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Place an ad Make a payment Ad rate cards More Travel: Wharton: Exhaustion sometimes blurs travel recollections Ends of the earth Dinosaur museum to host lecture Gaudi's cathedral to get roof at last Travel almanac A coastal nation rich in cultural diversity Send us your dream travel lists The most overhyped summer destinations A whale of a snack You will not need a passport to enjoy this Caribbean bargain Maui: Whalers Village hosts onion fest in late August Las Vegas: The Beatles Revolution Lounge plays up-and-coming bands North Dakota: Escape tourists and embrace nature Pioneer party: Small towns make July 24 their own Travel reading: 'Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway' Travel almanac: Top 10 best places for a medical emergency Red rocks, blue skies and white water in Utah French town touts link to Chinese revolution New attraction tells Niagara Falls story Telluride arts festival slated for mid-August Rental cars: Is optional insurance the way to go? Delta rolls out boarding-pass ads Travel almanac: Top 10 rail trails On the road with an RV Wharton: I have a dream travel list, do you? Green resort in works for British Virgin isles Looking for Africa in the heart of Lisbon Pueblo-style resort nears completion Air bookings axed, travelers scramble Keep cool as a hippo on the West Bank Travel almanac: Jeweled Hot Wheels coming to Salt Flats Opera in the Rockies 'Staycations' can be just as fun for kids No smoking in Amsterdam - tobacco, that is A holiday in Amsterdam - with the kids Delta cancels four more routes from SLC Great-American drive-in tradition still a featured attraction in Utah Disney's World: Why visit every Disney park in the world? Why not? Wharton: Hassles, higher prices Snowbasin offers summer activities for entire family New country-themed bar opens Travel almanac Remnants of Hanoi's French Colonial Past Plying the waters of Halong Bay in luxury Painted ponies to adorn streets of Lake Geneva Learning delicate sport of fly-fishing stirs lake martin vacation rental memories Angel, Cirque du Soleil teaming up Indonesia: Searching for spirits where religions merge Travel almanac Museum that celebrates Woodstock festival opens Florida's Delray Beach: Funky, faded tropical glory Companies offer discounts when credit cards are used Visit Geologic View Park for close-to-home fun Kanye West to headline Essence Music Festival Historic hotel to reopen with a new name and a new look Travel almanac Las Vegas: It's got Trump written all over it The Dead Sea: Dip into history The Dead Sea: Place of healing Wharton: Dad taught us to love our travels Castine: A hidden gem in the Down East region Folklife Fest zooms in on Bhutan At renovated National Aquarium, things are going swimmingly Elitism is contagious Impressionist art by women at San Francisco museum Getting to Los Angeles Sailing the seas around Sicily's islands Independent spirit of the other Nicaragua Travel almanac Bronze sculptures of Degas headed for Grand Rapids Caesars Palace Venus Pool Club makes a splash - for adults only Wharton: Baseball, travel are a hit with me TSA wants to ease laptop screening Celebrating four centuries of French heritage Arizona Science Center to whitewater rafting vacation host 'Chronicles of Narnia' mr bean vacation exhibition Ready for its close-up Travel almanac 75th anniversary of Going-to-the-Sun road Star billing for crime solvers Get the most from your carry-on bag Endless summer Ohio town to host fifth annual Duct Tape Festival Learn to cook Vietnamese cuisine michigan vacation getawy on Asian cruise Butch Cassidy's mystique enhances jaunt across Utah Utah's waterfalls: Showstoppers in the nation's second-driest state del.icio.usDiggRedditYahooMyWebGoogleFacebookWhat's this? Print Email The most overhyped summer destinations By Gary A. Warner The Orange County Register Article Last Updated: 07/26/2008 11:06:00 AM MDT Summer has just begun and I am already tired of nyc vacation hearing about some vacation destinations. But not so tired that we won't run stories about these places ourselves. Sometimes the beaten path is the beaten path for a reason. Still, there is a certain amount of eye-rolling repetition in the news these days about places tied to big summer events. Or a certain trend. Here's vacation photos my list of the most overhyped and overexposed places of vacation rental permits the summer of 2008: Your home » Every few years a cutesy new vacation term dreamed up by some marketing types starts making the rounds. There were ''babymoons'' (a trip just before having a baby) and ''oblications'' (those mandatory trips to see the relatives - something an Orange County Register writer more than a decade ago termed ''tours of