Birria Tacos

I'm the type who loves to try new items on the menu, and when I spotted the new-to-me Birria Tacos on the menu at Cantina Del Mar in Panama City Beach, Florida, I decided to give them a try.  WOW, WOW, WOW!  The Birria-style meat was full of flavor, and after it was dipped in consomé sauce (that bowl at the bottom right), the flavor was off the charts.  Those three tacos were more than enough for a meal, but I made I didn't leave a morsel behind, barely touching the rice.

https://cantinadelmarpcb.com

Funky Monkey

I had the Funky Monkey shown below at Lizas Munchies at the Treasure Island Resort Condominium in Panama City Beach, Florida.  While not the best one I've ever had, this frozen blender drink features the awesome combination of banana and chocolate flavors, a couple of rums, and coconut milk.  You can see the full recipe at the link below with a better picture, including a banana garnish.  Can't wait until the temperatures here reach the 90s.

https://www.rumtherapy.com/2015/04/funky-monkey

Block Juice Jacking

I got a couple of the USB devices you see below from Technology First, a local trade organization I've volunteered my time for the past 20+ years.  All it does is allow the two power pins to pass through while blocking the two data pins.  Juice Jacking is the term for hacking into your device while appearing to be a free and easy way to charge your device.  By blocking the data pins that can't physically happen.

If you're the paranoid type or simply want to eliminate a real risk for a few dollars, you can pick up a 2-pack for $10 at the Amazon link below.

https://www.amazon.com/Rixmie-Elimination-Transfer-Possibilities-Juice-Jacking/dp/B0DQTWPQBT

Unlimited Essentials

I use Google Fi as my wireless carrier and, until recently, didn't rack up much for data charges, but now that we're traveling more often, my monthly bill reflects that increase.  When I spotted the new Unlimited Essentials plan, I found a solution.  The plan includes unlimited calls, texts, and data, with 30 GB of high-speed data in the U.S. for $35/month, plus taxes and fees (of course).  That cost will be a few dollars cheaper as my average bill has been for the last 16 months, and it will be nice to have it the same every month and not have those annoying larger surprises.  I gave up a couple of features that I hardly ever use and will easily live without, like free calling to Mexico and Canada.  I can always use Google Voice if the need arises.

Google offers a few other plans, which you can read about at the link below.

https://blog.google/products/google-fi-wireless/10-years-unlimited-essentials

Honey Points

Gourmet Chef Elaine and I use the Honey browser extension to automatically find coupon codes on our purchases.  Most times it finds nothing, sometimes it finds enough to pay for the sales tax, and every once in a while it unlocks a $30 or even $80 discount.  Recently, she received an email saying she had received some Honey points, which led me to see if more points had accumulated.  As the screenshot below shows, she had accumulated $144.77 in redeemable points.  That's the happy kind of surprise that can make your day.  We transferred that money to PayPal and from PayPal to our credit union.  

https://www.joinhoney.com

Panko Shrimp

A single 2.5-pound box of Costco's Panko Shrimp gave us four dinners.  These are fairly large shrimp in a crunchy panko breading (a Japanese breadcrumb made from crustless white bread) and their secret blend of spices.  In the link below, they describe how to make your own at home, which they fry in oil.  Gourmet Chef Elaine baked the Costco ones, so it's a bit healthier.  Quick and easy main course.  

https://kitchenjournal.net/how-does-costco-cook-panko-shrimp

Lawncare

It's been a bumper crop of dandelions this spring, and many houses would appear to be in competition for the award on who can grow the most.  But we have a clear winner, and it's a lawn a few houses east of us.  The sign you might not be able to make out in the picture below is from PureLawn Organic Lawncare.  We have know way of knowing how old that sign might be, but we're hoping it's in the last few days.  If so, this is a really bad way to advertise, and it might have been wiser to wait until the weeds at least began to die before planting the sign.  

Day Of The Week

For whatever it's worth...

I grew up (that's debatable) in an age without a computer (I'm old) in my pocket or within shouting distance, so I learned ways to solve problems in my head.  I still do that for things I want to calculate without a computer's aid.  One common question that I have a quick in-my-head solution is what day of the week a future event will occur.  For this example, I'll use the question "What day of the week is October 8 (i.e., my birthday)?"

