and this "mist" which wasn't seen by my naked eye but was captured by the game camera as I held it up after I heard a noise and asked if there was anyone there...
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
The Possum and the Mist
The only things that disturbed the pond the night before last was the possum...
and this "mist" which wasn't seen by my naked eye but was captured by the game camera as I held it up after I heard a noise and asked if there was anyone there...
and this "mist" which wasn't seen by my naked eye but was captured by the game camera as I held it up after I heard a noise and asked if there was anyone there...
Monday, May 24, 2010
I'm a Sirius Junkie
I don't know how I survived before satellite radio. I barely lasted a week without it. I tried. I was not going to give them another damn penny especially since my Sirius stock is in the toilet. Freak them, I lost a bundle on them, I said to myself. So when my Orbiter finally bit the dust for the last time, after two years of a blackened screen and a week of having to slap it to work, intermittently at best, I thought I would be putting that $14.95 per month in my pocket.
The first couple of days weren't bad since my Cox Digital has one music channel I like, 917, so the television had been tuned to that all day. By the third day I noticed that I kept hearing the same songs, maybe even in the same order. I thought I could live with it even if it did start to get on my nerves, but what I couldn't live with was not having Sirius in my car. I hate local Roanoke radio, especially the local rock stations. What a bunch of crap. Do they not realize this is 2010? It got to the point that I was forced to listen to only talk radio...the highlight being Dennis Miller who is only on for two hours. Too bad Levine and Coast to Coast is on so late or I would have tuned in to them.
I kept complaining and my husband kept saying, "Stop being cheap, just go buy yourself another radio...life is too short, you enjoy it so just buy it already!" He was right. Why was I being so stubborn and "frugal?" It's not their fault the stock market sucks. They do have a great product. Besides every New Year's Eve I listen to the live broadcast of Patti Smith at the Bowery Ballroom. I couldn't give that up. So I went to buy my new Sirius radio.
Of course I wanted not only the vehicle kit but the boombox as well. Naturally they stopped making the Orbiter so my boom box and vehicle docking station were now obsolete. I started shopping around to see what the new boomboxes were and what radios worked with them. Sirius finally wised up and manufactured a "generic" boombox that most newer radio models can just pop into. About time. When I first became a subscriber every single component was different depending upon which radio you had. At that time there were many different radios, so this didn't work with that, and so on. Now it seems the radio themselves all have the dock and play possibility. Great, I thought, this will be a breeze, until it came to actually buying one.
No one had any boomboxes in stock. Not a one. I checked Best Buy, Walmart, HH Gregg, even Sirius directly...all of them were out of stock. WTF? I refused to buy a radio without the boombox because my fear was that Sirius would suddenly stop manufacturing them (much like they did the Orbiter) and I'd be stuck with just a radio for my car and nothing for my home. I didn't want to listen to Patti sitting in my car on New Year's Eve! I then decided I would go into the stores to see if they had something sitting around...nope, nothing. On my way home I stopped into Radio Shack. They at least had one on display and the Stratus 6 radio was on sale as well. I asked if they had any boxes in stock. He said he didn't but he called the Christiansburg store who said they did. He asked them to send it to Salem. He also said the sale ran through Friday so if I came to the store and picked it up then I would still get the discount. Cool! I told him I would call him first thing in the morning.
I waited until ten and called. Nope, they didn't ship the boombox. Now it wouldn't be in the store until Monday. At this point, I didn't know if I even believed they had one seeing as I couldn't locate one anywhere else. I asked the clerk if they would still honor the discount on Monday and he told me no, the sale ended Friday. Ok, whatever, it was only ten bucks. I gave him my number and told him to call me when it came in. At three on Friday afternoon I got a call saying that the district manager himself had delivered the box if I still wanted it. Did I? Zoom!!!
So I get there and am thrilled they have the box and radio waiting for me. They try and talk me into getting the extended warranty which we all know is stupid so pass. They ring up the radio and it doesn't come up with the sale price. I bring it their attention and they act like the radio was never freaking on sale! Oh, the sign that was prominently displayed is now gone, but the guy behind the counter knows it was there on Thursday and he was the one who told me to buy it before Saturday! The district manager says nope, it's not on sale, sorry. I'm looking at the clerk who knows the truth and he can't look me in the eye, and I saw this guy there yesterday with his three year old daughter saying, daddy, daddy and I don't want to get him fired or in trouble, so I say just ring the freaking thing up, but I do mumble to him under my breath as I'm leaving, "You know you're scamming." Normally I would have told them to shove the freaking radio where they couldn't get reception but I'm desperate so I leave, go home, set it up (and Sirius charges me an additional $15 activation fee even though their old piece of shit radio is the reason I had to buy a new one) but it's working.
By Sunday afternoon my husband was finally able to install it in my car so I took my son's Jeep to go shopping and left my car home. When I got back I asked how it went. My husband said not too good since I needed to buy a cassette adapter to make it work. What?! It seems the new models do not have the FM modulator on the side of the dock and use a direct cable into the car radio instead. Naturally my radio does not have that capability but luckily still had a cassette player. Here we go again, sink some more money into Sirius' pocket. When I called Radio Shack to see if they even had one in stock the clerk told me they did for another $21.99. He also told me I could probably get one at Walmart for $14.99. Guilt? Or did he have the sale price sign up again on the radio I just bought and he didn't want me to see it? I went to Walmart and got the adapter, a generic one that MP3 players use, for $9.99. We tried it in the parking lot and voila it worked!
All is right again in the world, even if it's really not, all because I'm a Sirius junkie...
The first couple of days weren't bad since my Cox Digital has one music channel I like, 917, so the television had been tuned to that all day. By the third day I noticed that I kept hearing the same songs, maybe even in the same order. I thought I could live with it even if it did start to get on my nerves, but what I couldn't live with was not having Sirius in my car. I hate local Roanoke radio, especially the local rock stations. What a bunch of crap. Do they not realize this is 2010? It got to the point that I was forced to listen to only talk radio...the highlight being Dennis Miller who is only on for two hours. Too bad Levine and Coast to Coast is on so late or I would have tuned in to them.
I kept complaining and my husband kept saying, "Stop being cheap, just go buy yourself another radio...life is too short, you enjoy it so just buy it already!" He was right. Why was I being so stubborn and "frugal?" It's not their fault the stock market sucks. They do have a great product. Besides every New Year's Eve I listen to the live broadcast of Patti Smith at the Bowery Ballroom. I couldn't give that up. So I went to buy my new Sirius radio.
Of course I wanted not only the vehicle kit but the boombox as well. Naturally they stopped making the Orbiter so my boom box and vehicle docking station were now obsolete. I started shopping around to see what the new boomboxes were and what radios worked with them. Sirius finally wised up and manufactured a "generic" boombox that most newer radio models can just pop into. About time. When I first became a subscriber every single component was different depending upon which radio you had. At that time there were many different radios, so this didn't work with that, and so on. Now it seems the radio themselves all have the dock and play possibility. Great, I thought, this will be a breeze, until it came to actually buying one.
No one had any boomboxes in stock. Not a one. I checked Best Buy, Walmart, HH Gregg, even Sirius directly...all of them were out of stock. WTF? I refused to buy a radio without the boombox because my fear was that Sirius would suddenly stop manufacturing them (much like they did the Orbiter) and I'd be stuck with just a radio for my car and nothing for my home. I didn't want to listen to Patti sitting in my car on New Year's Eve! I then decided I would go into the stores to see if they had something sitting around...nope, nothing. On my way home I stopped into Radio Shack. They at least had one on display and the Stratus 6 radio was on sale as well. I asked if they had any boxes in stock. He said he didn't but he called the Christiansburg store who said they did. He asked them to send it to Salem. He also said the sale ran through Friday so if I came to the store and picked it up then I would still get the discount. Cool! I told him I would call him first thing in the morning.
I waited until ten and called. Nope, they didn't ship the boombox. Now it wouldn't be in the store until Monday. At this point, I didn't know if I even believed they had one seeing as I couldn't locate one anywhere else. I asked the clerk if they would still honor the discount on Monday and he told me no, the sale ended Friday. Ok, whatever, it was only ten bucks. I gave him my number and told him to call me when it came in. At three on Friday afternoon I got a call saying that the district manager himself had delivered the box if I still wanted it. Did I? Zoom!!!
So I get there and am thrilled they have the box and radio waiting for me. They try and talk me into getting the extended warranty which we all know is stupid so pass. They ring up the radio and it doesn't come up with the sale price. I bring it their attention and they act like the radio was never freaking on sale! Oh, the sign that was prominently displayed is now gone, but the guy behind the counter knows it was there on Thursday and he was the one who told me to buy it before Saturday! The district manager says nope, it's not on sale, sorry. I'm looking at the clerk who knows the truth and he can't look me in the eye, and I saw this guy there yesterday with his three year old daughter saying, daddy, daddy and I don't want to get him fired or in trouble, so I say just ring the freaking thing up, but I do mumble to him under my breath as I'm leaving, "You know you're scamming." Normally I would have told them to shove the freaking radio where they couldn't get reception but I'm desperate so I leave, go home, set it up (and Sirius charges me an additional $15 activation fee even though their old piece of shit radio is the reason I had to buy a new one) but it's working.
By Sunday afternoon my husband was finally able to install it in my car so I took my son's Jeep to go shopping and left my car home. When I got back I asked how it went. My husband said not too good since I needed to buy a cassette adapter to make it work. What?! It seems the new models do not have the FM modulator on the side of the dock and use a direct cable into the car radio instead. Naturally my radio does not have that capability but luckily still had a cassette player. Here we go again, sink some more money into Sirius' pocket. When I called Radio Shack to see if they even had one in stock the clerk told me they did for another $21.99. He also told me I could probably get one at Walmart for $14.99. Guilt? Or did he have the sale price sign up again on the radio I just bought and he didn't want me to see it? I went to Walmart and got the adapter, a generic one that MP3 players use, for $9.99. We tried it in the parking lot and voila it worked!
All is right again in the world, even if it's really not, all because I'm a Sirius junkie...
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Sunday Stroll
My husband and I weren't the only ones out for a stroll along the Roanoke River this fine Sunday morning. This is the first time I was able to get so close to Mama Duck and her ducklings. They're grown quite a bit since the last time I saw them...
Friday, May 21, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Peonies
I was all set to blog about garbage this morning -- and I do mean trash -- but since I'm playing catch-up after being under the weather all week I don't have the time. Instead, I'll leave you with something much more pleasant, how my peonies looked before the rain washed away every single bloom. Hey, is that the sun I see out there??? Finally...
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Supermarket Hot Spot
Just a couple of observations about local supermarkets...
You all know to avoid Kroger's on Tuesdays unless you're a senior citizen, but did you know that Kroger's is the hot spot on Sunday afternoons if you're single and looking?
Yup, no need to pay high bucks to millionaire matchmakers if you live in Roanoke, just take my free advice and head on down to the Kroger's on Brambelton. I've come to this conclusion after the last couple of Sunday afternoon shopping excursions. I noticed that quite a few ladies are going dressed to the hilt while shopping. At first I thought they were coming after church or brunch, but then I realized although they're looking good, their dress may not be deemed "appropriate" for church, they always shop alone and many of their shopping carts are empty.
I also noticed there were quite a few guys suddenly shopping by themselves, not dressed as if they just came from playing football or softball either. The clincher that I suspected folks were doing more than just grocery shopping happened when a couple of guys, all on the same Sunday afternoon, tried to strike up conversations with me. It happened by the dairy, the vegetables and the meat counter. I almost threw a package of Pampers in my cart just to throw them off. And damn, I didn't even look good.
Come to think of it where would a woman my age meet someone respectable if they lived in Roanoke? I don't go to church, so that would be out. Bars? I don't have many friends who would come with me, and I wouldn't be comfortable going alone, so that would be out. Movies? Yeah, I would do that alone but the environment is not conducive to meeting someone. Bowling? Yup, have done that alone in the afternoons too, but if there's a guy who's in the alley in the afternoon, and he's under 70, he's probably not working, so that's not good. The library? Forget the downtown branch unless you want to hang out with the homeless. Salem's has mainly college kids and Roanoke County's mostly women or very senior citizens. Walking around downtown Roanoke? It's certainly not like walking the streets of Manhattan where anything is possible. On-line? Pass!!! I don't believe anyone on-line.
Unfortunately there just doesn't seem to be many opportunities to meet folks once you get past your thirties. So ladies, and gentlemen, if you're single and looking, head over to Kroger's on Brambleton on Sundays. Maybe it's not even just that Kroger's; that's just the one I shop at. Has anyone noticed any other supermarket hot spots?
One other supermarket thing I noticed is that both Food Lion and Krogers are no longer stocking Tylenol, only their store brand. What the hell is that about????
You all know to avoid Kroger's on Tuesdays unless you're a senior citizen, but did you know that Kroger's is the hot spot on Sunday afternoons if you're single and looking?
Yup, no need to pay high bucks to millionaire matchmakers if you live in Roanoke, just take my free advice and head on down to the Kroger's on Brambelton. I've come to this conclusion after the last couple of Sunday afternoon shopping excursions. I noticed that quite a few ladies are going dressed to the hilt while shopping. At first I thought they were coming after church or brunch, but then I realized although they're looking good, their dress may not be deemed "appropriate" for church, they always shop alone and many of their shopping carts are empty.
I also noticed there were quite a few guys suddenly shopping by themselves, not dressed as if they just came from playing football or softball either. The clincher that I suspected folks were doing more than just grocery shopping happened when a couple of guys, all on the same Sunday afternoon, tried to strike up conversations with me. It happened by the dairy, the vegetables and the meat counter. I almost threw a package of Pampers in my cart just to throw them off. And damn, I didn't even look good.
Come to think of it where would a woman my age meet someone respectable if they lived in Roanoke? I don't go to church, so that would be out. Bars? I don't have many friends who would come with me, and I wouldn't be comfortable going alone, so that would be out. Movies? Yeah, I would do that alone but the environment is not conducive to meeting someone. Bowling? Yup, have done that alone in the afternoons too, but if there's a guy who's in the alley in the afternoon, and he's under 70, he's probably not working, so that's not good. The library? Forget the downtown branch unless you want to hang out with the homeless. Salem's has mainly college kids and Roanoke County's mostly women or very senior citizens. Walking around downtown Roanoke? It's certainly not like walking the streets of Manhattan where anything is possible. On-line? Pass!!! I don't believe anyone on-line.
Unfortunately there just doesn't seem to be many opportunities to meet folks once you get past your thirties. So ladies, and gentlemen, if you're single and looking, head over to Kroger's on Brambleton on Sundays. Maybe it's not even just that Kroger's; that's just the one I shop at. Has anyone noticed any other supermarket hot spots?
One other supermarket thing I noticed is that both Food Lion and Krogers are no longer stocking Tylenol, only their store brand. What the hell is that about????
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Amaryllis
Here's something to brighten up this dreary day...pics of my amaryllis plant. It started about three years ago from a box, just one little flower. It's now grown to two plants, one of which has five blossoms on it. Pop bulb in dirt, bring inside in the winter, water when you remember and watch it thrive. My type of flower...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)