Tony Brewer

I wanted to mow the lawn – or should I say mow the leaves that are on the lawn today.  You can’t even see the lawn right now because of all of the fallen leaves blanketing the ground.  I wanted to use the lawn mower to pick up the leaves and mulch them and vacuum them into the clippings bag so I could then go dump them on the compost pile.  But it rained pretty much all day since we got home from the store, so instead of being able to work around the outside of the house I pulled the car into the garage and changed the oil and vacuumed the carpets and seats.  It needed to be done, and I’m glad I did it, but I still wish I could have worked on the lawn; I don’t like the way it looks all covered with leaves.  I hope I can get that done this week!

So I’ve started looking for some computer games that I can download from the Internet.  I found a site called midoritech.com that is based in Burgundy France that sells a few games that might be of interest.  They are certainly reasonably priced.  They have a good selection of fun kids computer games.  I might download a few of them for when the nieces and nephews come over and need some quiet entertaining.  I see they also sell some iphone games for those lucky folks that have iphones!  And of course, the standby Windows or mac solitaire and mahjong, too!

Teri and I recently bought a new computer for our home office.  We have our own laptops, but we like having a full size personal computer on a real desk.  They’re just more comfortable for the times that we need to spend more than a few minutes on a computer.  I like the full size keyboard, a REAL mouse and a large monitor.  I was shocked when I realized that it did not have any games preloaded on it!  Every computer I’ve ever bought had games preloaded on it!  I can remember the first computer I bought, how many hours we played solitaire on that thing!  I can’t believe I don’t at least have THAT on this new computer!

This morning Teri and I went grocery shopping early to avoid the crowds. We try to get in and out of the store before 9am if it is at all possible. Today we had an extra long list so we split it in half and each took a cart and our own list and agreed to meet at the exit after we finished shopping. Surprisingly the timing was just about perfect! If I hadn’t stopped to look at the digital cameras (thinking about buying one) we would have made it to the doors exactly at the same time.

Anyway, I was surprised to see a young woman walking up and down the store aisles leading a whippet on a leash. The dog was wearing a vest stating it was a therapy dog. As it happened, I was walking down an aisle the same time she was approaching the other direction. I love dogs, so I stopped to chat with her for a moment. She told me that the dog was in training to become a therapy dog and that they were going to a local nursing home a little bit later that morning. I think therapy dogs are a wonderful idea; they bring so much joy into the day of people who are confined in nursing homes or hospitals. I wished her luck after a few minutes, and we moved on. Come to think of it, if I hadn’t stopped to chat with her I would have met Teri at the doors at the right time! Oh well, it was only a couple of minutes, so it was no big deal. Splitting the list and taking separate carts worked out really well, I think we’ll continue to do that in the future!

The stock market sure has been in the news a lot lately! Seems that a lot of people have been more involved in Stock Trading than ever before.  The stock market has been very volatile; reminds me of a roller coaster ride – buckle up your seat belt and hang on for your lives!

If you are thinking about getting involved in the stock market right now, you might want to consider the Online Broker services of firsttrade.com.  They offer Online Trading services at very competitive prices, and they have a great investment and security guide on their website to help you understand the process. They have a FAQs section to help answer your tax questions as well. I really like their Mutual Funds screener to help you pick out which Mutual Funds is the best one for you to invest in! And their 3 second execution guarantee just seems incredible to me!

Definitely check them out if you are interested in getting into the stock market – they are worth a look-see.