pileofcrapola

Food tends to be one of our biggest budget items , but even with a limited income you can still eat well. Software developer (and avid runner) Erik August Johnson is sharing his $35 a week food experiment to show us how to frugally shop and eat.

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Services like Amazon's Subscribe and Save or Target Subscriptions are great for busy people who'd prefer grocery items automatically appear at their door to having to go shopping for them. But exactly what's worth ordering from these services isn't always transparent. Let's make a list of the best stuff to get.

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If you're like me and rarely take the time to bake anything, a rolling pin is probably not something you have in your kitchen. In the event the baking bug bites, you can use an empty glass bottle in a pinch to roll out your dough.

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Many companies will say you can't discuss salary with coworkers, ask you to sign documents they promise they'll "never enforce," or will tell you you "have" to resign if they want you out. In reality, none of those things are true, and you should be wary when you hear them. Here's why.

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It’s not only brain-eating amoebas swimmers in warm waters have to worry about: Health officials in Florida are warning swimmers in the Gulf Coast about a flesh-eating bacteria in that ocean that so far has killed 10 people and hospitalized 32.

Vibrio vulnificus is related to the bacterium that causes Cholera and usually lives in warm saltwater, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and is also found in warm water oysters (which is why you eat fried oysters in New Orleans and not the kind prepared raw, which are from colder waters). It’s called flesh-eating due to the blisters or lesions which can appear if an infected wound is left to fester.

Health officials are warning people not to go swimming or enter the water if they have open wounds or a weakened immune system. It can also make you sick if you eat undercooked or raw food, but it’s especially harmful and potentially lethal when it gets in the bloodstream.

“Since it is naturally found in warm marine waters, people with open wounds can be exposed to Vibrio vulnificus through direct contact with seawater,” the Florida Department of Health said in a statement, according to WFTS.com in Tampa Bay.

The Department says anyone who does jump into the ocean should also wash off before going home.

“It’s definitely something to take serious, but there are a number of other bacteria, that you could run into,” said Tim O’Connor, a spokesperson for the Department says, adding that the state is closing monitoring the Vibrio bacteria.

Last year 41 people were infected and 11 died in Florida, which is in addition to several cases reported by Alabama, Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi, the Department reports.

Symptoms of Vibrio vulnificus can include gastrointestinal issues, fever, nausea and/or vomiting, chills or shock, while wounds infected with it may be painful, swollen, and red, according to health officials.

Anyone who has been swimming in warm saltwater or has consumed raw or undercooked shellfish should contact their physician immediately.

Dangerous bacteria: Vibro Vulnificus in Florida ocean hospitalizes 32, kills 10 [WFTS.com]

The Post 9/11 GI Bill aims to further the education of United States servicemembers and their immediate family members, but a new government report reveals that most of those funds are going to further increase the bottomline at for-profit colleges.

Iowa senator Tom Harkin released a report [PDF] Wednesday that found for-profit colleges enrolled a record number of veterans and collected $1.7 billion in Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits during the 2012-13 school year – representing nearly a quarter of all GI benefits received during that timeframe.

To illustrate just how much money the for-profit college industry receives from servicemembers and their families, one should consider that the entire GI Bill program cost four years ago was about $1.7 billion.

FOR-PROFIT COLLEGES RAKING IN THE BIG BUCKS
The report highlights the top 10 recipients of GI Bill funds, and (no surprise here) eight of those schools are from the for-profit sector, including the soon-to-be dismantled Corinthian Colleges Inc.

All together those eight companies have received $2.9 billion in taxpayer dollars by enrolling veterans in their schools in the past five years, including $975 million during the 2012-13 school year.

To make things even more infuriating, seven of those for-profit college companies are currently under state and/or federal investigation for bogus job-placement stats, grade manipulation, and misleading marketing practices.

“While the Post-9/11 GI Bill was designed to expand educational opportunities for our veterans and servicemembers, I am concerned that it is primarily expanding the coffers of the big corporations running these schools,” Harkin says in a news release about the report. “It is evident that more needs to be done to ensure that veterans and servicemembers, who have sacrificed so much for our nation, are receiving a quality education—and that taxpayer dollars aren’t wasted on shoddy programs.”

LITTLE EDUCATION HAPPENING HERE
Of course it takes money to provide education for thousands of students, but in the case of many for-profit institutions few students actually receive a quality education, yet they pay nearly double what they would at a public university, according to the report.

For-profit institutions boast some of the lowest graduation rates in higher education.

Back in 2012 the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), of which Harkin is chair, filed a report [PDF] that detailed just how troubling the dropout rates at for-profit schools were: 54% of students who began at for-profit institutions during the 2008-2009 school year withdrew by the summer of 2010.

In fact, nine of the schools investigated in the 2012 study had withdrawal rates of at least 60%; the highest rate clocked in at 84%.

And just how many of those companies also showed up in the top 10 recipients of GI Bill funds? Four.

• Corinthian Colleges – operator of Everest University, WyoTech and Heald College – received $63 million during the 2012-13 school year. Yet, the company’s schools had a withdrawal rate of 66.5% during the 2008-2009 term.

