Dr Copa

Today my wife got all of her records in order and drove down to the local bank to see her friend Katie about applying for a loan of some type to pay for the metal building we want to put out back.  Katie recommended that we apply for a Home Equity Line of Credit, and felt that we might be able to get around $12,000 on the loan.  If the real estate market hadn’t crashed like it did, we probably could have easily obtained $100,000.  It’s sad that the market value of our house has fallen to half of what we paid for it four years ago!

I can remember when Online Backup plans were only available for, and used by, large wealthy corporations.  The monthly fees were enormous!  So it came as a huge surprise to me when I found out that now it is available for free to everyone!  I should clarify that 2GB of storage is free from the idrive.com backup services.  From what I understand, the free backup would be a great place to store documents and photographs.  This would be a great option for people who have limited storage space on their personal computers or want to share documents with a remote location.

I think that if I were to use this service, it would be to store the documents of the service club that I’m in, the newsletter, and the photographs.  That way I would not be filling up my personal computer with that sort of data, and next year when there is a new club president elected it will be easy for him (or her) to simply get the information from the online back up source. 

And I really like the idea of having a back up that is not attached to a computer.  A couple of weeks ago my wife’s computer was infected with some kind of mal-ware that put her computer totally out of commission for three days.  Thankfully we got it fixed quickly enough that we didn’t miss any important deadlines, but we were worried for a while about that!  I think having an online backup service that automatically backs up for you is a really great idea if you run any kind of business – it would greatly reduce down time if a computer crashes.

Forgive me for admitting this, but I am already thinking about my Christmas shopping and making a list. My list is nowhere near as judgmental as Santa’s. In my house, you get a gift whether you’ve been naughty or nice. I’ve been thinking about getting several pairs of ANGEL STADIUM TICKETS for our oldest son. I wish I could afford to get him season tickets, but with the economy the way it is, I can’t do that this year. I’ve never been to the Big A for a baseball game, but this would be a great reason to fly out there a few times, see my son and have some fun at a game together.

While looking on the Cheap Seats web site, I considered getting Chastain Park Amphitheatre TICKETS, then I found a list of events that made me think of WACHOVIA CENTER TICKETS. There are so many good teams, shows and special events that it becomes very hard to make a decision between them all.

Every once in a while I like a big bowl of hot popcorn. It seems that popcorn and classic movies late at night go together really well. With little good programming on the cable channels on Friday nights, we have decided to adopt Friday nights as “Movie Night” and we are going to schedule a line up of classic movies to enjoy watching together.

The first movie will be Casablanca. I picked it up on sale for $3 in the clearance bin at Wal-Mart. I watched this movie as a kid, and I’ sorry to have to admit this, I have forgotten most of it. So this Friday we will become reacquainted from my living room sofa with a big bowl of buttered popcorn to share.

Well, my trip to the local Tractor Supply this morning was a big disappointment. I was headed there with high hopes of buying a couple of nice flannel shirts and maybe a pair of jeans or a few other things to replenish my closet with winter gear. I would really like to find a new pair of the Carhartt B11 canvas work pants, and a warm work jacket.

But I can’t find what I want locally, so I’ll turn to the internet. I can buy anything I want online and have it here in a couple of days. If we are going to have a cold winter with severe weather like the Almanac is predicting, I’ll need some new Color Underwear, some work gloves, and some thick boot socks for running the snow blower and the plow. Clearing the neighbors driveways and some local parking lots is a great way to make some extra money in the winter, but I have to keep warm while I’m out in the frigid temps.

While I’m on this buying spree, I think I’ll get a new pair of Levi’s 514 Slim jeans for my son. He’s the type who hates to shop for himself, so I’ll just order him a couple pair and have them delivered to his apartment as a nice little surprise.