Usually I don’t watch animated children’s movies. But I had to wait at my sister’s house for a couple of hours and my nephew was watching “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” on DVD.
The movie is about a kid who invents a way to make it rain food. He tries his whole life to accomplish something and make his dad proud, he is a geek and his dad wants him to be a chip off the old block. His dad just can’t seem to do anything but mutter fish metaphors and gently try to discourage his son’s endeavors.
It was a very imaginative movie. The raining food idea was just the tip of the story line. If you have a chance to watch this and spend some quality time with a youngster, I heartily recommend it.
Have you ever noticed when you travel that most of the newer hotel rooms are decorated with contemporary furniture? I’ve always like the sleek, cleanlines of modern bedroom furniture, but my wife says that she thinks that the furniture lacks character and warmth. She’s never enjoyed the “industrial look.”
The last time we stayed in a motel room together, as we were getting ready to leave, my wife said to check under the beds to make sure that we had not accidentally pushed something under the bed. I was surprised to see that they were platform beds. I wondered if that was done to prevent people from leaving things behind, or to save money on cleaning, or if the beds were cheaper to buy! Maybe they are easier to maintain if they have to spray for bed bugs! What do you think? Why are motels switching to them?
Recently our oldest son decided that he wanted to learn how to play the guitar. Naturally, the places that give lessons require that the students buy musical instruments instead of loaning them out. Fortunately for me, I still had my old acoustic guitar from when I was going through that “I want to learn to play the guitar” and I lent it to him for class. The teacher told him that he needed a new bridge, so I took it to the local music shop where the owner repaired it for free.
He continued with the guitar lessons for only about six weeks, and then decided not to continue after that. I sure was glad that we didn’t spend a lot of money buying him a new guitar! And now the guitar is packed away for the next time someone decides to give it a try!
Of all the places for my nephew and his new wife to be relocating to they had to pick Texas. So now they are busy looking for Dallas Homes for Sale and utilizing the Internet for all that it is worth. Moving has never been an easy task and moving somewhere long distance is just a nightmare, thank goodness for the World Wide Web. There are tons of Dallas Real Estate options out there, weeding through all of them is time consuming but at least they can do that task online instead of having to make numerous trips in order to find the perfect match.
At least a good portion of the move is being paid for by his employer and he has a good paying job waiting for him to start at. They won’t know a soul in Texas, but they are good people and youth is on their side, so I’m sure it will work out just fine. In the mean time they are being kept busy Googling “Dallas Homes For Sale” and seeing all that Dallas has to offer folks in their shoes. In a few years I’ll make the time to take a trip out there and see how they are making out.
I’ll never forget my grandfather warning me about buying a pick up truck. He warned me that owning a pick up truck just opens the flood gates for people to call on you for help with Moving Services as well as coming to their rescue for when their motorcycle breaks down on the side of the road. This man rarely was wrong on any subject and with this particular issue he was dead on, but that is OK as far as I’m concerned that is what friends and family are for. I have a lot of friends and come from a large family!
Moving Companies are a necessity when you have a large move on your hands. Some times a pick up truck just won’t do the trick and a large truck is a must. Now a days you can go online and get Moving Quotes with just a few quick key strokes and their are a good amount of qualified Movers that have been in business for a long time that are well established and are trustworthy as well. We have all heard horror stories about people’s stuff being damaged and or stolen during a move, that must really bite. But the Internet has made it possible for people to find the perfect match for their situation and times are a changing with all that the Internet provides for us. If a company gets a bad rep you can bet that it will be on the Internet as well.
So in the mean time you can still call me if you need my truck for a few short trips, but if it is more than it can handle I’d refer you to the World Wide Web and all that it has to offer in these types of situations.
My favorite uncle, who is a proud Vietnam Vet, is looking for a good Mesothelioma Lawyer to help with his fight against this Mesothelioma Disease that we are hearing more and more about, especially on the TV. There has been plenty of Mesothelioma Attorney commercials on the local channels these past few years and the issue isn’t going to go away for many inflicted people.
My uncle never got over his experience in the Vietnam Police Action mentally. He spent a good amount of his time in the service under the waters in a submarine, which is where they believe he contacted this type of cancer. So by serving his country his head is all screwed up for life and now we are learning that his physical condition, which is deteriorating rapidly is due to his time over seas as well. A double whammy, if you will.
The VA has truly been wonderful. They had such a bad reputation for so very long that my uncle stayed away from anything to do with the VA hospital, but thankfully he was persuaded to give them a try, which he did, and it’s all been good, so far and I hope that they continue to take the best possible care of this special person in my family’s life.
Every family needs a doctor, a lawyer, a mechanic and a computer geek to get by these days. I’ve gotten pretty good with the computer these past couple of years, but there is so much that I still don’t know and don’t know if I’ll ever learn or need to learn. I mean at work we have our IT people that are just a phone call away and my youngest brother, who lives pretty close by is the computer whiz of the family so I have plenty of support at my disposal. Of course my needs don’t always coincide with their schedules but we seem to work it out some how.
I can’t even imagine me needing to know about a dedicated server, or anything to do with managed hosting or colocation services in my type of career and/or personal computer needs. And if I need to know what colocation is all about, I’m a firm believer of Googling anything that I need to learn about. The Internet is such a wealth of knowledge just waiting to be taken advantage of by some one just like me.
Seems to me that at least once a day we get a telephone call at our house from some company that is trying to get us to sign on to their debt settlement plan. They talk about how debt negotiation can lower our monthly payments and make our life easier. I always think it sounds like a grand idea and turn the telephone call over to my wife. She makes a face at me and reluctantly takes the call.
She listens politely for a few minutes and then declines their offer of their plan for our debt relief. It always upsets me, because I want to lower our monthly payments! So the last time one of the solicitors called, I listened on the extension to what my wife was saying to them, to see how she can justify turning down their offer. From what I hear, the interest rates they are offering us are higher than the interest rates we are currently paying! I was surprised to say the least! So my advice to all of you out there is this; be careful and listen carefully. Make sure that the offer they make you really is going to save you money! Don’t be fooled by slick talk and pretty words!
I heard some great music coming from my wife’s computer so I went to see what was going on. She was watching this video. Now she wants to sign up for a Zoomba class! That would kill me!
I know that my wife has been wanting to order one of the Howard custom computers that she’s heard about from her brother that bought one recently. Her brother is a major computer geek, and he is always bragging about how he always buys custom computers and always has the biggest and the best.
I don’t see anything wrong with the computer that we currently have, but I wouldn’t be against supporting the idea of buying a custom laptop computer. At least that way when we go on vacation she could keep up with the things that she feels are important so she won’t be “on edge” the whole time we were gone!
When we lived in New England, I had a video security system hooked up at the shop. Since the shop was left unattended for hours at a time, Iwanted to be able to see who was on the property in the event anything turned up missing or vandalized! I had a lot of expensive equipment on the grounds, and expensive tools and equipment inside.
Before I bought that system, I asked Joe for some tips about what kind of system he liked the best. He’s had several different systems in the past, and I trusted his judgement.
Joe actually gave me one of his used systems that he didn’t need anymore, and he helped me with the installation of the system too. When we moved down here and sold that shop building, I brought the system with me. I haven’t hooked it up yet; I haven’t decided whether to hook it up to the house or to the storage shed out back!
I decided to give my wife a break today and do the grocery shopping. I decided to go to Wal-Mart because we needed pet food, and that is the cheapest place for us to get the Iams brand cat food that we need.
There was a demo booth there with a lady handing out samples of the new Bugles Caramel chips. They were delicious! I bought two bags of them; only one of the bags made its way home! If you can find them in your store, give them a try! They were only $1.67 a bag at Wal-Mart – don’t pay more at someplace more expensive!
Vacation planned! Success. I love hughesnet internet. I’m finally using high speed internet orrs island now, as my previous land line provider was awful, and it is so nice to be able to get online and do what I need to do this easily. I was able to go on the web and score some cheap tickets to visit my family this summer just by trolling around various travel websites throughout the day and waiting for a sale (sorry boss).
Soooo much easier then when I used to have to call each airline individually. And since my mom wanted to get out of the city for a few days I read some travel reviews and hotel reviews and picked a cute B&B that’s a few hours away from her house for us to spend the weekend at. Not only that, but I’ve been searching for things to do in the area since then and I already have a mini list that I’m going to present to mom, and she can pick her favorites. Which hopefully will be my favorites – maybe I can guide her a little, lol. I’m counting down the days!
