Zenblaster's Rants of Silence

Rantings in the digital wind as your Grot Shop of the information age. "I didn't get where I am today without recognising a completely useless machine when I see one" - C.J.

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

While in Charlotte for the Presidents Day weekend, James showed us a great pasta / sauce / bakery / deli type grocery store called Pasta & Provisions. Just the aroma of the fresh bread, sauce and pasta were amazing. We loaded up on all sorts of stuff for the eight of us over the weekend. It was all very good!

I was invited to see them making the pasta, which was pretty interesting on this scale. Not family size, not mass production, but store size machinery with great attention to detail. Very cool!

I also couldn't pass up the black tshirt which said "Eat Pasta, Run Fasta" on the front, with their logo and address on the back. Have already worn this once, breaking it into the collection of black tshirts.

This picture came out the best of the set, showing the front of store with the meat counter. I think we had 6 or 7 different types of meat sliced fresh, and we enjoyed them all. I wish I had more of the rest of the store, but mainly it was the aroma was most memorable. If you get to Charlotte, stop by. Their web site is www.pastaprovisions.com

A picture named PastaAndProvisions.jpg
7:54:26 PM comment []

Caught up on the more mundane side of time off and then we headed out to pick up the kids from school. Rob had a basketball game at 4, so we hurried over West of the Ashley for the game. It started out very close, and I think no one scored for most of the first quarter. Things picked up quickly and our team came away with the win. Looked like a good game and Rob had fun and scored a basket. We had a friend of Johns from school along, and that made it more fun as well. We went back home and got into homework mode. After that, I went into email catchup mode and will hit a few more todo items as well. Will also start looking at what we have on tap for tomorrow.

Was happy to see the postings with the pictures yesterday worked out just fine. I'm using a blogging software package on the Mac called Radio by Userland Software. Its pretty good, although sometimes not the most intuitive. It has one killer configuration flaw, where anytime I've had to change hard drives, it was extremely tied to the name of the HD. It was pure hell changing this twice, and I vowed to never do that again, so hopefully this HD will live a long time, or they will update thewir software to not be so difficult to move. It is very nice RSS feed reading software in combination with the blogging. I've heard a new group is reworking this software, so maybe next annual license renewal there will be good news and I'll stick with them. I don't mind paying for a product that works well and provides me with entertainment or utility. I just mind when it tortures me with insane configuration.
7:41:07 PM comment []

Started bright and early at the opeing of the Post Office to retrieve the piece of Certified Mail they LOST yesterday. Long story. While in line, a lady ahead of me had the very same story, although by the time I left, she was still waiting to see if they had her letter. Both of us had not received the first notice, and were responding to a second notice. Upon close inspection of my letter, there was nothing written on the 1st notice line stamped on the letter, only the date of 2nd notice in that blank. I wonder what the real story is here. Is it a simple mistake, or negligence in getting the job done. A third person in line piped right up that this was the worst Post Office in America, and she volunteered her belief that people just didnt want to get out of the truck to bring the letters to the door. I wondered about that, since the day my notice was left for delivery, we WERE home and no one rang the doorbell. Hec, there were only 2 cars in the driveway, that looks like nobody home, right?

Took care of some errands at Advance Auto Parts. They have been very good each time I've run up there for items. Today for a return, they were great. Good customer service, I like that.

We dropped off a car for service at Baker Motors. Is it just me, or are these cars quite problematic? This is the first time in the shop for the wagon, but the other car has been there 4 or 5 times for trouble. Ah, I sure can appreciate the days of the Toyota Camry... All it ever needed was oil changes. When a good hybrid rolls around, and we need a new car, first look goes there.
1:07:44 PM comment []