Picture Monday, April 28, 2008

Searching through the photographs have turned up many photos of pets long gone. Here are a few.

This is a picture of my Dad's dog Maita and her pups. This was taken at his parents house in Robinson sometime in the late 40's or early 50's.

The picture on the left is a picture of our Maita that we got in the 60's. She was a red Dachshund. The picture on the right is of some of the kittens that we had back in the 60's. This may be the group that I named after the Beatles. That's right John, Paul, George, and Ringo.

This is a picture of Chris' dog Katrinka taking a rest from a long day of chasing cats and various other small creatures. Chris had Katrinka when we were married and Katrinka was an old lady by this time.

Not a pet from times past but a good picture. This is our Trinky taking a snooze after a long, tiring day of chasing small creatures. It must run in the family.

© 2008 Barry T Horst

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Send Me a Tree. You Can Grow Another!

In this "New Day & Age" we are all supposed to be more environmentally responsible, stewards of our world and such. It would be so much easier if I didn't get so much junk mail. I go to the mailbox, or more precisely, Chris goes to the mailbox because I'm at work. She leaves it for me on the desk and I get home to go through it.

I get bills. I can do without them but I understand why I get them.

I get ads. Some good, most are a waste of paper. Sometimes I get a circular that has that promising look of "good stuff'. then I open it and what falls out? The ad to order checks, the ad for Senior Citizens to get prescriptions cheap, the ad for the little motorized chairs, the ad to buy a burial plot. Wait a minute. Am I getting that old now?

Please say all you get this stuff too!

Anyway, I have to stuff my trashcan with it. Then I open the other mail. there's ads in there too. I throw 75% of the contents away before I find the bill. Then the magazines stick all the little cards and inserts in the magazines. I spend another 5 minutes having to rip this stuff out. And let me tell, it seems that Reader's Digest is the worst one. I hate to pick up a magazine and try to look at it with all that inside.

Here is where I give a marriage hint. If you can't live with all the inserts and cards in a magazine make sure you tear all of it out BEFORE bedtime. I cannot tell the number of times I have been "stared at" for tending to this little job of mine prior to laying down while Chris is trying to sleep. Not good!All of this waste doesn't include all the store circulars and other stuff that I get and wonder,"Why did I get this??? I don't $5000 for a mattress!" or "Why did I get a catalog for industrial tools" I don't even use the Craftsmen hand tools I have."

Then there are credit card offers. I must get 10 of them each week, not to mention the ones for my wife and daughter, and offers for business credit cards. If I took advantage of every offer I would only get more paper in the mail to throw away.

And that is the point of all of this verbiage. I have to throw away too much paper. I must have a good size tree flow through the house here every week. This is crazy. Not because someone killed a tree. We can grow more trees. It all the extra work that I have to do, sorting, opening, looking, tearing, shredding, throwing, dumping, carrying. You get the idea. But if the quit this I suppose that this would put many people out of a job; ad people, designers, delivery people, mail delivery, drivers, etc.

You know, I would hate to be the cause of this country going into a recession and possibly millions losing their livelihoods, homes, nice cars, and whatever else is important to them. Go ahead, bring that mail on and I'll by golly keep the trash man busy.

© 2008 Barry T Horst This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Please visit the Giveaway of the Day at the bottom of the page for free software downloads daily.

Yearning For Some Retro Prices

I got up early this morning because I needed to go grocery shopping at HEB. I left the house around 6:30 AM and spent about 2 hours in the store. When I left I had about $280 less than when I went in and HEB had it. In all fairness I spent about $80 on something totally unrelated to groceries. That was a pair of wireless headphones for the TV.

I have noticed that grocery prices have been following the gasoline prices into the stratosphere lately. There are some shoestring potatoes that Chris likes. They have jumped from $1.59 a few weeks ago to $1.79 this morning. A pound of store brand butter has gone from $1.59 to $2.09. I could go on and on but I am sure you are intimately acquainted with this same experience. So I decide to hunt through the archives. (Really several boxes of junk, errrrrr, important family heirlooms.) I found just what I was looking for, a few old ads and some old menus.

I have scanned one of the ads and placed the scans below. I had to make 2 passes to get the ad since it was on the large side. It is from Dominick's Finer Foods in Chicago. The date is January 6, 1972.

I apologize for the funky way the ad looks. I was unable to get them stitched together. And on some computers the results may get really strange. After all, this was not supposed to be an exercise in computer skills or expertise with Photoshop. The purpose was to reminisce.

But now back to the prices, that was the whole reason for this anyway. Look at those prices. It's interesting how some prices are nearly 10x as high now and other things are only 2x or 3x higher. Don't you wish you could still get bread and eggs for this price? How about those Banquet TV dinners? It's in small print above the coupons but a 25 lb. bag of Dog Chow is $3.04. I'm embarrassed to say how much I have to pay for the same amount of Iam's Dog Food.While looking for the old ads I found a couple of menu's for places here in town. A churches fried Chicken and Schmaltz's Sandwich Shop, a local eatery similar to Schlotzsky's. I'm not sure of the year but both are probably early to mid 1970's. I remember when this particular Church's opened on 17th & Waco Drive in the late 60's and they had big signs up around the building advertising the 1 piece chicken and a roll for 49 cents. Looks like the restaurants today make a killing on their soft drinks compared to the days when these menus were printed. Wouldn't it be nice get things for this price again?

© 2008 Barry T Horst
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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Please visit the Giveaway of the Day at the bottom of the page for free software downloads daily.

Does My GPS Work Now? (It's not really about GPS, that's just a little joke of mine.)

Help me out here. I know I wrote a few days ago about how the recent emphasis on bio-fuels had pushed the commodity prices of corn, wheat, and rice to skyrocket. At least that is what I intended to write about on April 15. It seems that I quickly digressed and wrote about everything but that it seems. I quipped in the post that I didn't have GPS to give me direction. Well, now I'm trying to see if I have found that direction yet.

Now I see in the headlines that there is a shortage of rice, yes I said shortage of rice. Sam's Club and Costco are going to ration rice. Sam's Club will limit sales of imported jasmine, basmati and long grain white rices in the 20 lb. bag size.

Now rice is a staple in many countries. Rice is also the food that you always seemed to get a lot of at Mexican and Oriental food restaurants. It was always the item that filled up the plate so that it looked like you were getting your "money's worth".

Now why is this happening? I don't know, I'm not an economist. I didn't even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. I'm sure that part of the reason is the burgeoning population in countries like India and China. But, don't you think that one of the biggest reasons is the recent emphasis on bio-fuels? I sure do. Think about it. Governments are now trying to push the development of bio-fuels. In order to make many bio-fuels the various grains that were destined to the various levels of the food chain are now being diverted to bio-fuel processors. This doesn't leave enough for livestock and poultry so producers pay more. This cost is passed along to you and I at the store and restaurants. There is not enough grain for the food processors to make the various food products. Producers then pay more for the grain. And yes, this cost is passed on along too. All because the government thinks the answer to more fuel is in the bio-fuel area. The answer is in more drilling and more refining capacity, not suddenly diverting our precious food resources from the food chain into fuel tanks.

Another mistaken answer is the government sticking it's finger into the auto industry by setting mileage per gallon quotas hoping to conserve gasoline. This is a topic for another blog on another day. But briefly, studies have shown that when the mileage per gallon goes up the nation ends up using about the same amount of gasoline because people decide they can now drive more. Also, auto crash death rates go up because auto makers make the cars smaller to meet the guidelines. But as I said, his is a topic for another blog on another day.© 2008 Barry T Horst


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Call Me When You Try This One

I read my brother's latest blog entry last night. He shared a recipe that he found in an old cookbook around his house. I started thinking, "Hey I could do that."

So, I did that!

I looked for just the right cookbook and I found a yummy recipe for your enjoyment. I found it in an old Calumet Baking Powder book that was from the early to mid 1920's.

Eggs in TomatoesSelect tomatoes that are ripe but firm. Plunge them in boiling water for a moment and remove skins. Cut out hard stem ends making in each a hollow large enough to hold a broken egg. Into each of the hollows drop a fresh egg without breaking the yolk, season with butter, pepper, and salt, and bake in a moderate oven until tomatoes are tender and eggs are set. Serve on rounds of buttered toast with a cream sauce.

I also found these helpful tips in the book:To get rid of ants-Place lumps of gum camphor in their runways and near sweets infested by them.Or scrub shelves and drawers with strong carbolic soap.Or inject gasoline. (Yes that is actually in the book. I am sure your local fire department and insurance company would be pleased with that particular hint.)And my personal favorite: To avoid Stomach Disorders, never use a Cream of Tartar baking powder, for it leaves Rochelle Salts in the food, and a constant repetition of this drug will produce dyspepsia.© 2008 Barry T Horst


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Garden Update

Took a few shots of the flowers in my garden yesterday. The Gazania and Scabiosa (Butterfly Blue) are really beginning to look good. We have had an Iris bloom for the first time since I transplanted them. I do not have a picture yet but I checked the Hollyhocks and the are getting ready to bloom. I planted them last year and they take 2 years to bloom. The Snapdragons from last year have about run their course. Fortunately I have planted new ones this spring. The Echinacea is getting a good start and the Carnations are beginning to bloom for the spring. I also have some Chrysanthemums beginning to bloom for the spring also.

Below are a few selected pictures for your enjoyment.

PS--The corn is starting to grow. Yippee!

© 2008 Barry T Horst This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Please visit the Giveaway of the Day at the bottom of the page for free software downloads daily.