Dr Copa

Our son “J” has a good friend “P” that goes to Brown University. They don’t get to see each other as often as they would like, because our son goes to Princeton. Whenever “J” gets the chance to go to Boston to visit with “P” he jumps at the opportunity to go. “P” is approaching graduation, and has had several job offers that he is considering that would keep him right in Boston. “J” and “P” really enjoy Boston a lot, and “P” has invited “J” to help him look at some Boston Condos and Boston Lofts that he is interested in renting or buying if he decides to stay there.

“P’s” father is a very wealthy man, and he is setting up an appointment with “P” and “J” to go look at the luxury condos and lofts with an agent of the Bushari Group Real Estate. Hopefully they will find something that they like close to where “P” would be working, but close to public transportation as well.

I was reading on the Reutors website that New York City’s taxi cab fleet be changing. The Mayor of the city, Michael Bloomberg has announced that there is no an agreement in place with car manufacturers that they will supply the city with 300 new hybrid cars each month. Each hybrid taxi car is expected to save its drivers about $6500 each year in fuel costs. There currently are over 1300 hybrid cars serving as taxies in New York.

I think that is good news on several different levels. First of all, it is good news for the drivers, who are usually struggling for income in the first place. Second, it is good news for the environment; using less fossil fuel is always good for the environment! So, congrats to New York City taxis for going green!

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been spending a lot more time out in the workshop in my garage.  I’ve been checking over my tools and accessories; seeing what works and what doesn’t.  What needs to be repaired or replaced.  Organizing, cleaning, getting ready for warmer weather when I can spend more time out there tinkering. 

I’ve noticed that over the past couple of months a lot of my hand tools have been used and simply “put down” and not “put away” in the tool chest. I wish I could say that someone else is to blame for not putting them away after they were used, but I know that I’m the one that used them last, so there is no one to blame but myself! I hate when that happens!

I’m glad to say that most of my tools and hardware are in pretty good shape!  I’m going to have to buy some new tubes of goop and a few rolls of duct tape; mostly minor things.  Oh, and I did find a hammer that had lost it’s head!  So I’ll need to replace that one!  But for the most part, I’m fairly pleased with my workshop tools for now.

Well, I’m in a quandary.  We love to buy the Angel Food Ministries food packages.  They are a great deal, good food, and really help to stretch our food budget.  We picked up our Angel Food box of food today and were delighted to find that the dessert this month is blueberry pie.  When we got home we opened the box, thinking we would have a slice of it. 

Much to our surprise, the pie was a frozen, uncooked pie.  So we were unable to enjoy a slice of it immediately.  What was disconcerting, however, is that there are not baking directions on the box!  We don’t know how to cook it!  We’ve spent over an hour trying to find instructions for baking it on the Internet, but no luck.  So we are winging it.  We started out at 350 for 30 minutes, but the crust wasn’t brown enough.  So we turned it up to 400 for another 10 minutes, still not done enough.  All in all we’ve cooked it now for about an hour and the crust is brown now, and we’ve taken it out of the oven.  It smells good; we are waiting for it to cool off enough to eat it.  I hope it turned out okay!

I’ve been telling my wife that I want to buy a new pair of motorcycle boots to wear this year when I’m riding my Harley WideGlide.  My old boots are worn out, and I need a new pair.  She’s concerned that I’ll be spending too much money on a pair of fancy boots.  I told her that I was thinking about buying some factory seconds from the copshoes.com website.  Factory seconds are usually a good deal; they usually look fine, last fine, work fine and and cost less.  My brother in-law told me about this website; he told me he had bought a pair of Timberland Boots from them and he was very happy with them, and with their customer service.  He said that he was surprised to see that they had the full line of the Timberland Force Multiplier Series; he said that they are hard to find!