I solved that quickly using two numbers:

1. Which day of the week is the current month's 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th (which I remember)?
2. The number of days in each month (which I know by heart)
• 31 for Jan, Mar, May, Jul, Aug, Oct, Dec
• 30 for Apr, Jun, Sep, Nov
• 28 or 29 for Feb

May 2025's 7-14-21-28 dates fall on Wednesday, so

• Since May has 31 days, June's 7-14-21-28 will fall on Saturday (+3)
• Since June has 30 days, July's 7-14-21-28 will fall on Monday (+2)
• Since July has 31 days, August's 7-14-21-28 will fall on Thursday (+3)
• Since August has 31 days, September's 7-14-21-28 will fall on Sunday (+3)
• Since September has 30 days, October's 7-14-21-28 will fall on Tuesday (+2)
• Knowing October 7 is a Tuesday, my birthday will fall on a Wednesday

The reason for using 7-14-21-28 is that I know that sequence by heart, but with any other, I have to do the addition, but the solution will work for whatever sequence you want to use.

Scrape The Shoe

In high school, I would run on the pavement at Deweese Parkway in North Dayton, a few blocks from my childhood home.  It was common for me to run at a 5:05-minute pace, which is middle-of-the-pack on a high school track team.  I also ran very quietly, not sure why, but if I was coming up on you from behind, I could very easily scare the living crap out of you.  It's difficult to yell a warning when you're pushing your limits, so I developed the "scrape the shoe" method as a warning, starting about 20 yards away and continuing until the person would turn around to find out what the noise was and see me coming.

Recently, I employed the same method, but I was walking towards a woman who was walking their dog with her face buried in her smartphone.  I wouldn't have really cared all that much if I startled her, but you never know what a dog will do when approached.  A couple of scrapes, she looked up, got her dog next to her, and let us by.  I'm glad there were no smartphones back when I was running Deweese Parkway.  I probably would be the cause of many broken phones.

Mainframe Computers

When I began pursuing a Computer Science degree at Wright State University way back in 1974, there wasn't an Internet, personal computers, or smartphones.  In the basement of their library, there was an IBM 360-65 mainframe computer like the one in the picture below and rows of dishwasher-sized removable disk drives and reel-to-reel tape drives.  Starting my sophomore year, I worked for the computer center as a student programmer, and unlike most students on campus, I was able to go into the computer room and see all the hardware that ran our class-project programs.  After my junior year, I took the open junior systems programmer job and really began to sink my teeth into the layers of technical details involved in these "Big Iron" computing beauties.  The YouTube video at the link below is a tour of Clemson University's Computer Center in 1970 and explains a lot about mainframes.  

Big shout-out to my buddy Nick for this blog idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnSmme5s8Zc

Halved Baked Potato

Here is a simple way to make a perfect baked potato.  Cutting the potato in half lengthwise reduces the baking time.  Placing them face down on a cookie sheet allows the skin to get crispy.  Just rub them in oil with a little salt and pepper and use parchment paper to make cleanup a breeze.  All the details and thoughts on jazzing up your potatoes can be found at the link below.

https://www.chelseasmessyapron.com/baked-potato

Bad Wrap Job

While stopped at an intersection a few weeks ago, we noticed the incredibly bad wrap job on the van you see below.  The "Premier Health" at the top had the left side too low, and the "Infusion Therapy" in the middle had the left side too high.  I can't fathom a reason why they accepted such a bad job and didn't have them correct it.  This is the kind of bad marketing that leads you to wonder how good they are at their day jobs.

Coming In Closer

We like to use the self-service kiosks at Meijer, and while we were checking out on a recent visit, I positioned our small cart, as you can see below, to get it closer and make the process easier.  While we were doing that, a lady saw it and said that for all the years she's used the kiosks, she had never seen a cart in that position, how that would make things much easier, and thanked us for the tip.  Sometimes, paying attention to how others do things can really pay off.

iPhone 16e

Gourmet Chef Elaine's iPhone 11 was due for an upgrade, and we planned to do this sometime in 2025. However, with the unknown factor of tariffs flying around, we figured sooner was safer than later.  Her new iPhone 16e is shown below (with our grandkids, of course), has twice the storage (64GB->128GB), four times the camera resolution, and is 80% faster.  The folks at the Apple store transferred all the photos, contacts, etc., but couldn't transfer her cell phone number since it was with Total Wireless.  Best, and most unexpected, was the $130 credit for trading in the iPhone 11.

She called Total Wireless to get the number transferred and was met with an accent so thick that everything he said was almost incomprehensible.  That's when her technology assistant (me) took over and took it over the finish line.  

I can't wait for an English-speaking Chatbot to do this kind of support.

https://www.apple.com/iphone-16e

Homemade Sign

We saw the sign shown below as we headed out on one of our three-mile walks, and I was curious to know what was below the "T" written on top of the piece of tape.  How did they misspell "ESTATE"?   What could the hidden letter be?  I was so tempted to pull the piece of tape off to satisfy my curiosity, but I resisted, not wanting to mess up their sign.

On the way back, I wanted to snap a picture and from the other side of the sign, I had my answer.  It was the letter "A".  They apparently wrote "ESA", immediately realized their error, and used tape to hide and write over it.  

Encrusted Mac & Cheese With Bacon

Every January our local Dorothy Lane Market grocery store has their BaconFest event.  Just some of the selections are a Butterscotch Bacon Tart at the bakery, a Bacon Ranch Cheese Ball at the deli, a Cajun Bacon Cheddar Sausage at the meat counter, and a Bacon-Wrapped Sea Scallops in the seafood section.  We walked away with some of the Encrusted Mac & Cheese with Bacon you see below, which was awesome.  

https://dayton937.com/dayton-dining/baconfest-is-back-at-dorothy-lane-market.html

Flexible Tailpiece

I mentioned in last Tuesday's blog that I needed to buy a longer PVC tailpiece.  I expected to get one that was longer than needed and cut it down to the size needed, but what I bought is what you see below, an accordion-looking tailpiece that extends from eight to twelve inches.  The other advantage of this design is it can be bent to handle misaligned plumbing connections.  More product details can be found at the link below.

https://www.doitbest.com/product/400649/do-it-best-1-1-2-in-x-12-in-white-plastic-tailpiece-400649

Hottest Times

A few weeks ago I blogged on my life's coldest times.  Now, over on my Life Experiences blog at the link below, I cover the hottest times.  There are not that many compared to the cold ones, but these four stick out in my memory as self-induced puddles of sweat and lessons learned.  

https://lifeexperiences.paulishing.com/2025/04/the-hottest-times.html

New Vanity

One upgrade we've been wanting to make is replacing our upstairs bathroom vanity with the model shown below.  With my brother-in-law's help (really the other way around), we first removed the old vanity which was so strongly caulked it took several tools, including a crowbar, to finally pop it free.  The new vanity posed its own challenges.  The holes for the faucet handles were not predrilled wide enough so it required a trip to the hardware store to buy a rounded file.  Three of the drawer handles needed two long flat-head screws, but only four were included, so that took another trip to the hardware store.  One more trip to the hardware store was needed to buy a longer PVC tailpiece (more on that in a couple of days), bringing the number of trips to three, which is about average for a project like this.  The result was beautiful and worth the work.

Huge shoutout to Albert for taking his morning to make this a reality!

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Home-Decorators-Collection-Clady-31-in-Single-Sink-Deep-Blue-Bath-Vanity-with-Silver-Ash-Cultured-Marble-Top-Assembled-HD2030P2-DB/315622122

Food Bank Donations

Gourmet Chef Elaine and I signed up at St. Charles Church to make this April's deliveries of all the charitable items donated at the entrance to the church to the Catholic Social Service food bank near downtown Dayton.  The first week resulted in filling the back two rows of our SUV (shown below) and unloading fifteen crates of beef ravioli, canned corn, peanut butter, pasta, cereal, soups, paper products, and more at their donation site.  We learned they had provided food to about 130 families that morning and that their food bank is just one of many in our region.  Pretty impressive operation and much-needed help to people in need.

https://cssmv.org

Lebanon Bologna

I love Lebanon Bologna (shown below) but never thought of why it's named that.  A quick search led me to the Wikipedia link below where I learned that Lebanon refers to Lebanon County, Pennsylvania where the Pennsylvania Dutch developed it about 240 years ago.  I also learned it's not so much akin to bologna as it is to sausage.  It's cured, smoked, and fermented to impart its signature robust taste.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanon_bologna

Strawberry Mule

The Strawberry Mule shown below is from Cooper's Hawk.  It combines Tito’s vodka, strawberry puree, and ginger beer with garnishes of sliced strawberry, lime, and a big sprig of mint.  You can make this without the puree, but I like the extra sweetness.  This basic recipe can be used to make tons of different flavors, with peach and watermelon next on my list.  Bring on summer!

Bottle Protector Bags

I ordered an 18-pack of the inflatable bags shown below from Amazon for $20.  That's way more than I needed but the price was OK, so I got them anyway.  They come packed flat and include a hand pump that worked one time before it broke, so I resorted to my battery-powered pump instead, which was way easier.  It's a bit tricky to inflate and I wasted a couple of bags before I got that hang of it.  I inflated two bags all the way and that made inserting a bottle difficult, so I inflated a couple more about three-quarters, which worked much better.  These bags are great for packing bottles in my suitcase and not worrying they may break.

The link below now points to a 36-pack of bags for $30, so you might want to shop around for other options.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B098DCV7X7

Resident Alien

Like most folks I talk to, my list of must-watch streaming series includes Yellowstone, 1883, 1923, Lioness, Tulsa King and pretty much everything currently being put out by Taylor Sheridan.  But when I take a moment to watch a series that Gourmet Chef Elaine wouldn't like, I've been watching Resident Alien on Netflix.  Without giving too much away, an alien (shown below) crash lands on Earth during their mission to wipe out all human life.  It takes on the form of Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle and tries to complete his mission, however, becoming partially human complicates things.  The show can be a bit off-color at times, constantly humorous, and plot twists are aplenty.  Most episodes end with Harry explaining his greater appreciation of humanity.  You can see a preview at the link below.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8690918

Grippier

Last November I wrote about using a pair of pliers to twist off the lid on a quart of Half-n-Half.  Well, perhaps that post and a lot of complaints got to the geniuses that designed the cap because as you can see below, they have recently increased the height of the cap and changed the design of the vertical ridges to make it much easier to grip.  It's still difficult, but at least at this time, I'm able to open it without resorting to my toolkit.

Tuna Noodle Casserole

A tuna casserole was a mainstay when we were kids, but until recently we haven't tried one in years.  Gourmet Chef Elaine used the recipe at the link below to faithfully recreate Katie Lee's dish and the highlights are the egg noodles, a homemade béchamel (butter, flour, milk), and the cream cheese.  Start to finish in 40 minutes makes this a perfect weeknight dinner.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/katie-lee/tuna-noodle-casserole-19576702

Creamline Whole Milk

The milk bottle shown below is from Homestead Creamery, a dairy processing plant in Wirtz, Virginia, and distributed near us by A Bushel & A Peck Bulk Foods in Clayton, Ohio.  It contains Creamline Whole Milk, a type of milk that is minimally pasteurized and not homogenized, allowing a layer of cream to rise to the top.  The cream creates a two-inch plug, so you either have to turn the bottle upside down for a while or use a knife to cut a hole to get to the milk.  I used it to make homemade mozzarella cheese, as I demonstrated back in 2016 at this blog link.

The link to Homestead Creamery below includes a Where To Buy search function.  

More on A Bushel & A Peck is at the second link.

Big shout out to Dan and Kim for a half-gallon of this natural wonder!

https://www.homesteadcreameryinc.com/our-products/milk/whole-creamline

https://www.abushelandapeckbulkfoods.com

Locate Your Apple Watch

Even easier than training your faithful dog to find your misplaced Apple Watch (and other devices), your iPhone, iPad, or iCloud account's Find Devices takes a lot less time and effort.  For example, on your iPhone you go to the Apple Watch app, tap My Watch, and then tap All Watches.  Tap the Info button next to your watch, then Find My Apple Watch.  If you suspect your Apple Watch is close by, tap Play Sound.  If you believe you left it elsewhere, tap your watch to see its location on a map.

More information on Find Devices can be found at the link below.

https://support.apple.com/en-my/guide/watch/apdd3f9d7bc6/watchos

Dishwasher Wheels

It's unusual to do a repair on a household appliance and be pleasantly surprised that it was easy and cheap. When the wheels on our lower dishwasher rack fell off and could no longer snap back into place, I went to Amazon to find replacements.  They don't sell separate wheels but have the whole wheel mechanism, and a four-pack only set us back $10.  The old ones snapped off with a little help from a screwdriver and the new ones just needed a good shove to install.  Good as new.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BWY44GXC

Deep Tissue Massage Gun

This might be the best $40 investment we've ever made.  Believe it or not, getting older comes with increasingly more frequent aches and pains, but this massage gun and its ten replaceable massage heads can reach deep to relieve the soreness, loosen up knots, and in my case, eliminate a bicep pain (most likely a little scar tissue) that I've had for about fifteen years.  All its features can be found at the link below.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B083L8RNJR

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