I guess now thatall of our kids have graduated college, our younger siblings have been asking for advice from us about how to get money for their kids to go to college.
Unfortunately for them, there seems to be more money available for the minority races through minority scholarships than through “regular” college scholarships! I know that for a fact myself because I was looking around for some college grants for my wife to go back to college and get a pharmacist’s degree!
As smart as my wife is, we will never be able to afford for her to go back to college – we depend too much on her income to survive. We’d never be able to survive while she was in school.
One word of advice I’d like to give people – go to college BEFORE you get get married and have children! It is so much easier when you are not bound to a specific location and have to support a family!
My sister and her husband are up in arms about their oldest child who is in dire need of one of the drug rehab centers near where they live. He has gotten in with the wrong crowd, it started right when he started attending Middle School, which is when a lot of kids start going down hill, as the statistics show us. My sister is busy finding information on the Internet concerning the drug rehabilitation programs that they would be able to hook him up with. The Internet certainly is making this task a much easier one to tackle and she is able to share her findings with friends and family who are into emailing and the like.
There are good quality addiction treatment centers available these days. With the economy is such a mess more people are turning to drugs and alcohol as an escape from all the heart aches that our government has gotten us all involved in. This country is in a major mess and we need all the help that we can get, especially in this aspect.
I feel for my sister’s family, I can only hope and pray that they find the right place for him and that he pulls through and can make something of himself and his life. He is a bright kid, always brought home great report cards and has a real apptitude for working with his hands. I wish them all the luck in the world, just wish I was closer so that I could be of more help with it all.
I come from a family of avid golfers. Every one in the family enjoys a good game of golf from time to time, it was a good quality sport for the whole family to enjoy together. We were started out pretty young, around the age of 3 or 4 depending on the kid and their comfort level and skills. To hear the words tee times would get the whole house in an uproar, the excitement was very contagious, and it still is to this day.
Even though the family have spread out a whole lot, all across the country, we still manage to get together now and then and enjoy a family game of golf. I found a great site www.48hourteetimes.com that allows you to book games at short notice and in various areas. Our favorite golf courses are in Myrtle Beach, the North Myrtle Beach area to be exact. You can’t ask for much more than what Myrtle Beach as to offer, something for everyone can be found there!
Sometimes the opportunity to get in a game comes up out of no where and if you don’t jump on it, it can leave as quickly as it came. So a site that helps you with 48 hour tee times would certainly be helpful, another example of how the Internet has made life so much easier.
The mortgage company tells me that they’ve closed my case on the deed-in-lieu for my house in New England, and that they would fix my credit score by notifying the three credit agencies that the mortgage is no longer overdue. I’ve been quite upset over the past almost three years now because I couldn’t keep up the house payments after I had my accident. We tried repeatedly to get some assistance and cooperation from them but they have not been helpful at all.
And because of their poor handling of the situation, my credit report has suffered big time. It will take years to build my credit back up to where it used to be. This accident I was in has caused me grief on so many different levels! I don’t think that my life will ever be the same again. We still haven’t seen any insurance money yet!
There are times when my wife comes home from work quite upset because one of her co-workers is very disrespectful to the other employees. She tells me about the kinds of things that he does and I have to say that it certainly sounds like he enjoys causing trouble for everyone there! I just don’t understand how or why these types of people can even keep a job! I know that when I ran my own company I didn’t tolerate that kind of behavior in anyone!
Mom wants to throw a housewarming party for our son J who just got his own place for the first time. He’s got a nice little condo that he’s sharing about a ten minute walk from his new job. His roomate told him that he never uses the kitchen, and so J is looking to outfit the place with some basic cooking necessities. He gave us a wish list of things that he’d like to have as housewarming gifts. He put on the list that he would like a jk adams cutting board, a george foreman grill, a jk adams pot rack, a waffle iron, a jk adams spice rack, a food processor and a hand mixer. I guess he was serious when he said he planned on cooking his own meals!
We told him to come rummage around our place and see if there is anything we have duplicates of that he could use, and he has already scored a colander, a splatter guard, a cheese grater, and some serving spoons and cutlery. It won’t be long before he has a complete kitchen!
I never used to watch television other than the weather channel. I would get up early in the morning and put on the weather channel to see what the forecast was and then head out to work. I’d leave the house by 4:30 in the morning and wouldn’t get back until around 7:00 or 8:00 at night. I’d check the weather channel again, and then hit the sack. In between time I’d be busy plowing and sanding roads and driveways and parking lots in the wintertime, and doing groundskeeping in the summertime. I was even the town cemetery sexton for a few years and took care of the cemeteries, mowing the grounds and digging the graves.
So it really wasn’t until after my accident back in 2007 that I started to watch a lot of television. I really don’t like the fact that I can’t go out and do the things that I love to do, but the pain from my injuries prevents me from doing much of anything. If it wasn’t for all of the specials on television, I’d go absolutely insane! I’d love to upgrade our television service to get more of the cable specials, but my wife keeps telling me that we can’t afford the extra monthly rates for the premium channels. She’s working two jobs now, trying to pay the bills, and it is difficult for me to argue with her about what we can or cannot afford.
I do find it difficult not to envy my brother-in-law, who has satellite television and is always talking about how he divos the dish specials to watch later on. But my wife is right; money is just too tight now for those kinds of luxuries.
Ever since we moved here, my wife has been telling me that she wants to try out a Boston Market restaurant. She says that her sisters keep telling her that they really like the food. I’ve been very reluctant to try it – I just don’t like trying different restaurants. Once I find one that I like, I try to stick to it. I hate the thought of going to a restaurant and then not liking the food!
Well, finally she dragged me into a Boston Market yesterday. It was suppertime and we weren’t home. We were in Fairfax, and she saw a Boston Market and she pulled in. I grumbled a bit, but we got out of the car and went inside. She was quite upset when we got inside and realized that it was a fast food restaurant! No one had told her that! She thought it was going to be like an Applebee’s or Ruby Tuesday. She looked at me and declared “I was expecting a different kind of restaurant; I don’t want to eat here.” So we left! That was a close call!
Many of our friends have been raving about the new Mandarin Japanese buffet and sushi bar restaurant that opened in town recently. So I decided to take the family there for dinner last Sunday evening. The atmosphere was nice enough, but the buffet was smaller than I would have liked. Our sons enjoyed the sushi bar (no raw fish for me thank you very much!) and my wife and I found plenty of food that we liked. But when the bill came for about $20 each, I was not impressed. I’ve had better meals at other buffets for much less money. I don’t know if this restaurant is going to be able to compete with the others if they keep their prices so high!
My sister was asking me yesterday where she could find a local digital camera repair shop. She says she has been having problems with her camera and wants to get it fixed. She told me that she lent her camera to a friend and she thinks it was dropped.
To be honest, the whole concept of having to need camera repair was a little bit of a surprise to me.
I have had about eight different cameras in my lifetime and none of them have ever broken! I even have my old Polaroid “Swinger” camera and it works just fine! The problem I have with that is finding the film, if I were inclined to want to use it! So I’ve never had to worry about where to take one for camera repair! I usually only buy a new camera when new technological advances inspire me! I guess I’ve been lucky in that department!
Our youngest son has finally graduated from college and has returned home to stay for a few days while he looks for an apartment to rent closer to his new job. He’s actually looking for a place to share with other young folks, so sharing a house is also an option. Today we went into town together to look at a few places. I was amazed to see how many of the places seemed to have a really big screen lcd tv in their living rooms.
I would have thought that with the economy as rough as it is, that people would be pinching pennies harder and spending their hard earned money on survival items, not luxuries like a brand new wide screen lcd tv!
I mentioned that to my wife, and she laughed at me! She told me that these young adults seem to think that all of the electronic devices that we think of as luxuries, such as a laptop computer and a lcd tvare considered a necessity to them!
I’ve noticed that in some families, the brothers seem to get along extremely well, whereas other families the sibling rivalry and jealousy seems to go on forever. I can’t help but wonder if this rivalry is something that is actually nurtured by the parents, whether the parents realize it or not. Or if it has to do with birth order, and whether there are any sisters in the family.
For example, in my own family, on the surface it looks like the siblings all get along very well and love each other dearly. But the sibling rivalry runs deep, and there are a lot of hurt feelings and competitiveness, even now that we are all well into our middle age. Sometimes I think that the only thing keeping the peace between us is our mother, and I wonder what will happen to our family when she passes on. I’m afraid that the gloves will come off and it will get nasty. I dread that.
When J was between his junior and senior year in high school, we encouraged him to take a college course in statistics during the summer. We reasoned that since he was so advanced in his courses (taking college level courses) and statistics was not available in his school, that he would have a leg up and head start in college this way.
And, since my wife had taken statistics herself at the same college, and still had her statistics books, we figured that she could act as a Statistics tutor if J should need any Statistics help during the course. There were a couple of times that J asked for help with some of the Statistics problems that he had as homework, and my wife was glad she had kept her book! The book she had for her course was a lot easier to understand than the textbook J had been assigned! So it was good that he had her old one to reference when he needed help!
There are several of my in-laws that I really enjoy hanging out with. My brother-in-law Will, for example, has a Harley. I have a Harley. We like to ride together. He’s a nice guy and would give the shirt off his back to help another family member. But by day, he is a self-employed IT specialist. He has several clients that pay him handsomely to take care of the details of the computer and Internet needs.
And because he is self-employed, he is always networking; trying to line up more clients. So there have been times when we’ve gone riding together and ended up meeting with potential clients. After a few minutes of listening to them talk about such things as dedicated server hosting, colocation services, and managed hosting solutions I usually wander off and try to find myself a place to grab a drink and take a short nap. I’m beginning to think that I should pack a bedroll and a good book onto the back of my bike! I don’t mind mixing a little bit of business with pleasure, but these are topics above and beyond my own needs and interests. But, it pays him a good salary, so I’m all for it!
My wife says that I have a hard time dealing with change. I have to agree with her – I like things to stay the same. I like to sit in the same chair at supper. I like to leave the house in the morning knowing what is for supper, and if plans change and that supper doesn’t happen, I don’t like it. Even if the food is something I like even better! I know that there are a lot of people like that out there. I wonder why people are so uncomfortable with change. Why should it upset me when I get home and find that supper is even better than I thought it would be? I know that children need a structured routine to be comfortable; I wonder if we ever really outgrow that?
I’m not sure if it’s just the area that I live in, or if people are really starting to feel like the economy is picking up. Maybe it’s just the nice weather and people are starting to bring out their nice cars like the audi s5 out of their winter storage and show off their wealth while the weather is good.
My wife has been telling me that she would like to consider getting another car before this coming winter. She’s concerned that our current cars are running on borrowed time. I’ve told her to start thinking about what kind of car she thinks she might like to get if we did buy one. I suggested that she check out the reviews on the volkswagen jetta sportwagen and mitsubishi galanton thecarconnection.com website to see if she might be interested in one of them. Personally I’d love to be able to afford something as nice as a jaguar xf, but I think she would tan my hide if I spent that much money on a car! Well, a man can dream, can’t he?
Between the two of us, we have admittedly had some nice cars. I’ve owned three corvettes in the past, and she’s owned a toyota celica, a mazda RX-7 and three Mercedes Benz cars. So it’s not like we don’t know how nice it is to have really nice cars! But she keeps telling me that she feels very uneasy about the financial security of the family right now, and she really would like to focus on value instead of glamour.
My wife is always misplacing her eyeglasses. She uses two pairs, one for the computer/reading, and the other for general life. The “general life” are progressive lenses and the computer glasses are just mid-range single vision. It seems that she takes both pairs of glasses with her to work because she is on the computer quite a lot of the time, and using the “general life” glasses are not very comfortable for her to use for long periods on the computer.
Seems as though every two or three days she accidentally leaves her computer glasses at work, and then when she gets home and wants to read her email and do our personal book-keeping work on the computer she realizes that she left her computer glasses at work. She gets very frustrated by that! So I’m thinking about suggesting to her that she buy a spare pair of glasses through the Zenni Optical website. I was looking on their website a few minutes ago and saw some lenses that look exactly like the pair she wears, and they were very inexpensive!
I think I’ll suggest that she gets a couple of spare pairs of glasses. You never know when a pair of glasses is going to break, so having a spare pair or two is always a good idea. And now, with the great prices at Zenni, it is not a prohibitively expensive luxury.
