A Funny Thing Happend On The Way To The Blog

Laitaure Lake, Sarek National Park, Sweden

When I arose from my bed on Tuesday morning, little did I know it would be 48 hours before I would find its comforts again. In my last post I was telling you of my plans for a busy day with errandset cetera before heading off to work the audit at midnight. The day ended up being much busier than expected complete with surprises, frustrations and a complete lack of sleep. After I got off work Wednesday morning I changed into shorts, sneaks and a Cowboys T shirt along with my white USA ball cap in preparation for a warm day of many errands. I had my lists made and my bus schedules in hand as well as my paycheck which was ready for cashing. I had lots of things I had to accomplish and only a certain amount of time to do them if I was to get a chance for a t least a nap before working again. I set out, catching the bus which dropped me off at the local Ace which is at one end of a long stretch of road filled with retail businesses and restaurants just perfect for getting a lot done without having to spend a lot of time doing it. After cashing my check I stopped into the littleWalMart (we have a Super WalMart down the street from the mall) to see if they had any of the things on my list. It was the start to what I will call "my adventures in search of...." as it turned out to be a day where no one or two locations had the items on my list. Two of the items on my list proved to be surprisingly hard to find considering the type of one product and the seasonality of the other. You would think that a retail giant likeWalMart that sells printers would have the ink cartridges for them also which they do. I have a Lexmark printer that uses the apparently very popular 20 and 70 series of cartridges which means that of course they were out of them at this location. So then I went in search of another item on my list, a new pair of flip flops as I had completely worn out the last ones I had bought at Old Navy. You would think this would be a relatively simple task but therein lies the tale of the day. I found a great variety of flip flops for women and children and quite a few for men but none that suited my style or needs. I cannot wear the cheap thin soled ones that are just flat. I have problems with my feet so I need the ones which have just that little bit of arch support that makes it possible for me to be able to wear them. I did not find any at theWalMart so I went to the PayLess Shoe Source across the street thinking they should have some selections that would please me. Now you guys must know that I have a serious deficiency in my gay genes because I am not a "born shopper", I like to make a list, go in get the items on my list, get out and go. Going in was not a problem, getting the items on my list proved to be a lot harder than expected.

At Payless they had a BOGO sale going on so I thought maybe this would be an opportunity to get a couple of pair and save some money but alas it was not to be. I found dozens of styles for the ladies but only one style for men along with some horribly ugly sandals so the search was going to have to continue. I thought well lets run by the house, pick up the used cartridges I have for the printer and head over to the Office Depot by the mall where I could trade the used cartridges in for a rebate on my purchases. It was a few minutes before time for the bus to arrive so I went into the Family Dollar store where they had all the items on their portion of my list. I then caught the bus, buying a transfer for the bus I had to the Office Depot and the mall area after stopping home. I got to the house dropped off what I had purchased, gathered up the used cartridges (I had six of them) and head back out to catch the bus. I got to the Office Depot which is the only one north of the river here where getting replacements for my empties proved to be a challenge. I usually buy the OD versions as they are less expensive than theLexmark ones, but they did not have both the color and black cartridges individually packaged or a combo pack. They had the color cartridge but not the black in the OD andLexmark versions and the Lexmark combo pack was kinda pricey so I looked for a refill kit which of course they just did not happen to have. The salesman then told me about their refill machine which was a new service I had not seen at OD where they refill your cartridges for you for only $10 each. I go over to where the machine is and the attendant there tells me the machine needed repair and the part would not be in until Friday. That left the pricey combo pack as the only option and I thought oh well with the rebate from the used ones it should not be too bad so I go to the register where they ring it u p but only allow me to use three of the cartridge rebates this time and gave me three coupons for next time. You would think printer ink was liquid gold or a controlled substance instead of a commonly used product. Now that I had acquired the ink for my printer I continued my search forflip flops by heading over to the Target to look for them before heading over to the mall.

I did not find the flip flops I wanted at the Target either but I did find some other things on my list including a microphone for my computer. I then headed over to the mall to continue my search for flip flops stopping by for a burger and fries on the way. At the mall I was to be in for an eye opening experience. I found a wide variety of styles, some of which could possibly fit my needs but I was absolutely flabbergasted by the prices. Now granted, not being a big fashion shopper nor really a "shopper" at all I have not spent a great deal of time in a mall here of late, so the effect of fuel costs on the price of retail goods was a real shock to my system. I could not believe the prices they wanted for flip flops, I now that things have gone up butsheesh ! I went to a lot of stores, most of them not having the type I needed, but all of them wanting from $25 - $45 a pair!! $45 for flip flops!?!?! You gotta be kidding me, or do they suddenly turn into "thong strapped sandals" at that price? At any rate after a couple of hours in the mall I finally found one pair (one!) in my size in a style I like in a type I could wear at American Eagle on sale for only $15 so I snapped it up before someone beat me to it and I had to spend more time searching or more dollars somewhere else. I figured I had already invested enough time in this little shopping adventure, not believing how many places I had to go to find a decent pair of flip flops at the beginning of summer nor the way the prices have skyrocketed since last I was in a mall.

I returned home, turned on the computer to catch up on what was going on and hook up the microphone I bought at Target. WS has been calling me from NE using Skype and I have Messenger with Voice so I wanted to add this little upgrade so I could utilize VOIP on my computer. I hooked up the mike and configured Messenger and called WS in Omaha. He uses Skype as well as Messenger and told me he liked the voice quality at Skype better than Messenger so I downloaded Skype for a trial run. The installation went easy enough and I called WS back using Skype and found that it worked really great! So I now have the capability to to talk to anyone in the world that also has Skype for free and they have a variety of plans for calling other land and mobile phones for inexpensive rates. If you have Skype, and would like to chat with me, my Skype user name is uncle_gerry, just give a shout out over the PC and we will talk. By this time it was getting into early evening and I needed to get some rest before heading in to work so I set about to take a nap. It was an exercise in frustration as every time I wentto lay down the phone would ring, the last call being from the office calling me in to work early to cover for a sick employee. So now I was facing a 12 hour shift after 36 hours of no sleep instead of a few hours rest and a normal shift. By the time I was finished on Thursday morning at 8 I was a walking zombie, to tired to even eat before falling into bed without even checking my email or posting anything here. I locked my door, put a Do Not Disturb on the house phone, turned off the cell phone and hoped no one would ignore the do not disturb sign on the door to knock on it. Needless to say I did not make it to the Clinton Library as planned or do any thing else much except eat and sleep for most of the day and night. I have now caught up on my rest but I basically missed all of yesterday like it was not there. So I will get some errands in before going in for a short shift from 4-8 tonight and I am off tomorrow so I can go check outRiverFest. That should be fun and I will report my findings here in these pages for your edification.

That brings us to the entertainment portion of today's post that is chock full of videos and some tasty selections in the eye candy section. First up is DaveyWavey asking "Do You Love Yourself?" in his own inimitable style. Following that is the man of the hour speaking in Des Moine, IA, Barack Obama with his speech "Forging a New Future for America". Then we have three days of Holly Oaks episodes in one custom player right before another custom player with two days ofATWT featuring a Nuke Kiss on both days in "Nukelear Fusion x 2". The videos precede the eye candy section which is an expanded version for today as I did no post yesterday and wanted to give you something extra for today. Until next time as always, Enjoy!

Davey Wavey - Do You Love Yourself?
Barack Obama - Forging A New Future For America
Three Days Of Holly Oaks

Nukelear Fusion x 2!