I Wrote This Instead

I got home from work on Friday about 4:15 PM. It was Friday afternoon and I was able to beat a hasty retreat. Please don't tell the people at the ASPCHR (Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to Hasty Retreats).

Before I could get good and comfortable Julie wanted to know if I could go with her to the UPS place. She was sending her Xbox back to Microsoft to have it re-whatever-it-is they are going to do to it.

"Sure, I'll go!" says I.

I start getting ready, which means I'm removing my school ID badge and getting rid of my school keys. After all I'm free, it's Friday. Then I pick up my library books to take back to the library since we are heading that way.

Then Julie asks or tells me (I'm not sure which), "Oh, I need to go to the library. Is that OK?" Then she sees my books and decides it must be OK.

As we are leaving the house Chris said, "Tacos from Taco Casa would be nice."

By the time we finish at UPS and drive to the library it is 5:45 PM and the librarian is announcing for all patrons (A fancy word for folks at the library) to make their final selections. I turn in my books and hurriedly select 26 more books and make my way to the counter to check them out. The desk checker-outer scans my card and tells me I have an overdue book and can't check anything out until I return the overdue book and pay the fine.

I think about this and remember that the book is laying on the table by my desk at school. I looked at it on Friday before I left and wondered if it was due. Now I suppose it is. Then the checker-outer informed me that even if I had brought the book in with me I wouldn't be able to check anything out because I couldn't pay the fine because they don't accept money fifteen minutes before closing time because they lock it all up because they don't want to get robbed because they are sort of downtown and I suppose slightly undesirable people spend their time in the library from time to time.

OK, that was helpful!

Julie checked my books out for me. She is sweet that way you know.

Now it was time to get food and go home. Julie told me that Taco Casa went up on their tacos and I made the executive decision that we would not go there. I didn't want to pay the higher price and I didn't want to drive to it since it would be out of the way. Julie decided she wanted to go to Long John Silver's and I decided we could go to Taco Bueno for Chris. Good decision on both counts, except for the Long John Silver's part. They didn't give Julie enough Krums or french fries. My fish smelled fishy, but I expected it to. Chris liked the Taco Bueno stuff though.

On the way home Julie and I had a great talk and by the time we got home I told her I needed to write about what we talked about on my blog. By the time I got in and ate I forgot what it was we talked about. Consequently I didn't know what to write about.

I ended up writing this instead!

Later, Chris asked if Taco Casa was busy. I told her we didn't go. She wanted to know how I knew the tacos went up in price since I didn't go.

© 2009 Barry T Horst


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Change You Can Believe In

So, I went to Taco Casa the other day. I ordered my food; tacos of course. And a big taco. A big taco called Taco Lite. For a Lite Taco it sure is heavy. I suppose they call it a Lite Taco because it is made with a fried flour tortilla shell instead of a corn shell. I know it's not lite because of the meat, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, sauce of your choice and sour cream all jammed inside of it. But I digress.

So, I went to Taco Casa the other day. I ordered my food; tacos of course. And a big taco and a burrito. The total of the order came to $6.01. I gave the cashier $10.00. Not wanting to carry around a pocketful of change, (99 cents for our friends at Taco Casa) I managed to find a penny and offered it to the cashier guy to make the change making process easier.

MISTAKE.

He just looked at the penny and then at me and then at the register.

I've seen that look somewhere before. It reminded me of a deer; in headlights. Cashier Guy didn't know what to do. Finally, he said, "I've already punched it in and can't change it.

ALL RIGHTY THEN!

Silly me! And to think, in my world it would be easier to supply the penny and simply receive a few dollar bills in change instead of a pocketful of miracles change.

Needless to say, I walked out of Taco Casa with my bag of food, a new story, and the change.

© 2009 Barry T Horst


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Please visit the Giveaway of the Day near the bottom of the left sidebar for free software downloads daily.

Picture Monday, February 02, 2009 Alias: Notgeld #7

Here we go for another try. Somehow we posted way before we were ready to go. OK, I accidentally hit "Publish". Regardless, I pulled it down finished it and here we are.

I decided to publish some Notgeld pics for this Monday post. This edition of Notgeld comes to us from Eckartsberga, Germany. It's interesting to note that this Notgeld was printed by Reineck & Klein, just down the road in Weimar. As you can see these notes are round and printed on paper. The 25 Pfennig notes have quotes of some sort on them. I have an assortment of 6 different quotes. I am not sure if there are more. I know that there are not any less.

I am sort of wondering if the pictures on the 50 & 75 Pfennig notes are of the folks whose quotes are on the notes below.

Obviously this is the obverse of the 25 Pfennig note.

The notes below are 50 Pfennig. Again, perhaps the pictures are the ones who generously provided the quotes for the smaller denomination notes. Aren't they kind?

Obverse of 50 Pfennig note.

More equally kind and generous folks. I suppose they are a little more noteworthy. Hence, they are on the larger denomination note, the 75 Pfennig.

Obverse of 75 Pfennig note.

© 2009 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
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A Service I Recommend

I now have a new advertiser on my blog page. The advertiser is Instant Amber. Instant Amber offers to store information about your children and make it available to the authorities in case of an emergency involving your child or children.I have not promoted them a great deal until today. I received an email from them and it contained some interesting statistics. I have included them below:

According to the Department of Justice, nearly 1 million children are reported missing each year in the United States. That means a child goes missing every 40 seconds, more than 2,100 per day.

There is a 1 in 42 chance that a child will go missing before the age of 19.

Finding a child within the first three hours could mean the difference between life and death.

According to John Walsh, founder of National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), acting within the first 20 minutes following a disappearance is absolutely critical as “the chances of safely recovering a child are much greater within the first few hours immediately following a child abduction.”

InstantAmber provides critical data and photos to law enforcement in a fraction of the time of existing products, increasing the odds of successfully recovering a missing child.

Law enforcement agencies need specific information in order to start the process of finding a missing child: recent photographs, name, date of birth, height, weight, unique personal identifiers such as eyeglasses and braces. In a state of panic, parents often cannot recall all of the information needed and rarely have access to a recent photo.

If you have a child or grandchild please consider this service. Click on the box below to find out more information.

© 2009 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 near the bottom of the left sidebar for free software downloads daily.

Picture Monday, January 26, 2009

The pictures I have for today are a few I have snapped in the past several years of some animal friends.

From Picture Monday 2009-01-26

In 2001 we visited Colorado. While visiting the Air Force Academy we came across these deer above.

From Picture Monday 2009-01-26

In 2002 I had to go to a meeting in Galveston. I decided to ride the Bolivar Ferry across to the Bolivar Penninsula. While on the ferry I found these seagulls hitchhiking across also.

From Picture Monday 2009-01-26

Looks like we were late for dinner and the guests were waiting.

From Picture Monday 2009-01-26

This is Ferdy. She was my little Easter duck I got in 2004. She made her home on the back porch then and was faithful to leave an egg for me each day.

From Picture Monday 2009-01-26

One afternoon in 2004 I heard a scratching at the window. I looked and saw a baby squirrel climbing the screen. Seems she got caught and needed some help getting off.

From Picture Monday 2009-01-26

This is Peanut. She got the idea that the router was a pillow and would spend hours sleeping on it. Later she moved to the cable converter box and set up shop there. Now that it is cold outside she has moved by the heater. Seems like she is on an endless quset to find the perfect spot to stay warm.

© 2009 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 near the bottom of the left sidebar for free software downloads daily.

Just In The Niche Of Time

If it's not one thing it's another. Sometimes ten others. I never seem to have enough time at the end of the day. It would be nice if you could bottle time and then when you need it just shake a little bit out. I began thinking about time in a bottle; actually "Time in a Bottle" by Jim Croce. The song was released in in 1972 when I was in high school. I didn't know it then, but he wrote the song for his then unborn son, AJ Croce. Then in 1973 Jim Croce met his untimely death in a plane crash. Three months later his song hit #1. AJ was born and then he suffered from a brain tumor and became blind only to regain some vision in his left eye a few years later.

Wow! I didn't mean to go down that road quite so far. It seems that before I knew it I was wandering and wandering down the road when I only meant to stop and look for a moment.

Now back to my time issue.

I've heard people say before that they were so poor that they couldn't pay attention. Do think time has become devalued just like our money? I mean when I was little bread cost 10 cents a loaf and I had plenty of time to play and have a great time outside. Nowadays, some bread can cost $3 to $4 a loaf; that's the high dollar bread, hand made stuff mind you. I can still find good old machine made Mrs. Baird's regular white bread for under $2; but that is still a far cry from 10 cents.

I guess what I'm saying is that the money to buy the bread is just like time during the day. There simply isn't enough of it. I suppose now that I'm older I have more to do than simply play outside. Maybe I have to work a little; No make that a lot, just to buy that 10 cent loaf of bread that is selling for $2.

You know, I could probably make a million dollars if I could develop dehydrated time. You know what I'm talking about; just add water and poof there you are, more time. I tried making dehydrated water water once. It worked really well, I just added water and there it was. Didn't sell though. I guess there simply wasn't a market niche yet. Maybe now people would buy a bottle of dehydrated spring fed glacier water imported from outer edge of Inner Mongolia. Just Add water! (And Time)

By the way; the title thing up above, I did mean to say "Niche" so don't write to tell me that it should be "Nick" or "Nicholas" or some other such thing.

© 2009 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 near the bottom of the left sidebar for free software downloads daily.