Dr Copa

My brother in law was telling me that he was going to get one of the proxy sites that are available over the Internet for his computers at home.  When I asked him why he explained that having a proxy site will protect his privacy on the Internet.  He suggested that I consider doing the same thing.  He told me that there is a website, www.proxies.us that lists a lot of the proxy sites that are available on the Internet.  So I guess I’ll be checking that out!

I finally got around to putting a new fuel pump on my jet ski the other day.  It only took about a half hour.  What a difference it made!  No hesitation and it seemed to start a lot better and go a lot better in the water.  I didn’t go very far because I was just testing it out, but I will later.  I hope it is going to be a good summer, I really want to use it.  I didn’t get the chance to use it at all last summer, so I plan to make up for it this year.

I really like sugary drinks and snacks, and I am all for keeping the costs of consumer products as low as possible.  That is why I was interested to learn about the practice of high seas trading.  High seas trading is a legal trading practice that saves the buyer from having to pay local sales tax on a product that they are buying, which helps to keep the costs down.  High Sea Sugar is an example of that.  The seller loads the product on their boat and leaves port.  Once the boat is in international waters the seller tries to locate a buyer for the product.  If the buyer is obtained after the boat is in international waters then the buyer avoids paying local sales tax on the product.

I bought some cucumber seeds today.  I really like cucumbers.  They say that they are pretty easy to grow down here, I just have to make sure to keep them watered.  I bought some peat moss and some little growing pods to start them in.  I already have a little sun house.  Hopefully they’ll take off and I’ll have plenty of cucumbers this year!

When we moved here from New England, I sold part of my small business to one of my employees and sold some of my equipment to another contractor.  The former employee is doing very well with the business but he tells us that he needs some more capital to invest in the business.  I told him that what he needs to do is apply for one of the many Business Loans that are available on the market today.  I told him to check out  www.ezunsecured.com for his loan because they are easy to work with, process the loans quickly, and provide really good service.

My wife didn’t feel like cooking, so I did it.  I said to myself “I’ll fix her appetite!”  I cooked some mean 1/3 pound cheeseburgers inside of course, because it was raining, but they still came out good.  While I was at it I cooked a bunch of french fries.  I just happened to have some fresh lettuce and pickles in the refrigerator, so I made a heck of a lunch!  I hope she enjoyed it, I know I did!

My wife came home from work, her car sporting a newly cracked windshield.  Apparently where she parked her car on the street near her job was not the place to park today!  The windshield was fine when she left the house; not fine when she got in it to drive home!  We don’t know what happened while it was parked out on the street!  Well, thankfully our insurance will cover cracked windshield repair! 

I started building a 2004 GTO model this week.  I’m not sure I knew what I was getting into!  I knew I was going to detail it quite a bit, but I didn’t expect there to be so many details of suspension!  I worked on the undercarriage for almost a whole day, or it seemed like it, anyway!  Just after I painted.  I almost painted the body bright red.  I think it is really going to come out nice.

My wife loves to shop with coupons! Every Sunday she is clipping coupons from the paper to use when we go shopping.  I often tell her she is crazy spending all of that time clipping coupons, but she does save about ten dollars every week with them, so maybe she’s not so crazy! 

There is a great website that offers coupons and discount deals that we look at frequently to see if there is something that we should take advantage of before we go out shopping.   I like the convenience of shopping over the Internet.  The website is www.1-coupons.com.

The website often has a Discount Promotional Code for items that we want to buy, which helps save quite a bit of money. 

With Mother’s Day coming up, I’ll be checking it out for deals and discounts on things that would make good Mother’s Day gifts.  That site is a wonderful resource for deals on lingerie, flowers, and ice jewelry, all of which make great Mother’s Day gifts! I have to buy gifts for my wife, my mother, and my aunt for Mother’s Day, so I consider it to be a bonus if I can find coupons and discounts on the gifts that I buy!

I bought a new hood for my show truck the other day.  I had to order it, it hasn’t come yet but it is supposed to be here any day.  I made sure to ask them twice where it was coming from because if it was coming from Mexico I was going to order from a different company.  I’d seen one previously like it and the lines were really straight and the hood had a 2″ lift to it; which gives it a deeper style and better looking than most of the hoods that come out of Mexico.  It will be a major addition to my truck!  I can’t wait to get it!

I’ve read several articles about some MIT students that made some teams of card counters that beat the odds in several Las Vegas Casinos. A book, titled “Bringing Down the House” by Ben Mezrich was written about their achievement.   After the book was published, a movie called “21″ starring Kevin Spacey was produced that was based on the book.

Those MIT students developed a software program that helped them beat the odds, and the online gaming company, Backgammon Masters Online, has decided to put the program to the test and see how well it works for their customers who play their online backgammon games. 

When personal computers first came out I avoided them like the plague!  I thought that there were awkward and complicated until the computers changed from DOS to Windows.  Then they got pretty easy to use, and I started buying computer games to play on them and I found that I really enjoyed playing computer games.  

Not long after the Internet was created, gaming websites popped up.  These websites offered a large variety of games. Some were were gambling sites that cost money to play and offered cash prizes; others were free sites created just for entertainment. Some examples of the gambling games are spades, poker blackjack, and backgammon.  My wife has never learned how to play backgammon; I’m thinking about teaching her how to play it.  That would give us a little bit more variety in the games that we play in the evenings.  

My wife shakes her head in bewilderment and bemusement (and sometimes quiet frustration) because almost every time we go somewhere that sells a lottery ticket or a scratch ticket or a raffle ticket I am right in line to buy some!  She thinks that I am wasting our money, just throwing it away!  Well, I think that I win enough money on the tickets to at least pay for my expenses of buying them, and I think it would just absolutely wonderful if we hit the big jackpot!  I really like to plan how I would spend all of that money!

My wife and I have been discussing redecorating the house sometime later this year.  We are expecting to receive a little bit of money from an inheritance I have been told I’ll be getting when some property in Maine is sold.  I’ve heard that there has been an offer on the property, so it may not be too far off.

Currently our living room has a very old queen sized sleeper sofa in it.  My wife bought that thing in 1973.  I think it has time to replace it, and I’d like to replace it with some Home Theater Seating from www.bostontables.com.  We recently purchased a wide screen HDTV, and I think that the entire family would enjoy watching television more if we each had our own reclining chairs to sit in!  My wife is reluctant to give up the sleeping potential of the sleeper sofa, but realistically we have only used it for guests two or three times, ever!  And to be perfectly honest, sleeping in a recliner is more comfortable than sleeping on that sleeper sofa!

I’d like to buy leather seats because leather is more durable and will last longer than fabric.  And another plus – each home theater seat has a built in cup-holder so my wife will stop being so adamant about using coasters when we want to put a drink down – we can get rid of that old beat-up coffee table!

I must have some of the prettiest irises around!  I’ve seen a lot of irises, a lot of shapes and sizes, but mine are two different shades of purple.  I’m really amazed by the way the bloomed and pop open and seem to last forever until one day you look at and all the petals are gone and there stands a lonely stem, ready for next year.  I’m glad I have different types that bloom at different times of the year.  That way I can look at them all season and at all the different colors.

I want to play games on our computer.  My wife wants to pay bills and check her emails on our computer.  It shouldn’t be a problem to share, (we ARE both adults!) but we find that more often we are competing with each other for computer time.  I suppose that is what happens when you both have only a limited amount of “free time” to be on the computer, and it happens to coincide with your spouse’s “free time.” 

I think I’m going to buy a kit to build one myself.  I’m going to buy the gamers’ computer from www.easyasmypc.com.  It will be easy to build; it includes the instructions on How to Build a Computer and all I will need is a screwdriver and my reading glasses!

The grass was getting long, so I called the neighbor to mow it because I didn’t have time.  He showed up the next day to mow it.  It really looked good when he was done!  Five days went by and it looked like he’d never even been here!  I would not have believed he had mowed it if I hadn’t been here to see him doing it myself!  It sure does come in nice and green this time of year!  But it sure has to be mowed quite regularly.

I recently bought several open trailers.  I’m going to be hauling a lot of materials, such as salt, loam, and other materials that can’t get wet.  We’ve been searching several different companies to find the right kind of covering for my trailers.  We decided to go with tarps from Agri-Cover Inc. from www.agricover.com because they seem to be more durable and would outlast the other types. 

When looking at this type of material from Agri-Cover Inc. we discovered the weave was stronger and more durable than the other companies that we looked at.  They seemed to fit better at the corners and with the new electric roll back type they seemed to be just about what we would need to contain the materials that we carry during severe weather.

What a pain in the neck aluminum wheels are to clean!  I spent approximately two hours apiece on each wheel, cleaning and polishing my wheels.  Unlike chrome, you have to stay on them on a regular basis.  They make a special cleaner for them that works really well.  But because of the type of material they are made out of, you can’t really wax them.  But now that I’ve finally got them looking good, I’m going to try to clean them every week because I like aluminum wheels.

When my wife and I ran a small business where we used to live, we made sure to mail out birthday cards, anniversary cards, and Christmas cards to all of our customers.  We felt that mailing out these cards we built customer loyalty.  If we were to start a business again here where we live now, that is something I am sure we would do again. 

We ordered our cards from the Gallery Collection Company, which is the leading business-to-business publisher of premium quality Business Birthday Cards. 

The Gallery Collection Company provides low prices and they have a large selection of designs to choose from.  The customized cards that the Gallery Collection Company sells are made from richly textured papers, foils, and have sculpted embossing.

Its about time for a new computer.  This one is getting slower and slower.  It does crazy things, takes twice as long to upload, takes forever to switch from window to window.  I can almost go make a sandwich and get a cup of coffee while it’s changing.  I know one day I made a whole cup of coffee and came back and it was still on the same window.  I thought I had forgotten to hit the button, but I looked down and it was half-loaded.  I already changed out the keyboard because the letters were so worn out that I couldn’t read them.  Now I’m kinda excited about the new 17″ flat screen that you can buy for basically no extra money when you buy a new computer.  I’m definitely going to have one of those!  Hopefully before the summer is over!

My cousin Ted, who lives in London, called me last night.  He wants to come visit us for two weeks this fall.  He wants to bring his wife Nellie, and their daughter Sissy.  They want to go on a scenic tour of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which is near to where we live.  They will stay in a nearby hotel, and visit with us during the day.

He says that he can get a great package deal on  Flights to USA through the Internet website www.dialaflight.com.  He said that he wants to book their Blue Ridge Parkway Scenic tour package deal.  The deal includes air fare, a rental car and hotel.

I love online shopping!  I love it because I can find just about anything I want!  It’s incredible.  I was looking for some paint the other day, I couldn’t seem to find it anywhere around here because they had discontinued it.  So I went online; in just a matter of seconds I found what I needed!  It’s just incredible; now when I want anything, that’s where I look first!  My wife mentioned it a couple of times, but I’m the type of person that when I buy something I want to take it home right then and there.  But sometimes when I buy stuff online I find that it is cheaper and I only have to wait two or three days.  So now that is what I do.

I saw a cool garden hose storage unit that I want to buy for our place.  Actually, I want to buy two of them; one for the front yard, and one for the back yard!  What am I talking about?  A no-crank garden hose reel!  These things wind up a garden hose using water pressure!  So you don’t have to crank it by hand!  How cool is that? You can find more information (and order them) from the website http://no-crank.com.  Especially interesting is that the company is currently offering a No-Crank Rewards Program that you can sign up for.  The rewards program involves having your friends that buy one take enter the serial number of their unit into an account on the internet.  You get points and rewards and discounts as a result.  

 

I was out grocery shopping the other day, my wife and I came upon some peach trees.  She thought they were really sharp, and so did I.  Well, the next day I went back there and bought two of them.  It took me three days to decide where to plant them!  I finally decided to plant them down by the road, one on each side of the driveway, so they could cross pollinate.  They really added a lot to the dooryard!  I hope they bear fruit, because I like peaches.

My cousin just sent me a photo birth announcement from Doodlebug Dezings to announce the birth of her daughter.  I was wondering when she was going to get around to sending them out; the baby is almost six months old already!  I think that sending photo birth announcements is a really nice way to let people know that your baby has arrived while showing off just how adorable the baby is!  I just think that the announcement should be sent out a lot sooner!

Boy, once the car shows start up around here, they last right through October!  I’ve never seen so many lined up!  It seems as if I’m hearing about a new one every week somewhere!  I really enjoy going to them.  You see a lot of repeats there, but you also see a lot of new ones where someone travelled a great distance to bring their car or truck there.

It’s amazing what people restore today; just about anything and everything!  They bring vehicles to the car show half finished, just to show the public what they are working on.  That’s one of the reasons that I like; my truck is about 3/4 done, and I’ve been told to bring it just the same.  I can’t wait to start next week!  Hopefully I will be recognized for all the hard work I’ve put into mine!

We went shopping today in the shopping center that my mother-in-law and father-in-law have a shop in and stopped at their shop to say hello. While my wife was talking with them, I picked up a catalog to look through to pass the time. I enjoy looking through catalogs; I find them very informative; I learn a lot about what products are “out there” in today’s marketplace.

This particular catalog was put out by a company called The Godfrey Group.  It was marketing trade show displays that the company sells.  My in-laws go to a lot of trade shows, and they told me that they are thinking about upgrading their display to one from the catalog.  They also have a website, www.godfreygroup.com that you can go to if you are interested in looking at their numerous products. 

We went out the other night to try out a new Chinese buffet restaurant.  On the way into the restaurant, I started to have my doubts; just outside the door was a 100 pound turtle, or so I thought.  I didn’t think it was real at first, but then we saw it move, so we knew it was real.

Once we got into the restaurant, the place was packed, but we only had to wait about ten minutes before being seated.  I scoped out the buffet and found out it had anything and everything a person could want!  Four or five different types of shrimp, scallops, fried fish, tons of chicken, a great salad bar, lots of fresh fruit and a wicked sushi bar.  The wait staff was very eager to oblige, the prices were reasonable.  My wife even had two plates!  The food was so good I didn’t have room for dessert, although there was plenty of it to choose from!  We will definitely be going back.  That is no place to go if you are on a diet!

On the way out the door, I found out the turtle only weighed 55 pounds.

Some of my favorite gifts to give are Personalized Gifts.  Usually the person I am giving the gift to has a special interest that I can find some way to incorporate into a personalized gift.  Personalizationmall.com has a huge assortment of gifts that can be personalized with names, dates, and sometimes photos.  I like the photo mugs because a photo of the special interest can be put on a mug and the person sees that every day when drinking coffee or tea!

Most dogs like water.  I’ve got two that are cowards when it comes to water.  If I open the door to let my dog out in the morning and the deck just has moisture on it, they turn around and come right back in!  I think they have learned to have major holding capacity because they don’t go in the house, and they will wait for hours to wait for it to be dry before they will go outside.  Yet, I see tons of dogs walking outside in the rain, swimming in the lake; not mine!  I’m thinking about buying them rain coats and boots!