The site, which helps people nationwide locate sales in their area, has doubled its business every year over the last five years. It currently lists an average of 75,000 sales a week with more than 150,000 people signed up to receive its e-mail alerts "The poor economy is primarily what's driving it," said Dan McQuade, an owner of the site, which is based in Jackson, Mo. "It's forcing more people to sell their things and making more people unwilling or unable to buy retail." Deborah McMahon, 59, a retired congressional staffer, started shopping at estate sales eight months ago for items to Vibram Five Fingers sale up her four-story town house in Alexandria, Va. "You can find things that make a room, and at a tolerable price," she said. Her latest finds are a brass lamp with a black metallic shade and an antique Oriental bowl. But McMahon said it took her some time to learn the protocol Vibram Five Fingers Sprint estate-sale shopping. "It's like you are breaking into a clique," she said. "There's this whole subculture with its own set of rules." For example, the first person to arrive at a sale distributes so-called pre-numbers to others Vibram Five Fingers Sprint Black-Black Shoes they drive up and wait in their cars. "You flash your lights to let them know you are there for the sale," said McMahon, who usually shows up well before dawn for sales that typically start around 8 a.m. When the person running the sale arrives, shoppers exchange their pre-numbers for real numbers, which determine the order in which shoppers are admitted. "Even when I get there early and get a good number, I still get shoe prints on my back," McMahon said. "It's fun, but it's like ants all over an anthill Vibram Five Fingers Sprint Blue-Grey Shoes they first open the doors." Those with the sharpest elbows, according to veterans, tend to be pickers, which in estate-sale argot means dealers who are seeking items to resell in antiques malls or flea markets, or online. Junkers are recreational shoppers who are buying for themselves. And hoarders, of course, are acquiring compulsively and may have to hold their own estate sales to pare down their accumulation.
In similar fashion, Wragge came to Houston in 1998 as Craig Roberts' backup on Channel 2 and was elevated to the top spot in 2000, a year before Roberts was let go. He left Houston in 2004 to replace veteran sportscaster Warner Wolf at WCBS in New York and two years later became the station's lead news anchor. "Everything I've done, whether it's being a sportscaster to going to ET to doing news for four-plus years, it's been to check all the major boxes you need to be aLinks of London sale morning show anchor," Wragge said during a recent trip to Houston. "This is what I've wanted to do. Everything I've done has been to prepare myself for the day I could be in one of those seats. I didn't know where it would be, but I was hoping I would get a shot at one of them." CBS has long lagged in the morning ratings through a long list of anchor teams (including, at various times, two other HoustonLinks of London Gingerbread Man alumnae in Paula Zahn and Hannah Storm), and Wragge is not unaware of the uphill climb that he and his colleagues will face against Today and GMA. "Who says things can't get better?" he said. "Who says we can't get this vehicle back on the highway and driving in the fast lane? Nobody has exclusivity on success. ... There is no reason we can't be as competitive and as successful. "People told me when I Links of London Globe Charm Houston (for WCBS), 'Are you kidding? Why would you want to leave this opportunity and the things you're doing with NBC Sports to go to that dog of a station? I went to that quote, dog, unquote, of a station and helped turn it into a powerhouse. And I genuinely feel that the people I'm working with can make (The Early Show) a hell of a lot better than it has been." He was hired for the job by CBS News president Sean McManus, who, like Wragge, has divided his time between news and sports and appreciates the flexibilityLinks of London H Charm sportscasters bring to the multifaceted nature of morning shows, where the phrase "on a lighter note" is a daily fixture. "Chris can handle curveballs, which is important in morning television," McManus said. "He can transition from interviewing a key political figure to the softer elements of morning television like the cooking and the celebrity interviews. He has a love of life and a curiosity that is infectious, and he comes across onscreen as enthusiastic and wanting to discover what the viewer wants to discover." Wragge's early days at Channel 2 coincided with the station's penchant for stunt stories, and Wragge pitched in with a segment called Wraggtime in which he tried out for various teams and famously lost a bet with Olympic diver Laura Wilkinson.