Blog Number 313

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

As outlined in my profile, I do not like to wear clothing with a logo on it.  This is because I do not like providing free advertising for anyone.  For the same reason, I do not like having things on my car from any car service provider.  As soon as I get an oil change, I take the little sticker that they put on my windshield and put it in my cup holder or some other place out of sight.  When we brought home our Kia recently, there was a 3" sticker on the rear of the van with the logo of the dealership on it.  As soon as we got home, I took it off.  We brought it back in for a minor repair and when we got it back I was pleased that they did not put another sticker on it.  However, while they had it in the shop, they license plates (here in Texas, we have one for the front and one for the back) came in and the put those on for us.  However, they also put a license plate cover which had the dealership name on it along with their website.  So today I took them off.  They are not paying me for advertising space and I am not such a fan of their business that I wish to give away advertising space for free.  Also, there are way too many things competing for the driver's attention without me offering another option other than paying attention to the road in front of them and the traffic around them.

Words my wife tried to use in Boggle

eely: adjective - OK, I did not really pay attention to what she said the definition was here nor could I think of a sentence in which to use this word however, this is a word used to describe things that are eellike (FYI, eellike is also a word).

Now,  I am hoping that this section of my blog would discourage my wife not to attempt these words but it seems to have little or no effect.  OK, we have just enough time for an episode of Little House on the Prairie before bedtime.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 312

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Well I finally made it to my 300th blog*.  I was hoping to have a great entry for you.  Hoping that something super exciting would happened to me (or something super stupid).  But I guess I will let you (as always) be the judge.

Ever since the accident, we have been off schedule as far as grocery shopping goes.  Way back before the accident, the wife would shop on Wednesdays since that was double ad day at Sprout's.  Now we all go shopping together on Saturdays.  This usually eats up a few hours of prime napping time for me (although recently I get to stay home, albeit to put in about 6 hours from home for my place of work).  We shop at a minimum of 2 (but sometimes 3) grocery stores so we can get the best deals (computing in cost of gas going to the various stores).  Today was only a 2 store trip but we did start out at the Frisco library where they have at the entrance this thing...

It is a little hard to see from this picture but this is a stiff brush for wiping off your shoes.  When we first went to the library last year, I asked the kids to guess what this was.  They had no clue so I started dropping hints like "you wipe something off on this" but the hints did not help any (although the son did guess that it was a place for the horses to wipe off their hooves).  Anyway, now whenever we go to the library, both kids invariably have to wipe their shoes (including flip flops) on this brush.

A while back we had a large community garage sale going on in the neighborhood (I think I mentioned this already).  One thing we did buy was this book...

It is a coin book with slots for all 50 state quarters.  I have often seen these in stores and they (like this one) have a list price of around $5.  The one pictured above was more in my price range (ironically priced at only a quarter).  So far we have 23 of the state quarters (though 2 of the quarters have yet to be released and Arizona was just released on June 2, 2008).  Back in 1998 when the state quarter program began I remember seeing books like this and could not imagine having to wait 10 years to complete the collection.  Buying one in mid 2008 and only having to wait 1/2 year or so is about right in my mind for how long it should take to complete the collection.  I will have to keep you posted.

Today the wife and I made a cool deal with the kids but I will save that for another blog.  Thanks, faithful reader, for sticking with me through the first 300 blogs.  Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

* 2012-08-17 Update: I seem to have counted in correctly

Blog Number 311

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Another day, another Boggle contest for the family (though the daughter seldom joins in).  I am on a roll recently (barely winning, but winning nonetheless).  Tonight we had a particularly rough Boggle board...

Every once in a while you get 2 rows (or columns) that are all consonants and none connected that have a combined sound.  For three minutes we struggled and in the end no one scored any points as we all had: you, dye, fed, and out.  This was the hardest one we had ever had I think.  While the son has not ever won (despite a 30 point handicap on a 50 point game) he does play the spoiler quite a bit, knocking off good words that only one of us had written down.  I think he likes playing that part.  Another word game that we discovered recently is Key Master.  It is an online game located at the Addicting Games website.  The basic premise is that as monsters come toward you to do you damage, they carry with them a word.  If you type in that word and hit the enter key, you shoot a laser at them and they die.  You have to be a quick and accurate typist to get very far.  I see why the site is called Addicting Games as the wife is truly addicted to the game.  The son tries to play but he is quite limited as he is still a hunt and peck kind of typist.

