Posts

Posted on

Simple Changes that make life nicer

Tassimo / Bosch / Kraft ended their relationship with Starbuck Coffee recently.

I originally purchased the Tassimo single cup coffee maker because of the availability of Starbucks each and every morning without having to go to an actual Starbucks store.

After years of sticking with the Tassimo / Bosch single cup coffee makers strictly because I liked Starbucks coffee pods. I was faced with a choice. Continue on with the Tassimo and search through a pretty limited selection of coffees for something I liked… or look for something different.

Here’s what your faced with when you walk into Bed Bath & Beyond. The Tassimo format has a small selection of coffees and teas on a little end kiosk, and three or four models of coffeemakers all single sourced from Bosch.


Keurig® has two whole 10 foot tall shelves filled with different coffees, teas, and hot chocolate flavors.

They also have not only the Keurig machines, but other manufacturers like Cuisinart®, Breville® & Mr Coffee® have machines that use the Keurig® format coffee pods.

This is reminiscent of the Beta vs VHS war.

Uhh can you see the handwriting on the wall? I know I can…

… Goodbye Tassimo! Hello quiet, new machine and a wide variety of tasty coffees!

Here’s the new machine siting on my counter and Oh, by the way my two new favorite coffees are Caribou and Kona. The Green Mountain coffees are very tasty too.

Funny thing about this is, I’d never have changed or thought about changing if Starbucks hadn’t gotten hard to get.

So Starbucks, AND Tassimo /Bosch have lost a customer, never to return, and I get less expensive but better tasting coffee.

In comparison, the Starbucks coffees in the stores and from the Tassimo often taste harsh, or bitter and in some cases burnt. In retrospect this is why I loaded my cup up with sugar. I’m drinking a nice cup of Kona with no sugar and no cream and enjoying it very much.

Hummm, I think I’m going to go try the Organic Free Trade Sumatra blend…

Probably not a good idea, I’ll be up for the next week if I try everything today… Dang, this is good stuff!

Posted on

A good day in Temecula

Went to Temecula today.

Had too many wine tastes but thankfully I wasn’t driving so being a little tipsy wasn’t a problem.

As usual spent too much money but got some great wines.

I’ve gotta have some friends here at the house to help me drink the stuff. Believe me with the stock I’ve got laid in we could drink for a long time.

Th picture is of a big ass dust devil spinning across the valley floor on the way down. By the time I got the camera turned on I’d just about missed it.

Posted on

I’ve been reading about Anders Breivik

 

Several things have crossed my mind beyond the obvious sorrow for the families of the victims.

Breivik, has been painted in the media as disturbed & deranged, some kind of a madman…

This may be true.

From his statements, it appears that he believes he’s a patriot, he was willing to risk his life and sink a substantial amount of cash into triggering a revolution. This guy is a true believer in his cause.

Setting off a bomb in the middle of a city and shooting young people at a youth retreat, were certainly the wrong things to do. But his actions do beg certain questions.

What factors push someone born and raised in a country most recently known for peace and inclusiveness to a place where they see these actions as not only rational, but also as their only choice?

That this person spent 8 or 9 years planning his actions suggests that he is anything but a madman. His planning and actions suggest a series of choices made by a cold rational mind not a deranged one.

His manifesto is pretty clear about what he sees as the ills in his country.

He speaks bluntly about Marxist influences and the damage he saw those influences doing to his homeland.

He speaks about the Islamic and multicultural  influences and how he perceived these factors and their implications, such as the erosion of native cultural identity.

Breivik also make points about the leftist politicians and how they ignore the the wishes of their constituents, continuing to allow mass importation of Islam into his beloved country.

His methods of highlighting what he saw as a problem are extreme, but perhaps his message should be examined independently of the actions.

This is apparently a view being echoed elsewhere too. There’s a article in the Christian Science Monitor that makes the case a more eloquently than I do.

I’m frankly surprised that this happened in Europe.

I’d really been expecting something like this in America first.

I’m not saying this man was right….

I’m pointing out that when any culture feels that their way of life is threatened they will fight.

That statement is true of any people and has been true for as long as humanity has been around.

Posted on

Manic Saturday

We have a neighbor that’s prone to go off her meds on a regular basis.

The poor dear will start speaking to the voices in her head in one of three languages usually at the top of her lungs.

The ironic thing is that the voices in her head are apparently deaf as a stone!

Tonight it’s Italian.

Ya feel sorry for her because you know it can’t be any fun for her, but at the same time it’s late and some of us are trying to go to sleep.

Thankfully she hasn’t had a really bad episode in a long time. The last one of those she had resulted in her being hospitalized for several weeks.

Oooops, looks like some one has called the cops so they’ll calm the situation down or they’ll have the EMTS here in a short time.

We try to be good neighbors and stay out of other folks business but we always wonder if she’s ok or going to hurt herself.

The question we always wrestle with is, should we  call the police when she first winds herself up or do we take a wait & see attitude?

Tonight we didn’t have to make the decision but other night’s or days we face the conundrum.
Looks like all is quiet on the Eastern front at least until the cops leave.

Posted on

A potential EPIC Fail??

Got a letter from California Employment Development today.

Looks like they’re going to pay me my unemployment via a debit card.

It’s only slightly more convenient than if they were paying me in gold nuggets.

For those of us that actually have a bank account and who pay our bills via that account, a debit card is problematic.

For example

My Mortgage, Car payment, credit cards, and utilities are all paid out of my credit union account. Without a constant flow of REAL money going through that account in short order I’m going to be in default on a lot of my financial obligations.

I suppose that I can reroute the payment to the California issued Debit card but there’s since I don’t know how much is going to be available from week to week on the debit card that doesn’t really work either.

Especially since I was planning to use my unemployment check to supplement my savings and thereby be a responsible if unemployed person. In that  I WOULDN’T DEFAULT on my obligations.

Now what do I do?

Cash out the debit card each week and then deposit the cash into the account I need to have it in?

I thought about trying to phone in payments to my various debts but I know that at least a couple of those businesses charge a hefty fee to do that. (One organization charge me $25 bucks once to process a payment from a debit card.)

All of this leads me to wonder what were they thinking?

Direct deposit or a check makes much more sense from the perspective of someone with bank accounts, and a regular payment schedule.

California claims this is to save them money in postage, but they’re still sending me  the little form to fill out and sign (which used to contain the check for the previous 2 weeks) So what are they really saving?

Then there’s the Bank of America who administers the card. They’re making a ton of money on short term interbank loans, and they’re also getting a % on each and every transaction. What a racket!

Well, I’m hoping that more information is forthcoming when I get the damn card.

I see the potential for another complication that I wasn’t expecting.