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Food Holidays Life Shopping Weather

Saturday Morning Shenanigans

I do more before 8 AM on a Saturday morning than most many some people do all day on Saturday !  🙄

PUBLIX – I did my occasional grocery shopping this morning, and I bought over $61 in quality food, beverage, and other general merchandise. I saved over $15 in combined advertised special savings and coupons. My groceries were taken out to my car for me, so this is a new and developing positive trend for this particular Publix location (Homestead‘s Oasis Plaza). I think that it would be safe to say that Publix is my favourite store in the free nation !

WOODY’S – Normally I get a haircut at Homestead’s legendary Woody’s Barber Shop during the week as part of my Lunch hour; however, I decided that my spaghetti noodle textured mop top could not wait another 2 or 3 or 4 days to be snipped. It had to be done NOW !  It’s hot outside, and it’s also breezy outside. I’m sweating, and I was starting to look like this nerd again:

Albert Einstein

STARBUCKS – ‘I’ll get a grande White Chocolate Mocha and an Apple Fritter.’
‘That’ll be $6.08 please.’
‘No problem. Here’s my exact change !’

TODAY is Flag Day here in the U.S.A.
Respect and protect the American flag and all that it symbolizes today and every day. We live in freedom today because of those who fought for us on our behalf as they carried our American flag.

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Blogging Driving Food God Health Life People Shopping Travel Weather

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

If it’s Tuesday night then look no further than here for a glimpse into what’s happenin’ in my world:

1.  Earlier this afternoon we surpassed the 13,000 mark in total (cumulative) views since this blog’s inception late last November. We keep shattering brand new daily, weekly, and monthly view records on here. I say ‘We’ because without you (reading this) there would be no exciting statistics to write about. Thank You for blogging with me, and for being a part of my Life !

2.  It’s currently raining just a little bit over the Homestead / Florida City area, but there’s a whole bunch of rain (torrential downpours) just to the west of us in the Everglades. We could use several feet of rain – not all at once, but spread out over the next three months or so. The more rain that we receive here in South Florida the less likely hurricanes are to come our way.

3.  Last week I surpassed the 50,000-mile mark in my car, and I was on Homestead’s Speedway Boulevard southbound approaching Campbell Drive when it all went down. It’s the first time in 15 years that I’ve owned a car for its first 50,000 miles. I previously did so in a 1989 Geo Spectrum (my first car here in Homestead).

4.  I enjoyed a MASSIVE Lunch at the White Lion Café this afternoon. It’s the closest that you’ll ever get to fine dining here in Homestead. Last time I ate there I admired Pastor Paul‘s fried chicken and mashed potatoes from across the table. This time around I got my own ENORMOUS fried chicken breast – no bones about it. I KNOW THAT’S RIGHT !

5.  I ate Lunch at the White Lion with Marge R. I’ve known her for over 20 years – longer than anyone else (who isn’t related to me) in my entire life / Life. She was telling me all about God back in the late-1980s and throughout the entire 1990s when I wasn’t really interested in Him. She never gave up on me though. She kept on bragging on Him. My Christmas 2006 gift to her ? – It’s when I revealed to her (at Applebee’s of all places) that I’ve been saved by Jesus Christ and reborn. A month later I walked through the front doors of Life Pointe Church for the first time ever. It was my first entrance into any church since the late-1970s when I was in grade school.

6.  Anne J. – I just finished eating yet another MASSIVE slice of birthday cake. I figure that if I eat three more MASSIVE slices between now and Friday then it will be all gone. The cake surprisingly tastes as good now as it did last Wednesday night when you and the crew surprised me with it.

7.  I currently weigh 165.5 pounds. That’s my ideal weight. Can you believe that I actually weighed in the mid-180s back when I was in my early-20s ?  I took all of that excess weight off a few years after that, and I’ve been holding steady ever since. Thank You Jenny Craig !  (Just kidding.)

8.  If I had to give up one of the following 5 devices for an entire year – TV(s), VCR(s), Computer, iPod Shuffle(s), or Cell Phone – then the answer couldn’t be more simple and easy – the cell phone. I typically don’t use my cell phone to make or receive calls (even though it works just fine). I pretty much only use it to send and receive the occasional text message. Other than that it gets little to no use at all. The telephone (standard or cell) is my least-favourite electronic device.

9.  I’m experimenting with homeopathic Murine Ear Drops for Ear Wax Relief. I have a recurring ear wax buildup problem inside my right ear. Sometimes it can get real bad. The worst that it’s ever been in my entire Life was last May in the worst place at the worse time – during the week that I was with my family in The Bahamas to attend my little brother’s wedding. I pretty much could not hear out of my right ear during the entire week. It made for a miserable week.

10.  Forget about the little kid in the candy store – check me out anytime I’m inside an Office Depot or an Office Max !  Let me run loose and buy things !

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Driving Food Health Humor Shopping

Saturday Morning Shenanigans

CHEVRON – I filled up my car with regular 87 octane gasoline this morning at my favourite Chevron on the congested Homestead corner of Useless-One y Campbell Drive (SW 312TH St. / NE 8TH St.). It’s my first fill-up in exactly 14 days, and that’s a few days below my overall average. Typically I can go up to 17 to 19 days before I need to fill-up with gas. I spent $4.069 per gallon of gas (nipping the previous all-time record by a mere penny), and I spent a total of $45.00 for the fill-up (nipping the previous all-time record by a single dollar). KA-CHING !

WALGREENS – The highlight here is that I now have enough Omega-3 Fish Oil (1200 milligrams per softgel) to take me into January 2009 providing that I take one of them per day every day until then. (They had a ‘Buy 1 Get 1 Free’ sale on them this week.) I adore the bargain$. THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKIN’ ‘BOUT, WILLIS !

STARBUCKS – I visited our Homestead Starbucks for the first time ever, and what a quaint little place it is with such a quaint little parking lot and a bustling drive-thru. Recently my friend Phil teased me for only going to Starbucks for the ‘frou-frou designer’ espresso coffees that cost over $4. He told me that I should try out their regular coffees that cost under $2. As is always the case for me at Starbucks I get lost, dazed, confused, and sometimes even dizzy looking at their all-encompassing menu board. (Travis I am not.) In my entire life I can still count on two hands the number of times I have been to Starbucks. Have no fear my dear, for I received excellent customer service from my personal barista behind the counter. She helped me to make a decision on what I really wanted. I got the grande Pike Place Roast ($1.89) with caramel flavour added ($0.30), and also a pastry item. My barista also told me all about the benefits of purchasing a Starbucks card. As it turns out I could have gotten the caramel flavour added free-of-charge if I already had the card. I may get it. The coolest part of this particular Starbucks is that they open for bid-ness at 5:30 AM during the week. I totally dig that since that is a half-hour before I need to be at work. BOO-YAH !

… And those – my friends – are my ‘Saturday Morning Shenanigans’ …

I HEARD THAT !

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Food Health Shopping

The Major’s Walk-A-Thon – Summertime Special

This ‘Summertime Special’ edition of ‘The Major’s Walk-A-Thon’ comes to you from The Falls Shopping Center in South Miami-Dade County Florida:

1.  Yesterday was my birthday, so that only means one thing today – it was time for my regularly-scheduled annual eye exam. (My eye doctor has his office adjacent to LensCrafters at The Falls.)

2.  If you’re not getting an annual eye exam then you must be mad crazy like that. It doesn’t matter if you’ve had 20/20 eyesight for your entire life (which is extremely rare). What you don’t know about your eyes could hurt you in the future. It doesn’t take very long for a thorough eye exam, and it’s very painless. Don’t be a wimp. Go and get your eyes checked for Goodness sake !  😯

3.  My least favourite part of the eye exam is also painless, and it brings back hazy memories of the 1980s and 1990s. It’s when my eye doctor dillates my pupils so that they are MASSIVE !  He puts these drops into my eyes, and then within 30 minutes everything gets very blurry and my eyes become extremely sensitive to sunlight (or simple daylight for that matter). Once the pupils are GIGANTIC he checks them for various diseases. As I type this exactly 4 hours after he initially put those drops into my eyes to begin the dillation process my pupils are still much larger than normal, but my eyesight and sensitivity to light has slowly returned back to normal again.

4.  During the peak of the MASSIVE pupils I continued a longtime annual tradition by running – not walking from LensCrafters over to T.G.I. Friday’s to consume a MASSIVE Lunch to complement my MASSIVE pupils. I received excellent customer service from my waiter, and the food was absolutely scrumptious. I adored the ‘Parmesan-Crusted Chicken’. It’s ‘a sautéed chicken breast basted with Caesar dressing – then finished with a Parmesan-crust topping.’ It’s ‘served with three-cheese tortellini tossed in spinach alfredo sauce and a side of our fresh tomato salad.’ Oh yeah for dessert I dug an ENORMOUS chunk of the legendary ‘Vanilla Bean Cheesecake’. I didn’t regret it pal !

5.  In addition to the eye exam and the Lunch I also did a fair amount of walking all around The Falls Shopping Center (a few times around). That makes it a valid ‘Walk-A-Thon’. I’ve been visiting The Falls longer than any other shopping mall here in South Florida – over 20 years. When it all comes down to it The Falls provides the most pleasant (and most natural) shopping environment of any shopping mall that I know of. They don’t have very many stores that I’m a fan of, and their longtime movie theatre which was once state-of-the-art (back in 1990) is now totally obsolete. But it just feels right to walk around that shopping mall at a nice slow pace and glance into the stores to see what I’m not buying. If I lived within the surrounding neighbourhoods then I’d probably be mall-walking around The Falls every week – even in the heart of the summertime. That place is so cool !