Sorry for the short entry tonight, the wife needs the computer for other purposes.  Only one more blog until #300 (woo hoo).

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 310

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

One of our favorite places to shop is a place called Sprout's Farmers Market.  Up until this year, the closest one was in Plano.  When we lived in Allen, we used to get the Sprout's weekly ad in the mail along with a bunch of other grocery ads as we were relatively close to Plano.  When we moved to McKinney, we did not get the ads any longer.  The ads are online but for the first 2 month living here, we did not have internet access here at the house.  So I went to Sprout's website while at work one day and filled out an online form requesting that we be mailed an ad each week.  Very quickly after that we started getting the ad in a manila envelope.

In the last few months, they have opened a Sprout's in Frisco.  Frisco is closer to us than Plano is and to our delight, we started getting the normal weekly ad for it (along with the one in the manila envelope).  Not wanting to waste paper or postage, I went back to the same online form and explained that we no longer needed the ad special mailed to us and thanked them for doing so up until that point in time.  The next week we still received the ad in the manila envelope.  The week after that we still received the ad in the manila envelope.  The week after that, we received 2 ads  in 2 manila envelopes.  One was postmarked out of Plano and the other out of Frisco.  So now we get 3 Sprout's ads and I am fearful to fill out another online form since it might (likely) result in a 3rd ad in a 3rd manila envelope.

As I have mentioned in recent posts, we car shopped for quite a while and then finally bought a van.  The first night that we negotiated with the dealer for the van, we walked out without buying.  It was about 7 pm before we left.  The next day, we received a thank you letter from the dealership stating that they appreciated us considering them for our car purchase.  Since we left so late in the evening the night before, this was likely a follow up letter from the first time my wife test drove at their business.  The day after that, we received a phone call that they would accept our offer but before we showed up, we received another thank you letter in the mail.  It was an exact duplicate to the first letter.  The very next day, we received a 3rd duplicate letter again thanking us for considering them (despite the fact that we already made the purchase).  The day after that was Sunday so we did not get any mail (not even a Sprout's ad).  On the following Monday, we received letters 4 and 5 thanking us for considering them for our next car purchase.  At this point in time I called the dealership and explained that they had just wasted $2 in postage and could they please double check their auto-mailing system in case their were more coming.  The lady on the other end of the phone did not seem to interested in my problem but said she would look into it.

I figure we have at least a few more thank you letters coming.  Who knows when Sprout's will wise up and stop sending us extras too.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 309

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I was going to get a hair cut last night but I couldn't as it was my turn to help my daughter with her shower.  Now, this may make now sense to you but rest assured it makes no sense to me either.  I does make sense however to my wife.  This seemed like a perfectly logical reason to deny me a new doo (I guess).  Anyway, I did get a haircut tonight as I have a meeting at work tomorrow morning and I want to look my best (you never get a second chance to make a first impression).

I usually go to Great Clips for no particular reason other than it is located near my house.  Actually that is not a true statement as the one I go to now was close to my old apartment and I just continue to go there even though there is one close (or closer anyway) to my house.  When I walked in tonight, both stylists (I think that is what they prefer to be called) we sitting in their chairs trying to kill time.  When I walked in, they both sprang to life and immediately do what you have to do in order to get a haircut, they asked me my phone number.  Now, I have had many phone numbers since being here in Texas.  I had my Indiana number, a Texas number at the apartment through Vonage, a Texas number at the apartment through AT&T (just so I could get DSL service), a Texas number here at my current house, and my current (Indiana) cell phone number so I go through the numbers in my head guessing which one I might have used whenever it was that I signed up for my initial Great Clips haircut down here.  After a failed attempt, they then said that they could look up my account by my last name.  What a concept!  Why wouldn't you start with the last name instead of the whole phone number business?  People can remember their last name pretty easily, right?  Perhaps this whole "let me find you in the computer, what is your phone number" concept should tell me the average IQ of the normal Great Clips customer.  At any rate, they found my information (again, why is this needed, just cut my hair) and confirmed my first and last name.

