Archive for October, 2009

About a year ago, I received a marvelous invitation fromy my now dead stepson Fred Hilburbeen to go and tour a stamped concrete Virginia facility that specializes in the installation of totally huge and comprehensive (yes quite massive indeed) decorative concrete systems for residential, industrial and commercial applications. And guess what buster: the very minute I walked into this particular facility I was shaken out of my smokey boots. Yes, I was shaken to the core. They had all the usual machinery I would expect to find in such a place and a whole lot more. Jackhammers, floor grinders, scarifiers, hammers of all shapes and sizes, shot blasters, and scrappers of all kinds were strung across the chamber walls like spaghetti in a fancy Italian pub. All I can say is, Wow! Yip, yip yow! A whole bunch of other equipment, like industrial-grade concrete polishing machines, were also everywhere at this particular facility.

It seems to me that these ole cats offer a whole slew of concrete systems including but not in any way limited to stained or dyed concrete jobs, overlay systems, epoxy coatings, and concrete polishing. They’ll even spray down your deck, and they’ll spray it in style. Yessir, your deck will be looking fine, mighty fine. Please go do yourself a favor and take a tour of the facility as I did. Only then can you truly appreciate the sheer volume of what this majestic business does.

As the holiday season approaches, many people will begin looking for a full-time or part-time seasonal job. One of the best jobs to get during this time is a retail job. What makes retail jobs a good choice? A number of reasons, including:

1. The hours - As the holidays get closer and closer, stores tend to stay open later and later. One benefit to working retail jobs is the variety of hours you’ll be able to work. You may have to work several different shifts, but you can usually arrange hours that fit your schedule.

2. The people - You’ll meet an amazing assortment of people at your seasonal job. You’ll get to interact with people you may have never met otherwise and you’ll probably make some new friends.

3. The perks - Many retail jobs offer store discounts. Policies vary from place to place, but a big discount just might make this year’s holiday shopping extra easy. Plus, your holiday job means you’re the first to know about sales, specials and new items. Now that’s a great perk!

Find a seasonal retail job now.

It seems like a simple idea and often times simple ideas are the best ones. Build a set of noise canceling headphones that physically reflect noise away from your ears.

Most popular noise canceling headphones use electronics to cancel sound. The electronics involved in these battery operated noise canceling headphones like the Bose QuietComfort headphones or Sony headphones are certainly interesting to read about. In a nutshell, they sample the noise around you and then attempt to produce an “opposite” sound wave inside the ear cups to cancel the unwanted noise. To accomplish this, these headphones have a little computer in them that runs off a set of batteries. This is all great EXCEPT there are a bunch of “hidden” problems with this type of headphones.

My Problem With Most Noise Canceling Headphones

I’ve tried a bunch of headphones before realizing that most of these noise canceling headphones all work the same way. I HATE the way the tend to destroy the bass tones in your music. Just think about it, if they are putting “canceling” sound waves in your ear cups, some of your music tones are getting canceled out too. That’s no good. Also, if your batteries die then so does your noise cancelation and sometimes, with some headphones, you can’t hear any music at all. A brief list of my problems with most headphones are:

• You have to keep buying batteries.
• No batteries, no music.
• The swooshing noise that the “opposite” sound wave makes in your ears
• Not good for block voices, phones, dogs, etc.
• Distorts your music
• Too expensive

The Best Noise Canceling Headphones

The great news is that I have finally found a great set of headphones that really work! The Direct Sound Extreme Isolation Headphones at QuietHeadphones.com solve all the problems I had been experiencing with the other headphones and I LOVE them. They work by PHYSICALLY reflecting sound away from your ears. They have a slick closed back and are padded with a noise isolation foam and the work by simply stopping sound from reaching your ears. They don’t try to do any fancy calculations, they don’t use batteries, and best of all, THEY WORK REALLY WELL.

There are three different versions of these headphones available. Their best noise canceling headphones are the EX-29 Extreme Isolation Headphones. They block 29 dB of sound and have excellent, studio quality speakers. They also offer a smaller, compact version of these headphones called the EX-25 Extreme Isolation Headphones. The EX-25 headphones are great noise canceling headphones for traveling. They block 25 dB of noise an are smaller making them easy to bring with you when you are on the move. The third version is a speakerless version of the EX-25 headphones which are designed to just block sound. They have no speakers and no cord so you don’t use them to listen to music.

Complete Noise Isolation

Now, a normal conversation is about 60 dB. A crying baby is about 70 dB. And these headphones only block 29 dB of sound so you are still going to hear some background noise if you aren’t listening to any audio through your headphones. But keep in mind that the battery powered headphones out there only block about 17dB. So you are still getting better isolation with these headphones. But there is one more piece of the puzzle.

The folks at QuietHeadphones.com are giving away a FREE 30 minute white noise MP3 that is awesome. It uses binaural beats to promote creativity and concentration. And if you listen to this audio track through your headphones at a low level you can mask out any remaining noise and truly achieve almost complete sound isolation. I guess this why they are called EXTREME ISOLATION headphones. So you get to complete noise canceling package at QuietHeadphones.com and the price is great. Even their most expensive headphones are under $100. This is a fantastic deal compared to the battery powered headphones that can be easily 2 - 3 times more expensive.

I placed my order and the headphones shipped the next day and I had my headphones is just a couple days. They have fast shipping and their customer service is awesome too. Best of all they are offering a 110% money back guarantee. So you really can’t go wrong. Check out their noise canceling headphones, get the free white noise MP3, and finally enjoy some crystal clear music with no distractions.