Sell My Timeshare

Remember following Santa’s path on radar when you were a child? Many of us do. But you may not know that this radar generated tracking began as a mistake – a mistake made by the company that at that time was known as Sears Roebuck & Co. And because of it, millions of anxious children turn to NORAD Santa tracking to help them get through the anticipation of Christmas Eve.

In 1955, a Colorado Springs-based Sears store ran an ad providing children a number they could use to call Santa Claus. But the number was misprinted. Instead of the phones ringing at the Sears Roebuck headquarters, they rang at the Department of Defense division known as CONAD, the Continental Air Defense Command. CONAD was the predecessor of today’s NORAD, which is a joint organization of Canada and the United States that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and defense for the two countries.

When children began calling Colonel Harry Shoup, the CONAD Commander-in-Chief of operations on his “hotline,” they found a fellow believer in Santa. Col. Shoup and his staff began checking the radar for indications of Santa Claus in route from the North Pole and passing the updates on to the young callers. NORAD Santa Tracking was born. Two years later when the governments of Canada and the United States created the bi-national air defense command known as NORAD, the tradition of NORAD Santa tracking was continued.

Today NORAD provides Santa tracking to children and the media worldwide. They explain,

“Each and every day throughout the year, all of us here at NORAD work diligently to defend and protect our nations. It is an honor for us to take one day each year to expand our missions to share goodwill and holiday spirit across the globe through the NORAD Tracks Santa program. We owe all of this to Colonel Shoup, whose good humor in responding to that first call so long ago began our Santa-tracking tradition, and we’re proud to carry this mission along to this day. Colonel Shoup is a legend at NORAD, and through NORAD Tracks Santa, his legacy will live on forever.”

If you are interested in keeping tabs on Santa, you can visit the webpage NORAD Santa Tracking any time on Christmas Eve, December 24, and follow Santa’s progress on Cesium and Bing Maps.

You can call NORAD and speak with a Santa-spotter. 1 (877) HI NORAD / 1 (877) 446-6723 on December 24 starting at 5:00 a.m. EST until 5:00am EST on December 25.

Or you can download Santa tracking apps from the webpage: www.noradsanta.org/en/

From Sell My Timeshare NOW and VacationOwnership.com, here’s hoping you and your family are making holiday memories in many special ways.

All of us at SellMyTimeshareNOW.com, VacationOwnership.com, and Timeshare Broker Services join in wishing you a happy, safe, and meaningful Thanksgiving Day and holiday weekend.

However you observe Thanksgiving, or whether you observe it at all, consider taking a few moments today and reflecting on how your life and the lives of those around you can be changed when you pause to acknowledge your gratitude and share its expression with others.

Robert A. Emmons, Ph.D., is known as the world’s leading scientific expert on gratitude. He is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, and the founding editor-in-chief of The Journal of Positive Psychology. He is also the author of the book Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier. Having spent years studying gratitude, Dr. Emmons explains:

Gratitude allows us to celebrate the present. It magnifies positive emotions.

Research on emotion shows that positive emotions ware off quickly. Our emotional systems like newness. They like novelty. They like change. We adapt to positive life circumstances so that before too long, the new car, the new spouse, the new house—they don’t feel so new and exciting anymore.

But gratitude makes us appreciate the value of something, and when we appreciate the value of something, we extract more benefits from it; we’re less likely to take it for granted.

In effect, I think gratitude allows us to participate more in life. We notice the positives more, and that magnifies the pleasures you get from life. Instead of adapting to goodness, we celebrate goodness. We spend so much time watching things—movies, computer screens, sports—but with gratitude we become greater participants in our lives as opposed to spectators.

On this Thanksgiving Day, we hope you will use your expression of gratitude to help you find renewed value in your life; to empower yourself to experience your own life more fully, and to celebrate goodness.

Blessings to you and those you love on Thanksgiving!

We are inviting you to join us on our VacationOwnership.com Facebook page. If you are part of timeshares and vacation ownership, you know that VacationOwnership.com is the newest member of our brand family, launched officially in March of this year.

The VacationOwnership.com website went live in May, and since that time we have been involved in creating our new logo and new look. Even if we do say so ourselves, the VacationOwnership.com brand is bright and fun, which is just the way vacation ownership should be.

You’ll find our new Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/VacationOwnershipcom. We’ll be keeping it updated with industry news and plenty of information about all the ways that owning timeshare can make life a little (or a lot) easier, more relaxing, and more enriching.

If you love to travel, explore new places, revisit favorite destinations, enjoy romantic getaways, family vacations, and time shared with those you love and those who make you laugh, then please, visit and LIKE our two Facebook pages:

• VacationOwnershipcom
• SellMyTimeshareNOW

Be sure you “LIKE” us while you are there, so that you receive all the news, timeshare resale updates, and vacation rental special deals.

And if you are part of the timeshare and vacation ownership industry, or other travel and vacation service, we invite you to come and “LIKE” us. Chances are, we already LIKE you, but if we have missed your Facebook page, let us know, so we can LIKE you. Travel, timeshare and vacation ownership is a big wide world with plenty of room for all of us and plenty of niches to fill as we collectively provide consumers with quality vacation and travel opportunities to fit every need, budget, and every vacation style.

On Monday, SeacoastOnline.com ran an interview called, “From pitchman to online pioneer,” written by Morey Stettner. The interview was with the founder of SellMyTimeshareNOW.com and VacationOwnership.com, Jason Tremblay.

The article looks at Jason’s first job (you’ll be surprised to learn what he was doing) and why Jason summarizes his work experience as a 14-year-old, saying, “I learned to have no fear.”

One of Stettner’s questions for Jason dealt specifically with how Jason’s career path led him to timeshares. Unlike many in the timeshare industry, Jason did not work at a resort, come up through the ranks of timeshare sales, or even have a hospitality industry background. Instead, Jason’s commitment to the business of timeshare resales and timeshare rentals was inspired by a time honored precept of sound business: he saw an unmet, underserved need, and knew that by assembling the right team to help him, his business could begin serving that need in ways that were transparent, simple for the  timeshare buyer, seller, or renter, and would feel comfortable to consumers.

When Morey Stettner asked, “How did you come up with the idea for launching a timeshare website?”  Jason explained, “It began with our research. We found millions of Google queries such as “timeshare for sale” or “timeshare info.” But there was no central marketplace. When we started nine years ago, naysayers said, “People won’t spend $5,000 or $10,000 or $15,000 to buy timeshares over the Net.” But the old-fashioned way is not a pleasant experience for a developer or buyer. You have to take tours, and there’s pressure. With us, you can do it at your leisure. We’re now the world’s largest marketplace on the Net for timeshare rentals and resales.”

You can read the full article here: http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20120827-BIZ-208270303.