Tony Brewer

Guest post by Andy Wayneswright

One of the things that frustrate me a lot is the general misconception that studded snow tires are illegal in this state. If you take the trouble to actually check the laws, or even just check with Triple A, you will find that studded snow tires are legal in most states during the winter months. And by that I mean from October 15 through April 15 studded snow tires are perfectly legal. When I lived in New England I bought studded snow tires for our cars every three years. Driving around on the icy roads was a lot easier with studded snow tires, and having them on the cars was a lot more convenient than having to put tire chains on and off. And having the extra traction on the wheels meant no more spinning tires going up and down icy hills. Of course having a bag of kitty litter in the trunk of the car was always a good idea too, but once I tried the studded snows I became a big fan. The all-season tires are all well and good for places that don’t have a real winter, but why the tire stores have gone to the extreme of getting rid of their studding machines and decided to promote the all-season tires exclusively just does not make sense to me at all.

When we first moved here we didn’t bring the studded tires with us, the previous winter season was the last season that the studs were any good, we were going to need new studded snows for the next winter season. We had no idea that it would be so very hard to get new ones once we moved. Winter came, and I started to call around to the different tire stores to get some price quotes on a new set of studded tires. That’s when I learned that no tire store in the area sold them, and they all insisted that they were illegal in this state.
Eventually I telephoned the state police headquarters and spoke with someone there. They told me that although the studded tires are legal in the state that if I wanted to buy any that I would have to actually go across state lines to get them.
Thank goodness for the Internet, that’s all I have to say about that. I had no idea where to even start looking for tire dealers that were just barely across state lines, but within a few minutes I had managed to go online and find brookstone tire coupons and a retailer only a couple of hours away. When I called them to check and see if they had the tires that I wanted they told me that they could get them in a week. I’ll be glad to finally get them after all of this trouble.

Teri wants to buy some flea traps for our place.  We don’t have any pets, but we have allowed some friends to bring their dogs over from time to time when they came to visit, so it is possible that some fleas came into our place with their dogs.  So I will humor her and buy some flea traps.

Every time I turn around I’m hearing Teri talk about the nomorerack bargains she has been buying online. At first I was a little bit worried that she was spending too much money, but after reading a few nomorerack reviews and checking out the website for myself I decided that she was probably not going to get herself in too deep.

The website is set up so that one time a day they post eight different products for sale, all at very low bargain prices. At different times of the day they offer up a couple of extreme savings that they call insanity deals. I’ve bookmarked their site as a place to keep my eye on for future gifts – they seem to have a nice variety of things that most people would like to have. I wonder how many other websites like this are out there yet to be brought to our attention!

Sprite is my favorite soft drink.  However, I’ve noticed that whenever I order it as a drink in almost any restaurant, all I ever seem to get is carbonated water.  It is really nasty.  If I send it back with a complaint, they bring the same garbage back out as a replacement.  This is very aggravating because I want something sweet to drink that is caffeine free, and I don’t like the other caffeine free soft drinks.  Since it seems to be industry-wide, and nation-wide I find it hard to believe that it is the fault of the restaurant.  I wish Sprite would do something to “take care of” this situation.  They’d probably see an increase in sales if they did! 

One of the ways that Teri and I like to be creative in our house is to use flower boxes in different ways than other “normal” people would use them. For example, we hung a couple of used window boxes that we found in an antique store on the wall in the mud room/laundry room in between the washing machine and the back door.

One of them holds various things like dog leashes, shopping bags, slippers, mittens and hats. On the outside of it we put some cup hooks to hang our keys. The second windowbox holds the bottle of laundry detergent, a gallon size jug of white vinegar, pre-treatment products, window cleaner, furniture polish, and dust rags.

I’d love to hear ideas from you how you would repurpose things like that!