Sunday, July 5th, 2009
So, as I mentioned in the last post, we had three tons of wood pellets delivered yesterday. While the delivery isn’t all that exciting by itself, the fact that my mind has now turned to adding a pellet stove insert to the fireplace is.
I have told you that I am feeling all sorts of guilty for having nice piles of cut and split firewood stacked up in the woods. I can’t just let that sit there and rot. So, I found someone to take it, and any future wood, I’m sure. This all depends on if I get the pellet stove insert for upstairs though. If not, I ain’t givin’ nothin’ away.
The pellet stove insert I am eying is the “Harman Accentra Pellet Fireplace Insert.” I would say this is arguably the best fireplace pellet stove insert in the world. It certainly is the most expensive one I have come across. The expensive part gives me pause.
Regarding the free standing wood burning stove ordeal…I did check with other manufacturers and had no luck. We just don’t have the clearance. I gathered that many stoves have bottom and rear heat shields, but the problem we are having is from the top and sides. The sales guy told me that I can put heat shields along the mantle, but that’s not really the look I am going for. Oh well.
If I do decide to go ahead with the pellet stove insert, I will undoubtedly have to order at least two more tons of pellets. I am not sure how I will be saving any money on this versus burning oil. I doubt I will, unless the price of oil skyrockets again. I suppose I could just do it to feel “green.” The problem is, I don’t really put too much weight on feeling green when the cost is in the thousands. Paying that much makes me feel blue. Hey, that was a good one.
Above and beyond the cost, I just want to feel warm this Winter.
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Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
So my brother is in town again. He is here for a week and (at times) likes to see me. I guess he loves me. That’s nice, because I like to see him too.
Last night, we decided to go out to eat at Houlihan’s up in Glastonbury. I kind of like that place and the food is good. The only problem was that when I pulled into the Houlihan’s parking lot, the place was closed. I have no idea why. I sure hope they didn’t go out of business or something like that. My brother was in his car waiting for me. I drove around to meet him and told him that I had another place in mind right down the road.
We drove down Glastonbury Boulevard and made a right into the J. Gilbert’s parking lot. I have actually been wanting to go to this restaurant for some time because it looks pretty cool from outside. I always see a packed parking lot, so I usually avoid it. Last night I wanted to give it a shot.
We walked into the restaurant and found that even though there was a full parking lot, there were a whole bunch of tables open. I guess many of the cars belonged to people who liked to hang out in the bar area.
Okay, so here is my review of the restaurant:
- Good service, good atmosphere, good food, decent drinks
- Definitely not worth the money
Between the two of us, we spent over $100. That’s just crazy because all we had were two drinks, two salads, two entrees and two desserts. The entrees were “light,” if you know what I mean. Don’t get me wrong, everything was very tasty, but a little sliver of this and just a few of that doesn’t really explain the $25 plus price tag for the entree. That kind of ticks me off, because I was freakin’ starving last night. I wanted to be fed.
Listen, if you are an independent restaurant and have a really talented head chef who brought his or her own menu with them when they arrived, go for it and charge an arm and a leg for what you’re serving. The average diner doesn’t know how to put a price tag on that. I am thinking of our last dinner up at the Mayflower Inn. It was so unique it was incredible. I wish I took a picture of it.
But, if you are a chain restaurant, don’t charge so much. What’s going to happen is you are going to get a lot of one time customers who leave to never come back. Eh hem.
I gotta tell you again, really nice restaurant, great service, good food, okay drinks, but no way worth the money.
And, that’s my review.
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Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
This is terrible, just terrible. I think I have found myself walking down a very bad path.
Okay, so I already told you that I am taking some trees down in the woods next to the house. This is a good thing and it’s really starting to look nice over there. I actually took two more trees down today. I don’t like to do too many at a time because I would rather get used to the small changes I make and think about what I am doing before I go ahead and take down some more. Either way, I am building up next year’s supply of firewood.
This is where the problem starts. I still have about a cord of wood from the trees I cut down last summer. It’s is seasoning quite nicely and will make for some splendid firewood come this winter.
Now, I am almost positive that I have complained about the miserable (in)efficiency of a regular fireplace. We have one here and it does a really great job of sucking up what ever heat you already have in the house, out the chimney. Sure, the living room is warm, but you have to wear a snow suit in all the other rooms. Really, I don’t even use it much…just on those chilly spring or autumn evening when the pellet stove isn’t running.
So here I am, sitting on a cord of seasoned firewood and building up next year’s supply. What to do?
I am very happy with the pellet stove we got last year. It kicks butt when it comes to heating up about 3/4 of the house. To get that much heat, I need to keep it humming all winter. Last winter, I used four tons of pellets. I wouldn’t mind having a heat supplement helping out the pellet stove.
I am going to make a long whiny story short here. I really want a Hampton HI300 Wood Insert for the fireplace in the living room. Take a look at it:
http://www.hampton-fire.com/Wood/Inserts/HI300/index.php
It’s really nice, isn’t it?
I called the fellas down at the fireplace store today and told them what I wanted. He wrote up a quote and faxed it over to me. The thing is, it’s pricey. I know I’m not going to save any money by getting this little toy, so I’m iffy about the whole thing. To make matters worse, there is a tax credit that’s available called the “The U.S. Biomass Tax Credit.” It gives you back 30% of your purchase and installation price, up to $1500. That is just driving me crazy. You can learn about the tax credit here.
I know I am going to find myself in the car tomorrow or the next day driving down to the fireplace store. It’s bad, but I just want to feel that heat cranking out of that stove this winter. It even has a blower.
I’ll let you know what happens.
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Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night. I kept tossing and turning, constantly thinking about tennis. It was absolutely awful. I guess playing tennis until 10:30PM isn’t all that great for my sleep pattern.
Mike beat me pretty bad. He has become a strong player and I missed a lot of easy shots. Shots that may have given me points if I hadn’t screwed them up. I can’t say I was devastated, because I walked in expecting to lose. I did have a plan though…I figured that if I was going down, I was going to make him sweat for it. It gave me joy to see him huffing and puffing over there on the other side of the net. At one point towards the end of the match, I said that I wouldn’t mind being known as the guy who loses, but is the hardest to beat.
During my annoying night of not sleeping, I kept going through different ideas in my head. I thought that maybe I should only go to one clinic per week and take a private lesson. That would give me one private, one clinic and one ladder match. It does seem like a good idea. Then I thought of not going to the clinics at all…just take private lessons. The problem with that is I wouldn’t get the interaction with as many different types of player. I am sure I had many other ideas throughout the night, many of which I shouldn’t have been thinking about while I was trying to get some sleep.
Getting toasted on the court isn’t too much fun. It’s downright depressing.
As I was rolling out of bed this morning, I had an epiphany. I said to myself, “Oh man, what’s happening here is exactly what I didn’t want to happen. I am becoming competitive. This is the reason I didn’t want to play in the ladder in the first place.” You see, I started playing tennis again to get exercise and have some fun. I didn’t want to spend all sorts of money trying to get better to beat people. I really didn’t. But, this is what happens to me. I will confess though that the competitive side of the sport has its fun points.
As Laura and I were sitting in the kitchen this morning having our coffee, we started to talk about tennis. Actually, it was me doing the talking and she was doing the polite nodding. We do a lot of humoring these days. I explained to her that I was feeling terrible about losing a whole night’s sleep. I also felt terrible about almost being sucked into the competitive side of the game I was playing. I told her that I really should shut off the part of my brain that says losing is a bad thing. If I meet my original goals of getting exercise and having fun, there really should be no problem. I should walk away with my head held high. I think she agreed with that.
So, what am I going to do today? I am going to give one of the pros at the club a call. I need to start taking some private lessons again. I have to get better at this game to start kicking some butt.
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Wednesday, January 28th, 2009
I spoke to an old friend last night on the telephone. We chatted about all kinds of stuff, including the economy, the world in general and the stock market. Now, I have known this person for many years and thought I knew what he was all about. Last night’s conversation revealed that I wasn’t aware of nearly as much as I thought I was.
As it turns out, my old friend knows quite a bit about the stock market and is very enthusiastic about his knowledge. Now, you know me…I’m always ready to listen and discuss the world of high finance. We had a grand old conversation about the various types of stock indicators. The funny thing is, as much as I have heard about all the different types of tools my trading account offers, I really had no idea what any of them did. Last night’s conversation peaked my interest.
For a long time, I have had a suspicion that people were getting rich off of this stock market. I always knew that by setting “buy” and “sell” triggers, you can basically set your purchasing and sales on auto-drive. Whether or not that’s true, is debatable. I suppose that if it were true, everyone on earth would just take a class on how to set triggers and we would all be rich. Now I know that by analyzing stock indicators, you can get a much better picture of how to analyze past performance of a stock to predict its future movements. The problem is that our predictions are oftentimes so wrong, that we lose money.
If you have the time, the brains and the patience, I believe that you can study stock indicators and how to set triggers and make money in this stock market. There are some conditions that would have to be met first (in my opinion). They are: you would really need the time (all day), the money (and the willingness to lose it) and the intellect (to realize what exactly you are doing). I suspect that many people would get excited about learning about this type of thing and jump in to the market being a bit green. That basically describes me. The good part about how I roll is that I know what I am good at and what I’m not. I tend to stick with things that don’t offer very many negatives. I am a very patient man.
I suppose my point for this post is that we can all make money in this economy if we put out minds to it. If you are a stock market wizard and care to share your success stories, you can leave a comment on this post. I am sure you would have an audience of very interested readers.
By the way, if you would like a short description of stock indicators, you can visit this page. If you would like to delve into what each technical indicator does or its definition, you can visit this page.
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Saturday, January 24th, 2009
Colleges turn french fry oil into fuel
Students have begun making bio diesel fuel by converting used cooking oil from the dining hall.
Overcoming Information Overload
Daniel Tammet: “Our world is generating more information with more resources and technology now than at any time in history: through TV and radio programs, cell phones, magazines, email, websites, blogs, and other media… Being overwhelmed by a continuous maelstrom of information can be just as damaging to our minds as having too little of it…”
Dark flow: Proof of another universe?
For most of us the universe is unimaginably vast. But not for cosmologists. They feel decidedly hemmed in. No matter how big they build their telescopes, they can only see so far before hitting a wall. Approximately 45 billion light years away lies the cosmic horizon, the ultimate barrier because light beyond it not has not had time to reach us.
Sweden’s Fix for Banks: Nationalize Them
The Swedes have a simple message to the Americans: Bite the bullet and nationalize. With Sweden’s banks effectively bankrupt in the early 1990s, a center-right government pulled off a rapid recovery that led to taxpayers making money in the long run.
War against ivory trade takes to the sea
It’s the “other” ivory. And this week, conservationists in London stepped in to stop its sale. It might not be as well known as the stuff that comes from elephants, but the ivory from the narwhal, the tusked whale of the northern seas, is just as much in demand – and with that demand comes a threat just as severe as the one elephants face.
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Sunday, September 21st, 2008
We have no shortage of ideas when it comes to making money on the internet. If you would ever like to discuss them, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment. We will surely reply…simply because we love this stuff.
Now, I am generally going to talk about business ideas we wouldn’t get into for one reason or another, but rest assured, we have seen these type of ventures make money with very little start up cost. The reason I am only going to talk about ideas we won’t do is because we need to have some sort of competitive edge in the industry. We do a lot of profitable things “behind the scenes” to keep those prying eyes away. I guess you could call this the free stuff.
This idea is basically creating templates for successful web applications. If you are into launching websites, you probably are aware of the issues you can have when it comes time to make your new website look presentable. You know as well as I do, many of the web’s best applications come with a “bare bones” template and it’s up to the template designers to pretty these sites up.
Just to give you an example, I was looking for a premium Wordpress template a few days ago. I came across a few websites that had some good ones, but the designs fell off a cliff when I got to the second page of Google results. Actually, now that I think about it, there are only two design firms I am aware of that I would actually get my credit card out for.
So, knowing that there are about a zillion popular web applications out there and knowing that there is a demand for premium templates, don’t you think if would be a good idea to make some money while the opportunity is staring you in the face?
Ok, so how do you do it when you have absolutely no design experience? That’s easy. The internet is full of awesome design firms based in Russia and India. Get in touch with them, lay out your plans, have them complete the projects, but be sure to get the license to resell the end product. Then, start up your own blog with all your designs and get ready to sell. Open up a store front that sells digital media and do a little SEO. By the time you are done, you’re in business.
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Friday, April 18th, 2008
Laura and I were down in Tuckahoe, NY last night and decided to visit “The Olde Stone Mill” restaurant. The reason I had interest in this restaurant is because we saw it during the last season of Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsey. This is one of our favorite reality shows because it shows different types of leadership and gives me many ideas for great recipes. Gordon isn’t much of a vegetarian lover, but perhaps someone will guide him to see the light one of these days. I suppose many good chefs have meat on their menus. Oh well. Nonetheless, he is quite entertaining.
We basically drove by and stopped so Laura could grab a photo. This restaurant is in a really great part of town and looks very nice. I am not sure it was open when we drove by, but I’m glad the lights were on. It was kind of late at night.
Earlier in the evening, on our way down to Westchester, we hit a lot of traffic on the Hutch so we had to trust my new and awesome best friend…my GPS to guide us through the neighborhoods of Bronxville, Scarsdale and Tuckahoe. I have to say, I fell in love. What a damn nice area. The culture of hardworking people with money is soooo different than those…well, let’s just say their hard work is paying off. I really enjoyed driving through those roads and looking at the pride people take in their properties. A lot of labor and elbow grease can give great results. There were beautiful houses with great landscaping. I should’ve taken more photos for ideas. Maybe we will go back.
One area I really loved was Weaver Street in Scarsdale. It’s pretty “in there” and I would definitely need my GPS again to find it, but what an area. We also went to Eastchester, so we saw a lot.
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Monday, March 24th, 2008
I know that I have told you in the past how much Laura and I like to eat lunch at the Fife’n Drum restaurant in Kent, CT every Easter. We have been doing it now for about four years. It usually is a very good time. Well, unfortunately, yesterday was our last visit to this restaurant.
I am going to try to keep this short and sweet and not too much like a restaurant critic. Let’s just say that it seems like there is some new management and a new chef at this place.
The wait was very long during each portion of our two course Easter lunch and the food was amateur at best. It seemed like the dish washing dude was back there cooking too. I swear it seemed like there were parts of my dishes that were from a can. To me, “warm potatoes” does not mean potato salad that tasted like it was straight from Costco. A vegetarian dish does not mean boiled vegetables. Oh well, there’s $80 down the drain. We didn’t even stay for dessert…my favorite part. We just left the money on the table and left. During the last 20 minute wait to have our plates cleared from the table, three different waiters walked by and looked at us at least seven times. We kept wondering if our waiter had gone home. Well, as it turns out, as we were leaving, Laura caught sight of this guy eating at the bar. What the hell? If you can’t tell, I am a little annoyed. To think, I still left a tip…A TIP. I didn’t have the patience to wait for any change. I swear, if we had stayed any longer, they would’ve started vacuuming the floor while people were still eating. Yes, we will have to find a new place to eat on Easter.
To simmer down, we went on our traditional hike at Bull’s Bridge. I have a few posts about our previous hikes. It’s a really neat place.
Since we have been down the same trail so many times, I thought it would be a good idea to check out the top part of the trails. Laura might have been a little disappointed because she wanted to go on a real hike. I will have to make it up to her. We took lots of pictures and video. I will upload the video today and post it here.
This is a photo of the front of the Fife’n Drum restaurant in Kent, CT. I don’t even know why I am showing this. Perhaps someone from the restaurant will read this post and mail me a refund check.
This is the monument in Kent, CT.
These are two shots of Bull’s Bridge itself. We got lucky with very good weather.
These are all shots of the river. The water was rushing very fast, due to all the rain we have been getting. We didn’t see any kayakers like we have in previous years. Maybe the water was going too fast. I sure wouldn’t get in there.
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Friday, March 21st, 2008
The more I look around, the more I learn that the domain name business is big business.
As I told you yesterday, I am trying to scoop up a bunch of different extensions for the domains I already have. It’s working out pretty well, but I have hit a little bump. I already bought up most of the available ones and now I have to enter the market of second (or third) hand domains. That is when it gets expensive.
Let me give you a little example…a guy called me a few years ago to offer a .com domain that he was selling. This was a hot name and he was looking for $50,000 for it. I almost started laughing when he told me that. I think I offered him $300 and went off and did something else. As it turns out, I am kicking myself. I have a feeling I am going to be seeing this domain in action soon because someone out in Las Vegas just purchased it at auction for $135,000. Why was, or is, it worth so much? Well, it was first registered in 1996, so it has some age. Also, it rolls off the tongue extremely easily and is two very powerful keywords. It’s also quite descriptive. Those things alone give it a lot of value. I talked to the seller last night and he mentioned that he does have another .com for sale that I would be interested in. He wants $50,000 for it. This one is definitely not worth what the other one was, but it does give me pause. Honestly, if you can get a well known .com that was born back in 1996, $50,000 is not too much. You do need to do a little research first.
Yesterday, I put a bunch of bids in for multiple .com and .net addresses. I did receive an email back telling me I could buy a .net for $2,688. I am going to have the name appraised today to see if it has been blacklisted or anything like that. I believe it was first registered back in 2002, which isn’t bad.
What’s the benefit of purchasing a used domain name? The answer is Google. Google likes “aged” domains. You can set up a site and not have to wait for Google’s aging filter to do its thing. Also, there may be links to the domain already. So basically, if you get a used domain, you could set up a site and have it indexed very quickly to start making money fast.
I am going to buy a few more today and then call it quits for a while. The guy I spoke to last night is also looking for $50,000 for a little known extension that will become very popular. This is for the same domain as I was talking about above.
What I do know is this…if I buy a bunch of these names now and sit on them for a few years and let them age, I can send them to auction and sell them for some $$$. From what I have been learning, I do have quite an investment already. Just remember…if you are going to get into this, you need to buy domains that people will actually want in a few years. I am not sure how many people would be interested in kwaree.com. There are also huge price variations with what the name consists of, like one word, two words, hyphens, etc…
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