We are suppose to pay attention to the safety instruction video or demonstration every time we board an airplane, yet most likely you will see the majority of passengers reading or chatting while the video is playing or the flight attendant is showing us how to put the life jacket on.

Air New Zealand just came out with a very clever idea that will make all its passengers watch the safety instruction video without even blinking once. The video shows the crew going over the safety demonstration, wearing nothing but body paint. The video itself is not explicit and no nudity is shown, however the camera angle is positioned in such a way that keeps you guessing what is behind all that body paint.

In case you want to see it, here is the video:

My wife and I just came back from the Orlando, Fl. area. I had a 3 days work related conference in Buena Vista, and since my wife was also on vacation, and the kids were spending some days with the grandparents, we decided to take a break and combine work and vacation for a total of 5 days.

It worked out great. I took two days off from work (Monday and Tuesday) and the conference was held from Wednesday through Friday. While I was on the conference, my wife was relaxing by the pool or shopping at the outlet stores nearby.

West Gate Resort

First I want to write a little bit about West Gate Resort, where we spent our first two nights thanks to the free accommodations I got.

There is nothing spectacular about the resort. I mean, it definitely beats any hotel, but there are plenty of other resorts in the Orlando area that have much more amenities, bigger swimming pools and more stuff to keep the kids occupied. I browsed through their daily activities program and nothing caught my attention (nor it would have probably caught my kid’s attention either).

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There are some days where your entire body is asking you for a vacation; a break from everything.  This is especially true if you had a hard week at work, filled with last minute or end of the month reports, deadlines, or your boss asking you to do more things that any human can possible do in 40 hours of work.

Unfortunately, what our body wants and what our wallets can afford not always go hand in hand. So what do you do when you need a brake, but can afford a vacation?

Use one day of the weekend and take a mini vacation without having to leave town.

Here are some of things you can do to get away from everything, and they won’t cost you much, plus they can really help you relax and recharge your batteries.

 Grab your camera

Most of us have a digital camera that we use to take pictures of our kids, family reunions, etc. The thing is that most people don’t even think about using their camera to take pictures of their surroundings.  As a matter of fact, because we are so busy going from one place to another, most of us don’t even notice our surroundings. So grab your camera, go to a park, a nature reserve, the beach, a lake, even downtown and start taking pictures of all the interesting things that you find. You will be surprise how many new things you will discover even in places where you have been thousand of times before. For some reason, when you go to a place with the sole purpose of taking pictures, you look at things in a completely different way. For example, you might see a weird looking tree that resembles a statue, or how different a building looks when you look at it from certain angle. Snap away, and don’t worry about the technical stuff, simple try to be creative about your picture, and soon you’ll find yourself immerse in your picture taking quest and you’ll forget about work and everything else that stress you out.

Cook out.

Having a BBQ on the beach or a park can be fun. You can really enjoy a day out in the outdoors if you are surrounded by family and friends. If you have a family, put the kids in the car, grab some charcoal, a bag of hamburger, some hamburger buns and head to the nearest park or beach. You can also invite a couple of friends or other family members. You will be surprise what a great time you can have with a simple barbeque and good company.

Go camping

When was the last time you went camping? Most of us loved to camp out when we were kids. Remember the campfire, the sky full of stars at night, the excitement of sleeping in the middle of nowhere? Almost every town in America has a place where you can go camping for less than $20 a night. Go ahead, relive those memories from long gone days, and if you have children, create new memories for them. They’ll never forget the experience.

 Visit a local attraction.

I bet you that there is at least one attraction in your city that you have never been to. It can be a water park, a museum, a gallery. Any place nearby that you have been thinking about going but put it in the back burner because you knew it was right there and you could go anytime you wanted. Well perhaps spending several hours at a local attraction is what you needed to relax and have a good time.

Spend a night at a local hotel

The idea of renting a room in a hotel located only a couple of miles away from you home sounds silly, but if you have never done try it. I am sure you’ll be able to find a local hotel or motel for a very reasonable price. Mi wife and I do this whenever we can. We send the kids to spend the night with the grandparents and just go and rent a room in a local hotel. Because we can focus our attention in ourselves, we have a very relaxing time, especially if after checking in, we go out to the movies or a restaurant to grab a quick bite.

Those are only some suggestions, but if you are really creative, you can have a mini vacation almost every weekend, and it won’t cost you much. After all, fun doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive.

A while ago, I wrote an article with the title  “When everything else fails, call headquarters”. This article talks about how sometimes it is best to skip the middle man and complain directly with the company headquarter if there any issued with booking, hotels, etc.

Following my own advice, I decided to send a letter to West Gage Resorts corporate offices to complain about what happened when I went to their sales presentation.

I sent two identical letters, one to the company owner, Mr. David Siegel and another to Mr. James Gissy, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Sales. To my surprise, 3 days after I’ve sent the letter, I received a call from Michele Colaci, Sr. Director of Specialty Marketing.

Michelle was very professional, and I could tell she had a genuine intention of make things right. For once, she immediately acknowledged that I was grossly misled with the information I’ve received. She also explained to me that it was a third party vendor the one responsible for the marketing material I had received, but after my letter she send out a memo to all third party vendor informing them that West Gate would now allows this type of misleading practice to go on.

Michelle offered me a two night stay at their resort and two ticket to any Orlando park free of charge to compensate me for all the troubles, which I accepted.

In two weeks, I’ll be in Orlando enjoying the free accommodations and tickets.

This goes to show you once more, that a letter is a powerful tool if you send it to the right person, so don’t give up on your complains. I must also comment West Gate Resorts for making things right.

Car DVD

With summer vacation fast approaching, most parents are already making plans to take a road trip, or visit their favorite vacation spot with their kids. We prepare psychologically to deal with the “are we there yet?” or “I am bored” nagging from our kids because we all know that those classic road games that we used to play when we were kids, would not be enough to entertain our kids nowadays. For this reason, I have put together a list of free resources for parents who are planning road trips with their kids this summer. The list include places where you can legally download free music, videos, audio books and many other digital content guarantee to entertained your kids during the long drive.A couple of things about this list:

• First, I am assuming that you own at least one of the following:

1. An iPod, or any other Mp3 players
2. A portable DVD player or any other portable media player that can play videos, music or both.
3. A cell phone, PDA or any other device that can display text or PDF files.
4. A portable CD Player

• Second, all the content I am providing complies with copyright laws, meaning that the files are either public domain, or the owner had agree to share his/her work.
• Third, all the content is free and safe to download (no virus, spyware, etc.)
• Forth, no subscription is necessary to download this content, in some cases you might need to create a free account with the site, but you don’t have to subscribe to any services nor pay to download the material.

 This said, here is the list of FREE electronic content you can download and bring with you on your next trip.

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