Money Talk$

The more you do it the more efficient you get. You lift a weight enough times and voila you are able to lift a bigger weight. If you read enough, you are able to read faster and comprehend more. I bring this up because I think that the youth of today are losing out on valuable reading practice. With the internet so easy to access and information at our children's fingertips, why would we not give them all of the advantages that we can. Anyone who can read can learn just about anything online.

So why are so many kids sitting in front of a Television instead of a book. Spongebob is not going to prepare that child to learn in any shape or form. The wiggles, while they can get your little ones to sing annoying songs all day, will not give you child any useful skills once they are beyond the staring at a mobile in the crib stage. I am surprised by the number of parents who do not realize that their children are losing valuable potential. My Mother read to my brother and I from birth. I personally thank her and attribute this to my high reading ability. This elevated skill in reading gives me an advantage when I given given a task that involves learning something new as I am able to read a manual or similar documentation and understand.

I am not saying that a child who watches TV will not be able to learn at the same rate as I can, I am merely saying that a child who misses out of reading at a young age is working harder to catch up later in life. What the child is watching is a definate factor. As a parent have you ever watched the shows that you allow your children to spend their afternoon watching. I am fairly comfortable saying that I feel as if I have lost a few IQ points if I watch even a few minutes of Ed, Edd, and Eddie. The Rugrats are so cute and have real life issues sometimes, but they do not speak proper English. To a teen this may be funny, but to a child who is just learning to speak, this makes more work later in retraining them from mistakes that they pick up from the television. I find it humerous that my wife and I correct the television all of the time.

Yes we do let our children watch Television, mostly in the form of Veggie Tales, Blue's Clues, and older movies like Mary Poppins and the like. If one of the Veggie's says something not quite proper, usually to rhyme in a song, we will casually say that is sily he should have said Larry and I, but I doesn't rhyme with see. I suppose the mere fact that we usually watch the TV with our children and rarely let them watch it as a baby sitter, is very important here as well. To be honest if we are having company or need some time sans kids, we would most likely put in one of the shows that we know is not going to confuse them, or a Star Wars movie.

As an added bonus, this saves us money by not having to have the latest fad craze toys or apparel for our children. I own Star Wars toys from my youth, that recycle quite nicely. my son likes pirates and dinosaurs. A dinosaur toy is cheaper than a Barney the annoying purple dinosaur toy any day of the week. I got a cowboy hat, folded it up into a tricorner hat and wham instant pirate hat. Add wooden swords from renfest and my kids are pirates. They run around the house yelling arrrr and aye, call me Captain Daddy, and use their imagination. Much cheaper than having to buy Power Rangers toys or the talking pull the string and we can sing annoying songs Wiggles figures.

I buy a shirt that has a pirate flag on it from online store for half the cost of a spongebob shirt. I got a huge pirate flag that is mounted on my Son's wall for $10 with his birthday money. Do you know how much even a poster of the wiggles would cost let alone a 3 foot by 5 foot cloth flag? In addition to this, by not having to watch actual television programs, my children are not bombarded by advertisements. Imagine being able to sit down and talk to your son about a book that he has just read instead of what Spongebob and that silly starfish did. If he has a question it is usually something tangible that we can look up. He reads about dinosaurs and wants to know how big a Tyranosaurus tooth was, we can go online and check. If he wanted to know why some cartoon character did something on a TV show the answer would simply be 'because that is what the artists drew.' No learning there.

I am not talking about worshipping nature like a druid...I am talking about hail!! On Saturday we had a storm catch us by surprize. The day was beautiful and then five or six loud claps of thunder, a little lightning, and it was hailing. My Daughter, who is 2 years old was helping me sweep the floor. This means I am sweeping the floor and she is moving the dirt around with a little hand broom. She is able to sweep some into her little dust pan and take it to the trash can.

Well the thunder was loud and startled her. She looked a bit paniced and I told her 'I heard that thunder,too; it was loud, it may rain soon.' Mainly I did this because I do not want to further advance any fear of storms that anyone (like my mother) may have started for her. She calmed down a little and I told her that it was unexpected and startled me too. I like to use the word startled instead of scared because I don't want to teach my children fear. We continued sweeping and I saw a bright flash of lightning, it was rather close because the thunder boomed before I could prepare her for it.

She shook in excitement and then looked at me. 'I Don't want to do this anymore!' She yelled and then dumped her dust pan onto the floor. It was as if she thought that her sweeping had something to do with the thunder. She ran across the kitchen and while she was opening the door to put her broom and dustpan away, another loud crack of thunder boomed. 'I'm done!!' she yelled while picking up the dustpan that she tried to throw so hard it bounced back out of the under the sink cabinet. I was able to distract her by saying that sweeping had nothing to do with the thunder, the lightning did and that I need her to tell me when she hears it raining so that I could close the windows.

My Son said it is going to rain and wanted to close them preventatively. I advised that it was hot and the nice breeze was cooling the house tremendously. My wife and I explained thunder and lightning to them and then it started to rain. 'It is raining,' both kids yelled in unison. 'It is hailing I added while closing the window in the kitchen. After helping my wife close the rest of the windows, both children came in to see what this hail that I was talking about was. It only lasted a minute, but hail stones the size of nickles fell and bounced from the yard and the sidwalk alike.

We had an interesting discussion about how it could be raining ice while the temperature outside was well over 80 degrees. My Son got the point but I did not think my daughter did. She talked about how it was hotter outside than it is in the freezer, and I figured that she had a good idea of what we were talking about. The rain only lasted three of four minutes after the hail stopped, so I ran out and gathered some of the ice. Melting a bit in the heat, the hail stones from the yard were perfectly round and about the size of small marbles.

I took eight or so back inside and let the kids feel how cold they were. the outside temperature had dropped five degrees according to my new clock thermometer deal that I just received as a gift. I joked that the ice must have cooled the world down. It is fun to spend time talking about nature nad its power to my children, and it makes me proud when I see that they are learning and understand more about the world that we live in. I wondered just how many of my neighbors were talking to their children about the storm and the hail, and how many of them were not talking at all while their children watched Spongebob.

When I was a small child I wore glasses to correct a lazy eye. I went to the eye doctors a lot and therefore thought that may be a good career choice for me. I actually had bifocal lenses when I was only 5 years old to help strengthen the muscles in my eyes. After a while I changed this chosen career to a dentist. This was good until I really stopped and thought about it. A dentist spends all day in other people's yucky, infected, cavity infested mouths.

Dentist was out scientist was in. I got this from watching all of the Godzilla movies. The problem with this was that although I practiced quite often I could never really master that art of speaking while my mouth did not match the words so I had to pick again. I still watched Godzilla movies and had an interest in science but needed a new goal.

Maybe I could be an astronaut and go in space like Buck Rogers or Captain Kirk. Then one day I saw Kirk and Dr. McCoy drinking some kind of blue drink, and I realized that there must not be any chocolate milk in space!! Kirk, Bones, and Scottie never had chocolate milk. Neither did Buck, Apollo, Starbuck or Mr. Cartwright. Luke Skywalker drank blue milk but not chocolate milk, so if living in space meant no chocolate milk I had to find a new profession.

I thought that if I practiced running enough that I could be really fast. I could be a football player if I were really fast. This went well until my Brother ruined it for me. He said that running all the time would not make me faster, it would only make my legs stronger so I could jump higher. This would conflict with my fear of heights, especially after I had a few dreams where I could jump up really high and see all over town. I stopped running so much and put more thought into what I really wanted to be.

I could go back to science and be an evil mad scientist. I was smart, clever and did not overindulge in the greed that ultimately did in many mad scientists on TV. Giving it a little more thought, I noticed that these guys did not get paid, and their evil plans to take over the world were always foiled by said greed, or their inability to eliminate their enemies. If your arch enemy, the one person who can stop you, is handcuffed to a railing overlooking an erupting volcano, with nothing but a pack of gum, his watch and a helicopter six feet away, do not assume that he will be burned to a crisp, lava induced end. Shoot the helicopter with your cleverly designed mini laser pistol, shoot him, or at the very least take his gum. I figured I could overcome the obstacles where my scripted counterparts could not because I was smart enough to put a password a little more secure than 1 2 3 4 5 on the big red button that could cancel my master plan. If I did rule the world what would I do? There was not much fun available if everyone hated you.

If I were a chemist, I could use my powers for the good of all mankind. Everyone would want to hang with me and I would probably have a robot friend to boot. It was perfect. Perfect it is until I went to the local college for a week in 5th grade with the gifted program. During this time, in a cool physics class where we made a rocket, we gathered around and talked about what we wanted to be when we grew up. The boy sitting across from me said that he wanted to be a chemical engineer. I had never heard of this before but I certainly could not say that I wanted to be a lowly chemist now. After I dittoed the chemical engineer, a dozen more kids repeated it as well. That local college eventually grew up to be a University.

I majored in Chem E while attending Penn State University. After 3 years, I transferred to the University of Pittsburgh and changed my majoy to Computer science because I was lazy. I was good with computers and the classes were easier for me. Looking back to my childhood, they did have some really big computers in those Godzilla movies, so I guess there is a tie in between what I wanted to be and what I am.

From the article:

http://www.debtreduction101.com/start-paying-off-debt-today....

There are 4 main excuses given for not reducing debt.

1. I am in control of my debt

2. I do not have enough free money each month to make a difference.

3. I am waiting for a windfall to pay my debt off all at once.

4. Something always comes up.

Where do you fall?

My father has just retired at 59.5.
That is the age when you can begin drawing on your 401K. He set himself up pretty good and was able to retire in good health and relatively young. I hope to be able to do the same but much younger. Well I guess I don't want to retire I just want to author novels or write scripts or something else that gives me lots of free time to spend with my family and friends while still earning enough to live comfortably. The savings and frugality make that comfort level more affordable and hopefully easier to attain.

I am very happy after seeing how hard my father worked - he did a lot of carpentry, electrical work, and general hnadyman work for the neighborhood while being laid off periodically in the 70s and 80s and then when the steel industry came back he worked a lot of OT in a not so friendly environment, that he is finally able to rest. When he first started at the mill in 1973 they had probably 20 men per shift plus a dozen steady daylight and several specialists. One man for the coiler and one each for the front and rear motor rooms, a welder or two per shift crane repair personnel pipe fitters wire gang etc. Now they run about 4 per crew and have one or two pipe fitters to cover the entire day. My Dad's department were all trained or supposedly trained on the coiler the motor rooms, crane repair and so on to absorb all of those lost men. I can imagine how much hardr those 4 men are expected to work.

Some of it ended up being pretty cool. For instance he was sent to welding school and later used the skills that he developed restoring his truck. I know for a fact that he could have lived without ever answering a crane call though. I learned a lot about electricity and mechanics from watching and talkng to him. I hope that he continues to use the welding skill, maybe on a new vehicle to either add to his collection, or to sell to increase his pension income.

I also hope that he knows how glad I am to have a Father like him to look up to all my life, to learn from, have a positive role model and know what being a Father should be like. I would love to be able to retire early and have that same positive impact on my children that he had on me. As a side note, both of my parents and quite simply their being happy and loving with each other, my brother and I, and our children, gives such a strong root to our family tree.

Picture of said truck to be added, stay tuned!

My Father's mantra when I was growing up was to take care of your things that way instead of spending your money replacing broken or worn things, you can buy new things. ok....his other mantra was that 'there just aren't enough hours in the day.' He was a workaholic, working all the OT he could get in the Steel Mill to counter the periods of unemployment, plus doing all of the handy work, carpentry, eltrical, mechanical, plumbing, landscaping, painting, roofing, washing, scrubbing, cleaning, welding, fixing, and maintenance at our house, both of my grandparents houses and for some of the neighbors as well. He would work all day and then in the evening, when my mother would make him stop to get showered and spend time with my brother and I, he would recite his famous litergy.

At first I thought yeah Dad is right, if there were more hours in the day, I could play more each day, watch more TV, relax more, sleep more, and do my homework slower. As I got a little older and interested in things like the Solar System and NASA and the like, I decided that if I lived on Pluto the day is over six times longer, but it is really cold there. On Mercury, it takes 58.7 Earth days for the planet to rotate once, man you could do a lot on a Monday there!! Then again a Mercurian Year is only 88 Earth days.

At eight or nine years old I thought this would be cool, because the school year would only be about 50 or so days, but if I aged every 88 days, which using Mercurian days would actually be less than two days, I would die of old age in less than 25 weeks!! Who wants that?? I had these kind of thoughts a lot, I was a weird kid. Come to think of it, I grew up to be a wierd man. And here is where the story evolves. As I grew into my college years, I remember telling my friends that there are not enough hours in the day. This of course came from the fact that I only had 5 hours a day to split between homework, studying and sleep.

Then I got married and wanted more hours each day to spend with my beautiful wife. After our first child was born, I needed more hours to spend watching him learn and grow, spend with my beautiful wife, and take care of the things that had been moved to the back burner, like cutting grass, washing cars, and the like. Two more children later and I REALLY REALLY want more hours, not for me but for my beautiful wife!! She needs more time to be able to take a long hot shower, get plenty of sleep, relax while I take my turn with the laundry and still have time left to spend with me.

Finally we reach the and son and son part. My eldest, a child with the mental capacity far greater than his 4 years, is figuring out how things work. I loosened light bulbs in the bathrooms to be frugal as per my other story, and when we are in said bathrooms, the little genius tells me 'Daddy has more money to buy steak' as he points to the unilluminated bulbs. He gets the water pitcher out of the refridgerator and tries to close the door quickly saying, 'Daddy does not want to spend his money on the electric bill, he wants to buy milk and things instead.' And, after realizing that we can not go to the park, the playground, Target, and his Uncle's house on the same day because there is not enough time between his sister's nap and bedtime snack to accomplish all of this, he showed me that he truly understands when he said 'Daddy I want the days to be longer.' I asked what he meant having a good idea already and I smiled broadly when he said 'more than 24 hours, so that we can do more every day.'

Made you look!!

Don't you have some money to save or debt to reduce, or a challenge to conquer, why are you reading articles about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie???

Just about every year, the costs to attend your favorite team play a game increases. This always makes me wonder, at what point will the costs be so high that in order to afford season tickets, you would have to have a really high paying career, like an athlete for instance. The stands at a football game would be full of baseball players in the offseason and the football player's families. Maybe some boxers or pro beach volleyball players as well, but there are not as many of those to fill the stadiums.

Those stadiums you see get more expensive to build. The owners of the teams somehow get the Cities to pay for some or most of these rising stadium costs saying that the taxpayers, yes the same taxpayers that are having their taxes increased to pay for the stadiums, will generate funds in the form of entertainment taxes to attend the games. In the future, when taxes are so high because the stadiums cost a billion dollars to build (not so distant future, the new stadium proposed for the New York football Giants and Jets will be well over a billion dollars.) the taxpayers will not be able to afford $75 a seat for the games plus $30 for parking, $4 for a 20oz soda that would be $1 in a vending machine or 50 by the six pack on sale at a grocery store, $5.50 for a $2 personal pizza, $4 for a $1 bag of cracker jacks, $6 for a $1.50 beer, $150 for an official game jersey of their favorite player, $30 for a super bowl championship hat with their team logo on it (if you are lucky enough to bo rooting for the world champs ) etc. etc.

The only people who may be able to attend in addition to other athletes would be politicians. I mean if they think the average blue collar worker can afford the increased taxes, to support a team that they can no longer afford to see play live, they must be making the big money, too. It is hard work to figure out which points brought up in council meeting that you want to make a behind the scene deal that if the supporters of that point will support your point or agree to spend $1 million to widen a bridge that is hardly used in your subburb, you will support. We had this problem with the Pittsburgh Pirates when I lived in PA. My father was the stereotypical Pittsburgher...he worked in a steel mill. The guys at the mill were the staple of the community and when baseball went on strike in the 80s and 90s to increase their minimum salary for minor league and bench players, these real American workers were talking in the lunch room about how some of these players are making more in one game, yes they are paid to play a game, then the steel workers make in a year. The area, being made of still a high percentage of blue collar workers at the time started to shun the 'millionaire whiners' and attendance dropped drastically after the strike ended.

And baseball is still the cheapest of all sporting events at the professional level to attend. Football costs more per game, and hockey assumes that although their sport is the most gritty, its fans are all top executives. I have not seen a Penguins game live, even though Hockey is my favorite sport, since 1998 mainly because I can not afford tickets! (ok fine so I don't live in PA anymore, meh)

Urgent Care - Oxymoron

Not just any oxymoron but
Worst. Oxymoron. Ever.

People usually go to Urgent Care when they need help now. If they did not require immediate attention they could wait a day or two to get into their Doctor's office. So here we are at the Urgent Care. There is onlt one other person in the waiting room, this should go good. In fact I pointed out the Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse shaped clouds in the sky as we walked from the car through the parking lot. The kids waved, Mickey and Donald waved back, we laughed we smiled, we were going to have a great day. Get allergy girl some meds so she can smile, or at least breathe like the rest of us, and she can wave at the clouds, too.

They had some nice little buckets of toys on a rack in the corner. The kids were playing quietly, which if we were at home would spur me to keep asking what they were doing becaue, as everyone knows, quiet kids are usually scheming kids. This went on and everyone was happy for maybe 30 or 40 minutes. Then they took allergy girl out of the waiting room.

Not terribly quick but somewhat urgent if I were in a fuller waiting room, that is. So I am entertaining the youngest while the other 2 are playing. Rugrats is on the TV over my head, followed by the fairly odd parents or whatever that show is called, kind of dumb show I think but amusing in an I am glad my kids are not actually paying attention way. The kids are being so cute playing ever so carefully and sharing very well on a toy that we also have at home. At home they do not play with it quite so nicely.

Now a half hour later, allergy girl comes out. Wow that is not bad at all since she had to get weighed, measured, and found wanting...meds that is. Turns out she just wanted to tell me that there are snacks in the backpack if the kids get hungry because she is not done yet. I sigh and continue watching cartoons while bouncing the little man to sleep. I was the proud father sitting in the corner with my little buddy snoozing on my chest. The older children were still very well behaved which was a great thing, because my patience was running out in general.

It was at this point that I decided I had to write this rant. Urgent Care, heh heh I thought to myself. I had to occaisionally remind one of the kids not to go to far from where we were sitting but they were both listening. Then the younger of the two, tells me she needs a potty. I have a child laying on me, and would have to take all three of them to the potty with me. I asked if she could hold it, she said yes. She was not quite right. She started but stopped herself, so only her panties got wet. SHe had an urgent look on her face and said again I need a potty. I returned the urgency by gathering the other two and following her to said potty. There she and her older brother were able to relieve themselves. The youngest slept through the ordeal.

We went back out to the waiting room where i said it was time to clean up so that I could get my little Princess out to the car to get the emergency clothes bag from the truck and get her in dry panties. (You do have an emergency clothes bag in your trunk right?) They were cleaning up somewhat quickly when, from the TV behind me, I hear "Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?" Oh hell no!! lets get this stuff picked up and out of this waiting room before my children have permanent loss to their mental capacity!!

I assisted and we made it out the door quite quickly. Mickey and Donald were there grinning sarcastically among the rest of the now gray storm clouds. I think Mickey mouth the words Urgent Care and then did his best evil Mwa ha ha laugh. Donald pointed his puffy cloud finger at the sign that said Urgent Care to further add to the humor that I was not finding very funny. I load the kids in the car and at least it is only sprinkling while I am getting new parts and panties for my little Princess. She was as polite as she always is, saying thank you and telling me that she was sorry. We ate our lunch in the car and then finally for a grand total of 2 hours of ungency later, allergy girl came out!!

Since gas is so expensive, I am going to cut my lawn with, ummm, I don't have a sickle...or a machete. I can use a hockey stick!! Yeah, I can slap shot the tall grass all over the yard, it would be a good work out, and I save money by not firing up the lawn mower. The weed whacker is electric, but what fun is that. Landscaping isn't land scaping unless there are hockey sticks, a helmet, or those big pruning shears involved.

The neighbors need to look out their window, see me smashing the shizzle out of my yard with my number 66 Mario Lemieux stick and say well at least it is not as bad as last year when he...and then stop talking to themselves to avoid being as crazy as I am. This of course is all fun and games until I run down the cliff in my back yard and start hacking the weeds down while yelling 'he shoots;he SCORES!!' every few minutes. This makes me wonder why I haven't heard of an increase of cases of siphoning. Back in the day, kids used to siphon gas out of their neighbors cars because they couldn't pony up a buck or two to get the fuel to take them to the drive-in with a trunk full of their friends. Now that buck or two would be lucky if it bought enough gas to get you to the next gas station to buy more. Can it be true that people have not resorted to stealing gas, or is it just that the news broadcasts spend all of their time on stories about what name Brad and Angelina whould give their baby?

So I moved over to one of the level 2 support teams from the helpdesk positon, and so far it costs me money. It is more than twice as far of a drive and with gas prices back around $3 that costs a lot more than the managers, and their high salaries consider. I still pack my lunch and still drink water from the fountain, but gas prices themselves are almost enough to push me over budget for the month. Their will supposedly be the opportunity of a raise when this is said and done, and I really hope that happens.

The main reason that I took the new position was acctually job security. After training the newest members of the helpdesk who work remotely in India, it became obvious to me that once they are phased in their numbers will increase, while those on the helpdesk sitting in America will decrease. They do have remote users on the team that I am on, but it is pretty hard to remotely change a defective hard drive on a server, and the level 2 team sits at the customer site, so when they want someone set up on the network or someone's permissions changed, they would rather walk to my desk to call someone no matter how close that person may be. Being on site, although they are still supposed to call the requests in to the helpdesk gives me more confidance that my job will still be there in the long run. A raise would be a welcome bonus as well.

I was thinking about little things that can really affect the monthly budget, and I came up with a few to watch out for. Beverages: the more popular or healthier it is, the more expensive it probably is, too. if you drink sports drinks, get a giant vat of gatorade from BJs and mix it yourself. If you drink water, buy a filtered pitcher and a thermos and take your own instead of spending the money on it from the vending machine or cafe...it's only water...

Snacks: try the same BJs trick of getting a big box of treats instead of buying one bag of chips each day from the machine or snack bar. Or better yet, get a bunch of bananas.

Parking: see if you can find a cheaper lot or deck that is maybe a few blocks away and walk the rest of the way. My parking is free, but not everyone's is.

Entertainment: get a library card. As long as you do not keep the books past the due date, free books beat netflix monthly fee or blockbuster, and most libraries offer movies if you absolutely have no imagination or can not read...
(I have to admit that I like movies a lot, but my brother is a platinum card carrying member of the Columbia House DVD club, so I just borrow from him.)

Food: is important because it is proably second only to your mortgage in monthly expense, unless you overbought your vehicle or already eat on the cheap, but cut the food down. I mean literally cut the food, like water it down. Let me give you an example, I love tacos, so I prefer to have them often. By adding a can of tomatoes and a can of refried beans, I can make double the tacos without doubling the amount of meat required. This leaves leftovers for my lunch, and sometimes more without making the cost of the dinner go up much. We have rice and pasta a lot and use a variety of cheap sauces to flavor them frugally.

I have ranted before about how everyone is looking for the catch, but this is getting rediculous. I joined an online poker forum and they are starting a weekly free tournament with $100 in prize money. The top 15 places get paid and it costs nothing to enter. You simply need to sign up for the poker site through their link and join the forum yourself. They sent me a password to enter the tournament and I am registered.

Now the bad news unless 15 people register, the event is cancelled, so I am thinking that is no problem, I can get a few people to sign up and so can the rest of the forum members, right? Then I ran into the usual 'what's the catch?' answers. I had a few friends say 'that sounds cool, but I suck at poker.' If 15 people enter, everyone who plays will get $2.50 with the chance at up to $25 for 1st place. I say this I get more interest but then I get more wierd responses as well.

'poker isn't my game...' like he missed the part about most likely everyone or nearly everyone getting paid and that this will be a weekly thing. 'What if I win, can I cash out?' I tell them that they need to make an initial deposit of $20 but then yes they can cash out. 'See that is how they sucker you in.' was the response. So then I tell them about this other deal where they can play at a different site for free. They give you $75 to play, and another $25 after you meet play requirements with their money. Now you have this money that you can move over to the site that you have won a few bucks from these tournaments,you keep entering them every week, and it costs you nothing.

I got my favorite of all responses after I explain this one. A guy I work with said, 'Now if you laid $75 on my desk I would sign up, but I have to PLAY to get it.' Really he has to play a game to get free money and that is asking too much, so I figured out what the catch is...everyone wants free money and freebies, but they want it immediately with zero time or effert invested. I wonder how many people see Kimmie's freebies and say ohhhh that is nice, but I have to fill out that form...no thanks. I can not believe the trouble that I am having in giving away a seat in a free tournament that will repeat weekly. I even picked out the friends that I know are surfing the web and would already be at their PC at the time the event took place. Sorry to say, I can point you to the offer at

www.thepokerpirates.com/freerolls.html, but I can not lay $75 on your desk.

I moved from remote support technician to level 2 support on the server team, and let me tell you, these guys all have way to many electronic toys on their hips. I rarely even carry the cell phone; if I have it then my wife does not, as we only have 1. No pager, no PDA, and no MP3 player for me.

The rest of my team all have so many doodads on them that their belts make Batman Jealous. They talk about them constantly too. 'Well my KP46 has wireless technology, so I can send files to my PC.' I ask if they can use their cell phone, with built in PDA, keyboard, and voice activated recorder, to regulate the temperature of their refrigerators, or activate the coffee pot. One guy's phone cost as much as my home computer cost me to build, and I am considered a computer geek, so you know my PC is respectable.

I can buy a laptop for the cost of their electronic devices, but I have more important things to spend my money on, like peanut butter sandwiches. That takes us to the next point, lunch. They go out to eat at buffets that cost $10 a person. My breakfasts and lunches for the week total $10 and that is only if I decide not to drink water and take a coke a few days that week.

I like when they compare functions of their high tech equipment. That always reminds me of the old over compensating theory. My first day on the job, we takes a few carts down to a lab and pillage a bunch of nice monitors. They are all making dibs on a few of the huge 24 inch deals, when I said 'that is ok, all you guys who need a big monitor to make you feel better about other inadequacies in your manliness can have those, I will take this nice little 19 and remain secure.' They laughed so I think I am going to like working with them.

April Fool's Day is always fun. I recall getting my Dad with some good clean hunor a time or two. but the best is when you can get multiple people with something that is 100% as far from expected as possible. Like maybe if you can convince the entire school that April 1 was an unannounced teacher's in service day, or the entire cheerleading squad that you are the man. Ok but something really great would be convincing an entire forum of people who share your interests that you just went agains those interests and sold out hardcore.

For Example, for the Britney Spear's fanclub president to write in her blog that she is now leaving to be the president of the Christina Aguilera fanclub. Or for an adolescent male to tell his fans that Angelina Jolie is ugly and have them buy it. Oh, I know maybe it would be like a pair of guys running a savings forum to post about selling their forum AND signing the no compete clause in a deal with a loan company for a few thousand less than what was offered by a non-profit group of investors. *shock*

I mean how many of their faithful readers would actually read such a post on April 1 and not get it right away. It is not like someone would reread that part about choosing the absolute WORST entity to sell to over the BEST choice for a mere few thousand dollars. For the record that is the part that made me think and remember the date and smile. I thought, sold out for a few grand...wait a second if we are talking about selling for an amount where a few grand would be that much of a difference I would hope they are making enough from all the other COMPETING sites to turn down the deal, and if the deal were for a lot of money, then a few grand would not be worth selling to the wrong end of the spectrum of the two potential buyers. But who else though of that?

Jeffrey, that was a classic.

Some people refer to a lightbulb moment as a moment in time when the fictional lightbulb in their mind illuminated. That moment when *bang* an idea hits you and starts you thinking. I am not using the phrase 'lightbulb moment' as a metaphor. I am literaly refering to the moment at which I turned off a few lightbulbs. Get it?

In both of my bathrooms, I have light fixtures that use those really big super bright like the sun bulbs. The guest bathroom has 4 and the master bath 6. These are 60 watts each, making the master bath light the third highest consuming device in my house behind the refrigerator and the air conditioner. My light bulb moment came a few months after one of those 6 miniature stars faded out.

I had not replaced the black hole (a dead star is a black hole, have to point out that reference.) and the bathroom was none the dimmer without it. I walked into the bathroom, with the lights out for a while to ensure those microscale suns were not full on flaming hot, and unscrewed another of the bulbs a bit to take it out of the loop of electric power, so to speak. After turning on the switch, I loosened another and the bathroom is still bright. With half of the bulbs not on, I am using half of the power thereby saving money every month. I may try one more bulb as well as loosening 1 or 2 from the guest bathroom as well. I shall have to cehck for savings on the monthly electric bill to determine the 'value' of my lightbulb moment.

I see kids walking down the street four feet away from the sidewalk and I wonder why their parents never taught them respect. Respect for the fact that my car is a lot heavier then they are and can hurt them pretty bad if I hit them. Respect for the fact that I should not have to wait for them to get out of the way, they should be on the sidewalk! Respect for the fact that my Mother or Father would have given me a lecture all night long if they ever saw me walking down the street.

You wonder why society is going downhill, start with the kids, and in particular the lack of involvement in the kids' lives by their parents. The way the kids glare at you as you drive by, like you owe them more space and your car should not be getting that close to them, disgusts me. When I was a teenager, I was happy, I did not scowl at every car that drove by. My parents talked to me, they also , get ready for this archaic word, *read* to me as a child. I did not sit in front of a television all day, and what I did watch had actors, humans that were like me, Morgan Freidman on the Electric Company teaching me.
Today kids watch teletubbies and boobas or whatever other alien freak contraption that makes stupid irritating noises and numbs the minds of society. I do not want my toddlers making irritating sounds, why do I want their TV shows to teach them to?

What good comes out of watching a show with no words?? I think the Wiggles are completely and utterly worthless, but at least a kid watching them can see humans being stupid and not things that do not exist in this nor any other world. Maybe if the boobahs walked in the street and got run over and maimed by some freaky looking alien vehicle it could at least teach the kids, 'whoa stay off the road...boobah. *insert giggling baby faced sun here*'

They go from mind draining children's shows to violence and absurdity in their youth while mixing in a lot of MTV which glorifies said violence and gangs, drugs, the life that we do not want our kids to grow up to have. Without a parent or grandparent, I add this because of my grandfather, to verbally challenge the images in the minds of our youth, they all grow up wanting to be Puff Daddy, err Puffy Puff, errr Pimp Dilli, err you know who I mean. Nothing against Sean Combs, but his lifestyle is not for everyone.

To elaborate on the Grandfather reference. I recall watching a video on MTV when I was but a wee lad, and I stared in amazement, jaw open codfish style to quote Mary Poppins, and audibly said 'wow' while watching whatever band it was jamming on their guitars while zooming down the highway in a convertible, and disobeying all laws in the process. My Grandfather saw my expression and quickly said, 'if they drove like that in real life they would all be dead and then what would you watch on TV? Who would you listen to on your walkman if all of your favorite musicians and bands went around breaking the laws and were all either dead or in jail?'

I answered 'Johnny Cash' because my Grand Father liked Johnny and because I was a smarta$$. His point sunk in. It was cool to watch the video, but to actually drive like that or emulate the fantasy on the TV as if it were reality would not be so cool. Perhaps this is why I have respect, and the youth of today, without the aid of their parents or grandparents, do not.

Went to a Hamburger joint to get Hamburgers as a treat for the kids - and myself. First of all, why is it so hard to get my order right. I even went inside this time. I want one Cheeseburger just pickles. They have to say ok that is one cheeseburger with no ketchup, no mustard, no onions. How do I know what the thing comes with, all I know is that my 2 year old little princess wants beef, cheese and pickles only. Give me that so I can be a hero in her eyes please.

Next comes my son, he is easy. Cheeseburger, that is all I need to say. Whatever it comes with he will eat. I used to get the Thickburger but you are paying extra for better onions, mayo(which is not healthy for him), lettuce and tomato, which he takes off the tomato and the lettuce becomes slippery once the ketchup and mustard gets on it. Rather than have his burger sliding off the bun I prefer no lettuce. The lady still has to repeat back to me 1/3 pound cheeseburger with everything on it. This makes me wonder, why she just says everything on this one but can not just say pickles only on the other one.

Then the wife, she wants bacon and cheese only. So I say I need another 1/3 pound cheeseburger, plain. Add bacon. This threw the cashier off course. She actually asks, 'just plain with bacon? Do you want cheese?' I said cheeseburger, thus implying the request for the fake processed yellow stuff that you call cheese in this establishment. I refrain from using big words like fake or cheese and just answer, 'Cheese and bacon.' Her response astounds me. 'No meat?' Since I am inside, I can not see the Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck shaped clouds in the sky of my previously joyful day, but I know they are LOL or ROFL or whatever you want to say.

I answer directly this time, 'It wouldn't be a burger without the meat. CHEESEBURGER (said slow and well enunciated) with just bacon.' She still seemed confused so I noted that I was not paying until she repeated this, what I thought to be simple, order back to me. She started to tell how how much I owed her, but I interupted, 'now for me I am easy to get along with, I just want a six dollar burger.' Then I think, why not take advantage of the situation and confuse this girl a bit more, so i ask. 'Oh wait Six bucks for a burger, hmmmm maybe I don't have enough.' This brought out exactly the response that I wanted from her as she replied, 'Oh the six dollar burger only costs $3.85'

'Wow that is like a one-third off sale on a one-half pound burger. I bet the name six dollar burger scares off a few customers though as they may think that it realy costs six dollars.' She is confused even more, but I do not stop there. 'Why not call the thickburgers the four and a half dollar burger, then I feel like I am getting a good deal when I find out they are less than $3' She ignored this and read back the order, correctly, and the price. I also got 2 large curly fries.

Twenty bucks once I added that cookies -n-cream milkshake because I am not just trying to be a great father, but a great husband as well. Twnety bucks, now those are some good burgers and all but twenty bucks buy a lot of ramen noodles, peanut butter and bread. Imagine if I had gotten the combo meals for the sugary drinks to make my kids, and myself, hyper. I don't want kid's meals or toys that are only 99 cents with any purchase. I don't want to add the local college team's basketball hat for only $4.99. I certainly do not want an apple turnover with its molten contents sure to do permanent damage to my tastebuds for 89 cents. All I want is maybe to be able to get a nice meal for my family once in a while without having to say goodbye to Andrew Jackson in the process.

I have an Ing account as many readers of this forum do. If you do not , why don't you...it is a savings account..you want or have a savings account right? You deposit $250 or more and if *cough* someone *cough* invites you, you get an extra $25 and I, err, the person who refers you gets $10. Then you can refer someone else and get your own $10. The interest is better than any standard, or as they say in the business, brick and mortar bank.

So I mention all of these benefits to my Mother...her response of course was 'What's the catch?' Why does everything have to have a catch?

I explain that they don't have banks on every corner for you to drive by and think 'oh yeah I need a savings account,' so they pay account holders, like myself, to say 'Hey, you need a savings account' for them.

She still hasn't asked for a referral.

I took books back to the library, and did not pay a late charge. There were 14 books at a dime a day for seven days means if I forgot and had to wait until next week to take them back, I would have to pay $9.80. This means I saved $9.80 today by not forgetting the library books, when I drove past the library.

Come to think of it, I did not get a ticket for going through the stop sign because I came to a complete stop. This saved me another $142.50. Then I drove by McDonald's, and even though I was hungry, I did not stop. This saved me another $5.75. I also went straight home after the library and did not drive all the way to BJs to buy milk. Everyone knows you can't go to BJs without spending >$50 so that comes to $207.05.

Then there is the gas I would have used going past my house to get to BJs, which would have been $2.76 and I would have then had to stop to buy gas, meaning another $8 for that super duper car wash because I would have pressed the Y button by mistake. So all total I saved $217.81 today. Not bad.

I pull up to the pump the other day. I can hear those birds chirping the happy sound. I can see the Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck shaped clouds. I am smiling. I am having a great day so far, and pumping gas can not take that away from me can it?

I am standing there after swiping my card through the reader and notice that even though it is sunny, it is chilly and I am not wearing a jacket. The cool wind is blowing my hair all up in my face, but I do not mind, as I am having a great day. The card reader beeps the pump says I can choose my grade and begin fueling, which I do. The digital display shows that the gas is pumping at about the same rate that I could fill my tank if I were using a teaspoon to pour gas into my tank.

The money side of the reader, well with the prices these days, that is still counting up pretty quickly, but not the gallons. I look again, through the strands of hair across my face and I swear that every once in a while the numbers are counting backwards! Now the cold wind is annoying. It has been three minutes and I have successfully added one gallon of liquid refreshment to my thirsty vehicle.

Another two minutes goes by and the wind picks up. Dust is now blowing around the station and thanks to my hair, I am the only person not shielding their eyes. The wind is blowing so much that the Mickey Mouse cloud waves sadly as he is pushed out of sight. On second glance, he is not waving, that is only one of his fingers that he is shaking at me. The nerve of that mouse. I am getting strange looks from the other patrons as I give the one finger salute back to the sky.

The entire process of adding twelve gallons of fuel takes ten minutes and you know I had to laugh when the pay at the pump computer asked if I wanted to get my car washed. By the time I get back on the road, it is now rush hour traffic.(which lasts two and a half hours but is still called rush hour)So it takes my twenty-five minutes longer to get home just to stop and get gas, and I am freezing to death in the process.

*disclaimer* As man I am not equipped with milk makers. This rant only poses my opinion, purely from a cost perspective.

I am not going to look up the actual costs because I have no idea how much a container of formula powder lasts!

Let us analyze the costs of nursing vs. bottles. My Brother's wife bottle fed, My wife nurses. My wife's breasts are not only visually appealing, but God gave them to her for free! The bottles, while you may get a bunch of them as shower gifts, you will undoubtedly not like them and have to buy a different more expensive brand and more nipples. The SIL had to have the bottles that are angled and with a grippy surface so the infant can hold the bottle by itself. My wife's nipples wipe clean in the shower, the bottle nipples must be boiled. Boiling my wife's *censored* is not a good idea.

While boiling those bottles and nipples, there will come a time when you step away, probably to tend to the baby, and when you return you will smell burning rubber and notice that the water is all gone. This scientific experiment in evaporation, will cost you the price of a few nipples, a bottle or two, and maybe a new pot. My brother had to get the new pot. My wife has yet to have to replace either of her *censored*. Minor cost added to the brother's total for electricity for his stove and very little cost for the water. My wife was going to take that shower anyway, so no cost for me.

Then they have to buy the formula, my wife makes hers all day long (comment from wife: All night long too!) They have to add water, ok my wife drinks water too so we will not count this against them. I will however note that drinking this water keeps my wife healthy, and putting the water in the bottle does nothing for my SIL. This formula is expensive and they always seemed to run out meaning my brother had to spend gas money in the middle of the night to get more. If I wake up in the middle of the night I get my baby, hand him or her to the wife and hold the flashlight while she attaches our baby to her *censored*, then I go back to sleep.

Go out to the mall, my wife will never forget her breasts, nor will they ever need to be thrown out because the milk was left in them too long and you are afraid that even boiling them (again the bottles not the breasts) will not make them reusable. Her *censored* may leak, and her shirt will get cleaned when she washes it anyway, if the bottle leaks, it may ruin everything else in the pack, like my peanut butter sandwich, or worse the older kid's snacks.

Once the infant is older they will, and I guarantee this, use the bottle as a means of distributing the formula to the floor. This will inspire them to make a Picasso-like image on the carpet that will need to be deep cleaned if it is not noticed right away and blotted up. The odds of my wife painting like Picasso with her *censored*- not likely at best.

I will never find one of my wife's *censored* with old milk in it lying under the bed or behind the bookcase, ever. The child will never have to be scolded for throwing one of her *censored* and knocking something valuable over.

My wife feels a special bond with the child while she is the sole source of life. My SIL puts the baby down with a pillow on its belly to help prop up the bottle and reads a magazine on the couch next to the cute little guy or girl. Not much bonding there.

And last but not least, once the child is off the bottle, which may take a while as they are used to carrying it around with them, the bottles go back to taking up space until they are needed again. My wife's *censored*, well I get them back!


The post has been censored at the wife's request - twice. How do I feel about this? I am *censored* and *censored, censored* that the *censored* word *censored* can not be used in this *censored* blog!! Oh yeah *censored*

Wow, In addition to all of the other great benefits that I mentioned about parking in the farthest space from the building, I found another one. Saturday when I left work, it was very windy. Leaves were blowing all around and I had to kind of look down to keep the dirt out of my eyes. Looking down was to my good fortune as I found a $1 bill wedged in the pine needles that they put around all of the trees on the islands in the ashphalt sea. No doubt someone in a closer space had it fall out of their pocket and the wind took it all the way across the lot, where my car sits all alone. Had I not parked all the way out there, that dollar would have been claimed by the landscaping team the next time they fluff up the pine needles.

Now can I claim that Dollar as savings due to the fact that I use that parking space to save gas?

You are hungry, in a hurry, and for the sake of this story you have a mail-in rebate that will pay you back every penny that you spend at Burgers-backwards R-Us.

You pull up in the drive through, the window is already open because the weather is beautiful. It takes you a second or two but you can find those Mickey and Donald shaped clouds up there in the blue sky. The cars in front of you pull in, talk to the big burger, and drive on. The line is moving so fast that you had not noticed the chorus line of robins that are once again whistling that happy tune. You get to the big burger and...

'wbelejdcome dotro toto fcof tjgf j order?'

'Excuse me?' You politely ask for a repeat even though you know what they said, because you want them to know that you can not hear them to alleviate future discrepencies, just in case.

'WELCOME TO BURGERS ARE US MAY I TAKE YOU ORDER!!' This is so loud that the robins fly away and land on the roof all the way on the other side of the drive through line. There is now a ringing in your ears that may never go away. You shake off the stunning affects of the sonic waves and proceed to place your order.

'I would like a number two combo please.' The sun shines on and aside from missing the birds chirping you can almost taste that double bacon cheeseburger with extra everything and life of course is good.

'YOU WANT THAT BIG ASS SIZED???' He called out in a deep voice that echoes throughout the passenger compartment of your vehicle.

'Sure thing and thank you for asking.' You reply nicely to get him to stop thinking that you are annoying him.

'ANYTHING ELSE!' the attendant obviously thinks you are deaf since you could not hear him at first and will most likely continue to scream as long as he talks to you. YOu have no problem hearing him now, nor is there any issues in hearing him chewing his gum, open-mouthed.

'No that will-' You notice on the convenient display that the price for your combo which should be $4.98 shows as $5.59. Then you trace its origin to the fact that it says number 1 combo instead of number 2. 'Umm I wanted a number 2 combo please.'

'SO YOU SAY NO THAT IS ALL, BUT THEN YOU WANT TO ADD A NUMBER 2?!?' He is obviously being overworked and underpaid and taking it out on you. The sun slowly fades behind that fanged Mickey cloud. Donald is gone, probably chased from the sky by the ominous storm clouds shaped like the Beagle Boys.

'I do not wish to add a number 2, I wanted to point out that I ordered a number 2 combo and not a number 1...please...if it is not too much trouble.' That last comment was to put a spit shield over your burger and Whirly- curly fries.

*SIGH* That sigh nearly pops the speaker but it does not end there. 'SO YOU WANT TO CHANGE YOU ORDER TO A NUMBER 2?'

You do not get into an arguement and agree. This should make things better, right?

'WHAT KIND OF DRESSING ON YOUR SALAD?'

'Ummm salad, a number 2 is the double bacon cheeseburger.' You hope you are correct and confirm this on the handy oversized menu that hangs next to the giant screaming burger of doom.

'SORRY ABOUT THAT I THOUGHT YOU SAID NUMBER 4.' A quick scan of the sign shows a 4 to be chicken shaped nuggets of mystery meat and still no salad but you do not want to digress, so you remain quiet. 'YOU WANT EVERYTHING ON THAT?'

'Yes please.' rain drops begin falling on the hood and windshield of your car.

'SEVENTEEN EIGHTY-FOUR PLEASE PULL AROUND TO THE FIRST WINDOW!!' This is not right obviously you you interupt.

'I thought a number 2 was Four Ninety-eight, unless they increased the tax rate that much.' Your humor and quick wit are wasted, probably because he doesn't get the joke. He has charged you for The number 1 2 and 4 meals. The 1 and 2 disappear leaving only the chicken nuggets, which somehow are one of the few things on Earth which do not taste like chicken.

'SORRY ABOUT THAT, SIX BUCKS EVEN PLEASE PULL AROUND!!'

'The screen still shows number 4?' You inquire knowing that they are looking for the grease-soaked fries left over from this morning to put in your bag.

'YEAH I WOULD NEED A MANAGER TO OVERRIDE THE DISPLAY BUT I GOT YOUR ORDER AS A NUMBER 2 WITH EVERYTHING ON IT. WOULD YOU LIKE KETCHUP WITH THAT?'

'yes please.' You say just knowing that you are going to have to go inside and talk to the manager. You drive around the side of the building hand the smiling man the $6 and pull up to the second window. The birds do their business on your roof while squawking that annoying song by the wiggles, and the man slams a beat up bag of squashed fries and a mystery product that is not wrapped in the double bacon cheeseburger paper. Then a loud crack of thunder booms and a monsoon-like rain starts. It is blowing sideways and if you get out of your car to go inside to speak to the manager you will be soaked from head to toe.

'Have a nice day.' Mr. Smiley says softly.

If I told you that you won the Mega Power Great States lottery and your prize would either be $1 million or I could give you a penny on the first of the month, 2 pennies on the second, 4 on the third and double it every day for the rest of the month, which would you take?
Date DailyDollars Total Dollars
1 0.01 0.01
2 0.02 0.03
3 0.04 0.07
4 0.08 0.15
5 0.16 0.31
6 0.32 0.63
7 0.64 1.27
8 1.28 2.55
9 2.56 5.11
10 5.12 10.23
11 10.24 20.47
12 20.48 40.95
13 40.96 81.91
14 81.92 163.83
15 163.84 327.67
16 327.68 655.35
17 655.36 1310.71
18 1310.72 2621.43
19 2621.44 5242.87
20 5242.88 10485.75
21 10485.76 20971.51
22 20971.52 41943.03
23 41943.04 83886.07
24 83886.08 167772.15
25 167772.16 335544.31
26 335544.32 671088.63
27 671088.64 1342177.27
28 1342177.28 2684354.55

That is more than $2.68 million in February and that would double 2 times in the months with 30 days to over $10.72 million and again to over $21.44 million in months with 31 days. Those pennies add up fast when increasing exponentially!!

I read an article where a boy had patented a

certain way to swing on a playground swing. and I got thinking. If I patent something rather mundane I could get rich suing everyone for infringing on my patent. For instance, I want to get a patent on a certain way to knock on a door. Like this 'Knock Knock Knock' Now anytime I see a movie where they knock like that I will sue the director, the editor, the actor/actress knocking in my patented way, the actor/actress opening the door for not seeing the infringement and warning the knocker, and the film companies responsible for producing and distributing the film.

Then there is the greeting on the teelphone, not everyone greets the caller the same way and I think I have a right to get a patent on the simple yet heartfelt greeting 'hello' when answering my phone. Then, not only can I watch for my patented greeting in movies, but I can make hundreds of calls each day from my lawyers office to celebrities and other wealthy people, filing a grevience on any and all who answer with my special welcoming hello.

Then I can patent a way of walking with my feet shoulder width apart, and a pattern of breathing where I go in then out.

I think they should color the water...They could flavor it but that has been done.

Instead of cherry coke and vanilla coke and coke twist, they could have Bright Blue Dasani, Pretty Pink Dasani, Ohhhh Orange Dasani, Petal Purple Dasani, Hello Yellow Dasani, and Really Red Dasani. Still tastes the same still has 0% everything on the back still just water, but now in colors to show off your mood, or individuality. 'Why drink clear water like everyone else in your office, when you can show them you feel pretty today with your pretty pink Dasani on your desk!' 'Let the boss know that you stand out from the team when he sees your Really Red Dasani on the boardroom table.'

Yeah then take it a step further and let the color be like the color in Kool-aid so that your tongue and teeth would be Birhgt Blue for the rest of the day. That way not only the people lucky enough to see the cool bottle of blue water on your desk, but anyone who sees your smile, would know that you are not drinking Evian (naive backwards) or fountain water.

I am sitting at a traffic light, and I notice competing gas station on either side of the street. This is not so uncommon,but the differences in prices was. The station on the left was charging $2.21 for low grade, $2.31 for mid grade and the expected $2.41 for Super Duper V power techron octane up the wazoo grade.

The other station is $2.16 for low grade, that is a whole nickel cheaper just for crossing the street. I would sit there, blocking traffic with my left indicator blinking to cross a not so busy street to save a nickel per gallon. Then I read on this station is not going the dime per grade level increase, they are only charging $2.21 for mid grade. Wow that means I can either save a nickel or get 2 higher octane for the same price at the Eastern station. The good stuff was only 7 cents higher at $2.28.

If I were the type to spoil my car with the good stuff, I think I'd buy that dasani first, I would be saving 13 cents per gallon at that station. The best part of the story is that a half mile up the road I can turn right and go one block and get the 87 octane for $2.11, so I wouldn't be stopping at either of these stations but I never saw that much difference in price at two gas stations across from each other before.

Seeing the markup in the grocery stores, I am thinking of growing something myself to save money. The problem is what to grow. I have a small yard with a cliff in the back, so no amber waves of grain shall by seen out my back window. Potatoes? We grew those when I was little and I do eat a lot of potatoes, but I have clay not good quality potatoe growing dirt, so I imagine that I would end up with with spuds in such a size that they could be considered 'popcorn' potatoes...I could probably market those, have Jessica Simpson sing 'one of these days these spuds are gonna...' Anyway..

Tried carrots once they ended up the size of my thumb, acceptible, but cleared out the whole garden to get two salads and a carrot cake. I want something more substantial, then it hits me. I went to BJs and looked at the spices going for something expensive so even if I only get a little bit of viable spice from my garden I am getting a good deal in worth. This goes double when you figure you don't go through them as much so one batch of a spice could last a while.

I came to bay leaves and whole basil leaves, those puppies are so light that they end up being $50 a pound...wow. I figure if I am growing leaves worth that much in my garden the FDA or DEA or someone will be staking out my patio waiting for me to harvest. Peppers? I really like red and orange peppers but really never buy them because they cost so much more than green peppers, which I rarely buy because, umm, well because they aren't free. Wonder if I could grow red peppers. Oh banana peppers, that would be good, I like them in sauces or on pizza and burgers, and I don't need a lot, one pepper covers a meal.

Banana peppers would not be saving me as much money as I would like though. You get a whole jar of pickled peppers for $2 or so with coupon . Red or orange peppers would be a few bucks worth, but what I really need is to grow beef. Where can I get some steak seeds? Two summers ago I got some decent 85% lean beef for 99 cents a pound on several sales. Last summer the best I found was the not so good 80% lean for $1.79. What gives with beef prices? I could grow some 93% lean to grind along the perimeter and some tenderloin in a few rows in the center.

Oh well I will think of something to grow that will be worth my time.

I remember buying ears of corn direct from a farmer's market and thinking why are these so expensive in the grocery stores. Well The store buys them in bulk so the farmers would give them an even better deal. Then they have to ship them from the farm to their distribution center.

They pay workers there to inventory and seperate the corn based on hos many ears each store needs in the region. THey are shipped again and deisel fuel is pretty expensive now days. The store has to pay a stocker to unload the truck and put the corn on the shelf. They pay a 'visual team' to analyse how they should be stacked. No one will buy corn if it is 25 cents in a bucket, but they will pay 40 cents if it were lined up like a train all the way around the store. Then they have a loss prevention team to make sure no one steals said corn.

The managers at the store get a bonus if enough of the corn is bought, and of course they have to pay to have their carpets cleaned and floors waxed, because no one will buy food from a store that is not spotless. Pay the cashiers and the baggers and the dudes who have to go out in the lot and round up the carts. After all of this that corn costs 3 times as much but it is so much more convenient to drive 6 to 8 miles in the gas guzzling SUV than it would be to get out to that farmer's market.

Besides since so few people are buying from the market, the farmers have to raise the prices there to make it worth their time.