Raised on Dell's Lemonade

Rocco Baldelli signed with the Red Sox and I am psyched. Fenway always loves the local guys, from Tony C to Carlton Fisk to Lou Merloni and, of course, Jerry Remy and now Rocco. Good luck Rocco, obviously I hope this was a very prosperous career move for many years to come.

Imagine what McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket would be like if a rehab assignment is ever necessary....not that I want that to happen.

Merry New Year

Would you like some beef jerky? There's plenty, you know.

Another Christmas

is over, so sad. It was a very nice 2 days, spending Christmas Eve at the in-laws and Christmas Day at my sisters. The food both days was excellent and we had lots of laughs and everyone enjoyed the presents we had gotten them and I got some very nice stuff also. :)

Post Christmas is where winter settles in with a long way to go till baseball in the spring. The next thing to look forward to is when will my Red Sox tickets arrive in the mail....that is always a very happy day!!

Let it Snow

Like we have a choice. Here in New England we are getting our 2nd big snowstorm in only a 3 day span. It stopped snowing for about 12 hours and the next storm was moving in. The first snow dropped about 10 inches on us, this one is not supposed to be as bad, only about 5 or 6 inches today. All of this on the last weekend of Christmas shopping. I am sure the local merchants are worrying about their sales numbers, especially in our current economic situation.

I have an exciting "stuck indoors" day planned; about as exciting as this post :-) .....I am going to eat chicken wings and watch football on tv and maybe nap. All of this with my lovely wife knitting on the couch and our stupid dog snoring.

I made the chicken wings yesterday and have already sampled a couple, they are delicious. They were slow cooked in a sauce made with 2 parts honey, 1 part soy sauce and 1/2 ketchup. The honey part is about a full cup if cooking 3 pounds of wings. After browning i skillet, Put the wings in cooker, pour sauce over and a few hours later.....yummmmmmy

The football part is the New England Patriots. I have followed this team for 35 years or so, since I was 6 or 7 years old (you do the math). I have enjoyed this season so much. Say what you want about Coach Belichick, but to have this team in the hunt for playoffs after losing Tom Brady, Rodney Harrison, Lawrence Maroney, Adalius Thomas. At one point this season, they had to use the practice squad running back for 3 weeks because the back-ups were also hurt. Just amazing coaching.

Kudos to wine.com...so far

I found this website by chance. I was looking for another site that I had bought from before and stumbled on this one and found an offer for free shipping which made it very enticing to try. I did a little browsing. Pinot Noir for my wife, chardonay for me, and merlot for both of us. Trying to be frugal, yet get some good quality. Is that the definition of "browsing"? Now I am repeating myself. I ended up with a full virtual cart of delicious vino

Anywho, after checking out, I noticed a rather hefty shipping charge. the order was already placed and I was pissed...Where was my free shipping??? I went back to the homepage and saw the offer again..."free shipping, click here for code" I felt so stupid and was in no mood to fight or admit my stupidity. I had gotten such a good deal that I was gonna pay the freakin shippin charges.

Several hours later when checking the status of my order for a tracking #, the shipping charges had disappeared. Amazing, I never heard of such a thing. If my shipment arrives and everything is the way it ought to be, they have earned themselves a repeat customer in me.

Why Dr Nik???

Dr Nick Riviera , for those who don't know is a character from The Simpson's. I was just thinking to myself why I had chosen this persona. I chose it off the top of my head when I signed up for a poker site many years ago. Now, it has stuck and become part of my life. I use it for usernames and it is still my poker name. You can find me right now on pokerstars.com :)

I think I have the reason. It's the voice of Hank Azaria. Dr Nick's entrance into any scene always starts with his saying "hi everybody....I'm Dr Nick" with his funny undefinable accent. Well, I mimic his voice from time to time, I guess it is one of the few things I do well. This always made my beautiful wife smile and laugh, a definate positive reinforcement for my brain. That is why, when under pressure to come up with a name to play poker under, my brain said pick Dr Nick. It's my theory anyway. If you saw how beautiful her smile is, you probably would agree.

One of those days

My day Started with a flat tire, well, almost flat. Then the credit card company calls to tell me someone is using my card in south africa. I have my card but someone got ahold of my info. They had to cancel my card and it will take a week to get a replacement, this on the first day of Christmas shopping season. Then the mail arrived and I was excited to see something I had purchased on ebay 3 weeks prior. I was getting nervous because most ebayers ship things a lot quicker. But, he had a perfect feedback score, so I had sent a very nice email asking for the whereabouts of my package, To which, I had gotten no reply. But this is all behind us now because here it is. First thing I noticed was I was charged $12.00 for USPS Priority shipping but my items came in first class mail envelope that cost $1.85. To say the least, I was irked. I now open the envelope. I had purchased 2 of the same item. One to give as a gift and the other to keep for myself. The $1.85 envelope only had 1 item in it. A second email has now been sent to the seller and this one was a little bit harsher...lol. We will see if he responds to this one.