• Apollo Group – operator of the University of Phoenix, the College for Financial Planning and the Institute for Professional Development – received $271 million in GI funds during the last school year. During the 2008-2009 term the school recorded a withdrawal rate of 66.4%.

• Career Education Corporation (CEC)- the operators of Sanford Brown and CTU – raked in $78 million last year, but in 2008-2008 the schools had a withdrawal rate of 61.7%.

• Education Management Corporation (EDMC) – the operator of the Art Institute and Argosy – received $163 million in GI funds during the 2012-13 school year, but had a dropout rate of 63.7% during the 2008-2009 term.

While Bridgepoint – the operator of Ashford University and owner of an 84% withdrawal rate – didn’t crack the top 10 in received GI funds for the most recent school year, it did make the top 10 when the entire length of the Post 9/11 GI Bill is considered. From 2009 to 2013, the company received $101 million in Post 9/11 GI Bill funds.

NO RULES? FEW WORRIES FOR FOR-PROFIT COLLEGES
One reason these schools continue to receive millions of dollars in GI Bill funds, while only partially educating veterans and their family members, is the lack of an over-arching rule to determine the quality of programs a school offers.

Such a performance marker has been proposed twice in the form of the “gainful employment” rule. The initial rule was struck down by a court in 2011, but a second attempt was announced earlier this year.

Among the new requirements set out in the proposed regulations, institutions would have to certify that all career-education programs meet applicable accreditation requirements, along with state and/or federal licensure standards.

Programs would be deemed failing if loan payments of typical graduates exceed 30% of discretionary income or 12% of total annual income. Programs would be given a warning if a student’s loan payments amount to 20 to 30% of discretionary income, or 8 to 12% of total annual income. Discretionary income is defined as above 150% of the poverty line and applies to what can be put towards non-necessities.

Although the rule is not finalized or in effect, the Harkin report puts the eight schools receiving the most GI funds to the test. And, once again, not surprisingly, the majority fail.

When measured against the proposed gainful employment standards between 35% and 57% of the programs at Corinthian, EDMC, CEC and ITT Technical Institute would fail to demonstrate that they prepare students for employment in a recognized profession, according to the report.

“Today’s report should be a wake-up call to the federal government. It’s a serious problem that Post-9/11 GI Bill dollars are often inflating these companies’ revenues instead of actually providing a meaningful education to the men and women who earned those benefits,” Connecticut senator Chris Murphy, a member of the HELP Committee, said in a news release.

FINDING THE LOOPHOLE
So, just how does a school with a dropout rate of more than 50% that is currently under federal and state investigation receive hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds?

Easy: There’s a so-called “loophole” in the 90/10 rule that regulates just how much federal funding for-profit schools can receive.

See, the for-profit school industry is barred from receiving more than 90% of its revenue from the Department of Education federal student aid. The remaining 10% of revenue must come from other sources, such as private investors, wealthy corporations (like Goldman Sachs) and, apparently, the GI Bill.

According to the report, at least four companies – Apollo, EDMC, ITT and Strayer – receive close to or more than half of their reported non-federal financial aid revenue from the Post 9/11 GI Bill benefit funds.

HIGH COST BUT HIGH ENROLLMENT
While Harkin’s report is full of doom and gloom there may be one twinkle of hope when it comes to for-profit colleges: fewer consumers are enrolling than in previous years.

However, that glimmer of hope is fleeting, considering record numbers of veterans continue to enroll at the schools.

The report found that enrollment of veterans at for-profit schools increased from 23% in 2009 to 31% in 2012, despite the fact that overall enrollment at the institutions has fallen in recent years.

In fact, fewer veterans are enrolling in traditional public universities; enrollment in that sector dropped from 62% in 2009 to 50% in 2013.

That’s a shame, too, because attending a public university would save taxpayers millions of dollars each year. The average tuition at a public university is just $3,914 versus the $7,972 average tuition cost at for-profit schools.

It’s unclear exactly why more veterans are choosing for-profit colleges over more economically-priced and recognized public schools, but there’s a pretty good chance it has something to do with for-profit’s purported convenience and aggressive recruiting methods.

CHANGE THINGS RIGHT THIS MINUTE
So, while the GI Bill was approved after D-Day as a way to educate the people who serve our country, the increased use of its benefits at for-profit colleges could be hurting veterans more than helping them.

Harkin concludes that to better ensure the future education of veterans and their families, it is crucial that the federal government establish rules to track how veterans fare in the higher education system and that provisions be made to strengthen the 90/10 rule.

“It is our responsibility as a country to serve those who serve us and to preserve the purpose of the GI Bill – to provide veterans with sound educational opportunities that lead to economic security and advancement,” he writes in the report. “Only then will the Post-9/11 GI Bill prove to be the success that the post-World War II GI Bill has been.”

Restaurants that have tried to tell parents in the past that children or babies aren’t welcome inside have faced backlash for coming out and saying so in the past, but one restaurant has instead decided to just make it really difficult for anyone with a small child or infant to eat there.

Basically, you can bring your kids to this Monterey, Calif. restaurant, but it won’t provide high chairs or booster seats or allow strollers, reports KSBW.com.

