Blog Number 180

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I had quite a weekend just hanging around the house with the family.  We spent an inordinate amount of time playing Texas Hold 'Em Poker (the son cannot get enough of it for some reason).  We also had a few sessions of Uno, Tri-ominoes, Yahtzee, and Chess along with a few other games.  The weather did not co-operate so we staying inside a lot.  We did venture out on Saturday for breakfast at Cafe Brazil (this was a very pricey breakfast - $37 with tip for the four of us!).  We also went to the $1 theatre and watched Bridge to Terabithia (well worth the $1 each that we spent).  We went to church Sunday morning and other than a Starbuck's run on Monday, we pretty much stayed at home.

One thing we did NOT do was watch cable TV.  We did watch The King and I on VHS that we had rented from the library.  We have really cut out TV for the kids and the wife and I only turn it on at night after the kids are gone to bed and it is just background noise really as we have both been reading some good books lately (I finished The Turk in just over a day!) and the TV really is just background noise.  We had talked off and on about disconnecting our cable service and tonight I made a call to AT&T Home Entertainment and cut us off from civilization.

Time will tell if we can go cold turkey.  We are cheating a little by doing it at the end of the TV season since most of the shows that we watched are showing only summer reruns.  The lady on the phone at AT&T could not have been nicer and only tried to tempt me a little with a lower price or a lower service level.  Once I assured here that I was not changing to a competing service (I cannot since the apartment complex I am in only has 1 choice), she resigned herself to the fact that I was lost as a customer and disconnected us effective today.  We even have told the kids that we are going to take the $39.92 / month that we are saving and putting that in the offering plate at our church.

Well, the bath and shower time is over now in my home and it is time to spend some time with the family.  The son wants more Texas Hold 'Em and the wife wants us to read another chapter (out loud) of Prince Caspian so I have to go cast the deciding vote.  Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 179

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Well for the first time this week it was just the four of us around the dinner table.  Once dinner and baths were finished we sat down to play that all time family fun game - "Texas Hold 'Em."  You see there was a co-worker in the building this week who is based out of Houston.  She evidently was at some conference put on by our company and she made away with the leftover gifts and she was passing them out while she was at the office.  She stopped by my cubicle while I was on the phone and dropped off a small pouch that contained a deck of cards, lots of poker chips and a small instruction booklet.  Once the kids saw what I had, they demanded that I teach them.  The 5 year old really just wanted to play with the chips but my son thought that he wanted to give poker a try.  I walked him through what a "pair" means and a "straight" as well as the other hands and their relative strength.  He was just ready to play, period and was not interested any any more instructions from me.

We played the first game by playing in teams (the daughter and I vs. the son and the wife).  I tried to explain estimating the odds that your hand is better, tried to explain the finer points of bluffing (or pretending as I had to call it so he would understand) and tried to explain placing the proper wager.  In the end the daughter and I had all the chips.  We then played with the son and wife having their own chips and cards.  The wife was out very quickly (she is a terrible bluffer) but the son hung in there for quite a few more hands.  I got lucky on the turn card during the last hand and he got his first lesson in lady luck.  The daughter was just happy she had more poker chips to stack.  Given the amount of luck involved compared to chess, I think the son will stick to chess and the Texas Hold 'Em pouch has seen it's last use during family game time.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 178

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

There are 2 large revolving doors at the entrance of my building.  Though there are no directions indicating if you should go through clockwise or counter-clockwise, I have only seen people go through counter-clockwise.  That is, until today.  As I arrived at work this morning there was a lady holding a large balloon and she went through clockwise.  Though I cannot know for sure, it looked a lot harder to push "against the flow."

Fast forward to lunch time.  I have expanded my lunch options by ordering a "made to order" deli sandwich 3 times this week.  The price on the overhead sign simply says "Made to Order Deli Sandwiches: $3.59."  There are prices for side items (chips, etc.) but it appears that all sandwiches are the same price.  The sandwich I bought on Tuesday was $3.59 and the sandwich I bought on Thursday was $3.59.  I asked for the exact same sandwich today as I did on Thursday.  There was a sample sandwich made up along with a sign indicating what was on the sandwich (chicken breast, spinach leaves, some sort of spicy cream cheese spread, all on ciabatta bread).  The sign repeated the price, namely $3.59.

Everything was going well until I came to the checkout line.  Now I have blogged before about a certain cashier who makes me open my pizza box to prove to her that I am not getting a different kind of pizza than I claimed to have had in the box.  This cashier also refused to charge me the correct price for breakfast one day when she claimed that she had to weigh the breakfast when the servers were out of the sheets of paper that indicated what special I had ordered.  I have avoided this cashier for the last few months.  Today when I got to the check out lines, there were only 2 cashiers, a nice lady and the pizza box / breakfast weigher Nazi woman.  The nice lady had 3 people in line, the Nazi woman none.  I tried to avoid eye contact and get in the line for the other cashier but she said (in a loud voice), "Sir, I can help you down here."  I sighed and lowered my shoulders and walked over to her register.

