I’m tossing out (actually I’m recycling) my local phone books. There are so darn many of them and they just take up a lot of room and don’t get used, as long as I have access to the Internet that is.  When I need to find or get information about some one or some place I get it quickly while I’m online. I can’t even remember the last time I looked anything up in any of the paper version phone books. So out the door they go and a good riddance.

Like earlier today I spent some time online looking for a decent San Francisco auto repair center. I went to repairpal.com and found several that seemed to match my needs. My Honda Accord which is my only means of transportation is in need of a new timing belt and I don’t want to use any of my charge cards that I have in my wallet for several well known auto service centers. I’m determined not to use any of my credit cards, it’s a challenge but it’s working for me. So far I haven’t had to use a credit card since September of last year, not even for Christmas!

It was either the epiphone hummingbird or the MF martin guitar that I had my eyes on for Christmas this past year and since the epiphone hummingbird wasn’t available it came down to the MR martin guitar that I was presented with on Christmas Day. I have been trying my best to learn how to play the darned thing on my own, but I’m thinking that I really need some lessons to get me started.

There is a music store in town that offers guitar lessons and I found a coupon that I use for the first class that I won’t get charged for. So what the heck, I live free and if I don’t think these are lessons for me than I can always not go back. There are a ton of websites online that teach people how to play all kinds of musical instruments that I guess I can always check out.  But I believe I would do better with a real life teacher in the long run.

As much as I made of getting a guitar Christmas if I don’t learn how to play the darned thing I will never hear the end of it for years to come.

One of my favorite Christmas presents that I received last Christmas was a nice set of wine glasses, along with a few bottles of my favorite wine. The problem is that I don’t have a stemware rack to display these wonderful looking glasses. The bottles of wine have long ago been emptied but of course I still have the glasses. I was told about a good web site that has a great selection of wine glass racks.  This website of glassstemwareracks.com guarantees the lowest prices possible for glass racks, they constantly check the Internet to make sure that they do have the lowest prices, if you find any that are lower they urge you to contact one of their customer service representatives, which I think is pretty cool.

So over the weekend I spent some time looking to see what they had to offer.  My goodness they have some very nice looking racks for sale and their prices are very low, I’m glad to see. I’m really interested in their hanging glass rack that I’ve placed a photo of below; it’s made of hammered steel and gives me a place to store the wine bottles and a few other items as well. Right now it is on sale for just a little over $200 and I’m glad to see that they accept PayPal.

Hammered Steel Hanging Wine & Stemware Racks

Twenty years ago, who would have thought how my family so drifting farther and farther apart as the years fly by. I guess I always assumed that we would all pretty much stay close by to where the old homestead is, instead every couple of years another one of us relocating for one reason or another. One of the top reasons for this to keep happening is because of employment demands, with the economy still in such turmoil and good jobs are hard to find and keep, it’s amazing what we all will do in order to keep ourselves employed and not landing in the poor house, or worse moving back in with our parents. Something that none of us wants to have to do, ever!

My brother and his wife and kids are currently looking at louisville real estate and have requested a Free Newcomers Kit from one of the leaders of Louisville Real Estate online. Louisville, Kentucky, the place that is well known for being the Home of the Kentucky Derby, the Muhammad Ali Museum and where the Louisville Slugger baseball bats are made. I’ve been lucky in the fact that I have been able to travel and see a lot of our country, but I have never been to Kentucky, so I don’t really have an opinion of the place from first hand experiences. All I know is that is that it is a good 8 hour drive from here, which is a good long drive, but not too long that it would keep them from coming back home for various holidays and other family gatherings,  at least once in a while.

It looks like I did get a good deal on the ESP LTD EC Series Electric Guitar Case that I found online and gave to George (my favorite cousin of all time) for Christmas, which seems like it was more than only one month ago. I had a bit of idle time on my hands and found a musical equipment site that I gave a quick look-see. I bought several people musical related gifts last month and I was curious to see what the prices are like now that Christmas is done and over with.

ESP LTD EC Series Electric Guitar Case

There a lot of sales going on right now. I remember working in retail how this time of the year was such a pain for a variety of reasons. People are still coming in regularly to use their gift cards on all the Post Christmas Sales that are going on right now. Retail wants as much off the shelve as possibly because Inventory time is fast approaching and we all know or can imagine what a pain in the rear doing a complete inventory of anything can be. What a long and painful process that always turns out to be.