Scott Cate: Family

I just tried to rent my first Amazon Prime movie, on the Roku set top box. On the website the movie was $2.99, and on the TV Buy it now was $3.99. Perfect. Supply and Demand, I love it. 99 times out of a 100 people on the TV just want to watch a movie and probably aren’t going to price compare. I just happen to also have my laptop handy and noticed the price difference. I love finding out these little tricks in life :)

Berries.com for the win. I don’t have a ton of time – so this will be short. I sent a thank you gift to some friends, but I used an old (wrong) address. The people who live there now, called and told Berries.com about the mistake. Berries (Called Shari’s Berries online) called me and left a very nice voice mail. I got the new address, called back to customer service, and there are replacing my order, to the new address no charge. Within 10 minutes of hanging up, I rec’d a FedEx notification, and the Berries gift will be delivered overnight, tomorrow. WOW. Amazing. If you have a gift for someone...

So today at Gangplank a couple of the guys were standing around thinking about were to go to lunch. We didn’t figure it out – we just started walking towards Ol’ Town Downtown Chandler.  About once a week, we end up at Murphy’s Law . A local bar, that has great great great great (did I say great!) food. It’s an Irish bar – with great food. Why? They have a real Chef. His name is Chad and he knows his way around the kitchen. He’s also friendly enough to come out to the table and say hi to some guys that he recognizes from Gangplank . Today we were looking around the menu, asking each other...

About every two years or so, I forget how much I hate Blockbuster Video Rental. I think it started with petty late fees, and just an overall bad experience in the rental stores back in the day. For the last few years, we’ve had NetFlix, and it’s worked perfect for us. In fact – we still have Netflix – both DVD and streaming with our XBOX 360 kinect. The whole family loves and uses Netflix on a regular basis. But today, I was looking for a movie that wasn’t on NetFlix Streaming, and Jamie and I wanted to watch it tonight, after the kids went to bed. It just so happened that I had a coupon from the...

Check out this YouTube video post, about the escalators? Maybe a silly post, but I thought it was cool. The escalators in the Berlin Convention center are on auto pilot, based on motion. As you approach the escalator, it happily comes alive to serve you. When there is no one on the escalator it turns it self off, presumably to save power.

In the states, if you see an escalator that is stopped, you automatically look for stairs, or an elevator to change floors, especially if you're going up.

This seems like a great/simple way to save a lot of energy!

Good job - whoever thought of that first :)

I recently needed a new passport faster than the 6-8 week turn around, and even faster than the 2-3 week rush service you can pay extra for from the Department of the State. Searching online I found a bunch of Hand Carry services, and I decided to try RushMyPassport.com and here is a quick overview of what happened.

First – The service is 90% automated (very nice), along with a few customer service calls to make sure I knew what I was supposed to be doing. My service agent was Barbara – who was very friendly on the phone, and helpful to make sure I was well organized, knew exactly what I was doing, what I had to include, where the closest “Sealing Agent” is, and probably more information that I have since forgotten.

What’s a sealing agent you ask? I’m glad you asked. Here’s the run down. You can hire a hand carry agency to walk in to a Department of State office, and work on your behalf. If you live in San Francisco or Philadelphia (and I’m sure there are others) then you would not have this problem, since you can do this yourself in person. Living in a state like Arizona, without a local Passport office, you have to look for other options. Now, just any Joe off the street can’t show up and say - “Um, I’m here for Mr. Cate’s passport...” So how do they do it?

We have all of our insurance with Allstate agent Wes Cain. As many of you know, a month ago I was in a minor car accident. I say minor because there were no injuries, and just external body damage to the rear of my car. I have never been in a car accident before that was my fault, so I didn’t really know what to expect. Now, a month later, the accident is behind us (me really) and the car is back good as new. My final thoughts on the whole accident are ... I’m glad no one was inured I’m glad the car accident was minor I’m grateful that Wes Cain is our insurance agent. I’m...

We’re trying to decide between these two logo’s. Instead of telling you the nit-picky things we like and don’t like, we’d like to ask your opinion. What do you think? Please Leave comments . Thanks, Scott and Jamie. NO CHEATING …. After you choose A or B above, AND … leave a comment :) you can see all the logos we have to choose from on the LogoTournament Site. http://www.logotournament.com/contests/morning_star_academy OK ... I decided to open a HIT on Mechanical Turk , and for $5.00 I was able to solicit 100 responses. The bad news here, is the general population...

He’s not really watching the superbowl, he’s watching Noggin’. But it’s cute that he created this little fort to watch TV. Courtney wants in, but Cameron says “She’s just a little baby, and too dangerous to get in my fort”. This radio flyer was a gift from Judy, and he uses it every chance he gets. Thank you Judy!

The best part of my day over the last few months has been 15-20 minutes somewhere between 5am and 6:30am each morning. My wake up time depends on when baby Courtney decides to start rolling around in her crib. She used to cry when she woke up to get our attention; because she knows that there is a fresh warm bottle on the menu. Cameron and Courtney each have their own room, and their doors pretty much face each other. So when Courtney starts making noise in the morning, She needs a fresh diaper and a bottle to avoid waking up Cameron (and sometimes mommy).