Easy Parmesan "Risotto"

Gourmet Chef Elaine makes some seriously delicious risotto, but the constant stirring is tedious and time-consuming.  This recipe from The Kitchen makes a faux "risotto" (pun intended) and starts with Arborio rice and chicken stock in a Dutch oven and baked, covered, for 45 minutes.  The remaining ingredients are added and stirred for a few minutes; it's ready to serve.

All the details can be found at this link.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/easy-parmesan-risotto-recipe-2172312

Wild Watermelon

Stopping at Buc-ee's on the drive from Austin to College Station, Texas is a must.  They have the largest, cleanest restrooms on the planet and there is always something new to try in its huge, 56,000-square-foot emporium.  I spotted their version of an Icee machine (they had several) and it was an easy decision to get the Wild Watermelon, a real treat for $0.99.  It made the remaining one-and-a-half hours on the road very pleasant.

Collectable Crypto

The Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently put out a statement classifying a meme coin as a type of collectible that is not subject to the agency's rules on securities.  So it's sort of like comic books, baseball cards, or stamps that people invest in hoping they will go up in value.  But unlike these examples, a meme coin, which is inspired by internet memes, characters, current events, or trends, does not actually exist as a tangible object., but is purely a digital asset that exists on a blockchain network.  Why in the world anyone would want to buy something with absolutely zero intrinsic value, is beyond me.  It's even crazier that dogecoin, the most popular meme coin, currently has a market cap of over 24 billion dollars.  

The SEC statement related to meme coins is at the link below.

https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/staff-statement-meme-coins

iPad Charging Phone

If your phone is low on power, one option is to charge it using another phone or a tablet like the iPad shown below.  Since both my phone and iPad have USB-C connectors, I just needed a cable with USB-C's on both ends.  I didn't have that, but I improvised using a USB-to-USB-C cable and a small USB-to-USB-C adapter (which I bought several for my MacMini), the darker thing sticking out of the iPad on the right-hand side.  I now carry that cable in my laptop bag which I always take on trips.

https://www.iphonelife.com/content/charging-your-iphone-ipad-it-possible

MPerks To Wallet

We like the benefits of our Meijer Mperks card, like getting useful coupons in the mail and redeeming points for dollars off our bill, but the worst part is fumbling with their mobile app in the checkout line, trying to bring up the needed barcode.  Recently I noticed that there was a selection to "Add to Google Pay", but adding a rewards card as a payment method seemed pretty stupid, so I ignored it for a long time.  But when I had a moment, I decided to see what that would do and found that Google Pay is now Google Wallet, and storing the bar code there made perfect sense.  With that done, I did the same for Gourmet Chef Elaine's iPhone and now we can both easily bring up the barcode without accessing their annoying app and needing an internet connection.

Classic Sweet Tea Oven-Fried Chicken

When I saw this on The Kitchen, I was intrigued and had to try it.  In the morning, I mixed the brine of sweet tea, soy sauce, garlic, and onion, added the chicken, and put it in the fridge.  At dinnertime, I salted the chicken and coated it with flour, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper.  With a little melted butter in the rimmed baking sheet, the chicken was baked skin side down for 30 minutes, flipped and baked for another 20 minutes.  The crispy deliciousness is shown below.

The recipe calls for a whole cut up chicken, but the next time I make it I'll use either all breasts or all thighs.  These wings ended way over done and using similar-sized pieces should be a better idea.  

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/katie-lee/classic-sweet-tea-oven-fried-chicken-20794824

Veggie Pizza

The pizza you see below is one of the most delicious we've made at home without a single piece of meat.  The thin Boboli crust was topped with a thin layer of tomato paste mixed with a couple of frozen, crushed garlic gloves and a generous amount of Italian seasoning.  Finely shredded Pecorino-Ramano and mozzarella cheese, sliced mushrooms, diced green onions, roasted red peppers, and corn and jalapenos left over from last year's harvest completed the pie.  Fifteen minutes in a 450-degree oven and we had a dinner fit for royalty and peasants alike.

Mini Seat Back Tray

On a recent American Airlines flight I noticed this clever little mobile device tray on the seat back in front of me.  Pulling up on the plastic piece (with the little triangle on it) releases the tray and it can accommodate small to medium sized mobile devices at a more comfortable viewing angle.  The handy USB to the left is perfectly placed to allow you to keep your device charged.  

Pretty darn clever!

Cell Phone Signal Strength

This post is only for technology-curious people who have an iPhone.  Android users can find the information somewhere in their phone's Settings.

When you dial *3001#12345#* (including all the special characters), you can find some information about your connection to the cellular network.  The carrier listed below is TFW, which is short for TracFone Wireless, which Verizon bought and is now the label for Total Wireless.  The signal strength is the RSRP (Reference Signal Received Power) and RSRQ (Reference Signal Received Quality) numbers.  Since the phone has one bar, you would expect some bad numbers, and they are.  An RSRP between 0 and -90 dBm is considered good and the -127 dBm shown here is solidly in the bad range.  The RSRQ of -29 dBm is also really bad.

Lots more information for the curious can be found at the link below.

https://www.wilsonamplifiers.com/blog/how-to-read-cell-phone-signal-strength-the-right-way

The Rifleman

The Rifleman was a TV series that aired from 1958 until 1963 and featured Chuck Connors in the title role.  In the opening sequence, the Rifleman is seen shooting his customized rapid-fire Winchester rifle.  I was a little boy at the time (born in 1955), but I do remember this.

The picture below is from the Texas A&M baseball field and the pitcher had just struck out a batter.  The scorecard lit up with that opening sequence, which you can see at the YouTube link below.  The Rifleman fires off about twelve shots, as fast as he can pull the lever.  Since this is Texas, celebrating a strikeout with a hail of bullets just seems to make perfect sense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsitJZUcFL4

Beer-Braised Beef with Onion, Carrot, and Turnips

Gourmet Chef Elaine has made this dish many times, but I didn't blog on it before because the recipe wasn't available online.  The original recipe was copied to the link below, so all the details are available, but we suggest more than a pound of chuck roast if you're real meat eaters like us.  Avoid bagged carrots and pick out the best looking individual ones.  Compared to potatoes, turnips have one-fourth the calories and carbs, but if you don't tell people ahead of time, they probably won't know the difference.  The last tip is to cut everything into big chunks to make it easier to eat.

http://recipeofhealth.com/recipe/beer-braised-beef-with-onion-carrot-and-turnips-686541rb

Cinnamon Roll Grahams

Gourmet Chef Elaine and I have very different approaches to grocery shopping.  She's on a mission and focuses on finding the items on her list as quickly as possible.  I prefer to walk up and down every aisle looking for new and interesting products.  Such was the case when I spotted the Cinnamon Roll Grahams you see below.  I love graham crackers.  I love cinnamon rolls.  The goldfish size helps with portion control.  Each fish is only 4 calories, so even a handful doesn't kill the diet.  Yes, they are delicious flavor bombs.

https://www.pepperidgefarm.com/product/cinnamon-roll-grahams

Coldest Times

Over on my Life Experiences blog (link below) I write about seven times I was so bitterly cold and miserable, all but one self-inflicted.  It gave me chills (pun intended) to recall the details of each experience, reliving the frozen feet, numb fingers, and rattling teeth.  The cartoon below captures the feeling of sitting on a metal bleacher seat for three hours hoping the game would end soon.

https://lifeexperiences.paulishing.com/2025/03/the-coldest-times.html

Chiropractor

I've been going to a chiropractor most of my life, mainly to get my body aligned to avoid back problems and to get my back freed up during the painful times when it slips into a bad place.  Years ago, after battling plantar fasciitis for months, I mentioned it to my chiropractor and he used a percussion type on my heel and after a few weeks of treatment the pain was gone.  I recently had another painful foot problem

and was checked by my podiatrist who took dozens of x-rays but found nothing.  I told my chiropractor about it, and the pain was gone after two adjustments.  Lastly, I was having left shoulder pain, which was causing sleep issues, and after just one adjustment it's almost totally gone.

I know many people who don't even want to consider a chiropractor, but I firmly believe that getting and keeping my body's alignment correct is one of the most important things I can do for my health.

Eighteen Dollar Lesson

I use the Speedtest app on my Android phone to test the speed of Wi-Fi connections, and while visiting my sister-in-law in Pittsburgh, decided to check out how fast my cellular Google Fi (which uses T-Mobile's network) connection was.  I turned off my Wi-Fi and ran the app.  To my surprise, it came back at over 600 Mbps and I tried it a second time to verify it.  Shortly after I received an alert from Google Fi that I had exceeded my 2 GB limit for the month and that I would incur additional data charges.  Those blazing fast speed tests chewed up 1.8 GB and are the big part of that spike in data usage shown below.   I pay a dollar for each 100MB over 2GB, so this ended up being an $18 lesson I'll never make again.

Fresh Crusty Bread for Two

Gourmet Chef Elaine found this recipe for a small round of bread that's perfect to serve 2-3 people.  Since I'm the baker I made this recipe which is as simple as it can be.  Mix flour, salt, and rapid-rise yeast together and stir with 100-to-110-degree hot water.  Let rise for two hours, fold the sides to the middle a few times, and rise for another hour.  The dough ball is placed on a long strip of parchment paper and placed in a preheated 450-degree Dutch Oven.  Bake with the lid on for 15 minutes and then another 20 minutes with the lid removed.  Use the parchment paper to lift the bread out and let cool down on a wire rack.  All the minute details can be found at the link below.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchen/fresh-crusty-bread-for-two-19010473

PEBKAC

PEBKAC is an acronym for "Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair".  And what is between the keyboard and the chair?  Yep, the human.  So it's just a coded way of saying there's nothing wrong with the computer and the user's to blame.  Is it surprising that the IT department with all the acronyms they have (even in the name of the department) would cook up something like this just so they can hide their insults?  

https://www.computerhope.com/jargon/p/pebkac.htm

Lean Cuisine Math

Gourmet Chef Elaine is a big fan of eating Lean Cuisine's for lunch.  She refuses to buy them at their normal price ($3.75 each in the picture below).  But when can be had for $1.99 each, she'll throw five or ten in the shopping cart.   

If you look closely at the sale sticker, you'll see a "buy 5 & save $5", but if you do the math, buying five at the sale price totals $9.95, but buying five at the $3.75 price totals $18.75, so the savings is actually $8.80. Math isn't their strong suit. 

The Chosen

The Chosen is a series on the life and death of Jesus Christ.  The first four seasons are available on Amazon Prime (link below) but can also be viewed online for free (I love free) at watch.thechosen.tv.  Season 5 debuts in theaters on March 28 after which it will be exclusive on Prime for ninety days before it's free on the website.  Two more seasons will be made to bring the total to seven.

This series features many miracles that Jesus was famous for including the Miraculous Catch of Fish (shown below), turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana, and using five loaves of bread and two fish to feed thousands.  

https://www.amazon.com/The-Chosen/dp/B0CQ5JGK4K

Vince The Sign Guy

I've added Vince The Sign Guy to my morning reading routine.  Each day is a different, humorous sign like the one below.  You can find Vince online at the link below or follow him on Facebook if that's your thing (I gave that up years ago).  A chuckle is a nice way to start the day.

https://www.vincethesignguy.com

Old Bay Crab Cakes

Back in 2017, I blogged about making Baltimore-style Crab Cakes and have only made them that way for the last eight years, so it was time to try something different.  Using the recipe at the link below, I combined a $35 pound of crab meat with breadcrumbs, egg, Worcestershire sauce, Dijon mustard, Old Bay, salt, pepper, and chopped fresh parsley and formed 8 patties.  Some butter melted in a skillet on medium heat and 4 minutes per side resulted in the beauties shown below.

