Hodge Podge 2024

 Hi friends and family

A little bit of this and that with today's posting

Costco followup. Wow, Costco really came through for me, bringing down the net cost my "trial" membership to zero. Along with my $20 cash card in the mail came some coupons for "welcome aboard" items that included:

Free box of 320 disinfectant wipes, normally $20;
Pack of 72 AA batteries, Kirkland brand, normally $10; and
$10 off any pack of fresh meat, including beef, pork, poultry, or seafood.

The membership was $60, minus the $20 cash card, minus $40 on the coupons equals $0.00.

I went shopping on a Thursday, July 26, with coupons in hand. I got the wipes and the batteries. Bought a four-pack of NY strip steaks, 4.3 pounds, normally $43, for $33. Also bought a mammoth jug of "All Free and Clear" liquid laundry soap for $14 that promises to do 126 loads. So big it has a spigot on one end so you don't have to lift the damn thing up to your washing machine. You just take the little supplied cup and hold it up to the spigot and press, just as though your were tapping a keg of beer. I think between (sister) Dawn and I, we do about two loads per week, so this should last us a year at least.

Put the meat in a cooler I brought along, and headed over to Sumo, a Japanese steak and sushi place about 2 miles away where I was to treat (niece and nephew) Kris and Jim Dockter to dinner as a reward for Kris adding a new functionality to my watch website. It also happened to be Jim's birthday, and he had a $20 coupon in honor of the occasion. So they offered that to me and, hey, I'm not above cashing in on somebody else's good fortune, so I accepted it gladly.

Jim had some kind of steak platter (he eats nothing harvested from water), while Kris ordered a vegetarian chow-mein looking thing with an "Alaska Roll" on the side, which is a sushi roll with salmon as the meat. I ordered a basic 9-piece sushi dinner (3 each of salmon, tuna, and halibut) and a California roll. For dessert, the waiter brought out this Chinese party favor thing that looked like a toy space ship. He set it in front of Jim, and lit a small candle in the center and ... wait for it ... in about 10 seconds the thing sprang open to resemble a lotus blossom with each petal having a tiny candle on it that light themselves from the center candle. Then an electronic chip started playing "Happy Birthday" until we asked the waiter how much it would cost to turn it off. He had to remove the battery, destroying the toy in the process. There apparently was no on/off switch. I don't know what was funnier: the toy, or watching me try to use chopsticks. Anyway, some nice bargains at Costco. I gave Jim two packages of disinfectant wipes and 36 AA batteries for his birthday.

Panera Bread

Well, I've officially taken Panera Bread off the "bargains" list and put it on the "binges" list, and not a very worthy binge at that. On Wed., August 1, I pulled into Panera Janesville for lunch, and ordered a roasted turkey sandwich on ciabatta bread with a small soft drink. I had a $10 bill at the ready to pay. My bill was $13.08. I asked the cashier if there had been a mistake and she replied no, that was the correct amount. She further explained there was a $1 upcharge for ordering roasted turkey instead of deli turkey. OK, so the same sandwich with deli turkey with a drink would still have been a goodly amount over $10, right? Anyway, I gave the cashier a $20 bill, took my change, and ate my sandwich.

Granted it was good. Certainly better than a Subway sub at half the price, but with a couple of wafer-thin slices of of turkey like substance. But was it worth $13? I don't think so. I understand that they days of the $5 lunch are pretty much gone. Even at McDonalds, the average price of a meal these days (large sandwich, small fries, drink) is $6 or even $7. But a sandwich and drink at a self-serve restaurant for $13 is, in my opinion, not a good value for the dollar.

I'll still eat there as a "snack" place, say a cina-crunch bagel $1.34 with cream cheese $1.25 and a coffee $1.89, $4.48 plus tax, and suck up some free Internet. But I think my lunch days at Panera Bread are over. Milios' across the street makes one helluva turkey sub on great bread for around $7 with drink.


New book cover ...

I put a new cover on my e-book, The Sweet Life on $15K a Year. The big fish just didn't seem to be cutting it. As one friend said, "Great picture, wrong place to put it."

I thought it conveyed a certain sense of adventure, but the same friend said I should use one of my food/drink pictures and convey more a sense of comfort and relaxation. So here it is:

It's me about to enjoy a cup of European-style hot chocolate at Max Brenner at Manly Beach, Australia. We'll see how it does. Hopefully better than the old cover. I ran a calculation based on the book's ranking among all Amazon e-books, and I figure the book's been downloaded just five times since late June when I put it up for sale. Don't think I'll be taking any cruises from the royalties off this one! But that's OK. I wrote it mostly for myself just to see if I could do it.

So that's about it for now. (Sister) Dawn and I are enjoying a little retreat in Dubuque, Iowa, at the Hotel Julien. We tried a new restaurant last night, L'May Eatery on 10th and Main. Rated #1 restaurant in Dubuque by Tripadvisor and Yelp. It's a little-food-on-big-plates type of place. We ordered two appetizers, seared sea scallops (my choice) and warm spinach-artichoke dip with pita bread wedges (Dawn's choice), and shared them. For entree, we split the Parmesan crusted icelandic cod served with jasmine rice and a mango salsa. There was a $5 plate split charge, but that was fine. We each got our own salad, and the bread is a homemade whole grain variety served with maple butter. I had a Stella Artois to drink, and Dawn stuck with water. This place offers a 5% discount if you pay with cash, so the bill came to $56, and we left $14 tip because our server, Kathy, was excellent. The appetizer/entree combo was a good thing because it gave us an opportunity to sample multiple things. Everything was fine, but we both agreed the scallops were tops.  Certainly a splurge, but worth it.

Take care, everyone.

Bruce