Archive for March 2008
I guess I’m realizing that I’m a big magazine consumer. I do like reading magazines - lots of fresh views on current topics. My faves are Wired and The New Yorker.
I posted earlier (twice now) on buying magazine subscriptions and renewals on eBay and elsewhere on the web for prices lower than going directly to the publisher. Here’s another way: use frequent flyer miles.
In many cases, your frequent flyer miles will be expiring, if you, like me, have miles on tons of different airlines. I don’t choose one airline over another for their mileage program - I just fly and get miles every time. But sometimes those miles will expire if the account had no activity for a period of time. Redeeming miles counts as activity (amazingly) so I often redeem them for magazine renewals. I’ve even redeemed miles from my kids’ frequent flyer accounts to extend my magazine subscriptions. So you keep the account going, and keep the miles from expiring, and you get free magazines. You can even send them to your friends.
I’ve done this from Continental/OnePass - here’s a screenshot:
and I’ve done this from American - you can find the list of magazines from AA online.
Even better than using eBay or another discounter!
After my first fabulous success with renewing some magazine subscriptions via eBay, I just got this email from my eBay seller:
Hello. You are receiving this message/email from me since you’re one of the buyers from my store.Today, Ebay implemented their new policy regarding Pre-Sale items and they
consider Magazine Subscription as a violation to this policy. We might not
be selling magazine subscriptions on Ebay but our store will be open and
selling different item instead. We will keep it open so we can answer any
order status and refund requests (if any).So, does it affect the order you already placed? Absolutely not. Your order
was already processed and will still be received within the timeframe provided.We will still continue selling magazine subscriptions, but not through Ebay.Com,
but one of their affiliates, prostores. Our prostores website address is
Http://www.Superior-Subscriptions.Com. Not all items have been added there
but we’re working to have all items today. So please bear with us while
we are making the transition.We will provide the same prices and policies. The new addition to transitioning
to a website is that you can pay using your credit card directly and not
signing up a Paypal account. Of course you can still pay with Paypal. You
have the option for combined payments as well.For more information on the eBay Presale policy, please visit:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/pre-sale.html
As always, we are here to answer any questions you might have. Please make
sure to include yuour Ebay userID when sending us an email or message.Sincerely,
Superior Subscriptions
http://www.Superior-Subscriptions.Com
All strange capitalization aside (this company does sell on eBay, after all) I’m sorry the party stopped just after I found it.
But discount subscriptions are still out there. Just never, ever use the renewal forms right from the magazine. Go to a third party website like magazines.com or the one above. In my experience, they’re cheaper every time.
A week’s a long time, and a lot happens. But here’s what you need to know, where you need to eat (broken off into a different post now), and what you should avoid. Most importantly, I’m giving you the lay of the land - something I really didn’t understand until I arrived, and something which would likely change the way I organize a trip here next time.
Telluride is really two distinct areas: the old city of Telluride, and the newer area up on the hill called Mountain Village. The two are linked by free gondola (amazingly well designed and run), by roads, and by ski slopes. Beyond that, they’re two different worlds.
(Skiing down Telluride trail into the town)
So we stayed in the Mountain Village. Mountain Village is really a company town, like many of the big ski resorts these days. One company seems to own or at least develop the whole thing (you’ll get to know their logo with the mining pickaxe pretty quickly), but stays pretty low-key and licenses out the concessions to multiple vendors to keep the place from feeling too homogeneous. I’m not a big fan of these planned developments.
Our place is in Mountain Lodge, which is ski-out (so we can hit the slopes a few steps from our front door, and return to the condo just as easily). They offer a van/shuttle service around the village. And they have a concierge and a pool, etc. For skiing, this is great. For everything else, we really had to spend time getting down to the town, which we did almost every night for dinner, and most days for lunch and other commerce also.
(our cabin in Mountain Village)
The skiing is really pretty excellent. The skiing that is centered on Mountain Village is the beginner and intermediate terrain. It basically feeds down into one main area (the bottom of lift 4 and the top of lift 1) that has several restaurants (pretty uniformly bad - ski food like burgers and low-end draft beer) and a few sporting goods stores. That’s also where the gondola to town ends, and the second gondola starts.
The second gondola goes to the grocery store and everything at the other end of Mountain Village. The grocery store is really the star of the area. But it’s strange: if they recognize the need for good, gourmet food up there, why is it only available in the grocery, and not for lunch or dinner? Maybe this is to keep the town in the loop? I doubt it, frankly, but the town is pretty wonderful.
The town, down at 8750 feet (Mountain Village is at about 9500 and the lifts take you up beyond 12,000 feet) is a real charm. It’s basically an old western mining town, that’s been updated maybe once in the ’60s (it feels very Berkeley there) and then again in the late ’90s (gourmet food, high end clothes boutiques, and the ubiquitous real estate storefronts).
Through all of that, the town maintains both a sense of community, and great commerce. It’s like the little town that caters to the big town person. You can stroll down Colorado (the city’s main street) and get a good latte, some baked goods, a Stetson, and a new fishing rod. And the views are fantastic - from almost everywhere in town, you just look up and see the untouched or barely-touched mountains surrounding you.
In the end, there’s no question that for the skiing aspect of the trip, Mountain Village is the more convenient place to stay. If you do, try to stay in the village itself, where you can walk to the two gondolas. But for the rest of the trip (food and lazing around a comfortable small town) the town of Telluride is where you want to be. For me, I think next time I’ll stay in town and avoid the company-town feel of the new condos up in the Mountain Village.
Be sure to read all about the food in Telluride coming soon in another blog post!
Update: Dinner Restaurants in Telluride is now up. Lunch is coming soon.
One, I just found. A friend from high school emailed it to me. It’s called Stuff White People Like, and it’s amazing. Maybe even better are the comments. Somehow, this guy tapped into a pretty funny community.
The other tied-for-funniest blog I read is the Fake Steve Jobs blog. Half of the posts are just of the variety of “I’m speechless” with a link to a YouTube video or something, but even those are good editorial choices. Beyond that, his relentless attacks on the Borg (Microsoft), Hillary, Faceberg (Zuckerberg of Facebook), and, really, himself (the real Steve here, since he’s supposedly writing this) are really well written, and endlessly entertaining.