Capital One offers Visa and MasterCard, with platinum and gold cards. With more than 44 million cardholders in the US, Canada, and the UK, why send mail spams? If they have these many customers, why not let the word of mouth do the promoting or recruiting? Satisfied customers will always be happy to share their experiences.

Sending credit card offers to random people via postal service is so very annoying. Each time I receive one, I don’t even open the envelope. I tear it into pieces and throw it to the bin.

And I wonder how Capital One found me. I just transferred to a new house and just few weeks after I settled in, I got their spam mails again.

Capital One should stop sending these mails! If Capital One really wants to invite people to join, they should send emails instead. In that way, I could mark their emails ‘unwanted’ and they go directly to the bin marked, what else, ‘spam.’

I thought the construction of the building will never be finished. In all those times that I drove along 6th St., it seemed the bank construction has been taking its time. I waited for it to finish because I am planning to open a new account with them. If you want to know its banking hours, I posted the schedule below:

Lobby Hours: 8:30 – 5:00 PM
Drive-Up Hours: 8:00 – 5:30 PM, 6 PM Fridays

Insurance:
P – 1-800-881-5611
F – 605-229-5409

Dacotah Bank Address:
1441 6th Street, Brookings, SD 57006

Contact:
P – 605.692.8600
F – 605-692-4350

Visit Dacotah Bank in Brookings, South Dakota for your banking business!

See map for directions:

New York Times reports the discovery of bags full of unused clothes in bins, slashed with razors to ensure that no one would ever wear or sell it. H&M follows a destroy-and-discard policy. OMG! These predatory companies do not have a sense of civic virtue or civil responsibilities.

Report: “Gloves with the fingers cut off, warm socks. Cute patent leather Mary Jane school shoes, maybe for fourth graders, with the instep cut up with a scissor. Men’s jackets, slashed across the body and the arms. The puffy fiber fill was coming out in big white cotton balls. The jackets were tagged $59, $79 and $129.”

Is this behavior from these giant retailers shocking to you?

But not with Bay Landing Hotel. The price of the room per night was only $69, without the necessary tax. While most of the hotels I searched online were priced at more than $100 a night, Bay Landing Hotel was listed as one of the cheapest hotels near the airport and close to the downtown area.

For me, the hotel must not only be cheap. I always have this notion that cheap ones are limited in services — no complimentary breakfast, no fitness room and so on. Price usually goes hand in hand with hotel amenities and quality service. Cheap hotels are 2-feature less and 2-star less than the pricey ones. So when I saw that Bay Landing Hotel was cheap yet with features comparable to high-end hotels, I was proven wrong.

What you read from their website is correct. The hotel has a high-speed wireless internet access — for free. Since I cannot live without the web, internet access is one of my prerequisites in getting a hotel. The beds were huge and the room was spacious, even with two beds and few furniture. The bathroom can accommodate 10 people inside. That’s how big it was. The room fixtures were not cheap-looking, unlike other hotels I’d been to.

I did not find anything bad about the service. The front desk personnel were kind enough to attend to my inquiries.

The location of Bay Landing Hotel is perfect. Along the bay shore, you can jog, walk, or even sit on the benches that lined the sidewalk. In my case, I took pictures of the various birds enjoying the rocky shores.

If you visit the site, this is what you’d read, which are all true.

“Many of our inviting rooms have bay views and all afford numerous amenities, including: safe, refrigerator, microwave, coffee maker, iron and board, cable television, pay-per-view movies and games, voicemail and high-speed Internet access.”

“Enjoy complimentary Continental breakfast in our dining room or out on the terrace, where you can immerse yourself in the tranquil beauty of the San Francisco Bay.”

“Greet the day or unwind after work in our fitness room. Our cardio equipment includes treadmills and stationary bike, and we have a complete circuit of weight equipment.”

If you happen to visit San Francisco and wanting to stay in a cheap yet with service far better than a 5-star hotel, give Bay Landing Hotel a try. I highly recommend this hotel.

I have this vanity for clothes. Whenever I go shopping, which happens very often, I never fail to buy a shirt or two. And that must be paired with new jeans or pants. Just a couple of weeks ago, I spent too much on winter clothes that sometimes I think it is excessive. But I never regret buying things for myself. If, for some reasons, I decide not to wear them anymore, I always share them to the needy. The two bags I donated today at the Goodwill store included T-shirts, sweat shirts, long and short pants, and even new coats that I bought 2 months ago but were unused.

It was my second trip to the store for this year alone. I already donated a bag of shoes early this year. Why do I keep on donating? Because it is the best thing to do for things that stay idle in my closet for months. It is satisfying to know that someone out there would benefit from my used and new clothes. I used to do this when I was still in the Philippines and there is no reason not to do it here in the U.S.

As much as I love the idea of having a thrift store, there are things that I dislike about Goodwill. Alright, people shop there to save a few bucks. A shirt that would cost around $20 in a regular shop is only $3 in Goodwill. A pair of pants is only about $4. Even couches are too cheap not to take a glance at. Girls’, boys’, women’s, men’s clothing displays are too tempting not to buy. The very first time I was in Goodwill, I bought three hard-bound fiction books for $0.50 each. They were the best book deals ever!

Goodwill could have been better than Walmart if not for its crappy stuff that sometimes could trick shoppers. Maybe this is not true for other Goodwill stores nationwide. But in Brookings, SD, the shop is selling electronic devices that won’t work, most appliances have missing parts, clothes that are old-fashioned, and furniture with loose screws. But all these are expected in a second-hand shop. To not become a victim of a non-working device, make sure you test the device in store or check every component if it’s there.

The clothes sold at Goodwill store are a bit smelly. They must have been stored for so long inside boxes that traveled the oceans from China or some other Asian countries. There are also a danger that Goodwill stores pose to public health and safety. The fact that you do not know where the clothes came from or who previously used them is something one should worry about.

Goodwill stores exist for a reason. These type of shops exist because they are needed. Not everyone could afford a trip to the big malls or expensive shops. So if anyone of you has usable things to share, donate them at Goodwill and help others. That is what Goodwill’s name is all about.

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Goodwill Store in Brookings, South Dakota
Address: 625 Main Avenue Brookings SD 57006 USA
Web: http://www.goodwill.org
Telephone No. (605) 692-2085