what did you do today? (2008-2015) (closed)

[Major Tom]

Opened my scanner in order to scan some CD artwork, but my kitty got there first.

 

[bbbamI]

Too cute...kitty toes!

 

[Major Tom]

Too cute...kitty toes!

I LOVE my kitties' toes and paws!

 

[NW-Bound]

It just occurred to me that all of my kitties had and have pink toe pads. Thought only dogs' are black.

 

[Major Tom]

My last cat was all black - black fur, black whiskers and black toe pads. She was something else!

I still miss her. I don't think I will ever completely get over her.

 

[ls99]

I missed it too. I must have been in a gas line. Remember those?

Yup.

Odd and even plate days for getting gas. Oh yea!

And the radio traffic discussions of dozens of loaded oil tankers parked offshore geting food resupply and crew changes via helicopters. The owner's would not bring the tankers into port at the gummint mandated prices. Brilliant experiment, NOT.

Ah, the joys of wage and price controls. And as the Ginzu knife commercials used to say: And there is more. Just don't feel like annoying the moderators.

 

[Nords]

Went to see "Skyfall" on the big screen. You can tell that they're not even trying to introduce James Bond to a new generation. I guess they figure us geezer ticket-buyers are good for another 25 years of the franchise.

I was the only customer for the Tuesday 1:10PM matinee.

 

[steelyman]

Went to see "Skyfall" on the big screen. You can tell that they're not even trying to introduce James Bond to a new generation. I guess they figure us geezer ticket-buyers are good for another 25 years of the franchise.

I was the only customer for the Tuesday 1:10PM matinee.

Wow. I remember being mesmerized by "Goldfinger" when I was a kid. To me, Connery is Bond. James Bond.

 

[Walt34]

Yesterday I went with DW to a meeting with the staff at the nursing center where FIL is now. He is recovering and doing better, but slowly. I mentioned emptying out the independent living apartment to shed that expense and they suggested holding off on that. It isn't to keep the revenue stream for them, they can find another occupant in about twenty seconds. They said they've seen some patients walk out of there who all would have bet would never walk again, let alone move to independent living.

So after seeing what progress he makes we'll reconsider in January.

 

[NW-Bound]

Logged into my Schwab account, and saw that my covered call option on KMB got exercised. Oh well, I have had a good gain on it, and perhaps it's time to move on. I have more covered call options that are now in the money, and people will come get "their" stocks soon.

Cash level now at 8.5x annual expenses. If I really had the guts that I often pretend to have, I would plow that into some underperforming stocks and sectors that I have been following. Instead, I have been nibbling here and there. No gluts, no glory for this coward.

 

[Nords]

(Mild spoiler alert for Bond fanatics.)

Wow. I remember being mesmerized by "Goldfinger" when I was a kid. To me, Connery is Bond. James Bond.

At one point Bond was forced to revert to Sean Connery's old car, which (according to the movie plot) has apparently been safely stored in a London garage for decades. As they drove away, M was complaining snarkily from its passenger seat. Bond flipped up the top of the (manual) gearshift and poised his thumb over the big red button.

I don't think anyone born after 1970 would have recognized that homage...

 

[W2R]

This morning I went to the oral surgeon for my dental implant surgery. He removed the remnants of the old tooth, and then decided to do a bone graft to "beef up" the bone before doing the implant. They use sterilized, irradiated cadaver bone, which I thought was interesting. Then he sutured it up. Since he had to do the bone graft, the implant itself cannot be done until late March.

Today's procedure was 100%, completely painless due to much Novacaine plus laughing gas, which is new for me. He prescribed some heavy prescription pain meds and told me to take them after I got home, before the Novacaine wore off.

So, I did and believe me, I am feeling no pain..... I plan to spend the rest of the day at home in my easy chair, surfing the internet and playing video games.

 

[ls99]

Just don't munch, might end up biting things you would rather not.

 

[bbbamI]

So, I did and believe me, I am feeling no pain..... I plan to spend the rest of the day at home in my easy chair, surfing the internet and playing video games.

Feelin' fine on cloud nine....

Cloud 9 by the Temptations! - YouTube

 

[steelyman]

(Mild spoiler alert for Bond fanatics.)


At one point Bond was forced to revert to Sean Connery's old car, which (according to the movie plot) has apparently been safely stored in a London garage for decades. As they drove away, M was complaining snarkily from its passenger seat. Bond flipped up the top of the (manual) gearshift and poised his thumb over the big red button.

I don't think anyone born after 1970 would have recognized that homage...

Oh man, that Aston Martin! Ejector seat, oil slick, smoke screen, bulletproof shield, machine guns, hub knives, and tracking device.

What a great movie - Jill Masterson painted gold, Oddjob and his hat, Goldfinger flying out of the plane, Slazenger golf balls, the bomb that ticked down to 007, and far from least: Pussy Galore.

I think Bond even referenced the Beatles!

Time for me to watch it again.

 

[Nords]

Today I think I stayed out of my house for about five minutes longer than I should have.

I lunched with an entrepreneur friend to talk about his startup company, so I usually "dress up" for these meetings: jeans and an aloha shirt (instead of shorts & t-shirt). On the way home I stopped at Costco for our usual weekly groceries & pizza. I was by myself, and I was getting a little introverted/tired, so I was moving fast and avoiding eye contact. I was ready to head home, the sooner the better.

As I left the Costco cash register, stuffing my wallet in my pocket and reaching for my cart, I was accosted by an employee carrying a clipboard and a barcode scanner. He was blocking my way and I had to pull up short, well within our personal spaces.
Ruh-roh, trouble.
"Excuse me, sir."
Ruh-roh, excusing himself and calling me "sir"-- double trouble. What in the world could I have done?
"Can I tell you more about Costco's executive membership program?"
I just looked at him, and apparently he read my mind. Of course if he'd been blocking people at the register like that all day, then he'd probably learned from experience.

I've been going to this Costco for over a decade, and I've never been stopped like that before. As I left, it occurred to me that I was dressed in business attire. Poor guy, he probably thought I was executive-membership material. If he'd seen my usual beach-bum attire he would've asked me to surrender my membership card.

They use sterilized, irradiated cadaver bone, which I thought was interesting.

Would that be a human cadaver? How would you know?
What part of the skeleton is the bone taken from? I bet Louis C.K. or Ray Romano could get three standup minutes out of these questions...

Oh man, that Aston Martin! Ejector seat, oil slick, smoke screen, bulletproof shield, machine guns, hub knives, and tracking device.
Time for me to watch it again.

The Aston Martin's machine guns had a much higher bodycount in the 2012 movie!

They brought in a new "Q" too. They knew they'd never achieve the distinction of the original, or of John Cleese, so they took it in a completely different direction.

I enjoyed the full theater experience, but I'm probably good for another 6-12 months.

 

[Ronstar]

This morning I went to the oral surgeon for my dental implant surgery. He removed the remnants of the old tooth, and then decided to do a bone graft to "beef up" the bone before doing the implant. They use sterilized, irradiated cadaver bone, which I thought was interesting. Then he sutured it up. Since he had to do the bone graft, the implant itself cannot be done until late March.

Today's procedure was 100%, completely painless due to much Novacaine plus laughing gas, which is new for me. He prescribed some heavy prescription pain meds and told me to take them after I got home, before the Novacaine wore off.

So, I did and believe me, I am feeling no pain..... I plan to spend the rest of the day at home in my easy chair, surfing the internet and playing video games.

Irradiated cadaver bone. Egads! Good luck in your recovery. I thought I had it rough - I'm going in tomorrow to have my temp crown replaced by the permanent one - there was some mention of a root canal if I have pain, but ok so far. The only pain I've had is while I was still getting drilled when the Novacaine started to wear off.

 

[HFWR]

...Costco's executive membership program...

As a former nuke, you'll need to spreadsheet this one. For $100/yr v. $50/yr, you get 2% back on purchases v. 1%. Another opportunity for arbitrage!

 

[W2R]

Would that be a human cadaver? How would you know?
What part of the skeleton is the bone taken from? I bet Louis C.K. or Ray Romano could get three standup minutes out of these questions...

Hmmm... Nords, your posts always provide us with food for thought...

Irradiated cadaver bone. Egads! Good luck in your recovery. I thought I had it rough - I'm going in tomorrow to have my temp crown replaced by the permanent one - there was some mention of a root canal if I have pain, but ok so far. The only pain I've had is while I was still getting drilled when the Novacaine started to wear off.

Surprisingly (to me), things have been going pretty well in my case. I was instructed to take one of the pain meds yesterday before the Novacaine wore off, and did, but by the time the Novacaine wore off and it was time to take another pill I realized that I really didn't need pain meds at all. So now it has been 20 hours since I took any and I am just fine. Slept like a baby for almost 9 hours last night, deeply and without any pain issues.

Last night at dinner I managed to eat real, non-liquid food that F brought me, very slowly in teeny-weenie bites and chewing on the other side of my mouth. So, things are looking up. My post op instructions include making sure that I eat enough and get good nutrition to support healing, a delightful directive for a very obese person like me. I'll try not to over-do.

I agree, the irradiated cadaver bone sounds so scary! But frankly, all I could think of when they told me was that at least they weren't going to use MY bone and do an additional surgery to harvest it. After doing some reading online, I gather that one's natural bone grows and replaces the cadaver bone so I will end up with only my bone anyway once that happens.

Good luck in your crown replacement tomorrow. Hopefully you have already been through the worst part when you had the drilling before the temporary crown. I think that is worse than even a root canal these days.

 

[Nords]

As a former nuke, you'll need to spreadsheet this one. For $100/yr v. $50/yr, you get 2% back on purchases v. 1%. Another opportunity for arbitrage!

I resented being stereotyped by my attire, and interrupted at the worst possible moment during my trip. I thought he was with the fraud or "loss prevention" staff, and in all the years I've been in Costco I've never been accosted like this. But then I don't usually visit Costco in my aloha business attire, and maybe I shouldn't do that anymore.

All of those people standing in line waiting to get to the registers... and he hits them with his pitch after they've completed their transactions. Tone deaf.

But, yeah, those weekly trips are beginning to add up to a possibility of signing up for the $100/year program. Now, if they handed out membership cards to our daughter as well as to me & spouse then it'd be a great deal.

 

[bbbamI]

Went to a local thrift store to pick up a few things. I decided to see if they had anything a bit funky for my friend who will be celebrating a birthday soon. I found this....(for $10)...thought it would look cool in his garden.

The thing is, it looks great in front of my fireplace. Might have to go shopping for him again....

 

[Nords]

Speaking of being stereotyped by your attire: yesterday I stopped by a jewelry store, this time attired in khaki slacks and an aloha shirt. (I was on my way to a lunch at a place with a dress code.) Two weeks ago I'd dropped off my mother's rings for an appraisal, and I was returning to pick them up. The proprietor didn't recognize me, which I accept as typical with someone he met for 20 minutes two weeks ago.

But then my ponytail triggered his memory. He looked at my attire and said "Wow. I didn't recognize you." I assured him that I clean up good.

The rings cleaned up good, too. They'd been in "jewelry box storage" for over 25 years, and even the jeweler admitted that the dirt had been difficult to remove.

I wish I knew what these rings cost when they were new. I'm pretty sure that the typical engagement-ring diamond hasn't kept up with five decades of inflation, especially around today's costume jewelry. Considering the look and availability of modern synthetic diamonds, the real thing may be heading down a steep depreciation curve. They're certainly a hassle to insure & secure, to say nothing of the $800 appraisal fee. (The fee is worth his experience & time, but it's still a hassle to document the value of a carbon chain.) And now he has my birthdate, my spouse's birthdate, and our wedding anniversary date in his files. Nothing good can come of giving that info to a jewelry sales expert.

Our daughter just called with an update on junior year. She's halfway through final exams and it looks like she'll survive the rest of them. Whether the next five days are good or bad, on the sixth day she'll be flying home for a three-week vacation. She'll tune up a little on south shore surf and then we'll go hunting the 10-15 footers on the North Shore at Pua'ena Point, Laniakea, and Chun's Reef. She's been told that she'll be a platoon commander next semester, which in her NROTC unit is a three-striper billet. My USNA-trained brain immediately rejoiced "Three-striper liberty, woo-hoo!" but then I remembered that she's already living off-campus at a civilian university. She also said that the wardroom of the USS TEXAS visited their unit last month, and the CO confirmed that women will be assigned to VIRGINIA-class attack submarines in 2013. The official announcement hasn't been made yet but the CNO has been passing the word at all-hands calls.

The blog earned over $130 from Google AdSense in November. In a separate and apparently unrelated act that complies with AdSense's terms & conditions, in a few weeks I'll be making $65 donations each to Wounded Warrior Project and Fisher House. I also just sold a link ad in an older post. Better still it's linked from a couple of keywords in a snarky sentence, and you'd never even notice that it was a paid link. Is this a great country or what?!?

Considering the number of snarky sentences I have on the blog, if I sold link ads for even half of them then I'd be able to retire. Oh wait.

 

[imoldernu]

Needed to buy a three cordless phone set, because the batteries are all dead or dying in the phones we've had for ten years, and the replacement batteries are $12.99 each at Walmart. So, out shopping, but went to the thrift store first.
Found a 3 phone and also a 4 phone VTech phone set... for $2 each... Figured maybe a few phones would work...
Came home, plugged them in, and both sets work like brand new., so now we have 7 phones...a phone in every room and the garage...

Also... gas fill up... $3.25/gal.

..............................................
About the diamond thing... I have no idea about value, then vs. now. DW has her ring, plus a double diamond from her mom and grandmom... Never thought about it as far as value. Also some pearls that I bought from Sakata when I was in Japan...

When I worked retail, remember that diamonds had about a 150% markup, so I don't expect much value.

 

[freebird5825]

I am happy to report that I am back in the saddle again.
I have energy.
I am eating real meals.
My Kleenex consumption is back to normal.

I got out of the house 3 days in a row. Considering I was down and out for 12 days with the flu, it feels like getting out of school for summer one more time.

Mr B is doing so much better, healthwise. He started us [-]brought the damn bug home[/-] out with the flu, and over a week later was diagnosed with a mild case of pneumonia. He was prescribed antibiotics and prednisone to help him recover from that. So far so good.
The poor guy is in the final stretch of his last semester of college. 2 major projects and 3 finals to go, and as of Dec 12, he will be a free man.
It will be strange to have time together again after 1.5 years of him plugging away at school. Hmmmm...
He's talking about getting a part time j*b doing accounting w*rk and of course taxes in season. I'm trying to convince him otherwise, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

 

[W2R]

Freebird5825, congratulations in advance to Mr. B on reaching his goal! You two are going to have such fun together now that he has more time. I have no idea how hard it would be for someone to come up with a part time accounting job, but if he somehow manages to find one then at least it wouldn't take up as much of his time as school has.

So glad to hear that you are feeling better! You have had quite a miserable time with the flu this winter. Seems like everybody is sick with something lately. Not me, though - - probably in no small part due to the fact that my surgeon gave me penicillin to take for a week after my bone graft surgery. Speaking of which, I am feeling almost back to normal from that.