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.
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 have never really liked the taste of Pringles. They just don’t have the light crispness that I have become accustomed to and their flavors just don’t float my boat. The other day my wife brought home a tube of Pringles, the sour cream and onion flavor. I was starving so I grabbed a couple to tide me over until lunch time. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised and found myself wanting more!
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!
I got an email from Mark earlier today. He’s been having a great time in Alaska, but has been given a job offer in Florida that will last him a couple of years! What a great life he has! Still young and unattached so he can travel the world if he wants to! Mark was telling me that he has been trying a couple of body-building programs in his spare time. I guess there isn’t much to do in the part of Alaska he’s been in, so he started both the Power 90 and the Insanity Workout programs. I don’t know much about either one of them, but I don’t know if I was ever in good enough shape to do any kind of workout named “Insanity Workout!”
Much more to my speed would be a Slim in 6 program. I sure could stand to lose some weight! Except, of course, for the fact that I’m still recovering from my injuries that I got in that car accident! I’m still having a hard time just walking around! I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to be pursuing any kind of body-building; I’m just focusing on rehabilitation at this point!
I can remember when I was a teenager, how expensive auto insurance was for me. My parents made me get a part time job just to pay for them adding me to their auto insurance policy! I didn’t even want my driver’s license; my parents made me get it so I could drive my mother to work and pick her up again when my father was overseas. I thought it was profoundly unfair to have to pay for my own premium under those circumstances! And I thought that the rates were outrageous for young drivers! I understand the thought process behind it – young kids are more likely to take risks, but I think that the really old people are worse drivers and their premiums should be higher as well!
I’m glad that there are stricter guidelines now for the teenagers that drive, and I’m glad that so many of the states have seat belt laws. As much as I don’t like seat belts myself, I agree that they can reduce injuries and save lives. And I think all cars should be equipped with the breath analyzer that you have to blow into so the car won’t start if it senses alcohol on the driver’s breath! I think that should just be standard equipment! And for every twenty minutes driven, a new breath analyis takes place. That would save a lot of lives, too!
One of the things that I enjoy a lot about where we live is the fact that we have three acres of land, and live across from a large farm. On our land, about half of it is woods. We don’t really notice our neighbors very much, the landscaping has been nicely done so that their houses are not immediately visible out of most of our windows. I like the fact that at night there is no light pollution, so we can look up at the sky and see the stars. For the most part, the only sounds we hear are the sounds of the livestock from the farm across the street, or the birds singing.
One of the things that has surprised me about living out here is how many of my neighbors say that they can’t get high speed Internet at their homes. I can remember when we lived in New England we were stuck with slow dial-up, but technology has advanced considerably and now it seems that people can get high speed wild blue Internet service just about anywhere in the country!
The next time I meet someone who says that they can’t get high speed Internet at their place, I’m going to ask them if they’ve tried satellite internet. It’s worth a try!
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!
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!
Many of my friends from New England still keep in touch on a regular basis. That sure helps me to get through the many long and lonely days of recovery from my accident! Jarod called me to wish me a Merry Christmas last night. He was telling me that Santa had been really good to him this year. He said that he found a Burton snowboard under the Christmas tree at his parent’s house when he went over there for dinner. Jarod says he’s not quite sure how to send Santa a notice of new address from when he moved out to his own place last year! In addition he got a new Burton beanie and a new Burton jacket to wear while he is out on the slopes trying out his new board.
I never learned to snowboard; I always enjoyed alpine skiing and snowmobiling. Snowboarding always seemed like a lot of fun that I’d like to try someday, but now with all of these back injuries I have I’ll probably never get the chance to try it. My wife says we’re too old for that anyway and it’s time we started acting more our age. To be honest I think she’s just worried that some of the other boarders might run into us and that could really hurt! Well, too old, or too injured, either way it looks like I’ll just have to be satisfied watching that sport from a distance!
Some of the prettiest places a person can go are to the Myrtle Beach Golf courses. My friend Russ and his wife go on annual Myrtle Beach Golf Vacations. Russ says that he loves to Golf Myrtle Beach every chance he gets. His wife likes to golf, too, so they enjoy trying out the many different courses there.
Ever since their youngest child moved out of the house ten years ago they’ve been reserving Myrtle Beach Golf Packages and stay for several weeks every February. Since that is the coldest month of the year up here they like to pamper themselves and just pack up and go and pretend that winter just isn’t happening! Russ always come back from his vacation nicely tanned, and extremely happy.
They like to stay in a condo where they have their own kitchen and separate living area apart from the bedroom. They say that it is more relaxing when they don’t feel cramped up in a small motel room. I have to agree I enjoy condo vacations too!
The recent snowstorm and cold snap have certainly sparked my desires to go to one of the nice warm Oceanfront Myrtle Beach Resorts for a few weeks. Although I’ve never been to any of the Myrtle Beach Resorts yet, I’ve been tempted by the many accolades that I hear from my friends and relatives from their vacations.
They love to send postcards from their Beach Resorts Myrtle Beach telling us how much fun they are having playing golf, going to shows or amusement parks, or just relaxing on the beach. And they rave about the luxurious accommodations that they are enjoying. I can certainly appreciate how hard it would be to leave such a place! We’ve heard so many good things about vacationing there that my wife and I are putting it on the top of our list of vacation spots we want to try out when my injuries are better healed and I can spend more time enjoying life without having to spend so much of it sitting down.
My wife is always telling me that if I want something done right, I have to do it myself. I don’t like it when she says that. Usually because it is right after I complain that I wanted something done a certain way by her or another family member and it was done differently. The adage “there’s more than one way to skin a cat” aggravates me as well. Not because I’m an animal rights activist (although I do NOT advocate skinning cats!) But because it implies that there is more than one way to get the job done. And I’m always wanting things done MY way. You know, the old “It’s my way or the highway” applies here.
A friend of mine told me that his female chihuahua is expecting a litter of puppies, and he wants me to have one of the puppies. He said I could have one for free! He said that they are pure bred puppies. I don’t know how much money chihuahua puppies cost around here, but I am under the impression that just about any pure bred puppy is expensive to buy. I didn’t know much about chihuahua dogs, so I wanted to get some pet information on the breed before discussing it with my wife. After all, it is a good idea to be well informed on a subject before bringing the subject with my wife – she has a tendency to be quite knowledgeable about just about everything!
My wife has been telling me that some of her friends are interested in learning how to create their own websites, and some are interested in learning about blogging. She has been asking me a lot of questions about how to explain to her friends how to go about doing that. She tells me that they are having a hard time understanding that buying the domain name and the webhosting services are not always one and the same.
I’ve told her that she should suggest to her friends that they check out the webhostinggeeks.com website. They rate, rank, and review the best webhosting services “out there.” Some of the services that they review include a free domain name, which would be good for some of her friends to check out. The website also has a nice blog that has a lot of good information about webhosting services.
What I think that her friends will like best about this particular website is that it also has a very specific category that they call Green Web Hosting. This section is dedicated to ranking the eco-friendly companies that provide webhosting. I know that many of our friends and relatives are trying to do business with eco-friendly companies, so this is a good resource for them to find eco-friendly companies in the webhosting business.
I know it isn’t officially summer yet, but since I am new to the area, and the weather is so much warmer here than I am used to, it sure feels like summer to me! But I am surprised about how rainy it has been this late spring! Last spring and summer we were in drought conditions, and I was afraid that we were going to lose a lot of our garden due to lack of rain. Well, that certainly has not been a concern so far this spring! It seems to have rained almost every day so far this month! Everyone around here has been commenting on that! It has been very warm, and very wet. The humidity is oppressive – I could certainly do without that!
My wife and I have been thinking about taking up golfing. My wife says she used to play golf before we met, but she quit playing when she became pregnant with her last son (prior marriage.) Something about working full time, taking college classes and raising a family left her precious little time to play golf! Well now the kids are grown and I’d like take her on a vacation – just the two of us.
My doctor has recommended that I get more exercise, and my wife seems to think that I would enjoy learning how to play golf. She has been talking to her brother about the possibility of him and his wife, and us, signing up for a Myrtle Beach Golf Package. Myrtle Beach is close enough for us to drive to in a day, and there are a lot of Golf Packages Myrtle Beach options that we could choose from. We could sign up for one of the Myrtle Beach Golf Vacations where we combine golfing with a hotel room, or we could stay with friends that live nearby and just sign up for tee times.
I find it very interesting to see how many different ways people use the Internet. My 80 year old mother uses it only for reading emails, and only when my daughter goes to her house and opens it up for her to read them! She is definitely NOT one to be talking with about the technicalities of computers and the Internet! When she wants to type a letter, she drags out her old manual typewriter! Yet there are many people who are her age who are “fluent” in their use of computers and the Internet.
My niece uses the Internet essentially for entertainment. She is not interested in learning anything – ever! My wife uses it constantly as a resource to research things that interest her. She LOVES the Internet – it is her security blanket!
One of the more fascinating ways that college students are using the Internet is to form social networks to help each other with their courses. There is one website called Course Hero that is designed to do just that. They have support study groups and cheat sheet exam preparation papers. If you need a Biology Exam Study Guide and you go to UT, you can join the community and type in “UT Biology Exam Prep” and chances are good that you will find that some other student has uploaded their study guide to share with the community.
It seems to me that almost every family that I know has at least one member in it that has some kind of addiction. Some people are workaholics (which for some strange reason is socially acceptable) and some are addicted to video games. Since neither of these addictions seem to pose a threat to society, however, there really is no kind of addiction treatment program that I’m aware of that is geared towards treating those two types of addiction.
More often, however, I hear of family members who are addicted to drugs or alcohol. Many times I only hear about these family members having these problems after they have been admitted to alcohol rehab or some drug rehab program. I think it is very sad that so many people are plagued with these types of problems, but I am glad that there are so many resources out there on the Internet, and through many other sources such as doctors that these people can get the help that they need to recover and kick their habits.
I think it would be a lot of fun to travel around North America a little bit. I’ve always wanted to do that, and as I get older, my feet are getting itchier every day. I’d absolutely love to go to Toronto this September and buy some Rogers Center Tickets to the U2 concert. I’ve never been to Toronto, but that is one of the cities I’d like to see. From what I hear, I have some distant cousins living near Toronto, and they could act as tour guides to the area. That would be a lot of fun!
And I’d love to go to Houston Texas and buy some Toyota Center Tickets to the Eric Clapton concert this June! I’ve always wanted to see Eric Clapton in concert, and I’m a little bit jealous that my wife has seen him in concert before we met. She said it was one of the best concerts she had ever been to, so I would love to see him!
Our old neighbors became snowbirds recently and migrate to Miami Florida every winter. They’ve invited us to come visit them next winter and stay for a few days. I’ll have to check out what concerts might be playing in Miami for me to buy some American Airline Arena Tickets so we can see a good show while we are down there.
With the economy being in as much trouble as it’s in, I’m sorry to say that we have several family members who are in danger of losing their homes within the next year. I’m sure hoping that we dodge that bullet ourselves, but it’s going to be a rough road ahead! My wife and I have been talking about fixing up part of our basement to accommodate some family members that might need it in the future. We are planning to put in a studio-type apartment – just in case. We are going to need to buy a lot of things to do that. We’re hoping to get some things for free, but in the meantime we are pricing items as well. It’s amazing how many things you have to get for a project like that.
My wife is especially concerned with the amount of lighting fixtures that we are going to need down there. It is a dark place; after all it IS a basement, and we only have a few of those little basement windows down there. Pretty poor lighting, for sure! So my wife is trying to find good deals on attractive ceiling light fixtures for the kitchen/living/sleeping areas, and something charming for the bathroom light fixtures. She wants to make sure that anyone is is staying down there does not get the feeling that they are second class citizens! It could be depressing down there without enough light!
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.
Ben has been telling me that he has decided to try to make some money by selling off some of his old collectibles. So he has been going through his basement and his garage and his attic and pulling out some items that he thinks that he wants to sell. He’s tried hold a couple of garage sales, but one was rained out, and the other really didn’t generate much traffic or sales. He thinks it is probably because he lives so far out in “the boonies” that people just didn’t feel like traveling the distance to get to his place. So he thinks that garage sales just aren’t the answer for him.
He has some friends that sell things on Ebay and have made pretty good money doing it, but they have started complaining recently that there have been some changes in the Ebay process that they are unhappy about. Ben has never been a real good computer wiz, and he doesn’t want to take the time or effort to learn how to do the Ebay process himself. So he is going to take his items to the local isold it store and have them try to sell his items on Ebay for him.
As we are approaching our retirement years, we talk from time to time about how we can best afford to retire. We keep hearing about how many people we know seem to manage to move to other countries where the American dollar is strong and they can live like kings on less money than we are using to live very modestly. Some of of friends tell us that they can afford nice homes in Retirement Communities in Mexico AND hired help to tend the lawns and clean their houses, and they have less money coming in than we do!
One of our friends, Jeff sent me the link to one of the Mexico Retirement Communities spots that he is thinking about buying that is oceanfront property on Banderas Bay. I was checking it out; it is an American developed community of resort apartments in towers that are on the west coast of Mexico. I was viewing the pictures on the tour, and the place looks absolutely spectacular!
Jeff has invited us to fly out there with him and his wife to check out some Retirement Communities Mexico. He has offered to pay all of our expenses to go with them. How can we refuse an offer like that? So now my wife and I have to pull out our calendars and see when would be a good time to go out there. I’m going to want to do some research about the climate and see if there is a better time to go, or any time to avoid.
I’ve always wanted to go to Mexico, and this seems like a great opportunity to do just that!
Last night I caught my wife looking on the Internet at some Hydrotherapy pools. I asked her what she was doing. She told me that Sally, a good friend of hers had recently bought a Swim spa. Her friend has fibromyalgia and her doctor suggested that Aquatic therapy would be a good idea for her to get some relief from her condition.
Sally told her that she loved her pool, and that it helped her with her pain enormously. My wife started to think about getting something like that for our house because we both suffer from arthritis from time to time. My wife has been reasoning that as we get older our arthritis will probably worsen, and that a hydrotherapy pool would be a good way to slow down the progression of our arthritis.
Since my wife and I moved here only a couple of years ago, I find that a lot of people that I talk to ask me for advice about moving. This sure is a nomadic area! Seems like every time I turn around people are moving in or out! I guess that has a lot to do with the political nature of the area.
Anyway, people ask me for my advice and opinion about moving a lot. So I tell them “Before you move, go through everything you own and throw away, give away, or sell everything that you don’t want to have to pack, haul, and unpack.” Then I tell them to try to collect as many good packing boxes that they can find from local stores. Book stores and liquor stores and grocery stores are all good places to get good boxes.
Then I tell them to take a hard look at their budget and decide whether they can afford to hire a moving company. I tell them to compare prices and services between different moving companies because their prices and services vary quite a bit between companies. Then I tell them that if their budget does not allow for hiring a moving company, and they have access to a lot of volunteer labor, renting and using a one-way truck rental service might be the answer for them.
My neighbor was telling me that his brother was finally seeking the drug addiction help that he so desperately needs. It seems that his wife has left him and told him that she would only take him back if he went to drug addiction rehab and went through the entire rehab program.
Well, I told him that I thought that was really good news! I know that his drug habit was costing his family a fortune and that he had recently lost his job because he had shown up to work stoned out of his mind! If he can get straight, then maybe his wife and employer will give him a second chance!
A friend of mine is a vendor at a flea market in a city about an hour’s drive from my house. He invited me to bring some stuff of mine that I’d like to sell to the flea market today and put it in his booth to try to sell it. I figured “what have I got to lose?” so I took some stuff I’ve been wanting to get rid of and went down there. I’d never been to that flea market before. I was rather impressed, and I sold most of the stuff I wanted to get rid of! I think I might get into this flea market stuff! I’m going to ask my wife to come check it out with me next weekend and see what she thinks of it all.
There seems to be so much more stress in today’s world revolving around dating than what was going on when I was young and single. I just always seemed to be able to find friends and dates without too much trouble. But then again, I grew up in a small town where everyone knew each other since childhood. Growing up and moving around from city to city can make creating a good social life as an adult very difficult.
That’s why the Great Expectations online service is a great service for people who want to meet new people to date. There are locations of Great Expectations St. Louis, Richmond, Kansas City, Charlotte, Houston and many other cities around the United States. They hold social events in a safe environment and do a background check on all of the members, to ensure that everyone is as safe as possible during their events.
We live in an area that is largely horse farms. It seems that the biggest interest in the area is with horse-related activities, from horse & pony shows to fox hunts. When we drive from town to our house, we drive past a lot of horse farms. They really are beautiful horses! There is one pasture we drive past that my wife always looks closely at. There are some Belgium draft horses usuallyi n that field, and my wife always wants to catch a glimpse of them.
Almost a day doesn’t go by when I’m driving somewhere that I don’t end up driving behind someone’s horse trailer! I recently was talking with one of my neighbors about the “horse community” and how they manage to meet other people that are also “horse people.”
She told me that mostly they meet each other through events that they go to, but some of them also use online dating services. She said that she found out about a dating service that is dedicated exclusively to horse lovers that her friend has joined recently. The service offers FREE sign-up and gives members two levels of membership to choose from; a guest membership and a gold membership.
