Issues with the Paper Boy

Today is a day of victory for me.  I have been battling the paper boy for almost two years now.  He has delivered the paper to me ever since I stopped paying for it. 

 The thing is, he is not delivering "the paper" he is delivering this shortened version called "The Briefing." which is a small sampling of what the paper actually is.  I guess he does this to try and win me back.  I used to love getting the paper and reading it everyday at lunch.  With the advances in technology and the invention of craigslist the paper has to find new forms of revenue.

 Those forms of revenue was taking the price I used to pay for the paper for eight years of 98 dollars to 324 dollars a year.  Well the paper was a luxury item and with an increase like that it had to go.  Now I had separation anxiety at first but now I am great with not getting the paper.  I might not know all the box scores for the Texas Rangers during the season but I can still follow them with my smart phone.

The paper is delivered at sometime around 5:00am and I am not up at that time. Every attempt at stopping this paper delivery has failed.  Leaving them in the yard, calling the paper, and sending emails. I decided to show the paper boy, with my papers that I did not want the paper any longer.  I started making a wall with all the papers in front of my house.  Every day he would deliver a new paper and every day I would just add it to the wall.  Today was the day of victory and he did not deliver the paper.  That people I call a diabetes win for all of us.  Now my house does not look vacant (I hated picking up those papers) and we save a pine tree or something.

My blogging buddy and also another type one diabetic Scully, let me know that she enjoys seeing the "Pete the chicken action picture of the day" so I thought to give it another try today and photograph her.  Here she is fresh out of the coupe this morning chomping on my weeds.  After this picture she ran over to the dog bowl and was chowing down on their left over dry food.  I am thinking of giving her some more of that dog food because she looked like she was in heaven pecking at that bowl.  As soon as I brought out the camera though she ran away from the bowl, so now I have to get her eating dog food out of their bowl.

What is an Atlatl, and other really random things.

 I drive by a "Planned Parenthood" store a couple of times a week and every now and then they have a group of protesters outside.  The thing that cracks me up is there is this really good Mexican food restaurant across the street called Petra.  When friends tell me they ate at Petra I always ask if they were in the area because they were protesting across the street and got hungry.  Now, I let people be and politics aside, do protesters really change someones mind as they drive by going 35mph?  I can't even read their signs much less hear what they are saying.  Most people that drive by don't even know this place is in the shopping center.

 Last night I had to take these pictures of my friend Mikes new Atlatl to send to another friend so he could make his own.  I asked Mike's son if they had one around the house or could get one to do some demonstrations on how they work.  Mike's son told me when he asked his dad about having an atlatl or if they could get one his eyes got huge and he went online and bought one as fast as he could. 

 If you don't know what an atlatl is or what it does basically it is a wood thing that helps a person throw a six foot long arrow at small game and fish.  These are real neat to show kids and have them try their luck at hitting the a small target.  Mike let me know they run about 35 bucks for a kit and something like 80 bucks and up for a pre-made one.  This will be real net in April when we show the boys how to use a two man buck, throw a hatchet, and of course use an atlatl

http://www.thunderbirdatlatl.com/

Above is a picture from www.thunderbirdatlatl.com showing some folks using their atlatls.

Last here I have been having fun with random photos and this morning I was chasing Pete the chicken around the yard trying to get a photo of her.  This is the best I could do.  She is camera shy or something.

Is a Nickel a Nickel if it is made of something else?

I am a coin collector since about the year 2000.  Now my collection is not large or has any rare and valuable coins in it but it is my collection.  Well it is mine and my son's collection.  He likes silver bars and gold.

Recently I was checking the price of silver and it amazed me that it was in the 35.00 dollar range.  I then was looking at some WW2 nickels I have that are something like 35% silver.  To my surprise they were valued at 2.00 dollars each.  Now think about that, what I have in my hand above has a face value of .50 cents (ten nickels).  The metal content in each coin is worth 40 times the value.

I bought these coins at a coin show around 2004.  These are part of a bag that has 27 WW2 silver nickels for the price of 4 dollars.  I could do the math but in eight years the value of a simple street nickel has increased something like 8 to 10 times.  What happens here is the US dollar policies have been on a "weak" dollar.  This is where we print money and that increases the price of fixed commodities such as silver.

So in the end if a nickel is made of silver or other materials is it still a nickel?  We will never know or something.  What is that line from Napoleon Dynamite?  Kip says something in the way of: "like anyone can possibly know that."

Off subject, My friend Ken is working with me and my friend.  We are doing this circuit training once a week and also supposed to be documenting our calories we eat.  He wanted me to take a picture of my lunch and send it to him.  What does having a picture of my lunch help me get in shape?  Oh well, so I thought to include it in today's post.  Look at my nice fit and active fettuccine Alfredo with lots of pepper on it with a side of two oranges, sun chips, and a water.