I sat down in the chair that they told me to and they asked me if I wanted my hair cut like last time.  Or at least that is what I think the lady said as she had a pretty heavy accent and did not speak English very well.  Also, she kept calling me Jim.  Since I was the only guy in the building, I assumed she was talking to me and tried to follow along in what she was saying.  Once I was somewhat convinced that I was getting the haircut that I wanted, I then focused on some small talk.  I asked her how long she had been here in the Dallas area and she said 17 years (or it could have been 17 months) and that she came here from Oklahoma after her husband lost his job.  All this time, she kept calling me Jim.  She used my first name (Jim) many, many times.  Way too many times actually like the way a telemarketer would or maybe a door to door salesman.  Even if she used my correct first name, I would have felt uncomfortable with how often she said it.

Jim, how long have you been in Texas?
Jim, the gas prices sure are high,
Jim, how does the back of your hair look, Jim?
Jim, I also cut hair, Jim, in another Great Clips in a nearby town.
Jim, the weather, Jim, sure is hot, Jim, isn't it Jim?

Anyway, I got my hair cut and headed home, had a late dinner with the family and won at Rummikub.  I am going to head to bed now so I am well rested for my important meeting.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jim (er, Jon)

Blog Number 308

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I am on the paperless program with AT&T.  This means of course that I do not get a bill in the mail but rather get my bill via email.  AT&T uses the sbcglobal.net domain name.and (as far as I can tell) will not allow me to receive my bill at any other address other than the one tied to that domain.  There is just one problem, I do not need an email address.  I have had my own domain for about 8 years now and have no desire to change email addresses.  I tried having that email forwarded to my other account but no dice.  I actually had it working once but then received an email indicating that I was accessing their email server incorrectly along with various warnings of what would happen if I did not cease and desist this activity.  At any rate, I check my sbcglobal.net email address every 3 days or so to see when I get my phone bill.  I think I have explained that I only signed up for DSL service with AT&T since it was cheaper than high speed cable internet.  This is due to the fact that all the online deals only worked if the online service could verify your street address.  Since we live on a fairly new street, no online sign up form would work for me.  So, long story short, I signed up for the $4 per month phone service ($14 with fees and taxes) and the $25 per month DSL service.  This month's bill was $5 higher for some reason and so I dug deep and got the courage to call the AT&T help desk for billing questions.

I got through pretty quickly and I explained the reason for my call.  I explained that I did not need the phone service and only got it to get the DSL service.  The said that I should have received a notice on the last page of my February bill explaining the increased fees.  I decided not to belabor the point by saying that I did not receive any bill indicating this (least wise one with a "last page").  She immediately offered to upgrade me to the higher speed internet for $5 more per month.  I explained that I was calling about an increase and certainly was not interested in anything that cost me more.  She did the math for me and said that it was only 17¢ more per day (not even the cost of a cup of coffee she said).  I then asked how much I could save by going to a lower speed service.  She then moved her focus over again to the higher speed service where I could be free wireless service.  I told her that I only had one desktop PC and had no need for wireless.  She then moved on to DISH network and how convenient it would be for me to have only one bill (albeit one at least $30 higher each month) for my phone, internet and TV.  I told her that I did not have and did not want cable or DISH.  She then moved on to the phone service and told me for another $32 per month I could get unlimited long distance, caller ID, etc.  I told her (again) that I did not use this line (other than calling the AT&T billing dept.).  She then told me for only $5 more than that, I could get unlimited international phone calls.  This lady was amazing!  I called to complain about $5 and she wanted to sell me over $70 more per month in services that I kept telling her that I did not need.

Once I hung up I checked out the online form for high speed cable again and to my surprise they can now verify my address.  They have a 6 month offer for $15 less per month (now) than DSL so I think I will sign up.  Of course I will have to call the AT&T folks again to cancel (sigh).  Guess I will have to think about that again.

It is getting a little late but I still have time for...

Words my wife tried to use in Boggle

sog: verb - something er rather that has to do with the adjective soggy (e.g. The milk caused the cereal to sog)

This is not a word and I did not allow her to play it.

Random Bad Quality Pictures With My New Cell Phone

If you can't read the words, it says "TWO USES: It's a Fly Swatter.  It's a Barbeque Lighter."  I did not look at the price but this does not seem like a great idea to me.  The guy who came up with this concept had to be one great salesman.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 307

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Well it is Father's Day but the kids are not up yet so I do not know yet what my present will be.  According to my wife (and my mother, and my brother, and my friends and any co-worker who has had the unfortunate luck of drawing me in a gift exchange) I am very hard to buy for.  So I am not pumping myself up for this year's gift as it will likely come to me with an apology along with the phrase (excuse), "You are hard to buy for."  I told my wife this morning that I wanted to be treated today like she was treated on Mother's Day, namely to sit on the couch all day with pillows and have people do everything for me (including bathing).  Of course for Mother's Day she was in a cast and neck brace and had a 4" cut on her head and in a lot of pain but still, turnabout is fair play.

I think I have mentioned lately that we are playing a lot of Boggle.  As we get better and better, we take chances on words that might exist.  As far as I can tell, there is no penalty for having a fake word (no matter how real it sounds).  We might have to do so as the wife has taken to writing down many words that sound like words.  We tried implementing a "you have to use the word convincingly in a sentence" rule but that just turned into a comedy-fest.  Last night the wife introduced "feebly" and "stably".  I asked her to say the word "feebly" 10 times quickly and she could not (neither could I - try it, it just sounds funny).  I also suggested that Feebly and Stably might be the 8th and 9th dwarfs that Snow White never talked about.  It turns out both of these are actual words.

feebly: adverb - in a faint and feeble manner; "the lighthouse, flashing feebly against the sleet-blurred, rocky backdrop of the coast of north west Norway"
stably: adverb - in a stable solid fixed manner; "the boulder was balanced stably at the edge of the canyon"

Later, I countered with "eos" and "soe" (note they are palindromes).

soe: noun - a large cask, a tub, a large wooden vessel for holding water; a cowl.
eos: noun - the ancient Greek goddess of the dawn

We did not look up any of these words until after the game was over.  I did mark mine out (not counting them) but the wife stood by her words (and, it seems, rightly so).  In the end, I won by more than enough points that these words would not have effected the end results.  As the son picks up more and more new words, the games take longer (since you only get credit for unique words that no one else writes down).

Well, I think the kids are getting up now so it is time to find out what my Father's Day gift is.  Here's hoping!

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 306

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

So the big news is that we now have a van.  It is incredible how powerful of a weapon it is to walk out on the car salesman without budging for before noon the next day he had called me back and told me that he had approval to accept our offer for the 2006 Kia Sedona.  The wife was out test driving other Kia's when I received the call so she quickly stopped and headed home very happy.  After we bought the 8 year / 85,000 mile bumper to bumper warranty and you added on the 6.25% sales tax and you subtract the $10,000 we had from the insurance company for our old van and you through in the Texas inspection tags and license plates (the dealer took care of all of this for us) we ended up having to finance about $8,000 at roughly 6%.  So we have a $250 payment for the next 36 months but hope to pay it off before then.  Although it is time consuming to buy a car even when you walk in with an agreed upon price, the kids did great.  This is due in part to my stern warning that their behavior at the dealership directly determined where we ate dinner that night.  One small threat of taking them to eat Chinese (which they both hate) and they were angels for the 90 minutes it took for all the paperwork and we ended up at Mcalister's (kids eat free on Tuesdays and Thursdays).  Typically there is an argument about who gets to sit by dad so to stop this I told them that whoever wanted to sit by me had to ride home with me in the Buick and not in the new Kia.  All discussion ceased and their loyalty to me evidently can be bought for only the opportunity to ride home in the van for 5 miles.  With Father's Day around the corner....oh well.
Well the coffee is done (I can smell it from clear back here in the bedroom) so it is time to go but I still have time for...

Random Bad Quality Pictures With My New Cell Phone

On the way to work each day I pass this horse ranch.  There have been a few ponies out there lately but this picture does not show them.  Hey, its hard to drive and take pictures at the same time.  Granted, I was only going 10 miles per hour when I snapped this one as traffic was a little bad.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 305

