Sheri called me after lunch but before she went back to work. She is having another good day. Things are making sense. She made two iced triple espressos and says they are turning out pretty good.
Last night I took a stack of newspapers that were in the passenger seat and put them on top of the van before we went out for dinner. This morning Sheri didn't see the papers up there and drove off with a flurry of newspapers trailing the van and blowing all over the neighborhood.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
We talked about taking the train into the City on Saturday to see the Christmas decorations, walk through the Marshall Fields on State Street one last time before it turns into a Macy's, and maybe go ice skating (her, not me), but the wind chill is going to be 19°. That might make it a little uncomfortable. We'll see.
These are the two coffee machines Sheri has at work.
So far she has had better results with the Nespresso D300.
It uses little capsules of pre-ground coffee that you can only get from Nestle.
She said it makes a pretty good espresso on par with what you get at Starbucks.
You can get this machine at Amazon.com for about $400, and from what I can gather the capsules cost about $0.45 each.
The other machine is the Keurig B2003.
It uses a similar looking pod. The ones they have at her office are from Gloria Jean's Coffee.
She said the coffee tasted weak and crappy, but I looked on the web and there is a way to brew the coffee to the strength you want it. The way she was doing it gave her the weakest cup of coffee possible. If you push the "Start Brew" button a second time before it is done brewing it will stop the brewing process resulting in a stronger cup of coffee. She will give that a try today and see how it goes.
However I don't think the Keurig machine is an espresso machine, so I would imagine even if she gets it to make a decent cup of coffee, the Nespresso machine will still make a better cup. She has the flexibility of pouring straight espresso over ice and adding milk for an iced espresso, or if she is cold she can use the hot water dispenser to dilute the straight espresso to Americano strength.
From what I can find on the web both the Nespresso machine and coffee capsules are cheaper than the Keurig's. $400 versus $800, and $0.45 per capsule versus $0.55.
They sell cheaper Nespresso machines that start out around $180. At about $2.25 for my normal triple Americano at Starbucks it is possible the Nespresso system might not be out of the question at home.
Three shots of espresso from the Nespresso machine would cost about $1.35, which is $0.90 less than a triple shot at Starbucks. If these numbers are correct it would only take 200 drinks to break even from the cost of the machine at home rather than going to a coffee shop.
So far she has had better results with the Nespresso D300.
It uses little capsules of pre-ground coffee that you can only get from Nestle.
She said it makes a pretty good espresso on par with what you get at Starbucks.
You can get this machine at Amazon.com for about $400, and from what I can gather the capsules cost about $0.45 each.
The other machine is the Keurig B2003.
It uses a similar looking pod. The ones they have at her office are from Gloria Jean's Coffee.
She said the coffee tasted weak and crappy, but I looked on the web and there is a way to brew the coffee to the strength you want it. The way she was doing it gave her the weakest cup of coffee possible. If you push the "Start Brew" button a second time before it is done brewing it will stop the brewing process resulting in a stronger cup of coffee. She will give that a try today and see how it goes.
However I don't think the Keurig machine is an espresso machine, so I would imagine even if she gets it to make a decent cup of coffee, the Nespresso machine will still make a better cup. She has the flexibility of pouring straight espresso over ice and adding milk for an iced espresso, or if she is cold she can use the hot water dispenser to dilute the straight espresso to Americano strength.
From what I can find on the web both the Nespresso machine and coffee capsules are cheaper than the Keurig's. $400 versus $800, and $0.45 per capsule versus $0.55.
They sell cheaper Nespresso machines that start out around $180. At about $2.25 for my normal triple Americano at Starbucks it is possible the Nespresso system might not be out of the question at home.
Three shots of espresso from the Nespresso machine would cost about $1.35, which is $0.90 less than a triple shot at Starbucks. If these numbers are correct it would only take 200 drinks to break even from the cost of the machine at home rather than going to a coffee shop.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
I just got a call from Sheri about how work is going so far. There are a few other new people in the same position, so her boss is having a training session for all of them. They are in a conference room watching the boss do things on a laptop that also has a larger display attached to it.
So far she said it all makes sense. She likes the people and she likes what the actual job entails. She said there will be a couple more hours of training after lunch and then they can have the rest of the day to get comfortable at their desks.
She said the coffee machine uses pods to brew each cup individually, but she said it was not that good. She tried a French roast pod but it tasted weak. There is also an espresso machine but she has not seen anyone use it yet. They have an ice machine so I can see her figuring that out and then making her iced espressos right at work! That will save us a few bucks each day.
She was on her way to a McDonald's drive-through when she called and she sounded really good. Her voice was light, happy and enthusiastic. I didn't detect any dread or sense of "what did I get myself into" tones.
We talked about going out for a nice celebratory dinner tonight, but so far we have not decided on where. Our top of the line choice is Sullivan's Steak House. If we do that I would probably get a steak and she would just take a few bites, we would each get a lettuce wedge (her absolute favorite for some reason), and we would probably split one side, either creamed spinach or au gratin potatoes.
If that seems like too much food or effort I don't know what our second choices are yet.
So far she said it all makes sense. She likes the people and she likes what the actual job entails. She said there will be a couple more hours of training after lunch and then they can have the rest of the day to get comfortable at their desks.
She said the coffee machine uses pods to brew each cup individually, but she said it was not that good. She tried a French roast pod but it tasted weak. There is also an espresso machine but she has not seen anyone use it yet. They have an ice machine so I can see her figuring that out and then making her iced espressos right at work! That will save us a few bucks each day.
She was on her way to a McDonald's drive-through when she called and she sounded really good. Her voice was light, happy and enthusiastic. I didn't detect any dread or sense of "what did I get myself into" tones.
We talked about going out for a nice celebratory dinner tonight, but so far we have not decided on where. Our top of the line choice is Sullivan's Steak House. If we do that I would probably get a steak and she would just take a few bites, we would each get a lettuce wedge (her absolute favorite for some reason), and we would probably split one side, either creamed spinach or au gratin potatoes.
If that seems like too much food or effort I don't know what our second choices are yet.
One thing I hate about the traffic reports in Chicago is all of the highways have multiple names. Sheri and I both drive on I-88 and that can be referred to as:
Reagan Memorial Tollway
East-West Tollway
I-88
I-294 is a little better and only has two names:
Tri-State Tollway
I-294
The traffic reports only have a few seconds for their segments and talk really fast, so if you are listening for I-88 and they call it the East-West, by the time you make the connection in your head they are on to the next highway and you miss what they said.
They also rush saying what direction they are talking about (eastbound, westbound, etc.) and if you miss that you don't know if what they are talking about applies to you or not.
An even bigger gripe than that is when they give the traffic condition first and then the road segment it applies to. You kind of don't pay attention until they mention the road you are concerned about, and if they say the road name after they give the traffic you have already forgotten what they said. For example:
There is a 20-minute delay because of a large accident with injuries in the westbound left lane of the Reagan Tollway.
You don't realize what they said applies to you until they get to the last two words. How long is the delay? What lane should I get in? Was that eastbound or westbound?
The ideal order to deliver traffic information is:
1. Road name
2. Direction
3. Traffic information
For example:
On the Reagan Tollway the westbound left lane has a large accident with injuries. Expect a 20-minute delay.
It may seem minor, but when you have your hands full trying to dodge morons with a death wish talking on their cell phones, your mind is pretty much already at full capacity and the little things like that make a difference in comprehension.
Reagan Memorial Tollway
East-West Tollway
I-88
I-294 is a little better and only has two names:
Tri-State Tollway
I-294
The traffic reports only have a few seconds for their segments and talk really fast, so if you are listening for I-88 and they call it the East-West, by the time you make the connection in your head they are on to the next highway and you miss what they said.
They also rush saying what direction they are talking about (eastbound, westbound, etc.) and if you miss that you don't know if what they are talking about applies to you or not.
An even bigger gripe than that is when they give the traffic condition first and then the road segment it applies to. You kind of don't pay attention until they mention the road you are concerned about, and if they say the road name after they give the traffic you have already forgotten what they said. For example:
There is a 20-minute delay because of a large accident with injuries in the westbound left lane of the Reagan Tollway.
You don't realize what they said applies to you until they get to the last two words. How long is the delay? What lane should I get in? Was that eastbound or westbound?
The ideal order to deliver traffic information is:
1. Road name
2. Direction
3. Traffic information
For example:
On the Reagan Tollway the westbound left lane has a large accident with injuries. Expect a 20-minute delay.
It may seem minor, but when you have your hands full trying to dodge morons with a death wish talking on their cell phones, your mind is pretty much already at full capacity and the little things like that make a difference in comprehension.
Sheri made it to work OK but it took her about an hour and fifteen minutes. I was listening to the traffic reports on the way to work and they said the segment of highway she had to drive was unusually congested this morning, so hopefully that drive-time is a worse-case scenario. She said for quite a distance on I-294 she was creeping along between 10 and 15 mph.
She has to drive about 12 miles on I-88, and she said that was no problem this morning, and she has to drive about 9 miles on I-294, and that is where the congestion was.
She has to drive about 12 miles on I-88, and she said that was no problem this morning, and she has to drive about 9 miles on I-294, and that is where the congestion was.
Sheri seemed to be in very good spirits this morning. If she was nervous she fooled me. Her mission from me for today: get a picture of their "fancy coffee machine", and if she can't do that without making a scene at least write down the make and model so I can look it up on the Internet.
It was nice for me again to wake up with her. I didn't like waking up every morning and not be able to turn on the lights, radio, or TV or be able to talk with her.
I mixed up some of my magic chocolate no carb no fat soy protein drink for her this morning. I poured her about a cup and she drank almost half of it. Better than nothing.
She said she was going to stop an Panera for three shots of espresso for her drive in. I suggested she stop at the Dominick's nearby that has a Starbucks inside. She said she would just go to the Panera. I didn't understand because the Starbucks would be on the way, while the Panera would require a little bit of a detour, and the Starbucks has a little bit better espresso. After a minute of my questions and trying to figure out why she sheepishly admitted that she had coffee from Panera the day she had her interview for this job. Awwww… That is cute.
Good luck Sheri. I love you!
It was nice for me again to wake up with her. I didn't like waking up every morning and not be able to turn on the lights, radio, or TV or be able to talk with her.
I mixed up some of my magic chocolate no carb no fat soy protein drink for her this morning. I poured her about a cup and she drank almost half of it. Better than nothing.
She said she was going to stop an Panera for three shots of espresso for her drive in. I suggested she stop at the Dominick's nearby that has a Starbucks inside. She said she would just go to the Panera. I didn't understand because the Starbucks would be on the way, while the Panera would require a little bit of a detour, and the Starbucks has a little bit better espresso. After a minute of my questions and trying to figure out why she sheepishly admitted that she had coffee from Panera the day she had her interview for this job. Awwww… That is cute.
Good luck Sheri. I love you!
A real-time picture (well, updated every five minutes) of an interchange along Sheri's route to work. This is the I-290 - I-88 split. This is a map of the where the camera is.
Sheri will actually be taking I-88 to I-294 north, not I-290. The map will make it clear.
Sheri will actually be taking I-88 to I-294 north, not I-290. The map will make it clear.
Monday, November 28, 2005
Sunday, November 27, 2005
I have been really good for probably the last month not drinking things with caffeine. On the drive to Toledo we made a stop and I was thirsty. A cold bubbly Diet Coke sounded good, but I wasn't going to give in. A cold club soda or sparkling mineral water sounded equally as good, but fat chance of finding either of those at a highway rest stop.
That left me with the option of a bottle of water. It sounded boring and unsatisfying. Then I thought of 7-Up. It is close to sparkling mineral water because it is not as sweet as other soft drinks.
They didn't have 7-Up so I got Diet Sprite. I have never been too crazy for the lemon-lime soft drink category, but I was really thirsty and it hit the spot just right.
That positive experience and the fact that I need to find a replacement for my Diet Cokes let me look at the diet lemon-limes in a new light. For some reason I don't find the caffeine free diet colas as satisfying. It is probably in my head, but I just don't get as much enjoyment from them. Over the Thanksgiving weekend I had several lemon-limes and some cranberry ginger ale. I enjoyed all of them quite a bit.
Fast forward to today. We went to Meijer for a little grocery shopping. I noticed some different looking Fresca bottles next to the regular Fresca bottles. Fresca is a diet grapefruit soda that I have always liked, but I go in cycles with it. Anyway, the new bottles were two new flavors. One was peach-citrus and the other was black cherry-citrus. We opened up the peach one tonight and we both love it. The grapefruit is the dominant taste while you are drinking it, and then you are left with a nice fuzzy peach aftertaste. We will be getting the peach Fresca again. I will let you know how the black cherry Fresca is when we try it.
That left me with the option of a bottle of water. It sounded boring and unsatisfying. Then I thought of 7-Up. It is close to sparkling mineral water because it is not as sweet as other soft drinks.
They didn't have 7-Up so I got Diet Sprite. I have never been too crazy for the lemon-lime soft drink category, but I was really thirsty and it hit the spot just right.
That positive experience and the fact that I need to find a replacement for my Diet Cokes let me look at the diet lemon-limes in a new light. For some reason I don't find the caffeine free diet colas as satisfying. It is probably in my head, but I just don't get as much enjoyment from them. Over the Thanksgiving weekend I had several lemon-limes and some cranberry ginger ale. I enjoyed all of them quite a bit.
Fast forward to today. We went to Meijer for a little grocery shopping. I noticed some different looking Fresca bottles next to the regular Fresca bottles. Fresca is a diet grapefruit soda that I have always liked, but I go in cycles with it. Anyway, the new bottles were two new flavors. One was peach-citrus and the other was black cherry-citrus. We opened up the peach one tonight and we both love it. The grapefruit is the dominant taste while you are drinking it, and then you are left with a nice fuzzy peach aftertaste. We will be getting the peach Fresca again. I will let you know how the black cherry Fresca is when we try it.
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Sheri and I went to Toledo for Thanksgiving with my family. Here is a little summary:
- Wednesday -
I went into work for just a half day in the morning. I got back home around 12:30 PM and we packed up the car with our bags we packed the night before. We also loaded up the GPS and the XM radio.
We would have left shortly after that but we didn't schedule the mail to be stopped until the day after Thanksgiving and the mailman had not delivered the mail yet. While we waited for the mail to arrive I had a couple turkey sandwiches for lunch, so the extra time worked out OK anyway. The mail showed up before I finished my second sandwich so we ended up only being about 20 minutes behind schedule.
We started driving around 1:20 PM and everything was going great until we got on I-294 from I-55. Parking lot. I think it took us about 1 hour and 45 minutes to get from there to the Indiana tollway. It normally only takes about an hour.
Traffic was fine until about halfway there. There was some bridge construction that only left one lane open for a couple miles. That added another 30 minutes of delay to our trip.
The final delay on this trip came one mile before the last Indiana toll plaza. Another parking lot. It took us almost one hour to creep from the "Tollbooth 1 Mile Ahead" sign to the actual tollbooth.
The normal four hour drive ended up taking more than six hours. We stayed with my sister and brother-in-law and they were waiting for us to have a hot dinner. They made a pot of delicious white chili, three packages of grocery store sushi, and cheese and crackers. Sheri and I split a piece of pumpkin pie for dessert. I loved the white chili. I can't believe Gourmand Brad never tried this before. It is definitely going to be added to my repertoire.
We got in late plus we were worn out from the stressful drive so I think we went to bed before 10 PM.
- Thursday - Thanksgiving -
Thursday morning I got up and took my still-frozen dough ball out of the refrigerator to defrost. Lisa made some cinnamon coffee cake the day before for breakfast and we all sat around the kitchen table for a while talking and having breakfast.
Mom and Dad came over in the morning and brought the dishes they signed up for. I think I my dough was ready to go and I started forming hard rolls between 1 PM and 1:30 PM. Tim started heating the deep fryer oil around this time.
The oil was ready to go when I put my first pan of rolls in the oven. After my second and finale pan of rolls finished baking I went outside to babysit the deep fryer with Tim. There was a constant and extremely cold 20 MPH wind that was not only painful on any exposed skin, but it also kept trying to blow out the flame and prevented the oil from reaching the proper temperature. The oil is supposed to be 375° but we could only keep it at 200°. After a while we put a piece of cardboard almost directly in contact with the deep fryer to protect it from the wind and we were able to get the temperature up to a little over 300°. Before the cardboard we had the grill and a two or three foot diameter metal disk as windbreaks, but there was still a lot of wind that was getting to the flame and preventing enough heat from getting to the pot.
The turkey turned out great and so did everything thing else on the table. This is what I can remember from the menu:
turkey
Mom's stuffing from Grandma's recipe
Stove Top stuffing for Lisa
candied yams
Tim's mashed and seasoned cauliflower
brussel sprouts
green peas
salad greens
my hard rolls
gravy
our family's traditional cold raw cranberry salad (it is not Thanksgiving without this!)
green bean casserole
black olives
green onions
I think that covers it. For dessert we had a pumpkin roll. It was a like a jelly role but the cake part was pumpkin bread-like, and the jelly part was sweetened cream cheese. It was really good, but I missed the pumpkin pie.
After dessert we all watched The Polar Express. We all really enjoyed it. Mom and Dad packed up shortly after that was over. The rest of us watched the Charlie Brown special that was on TV and then Finding Nemo. I was tired and Sheri and I went up to bed before it was over. She finished Finding Nemo in bed and I fell asleep.
- Black Friday -
Sheri and I got up at 5 AM for some Black Friday bargains which I already wrote about on Friday.
Lisa had to go into work for a few hours. She got back home about the same time Mom came over. Dad had to work Friday afternoon and evening. We had a big lunch of leftovers and then the six of us ran some errands.
Tim and Lisa needed ornaments for their new 12-foot Christmas tree so we went to Hobby Lobby. We told them about the 40% off coupons they have on-line, but once we got to the store it said only valid on regularly priced items. All of the stuff they got was already half off. They did have two remote control electric outlets that were $15 each and not on sale. Sheri and I each took one and a coupon an saved them $12.
Then we went back to Office Depot because Tim wanted an external USB numeric keypad like I got.
We stopped at Radio Shack so Tim could get one of the Bluetooth headsets for his cell phone that were on sale for $9.99, but at that price they were all sold out.
We stopped at K-Mart for a few things and then headed to Cabela's. That is always a fun spectacle to experience. I found a Cabela's t-shirt, but by the time it was ready to check-out my early morning adventure was catching up with me and I didn't have the energy to stand in the long lines, so I abandoned my shirt and we left.
For dinner we grilled up the three pounds of spicy Polish sausages I brought from Bobak's. We also fried up a pan of rinsed sauerkraut and onions. Very good.
Mom left for the night and we watched a little bit of the Star Wars movie on TV. Again I was too tired to finish it and went to bed before it was over. Sheri went up too and finished it in bed. I fell asleep listening to the audio book America on my brand new MP3 player. I downloaded the audio book that afternoon from our library back home. It is pretty good. It is like a Tom Clancy story. America is the name of the nuclear submarine in the story and thus the title of the book.
- Saturday - Today -
Lisa had to go into work again this morning. We took our time getting up, showered and dressed. We left the house around 10 AM to meet Lisa and Mom and Dad at Nick's Restaurant for brunch. We always have to get a Nick's fix when we visit Toledo. The last two times we went Tim and I split the Nick Omelet. It is $11 and is almost too much food for the two of us! It is a large oval plate of stuff covered with a large plain omelet. The pile of stuff has sausage, gyro meat, green peppers, potatoes, cheese, tomatoes, mushrooms(?) and probably a bunch of other stuff I am forgetting. Delicious. Sheri loves there fresh hand-cut French fries so she ordered those and a two over-medium eggs. Nick only has one size order of fries and it is huge. It comes on a large oval plate and is stacked as high as he can pile them on. They are some of the best fries ever. Not greasy at all and good potato flavor.
We said our goodbyes to Mom, Dad and Shawn (Shawn was spending the night with them) and then went back to Tim and Lisa's house. Lisa gave me her keys and I followed them in her van.
We packed up the car started our drive back home. After maybe 30 or 45 minutes Lisa called me on my cell phone and asked if I had her keys. Yes I did. They have a spare key so we didn't have to turn around. We will just drop them in the mail on Monday.
The drive back home was much better than the drive on Wednesday. It was easy traffic except for the construction zone when we first entered Illinois. It added about 30 minutes to the drive. I listened to a couple chapters of my audio book on the way home (while Sheri was driving of course) while she listed to the XM radio. The earphones that came with the MP3 player do a really good job of filtering out sound, so her radio playing didn't interfere too much with what I was listening too. Very cool. That will be useful in the future when she want to watch TV and I want to listen to something.
We got home, unpacked, freshened up, and got the house going again. I turned the hot water heater back up from the vacation setting. Sheri started a few loads of laundry. I had a couple of the sausages they sent us home with from Friday's dinner. We have a fire in the fireplace now and are just watching TV. We don't have any movies in from our Blockbuster On-Line account. That is about it for today. We will watch Mad TV and Saturday Night Live late this evening.
We have a few errands and chores to do tomorrow.
- Wednesday -
I went into work for just a half day in the morning. I got back home around 12:30 PM and we packed up the car with our bags we packed the night before. We also loaded up the GPS and the XM radio.
We would have left shortly after that but we didn't schedule the mail to be stopped until the day after Thanksgiving and the mailman had not delivered the mail yet. While we waited for the mail to arrive I had a couple turkey sandwiches for lunch, so the extra time worked out OK anyway. The mail showed up before I finished my second sandwich so we ended up only being about 20 minutes behind schedule.
We started driving around 1:20 PM and everything was going great until we got on I-294 from I-55. Parking lot. I think it took us about 1 hour and 45 minutes to get from there to the Indiana tollway. It normally only takes about an hour.
Traffic was fine until about halfway there. There was some bridge construction that only left one lane open for a couple miles. That added another 30 minutes of delay to our trip.
The final delay on this trip came one mile before the last Indiana toll plaza. Another parking lot. It took us almost one hour to creep from the "Tollbooth 1 Mile Ahead" sign to the actual tollbooth.
The normal four hour drive ended up taking more than six hours. We stayed with my sister and brother-in-law and they were waiting for us to have a hot dinner. They made a pot of delicious white chili, three packages of grocery store sushi, and cheese and crackers. Sheri and I split a piece of pumpkin pie for dessert. I loved the white chili. I can't believe Gourmand Brad never tried this before. It is definitely going to be added to my repertoire.
We got in late plus we were worn out from the stressful drive so I think we went to bed before 10 PM.
- Thursday - Thanksgiving -
Thursday morning I got up and took my still-frozen dough ball out of the refrigerator to defrost. Lisa made some cinnamon coffee cake the day before for breakfast and we all sat around the kitchen table for a while talking and having breakfast.
Mom and Dad came over in the morning and brought the dishes they signed up for. I think I my dough was ready to go and I started forming hard rolls between 1 PM and 1:30 PM. Tim started heating the deep fryer oil around this time.
The oil was ready to go when I put my first pan of rolls in the oven. After my second and finale pan of rolls finished baking I went outside to babysit the deep fryer with Tim. There was a constant and extremely cold 20 MPH wind that was not only painful on any exposed skin, but it also kept trying to blow out the flame and prevented the oil from reaching the proper temperature. The oil is supposed to be 375° but we could only keep it at 200°. After a while we put a piece of cardboard almost directly in contact with the deep fryer to protect it from the wind and we were able to get the temperature up to a little over 300°. Before the cardboard we had the grill and a two or three foot diameter metal disk as windbreaks, but there was still a lot of wind that was getting to the flame and preventing enough heat from getting to the pot.
The turkey turned out great and so did everything thing else on the table. This is what I can remember from the menu:
turkey
Mom's stuffing from Grandma's recipe
Stove Top stuffing for Lisa
candied yams
Tim's mashed and seasoned cauliflower
brussel sprouts
green peas
salad greens
my hard rolls
gravy
our family's traditional cold raw cranberry salad (it is not Thanksgiving without this!)
green bean casserole
black olives
green onions
I think that covers it. For dessert we had a pumpkin roll. It was a like a jelly role but the cake part was pumpkin bread-like, and the jelly part was sweetened cream cheese. It was really good, but I missed the pumpkin pie.
After dessert we all watched The Polar Express. We all really enjoyed it. Mom and Dad packed up shortly after that was over. The rest of us watched the Charlie Brown special that was on TV and then Finding Nemo. I was tired and Sheri and I went up to bed before it was over. She finished Finding Nemo in bed and I fell asleep.
- Black Friday -
Sheri and I got up at 5 AM for some Black Friday bargains which I already wrote about on Friday.
Lisa had to go into work for a few hours. She got back home about the same time Mom came over. Dad had to work Friday afternoon and evening. We had a big lunch of leftovers and then the six of us ran some errands.
Tim and Lisa needed ornaments for their new 12-foot Christmas tree so we went to Hobby Lobby. We told them about the 40% off coupons they have on-line, but once we got to the store it said only valid on regularly priced items. All of the stuff they got was already half off. They did have two remote control electric outlets that were $15 each and not on sale. Sheri and I each took one and a coupon an saved them $12.
Then we went back to Office Depot because Tim wanted an external USB numeric keypad like I got.
We stopped at Radio Shack so Tim could get one of the Bluetooth headsets for his cell phone that were on sale for $9.99, but at that price they were all sold out.
We stopped at K-Mart for a few things and then headed to Cabela's. That is always a fun spectacle to experience. I found a Cabela's t-shirt, but by the time it was ready to check-out my early morning adventure was catching up with me and I didn't have the energy to stand in the long lines, so I abandoned my shirt and we left.
For dinner we grilled up the three pounds of spicy Polish sausages I brought from Bobak's. We also fried up a pan of rinsed sauerkraut and onions. Very good.
Mom left for the night and we watched a little bit of the Star Wars movie on TV. Again I was too tired to finish it and went to bed before it was over. Sheri went up too and finished it in bed. I fell asleep listening to the audio book America on my brand new MP3 player. I downloaded the audio book that afternoon from our library back home. It is pretty good. It is like a Tom Clancy story. America is the name of the nuclear submarine in the story and thus the title of the book.
- Saturday - Today -
Lisa had to go into work again this morning. We took our time getting up, showered and dressed. We left the house around 10 AM to meet Lisa and Mom and Dad at Nick's Restaurant for brunch. We always have to get a Nick's fix when we visit Toledo. The last two times we went Tim and I split the Nick Omelet. It is $11 and is almost too much food for the two of us! It is a large oval plate of stuff covered with a large plain omelet. The pile of stuff has sausage, gyro meat, green peppers, potatoes, cheese, tomatoes, mushrooms(?) and probably a bunch of other stuff I am forgetting. Delicious. Sheri loves there fresh hand-cut French fries so she ordered those and a two over-medium eggs. Nick only has one size order of fries and it is huge. It comes on a large oval plate and is stacked as high as he can pile them on. They are some of the best fries ever. Not greasy at all and good potato flavor.
We said our goodbyes to Mom, Dad and Shawn (Shawn was spending the night with them) and then went back to Tim and Lisa's house. Lisa gave me her keys and I followed them in her van.
We packed up the car started our drive back home. After maybe 30 or 45 minutes Lisa called me on my cell phone and asked if I had her keys. Yes I did. They have a spare key so we didn't have to turn around. We will just drop them in the mail on Monday.
The drive back home was much better than the drive on Wednesday. It was easy traffic except for the construction zone when we first entered Illinois. It added about 30 minutes to the drive. I listened to a couple chapters of my audio book on the way home (while Sheri was driving of course) while she listed to the XM radio. The earphones that came with the MP3 player do a really good job of filtering out sound, so her radio playing didn't interfere too much with what I was listening too. Very cool. That will be useful in the future when she want to watch TV and I want to listen to something.
We got home, unpacked, freshened up, and got the house going again. I turned the hot water heater back up from the vacation setting. Sheri started a few loads of laundry. I had a couple of the sausages they sent us home with from Friday's dinner. We have a fire in the fireplace now and are just watching TV. We don't have any movies in from our Blockbuster On-Line account. That is about it for today. We will watch Mad TV and Saturday Night Live late this evening.
We have a few errands and chores to do tomorrow.
Friday, November 25, 2005
I didn't plan on getting up early for Black Friday bargains, but Office Depot had an ad in Thursday's paper for two things I was eventually going to buy anyway. One was an external USB numeric keypad for only $3. These are normally in the $20 range.
The other was an MP3 player. If it was any other MP3 player I probably wouldn't have noticed the ad, but it was the model that I had decided I was going to buy when I finally decided to plunk down the money for one. If have seen it on the Internet for between $100 and $120, but Office Depot had it on sale for $59 today.The store opened up at 6 AM so I set the alarm for 5 AM. The operative word there is "set". I forgot to actually turn it on. It turned out OK though. I woke up and looked at the clock at 5:15 AM.
Sheri was nice enough to go along with me, and will become an important part of the story in a bit. We brushed our teeth, threw on some clothes and went out the door. We left the car outside overnight the windows needed scraping before we left. It was very very cold, I wasn't dressed warmly enough, and I think just having woken up a few minutes ago my body temperature had not risen to its normal level yet. In a matter of just a few minutes I was shivering uncontrollably and my teeth were chattering.
It was just turning 6 AM and we were passing a Shell station. We were almost on empty and I thought it would probably be better to be a little late for the store opening than to run out of gas or get fuel line freeze up. Sheri got a hot cup of coffee for me while I pumped gas.
We got to the Office Depot parking lot about five minutes after the 6 AM opening but there were still people waiting in line outside. We sat in the car with the heat on until we saw people starting to go in. We got to the end of the line but it wasn't moving anymore. There was an employee with a clipboard inside the store talking to each person before they could move past him. I didn't know what was going on.
After a few more minutes he announced if you were there for one of the computer systems you didn't have to stop and talk to him. It turned out he had a ticket for each of the special sale items. You told him what you wanted and he handed you the ticket for it, and then you went someplace else in the store to pick it up. I guess it was a good idea so they could know exactly when the last of the special sale items had been sold.
As I was waiting there I heard him say to someone over his walkie-talkie not to sell any MP3 players without talking to him or without a ticket or something like that. I didn't pay too close attention to it, it just kind of stuck in my head.
By this time Sheri had stepped fully into the store so she could warm up. I signaled to her to go see if she could find the items on the shelf. Just in case.
When I finally got up to him and told him I wanted the MP3 player he looked to a guy next to him and said "He wants an MP3 player too." He wrote the SKU number down, asked for my name, and walked away. Huh? I was going to follow him around the store until I got my MP3 player, but just then Sheri came walking up with the MP3 player!
They were in an aisle inside of a locked case. She stood there blocking access to the case until an employee with a key showed up. There were only three of the MP3 players in the case, so she said she wasn't going to move until she had one in her hands. She said other shoppers tried to be sneaky and get in front by pretending to browse the selection, but she was having none of that. By the time an employee got there she said there were at least five other shoppers waiting for one, but she got the first one out of the case. Those others more than likely got there before we did too. Yeah Sheri!
We picked up the external numeric keypad (no line for those!) and used it to hide the MP3 player. I was afraid if we tried to check out they would ask for our ticket or something. We stood there for a minute trying to decide what to do. Maybe walk around the store for a while until all of the people that were clamoring for an MP3 player left. Sheri decided that once it is in your hands they can't take it away from you, and if they tried she would put up a huge stink. OK, if she was up for a stink I was up for checking out.
They only had two lines opened up and they each had over 10 or 15 people in them. Sheri spotted a girl working a register at the customer service desk. It was facing the front of the store so people couldn't really see it was a checkout line. There was only one person in front of us too.
We thought a nice hot cup of coffee would be good as a reward for a successful (and first) Black Friday shopping trip. There was a Starbucks just around the corner. By the time we sat down with our cups of coffee and a blueberry muffin to split it was still only a few minutes before 6:30 AM! I somewhat expected to spend maybe an hour or a little more at Office Depot.
So my big thanks to Sheri for a successful trip as well as a very fast trip.
We got back home and Sheri went back to bed for a couple hours. I tried out my numeric keypad and MP3 player. I downloaded a couple technology-related podcasts from NPR and a couple from This Week In Tech.
I laid in bed and listened to about of an hour of them with my eyes closed. It worked great. I wanted the player mostly for these kind of things and for audio books I can download from our library.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
The title of this article alone has anthropological and sociological value for our times.
(the tips are just ok)
Top 10 Things To Do For Mom's PC Over Thanksgiving
(the tips are just ok)
Top 10 Things To Do For Mom's PC Over Thanksgiving
We had a small snow event early this morning. We laid down 325 tons of salt that cost of about $16,250.
Our trucks get about 5 mpg and we have 734 lane miles so we went through about 150 to 200 gallons of diesel.
We ran for about three hours from 4 am until 7 am. All told, overtime, fuel and salt cost us about $150,000.
That works out to about $350 per lane mile. A mile of our roadway averages about 2.35 lanes, so that works out to about $825 per centerline mile to clear just under an inch of snow.
Our trucks get about 5 mpg and we have 734 lane miles so we went through about 150 to 200 gallons of diesel.
We ran for about three hours from 4 am until 7 am. All told, overtime, fuel and salt cost us about $150,000.
That works out to about $350 per lane mile. A mile of our roadway averages about 2.35 lanes, so that works out to about $825 per centerline mile to clear just under an inch of snow.
Monday, November 21, 2005
This year's survey of the most dangerous cities and safest cities was released today. Here are the results:
Listed as the most dangerous cities are:
Camden, New Jersey
Detroit, Michigan
St. Louis, Missouri
Flint, Michigan
Richmond, Virginia
Baltimore, Maryland
Atlanta, Georgia
New Orleans, Louisiana
Gary, Indiana
Birmingham, Alabama
At the other end of the scale, the safest are named as:
Newton, Massachusetts
Clarkstown, New York
Amherst, New York
Mission Viejo, California
Brick Township
New Jersey
Troy, Michigan
Thousand Oaks, California
Round Rock, Texas
Lake Forest, California
Cary, North Carolina
Listed as the most dangerous cities are:
Camden, New Jersey
Detroit, Michigan
St. Louis, Missouri
Flint, Michigan
Richmond, Virginia
Baltimore, Maryland
Atlanta, Georgia
New Orleans, Louisiana
Gary, Indiana
Birmingham, Alabama
At the other end of the scale, the safest are named as:
Newton, Massachusetts
Clarkstown, New York
Amherst, New York
Mission Viejo, California
Brick Township
New Jersey
Troy, Michigan
Thousand Oaks, California
Round Rock, Texas
Lake Forest, California
Cary, North Carolina