Epsen printers, and compared some of the different models in the $100 and under range. I know these are cheap printers, but that’s all I want for casual use at home.

I decided to go with Epsen because the ink cartridges are each one color and you only replace the one color at a time as it runs out. With the HP, the cartridges are all three colors in one container, and when one color runs out, then you have to replace the entire cartridge. So you are throwing away good ink and wasting money.

Almost canceled the newspaper on Friday, but i decided I wanted to get one last Sunday paper delivered before I cancel it.

The main think I’m looking for this weekend is a cheap printer on sale somewhere. The Sunday newspaper always has ads from Staple, Office Depot, Office Mac, Best Buy, etc. Surely I can find something good in the sales flyers and go get a new printer later today or tomorrow.

If not, I’ll check the internet for HP and Epsen, and see if they have any online specials that I can take advantage of. The only drawback to ordering online is that I will have to pay for shipping or wait several days for the order to arrive. I would rather find something locally and be able to carry it home with me so I can be printing again by tomorrow night.

The HP color printer was a bargain price and it has worked fine for a long time. But now that I want to print out a few things, the damn thing has decided to jam the paper and just sit there blinking an error code at me.

I cleared the jam and have pressed every reset button, combination of buttons and on/off switch that I can find. It won’t reset off the error code and print.

Most of todays printers are cheap enough to be disposable after a year’s use. There doesn’t even seem to be much difference in the length of time you get to use it between the price points. I have gotten good use out of a $39 printer and I have gotten good use out of a $400 printer. But neither one lasted more than a year and had to be replaced.

Congress hasn’t done much of anything for us this year, but they are taking a break anyway. They are in recess from August 9 – September 10, so things should be quiet on the political front for a month or so.  Summer Recess is one reason Washington DC is so deserted in August. It is hot and humid and miserable in August all along the East Coast. Everyone who get out of town and not have to wear a business suit gets out of there.

One of the ladies in our office has been facing some health issues and today we found out what is going on. This lady has been with the company for over 4 years and we all love her dearly, so we have been very concerned. Unfortunately, the news is not very good.

She told our HR manaager today that she has been experiencing Multiple Sclerosis Symptoms, although she did not realize it until the doctor told her the diagnosis. The symptoms can easily confused with other things. There are many health conditions that cause, among other things:

• Fatigue
• Weakness
• Bladder/UT dysfunction
• Spasms
• Depression

So for a few months is was a huge medical guessing game. thankfully, her doctor was persistent and found out the cause. Of course, no one wants to hear the diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis, but at the very least it is a relief to have a name to put on it and then get the right treatment for it.

To be honest, this is my first encounter with the disease, so I need to get educated pretty quickly. I want to do what I can to support this woman and not sound like an idiot if she chooses to talk about it with me. So I’ll be online searching out Multiple Sclerosis Symptoms, Diet & Exercise tonight.

Today the Opryland Hotel is holding a hiring fair at the Radisson hotel across the street from their hotel. They are interviewing all the former employees who were laid off after the May flooding.

Most of the people who were laid off are going to be able to get their previous jobs back. However, some percentage of them had to leave the area and some found other jobs. They are expecting about 75% of the former employees to return.

In September, they will hold another job fair and open up the remaining positions to the general public to apply.  I’m curious as to how many positions will be open and how many people will be applying for each one?