The Empty Cabinets of my Mind

I Cannot Lift my New Bowling Ball

It has been a while since I went bowling and sadly I have gotten so out of shape that I cannot even lift the snazzy new reactive bowling ball I bought a few months ago.

So I'm off to see just how bad my aim has gotten in a short time, but am taking what some of my friends call my "kid ball"  -- it is hot pink and weighs only 8 pounds.  No, it doesn't knock down a lot of pins, but I am not so sure I would knock that many down even with an "adult" sized ball.  I am just learning this sport.

But it is a lot of fun, and if there are prizes for trying hard I should get at least a couple.

UPDATE:  OK, so I got five strikes in a row with the 8 pound ball, but it was no-tap.  Still, that is my best so far.  I heard through the grapevine that one of the ladies there did not approve of my blue nail polish.  I painted white tips on today.   A lot of reviewers online have expressed the opinion that colored French tips are tacky.  These must be the same people who used to tell me that it was unacceptable to wear white shoes before Easter. 

PayDay Loans

This is not the sort of thing I usually blog about, but a nice repeat advertiser requested the words payday loans in the title of a post.  Why not?   I have a good friend who has had both ups and downs in her life that she probably knows way more on this subject than I do.

Personally, I have never taken out any payday loans and being retired it does seem rather unlikely that I will. On the other hand, I like to be informed about topics that might be of general interest.

For example, although I do not draw Social Security, I recently stopped at one of their information places and it was quite an experience. It was housed in the same quarters with some kind of employment assistance service and the place was packed.  Most of people there had drawn faces and blank stares.  They all looked sort of gray, too, with a lot of faded clothing and gray skin, too, like they smoked a lot of cigarettes.   It seemed to me that one of the people in the lines was not much interested in getting a job, because he had horns tattooed on his forehead in an apparent bid to look like the devil.  Maybe he could get a job one day of the year...on Halloween? 

The Social Security Administration's web pages are much more informative than they were the last time I looked.  Now people can even file for their benefits online.

For some reason this makes me wonder whether people can get payday loans against entitlements such as social security or VA compensation checks.

Cambria was Fun to Visit

Recently a friend took me to see Hearst Castle.  We spent two nights at a charming Bed & Breakfast Inn in Cambria.  Here is the private porch that came with our room:

 

All of the furniture in the house was hand-crafted on site.  They served freshly made items from a bakery down the street and these included one of my very favorite things which I call spinach pies.  Probably these properly had a different name, but they contained cheese, spinach, and tomato slices baked in a flaky crust that was scrumptiously crispy on the outside without being at all dried out in the middle.  They were simply awesome.

The Inn is called Squibb house and it was affordable compared to other B&B's in the area.  While the rooms were not huge, nor was the place extremely fancy, it was clean and wholesome in a most refreshing way.  The staff was extremely friendly and accommodating as well.  Also, and I doubt this will happen often, but we absolutely lucked out in that for the two nights we stayed there were no other guests, so we were able to leave the door to our room open and enjoy the parlour all to ourselves. 

The doors to the unoccupied rooms were left open too, so we took a little tour of the entire house and got to see all of the hand-made furniture.  The rooms also contained shelves stacked with guest journals where people who stayed in each room wrote down something about themselves and what they liked about the room/s.  Some of the stories were quite interesting. 

Another Kind of Rotten Eggs

Lately I have had to waste too much of my precious time deleting spam comments from this blog.  Naturally, I like traffic to my pages and encourage comments.   However, there are a few no-no's. 

1)  Curse-words and/or other sensitive materials are not allowed. 

2)  If I've sold an ad-link in a post, I cannot allow my advertizer's competitors to spam my comments with ads for their goods and services.

3)  Although anyone can make a teeny mistake in spelling or grammar once in a while, even me, comments that look as though they have been run through an online translation program are not acceptable, especially when they contain links to sites that exist for the sole purpose of selling something. 

Sometimes there is a fine line between innocent self-promotion and spam.  Sometimes I have been too lazy or too kind-hearted to delete every single spam comment, but recently I found a spam comment that broke all three of my precious rules.  Fortunately, the TypePad blogging platform that I use, which was wonderful before, has made a lot of improvements.  Now I can report spam AND delete obnoxious comments with one keystroke right from the e-mail notification that informs me a comment has been left. 

 

 

 

Rotten Egg Smell?

It has been a long time since I smelled a rotten egg. But I read an article recently explaining that some of the newer homes have that odor coming out of the walls.

It is normal in some older homes for the water to have some sulpher (hydrogen sulfide gas actually) smell in the water, and according to government sites exposure to this is not dangerous. In fact, exposure to a little bit of this gas is said to be good for you.  In one study they apparently injected low doses of the stuff into heat attack victims to try to prevent tissue damage. 

However, in newer homes if the smell is coming from the walls then it could be a warning of gas emissions at a level that is damaging not only to people, but also to expensive appliances such as air conditioning units and microwave ovens, or even to jewelry.  One link with more information about this problem is http://www.chinesedrywallproblem.com and also various other groups are starting campaigns to advise the public on the problems.

Homeowners in Florida, and some other states have experienced unacceptable levels of hydrogen sulfide gas emissions which have destroyed copper coils and even nails and screws.   Upon investigation, it was found that coal ash had been added to the gypsum in the dry wall.  This causes a bad chemical reaction that apparently has resulted in some infant deaths.   The elderly are also at risk.

Follow the Yellow Disc Road

As much as I'd like to keep whining about Emily, right now I have to go play shuffleboard on my home team.  I was tied until I went on a 5 game losing streak after which I won 4 games in a row, so this is a critical day for me.  I hope to be tied again after the first game and the next one will be a tie breaker.  Ewww.  This is not at all like watching paint dry. 

Emily has me Spoiled

When my GPS works, and it usually does, it is a wonder how I can go off in a zillion wrong directions and then get professionally and reliably rescued time after time when I am on the road.

But a person can get used to this kind of handling, and so I often think how nice it would be to have service that could "recalculate" not just the routes on my road trips, but  the whole direction I'm going in life. 

In fact, I do have a lot of software programs that lean in that direction, and increasingly over the past decades I have been able to consolidate more of that kind of activity into fewer but more powerfully and easier to use programs and devices.  In particular, I am now able to store more and more of my must have at my fingertips kind of data and applications online.  Now that smart phones are so reliable and so much more than just fancy toys, web based applications have taken on a new importance and meaning in my life. 

One reason I can indulge in blogging about this subject is that in the course of monetizing my blog I often run across advertisors who offer CRM Software and other services. I like posting links for these companies, especially when they indicate that they prefer in-post disclosure.

This also gives me a chance to bone up on topics such as core3crm and other things that are of great interest to me, but that lately I don't have time to study as much as I'd like.  So if you are looking for CRM Solutions or even if you are just interested in finding out what they are, thanks for taking a look at these links.

 

Mostly Love

I could have had a bit of a love/hate relationship with my awesome Garmin Nuvi GPS.  Seriously, she is my best friend.  Yesterday, however, there must have been some atmospheric turbulence, because she kept dropping the satellites in one particular area.  This resulted in my being 5 lanes over in the wrong direction when a vital turn came up. 

Emily, which I call her because that is, I believe, the name of the woman's whose wonderful voice guides me hither and yon when I am on the road, is usually a master in the art of "recalculating."  That is because I test the last thread of her alleged sanity by telling her when she makes a recommendation, "No, Emily, that is not going to happen" and then charging off in another direction, secure in the assumption that she will bail me if I made a mistake. 

 Yesterday, however, for the FIRST TIME, she got her North mixed up with her South, and got me halfway to Santa Ana when I wanted to end up at Lake Elsinore.  When she finally pulled herself together and recalculated she then absolutely insisted that I take an alternate route that turned out to be a TOLL ROAD.  Bleaghh!  More on this after the next ad, OK?

But it's Dry Heat!

When the ambient air temperature goes above 117 F out in the Mohave Desert and your skin starts feeling like maybe it is sunburned when you have only been in the shade, we laugh and say, "But it's Dry Heat!" 

This time of year, however, the Tri-State Area is a bit cooler than Palm Springs and instead of being a blessing, the dry air indoors changes "dry heat" from being a good term to a bad one.

Some people, in fact, find the indoor air so dry that they have to start thinking about Steam Inhalers.

So imagine my delight when this morning's inbox contained an ad offer to post something about the topic "Warm Mist Humidifier"  That served as a reminder to study up on the difference between the benefits of warm mist and cool mist. Personally, I don't have any breathing problems, but I do know that if my home gets too dry, the furniture could crack.  It is also a fact that while all humidifiers need to be kept clean, a warm mist humidifier should be cleaned a bit mor scrupulously, so when making a purchase I recommend one that is easy to clean in order to encourage compliance.   My unit has a choice between hot or cool, but if one has to choose one or the other, then the climate would be a major consideration since a cool vapor is more appropriate in a hot environment whereas a warm mist should be more comfortable in a colder room.  However, it is a matter of personal choice.

The other question is whether you want to humidify the whole house or just have one or more of those Personal Steam Inhalers available.

Now They Want More Money

Free parking was one of the reasons we joined the San Diego Zoo. The upgraded tickets are supposed to get us in free at the Safari Park too, but when I went there they demanded $6 for parking at that location.  I told the guard I'd come back another day, but asked him how much the tram cost.  He bluntly informed me they didn't have that anymore.  But instead of exiting as he told me to, I drove up to the entrance and parked in a 10-minutes only space (which I began to realize would not have been there if people were actually required to pay $6 just to get information, duhhh...

And yes, Virginia, there IS a tram.  I cannot wait to go back and pay my $6 and then purchase tram tickets.  Good thing I went in advance to check it out, too, as I would not have known that they require CLOSED TOED SHOES.  My ever-present sandals would keep my from being allowed to go on that splendid ride. 

So I went to the ocean instead.  No parking fees there: