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More News

The local channel that carries Oprah is our NBC channel. I don’t know if that is true in other cities, but I believe it is the same across the country. So now that Oprah has quit and this is her last week of shows, I was wondering what they would find to put in the empty time slot. Not that I watch Oprah. I’m just telling you like it is. And besides, I am almost never home at 4:00 in the afternoon.

Anyway, it turns out the our local NBC station is going to expand their news coverage and add an extra hour to their newscasts. So now we have the news at 4:00, and at 5:00 ad at 6:00, then again we have the late night news at 11:00. I think that is crazy to have so much news every day. There is only so much going on that needs to be reported!

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The Boob Tube

When I was a kid, I remember my folks calling our TV set, “The Boob Tube.” And I didn’t really know why. I thought the word boob meant a woman’s breasts, and I don’t remember seeing much of that on TV. So I finally spoke up and asked my dad why did they do that?

He said that the word boob also means someone who is dumb, and that they meant that people who watch TV are boobs for wasting their brain cells and time on stupid shows. I know there were several years when my mom did not watch TV at all. She said there was nothing interesting on the TV and that she would rather spend her little bit of free time doing something she enjoyed.

I don’t know – maybe it is a generational thing. I seem to always be able to find some kind of show that is interesting. I like a lot of the programs on the History Channel and the Biography channel. And sometimes there is a pretty good series running on HBO. Mae as I get older I will lose interest in what I’m watching now, but maybe the variety of shows and quality of the the programming has improved a lot since when my mom would have watched.

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Hands Free Carrying

Forgot to say that my buddy, John, was asking me if I would be interested in going to work for him. While he was here in school last year he got a decent job riding a bike and being a courier/messenger in the mornings and afternoons, in between classes. He made some good money from that and all he needed was a bike and a messenger bag

The cool thing about messenger bags is that you can ride the bike with both hands on the handlebars so you can shift and use the hand brakes without any hesitation or chance of slipping.His bike cost a little over $300 but he made that back the first week he worked for those guys.

So after he got out of school and needed to start making serious money, he decided to start up his own courier service. He uses a fleet of guys to ride bikes around downtown, but he also got a contract with a chain of auto repair stores to deliver tires from the distribution center to their stores all over town. All you need is a small pickup truck or a van to drive for him and there is steady work – as much as you want to do.

So, I’m thinking about that – I’ll be out of here next week and need to make some cash over the summer. So maybe driving a truck and delivering tires is the way to go.

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Shorts and Tees

It hit 90 degrees today. So I am officially putting the winter coat into the dry cleaners and getting out all my shorts and teeshirts from the back of the closet. As far as I’m concerned, summer is here. I have a decent pair of sandals left over from last summer. I think I’ll pick up a new pair this weekend and couple pairs of cheap flip flops for walking across the sand at the beach.

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Camera – Battery – Action

One of the very cool features of my digital camera is the short videos I can take. I don’t need a separate video camcorder – I can just change the setting on my digital camera to video and I can take video with sound for about 3 minutes. The only drawback to this feature is that it drains the  digital camera battery pretty quick. So I decided this morning to order a second battery and always have a charged spare ready to use.

The very first digital camera that I bought was big old clunky Kodak camera that recorded every picture to  3.5″ floppy disk. I had to carry a box of spare disks with me, plus extra batteries, as each battery only lasted for about 40 photos. Then I bought a nice Sony a few years ago that recorded to a memory card. Each memory card holds about 200 hi-res photos, so I never needed an extra memory card. But again, the batteries were a problem – this camera took two AA batteries and the set would only last for about an hour of use. I had to carry extra batteries with me all the time.

I tried rechargeable AA batteries, but they don’t fully recharge each time. After about 40 recharges, the life of each charge drops down to just 10 minutes – that’s about useless for a digital camera. I’m looking for a new camera now, and I can promise you that battery life will be a major consideration of what digital camera model I choose to buy.

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That’s Racing

A lot of my friends are discovering NASCAR and becoming race fans. In fact, the most influential athlete in America was announced the other day – and it turns out to be a NASCAR driver. Wow – when I was a kid no one I knew ever watched NASCAR races – ow it seems that everyone is watching.

My idea of racing is drag racing – not going around and around in circles for 4 hours. I like a good drag race – it’s fast and dangerous and exciting to watch dozens of pairs of racers each hour take off and have a winner within a minute or two. Race a half mile and hit 100 mph? Now, that’s racing.

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Clean It or Cover It Up

My brother was living large last year and bought a pool for his back yard in August. They got a couple moths use out of it before it got too cold to swim in the afternoons, and they eventually drained it for the winter, pretty much forgetting about it until now that the temperatures have started climbing.

He’s never had a pool before, so I guess he was surprised when he went to fill it up with water this weekend and realized that he had to clean it out first. I tell you what, cleaning out a pool that was not covered over the winter is a nasty, exhausting job. I’ve helped friends back in the college days do that and I had a vested interest in getting the pool clean – so we could have a wild college pool party.

When he told me how hard he had to work at cleaning the pool, I flat out told him to start pricing pool covers so he doesn’t have to go through all that again next year. It is a matter of covering it up or cleaning it – you are going to pay one way or the other, by spending two days scrubbing and cleaning or by spending a little money on a cover. Shouldn’t take a rocket scientist which way to go on that one.

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For the Baby Mamas

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, and I know that a whole lo of mothers are dealing with raising up their kids without the baby daddy helping much, if at all. I know a lot of guys who brag about having different baby mamas, but I think ti is not a good thing and noting to be bragging about. How can these guys ever be a good role model for their kids if they have to spend time with 3 or 4 different women and their different kids?

I hope if you are a baby daddy that you find a way to honor the mothers of your children tomorrow. Even if you just help your kids draw and color a homemade card that says Happy Mother’s Day – at least do something to help the kids tell their mothers they love them. Better than that, take the kids to the store and let them pick out a small gift for their moms. Its the least you can do.

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Music Online

Years ago there was a special feature on Yahoo Messenger that let you listen to free music online. You could choose from a couple dozen different types of music channels and it played on your computer in the background while you did other things online. But then they stopped it. I don’t remember why, but I miss that.

A friend of mine recently told me about an online music web site called, Pandora. This is a very cool site and is now one of my favorites. You sign up for a free account, which gives you up to 40 hours of free music every month. You only have to endure a few commercials – it’s not that bad, plus that is what makes the music free. But if the commercials really bug you, you can pay for an upgrade of only $36 for a whole year, and that is a real bargain.

Pandora lets you select your favorite music and create different channels with just the song types or artist types that you like. You get thumbnail of the album playing and links to information on each song, including a biography of the performer, the song lyrics, and where to buy the song download or the whole album. I really like this website!

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Help With Breathing

I remember when I was just a kid and my Aunt Rose brought all her kids over to our house for a weekend visit. I don’t know what was really going on in the adult world, but that was unusual to have all of them come over and spend the night. My and brother and I had to give up our bedroom so Aunt Rose could have our bed. Us kids all slept in the living room. Mom had kids lined up all across the living room floor, everyone in a sleeping bag, like Army barracks without the cots.

I remember my youngest cousin was still in diapers and he was toddling around with a runny nose and coughing a lot. My mom called him, “our Booger Baby.” But that night he had to sleep with my Aunt Rose so they could use a Vaporizer to help him breathe.

Sick babies are stressful on everyone. The babies can’t talk and tell you what i wrong with them, so you hook up Vaporizers and take their temperature and give them stuff to reduce fever. And if the fever gets worse, you take them to the pediatrician.

I was reminded of all that when I saw a Volcano Vaporizer and memories of that weekend with my sick Booger Baby cousin came rushing to my mind. Of course, he is OK now, and I wonder if he even remembers any of that.