A couple days ago my oldest son (7) started singing a line from a Sponge Bob song over and over, to the point that it was annoying… except for the fact that every time he sang the line my younger son (almost 3) would repeat it – a number of time were very clear. Not sure about you but a 2/3 year old singing “now that we’re men” over and over is kinda funny. Of course a couple of weeks ago I was sure that they were both ‘all boy’ – I had just finished tucking in all the kids and had just walked out to the hallway and shut the doors when I passed gas – loudly. My two daughters cried their disgust but from the boys room all I heard was giggles, and the 2 year old yell, “daddy!”. The whole situation was pretty funny, well being a guy I through so. I relayed the story to my wife who was not amused and will probably just shake her head when she sees this post show up. Guys think body noises are funny, I don’t know why – that’s just the way God made us. And based on that fact, I bet Jesus laughed about a couple of them in his day.
Speaking of gas, shameless link for methane gas detectors.
I have become a mattress snob. I love my bed. My wife and I have both said that our Select Comfort bed is probably the best large purchase that we have made. You see my wife has back issues, she visits the chiropractor every 4 weeks to make sure things stay where they are suppose to be. Because of this my wife has to have a very firm mattress – her sleep number is 100. Me on the other hand – I have 4 sleep numbers. Most of the time I am a 45. If I am sore from some type of physical labor I am either a 65 or 85. And if I want to get really comfortable for a nap I crank it down to 25 and get rid of a pillow (so I don’t snap my neck) – at 25 my side of the bed feels like a lay-z-boy, but you have to be careful when you get up so you don’t injure your back side on the mattress foundation. Out of respect for my wife thought, when I get up I set my side to 100 so she doesn’t fall into the cavern.
Does any company still give out gold watches or diamond pendants anymore? A couple of days ago I was looking through my wife’s jewelry cabinet for a particular item that she got as a gift a few years ago. While checking all the drawers and boxes I came across a lapel pin that I got when I reached my five year anniversary at a company. It was gold color and had the company logo on it – I don’t think I have ever taken it out of the box. Come to think of it, I wonder if it had real gold in it. With the high price right now maybe I could get a dollar or some change for it. Loyalty to a company is becoming more and more a thing of the past in this culture, the biggest factor I think has been companies being less loyal to their employees – the whole “you can be replaced” attitude has been flipped to be a negative in too many situations.
Have you ever tried to buy an unlocked phone? I know the mobile phone carriers like to give phones away for next to nothing in exchange for a multi year service contract but the lesser known down side is that fact that the phones are limited. Especially when you look at what Verizon offers – they Verizonize or cripple their phones to make them more alike, turning off features, recreating menus, all in the name of standardizing across the models that they offer. I would love to get an iPhone and use it on my current GSM carrier since it would be compatible. Last weeks maccast talked about SIM unlocking the iPhone without activating on AT&T’s network. As tempting as that is, I am a ways off from shelling out that kind of cash for a phone.
With my new employer I get three weeks of vacation, prorated the first year. Let me just say we need a vacation! Typically for us vacations consist of visiting family in either Wisconsin or Tennessee. However this time around we have been talking about some other possibilities and making the vacation more about a destination than a reunion. We have some good friends that are charter members of the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame that get free passes every year – that would be pretty awesome, and I have never been to Cleveland – I hear that it rocks. Another idea is to visit the coast and spend some time near the ocean, now we just need to find a friend or even a relative that has property in the Outer Banks.
If you are a bargain shopper you can find a free stay in just about any Las Vegas hotel, especially if you are willing to sit through a high-pressure sales presentation for a time-share. But no one is offering free airfare to Las Vegas. You would like that one of the airlines would hook up with one of these companies to get the people out there. I am sure they use it as some sort of pre-screening process but couldn’t they get more business (not like they need it – timeshares are crap, especially when you are buying them at full retail) if people didn’t have pay to get out there, they would then have the money to buy the timeshare!?
I have spend a good deal of time searching craigslist for ellipticals and have not found anything in our price range (free). I am thinking about making a list of the weight bench and free weights that I have (not the dumbbell set) and see if I can find someone who would trade. I guess it is worth a shot, speaking of trades – anyone want to trade a near brand new Zelda game and guide book for Wii for the Star Wars Legos Wii game?
or cheap!
our hot water heater is like 15 years old and while we haven’t made any hard fast plans to replace it one of the thoughts in the back of my mind is to look into a tankless water heater but have you looked at the cost of these things? yikes! why is it everything that saves you money and can actually improve the value of your house (and ours needs it) has to cost so darn much. heck, we would love to get some insulation but I would really like the expanding non settling foam but it is 3 to 4 times the cost of traditional insulation. I guess it depends upon how long we are gonna live in this house.
just in case there are any professional baseball players reading my blog I just want to remind you that there are no legal steroids in baseball. at least that is what it sounds like. speaking of sounds like, how in the world can the fact of which person lied to the congress be a political issue? apparently the dems believe the one guy and the reps believe the other. of course we are talking about politicians and who believes them anyway!?
maybe we need to get rid of the monopoly that MLB has and allow a new league to start up, maybe one that just uses regular people who aren’t on the juice.
Wondering how much of the so called economic stimulus tax rebate will be coming your way. This little app will give you the exact amount that will be on it way to you come May. I won’t go into the politics of this ‘stimulus’ (although I think I just did with the quotes) but I would encourage you to do what we are planning to do, stimulate your own personal economy and pay down your personal debt. According to the calculator we should be getting a check equal to almost 1% of our total indebtedness.