She then proceeded to charge me more than $3.59 for my sandwich.  I asked her why and she indicated that specialty bread was 40 cents more.  I pleaded my case with her, mentioning that this exact same sandwich was $3.59 yesterday and that there was a sign specifically stating that this sandwich was $3.59.  This was not enough for her and in the end I gave up.  I was on the verge of finding a representative of the company that runs the cafeteria and registering a complaint.  In the end though, I thought it not worth the trouble.  In the future, I will just scout out the check out lines a little more in advance before heading over to pay for my food.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 177

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Has it really been over a week since my last blog?  Wow, I don't think I have gone so long without at least something upsetting me (so much that a blog is the result).  Maybe my life is just too good right now for blogging.  I even received a phone call today from a faithful reader registering their complaint from the lack of entries (hence this less-than-entertaining entry).  My mother arrives tomorrow morning so we will have a free babysitter for the next few days.  Surely something will happen then worth blogging about.  The wife and kids are getting up early to pick her up from the airport.

We attended a Homeschool Book Fair over the weekend.  There are always tons of companies showing off their curriculum along with various seminars and speakers.  The previous years we attended the Homeschool Conference in Indiana of course so this was our first one since moving toTexas.  It was slightly smaller than the one in Indiana actually but the Indiana one is for the entire state while this one was probably just for the Dallas area.  At any rate, I really enjoyed a presentation from a speaker about the Visionary Father.  Good Stuff.

At any rate, those of you tired of waiting for me to blog can go to my son's blog at - xanga.com/my_father_s_son.  He even has videos.  Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 176

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I try to eat lunch as cheap as I can.  This is difficult to do in the cafeteria at work.  Don't get me wrong, the food is quite good but I just have this habit of keeping lunch under $5.  This really limits me to 2 choices: tacos or pizza (veggie's only).  I jump back and forth between the two choices.

When I go to the taco place (they also sell burritos and taco salad along with other choices), I usually get 2 tacos.  You can put whatever you want on them (beef or chicken, rice, beans, peppers, onions, lettuce, tomato, cheese, pico, guacamole, sour cream, etc.).  Since the tacos are only $1 each, you get a really good bargain.  The other day the lady in front of me was pointing to the things she wanted on her taco salad.  When she pointed at the peppers she said "green peppers."  Now in that container of peppers are not only green peppers but also red and yellow (and maybe some orange peppers too).  The guy behind the counter then asked her, "Do you want JUST the green peppers?"  She kind of laughed a little (noticing her mistake) and said, "No, any peppers will do."

Now, because I am who I am (and think the way I do), I had to ask, "Do some people actually ask for ONLY green peppers?"  The guy behind the counter gave out a little sigh and then nodded indicating that (indeed) there were people there that made him pick out ONLY the green peppers.

Incredible!  There are actually people that have the audacity to make these food service people pick through the pile of peppers for only the green ones.  I really could not stop thinking about this all the way back to my cubicle.  This happened last week and I am still thinking about it actually.  I hope I am never in line behind one of these people or I might have to say something.  Anyway if you are ever at my cafeteria, the tacos are a good deal (with or without the non-green peppers).

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 175

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

So a few blogs ago I mentioned some weird phone calls / messages left on my cell phone.  Well the wife has topped me in this category.  She received 22 phone calls yesterday.  All the calls were NOT attempting to call her but rather another number (that did not even share one common number with her cell phone number).  It does seem that all the people that are calling (about 5 unique numbers) are trying to call the same number, it is just being re-routed to her number.  She did receive a phone call from the owner of the number everyone is trying to call.  He actually apologized for the trouble and did say that he called Verizon (our cell phone provider) to try to clear it up but did not get anything accomplished.  It is very frustrating though since the cell phone rings so often.

I woke up this morning with a terrible pain on the outside of my left knee.  It was really hard to walk.  It did not hurt when I put weight on it but rather when I was removing the weight.  Also, it was painful to the touch.  Very weird.  It will keep me from my son's soccer game this morning as there is about a 1/4 mile distance between the parking lot and where the soccer field is located.  I have trouble right now walking from the kitchen to the computer so the 1/2 mile round trip is probably out of the question.  My leg did not hurt when I went to bed so I have no idea how I hurt it.

Next week my manager and his manager are going to Cordoba, Argentina.  My manager has never been there.  Also, my former team leader (whom I went to Argentina with in January) is going to Egypt.  I am jealous of all of them as I very much enjoyed travelling internationally and seeing new places (especially when I don't have to pay for it).  (Sigh) maybe I will get to go somewhere soon (note: the wife is not real excited about this prospect).

My mother will be here in 12 days for a short visit.  The wife and I were discussing how many visitors we have had so far.  So far, every month since we have been in Texas, either someone has come from Indiana to stay with us OR we have been back in Indiana.  We counted 6 times that either my mother or hers has been here (my mom's visit will make 7) and we have been back in Indiana twice (though I was in Argentina the 2nd time and the rest of the family was in IN).  So when we move in September (when our apartment lease is up) we will need to keep this in mind.  Do we keep in a smaller house so as to discourage visitors OR do we go big and encourage them?  Tough call !

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon