Saturday, May 10, 2008
Stimulating the Economy
I got my economic stimulus tax rebate on Thursday. Being the good, patriotic American, I felt obligated to go out and spend this money. Seriously, though, there were a few things I was going to buy today anyway. The tax rebate was just an excuse to spend a little more. I did want as much of that money as possible to stay in the US.
First, I went to Lowe’s to get some sample tiles for the kitchen floor. My landlord has agreed to replace my kitchen floor but wants to approve the materials before we put them in. Next I stopped at Kane’s Flower World to get some more parsley to put in flower boxes on the deck. Next I stopped at the mall to look at glasses at Lenscrafters. This store has gotten the new Oakley frames I wanted. Of course, I didn’t have my prescription with me, so I had to run home.
When I got home, I took the opportunity to plant my parsley. I’m glad that’s done. After that, I was off to the mall.
I stopped at Lenscrafters to order my glasses. I hadn’t gotten new glasses in a year and a half. Holy shit. My glasses were $500, but she gave me a 25% discount because my insurance didn’t cover glasses. Granted, my frames alone were $200. The final total was $375. Fortunately, I was able to pay for these with my FSA debit card. That means I didn’t have to shell out the cash and submit it for reimbursement. Next was a trip to Sunglass Hut where I picked up a pair of Oakley sunglasses. I’ve been promising myself a new pair for over a year but never seem to do it. Then I got a new honing blade for my Wuhstof knives and a new shirt from Bananna Republic. I looked at jeans from the Gap, but I didn’t get the opportunity to try them on because the store was too busy. Finally, I made a trip through Macy’s and picked up a $100 cast iron dutch oven from the Martha Stewart collection for $30. Sure, I’d love to have one from LeCrucet, but I just can’t justify spending that much on one piece of cookware. However, I certainly don’t mind spending $30 for one.
On my way to BJ’s, I stopped by a place called Dogtopia. It’s a doggie daycare and boarding place. The facility was really nice, but I would never leave Reggie overnight with strangers unless I absolutely had to.
Finally, I made a trip to Marblehead to hit up Fruit of the Four Seasons. My friend Liz had suggested I check out Shubies as well for some wine and cheese as well as a box of Ina’s Outrageous Brownie mix.
Yeah, I spent my share of money today, but I feel like I’ve done my part to stimulate the economy today.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Rocks
My sister is getting married… again.
I think she’s getting it right this time. Dave, my future brother-in-law is so good to Darcie AND Sarah.
And look at this rock!
Twittering
I’ve been doing more with Twitter lately than my blog. So I’ve put the Twitter feed at the bottom of my page. If you come directly to my blog, scroll down and see what’s going on. If you follow me with an RSS reader, you can follow me with an RSS feed, but I’m not sure how to do that off the top of my head.
If you use Twitter and want to follow me, you can find me here.
I’m still trying to find an Expression Engine plugin similar to the one for WordPress that will take a daily snapshot of your Tweets and put them into a single blog entry.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Got Meat?
I did absolutely nothing today. And it was a good nothing. Of course, Reggie wanted to get up early, so after he ate, we slept until 11:00. After that, my friends Liz and Dave picked me up and we went shopping for meat. Well, Liz and I went shopping. Dave stayed in the car with Alex. This butcher shop is pretty awesome and the prices are good. I bought some beef for kebabs, some bone-in chicken breasts and a pork tenderloin, as well as a few other things.
When I got home, I put a pork tenderloin in my little crock pot with some potatoes and a can of diced tomatoes. Then I left, making a trip to BJs and got myself a manicure. When I got home, the pork was done and the tomatoes had turned into a great sauce. The potatoes, unfortunately, were still hard. I think they didn’t have enough time to cook in addition to being hard to begin with.
Tonight, I watched The Good Shepherd with Matt Damon. It’s a good movie. Long, but good.
While at AC Moore today, I saw that they’re offering a Wilton Fondant and Gum Paste class. It’s a four week class that runs every Wednesday night, starting this week. I’m seriously thinking about taking the class. Really, I thought about just taking a basic cake decorating class, but I want to learn to use fondant more. My mom did cakes for years. She did weddings, birthdays, and just about any occasion you could imagine. She did everything with regular frosting and a pastry bag. I learned a lot just by watching her. Fondant would be something totally different. I’m going to call them tomorrow and see if this class is suited for novices.
Friday, May 02, 2008
Window Treatment
The weekend is young, and I’ve already made two trips to Home Depot with a third one looming. I’m working on putting something up for the windows so they don’t look quite to bare. What I’m doing is rather cheap and easy. By taking a 1x6 piece of pine and cutting it to the width of the window, I have a pretty decent window treatment. I took the board, attached another one behind it (a 1x3) to use for attaching to the window frame, and then covered it with batting and fabric. All In, I bet I have $40 for four windows, including the fabric. That’s not too bad. It’ll be even better when I return some hardware that I don’t need.
Unfortunately, this one is going to have to come down because being the dumb shit I am, I put up the one where I hadn’t painted yet. I know, it wasn’t very bright.
Maybe I’ll do a how-to shortly. By the way, no sewing here. I used power tools to make this, so that makes me feel more butch. I used a drill (as a screwdriver) and a staple gun. No sewing machines were needed for this project.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Fashion Faux Pas
When you have a commute like mine (train, subway, and a bus), you see all kinds of things. Not all of these things are the kind of things you want to see.
Take this morning for example. A woman got on the train at Lynn wearing a bright red blouse with a gold jacket. This was color coordinated with a striped skirt that matched the gold and red in her blouse and jacket. On top of that, she was wearing these obnoxious kick-ass knee high red boots. The outfit itself was put together well and would have looked awesome on Ulli, the fabulous East Boston neighbor or just about any attractive woman under 35. However, this woman was in her late forties and it made her look quite tragic. Stacy and Clinton (from TLC’s What Not to Wear) talk about clothes that are age appropriate. This certainly was not. Good outfit, bad look.
Last week… Wait. Let me prefix this by stating that I’m not one of those gay men who know all things about fashion and women’s makeup. I do enough to know what eyeliner is, and I can tell when someone is wearing a pencil versus liquid eyeliner. Anyway, this woman got on the orange line who was probably in her late forties and she was wearing liquid eyeliner that looked like she had held the aplicator at a 30 degree angle to apply it. Yes, it was THAT thick. She looked like she was ready for a night out on the town. Keep in mind that this was the morning commute. Had her makeup been smudged, I would have given her credit for doing the walk of shame, but no, this was cleanly applied. AND she was wearing WAY too much lipstick. When will women learn that bright red lipstick isn’t always attractive. In fact, it can make you look like a damn clown.
Those who know me understand that I have a tendency to spew exactly what I’m thinking. Fortunately for me, I’ve kept my mouth shut on the train. Some people don’t always want your opinions.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Stimulus
According to the IRS website, I should be getting my “economic stimulus” money next week. Oh, how am I going to blow the $600 my government is giving back to me?
Clothes?
Cookware?
iPhone?
Pay off a credit card?
Travel?
Oh, the decisions…
Update…
It’s an interesting time in the life of Mike. I haven’t been blogging much. Instead, I’ve been twittering.
Reggie is doing great. He’s doing well in the “we potty outside” department. In the two months we’ve lived here, we’ve only had two accidents and one marking incident. Of course, the marking incident was while the parents were here.
My place in Salem is still awesome. The kitchen needs a good cleaning, and I plan to finish painting the living room this weekend. At some point, I need to move some stuff from the spare bedroom to the basement, but that’s not a priority since I don’t really use the spare bedroom. If I start working from home more often, I might set that room up to be an office. My loveseats need a few new slipcovers. The existing ones tend to get dirty very quickly.
Have I mentioned that I absolutely love my Roomba?
And then there is work. Things are rough for me right now. My job sits on the fence between operations and development, yet I feel like I don’t belong in either group. Add that to the fact that I’m completely OCD about security and internal controls, and it means I’m not having a good time. Don’t get me wrong. I love my job and I love this company and the people.
Last night, I updated my resume on Monster. I won’t say that I’m looking for a job because I have it good where I am. To leave and go somewhere else would be an exercise in stupidity. I’m not going to entertain the idea of leaving unless I find something truly amazing.
After updating my resume on Monster, my phone and e-mail were working overtime today. A lot of it was crap. Contract positions aren’t on the table. Law firms and banks are equally undesirable. My rule is that if I can’t wear jeans or bring Reggie to work on occasion, I’m not interested. Now the ping from the video game company got my attention. That sounds interesting.
I’m hoping things work out for me at Shawmut. I like it there, and it’s comfortable. The people are good. At the same time, it feels good to know that I have options if they’re necessary.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Apple Marketing
apple
Originally uploaded by riggssm
Okay, this is pretty damn cool.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Another One Bites the Dust
Premium transatlantic airline Eos has gone belly-up. They only flew New York to London in an all-business class configuration. The concept was good, but in this market, the big guys are playing hardball. I fear for Silverjet, who offers a similar service.
This is a shame because I always wanted to fly them.