https://delectablerecipe.com/original-old-bay-crab-cakes

Accent Chairs

We've had accent chairs in our bedroom for years and when we recently added carpet and changed the bedspreads to match, the old chairs had to go (donated to Saint Vincent de Paul).  Gourmet Chef Elaine found the chair below at our local TJ Maxx store marked down to $99.  She raced home and we took the QX60 SUV right back to the store to pick up two before they were gone.  The last change to our bedroom, and two other upstairs rooms, will be a fresh coat of paint, probably some shade of ivory.  I just need to figure out if we keep the two light blue accent walls, choose another color, or paint it all the same.

https://tjmaxx.tjx.com

Trash Can Hack

This simple hack would not be needed if our trash pickup was close to the same time each week.  I dislike going out to the curb in the freezing cold just to find the trash is still there.  So the hack is to cut off about 12 inches of the handle on the last trash bag and place it under the lid with a few inches sticking out in the direction I can see from the house.  When the trash is dumped, the red handle (shown below) goes in with the rest of the trash and I know I will not be taking a useless trip to the curb.  

Pixel Buds Pro 2

I'm probably one of the last holdouts to buy earbuds and I was going to wait until late spring to get these Google Pixel Buds Pro 2, but when I found them for 15% off, I jumped on the deal.  The Active Noise Cancellation is the biggest attraction to these, which should come in handy at the pool this summer.  I'm amazed at how beautiful the music came through as I listened to The Sounds Of Silence while walking on a treadmill.  Impressive!

https://store.google.com/us/product/pixel_buds_pro_2

ID-10T

One of the terms the Information Technology team used to describe a problem that turned out to be a clueless end-user issue was to say it "was an ID-10T" error.  If you haven't caught on yet, that's a euphemism (i.e., an innocuous word or expression used instead of one deemed offensive) for the word "idiot".  Sometimes that was well-earned and other times the blame is better placed on a poorly designed program.  Thousands of IT acronyms can be found at the link below.

https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/id10t

Fried Rice With Peas, Carrots, and Eggs

Our most recent cooking class at the Dorothy Lane Market Culinary Center included Fried Rice with the ingredients you see below which begins with stir-frying the green onions, celery, peas, and carrots.  That gets pushed to the outside of the pan and the eggs get scrambled and cooked in the middle and lastly, the peas are added.  Cold, cooked rice is added and it's all stirred together with low-sodium soy sauce.  

In the class, it all goes so quickly, but that's easy when all the ingredients have been chopped, sliced, and shredded ahead of time.  But while it will take longer, I can't wait to try this out at home.

Remembering Shadow

Shadow passed away in 2010 and it's hard to believe she left that long ago.  I was recently thinking about her more memorable antics and decided that it was a great topic for a Life Experiences blog (link below).  I wrote about bisquits, bunnies, bedroom doors, and booms; things she liked and those she didn't.  

https://lifeexperiences.paulishing.com/2025/02/remembering-shadow.html

Electronic Travel Authorization

The United Kingdom has erected a virtual tool booth under the guise of a travel authorization.  For £10 (12.45 USD), it gives you permission to travel to the UK.  They even have an app for iOS and Android that makes their collection so convenient (mainly for them).  A European Travel Information and Authorization System (ETIAS) is required for most mainland Europe countries and costs £7.  The United States has the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) which costs $21.  Other countries have similar ways to collect more of your money.

Taxes are necessary, and the clever ones mostly tax other people, not their direct citizens.  For example, Dayton, Ohio has a combined tax rate for hotel stays of 13.5%.  Not many citizens of Dayton are likely to stay in hotel rooms, so the vast majority of this does not impact them.  When renting a car in Austin, Texas, 40% of the cost is for taxes and fees.  And of course, a favorite of state and federal governments is "taxing the rich", which is never going to apply to me.  

