The Old Wal-Mart Building in Pelham

Some of you may remember that awhile back I suggested that Pelham, Alabaster and Helena be combined into one town and that the city hall be the old Wal-mart building in Pelham. That's the old Wal-mart not the old, old Wal-mart. The old, old Wal-mart is now a Big Lots. Well no one listened to me. Apparently no one with authority, or at least no one with money liked my idea. Instead, someone has come in and remodeled the old Wal-mart into a building set up for multiple smaller shops. This remodeling work has been completed for awhile but the building(s) are still empty. In this months Pelham Pravda, the mayor had a little blurb where he was bragging about how tasteful the remodeling was and how that was what we could expect in the future now that Pelham has a new set of zoning ordinances. My question is this tasteful building going to continue to sit idle. I would have been more impressed with a little less taste and a little more commerce.

A Fascist Government In America?

[DEAD LINK]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070828/ts_nm/world_firearms_dc

This is the reason that I don't spend too much time worrying about a fascist government in the USA.

Wake Up Boomer!

If you are, like I am, a Baby Boomer, you had better get your head out of your ass and look at this video. After you do, ask yourself "are all these other little piss ant things that I am worrying about more important than this?" If not, you need to get on the phone to your worthless congressman and tell him or her to get to work on fixing this mess!

America To The Rescue

Once again, Jon Stewart and the Daily Show use humor to get at the truth. The bleeps are in place but be forewarned if you can read lips there are some expletives.

26 August 2007. Sorry, YouTube pulled the video. Try Here.

I Don't Microwave My Caribe Cup

I think that I have mentioned before that this years World's Longest Yard Sale was somewhat subdued on Thursday. While still impressive, the crowds were smaller and there were fewer sales. Thursday is the day that I usually take in the Gadsden to Chattanooga leg of the sale. This year I found myself moving along much faster than usual due to the reduced crowds and sales. I was up in Cherokee county and past a county road that had a sign, "community yard sale 2.5 miles -->". Now typically I ignore such signs during the course of the World's Longest Yard Sale since I am a traveler more than a shopper. The people that I call shoppers stop at every sale, look at virtually every item at the sale, then move on to the next. Us travelers ride along until we come to a sale, slow down, size it up and if it looks promising, we stop. Otherwise we move on. Nothing wrong with either strategy, its just a matter of preference. Anyway, a traveler usually does not have the time to go 2.5 miles off down a county road. This year I did have the time so down the road I went. There were several little sales along the road before I got to the community sale. I did not buy anything at the community sale but on the way back, I stopped at each of the little sales. At one, a small coffee cup caught my eye. It was white with a green stripe around the top and a narrower green strip around the middle, it would hold about 4 ounces and had thick sides and a sturdy handle, like the cups you see in resturants. It was marked 25 cents so I decided to buy it. When I took it up to the lady who was running the sale she had me turn it over and looked at the bottom, she said something about Puerto Rico that I did not understand. I gave her a quarter, got back in my truck and drove on. Later on, I looked again at the bottom of the cup. It says Caribe Puerto Rico USA W-4 which means nothing to me. I did not buy the cup because I collect or anything like that. I bought it because I like to drink coffee from small cups.

This particular cup reminds me of a train trip that my grandfather Kelley and I took back in 1962. My uncle was stationed in Chicago and he had invited my grandfather to come up and he would take him to Canada fishing. I was invited as well, probably so my grandfather would not have to make the trip alone. I was about 15 at the time albiet a somewhat immature 15 by todays standards. We boarded the Central of Georgia Seminole in Sylacauga late one afternoon and headed for Chicago. Next morning around breakfast time we were clickity clacking through the corn fields in downstate Illinois. My grandfather and I made our way to the dining car and had a seat. A waiter came by, handed us a check pad like waiters and waitresses take orders on and told us to write down what we wanted. I don't remember what either one of us had except I remember that my grandfather wanted coffee. He could write, but for some reason that I do not now recall, he had me write out his order. On the pad I wrote "cup of coffee" along with whatever else he wanted. When the waiter came back he picked up the pad. He turned to me and said, you can write just the word "coffee", we will bring it to you in a cup and grinned. Sure enough, they brought the coffee in a cup and I am pretty sure that it was a cup very much like my little Caribe cup.

Every few days, I make a full pot of coffee. I hardly ever drink it all. I turn it off before it burns. My father taught me that coffee that has not been left on too long and gotten a burned taste is fine in the afternoon or even the next morning if you microwave it. So I find myself microwaving coffee a lot. I am sure that my little Caribe cup, sturdy as it is, would hold up to a microwave ok, but I am not taking any chances. Some ceramics and the like don't do that well in the microwave. They take up the heat instead of letting their contents warm. I suspect that the life of items like that are shortened considerably by being microwaved. I only have the one little Caribe cup and I don't intend to take any chances with it. For the time being, I will microwave my coffee in a pyrex measuring cup and then pour it into the Caribe cup. Maybe one of these days when I get a backup Caribe cup I will test it in the microwave.

Controlling Blood Sugar

According to this RealAge article a piece of whole grain rye toast is a better snack for controlling blood sugar than an apple. To me, that seemed somewhat counter intuitive. I guess we don't always know what we think we know.

Fox Attacks Iran

The Magic Jack

Now that Sunrocket has gone belly up, I am back in the hunt for a VOIP phone company. Initially I signed up with Teleblend. It was the easiest option as they could use the existing Sunrocket "Gizmo", which is really just a dedicated router. Realizing that Teleblend might only be a temporary option, I started checking the newsgroups to see what the talk was. In one post someone had put just one word, magicjack. I entered magicjack.com in my browser and sure enough, there was a new VOIP option.

Magicjack is still in beta and has some bugs but they appear to be working hard to make it better. It costs about $40 initially and then $20 a year thereafter. You get a phone number for incoming calls and can call the USA and Canada toll free. Setup was simple. Unlike Teleblend, it does require that you have a computer. That computer must be on when calls are made or received. It only works with XP and Vista right now. They are promising Apple and Linux versions later on.

I've made a few calls with it and the voice quality was very good. I'm not ready to make it my full time phone just yet, but if it continues to work well and they get to the point where they can port my existing number, who know?

Propaganda

This article by Bob Wallace on "How Propaganda Works" was interesting to me.

The Secret to a Healthy Body

The secret to a healthy body is simple and actually not too difficult, but all the same it does take daily discipline. In addition, it doesn’t need to cost you a lot of money. There are five areas of focus that will keep your body in shape, healthy, flexible, and strong.

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Two for a Nickel, Three for a Dime

Back in the mid 1960's, country grocery stores had what we called a nickel pack of crackers. It was three or maybe four double saltines in a small box or plastic wrap. It contained about what one person would eat with a small chunk of hoop cheese, a can of sardines, potted meat or vienna sausage. They usually sold for 5 cents, hence the name nickel pack of crackers. One Sunday afternoon, my folks sent me to a little store not far from our house to pick up something, what it was I don't remember. What I do remember is that when I went to pay for my items, there was a produce basket sitting in front of the counter. It was full of nickel packs of crackers. On the side of the basket was a cardboard sign with the following written in black ink: "2 for 5 cents, 3 for 10 cents." When I got home, I told my parents about it and they told me that I had been mistaken, but I knew better. I have never forgotten that sign.

Last week while I was on the WLYS, I came upon a sale in northern Kentucky. They had several boxes of new white vinyl binders. The top box was open. It had a sign, in black ink, that said 10 cents each, $2.00 per box. I picked up a box, walked over to the man that was seated under a canopy and said "$2.00 a box?" He said yes and I handed him $2.00. I figured there must be 2 dozen binders in the box. This morning I was getting some things out of the back of my pickup. The box of binders was still in there. On the end of the box it had some writing and the number 18. I opened the box and counted, sure enough there were 18 binders in it. Looks like I got the "3 for a dime" deal.

WLYS 2007

Last night I returned from this year's World's Longest Yard Sale. As always, it was hot. Some locations had rain showers but overall it was a great trip. There were fewer sales in some places but sales had cropped up in places where I had not seen them in prior years. One lady told me she only has sales every third or fourth year. For the most part, the crowds were smaller, but Saturday was still a big day.

If you like yard sales and traveling the blue highways, you should give it a try.