Eating Dinner Out At A Local Buffet

This Friday night a few friends and I are going to eat out at a local all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant.  You order a main dish that includes meat and potato, and then you go to the buffet counter and get all you want veggies, salad, rolls, fruit, desserts, and more potatoes if you want.  The restaurant is about the best value meal you can buy in the area, and the wait staff is friendly.  The only problems I’ve had there is sometimes they cook the steaks more than I like so I’ve learned to tell the waitress that I want it cooked rarer than I really want it.  That way it usually comes out all right.  One thing is for sure, if you leave hungry it’s your own fault!

They have a coupon book that gives loyal customer rewards, when you eat there you leave a ticket at the cashier’s desk and they fill it out with how much money your meal was.  After you spend $100 they send you a coupon good for a free meal.  That’s one of my favorite local restaurants, good food, good value, and they send you free meal tickets every few months! I like free and hate to cook, so it’s a win, win situation for me.

Got Milk?

Was watching the news yesterday morning (I’m thinking it was The Today Show) and they were running a story about how within a short period of time milk is going to cost $6.00 a gallon! They were blaming the increasing cost of fuel for the increase, which is the reason that the price is rising on just about everything.I think that is horrible! Milk is going to become a luxury item at that price! For many years there has been a huge campaign about how healthy milk is, but I think that people will end up drinking more sugary fruit flavored drinks like kool-aid instead of drinking milk if it gets that expensive! If milk gets that expensive, I imagine the milk related products like cheese, ice cream, butter and yogurt will rise in price as well!

Again, I think that is going to be driving people towards eating the cheap junk food instead of dairy product.

love me some milk
Got Milk?

Thinking of San Diego

Before I settled down and took over the family house and farm, I had the opportunity to do a bit of traveling. I can’t tell you how much I miss that part of my life. One of my favorite places was San Diego, California. And thanks to Facebook I have been able to reconnect with a couple of good folks that I met there and they are still living there after all these years.

I found one friend on Facebook through the Meservy Law link that I followed, which took me to another site that I clicked around on and 45 minutes later I stumbled onto one of the greatest bartenders that I’ve had the pleasure of working with. He is a lot older than I and quit the bar tending business and it’s crazy lifestyle and last I heard was driving a city bus some where in Wisconsin. I used to have his phone number and his address, but then it turned into utilizing email and then he pretty much dropped off the face of the earth, so finding him on Facebook, by complete accident was a nice surprise.

If I ever get out that a way I will certainly have to spend some time with this guy. They just don’t make them like him any more. But then again, I don’t get out much anymore.

Virtual Servers

From what I have recently researched and found, mainly online, is that RapidSwitch is a leading server hosting company over in the U.K., with well over 4000 servers that they host for a wide and ever growing range of clients and have been in this business since 1999 and still growing by leaps and bounds. It was only three and a half years ago that they were very happy to announce their launching of virtual servers,  and that they are still offering promotions in honor of that launching that folks could be taking advantage of.

Virtual servers are an interesting method of partitioning a physical server computer into multiple servers in a way that each has the appearance and capabilities of running on its own dedicated machine. Each virtual server can run its own full-fledged operating system, and then each server then can be independently rebooted. A good thing to have and to know about. RapidSwitch has an interesting website that is easy to understand, which can be a challenge for me sometimes. Always being busy with the farm, always in a hurry, no time to really focus and get good quality time to try and learn things and then find the time to process the information.

Farming sure has changed a lot in the past couple of decades.

Ordered the Wine Barrel Spigots Online

I was hoping to find the spigots that I needed for the wine barrels that we use out back somewhere in town, since I bought the darn things in town many years ago. Alas, that turned into a wild goose chase and I finally decided to go online and find the right ones. I should have just done that from the get go.

Sometimes trying to support local businesses is not worth all the extra time and gas to find what you need. Since it costs me at least $6 in gas to go to town and back, I can afford to pay shipping and handling up to $6 for anything I buy online and come out ahead. My new wine barrel spigots should be here by Monday, at the latest.

wine spigots for barrels
Spigots are made specifically for the 5- to 30-gallon Barrels .

Nemo Tents and Sleep Systems

For many years, more than I wish to confess to, I have been wanting to go out with some friends and go hiking, camping and fishing like the good ol’ days, but had just been too tied down with work and spending time with loved ones. This year I felt was a brand new year, and was a perfect time for me to get out there and so something I had always wanted to do.

Like I said before I had been wanting to go camping for a long while, and I found myself scavenging my garage for supplies and camping gear I needed to go. I found so many things I used to use while camping, but couldn’t find my tent I used to use. While searching for it, I realized my tent is very out of date and probably needs an upgrade even if I did come across it.

I took a night to sit in the office and just search around the net for some good deals on tents. I came across a nemo tent sale, and had found great deals on all types of tents, but the one that stood out to me the most was a 3 season tent, something I’ve always wanted to own. I ordered it right away and had it shipped to my home, and in no time at all I was camping out by the lake the following weekend. I am so grateful to have found such a sturdy tent to spend many of nights in while by the camp fire enjoying nature.

photo of Nemo camping gear
Nemo Sleeping Bags

 

The Need for Ink

I know that everybody that owns a computer with a printer at some point needs some type of new printer ink cartridges, even people in the U.K (of course, we all know that they do) according to the web-site of 999inks.co.uk which is where I somehow stumbled and fell across last night.It was interesting to see all their products that they have to offer, most of the brands I have heard of, but there was a few that I did not recognize so I’m under the impression that they are native to the U.K. like under the laser tone category I see that they have Brother, HP, Epson, Lexmark and then they have what they call “Tally Toner”, I couldn’t resist I had to take a look and see what it was all about. I don’t know what I expected to find really, it was just a toner, it looked like any other toner, but I was confused about what they mean when saying VAT and Free Delivery Included, I wonder what VAT is. I’ll have to make a point of finding out about that one.

Then I got the bright idea to see if I could order from them, being as I am not in the U.K., but of course in the good old U.S. of A. I have no idea what the rate of exchange would be for the money issue, but I was thinking that maybe after placing the order and all that it would give you a way to change the monies over, but I didn’t get that far. While plugging in my name, address and all that to set up an account with this company, it wouldn’t let me put in the United States as the country, only the United Kingdom was listed and no way to change it, so I guess that answered my question about ordering out of there. Too bad because I was really interested in seeing how they handled it, but that is O.K., it really was interesting to see their selections of ink cartridges and office supplies, they do sell a lot more than just inkjets. They have all the usual home and office supplies and I looked under the category of home and office supplies when I see that they have something called a pritt stick, my curiosity got the better of me and I had to see what that was, come to find out it is a glue stick!

All in all it was an interesting experience that I’m glad that I took the time to do and find out about, that is one thing about the Internet, you always have an opportunity to learn from it.

Sisters

I love that fact that I am so close with my sisters, and it seems the older we get the closer we become and I realize how truly blessed I am to have them in my life, and my brothers also, of course. My sisters and I talk on the phone only on occasion, we mainly converse via email and recently using the Instant Messaging, at night when we are most likely all to be on-line. Isn’t it so great how Email has made it possible for so many people to keep in touch, who otherwise never would have taken the time or trouble in an effort to communicate the way we do now with the Internet and all.

My one sister and I have been talking about Facial Plastic Surgery over the past several years and I think that she is getting close to taking the plunge, as she has been talking about it more and more between us all lately. She has sent me an email recently about a Minnesota cosmetic surgery company that she has been communicating with online for some time now about a few surgical options. She wants to start with what she calls a “simple little brow lift” which is done on an outpatient basis under general anesthesia, and see how that goes before doing any other kind that they are qualified for at their practice.

A friend recommended this place and my sister has apparently spent a good amount of time communicating with them online and on the phone, she says that they are very nice and has been treated well. She tells me that she has made an appointment for a in person consultation, but not until late July, where she will finally meet their staff and hopefully make her decision to do it or not.

I’m pretty confident that she will have the procedure done. I hope that she does well with it and will be happy with the result. She is a braver women than I at this point and time.

Website Designed for My Sister

I have been exploring the possibility of designing a website for my sister to have and use, so of course I have turned to the Internet for assistance. I remembered my brother telling me about a web-site of Hosterio.com which he tells me is an affordable way to have a great web-site with 20 MB of space, a free on-line site builder, free pop mail I.D.s, free sub domains, a free shopping cart, front page extension, a FTP user account and a cpanel.

What is cool is that I actually understand most of it now since I have started learning about this process.They have expert web designers available to assist you with your Website Design, whether is be for personal or business use and have several packages from which to choose from according to your individual needs and unique characteristics. I have looked at several web hosting sites and have learned what to look for when looking for a web host and I put what I learned to the test when researching this site and I think that it will do just fine for what her needs are. No need for her to spend her hard earned money when I can do the same and/or better for nothing.

Magnetic Name Badges

The word at my sister’s work is that they are ordering a magnetic name badge for everyone to wear and folks aren’t all that thrilled with the idea. It will be helpful for their customers/clients but a drag for them to have to keep remembering to wear them and not losing them. Unfortunately you gotta do what you gotta do these days to keep the boss man happy. They way I look at it, it certainly could be a lot worse, they could be receiving pink slips and jobs aren’t easy to come by these days.

magnetic name tags
Magnetic Name Badge