duty''). There are ''mancations'' - where guys go off to blast birds or just drink a lot. This year the term vacation homes in florida I became tired of in, oh, late March is ''staycation.'' A combination of ''stay'' and ''vacation.'' The idea is that you don't go anywhere this summer because of high gas prices, high airfares and recession worries. The Washington Post even came up canada vacation package with a version where you tell people you are leaving town, then hide in your house: a ''fakation.'' It's true that fewer people are planning a trip of over 75 miles this summer - 57 percent, down from 63 percent in 2007, according to Advertisement a survey by national leisure marketing firm Y Partnership. But most people still realize that the term ''vacation'' has at its root the word ''vacate'' as in leave, blow town, get away. Here's my advice: If you were planning a two-week vacation, make it 10 days. If you were planning a week, make it five days. Go three-star instead of four-star. Eat only one meal a day in a restaurant, using markets and bakeries for lunch. There are lots of ways to enjoy summer without boring yourself to death at home. I have dubbed these with trendy new names: ''a short vacation'' and ''a budget vacation.'' Beijing » The world comes to one of the most populous and least freedom-loving countries on the planet. No Summer Olympics has been quite so controversial since Moscow in 1980 (or perhaps Berlin in 1936). Between the protests about Tibet and the police swarms on Tiananmen Square, there will be a respite when the greatest runners, swimmers, gymnasts and javelin throwers get their once-every-four-years moment of glory packed between baseball's All-Star Game and the opening of the NFL season. But this is one country that probably doesn't need the post-Olympics tourism bump. China is expected to be the No. 1 tourist destination in the world by midcentury. Minneapolis » President Bush's ratings may be at an all-time low, but the Republicans are hoping for resurgence at their national convention Sept. 1-4. Though modern Minneapolis gets first billing, the convention will actually occur across the river in St. Paul. That's OK with me - I prefer the town that family vacation deals was home to F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose namesake theater is the headquarters of the radio show ''A Prairie Home Companion.'' Denver » The looooong race to pick a Democratic nominee luckily ended before the donkey vacation rental in orlando florida delegates arrive in the Mile High City for their national convention Aug. 25-28 at the Pepsi Center. The Dems should take time out to tour the LoDo district of warehouses and bookstores, and the gun lobby will love the firearms dunedin new zealand vacation villas collections and game (no elephant) served at The Buckhorn Exchange. The Democrats are hoping the nominee can go further than the Denver Nuggets did against the Lakers. Washington, D.C » Congress leaves town just as the tourists start vacation station flocking in. Maybe they realize that 100 degrees with sopping humidity doesn't make for a lot of fun. Especially when you are on one of those forced marches from monument to monument, all of which seem to be in treeless plazas surrounding by glaring white marble. Instead, visit in April when the cherry trees are blossoming. The politicians know that summer is only for amateurs. Yankee Stadium » The House That Ruth Built and Steinbrenner Renovated Badly closes at the end of the year, and a new Yankee Stadium (higher ticket prices, more luxury boxes) opens across the way in the Bronx in New York. A 1970s makeover took away some of the old charm, giving it a less authentic feeling than Boston's Fenway Park or Chicago's Wrigley Field. But if you mexico vacation reviews can endure the summer heat and overwhelming hotel prices in New York, check it out before it goes away. As for Shea Stadium, home to the Mets, that is also closing: Don't bother; it's a dump. A dump with a lot of great baseball memories, but a dump nonetheless. Return to Top Featured Links Moving Companies turning debt into wealth Nanny Agency Great AuPair 1 Carat Diamond Pendants Gift Ideas Moving World Travel Guide Si-Mexico Hotels Resorts Cell Phone Plans FREE Myspace Layouts,MYSPACE Compare Prices Information Network Sympathy Gift Baskets Isagenix Kars4Kids Privacy Policy | MNG Corporate Site Map | Copyright |
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Long-serving autoworker canadian vacation package says goodbye
One of the first hourly employees at Wentzville, Glenn Parrott accepts buyout after 41 years of service
Erica Burrus photo/ Glenn Parrott spent 41 years with General Motors in St. Louis and Wentzville without missing a day of work or taking vacation.
By Eric Becker
Friday, July 25, 2008 3:47 PM CDT
Ask Glenn Parrott what it was like to work 41 years without a vacation or sick day at General Motors, first in St. Louis and then in Wentzville, and a hyatt vacation club twinkling smile slowly creeps across his face, until his eyes light up and you know you’re about to hear one heck of a story.
The 59-year-old South St. Louis County resident, who commuted since the 1980s to Wentzville for work, was one of nearly 300 workers at the GM Assembly Center in Wentzville to take voluntary retirement in June as part of GM’s efforts to phase in a younger workforce and cut costs as its fortunes have waned.
Parrott is a man of many interests that extend far beyond the auto industry. He loves to review restaurants (he says he’s reviewed more than 2,000 for Zagat Survey, The Riverfront Times and Passport Unlimited restaurant club) and plans to segue comfortably into evaluating antiques and estate management.He also has myriad thoughts on the auto industry, having written his master’s thesis on the future battles between American and foreign car companies, entitled “Car Wars: The Next Generation.”
As he sat down to lunch at Blueberry Hill for an afternoon pastrami sandwich — the best in St. Louis, he says — it doesn’t take long for Parrott to string together the events of the last 41 years in a few moments’ time.
Married for vacation bible school crafts 31 years to his wife, Christine, Parrott has worked in the auto industry since the day after he graduated from Mehlville High School in June 1967. He walked into Fisher Body Assembly Plant, later General Motors, and applied for a job.
“They asked me after taking a physical when I would like to start and I said, ‘As soon as possible,’ and they said ‘How about in 20 minutes?’” Parrott recalls.
That first job was sealing windshields. When that GM plant closed 15 years later, Parrott was among the first 25 hourly workers at the GM Assembly Center in Wentzville in October 1982. A new company system allowed workers to discuss and debate for open positions. He joined the windshield department.
Since then he’s had many positions: team leader, departmental team leader, line supervisor, quality network planned maintenance team leader, suggestion team member and material driver.
The variety new orleans vacationof jobs, Parrott says, taught him leadership skills, automotive build processes and the importance of maintenance and production work working in tandem, among other new jersey sandy hook vacation things. When he retired on June 27, he ended his days as a quality network planned maintenance team leader and material driver. So what led Parrott — who only scheduled vacation days during times the plant was down, on work holidays or as models were switched over — to take the buyout? It wasn’t just the $45,000 pension package those with more than 30 years at GM would receive. “After closely studying the 2006 buyout, I made it my personal goal to pay off my home and car to better position myself should there be another offer in the future,” Parrott said. In March, he got his chance. Now, instead of spending $21 a day on fuel driving to Wentzville, he’ll have more time for volunteering with the American Cancer Society, which he has done with his wife for 12 years, and perhaps do more traveling, host dinner parties (another passion) or even meander into a hobby or two. During a recent alumni meeting at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Parrott was asked to submit a resume and come in for an interview for a teaching opening. When Parrott looks at the auto industry, he does so with a great respect and acute awareness of what he calls “continuing and extremely painful belt tightening.” After announcing earlier this year it would close four of its truck plants in North America, outer banks vacation rentals cheap GM made it known last week that it would need to further cut its ranks, targeting large trucks. The Wentzville plant, because it is the only location manufacturing GMC Savana and Chevrolet Express full-size vans, has been thought relatively safe from closure in the past, though nerves understandably waver when job cuts are on the table. Parrott says the two-tiered wage scale where younger workers are being hired at about half of the wage those of Parrott’s era make is one sign of the difficulty American automakers face. He’s also seen benefits decrease and experienced workers leave, and says NAFTA and foreign car imports have vacation rentals florida panhandle dug into U.S. automakers. “I worry about the industry in general, although all my friends and previous co-workers at Wentzville are relatively secure for the next few years,” Parrott said. “Wentzville has a product in demand.” Parrott has other accomplishments, as well. On June 20, St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley proclaimed the day Glenn Parrott Day. His hard work also hadn’t gone unnoticed at GM. Parrott said he had received letters from the president of GM, congratulating him as the longest-serving GM employee to never miss a day of work. He also holds another distinction: At one point, he was the employee who most used the company’s tuition reimbursement program. Receiving an associate’s degree at St. Louis Community College at Meramec, and his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business at Lindenwood, Parrott managed to go through some $77,000 of tuition reimbursement in pursuit of a higher education. Within a vacation rentals by owner daytona few short minutes of meeting Parrott, one soon discovers that much excites him. Behind an amicable boisterousness is a man who appears to hold strong opinions, but exercises judgment in sharing them. And after 41 years with GM, Parrott looks back with a mix of nostalgia for his old workplace and betrays a near giddiness at the thought of what retirement might have in store for him. “Although I understand fully after 41 years of service at GM, I’m no spring chicken, I believe that at age 58 I’ve still got a good second act in me,” Parrott said. That second act will include a hobby Parrott has nursed along for three decades — collecting and selling antiques, rarities and fine collectibles. He’s developed relationships with dealers and galleries across the U.S., from which he’s gained knowledge he says he hopes will help him transition into estate management. Throughout the years, Parrott said, his team members’ sensesoceanside oregon vacation rentalof humor made 41 dental health vacation years pass quickly. “I know I’ll miss the many wonderful people I worked with ... good, honorable people I feel fortunate to have known,” he said. 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Sunday, July 27, 2008 - Page updated at 12:00 AM
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How to stay safe from identity theft during vacation
When you're traveling, don't become a victim of identity theft. Identity theft can happen anywhere, but when you're far from home, you can...
By Marshall Loeb
MarketWatch
NEW YORK — When you're traveling, don't become a victim of identity theft.
Identity theft can happen anywhere, but when you're far from home, you can be particularly vulnerable to someone stealing your paradise vacation rentals pensicola florida information.
It's important to stay aware of your surroundings, said Adam Levin, chairman of Identity Theft 911, which makes products to help protect against identity theft.
Levin offered these three tips vacation houses in destin florida to protect yourself from identity theft when you're on a trip:
• Alert your credit-card company. Before you go away, tell your credit-card company or your bank gulf coast vacation rentals where you plan to travel. This allows most companies to set up their fraud-alert system, which notifies travelers if they are drummond island vacation rentals suspected victims of fraud. This absolute hawaii vacation rentals is especially true for international trips. If you tell your card company that you are traveling in France and purchases turn up in Germany, then florida gulf vacation condo rentals this is a likely indication that there could be a problem.
• Leave some cards at home. There's no need to take every credit card you own along on your trip. Take just one. This southern california vacation package limits the chances that you'll lose them, or that a card will fall into the wrong hands.
• Beware of leaving information in your hotel room. "Many people treat their hotel rooms like their castle with a moat around it," says Levin. "But they shouldn't."
Hotel rooms aren't the most secure places. Many people have access to the room, and you don't want to leave your wallet or your passport out where someone might take it. A better idea is to carry them with you, or if necessary, store them in the hotel's safe.
The same goes for eden crest vacation rentals a rental car, or even your all inclusive beach vacation own car. Don't leave personal information in the glove compartment or laptop computers moab vacation rental on isle of palms vacation rentals the seats. If someone breaks in, they may get access to your information.
Wherever you go, stay aware and use good sense.
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