Tony Brewer

We try to watch our weight, and our health. We don’t eat a lot of red meat, even though we love it! Today I have a major craving for a big juicy steak, cooked on the grill. The local supermarket has a good deal on New York Strip Steaks (my absolute favorite!) and I am planning on buying several of them, and some salad fixings and grill the steak on the back deck this evening. I’ll be making my favorite Italian Seasonings Italian dressing with red wine vinegar (the red wine vinegar gives it a little extra “zip”) That and a big russet baked potato with fat free sour cream , and strawberry shortcake for dessert will send me to nirvana in short order!

Graduation season is here!  I have received seven graduation invitations in the mail from various friends and family members!  So now begins the search for the perfect graduation gift for each of them.  Some of them I am very close to; others I only barely know.One of the things that always stumped me in the past was what to give someone as a graduation present.  I don’t want to be one of those people who just gives the graduates a “really nice” pen and pencil set!  That’s a cop-out!

Only recently did it occur to me that one of the best gifts someone could receive at that age is a high quality luggage, like tumi luggage!  Most graduates are going to be “on the move” in one way or another.  They may be going off to another school, or moving to another city to pursue a career.  Of course, you need to make sure that the graduate IS planning to go somewhere!  A gift of hartmann luggage or briggs and riley luggage to someone who plans to just stay home with the folks forever wouldn’t appreciate a gift like that at all!  But for the up-and-coming graduate with big plans is going to need great luggage to take his (or her) belongings along!

Over the years I’ve noticed that suction cups are not as great as they are hyped up to be. I’ve tried to use suction cups to hang sun catchers on the windows, but they fall down from time to time. I think it has something to do with temperature fluctuations, but I’m not sure. I have to wonder why “they” can’t invent suction cups that won’t come down until you want them to come down!

And the suction cups that come with GPS systems are not very good. Not even when they are brand new! I try to make sure that my windshield is clean, and the GPS stays up on the windshield for a short while, but it falls down after a while. And when it DOES fall down, it falls on the floor and it is hard to reach while I’m driving! My GPS has gotten pretty beat up over the months from falling on the floor. I sure wish those suction cups worked better!

Several years ago we bought a cordless phone system that had one base, and two cordless handsets with it. We put the base in the kitchen, and the second one in the den. Recently I noticed only one of the two cordless handsets rings – the other one does not. I have looked the handsets over as thoroughly as I can, and can’t figure out how to get both of them to ring! I don’t remember them being that way when they were new; I wonder if one of them is broken! I hate to buy a new system, I really like this one!

I am always amazed by how much advertising there is about Direct TV Service.  When Teri and I first moved here, we had a lot of people (friends, neighbors, coworkers) recommending that we get a Direct TV System for our own television service.  I wondered what in the world was going on!  It seems that their Direct TV company offers existing customers a financial reward for every new DirectTV customer that they bring in.  So that is why everyone was asking me to make sure that if we ordered it, that we told the company that they recommended it to us!  They all wanted the reward!

Well, I like to watch television as much as the next person, but I have to say that it is aggravating to be getting all of this so-called well-intentioned advice simply because these so-called friends and neighbors would get a reward for bringing us into the customer base!  I’d much prefer to be told the truth about how good the value of the service is and not just get a sales pitch because they want to make some money off of us!