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

The long road to purchasing a vehicle to replace our minivan that was totaled almost came to an end tonight.  Before I explain about the vehicle we almost bought tonight, first let me tell you about the journey.  The plan was simple, create a short list of vehicles that met our criteria, test drive them, and then buy one.  But, what ones should make the list?  Not wanting to miss something I decided to start with every vehicle on the market even though some of them were not ever going to make the final cut (like say for instance the Hummer H2 or the Porshe Cayenne).  This amounted to 298 vehicles.  Our first level of criteria was safety.  We were only going to consider cars with 5 star ratings for front and side crash tests and 4 star for rollover crash tests (there were only 2 that had 5 star rollover rating).  I researched all 298 vehicles at SafeCar.gov and started a spreadsheet.  This narrowed down the list to only 54 choices.  Some vehicles dropped off due to poor ratings (like the Chevy Trailblazer - 3 star front driver side rating; the Volkswagen New Beetle - 3 star rear side crash rating, or the Lincoln Navigator - 3 star rollover crash rating) while others dropped off due to lack of crash data (like the Jaguar X-Type Wagon, the MINI Clubman, and the Audi S4 Cabriolet).  The only other safety rating we considered was rollover percentage.  We decided on 17% to be the cut off point and this narrowed down the list to a mere 44 choices (losing the Hyundai Tuscan and Mitsubishi Outlander which each had a 19% rollover percentage).  Once we had the safest cars listed, then we focused more on the financial end of things starting with gas mileage.  I researched this on FuelEconomy.gov.  We decided the cut off line was 23 mpg which narrowed the field down to 34 choices (losing the Acura MDX at 20 mpg and the Suburu Tribeca at 21 mpg).  Only at this point did we consider sticker price (as listed on the manufacturer's website).  We stopped at $25,000 starting price and just like that we were down to 22 safe, fuel efficient and reasonably prices cars (losing the Acura XL at $46,280 and the Buick Enclave at $33,995).  Of these 22, 14 were sedans, 5 were SUVs and 3 were minivans.  From the very beginning (when there were 298 on the list) the wife was leaning toward the Honda CR-V and I was leaning towards the Chevy HHR.  To our joy, each made the final cut.

Once we were to our short list, the wife proceeded to test drive as many as she could starting with the manufacturers that had the most number of vehicles on the list (Hyundai, Chevy and Suburu each had 3 in the cut).  Meanwhile I filled in some of the gaps that could be tiebreakers like insurance costs.  The wife would dutifully grade each after a test drive and give me a number between 1 and 10.  She quickly decided that a sedan was not for her and just like that we were down to 8 choices...

SUVs

Chevy HHR
Honda CR-V
Hyundai Santa Fe
Mazda CX-7
Suburu Outback

Vans

Dodge Grand Caravan
Hyundai Entourage
Kia Sedona

The wife was doing well and dealing with all kinds of salesmen.  She was giving each one a fair rating (even though my beloved HHR got only a 4 out of 10 due to poor visibility) and all was going well until she drove the Hyundai Entourage.  It was at this point that the search came to a stand still.  Evidently when she took this vehicle out for a test run a few things happened...

• A bright light shown around the van
• A band of angels came down round about the van and began to sing softly
• Jesus himself appeared in the passenger seat and during this epiphany he told her that he personally had selected not only the make and model but this exact van for her

I received the phone call 12 seconds after she left the car lot and I knew I was done for.  Still I encouraged her to continue on down the list and she did manage to make it through to the Kia Sedona (which is made on the same assembly line as the Entourage) and a quick test of the Mazda then just like that the Suburu and Dodge were struck from the running without even a test run.

So anyway, we found a 2007 Entourage and a 2006 Sedona that were to our liking and I actually went out tonight with every intent of purchasing one of them.  A quick call to the Entourage dealer and we found out that it was sold on Saturday so we went to the Kia place and found out that since the test drive, the price had come down $2,000.  I test drove it and it is really nice (though there were no angels that I could see) but in the end, the salesman would not budge on his price so after investing about an hour of my life, I walked out without the van.  There are 20 other Sedonas with in 20 miles of my house and 4 or 5 of them are about 9 miles away so the search continues for now.

It is a little inconvenient to only have one car right now but it is cost effective despite the $4 / day it costs me extra in gas to have the wife drive me to work, return home, drive to my work to pick me up and then drive home.  I am saving about $2 per day in insurance and am making about $1 per day in interest on the $10,000 I have ready for a down payment.  Figure in that the wife is onely driving me to work 4 days a week and I am breaking even overall.  In summary, I am in no hurry to buy a new vehicle.  Phew, what a long post but I still have time for...

Random Bad Quality Pictures With My New Cell Phone

This past Sunday our ABF had parking lot duty.  We get to wear these stylish yellow vests and tell big fancy cars when to stop and when to go.  Our goals are simple.  We are to ensure no one is killed.  Bonus points for no one being hurt.  As you can see, it was really windy but I still had a good time and we will not have this duty for 3 months or so.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 304

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Last night I had a meeting between 5 and 6 with some folks in Australia.  I still have trouble grasping the concept that I am the funny sounding one in those kinds of meetings.  After the meeting and a quick dinner, we all hopped in the Buick and headed to the church or more specifically, the church parking lot.  There the wife did something that she has not done in 58 days, namely get behind the wheel of a car and drive.  I will admit that we were all a little nervous but after a few laps around the biggest parking lot, she pulled out onto the road and drove us home where we arrived safe and sound and none the worse for wear.  She had quite the look of freedom written across her face and even the kids were excited as they are basically stuck at home all day with no vehicle and no one to drive them anywhere even if they had one.  As I write this blog, the son is in the shower and the wife is readying herself to drive me to work and keep the car for the day.  Some sense of normalcy is creeping back into our lives again.

Our focus will now shift to picking out another vehicle to replace our totaled minivan.  In a future blog I will have to detail the process that we went through to narrow our search but I will tell you now that crash test safety ratings played a big part (safecar.gov).  A little warning about that site, don't go there if you would be afraid your current vehicle did not fare well in their tests.  Sometimes ignorance is bliss.  I think we might have talked about these crash ratings a little too much lately as yesterday the son had his toy cars out and had them separated into 2 rows.  One row contained those cars with high safety ratings and the other row contained those that (now that he has been in a crash) he would never ride in again.  He seemed a little frustrated with some of the cars as they were not replicas of real models and therefore there were no safety ratings for them.  He could not understand why we could not research the safety rating of a funny car drag racer or a monster truck.  So those cars he just threw back in the box, better safe than sorry I guess.

Well it is about time to be driven to work.  Today while I am there, the wife is going to go look at some of the vehicles that made our short list.  Once she narrows down her choices then I will be allowed to look at the finalists.  I will keep you posted but until then...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 303

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Today we made the trek to the clinic again.  This time our appointment was early in the morning so we were hopeful that it would not turn into the marathon waiting session that our last two visits have.  We made it back to the house in record time and while we were there the doctor gave the wife the "all clear" on her neck.  It is still sore but it is more of a tired muscle feeling than anything else.  She is free to get a massage (woo hoo) and to drive (uh-oh).  We are going to wait until after next Monday when the cast comes off before we get serious with our car shopping.  I am sure you will hear about it here.

We have played quite a bit of Boggle recently and now that we know the rules a little better (2 letter words don't count) we are getting seriously competitive (even more so than normal).  We did almost come to fisticuffs the other day over the following incident.  As you probably know, in Boggle you have 3 minutes to come up with as many words as possible but you only get points for the unique words in your list.  Once the 3 minutes are up, each person reads their list and the others mark off the words that are on their lists.  Once everyone reads their list you tally up the score.  Everything was going fine (i.e. I was winning) when we were reading our lists after a middle round.  The son read the word "does" (the 3rd person singular of the word do).  I had this on my list so I marked it off.  When the wife read her list she listed the word "does" (the plural of the word doe).  She then had the audacity to claim this was not the same word and insist that I count the word.  After a heated discussion (and a threat to call Hasbro for a ruling) she relented and marked her word off.  In the end the game was decided by more than one point so it was irrelevant whether the word counted or not.  Moving on, it is time for...

Random Bad Quality Pictures With My New Cell Phone

I am a creature of habit when it comes to parking at work.  I get there early enough to have my pick of the choice spots but I pick one closer to the exit of the garage than to the entrance of my building.  About 6 months ago, a truck started parking in the spot next to mine.  The truck arrived before I did and was usually there when I left.  The truck was almost always parked next to or on top of the yellow line dividing the two parking spots.  I thought for a while that the truck was there in some sort of long term parking but it would not be exactly straddling the line each day, just most days.  The above pick shows how close it is to my space.  These are standard width parking spaces so the truck has about 2 foot of play on the other side.  My spot is at the end of a row so it is not a problem to park just like the truck so I have room to open my door at least.
Well it is time to give the daughter a shower and maybe get some Boggle in before bedtime.  I will let you know how I do and how the wife does (that is does and in how she plays the game, not as in how her female deers are doing).

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon