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Furniture Stores in Tyler TX, a Consumer Review

June 7th, 2011

furniture stores in Tyler TXRecently my cousin and I went looking around for a recliner, but it wasn’t exactly a hard target search. We were merely browsing a couple of furniture stores looking for any deals. As a single guy, I don’t invest much money in furniture. Aside from some pretty nice book cases I haven’t purchased much at all actually. Fortunately, I’ve been blessed with quite a few relatively expensive pieces by both friends and family over the years. I bring this up in the interest of disclosing my own lack of knowledge of the furniture business. We visited two businesses: the much vaunted Southside Furniture, and Bassett.

Southside has been in the middle of a clearance sale. My understanding is that they’re in the process of going out of business. (I could be wrong on this point as I’ve heard a couple explanations for why they’re clearing their inventory, so if any readers know for sure, I’d welcome your comments). I do find it odd that they’d be closing as they only recently changed their name from Ashley’s back to Southside. At any rate, their selection was decent but even with the forty percent discount the prices seemed kind of high. I’m open to the possibility that it’s just my frugality, and the prices were in fact perfectly reasonable. I’m so accustomed to trying to do more with less that I don’t always perceive the great deal. They did have some really nice pieces but even some of the chairs that I personally found rather unattractive were up around four to five hundred dollars. The store itself was really nice by the way, very large and open.
 

Tyler TX Furniture Stores

 
I was less impressed with Bassett, but I’m completely sure why. First off I guess, because their selection of recliners (which happened to be what my cousin was in the market for), was quite a bit smaller. Their products overall were nice, but the store had a much more crowded feel. Both shops had some huge couches and chairs! I don’t know if this is the latest trend in couches or not but some of the bigger models had arm rests in the middle that included cup holders. Personally I’m not a fan of this feature. It brought back too many memories of riding in the back of my parent’s big Starcraft van. Just thinking about it brings on that old nauseous feeling.

At the end of the day neither shop had exactly what my cousin wanted, for what he was willing to pay. Both stops are worth a look see however. I saw a number of reviewers on line complaining about the customer service, but at least on this occasion that was not our experience. The staff at both places was perfectly friendly, offered to help, but let us look around without pestering us.

Midwifery in Tyler Texas

September 16th, 2010

Baby Noah at Childbirth Services

Childbirth Services, midwifery in Tyler TX
My wife and I decided on midwifery this go around although our first baby was hospital born.

Neither me nor my wife are anti hospital but at the same time we did notice how pushy the hospital was to get my wife on inducing drugs and even the epidural.

My wife didn’t want any of these things going into the pregnancy but while in pain those things seem much more tempting.

The doctors and nurses try very hard to get you to say yes to these inducing procedures but we were able to fend off everything but one drug.

We still came away with a pleasant hospital experience but my wife was now decided that our next baby would be born using a midwife.

We visited with a midwife company in Tyler Texas and spoke with Thalia at Child Birth Services.

Thalia was extremely knowledgeable, kind, and confident. We are happy we found Thalia and have several friends and family that have used her. The midwifery business is booming in Tyler and Thalia only takes on so many clients at a time so we were happy she could fit us in.

Surprisingly the conventional hospital systems attitudes towards midwifes in Tyler is considered hostile. Even though all developed countries in Europe primarily use midwifes it is considered by many in the US to be unsafe and risky to mother and baby.

The facts are much different in that babies actually have a much higher survival rate through midwifery than through the US hospital system. This claim is backed up by the World Health Organization.

You can learn even more about this often debated medical and birthing topic by watching the documentary available on Netflix entitled: “The business of giving birth”

Here is another really good story from someone who has used Childbirth Services

Facebook Places set to Skyrocket past Foursquare

August 19th, 2010

So I have been thinking about this Facebook Places feature on Facebook. This thing is about to get my friends and family doing what I have been doing for months now on Foursquare. What is this I talk about?

I’m talking about a social app that let’s you check in and geo locate your position using GPS or cellular triangulation on the IPhone or Android.

Although many people use these types of services like Gowalla and Foursquare Facebook is playing the all too successful wait and copy game.

We saw the wait and copy happen with TiVo when Dish and Direct TV network and cable TV basically stole the idea but made it much better with what everybody now knows to be DVR.

So Facebook Places vrs Foursquare and Gowalla, who will win?

We all know Facebook Places will skyrocket past Foursquare literally overnight even though Foursquare is huge itself.

An interesting development may be the need for Foursquare to have to become a more broad social network like Facebook to compete.

Also it is rumored that Gowalla partnered with Facebook on their Facebook Places. With no mention of a “powered by Gowalla” anywhere it would seem that Facebook may have eaten Gowalla for lunch and spit out the bones.

I for one am looking forward to more Facebook friends and family geo tagging their favorite places. I will be more likely to go somewhere upon hearing about via a Places status update from a friend.

This my friends is going to be huge. Basically no restaurants and bars in
my small town of Tyler Texas have encouraged people to login to Foursquare and post their review of the food and simply that they ate there.

This will all soon be changing and Facebook will now be much
more about what we have been trying to do with local Tyler business already through our reviews and posts submitted on Facebook. Now however it won’t just be me and a few other people but thousands of Tylerites.

Facebook Places has officially gone live although I can only see it on the IPhone app after deleting the app and re-adding it. Once the IPhone Facebook application was reinstalled I was able to see the “Places” feature.

It is not working here in Tyler Texas yet and has a message that it will soon be rolled out in our area.

Facebook is trying to do it in phases to not overload the system.

I can no longer see the need of Foursquare when this goes live? Am I missing something that Foursquare will do for me to make me want to log in to two different check in apps?

An interesting note is that Facebook Places currently has made their logo a square with the number 4 in it? Wow!!, What a blatant rip off of the Foursquare brand? I thought Facebook was a big enough company to not stoop so low to do something like this.

Facebook Places has basically made something way better than Foursquare, effectively body slamming them on the ground and has then stomped on their face while they have them down with the whole logo rip-off.

Tyler, Texas Weight Loss: Secret equals self sabotage

July 22nd, 2010

On the one hand, keeping your weight loss goals to yourself only makes sense.  After all, if you give up after a few days there’s no one there to criticize you or judge you.  If you do succeed, then you’ll have the upper hand to surprise those who have not seen you in a while, which is a great ego boost.  Mostly, there won’t be the constant, nagging, and annoying questions of what type of plan you are on, how things are going, and how many pounds you’ve managed to get rid of.

On the other hand, keep your weight loss a secret could be a recipe for disaster.  The very reasons for keeping quiet are the same reasons your chances for success are quite low.  There is no accountability and no motivation to push through beyond your own often finicky thoughts.  It is very easy to rationalize eating that doughnut to yourself if no one is there to discourage you and help keep you on the path to success.

While it is difficult to tell your Tyler, Texas friends and family of your intentions knowing there is a possibility of not living up to your goals, having a source of accountability can do wonders to keep your motivation high in those times where you are ready to give up.  It also helps to have a strong support system for encouragement and help. If you are serious about losing weight, let it be known.

Santa Land, A Great Christmas Destination!

January 13th, 2010

santaSanta Land is located off Hwy 20 going towards Dallas. Santa Land opens up November 1 every year and stays open during the Holiday Season until January 4th. Cost $25 per car and $35 per 15 passenger van. I have been there several times so far and the waiting period has been around one hour or so depending on the time you arrive there. The sooner you get there, the less you have to wait. It is an excellent thing to do for your children and your family during Christmas.

You might think that going around and looking at the Christmas lights around Tyler might be cheaper and less of a waiting period. I guarantee you it won’t be as fun as going at least once through Santa Land. You can go run by a fast food place and eat it in the car while you wait in line. While you are waiting in line you can use that time to listen to music or talk to your children or you can just be silent. There are people that walk around your cars and try to sell you all kinds of stuff that lights up and it costs $5 dollars per item (These people are not with Santa Land or a part of the park. Santa Land only sells things within their gate).

Beyond just the light show display there is The 4000 sq ft gift shop filled with ornaments of all varieties.

There is a Snack shack where you can buy some really delicious hot chocolate, homemade treats, fudge, cookies, and much more.

They have tractor drawn trailer rides and a real live Santa Claus to meet and take pictures with that starts Thanksgiving and runs until Christmas.

I know you are probably thinking you can do without spending all this time on something that will only last for a little while. You are right, you can do without it but your children will love it. We even broke down and bought a sword that lights up and my 22 month old loved it. It was worth it just to see how excited she was to play with the toy and spending time with mommy and daddy while looking at the awesome lights. You only get to come here once a year so I think you can spare $25 dollars a year to go and have some fun with your friends and family and if you really don’t have $25 dollars to spend then borrow a 15 passenger van and get some of your friends together and split the cost. That will be even cheaper than $25 dollar.

Either way you do it I think it will be worth your time and money. I know you are waiting to hear what goes on around Santa Land for that much money? When you enter Santa Land they tell you the music radio station that you need to turn to while you are there. The whole place is filled with lights of all types and shapes and is synced with the radio channel that plays Christmas music. They have the Santa Wish shop and his little elves helping Santa. Also they have scenes depicting Jesus, all kinds of flowers and so many other lights. My words really don’t do justice to the place and no matter how hard I try to describe the place you will have to go see it for yourself as to what Santa Land has to offer.

After you are done watching all the lights they have, then you can stop and go look at all the things they have to sell. They have some really neat stuff actually and the price is probably around the same as other places. While I was there I saw an item that was $12 dollars and it was three crosses made out of metal. The item was real nice looking metal made to represent the crucifixion of Jesus. I thought that paying $12 for something like that was not too bad if you like or collect crosses. You will mainly find a galore of different Christmas related items for sale and most of the items are a splendid display of ornaments of all kinds.

The Santa Land Wish Shop has a little something for everyone’s liking but it’s mainly about the kids.  After all that shopping you will probably have worked up an appetite and be hungry. They have an area where you can order something to eat but I would drive up I20 to Bodacious barbecue for some real food. The owner, Cindy has done a wonderful job in making this a family experience sure to leave lasting memories for everyone. Well, I hope I convinced you to go visit Santa Land come this next holiday season.