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/apply-for-an-electronic-travel-authorisation-eta

Property Maintenance Code

The city of Kettering, as most localities do, has a documented Property Maintenance Code that details rules about your house, mostly on the outside, including grass, weeds, firewood, landscaping, garbage, motor vehicles, boats, lighting, and animals.  Most of it reads like a "Good Housekeeping" book, but there are a few where I learned something.  For example, you can only have five household animals over four months old at most.  Firewood has to be stacked to "prohibit the creation of a rodent or insect harborage area". I don't know how one would stack firewood to prohibit and of course, the regulations don't say how to either.  The whole code can be read at the link below.

https://www.ketteringoh.org/exterior-property-maintenance-standards

Elle

For the last several months I've received Elle magazine.  I didn't subscribe to it (duh) but it's specifically addressed to me.  How this happened is a mystery but if this happened because some Internet marketer pieced together my browsing and purchasing habits, they not only think I'm a woman but that I'm very liberal and like high-end (expensive) apparel.  That marketer needs to find a new career asap.

https://www.elle.com

Carmine's

Carmine's is an Italian family-style restaurant located in The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip.  Family-style means each dish is super-sized and served like you would at home.  We had Caesar Salad to start and our entrees were Shrimp Scampi, Bolognese Meat Sauce on Penne, and Chicken Parmigiana, plenty of food to feed our nine family members.  What was very unexpected was that our food was absolutely delicious, the kind that makes you close your eyes to fully enjoy the tastes and aromas. 

https://www.thelasvegastravelguide.com/restaurant/carmines-italian-restaurant

Thicker Cap

I wrote back in November 2024 that I had to use a pair of pliers to open a carton of Land O'Lakes half-and-half (the one pictured on the right below).  I would like to believe that my blog was the inspiration for the redesigned cap on the left carton.  They increased the height of the cap from 3/8" to 1/2" and that little difference makes it so much easier to open.  Halleluja!

Mastered Spaghetti

Been about ten years since I posted "On Becoming Left-Handed" (link below).  Back then I still ate spaghetti and sushi right-handed.  I am pleased to share that I can now eat spaghetti left-handed, as shown below.  The twirling is opposite (i.e. counter-clockwise) while I'm being lefty, but the action is smooth and not at all awkward.  I can eat sushi left-handed, but it's not smooth and certainly awkward.  I just don't get a chance to use chopsticks that often, so it might be a while before I conquer that one.

https://lifeexperiences.paulishing.com/2015/12/on-becoming-left-handed.html

Ohio Rest Areas

I applaud the State of Ohio for its multi-year project to rebuild or refresh thirty-six of the highway's ninety-three Rest Areas by the end of 2026.  I've been to the one around exit 27 on northbound I-75 and it's very cool.  But what's not cool is that three of the four Rest Areas on eastbound I-70 from Dayton on the route to Pittsburgh are currently closed.  Only the Rest Area near mile marker 129 is open at the moment.  It's not a big problem to figure out alternatives, but nothing worse when you gotta go than coming up to a Rest Area only to find it closed.

The map below shows all the currently closed locations and you can use the link below to explore the entire Ohio Rest area system.

https://www.transportation.ohio.gov/traveling/rest-areas

Stretch The Legs

My son owns Absolute Fitness, a personal training gym, and recently showed me a new stretch he developed for himself to help relieve back issues.  As shown below, a wrap around my ankle is connected to a pulley that's attached to a weight stack.  The leg is supported by a foam cylinder and the other leg is tucked up to keep the back flat on the mat.  I just scootch myself back far enough to get some separation of the weight plates and lay down and relax.  A few minutes and I stretch my other leg.  The relief on my lower back as my leg is gently extended is remarkable.  This is now part of my routine after my other exercises.

https://absolutefitnessohio.com

Skillet Chicken Thighs with White Wine–Butter Sauce

Gourmet Chef Elaine made this decadent dish that includes two sticks of butter and a half-cup of heavy cream.  She opted for boneless chicken thighs to make eating easier and subbed chopped scallions for the chives on top.  The star of the show is the sauce, a reduction of vinegar, dry white wine, shallots, lemon juice, bay leaves, and the aforementioned butter and cream.  This is not a quick, mid-week meal.  Save this recipe for a special Sunday when you have plenty of time and nothing else to do.  

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchen/skillet-chicken-thighs-with-white-winebutter-sauce-11585712

 

Mashup Drinks

I like making my own mashup drinks to reduce calories and get the exact flavor I want.  I start with a small can of zero-calorie soda like 7-Up Zero Sugar then doctor it up with watermelon puree, strawberry daiquiri mix, or the Reàl Peach puree in the picture below.  The Reàl brand has a large selection of infused syrups including blackberry, raspberry, banana, and black cherry.  You can find their entire selection at the link below which includes a long list of delicious drink recipes.

https://www.realingredients.com/products

Quantum Computing For Dummies

I used the multiple four-hour flights back and forth to Las Vegas to learn more about Quantum Computing, one of the current "big things" in the technology world.  Borrowing a "for Dummies" book from the Dayton Metro Library was a fitting choice, as so much of this might make sense to a physicist or a mathematician, a lot of it was so far over my head it was spinning.  I boil it down to using some strange behavior that happens in the subatomic world (e.g. superposition, entanglement) to create a massively parallel system that speeds up certain types of problems (e.g. cracking encryption, route optimization) so solutions can be found in a usable timeframe.

Google recently announced that their new Willow quantum computer solved a standard benchmark computation in under five minutes which would take today's fastest traditional computer 10 septillion years (that is, 10 to the 25th power) years.  

The book also postulates that what happens in this subatomic world just might mean there exists a multiverse.  Woah!

https://www.dummies.com/article/technology/computers/what-is-quantum-computing-300551

Cirque Du Soleil

Cirque Du Soleil has five permanent residencies in Las Vegas including "O", the water-themed performance we attended in January 2025 at The Bellagio.  An hour-and-a-half full of synchronized swimming, high-driving, and gymnastic performances with some comedy during set changes.  The stage can be lowered in sections creating anything from a solid floor to a seventeen-foot-deep pool with 1.5 million gallons of water.  We opted for the VIP experience which included meeting three of the cast members, including the clown who gets set on fire.  

https://bellagio.mgmresorts.com/book-show/o-by-cirque-du-soleil

Las Vegas Sphere

We stayed at the Horseshoe Hotel during our last trip to Las Vegas and paid a little extra for a room with a view of the Sphere.  It was fun to look out our window and watch the ever-changing visuals on its massive dome.  Its exterior contains 580,000 square feet of LED displays and measures 366 feet high and 516 feet wide.  It cost 2.3 billion dollars and opened in September 2023 featuring a 40-show residency by the Irish rock band U2.  So cool.

https://www.thesphere.com

Rack Of Lamb

Lamb is not a meat we have all that often but while perusing the meat counter at Costco we spotted the small rack shown below and we thought to give a new recipe a try.  Gourmet Chef Elaine lined a baking sheet with aluminum foil, drizzled on some olive oil, placed the ribs bone side down, and cracked come salt and pepper on top.  She topped that with a spread made of garlic, rosemary, dijon mustard, honey, and olive oil.  Done in about thirty minutes in a 450-degree oven followed by resting for ten more.  

https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/food-cooking/recipes/a39026720/rack-of-lamb-recipe

No TSA PreCheck

Sunday morning at the Las Vegas airport is a really bad time to have closed the TSA PreCheck line, relegating us to the cattle call chute shown below.  The line consisted of ten, 80-foot lanes that snaked back and forth painfully slowly.  It took a little over thirty minutes to get through that 800-foot line and then we had to have our carry-on bags scanned twice because we had our iPads in them, which we don't have to remove when using PreCheck.  Fortunately, we gave ourselves extra time to get to our gate, but the whole process was such a pain.

OK, enough bitching...

Silence Unknown Callers

If your iPhone rings and it's from an unknown caller, you probably won't answer it.  But you can simply have your phone ignore them completely by going to Settings, then Phone, and tapping "Silence Unknown Callers" as shown in the screenshot below.  I was surprised to find it turned off by default, but I guess some people actually answer these calls.  This option has been around since iOS 13 (2019), so if you have an iPhone, you likely have it.  Some additional tips can be found at the Apple Support link below.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/111106

Laptop Bag Strap

I've used the laptop bag seen below for probably ten years and never could figure out the purpose of the horizontal strap on the back.  Maybe it's good for something else, but I recently found it's a great way to secure the bag to the extended handle on a piece of luggage, making it easier to haul through an airport.  Better late than never I suppose.

iPad On A Plane

On our flight back home I noticed the lady in the window seat was watching a show on her iPad.  I never thought to suspend my iPad by shoving the cover in the pocket of the seat back in front of me.  I either held it or placed it on the tray table, but that will now be a thing of the past.  When I asked her how she came up with such a brilliant hack, she replied "Tik Tok".  That explains why I never knew about it.

DLM Cafe

Last summer Gourmet Chef Elaine and I decided to visit Dorothy Lane Market's awesome salad bar.  My salad, of course, features little to no lettuce, lots of cheese, tomatoes, onions, jalapeno peppers, and probably more salad dressing than necessary.  We ate our lunch at their indoor Cafe and made it a dining-out experience.  As you can see at the link below, DLM has many awesome stations where you can get soups, sandwiches, sushi, burgers, pizza, and much more.   It makes a deliciously cost-effective luncheon alternative.

https://www.dorothylane.com/in-store-eats

Fancy Champagne

We saw this idea to infuse a little extra flavor into a flute of champagne.  Gourmet Chef Elaine took rosemary, pomegranate seeds, and a little wedge of orange and made 1-inch cubes of ice for our champagne flutes.  As they melt it brings more and more flavor and maybe even better, the aromas they deliver to your nose.  You could make lime and cilantro cubes for margaritas, lemon, and blood orange cubes for a martini, or Luxardo cherries and orange peel cubes for a Manhattan.  Your creativity is the limit.

Brushing Scams

A brushing scam begins with you receiving a package you didn't order.  Scammers primarily use this to write fake reviews for their products, but they might try to convince you to pay for the item.  According to the law, you are free to keep, donate, or throw away any unsolicited package you receive.  You can also mark any unopened package "Return to Sender" and USPS will send it back free of charge.  If it comes from a service like Amazon, you can report it to them and they will investigate.

Recently there have been press articles that have warned that these types of packages may contain a QR code that, if you scan it with your phone, immediately compromises your personal and financial information and drains your bank accounts. That is NOT true. While QR codes are handy for sharing a website, your contact information, or attaching to a WiFi network (and much more), they simply can't cause your phone to go to the dark side.

But one word of advice.  Use your phone's camera app to scan QR codes.  I trust them more than I would some random app in their app store.  

More information can be found at the link below.

https://www.uspis.gov/news/scam-article/brushing-scam

GoodRx (Reprise)

I posted about the prescription-money-saving GoodRx back in 2018 but recently saved a lot of money using it for a tube of clobetasol (anti-itch) cream.  The last time I bought it I used my Medicare prescription drug plan (PDP) and paid about $80 for a 15-gram tube.  This time I searched GoodRx first and found Kroger had it for just $21.31 for a 60-gram tube.  That's four times the cream for one-fourth the cost.  I picked Kroger from the list below because it was the best combination of low price and convenient location.  I avoided the ones that have "Special offers" under their price because that involves signing up for something and I didn't want the hassle.

If I didn't have that GoodRx coupon, the price would have been about $320.  I guess I would have used more non-prescription creams (e.g. CeraVe) or scrimped using the smaller tube like I have been for the last few years.

https://www.goodrx.com

Shark Reef Aquarium

While in Las Vegas we went to the Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay with a group of football coach's wives and their kids.  We were all impressed with the variety of sharks, sea turtles, stingrays, jellyfish, piranha, crabs, octopus, and the colorful fish in the picture below.  The kids were the most excited about trying to touch the stingrays in their shallow tank.  It's not free, but well worth the money.

https://mandalaybay.mgmresorts.com/en/entertainment/shark-reef-aquarium.html