Tony Brewer

One of the things that I really appreciate about the Internet is how much easier it is to handle our investing.  I can remember in the “old days” when my parents wanted to make changes to their IRA Accounts they had to try to reach their agent by phone and had to mail forms back and forth – the changes took a long time!

But now, with the Internet entering so many more facets of our everyday lives it is much simpler to handle investing any money you may have.  You can easily get an Online Broker that you can reach 24/7 and do all of the Online Trading your little heart desires.  And you no longer have to wait until the end of the day to know how much you earned or lost; the trades are done immediately!  Yes, this is one way that the Internet has made life a lot easier!

I was delighted when I went into Wendy’s for lunch and the cashier asked me if I wanted to buy a Wendy’s keytag for $1 – and it would entitle me to free Frosty Juniors for the entire year! Well, I really like ice cream, and that is exactly what a Frosty is. I gave her my $1 so fast it would make your head spin! And I enjoyed my very first free Frosty only minutes later! Oh yeah, I’m gonna have a lot of free desserts this year!

Doing business is a lot different now than it was back in the days when my aunt and uncle first opened their neighborhood market.  They had no way to know if the checks they were taking from their customers were going to be honored or not.  I can remember going to their store several times and seeing dishonored checks tacked to the bullein board behind their checkout stand.  And taking credit cards for payment cost them an arm and a leg from the credit card companies!  They used to offer a 2% discount for their cash paying customers!

Enter modern day merchant account services and companies.  With the help of modern day telephone lines and the Internet services, an ach merchant account can quickly process personal checks and let you know if the check is good or not.  And the transaction fees for credit card services are low enough that the 2% cash discount has long since been discontinued.

Earlier today I looked out the kitchen window and saw down the road about a quarter mile an overturned car in the ditch.  I know that car wasn’t there a couple of minutes before then, as I had just been outside scraping snow off of the cars.  I immediately called 911 and reported the overturned car.  I explained that I had just spotted it and gave them my address and the position of the car.  I couldn’t believe my ears when the operator asked me if anyone was hurt!  How was I supposed to know?  I just called them as soon as I saw the car!  I had figured that it would be time better spent calling 911 to get the ambulances and fire trucks on the way here than for me to run down there and check out the car and THEN call 911!  Especially since my cell phone was dead and I had to call from the house phone!  What did she want me to do, run down there and check it out and then run back to the house to call 911?  What is there was someone inside that was so hurt that I couldn’t leave them to come home and call 911?

Stupid 911 operator kept me on the phone so long asking stupid questions that by the time I was able to get out of the house to go check on the car the ambulances and fire trucks were already there!  So I’m sure I did the right thing, but it sure was aggravating talking to someone so numb at such a time.

Teri and I have been considering which kind of Gas Logs we want to put in the new family room we are planning to add on later this year.  Our neighbor was telling us that he bought some R. H. Peterson Real Fyre Gas Logs for his fireplace last year and was quite happy with them. One of the decisions we have to make is whether we want to accommodate Vented Gas Logs or Ventless Gas Logs.

Although Peterson gas logs sell both types, I’m inclined to want to go with the vented ones because whenever I am in the room with a ventless fire place that is going the fire makes my nose run and my sinuses hurt.  From what I understand that means that we are supposed to crack a window open to get fresh air, but we had already done that.