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Home > Archive: June, 2010

Archive for June, 2010

I didn't know I was a vegetarian (& my house is still standing)

June 17th, 2010 at 04:09 am

Anyone who has a clue what either item in the title is referring to has gotta be a psychic. That said...

I decided late tonight to use some store coupons that expired tonight at a grocery store a about 4 miles away. As these were special "not available at the store" coupons, but only mailed to your home, there was nothing marking the items in the store that these were the items the coupons matched up with. As you can guess, occassionally the items to use the coupons on might not be perfectly clear. So, after checking out I saw that one coupon never registered, and went to the service desk. It was for a pack of turkey hot dogs. Looking at the coupon I saw that the brand was right, the size was right, even the style was right (bun length), so I couldn't have the wrong item, could I? I show the guy behind the counter the receipt and the item, and he says "oh you didn't get the right type."
"I didn't?"
"No, see these are for meat hot dogs. These aren't meat."
"Um... I'm sorry. Turkey isn't a meat?"
"No, these coupons are for meat hot dogs only."
"Huh? Do you mean beef hot dogs? I don't think any of the packages are labelled 'meat hot dogs'."
This went on for a bit longer. The guy was pleasant, and returned the money when I asked, so I'm not complaining. But this was like I was on one of those "Jay Walking" segments on the Tonight show, where people say the most absurd things, and seem to mean it.

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As for my house, why wouldn't it be standing? Well... I returned home yesterday from my doctor appt. (shoulder got a clean bill of health) to find the street blocked near my house, and fire trucks parked out front. Turns out the neighboring house had been on fire (again!). About a decade ago they had a decent fire, and now in almost the same location of the house (closest to my house - of course) another fire started, again when no one was home. This time was worse, melting sliding, blistering paint off a car out front (as well as melting the head lights), and buring off a good chunk of the roof. Even the tree between the houses has a nice chunk of brown leaves now on it.

You could say they are unlucky (you could), but lets see. After the last fire, their family (not professional contractors) seemed to be involved with a lot of the restoration of the house, and then after moving in they seemed to come into a sizable chunk of money that went into buying a very expensive motor home they park out back and use for (I don't know - going to NASCAR races perhaps?) And now a fire starts in the same part of the house the family did the work. Hmmmm, relatives do house work, then money appears, then fire starts in same spot - you don't think they are related, do ya? (I'll leave any conclusions up to the readers)

Lets just say I won't be bringing up the neighbors to my home insurance company any time soon. I don't need my insurance rates going up, thank you very much.

I *heart* my DVDs...

June 12th, 2010 at 05:44 am

... for sale that is. As I have bought DVDs at yard sales I have gotten a better handle on which ones are most likely to be hard to find and therefore money makers with online sales. In the past week I have one sale of $9 for a DVD set I got for $3, and then another $9 sale of a set I got for $0.50. I bought a few other $0.50 DVDs that I wanted to get for my own viewing, and I see online they sell for around $15 each. Nice, but I want to watch them first! (and maybe keep them?)

Don't try this without some experience first, otherwise you'll end up with a bunch of DVDs that will get you a dollar or less (and probably net you zero). Generally the most popular DVDs sell for the least - go figure. Supply and demand I guess.

On other news...

Shoulder therapy hit the end today - with pretty good success. I give it a 90-95% success rate. Still some pain is left, but only at the extreme range of motion. Of course with the good has to come the bad - today I re-aggravated a leg injury I had last year. I won't get into how it happened, it was really a wierd way to hurt it, but I almost couldn't walk mid day. Still in pain tonight, but walking is slowly coming back - maybe in a day or two this will be cleared up or at least I will be able to walk normally.

In the "exercise can sure make a difference" vein, a week ago I met up with a worker in another building that I had worked with a few years ago. We started talking, and I could see she was straining to read my ID badge, and then she finally remembered who I was. She said I looked so different, much less weight and looked younger (of course the missing beard made a big difference too). She said the change was something, she had no idea who I was at first. While I know exercise makes a big difference, its nice to see it confirmed.

When life gives you lemons...

June 2nd, 2010 at 02:40 am

... just make lemonade (did you really expect something different to finish that statement???)

Anywho... I was planning on visiting the relatives for Memorial Day weekend, leaving Friday morning to make a very long weekend. Last thing I do Thursday night is make a quickie stop to Aldis for a few items for the trip. Almost home, I go to shift, and the clutch falls to the floor and stays there. I'm outta gear, but rolling. I avoid stopping at two stop signs and make it all but the last 100 yards to my house. Unfortunately it was hot and sticky so pushing the car even that little bit was awful. So towed to a local repair shop, I find out the next day my whole clutch assembly needs replacing. Well, the car is really old ('98) and has had no repairs for over a year, so I'm not complaining. But it really screwed me up. Now I can't leave, or do much of anything on a day off. So when I find out Friday afternoon it won't be ready until sometime Saturday, I go into overdrive and prepare to have a yard sale.

I've meant to do this all year, but I hate to not go about looking for treasures (and rarely finding any! Frown ). So I decided to make the best of the situation and get my things ready Friday. Saturday came and I sold alot (and I mean alot) of my CVS/Rite Aid/Walgreens stockpiles (along with some other junk I wanted to see gone as well!). Probably 2/3 of the sales were the stockpiles, but I really wanted those gone too. Turned out my take for Saturday was about 40% of the repair bill, soooo... be happy for small favors I guess.

On other items....

Physical Therapy is almost over. Its made a major impact, I'm probably 90% back to what it was before the problems. Now its much more exercise and less stretching and twisting the shoulder. The therapist loves how I put more effort into it than just about anyone she's ever worked with. I work so hard I have to change shirts part way through as the first one is soaked. Two more weeks, and then a doctor's eval, which will probably be the end of it. With only paying co-pays, this has definitely been worth it.

The semi-long distance trip this weekend showed what I can do when I don't push the car. I tried to keep it at 55 (most of the time!) Instead of my usual 38-39 MPG, this time at my fill up, the MPG came in at 42.3. Not bad for a 12 year old, 190K mile car. Nothing special, just a plain hatchback.

My experiement with using almond milk is still going well. The stuff lasts a long time, so I don't have to freeze the milk to make it last, and with coupons the price is about the same as buying 1/2 gallons of regular milk. And it actually blends better with the 100% whey protein mix I have been drinking to help with my after workout recovery. So I am giving it a thumbs up.

I think I got my lowest electric bill ever this past month. While this time of year I usually have a very low bill (it would have been $22+) my utility had a rate case and had to rebate some money based on usage for the past 6 months. So my bill when I opened it was.... $5.00. Exactly. At first I thought this was some type of request for a supplemental payment, but nope, its this month's bill. I know this summer the bills will approach $100, but still its nice for one month.

That's all for today - stay cool.