MarkD

This is an interesting article about spousal benefits from SS: Strategy maximizes couples' Social Security benefits.

At first I did it all then slowly exposed her to the finances. First, got her name on the checking account, then the house, and then credit cards. Had her pay the bills for a few months so she would know how to write checks and to see the income and outgo. I would double check to be sure nothing was missed and that she wrote out the check correctly. Now, I'm paying most of them except for her credit card. She always writes the check for that. In the last year we've changed most of our payments to be directly withdrawn from the checking account. Very convenient!

My wife got her braces in March of '06 and she is hoping to be done in Oct '07. She has a chance - her teeth are moving quicker than the Orthodontist thought. She doesn't like them (who does!) but she is happy we could get her teeth taken care of. She had overcrowding so two teeth were pulled and the remaining needed to be straightened.

You can get 3 free credit reports every year from AnnualCreditReport. It is a web site that the US government forced the 3 big credit reporting agencies to setup. You can get one report a year from each agency - Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. I get a report from agency every 4 months just to see what's going on (not because I'm paranoid). You can look on the report for any strange activity. If you find something wrong on your report you can contact the agency with the error and they are required to double check the error within a certain period of time. I taught my wife to never give out her SSN unless it is for a government purpose. Seems that more places are asking for it. We just got life insurance for her and they wouldn't approve the application with out her SSN. We have refused to do business with some companies because of their insistence for having our SSNs when they have no legitimate need for it.

Two suitcases, but most of it was quite old. She's been buying a couple of items a month since she got here and has replaced most of what she brought. Thankfully she likes to bargain shop so it doesn't break the bank. The total of all the belongings she brought fit in 4 large suitcases, including her wedding dress, books, and winter coats.

I've given several Leatherman tools as gifts and they were all well received. However, even they wore out quickly because they used them all the time. I went back a year later and brought one of the Leatherman back to be repaired (under warranty).

We went to the consulate in Chicago to change my wife's last name in her passport. All they did is make a stamped addition to the passport that states she has another name. They didn't change anything on the photo page. If someone is looking at the passport quickly, they wouldn't even see that she changed her name.

My wife started attending the local community college one month after she arrived. They required proof of residency and our marriage certificate to get in-state / local tuition rates. For the proof of residency, I did a quit claim deed to redo the deed of the house from only my name to both our names. The community college required an English test to see where to place her in the ESL classes. They did not require transcripts. Now she is attending the local university, they required that she had her green card to get in state tuition rates. They did require her transcripts and the TOEFL test to be admitted into the MBA program.

You can go here (www.videohelp.com) and search for the features and user reviews of DVD players. Often they will tell you if a DVD player can be made region free.

One of the times I went to China for work it was in the winter ... in Changchun ... so I brought 2 stocking hats. Fortunately, the interpreter that was working with me told me not to wear the green hat and why. Later, I told my SO (not wife yet) about the green hat and she was happy I didn't wear it, she said if any of her friends found out I wore a green hat she would be embarrassed.

Fortunately, my wife doesn't believe in many tales, but there is one that has me confused. She absolutely insists that she must stay inside the house for one month after she gives birth. Her idea is that if she goes out the wind could make her sick. The related one to this is that she isn't supposed to shower or bathe for that month either. Luckily, she isn't firm on the second part.

We had the same situation, my wife wanted to change the name and her passport expires in Dec 2007 so they wouldn't renew it. We went to the consulate in Chicago in April. We needed the name change form, a money order, my passport, and a prepaid priority mail envelope. Seems the money order was for less than $40. We left the passport with the consulate and they mailed it back a week later. We don't remember if pictures or our marriage certificate were needed.

Because of the down time, I've switched to Talk Loop. So far they seem to be OK. They are a little lower in price than One Suite and they have a local access number in my area. One Suite didn't. After using Talk Loop for longer I'll be able to give a real recommendation.

I was able to install Chinese Windows XP on a computer and I installed the Chinese language pack for XP and MS Office with no troubles. Send me a message if you need a hand. Mark

I setup a computer with Windows XP this weekend and installed the MUI (Multilingual User Interface) pack for XP and for Office 2003. It actually works very well. You can have one user login as English and other user as Chinese. Fast user switching works as well, no reboots. XP and Office display everything in Chinese. The best part is that I can set it up in English and then change a couple of setting and then everything is in Chinese.