I am always amazed when I meet someone who lives locally but tells me that they can’t get any Internet Services where they live! When I probe them for more information they tell me that they can’t get cable Internet, and that the dial-up service that they have tried in the past was too slow. I can understand that – I used to have dial-up service and it was slow, but it was better than nothing! When we moved to this house and we got faster Internet I was really happy about it!
I think that DSL service is too limited for most people – I don’t understand how and why the technology of DSL only allows for service withing a short distance from the DSLAM location. I can’t imagine that very many people live within those boundaries! I do think that people who have children in school should have some form of Internet, even if it is slow. These kids are going to need Internet access more frequently as the progress through school. And mobile broadband is just too expensive at this point for people to be able to use that service for personal use.
My wife and I are trying to do a little bit of repairs around the house. Money is tight, so we have been doing some comparison shopping between the two biggest home improvement stores in the area. You know the ones I’m talking about – the big blue and the big orange. We frequently get coupons in the mail from the big blue, and we are frequently seeing commercials on television that claim that the big blue has the cheapest prices. Yet when we went to compare the prices of 2×4s we found that the big orange price was almost $1 lower per 2×4. When you have to buy 100 of them, that makes a big difference! So my advice to all of you out there – don’t believe the hype. Use your head, and your phone and call around for prices! You’ll be amazed at how much money you can save with some shopping savvy!
Speaking of the rodeos, Andy tells me that he has been thinking about buying some National Finals Rodeo tickets for next December. He found a NFR Tickets plaza online that is already selling tickets for this big event! Andy loves to vacation in Las Vegas, and he loves going to Rodeos, so this is a double the pleasure type of vacation for him! He has invited us to join him, but he said it will have to be “Dutch Treat.”
Well, going online and seeing the price of the tickets to the rodeo was rather startling! I’m not sure we could afford to go! I’ll have to give Andy a phone call and see what price range he was thinking of! And then we’ll have to iron out if we are going to be renting and sharing a condo, or staying in separate places. We enjoy Andy’s company and all that, but his finances are in much better shape than ours are in right now and he can afford to take great fancy expensive vacations. Until my insurance settlement money comes in we have to watch our pennies pretty closely and I feel rather uncomfortable gambling that we’ll have the money by then!
My wife had to run some errands today. No big deal, right? Well early this morning it rained out. It rained really hard! It didn’t last very long, maybe an hour, but it sure did cause some serious road flooding! My wife had to find several detours to get to and from where she needed to go! It sure added at least an hour to her travel time; detours on these winding country roads take you many miles out of your way to get around a road block! Detours can be very problematic around here!
I remember when I was a kid, my uncle and his wife picked me up and put me in the back of their station wagon along with their brood of 5 kids, my cousins and was taken to the Houston Rodeo for the day. It was a bit scary at first. Everything was so large and exciting, larger than life like. But after the first initial shock wore off I was good to go and really had a blast for the rest of the day that we were there.
I gained a new respect for these folks who really put their health and their lives on the line to entertain the public and compete against each other. I’ve never been to another rodeo, but I do think about it from time to time. Like when I’m switching channels and I run across a rodeo taking place. I stop and watch for a few minutes, enjoying a few good memories and then move on. Or I see some rodeo going on in a movie or television show.
I’ve heard that they are starting to sell tickets to concerts at the Houston Rodeo and I’ve taken a fancy to the idea of taking the wife and a few other select members of the family to witness this fascinating sport. We haven’t done anything exciting like that in some time. Now that the holidays are all over and done with we need something to pump us up again. The Rodeo might be just what we need!
Here we go again with another snow storm on the way. Last night we got a light taste of some now, but tomorrow is supposed to be bad. Another weekend of nasty cold and wet weather. I feel sorry for the people that are trying to make a living on their weekends, this is like the 8th nasty weather weekend in a row. Spring is looking and sounding better and better as this trend continues…….
My wife and I have been trying to get our home mortgage modified through our mortgage company. So far we have met with much resistance. Because of my car accident and disability causing us to lose so much of our source of income it has become more difficult to pay our bills every month. Bill suggested that we contact the American Residential Law Group to see if they can help nudge the mortgage company along.
They specialize in all areas of consumer law, including debt settlement, short sales, foreclosures, and bankruptcy too. I’d really hate to have to declare bankruptcy, but if we can’t get our loan modified that may be our only recourse. I’m hoping that our insurance suit or my disability claim with the Social Security Commission will come through soon enough that we won’t have to go that far.
One of my all time favorite songs is the Devil went down to Georgia, by Charlie Daniels. I heard today that he has suffered a stroke. My prayers go out to him for a full recovery! Hang in there Charlie!
This video is a longer version of the song than I had ever heard before – it’s terrific! Enjoy!
I’ve been trying to encourage my oldest step-son to take the plunge and get his own place. The biggest problem that we can see at this point though is that all of the apartments for rent in the area are way beyond his budget! I just cannot even imagine how kids today are supposed to be able to get started in life if they can’t even afford to rent their own apartment! I can remember when I was first out on my own it wasn’t that hard to find a place.
The biggest drawback at the time was that landlords don’t like to rent to people with cats or dogs. They don’t mind fish or birds, but cats and dogs have a tendency to tear up the carpets and walls and it is expensive to repair the damage. I was lucky, though, my first landlord was willing to let me get a dog as long as I agreed to take it to obedience training. So that is exactly what I did. I bought a cute little puppy and hired an obedience training company to come to my apartment every morning and pick up the puppy and take it to their place and train the puppy all day, and then bring the puppy back to my place in the evening. It worked out very well and the dog was well trained.
I think that the key to that success was to establish a good rapport with the landlord and offer extra security deposit for damages that might be incurred. Fortunately for me there were no damages because of the pet. The big problem that I had with this particular landlord came, however, after I moved out. I had paid my rent until the end of the month but moved out before the month was over. I had asked my sister to come in and clean the place for me the day after I moved out, but before she could get there the landlord went in and cleaned it and charged me money for the cleaning! And the landlord threw away some things that my sister wanted to keep! So we were quite unhappy with that situation, as you can imagine – being charged a cleaning fee for throwing away things I wanted kept!
My wife and I were talking about how much we’d like to go back to DisneyWorld when I recover from all of the surgeries that I need to have. It got me thinking about the Jammitors that we saw the last time we went down. They were really terrific! So I started looking on YouTube for them and found this video! It sure brings back great memories! I hope you enjoy the video too!
I’ve noticed that my wife isn’t wearing a watch anymore. She sure has had bad luck with watches in her lifetime! Her jewelry box seems to be chock full of dead watches. She’s told me that ever since she was a little girl her folks would give her watches as presents and they just wouldn’t run for more than a couple of weeks. Her dad would tell her that she was overwinding them and that was causing them to break. When she was older she switched to electric watches, but they would only run for a couple of weeks too!
More recently she found that there were a few watches that she seemed to be able to wear without much trouble. I’m guessing that part of the trouble that she had in her younger years was that people kept giving her really cheap watches that weren’t meant to last very long in the first place!
For Valentine’s Day I’d like to buy her one of the new Citizen Eco Drive Ladies Watches that I found on the Internet. It is a two-toned watch that is very dressy looking with a heart charm attached to it. I’m sure she will love it; especially the heart – love – sentiment!
Today is my niece CR’s 14th birthday! It was only a few weeks ago when she and her mother moved into the house, and it has been very interesting having a young teenage girl in the house again! Although I raised a daughter from my first marriage, my current wife only had boys, so it has been a very interesting time to watch and see how my wife has been handling having her in the household.
My wife is planning on cooking a nice chicken dinner for the birthday dinner, since CR’s favorite meal is chicken. Looking at the clock I think I’d best get out in the kitchen and see if she needs a hand!
My wife and I have been trying to figure out some storage solutions for our basement and garage areas. My sister-in-law and her 14 year old daughter have moved in with us and we are trying to accommodate the sudden increase in “stuff” in the house! My wife has suggested that we could bring in some shelving units and some lockers.
She’s thinking that maybe we could put in some Wood Lockers and shelves in rows down in the basement, creating walkways between them. I’d like to consider getting a foot locker to put at the foot of each bed. So now I’ll be taking a look around for Lockers for sale to see what kinds of prices are out there to help us make a smart decision about where to put our money for the storage situation.
Surprisingly enough I can’t seem to find the answer to this question on Google! I can remember many years ago listining to Paul Harvey’s “The rest of the story” radio broadcast. The gist of the story was that Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was originally supposed to be named Adolph. But at the time of his creation Adolph Hitler became infamous for his outrageous crimes and the creator of the reindeer decided to change the name.
I was retelling that story to my daughter the other day and she didn’t believe me. I thought for sure that I could find the answer on Google and show it to her, but so far I haven’t found it. If you can find it, let me know!
I spent most of the day today helping my sister-in-law load up her van and my truck with flea-market merchandise. We’re planning on going to set up a flea-market booth in town and start trying to get rid of some of the items that have been taking up space in the garage and cellar.
It wasn’t very long though before my aches and pains got the best of me and I had to take a rest. Besides I could see by the time of my timex ironman watch that it was time for me to kick off my hush puppies shoes and relax in my recliner and enjoy a couple of my favorite shows – The Practice, Bones, and The Sopranos. Oh sure, they’re repeats, but they look great on my samsung lcd tv that I bought when we first moved here. Everything looks great on that television set!
My wife made an appointment to have me take one of our dogs to the vet for her rabies shot. It seems that we needed a new one in order to get her county dog tag. So I went ahead and took the dog to the vet. The shot itself was only about $20, but they charged me over $50 for a “wellness check” that we never asked for!
Now that might be legal, but I think it is totally unethical to charge $50 for a “wellness check” that we didn’t ask for! I think that before they started checking her over they should have asked me if I wanted that done and advised that there would be a $50 charge for it! I feel totally ripped off!
Now I find out that I could have taken her to Petco to one of their shot clinics and had the shot done for only $18 and no “wellness check” fee. I don’t think it takes a genius to figure out where the next rabies shot will be coming from, do you?
As I look through the landscaping books and magazines that I own, I find myself thinking about where on our own property would be a good place to put some landscaping architectural structures such as gazebos, arbors, and pergolas. I used to have quite a few clients in New England that had me install such structures as part of their landscaping plans. My wife always told me that she would love to have an arbor over the front walk with either climbing roses or clematis growing up over it.
When we lived in New England I did buy her an arbor but never bothered to plant anything to grow on it. I don’t really know why I did that – I think it would have looked much nicer with something growing up on it.
I’ve been thinking about putting a pergola in the sunny part of the yard and plant some grapes on it. I know that this is a good area for growing grapes – there are a lot of vineyards in the area! I’d like to plant some sweet seedless red grapes – those are my favorite.
I’m so glad that I get The Comedy Channel with my current pay television subscription. Tonight I watched Chris Rock and I have to tell you that he is one funny guy. He always keeps me laughing throughout and always leaves me wanting more.
We need more comedy and less drama, blood and guts, and all that violent nonsense in our every day lives.
The statistics can be found online about the drug and alcohol abuse that is on the rise. It seems that when the economy is in turmoil people find ways to ease the pain and most likely they will turn to drugs and/or alcohol. It is sad, but true and I’m glad that there are quality Residential Drug Rehab centers opening up all across the country that can help people in their times of need.
This is a subject that is no longer being kept in the dark. Dr. Drew opened up a lot of people’s minds about Drug Detox and Alcohol Rehab with his Celebrity Rehab television series on VH1. Celebrities have always been known to struggle with addiction issues, and we are a society that thrives on what all the celebrities are wearing and doing. Dr. Drew’s series gave some good information for the general public to chew on and has made this subject easier to discuss and I’m grateful to him for that.
Most of us know some one who needs help in this area, the Internet is a valuable tool and has become a great resource to find information concerning addiction and dependency issues. Hopefully the economy will be easing up and the stress levels of the general population will decrease and life will go on for most of us. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.
You can never tell these days if the photos that are being passed around on the Internet are for real or not. I just received this photo in my email today. I got a good laugh out of it and wanted to pass it along here for grins and giggles.
There has been a big push in our community to get people to purchase and install good quality mail boxes. The city is having the street numbers painted on the curbs in front of people’s residences, but they are also asking that the Residential Mailboxes and Commercial Mailboxes have the street numbers printed on them so that our emergency personnel can locate the proper address in a timely fashion.
At a time when every second counts, in the event of an emergency it is best to have everything in place to make the most out of what our taxes are being used for. There has been several times lately that our emergency personnel have not been able to get to where they need to be due to Mailboxes not having the name and proper address on them.
A mailbox can make a difference and I’d like to get the word out here in hopes that more people will take note and possibly save a few lives in the mean time. I’m very glad that our city council has stepped up to the plate and is taking action in this area.
It is a sad fact of life that we depend on Credit Cards more than ever right now to see us through until the lawsuit over my car accident is finished. With my inability to work causing us financial distress, it is really important that we be really careful to Compare Credit Cards and find the Best Credit Cards so we won’t have to pay any extra fees or interest that we can avoid paying.
This has been a real struggle; one I’m sure many of you out there can empathize with. Many of the cards try to lure the consumer into getting their card and have nasty surprises lying in wait. I’ve found that the pre-approved offers that come in the US Mail are just a cruel joke. I’m glad that some of the loopholes in the credit card laws are closed now – the consumer really does need protection against the exorbitant fees and fines that some of these companies have charged in the past! I just wish that the law had gone into effect sooner so that the card companies couldn’t raise all of their rates during the interim period! That was a raw deal for the consumer!
I’ve heard that eating chocolate can be good for you! I was thrilled to hear that – I happen to like chocolate quite a bit! Unfortunately, there is one that I don’t like – the dark chocolate. And that is the one that is healthy for you! Wouldn’t you just know it! My favorite is white chocolate, which I’ve heard really isn’t chocolate at all – it is almond bark. I’d be curious to learn how almond bark is made, and how that differs from how chocolate is made! All this came to mind as I unwrapped a Lindt white chocolate truffle and popped it into my mouth as I sat down to my computer. I could eat those truffles all day long!
I’ve been really lucky in my life to have owned a lot of different cars. I enjoy buying older used cars and rebuilding and restoring them, but I also enjoy driving a nice late model car. For the most part I come from a family strongly rooted in the tradition of buying the chevy brand. I’ve been thrilled to own two different corvettes at different times of my life! I loved to take them out on the open road and drive at high speed. My wife would probably kill me if she knew how fast I drove those cars! I’ll just admit that I’ve earned a lot of speeding and reckless driving tickets that I didn’t get (yet.)
When we finally get the lawsuit over and done with from my accident (going on three years now) we’d really like to buy a new car if we have any money left over after all of our expenses have been paid. My wife would love to check out a honda hybrid car. Her mother had a hybrid car for a few years and she really liked it. We’re still puzzled as to why she traded it in for a different car that isn’t a hybrid! I think there were a few things her brother told her about having to replace the battery and how much it would cost that scared her off.
My daughter has been thinking about buying a new kia forte. Mainly because she has heard that it provides good value and is inexpensive. I told her I’d check out the kia forte specs and give her my opinion of what I read. I’m glad that she trusts my judgement! Or at least humors me!
I can remember when we first moved down here my New England accent was so thick, and my ear was so “new” to the area’s accent of the “native” folks that my wife often served as my unofficial translator when we went places. She likes to tell the story about how we went to the local ice cream stand and I wanted to order a large milk shake. Well, apparently my enunciation of the word “large” sounds like “lahge” to the people down here and the guy who was behind the counter was not a natural born American and had a hard time understanding English in the first place. So after repeating myself several times my wife leaned forward and offered up the translation of ”el grande” to the poor confused server!
Well, he understood that all right, and I got my large milkshake. My wife still teases me that she has to tag along to translate for me whenever we go someplace new. One of our new neighbors that was born and raised in the area has such a thick native accent that my wife teases that she has to go with me to visit him so that she can translate for both of us, even though we both speak English!
I was driving home from running errands and heard this song on the radio today. I haven’t heard it in a while – I really like it because it reminds me of some people in my life who have bipolar disorder and they end up making way too much trouble for themselves! I always laugh when I hear the song – I never saw the video until just now before putting it up on my blog. I hope you enjoy it!
Have you ever wondered where folks can buy a radar gun to measure how fast someone pitches a ball? My neighbor was telling me that he is thinking about signing on as a volunteer coach for some Parks and Recreation programs for the school kids. He thought it might be fun to buy one to show the kids how radar works to track more than speeding cars!
I went over to his house today to pick up the chain saw he had borrowed from me and he invited me in for coffee and fresh Krispy Kreme donuts. Well, I’m not one to pass up an offer of free coffee and Krispy Kreme donuts so I was in the door pretty quickly! He showed me a website that he was looking at where the company sells different radar equipment for different purposes. I never realized that there were so many different radar devices; some for baseball, some for tennis, even some for golf! I can’t even imagine why anyone would want to know how fast a tennis ball or golf ball was traveling! But this website had other interesting items for sale on it the piqued my interest – such as portable ice rinks. I’ve always wanted to set up an ice rink for the kids to ice skate on in the winter! Now I know where I can get one!
My wife found some really funny videos on youtube. They are done by the BBC and show animation versions of animals competing in winter sports with people. I thought I’d like to share them with you from time to time. I hope you enjoy them! Here is the opening ceremony video!