Oh, and noisy, crying kids aren’t allowed in the dining room, per a sign posted at the eatery reading:

– NO STROLLERS –
— NO HIGH CHAIRS –
— NO BOOSTER SEATS –

Children crying or making loud noises are a distraction to other diners, and as such are not allowed in the dining room.

So if you happen to have a young, perfectly-behaved, silent child who can sit on her own and doesn’t need a stroller to get where you’re going, you’re fine, and you should probably alert the media because your kid must be an alien. Or an adult.

Otherwise, it’s a no-go, says the owner. He adds that despite criticism from some offended parents, he’s keeping the rules as is. Don’t like it? Not his problem — there are plenty of other places to eat, he says.

“If a place has the rules, that’s what the rules are,” the owner told the news station. “You go in and abide by the rules or you find a place more suitable for you.”

And despite any angry parents, he says business is doing just fine without catering to kids.

“Well, let’s put it this way — I haven’t had a down year for over 20 years and our business continues to grow,” he explains.

Popular restaurant on Monterey wharf posts no loud kids sign [KSBW.com]

While you might think that your health is your own gosh darn business — and it is, to some extent — when you’re wandering out there in the world with an infectious and potentially fatal disease, your health is everyone’s business. So when one man refused treatment and left the hospital, he ended up with police on his trail.

The man was wanted by Stockton, Calif. police for failing to comply with health officers to treat his tuberculosis, reports USA Today, after he was diagnosed in March at a hospital with the disease.

Authorities say the man, a transient, refused medical orders for treatment and left the hospital. Hospital staff reportedly told him to stay in a motel room nearby where a health worker could bring him medication and ensure he’d take it.

Instead, he skipped out, prompting a hunt by authorities who were worried about the health risk he posed to the public.

“If he doesn’t want the treatment, we can’t force the treatment but we can force that he’s not with other people to infect them,” the county public health director said at the time.

Police caught up with him this week and charged him with one misdemeanor count of refusing to comply with a tuberculosis order. He could face up to a year in prison as a result.

Police nab TB patient who skipped treatment, vanished [USA Today]

To some, the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s annual </aXtreme Eating awards are a reminder of how some restaurant meals can pack thousands of calories, oodles of saturated fat, and piles of sodium on a single plate. To others, the awards make up a to-try list of over-the-top menu offerings. Both will find plenty of sugary, fatty, salty treats to study with scorn, concern, curiosity, lust, or awe.

Perennial Xtreme Eating favorite The Cheesecake Factory did not disappoint this year, accounting for a full 1/3 of the meals on the list. In fact, it’s the only restaurant to have multiple winners (or losers, depending on your point of view). Other chain faves represented in the 2014 awards include Red Robin, Famous Dave’s, Joe’s Crab Shack, and Maggiano’s.

Enough talking. Let’s eat.

The Cheesecake Factory: Bruléed French Toast (with optional bacon)

• Calories: 2,780
• Sat. Fat: 93g
• Sodium: 2,230

Before anyone goes and blames the added bacon for the high calorie count, CSPI says the side of cured pork only adds 200 calories. Thus, the “Extra Thick Slices of Rustic French Bread Baked and Grilled Golden Brownm” and, oh yeah, filled with custard and served with a huge helping of butter-infused syrup, on its own still adds up to more than 2,500 calories.

“Would you eat 14 slices of Aunt Jemima frozen Homestyle French Toast stuffed with 2.5 8-oz. tubs of Kraft Philadelphia Original Cream Cheese Spread?” asks the CSPI. “Well, you pretty much just did.”

And there’s an even higher-calorie version of this meal at the Factory — the 2,900-calorie French Toast Napoleon, which is the “Bruléed French Toast Stacked with Strawberries, Pecans and Chantilly Cream.”

Red Robin: A.1 Peppercorn Monster Burger, with Steak Fries and Monster Salted Caramel Milkshake

• Calories: At least 3,540
• Sat. Fat: 69g
• Sodium 6,280mg

Red Robin has all sorts of burgers for those looking to chow down, but the A.1. Peppercorn is a particularly extreme offering, topped with “hardwood-smoked bacon, melted Pepper-Jack, A.1. Peppercorn Spread, tomatoes and crispy onion straws,” which are basically fried breaded onion strips.

The sizable sandwich can be made a “Monster” by doubling up on the 6-oz. beef patty. And if that weren’t enough, it comes with “Bottomless Steak Fries” for those who want more.

The Monster A.1. burger alone is 1,670 calories. Then throw on at least another 370 calories for each serving of fries you eat.

But you’ve got to have something to drink, so why not balance out your savory burger and fries with a Red Robin Classic milkshake, and make it a Monster, which means it comes with a refill tin full of extra shake.

Eat all this and you’ve likely consumed more than 1.5 days’ worth of calories, more than 3 days’ worth of saturated fat and four days’ worth of sodium.

CSPI says this is “like eating seven McDonald’s Double Cheeseburgers washed down with a quart of Coke,” and that you’d need 12 hours of brisk walking to burn the calories off.

Famous Dave’s: The Big Slab

• Calories: 2,770
• Sat. Fat: 54g
• Sodium: 4,320mg

This plate of spareribs lives up to its name, yielding nearly 1.5 pounds of meat. And all that meat — not to mention the sauce in which it’s slathered — comes at a cost to your diet, especially when you throw in the cornbread muffin and choice of two sides.

The ribs, along with fries and baked beans comes out to nearly 3,000 calories, and that’s without counting whatever beverage you’re having with your meal.

This might be the meal if you’ve got a lot of land and little motivation to mow, as CSPI estimates it would take about 7.5 hours of pushing that mower around to keep these spareribs from contributing to your spare tire.

BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse: Small Deep Dish Chicken Bacon Ranch Pizza

• Calories: 2,160
• Sat. Fat: 30g
• Sodium: 4,680mg

With “Grilled garlic chicken, Applewood smoked bacon, jack and cheddar cheese, red onions, diced tomatoes and a drizzle of ranch,” this 9″ pizza packs a lot of punch into a small pie.

Just one of these pizzas is the same as eating three Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pepperoni Pizzas, reckons the CSPI.

Chevys: Chevys Super Cinco Combo

• Calories: 1,920
• Sat. Fat: 36g
• Sodium: 3,950

This mega-sampler, with “Two enchiladas: one beef, one chicken, a Crispy or Soft Beef Taco, a hand-rolled Pork Tamale and a handcrafted Chile Relleno,” gives you a a taste of several items on the Chevys menu. Oh, and it also comes with “Fresh Mex rice, our signature sweet corn tamalito and choice of homemade Beans a la Charra or Refried Beans made with bacon or Vegetarian Black Beans.”

Assuming you only drink water with this meal and don’t gorge on the free chips and salsa at Chevys, you’ll only need 3.5 hours of playing tennis to burn these calories; chances are you probably won’t feel like it when you’re done eating.

The Cheesecake Factory: Farfalle with Chicken and Roasted Garlic

• Calories: 2,410
• Sat. Fat: 63g
• Sodium: 1,370mg

This year’s second Cheesecake Factory meal sounds rather pleasant — “Bow-Tie Pasta, Chicken, Mushrooms, Tomato, Pancetta, Peas and Caramelized Onions in a Roasted Garlic-Parmesan Cream Sauce” — and it very well may be (we haven’t tried it, so we can’t say). But that cream sauce and the bountiful helping of pasta means you’re getting your full day’s worth of calories in one bowl.

Joe’s Crab Shack: The Big “Hook” Up

• Calories: 3,280
• Sat. Fat: 50g
• Sodium: 7,610mg

Another sampler that is not for the calorie-conscious, this platter with Joe’s Great Balls of Fire (“seafood and crab balls full of jalapeños and cream cheese coated in panko breadcrumbs…served with ranch”), Fish & Chips (“flaky white fish hand dipped in a classic Samuel Adams beer batter…served with fries”), Coconut Shrimp (“jumbo shrimp hand dipped in shredded coconut with pineapple plum sauce for dipping”), Crab Stuffed Shrimp (“plump shrimp hand stuffed with crab”), Hushpuppies, and Coleslaw, has the second-highest calorie count on the list (and the highest if you take away the Red Robin milkshake from that meal).

It also has a full five days’ worth of sodium.

By comparison, you could two full Admiral’s Feasts (fried shrimp, scallops, clam strips, flounder, along with fries and biscuits) at Red Lobster and consume the same calories, but but less than half the saturated fat.

Maggiano’s Little Italy: Prime New York Steak Contadina Style

• Calories: 2,420
• Sat. Fat: 66g
• Sodium: 5,260mg

What do you get when you take a steak that is already 1,250 calories and serve “Contadina style,” which apparently means it comes with with “two Italian Sausage links, Crispy Red Vesuvio-Style Potatoes, Roasted Red & Yellow Peppers, Roasted Mushrooms, Caramelized Onions, Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Steak Jus, and Garlic Butter”?

You get a meal that is the equivalent of eating nine McDonald’s Quarter Pounder beef patties, with a Cheeseburger on the side.

The Cheesecake Factory: Reese’s Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake Cheesecake

• Calories: 1,500
• Sat. Fat: 43g
• Sugar: 21 teaspoons

If you’re going to eat at The Cheesecake Factory, you’ve got to eat cheesecake, right?

[Ed. Note: I'm being told you are not legally obliged to consume cheesecake at the restaurant.]

What does it say when the least calorific meal on this list is on the dessert menu? But even though this is the one of the few award-winning offerings that doesn’t have a full day’s worth of calories, it’s still going to require 4.5 hours of aerobics to burn off this slice of cheesecake.

It makes you wonder how the Big Bang Theory crew stays so slender eating out at the Factory all the time.

The last thing families want to deal with after the death of a loved one is a phone call reminding them of their departed’s debt. But that’s the case for a number of parents who have inherited the obligation to repay the student loans they co-signed for their deceased child.

More and more families are finding themselves struggling financially with few options of relief after taking on their child’s student loan debt, CNN Money reports.

Unexpected Inheritance
That’s certainly the case for Steve and Darnelle whose daughter, Lisa, died five years ago. The couple quickly took in their three young grandchildren, but also received a rather unwelcome addition: $100,000 in student loan debt.

Years before her death, Steve had co-signed Lisa’s private student loans so she could attend nursing school and now, after her death, he was on the hook to repay the lenders.

The couple, who live on a modest salary and are now raising three children, struggled to make the loan payments each month. They depleted their savings and ruined their credit, Steve tells CNN, and eventually the loan debt ballooned to $200,000 because of late penalties and interest rates as high as 12%.

The situation would be markedly different if Lisa had taken out federal student loans. In that scenario, the couple could have had the loans discharged or received some kind of financial assistance.

Few Avenues To Receive Help
Instead the family is left grappling with their new reality and finding little in the way of help from the lenders.

Steve called each loan issuer to explain his situation, and while most expressed sympathy for his situation, none were required to actually do anything.

Private loan issuers have full discretion when it comes to doling out loan forgiveness, Deanne Loonin, an attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, tells CNN Money.

In fact, private lenders aren’t bound by the same federal requirements that federal student loans must adhere to, meaning private lenders don’t have to offer help to borrowers or co-signers unless they want to.

A few private loan lenders did offer Steve and Darnelle relief – albeit on a small scale.

Officials with Navient Corp., the recent offshoot of Sallie Mae, say they provided the family with a reduced balance and lower interest rates in the past. Additionally, Steve reported that after the lender was contacted by CNN, it lowered his interest rate to 0% on three out of four loans and reduced the amount owed by $8,000 to a total of $27,000.

Still, the company that handles the majority of the private loans now owed by Steve and Darnelle says it’s only in charge of collecting payments and can’t make the rules on forgiveness. Instead, the family would need to contact the original lender, National Collegiate Trust. And Steve did just that, only he says the company refused to provide any kind of help.

It Won’t Disappear In Bankruptcy
While many consumers facing hardships because of debts would simply file for bankruptcy, that’s not an option for Steve and Darnelle, and families in similar situations.

Unlike mortgages, credit cards and auto loans, neither federal nor private student loans can currently be discharged in bankruptcy.

“People with other debt from splurging — they can discharge that,” he tells CNN Money. “Student loans should really be the one type of debt they do discharge because it’s done to further an education and career. But somehow getting [my daughter] an education has encumbered me for the rest of my life.”

Loonin, with the NCLC, says that in rare cases parents can try to prove undue financial hardship in court to get debts discharged in bankruptcy. Otherwise, the only other option is to attempt to work out a payment plan with lenders.

Attempts To Reform Rules
Cases like Steve and Darnelle’s inspired Iowa senator Tom Harkin to introduce a bill in June that would, in part, allow private student loans to be discharged through bankruptcy proceedings.

Although the bill has little chance of being passed, it’s not the only legislative proposal made this year that would have given private student loan borrowers a bit of much-needed relief.

A bill, introduced by Massachusetts senator Elizabeeth Warren in May, would have allowed federal and private student loan borrowers to refinance to rates set for first-time borrowers – approximately 3.86%. That measure died on the Senate floor when it didn’t garner enough votes of support.

Taking The Issue To The Masses
With relatively few options left, and his dreams of retirement disappearing, Steve and Darnelle turned to Change.org to petition the president to allow student loans to be eligible for discharge in bankruptcy. So far, the petition has 1,064 signatures.

This isn’t the first time grieving families have turned to the online petition site when seeking recourse for the private student loans they’ve inherited.

CNN Money reports there have been four other attempts by families, one of which was successful. In that case the brother of a deceased borrower petitioned the bank to stop seeking payments from his grieving father and the loan was eventually forgiven.

Another petition, created by Virginia mother, Angela, asked private loan provider First Marblehead Corp. to forgive her son’s $40,000 in student loans after he was murdered in 2008. While that petition received more than 150,000 signatures, no action was taken by the lender.

Just Another Problem With Co-Signed Loans
The situations faced by these families further illustrates the problems associated with the practice of co-signing private student loans.

In many cases, lenders require a co-signer in order to issue these loans and to minimize the interest rates. In 2011, nearly 90% of all private student loans included a co-signer; someone who, in the event that a borrower can’t repay their debt, is obligated to do so.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reported this spring that automatic-defaults associated with private student loans were at an all-time high.

Borrowers have increasingly found themselves put in automatic-default at no fault of their own. The issue occurs when a loan issuer finds out the loan’s co-signer has died or filed for bankruptcy.

Although the two co-signer situations are admittedly different, they are a alike in the fact that little recourse is available for borrowers.

“Private student loans should really be a last resort, if possible,” the CFPB’s Rohit Chopra, told Consumerist earlier this year. “When you run into trouble you often have very few options to navigate tough times.”

Grieving parents hit with $200,000 in student loans [CNN Money]

When Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast in the fall of 2012, a Staten Island woman who had her wedding dress at a local dry cleaners figured her gown was gone — the store was destroyed and has been closed for almost two years. But it turns out the only thing in the store that survived the storm was her dress — which she spotted in the window of the store when it finally reopened — in a new location.

It’s a good thing she still has the ticket for her dress, even though she never thought she’d see it again: The woman tells the Staten Island Advance that she’d given up hope on reuniting with the dress she’d worn at her wedding reception, which she dropped off in August 2012 to get preserved. She was too busy to pick up when it would be ready, three weeks to a month after.

“I was pregnant, and we were moving,” she explained.

When Hurricane Sandy hit in October, the store was flooded in five feet of water, destroying all the clothing inside except for that dress, which floated on top of the water in a secure box.

But when the woman’s husband drove by the business in the days after the storm, all he saw was the devastation. He told her the bad news, and says she started crying but saved her ticket anyway.

The shop stayed close, with no phone number or sign to tell customers what had happened. It finally reopened at a new location in February this year under the same name.

Two weeks ago, the woman spotted her gown on display while her husband was driving her to the train in Brooklyn early one morning.

“I saw my dress in the window” of the new dry cleaning store, she said, adding that they never drive that way and were lucky there were no gates on the closed store’s windows. “I knew it was my dress.”

The next day she stopped by the store and told the clerk the dress in the window was hers — and handed over her ticket.

When she met with the owner, “he remembered me and gave me a big hug,” and she finally went home with her dress, which she now says she wants her daughter to wear one day.

Wedding dress that survived Hurricane Sandy returned to owner [Staten Island Advance]

Why is it a bad idea to give out prescription bottles filled with candy as freebies at a conference for blogging mothers? When those blogging moms bring their swag home to their kids, a child could draw the very dangerous conclusion that amber-colored bottles with white tops are filled with candy.

If that seems overly paranoid, note that the free candy was part of a promotion for a baby toy company. The campaign overall is quite adorable, because it’s focused on making babies laugh, and it may be humanly impossible not to at least smile when you hear a baby laugh.

The BlogHer conference is a veritable sea of brands clamoring for the attention of mothers who blog. While it should be clear that the candy containers filled with red Hots are not to be handed over to children who aren’t old enough to know the difference between pills and candy, that still doesn’t make such a promotion such a good idea for a company that makes toys for babies.

Blogger Morgan Shanahan pointed this out to the world, first taking a picture of the offending bottle and posting it to Instagram, then posting detailed photos comparing the candy container to a real pill bottle.

When AdWeek contacted the company about this ill-advised promo, they explained that they stopped it after being called out on what a terrible idea it was. A spokesperson told AW:

Our “prescription for laughter” in a pill bottle was part of a booth experience designed to support Bright Starts’ “Fun Comes First” campaign, which also featured a “Baby Laugh Index” quiz and a “dress as a baby” photo booth—all very tongue-in-cheek reminders of the importance of baby laughter.

Once we realized that the giveaways were concerning to some, we immediately stopped passing them out. We certainly understand and regret any misunderstanding this has caused, and welcome the opportunity to visit further should that be helpful.

Silly Toy Company, Pills Are Not For Kids. [The 818]
Bad Idea: Baby Brand Hands Out Candy in Realistic Pill Bottles at BlogHer [AdWeek]

As if it weren’t bad enough that there are pumpkin toaster strudels in the freezer cases and Halloween costumes available for sale at Costco, July pumpkin spice creep strikes again, in the form of Pumpkin Pie Spice flavor Jif Whips. If you want to inflict this on someone, they are available at Target. Apparently. [The Impulsive Buy]

In our experience, most Wendy’s stores have been willing to mix and match sandwich elements to suit customers’ individual preferences, but at two restaurants near Wendy’s global HQ — where everyone is a perky redhead who never seems to put on a pound, in spite of all the fast food she devours — the burger chain is currently testing a program that makes this build-your-own idea official.

QSR Magazine posted the image shown at the left and confirmed with Wendy’s that the DIY sandwich program is indeed being tested at a pair of eateries in Columbus, OH.

As you can see, customers have a choice of bun, including the pretzel bun or no bun at all; options for protein, though it’s unclear if you can have both chicken and beef or if customers can only stack up beef patties (max. 3). Then there’s the cheese, toppings, and sauces options.

“It’s an early [operational] test,” a Wendy’s rep tells QSR. “We’re always looking at a variety of things, from menu offerings to equipment to technology to customer enhancement. Many of these approaches are changed [during testing] or never adopted.”

Prices for a DIY burger start at around $4; prices for chicken are slightly higher.

This is the latest in the fast food trend of trying to create new menu items without having to introduce new ingredients. In the last few years, a number of fast food franchisees have complained about being forced to take on limited-time menu items that may not sell well, like the McDonald’s Mighty Wings that didn’t sell anywhere near what the company had hoped.

[via BurgerBusiness]

No Shoes/New Shoes campaign to benefit Manassas area children Inside NoVA During this weekend's back-to-school sales tax holiday, consider buying an extra pair of school shoes for a child in need. “Shoes are very important socially in schools beginning as early as third grade. Kids with ill-fitting or dilapidated shoes are ...

A Florida woman is charged with child neglect after police say she let her 7-year-old son walk to a park alone.

They are the worst of the worst: the most calorie-packed, sodium-filled, fatty dishes you can order at chain restaurants.

In a briefing before the Montgomery County Council, school officials explained that a total of 107 unaccompanied minors, most of them of high school age, were enrolled in Montgomery County schools.

On the one hand, who wouldn’t want to be sitting pretty in a backyard fort with hundreds of water balloons that took only minutes to fill and tied themselves. On the other hand — no, I can’t. There is no downside to a device that allows you to fill 37 balloons with water at one time and spares you the time/pain of tying all those slippery little suckers.

A dad of two (who might not be the smartest person alive per se, because that is a very difficult thing to determine) figured out how to make his children the overlords of all others with his Bunch O Balloons device on Kickstarter. It reached its $10,000 funding goal in under 12 hours, and hit $161,252 total as of this writing.

It seems so simple, it’s one of of those things you’ll be lamenting forever that you didn’t come up with first: Attach the stem of the gadget to your hose and turn on the water to fill the balloons. You then apparently give it just a “gentle shake” over a plastic tub, and pop, wurble gurgle, 37 filled and tied water balloons.

Even if a few break, that’s a lot less work than the old way — if this thing works as demonstrated, which of course, we can’t know at this point.

And if you’re thinking of the impact this surge in water balloon production could have on the environment, the plastic stems are recyclable and the balloons are made from biodegradable material.

Again, they tie themselves. Just don’t let these babies get into the wrong hands — I’m looking at you, kid with the bad attitude who always tries to sabotage the neighbors’ block party — or face certain drenching.

*Thanks for the tip, Jenny!

It’s the middle of National Hot Dog Month and today just so happens to be National Hot Dog Day, so what better time than now to learn a little bit more about those wieners, and the business of selling them? Because yes, there is a Hot Dog University run by a master of hot dogs, who seems to have all the answers.

Time.com has an interesting interview with Mark Reitman, who teaches a $699 two-day course about how to operate a hot dog stand, or “the art of the cart,” at the Vienna Beef factory in Chicago.

Here’s what we learned in this mini-course — for more, check out Time’s interview.

1. The Hot Dog University has had over 800 students: Of those 800 students, 300 have opened restaurants and 500 have set up hot dog carts, according to Reitman

2. You can simmer a hot dog (but don’t boil it) or chargrill it: But “don’t just throw the dog on there,” he explains. Score the dog first and crosscut the ends so it doesn’t get too big and explode.

3. Ketchup is acceptable on a hot dog, with one exception: “It doesn’t belong on a Chicago-style hot dog because the tomatoes and relish already provide that sweetness.”

4. Speaking of which, there is a correct way to put the seven toppings on a Chicago-style dog (something you Chicagoans out there no doubt already know): A thin line of mustard on top, green relish, diced onions, two thinly-sliced tomato wedges on one side and two sport peppers on the others, a cold pickle spear down the middle and a dash of celery salt.

5. There is no place for meatless dogs in the hot dog university: That’s for one simple reason — “hot dogs are not health food, they’re comfort food.”

6. Grilled onions are used as an aromatic lure to bring in customers: The smell works like bait, whether you end up eating an onion or not. “Even if we don’t put the onions on the hot dogs, we do that whenever it gets slow to attract customers to the cart,” Reitman explains.

Meet the Man Behind Hot Dog University [Time.com]

Do you need to write a complaint letter, but don’t know where to begin? As long as you can type a few facts in a box, you can produce a simple, classy, and easy-to-read complaint letter that should get the job done.

On the federal government’s USA.gov portal where you can find information on pretty much everything, you can find this handy five-step letter-writing wizard. It can even help you find the corporate headquarters of the company you’re contacting if you don’t have the address handy. Here’s the end result, with details taken from our much longer and fancier model letter that we published earlier this week:

Would you rather flesh out your own message? The site also has this handy model letter, which breaks down and labels the basic required elements of a complaint letter. There’s a version that you can copy and paste and customize for your own needs as well.

Consumer Complaint Letter Wizard [USA.gov]
Sample Consumer Complaint Letter [USA.gov]
Consumer Action Handbook [USA.gov]

The Internet has an endless appetite for two things. The first is people sharing more information than they had intended with companies that use that information to target advertising. The second is cat pictures. Yet what if there were a way to use cat pictures to teach us all a lesson about how much information we’re inadvertently sharing with the Internet?

Here’s the thing: smartphones have built-in cameras and global positioning system capabilities. When you send someone a digital photo, the GPS coordinates of where you took that picture are embedded in the image, waiting only for someone who cares about where you are to strip them out. It sounds like a minor thing, but it’s not: back in 2012, a reporter for Vice accidentally revealed where fugitive murder suspect and rich dude John McAfee was hiding by posting a simple iPhone snapshot.

If you wouldn’t post your home address on the Internet, make sure you aren’t uploading or sending geotagged photos. That’s where the site I Know Where Your Cat Lives comes in, combining education about online privacy with pictures of cats. IKWYCL takes public photos posted on sites like Flickr and Instagram that come with geographic data included and plots them on a map. A global map of cats.

The site explains its true purpose as follows:

This project explores two uses of the internet: the sociable and humorous appreciation of domesticated felines, and the status quo of personal data usage by startups and international megacorps who are riding the wave of decreased privacy for all. This website doesn’t visualize all of the cats on the net, only the ones that allow you to track where their owners have been.

There are only about a million cats on the map, chosen from the pictures available online that are tagged with the word “cat” and the location where they were taken.

If your own cat appears on the map, you can remove it simply by editing the privacy settings on the account that you used to upload it, or removing the geographic information from the photo, then re-uploading it. The site will then conceal your cat’s identity within 30 days.

Oh, and the site happens to be running a Kickstarter campaign right now, just in case you want to support the project of educating cats about online privacy.

I Know Where Your Cat Lives [Official Site] (Thanks, Olivia!)

Baltimore County authorities say they will charge a man with disorderly conduct in a cemetery for allegedly urinating on the gravesite of former Baltimore Ravens owner Art Modell.

An appeals courts' decision to strike down Virginia's same-sex marriage ban adds to the growing list of decrees on a hot-button issue that will likely end up being decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Pentagon says a sailor assigned to a Norfolk-based destroyer has died during deployment.

Buying school supplies can put a pretty significant dent in one’s pocketbook, especially when you don’t have a lot of expendable income to begin with. For teachers who bear the burden of supplying a classroom full of students, Walmart is offering a new discount – but there’s a catch.

Walmart announced this week that it will be offering teachers across the country a 10% discount on classroom supplies purchased during its “Teacher Appreciation Week.”

That’s all well and good, but the discount will only be given in the form of a Walmart eGift card after making a purchase; meaning the savings won’t be realized until later and teachers will have to come back to Walmart to spend it.

Only certain school supply purchases made between July 25 and July 31 are eligible for the deal.

The savings process works like this:

• Shop at a Walmart store for classroom supplies;
• Register your receipts online by August 15;
• Receive an eGift card with the savings from your eligible purchases.

Sure, it’s better than nothing, but it also seems like a lot of extra work for the teacher. And any teacher who’d hoped to spend those savings at a store other than Walmart is out of luck.

But then again, it’s probably a better option than the small personal loans to pay for classroom supplies that Consumerist reported on earlier this year.

Teachers Chalk Up 10 Percent Savings at Walmart’s First-Ever Teachers’ Savings Event [Walmart]

Along much of America's coasts, the type of flooding that is more annoying than dangerous has jumped more than fivefold in the last 50 years, the federal government reported Monday.

The fight for penny pinchers is intensifying.

This beagle/pug spent the first two years of her life in a Tennessee puppy mill with virtually no socialization or creature comforts.

Just in time for the fourth anniversary of its creation, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced its expanding the type of consumer complaints it accepts to include prepaid cards and other nonbank products.

Consumers who encounter issues with prepaid cards, such as gift cards, benefit cards, and general purpose reloadable cards, as well as, debt settlement services, credit repair services, and pawn and title loans now have an outlet to air their grievances.

The Bureau previously accepted complaints about credit cards, mortgages, bank accounts and services, private student loans, auto and other consumer loans, credit reporting, debt collection, payday loans and money transfers.

The CFPB requests that companies named in complaints respond within 15 days and describe the steps they will take or have taken to remedy the situation. Companies are expected to close all but the most complicated complaints within 60 days.

The inclusion of prepaid card complaints comes as the cards have gained significant popularity for those who are unable to acquire banking accounts. An estimated 12 million consumers use the product that lacks the same protections as traditional debit or credit cards.

Consumers can submit prepaid card complaints regarding:

• problems managing, opening, or closing their accounts;
• overdraft issues and incorrect or unexpected fees;
• frauds, scams, or unauthorized transactions;
• advertising, disclosures, and marketing practices;
• adding money and saving or reward features.

The addition of debt settlement and credit repair service complaints to the Bureau’s system comes less than two weeks after a Center for Responsible Lending report found that the programs often do more harm than good for consumers looking to get out of debt.

Consumers can now submit complaints about debt settlement and credit repair regarding:

• excessive or unexpected fees;
• advertising, disclosures, and marketing practices;
• customer service issues;
• frauds or scams.

Pawn and Title loans, which often include short terms and high interest rates, can leave consumers in a tough spot if they default.

The CFPB will collect complaints about:

• unexpected charges or interest fees;
• loan application issues;
• problems with the lender correctly charging and creating payments;
• issues with the lender repossessing, selling, or damaging the consumer’s property or vehicle;
• unable to contact lender.

Consumer complaints can be submitted to the CFPB online.

This is the second significant change to the Bureau’s consumer complaint database in the last week.

Last Wednesday, the CFPB announced a new proposal that would allow consumers the option of voicing the details of their grievances in a publicly viewable forum.

Currently when consumers submit a complaint to CFPB’s public-facing Consumer Complaint Database, they fill in basic information such as who they are, who the complaint is against, and when the issue occurred. There is also an opportunity to describe what happened and attach any related documents.The complaint is then forwarded to the company for a response and the consumer is given a tracking number to keep updated on the complaint status.

When viewing the database consumers can see only a fraction of the information provided. The data fields includes the name of the company, the company’s response and a vague issue description.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Beings Accepting Consumer Complaints on Prepaid Cards and Additional Nonbank Products [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau]