I’ve enjoyed Honeybaked hams since a former colleague introduced me to them back in the early 1980’s. He threw a huge open house party and had a Honeybaked ham on the buffet table for everyone to serve themselves throughout the evening. By the end of the night that ham bone was picked clean. Forget about any leftovers - everyone loved that ham so much it was gone in hours.

This weekend being Labor Day I’ve been thinking about getting another Honeybaked ham although we have no plans to entertain. I think we’d just like to have it for ourselves so there is less need to cook over the holiday weekend. There will be plenty for sandwiches and even fried slices to serve as a sidemeat for breakfast.

The Honeybaked store has some great side items, like candied sweet potatoes and green bean casseroles. They even have great desserts, like pumpkin pie and carrot cake. I love the food at this store an I’ve pretty much just now talked myself into going to the Honeybaked store tomorrow on my way home from work.

To me, there’s still the West in Wyoming and Montana, and a totally different West in Arizona and New Mexico. All of them invoke mental images of cowboys and Indians, but the terrain is significantly different and the way of life, the quality of life, and the daily lives of people living there varies greatly.

I’ve always wanted to live in New Mexico or Arizona. I have driven through both states numerous times and tried to vary my routes so I can take in as much of the area as possible. The one place I’ve not yet been is Tucson and that’s at the top of my list for the next trip West.

A good friend of mine used to live in Tucson for several years and has agreed to go out there with me if he can take the time off work. It would be great to go with someone who already knows the area. If he can’t go, I think I’ll call around and find a Tucson realtor to meet me while I’m there and show me around the different neighborhoods with the thought of buying my retirement home in Tucson. Unless Tucson is completely different from what I’ve read and been told, it sounds like the perfect retirement spot for me. Finding a good realtor in Tucson is easy when you search one out using Clicksmart. I’ve had Clicksmart saved to my bookmarks for months.

I’m not opposed to buying a home out there now while the market is soft and renting it out for a few years so that I can be paying off the mortgage with someone else’s money. Then when I’m ready to hang it up here, I can load up a truck and drive west to sit on my own front porch and watch those gorgeous desert sunsets.

A lot of farmers in this area grow corn and there has been a relatively new family attraction popping up all over the heartland with picking your own pumpkin, hayrides and now corn mazes.

A family in Virginia has been creating corn mazes since 1999 and each year they get a photo of it from the air so you can see the thought and effort that goes into designing and cutting these complicated mazes. Their farm is called Cows n Corn and if you live within driving distance you might want to mark your calendar for a visit to their working farm in virginia’s Fauquier County and take the kids through their maze - this year’s maze opens on Friday, August 29. If your kids are a little older, have them bring flashlights and go through the maze at night, then stick around for the campfire and hand dipped ice creams.

Tonight I had a call from a young lady that said she had a question to ask before I went into the details of the job. She asked if not having a social security card would be a problem? WTF? So then she goes on to explain that she is here in America on a student visa, and that students are not supposed to work for the first year they are here on their visa. After they have been here for that first year, then they can apply for a social security card. so she’s not supposed to work but she wants a job with my company. Um, no, but thanks for calling.

Actually, I am not that familiar with visas and green cards, but I can tell you that I will never knowingly do anything to try to circumnavigate our immigration laws. I will have to check on that visa stipulation about not working the first year - I’ve not heard of that before and I’m not sure I understand the logic in it. But I do know that if you don’t have a social security card, you can’t work for me.

She wants to go to California and I was telling her about some of the sights to see in the Los Angeles area. She is going to spend two weeks on the West Coast and that will give her plenty of time to do fun things. For example, there’s amusement parks like Disneryland and Knotts Berry Farm. I let her know there are ways to save money on her trip if she plans ahead, such as discounts on Knotts berry farm tickets.

I let her know that she can do a lot of research on sites like the one by Trusted Tours & Attractions, and to read their online travel guides, which can give her lots of ideas and help her plan a realistic itinerary and trip budget. She can also sign up for their email newsletter for more travel tips and ideas.

The last time I was in the Los Angeles area, I had trouble getting home. At the time it was a little stressful but now I can laugh about it. I was flying on a ticket that required a stopover in Detroit before continuing the return flight back to Washington. I had spent a ton of money on the trip to California and was flat broke but figured I wouldn’t need any money because the ticket was paid for and I was heading home.

I was anxious to get home, with a wedding to attend the next day, and planned to sleep on the 5 hour flight so I had nothing with me except what was in my pockets. After we all boarded the plane, we sat on the runway for an awfully long time and eventually the flight attendant announced that we were being delayed due to a mechanical issue and that they were in the process of checking it out. Then they cut off the power to the passenger cabin and we all sat on the plane, on the runway with no lights, no air conditioning and no air circulation for 2 hours. We were all trying to be good sports, but OMG - it was horrible. Especially without any air. I was about to lead a revolt to get off the plane when they finally put the power back on and we had air again. After a 3 hour delay we suddenly lurched forward and the seat belt sign came on and off we went.

The worst of it was not having the air conditioning, but besides that by the time we got to Detroit to make the connecting flight, we were so late that the connecting flight had already left. As a matter of fact, ALL scheduled flights had already left Detroit and there were no more planes leaving Detroit that night to go ANYWHERE. So here we were, a planeload of people wanting to go home and no way to get there! Plus i was stone cold broke and had no money for dinner or even a vending machine snack. The airline made arrangements to send us to local hotels for the night and we were able to catch a red-eye flight in the morning. But that was a rough return trip and I learned a couple travel lessons from that experience:

• Never spend all your money at your destination and have no money in your pocket on the return flight. You might need to buy dinner or a toothbrush if you end up spending the night someplace unplanned.
• Never book the last flight out. You might miss that flight or it might be canceled and you’ll be stuck someplace overnight. Always have one or two alternative flights following your scheduled flight as a safety net.
• Always have a book or laptop fully charged to keep yourself occupied in case you have to sit and wait for a couple hours.

I hear words in everyday conversations that drive me nuts because there is not such word. For example: conversate. I’ve never heard a white person use this word in a sentence but I hear it more and more and it gets under my skin so bad I want to slap the person using it and put a “stupid sign” around their neck.

The press is guilty of a lot of this concoction. Words like “Brangelina” and “Baby Bump” are ridiculous and yet these smiling talking boobs toss them about in all the celebrity gossip shows and columns. I’m so sick of it!

Read these forum comments from the Chicago Tribune site for other concocted words. You will be surprised at the hundreds of responses to their question, “What made-up word drives you nuts?”

There’s a lot to be said for quality family time away from home. My own parents felt strongly about taking the entire family on road trips up and down the East Coast as we were growing up in the 70’s and 80’s. we went everywhere from Orlando and Disneyworld, to Virginia Beach, to Gettysburg. But our favorite spot was always the beaches in New Jersey and the Wildwood attractions.

If you’ve never been to the Jersey shore, you are missing out on great family entertainment. Morey’s Piers has all the amusement rides, concessions stands, concerts and water parks that any kid or any age could want. Morey’s Piers offers different weekly specials and has three different amusement parks:

• Surfside Pier
• Mariner’s Landing
• Adventure Pier

Each different park has different rides, including kiddie rides, thrill rides, and a variety of boardwalk fun and food.

The Wildwood area has a variety of lodging options, from cheap hotel rooms to beachfront efficiencies and condos. We used the internet to set up our whole trip, found the perfect hotel for our family’s budget, and it was a great time for all of us.

Last night a weird little creature landed on the yard swing for a few minutes and contemplated its next landing zone. It looked like a combination of a dragon fly and a bumble bee. I have never seen anything quite like it. And have no idea what it was. It flew off across the yard before I could think to pick up the cell phone and snap a photo of it.

Saturday night I was at a vending machine busy dropping quarters into the coin slot and noticed something moving at the rear of the machine. In a moment a creature slowly emerged, climbing the wall of the building behind the vending machine. It slowly crept upward and as it emerged from it’s hiding place I realized that it was a praying mantis. Now folks, I have not seen a praying mantis in the wild - EVER and the only one I’ve seen in my whole life was in my high school Biology class.

Now we are having issues with fleas on my dogs. We have not had fleas in the house or on the dogs for years. I don’t know why all of a sudden all of the dogs are digging and scratching and fighting fleas. we gave them all a bath with flea shampoo last night and tomorrow I’m going to have to stop by the vet and pick up a better flea fighter for them.

This year we have been lucky to have most days in the 80’s and only a few in the 90’s. At the moment it is 92 degrees with dark skies and the stillness in the air that precedes the summer thunder storms. The hot weather doesn’t usually other me much, but the air conditioning in my car has gone out, making the commute a little uncomfortable.

I took the car to my mechanic and had him run a check on the A/C system. That set me back 4 hours and $80 for the diagnostics and a squirt of freon. But the truth is, the condenser is on its last legs and my mechanic says I need a new one ASAP. He says he can’t even guarantee that the air conditioning compressor will last the rest of summer. But hold on to your wallet, folks - the estimate for him putting in a new one is $1,800.

This sent me right to the internet to check out the prices of an a/c compressor for my car. Found a site with a handy search tool and I went right to the page with information on the BMW AC compressor. Now that I see the cost for just the compressor runs about $500 I’m not so worried about the repair estimate. But this also gives me the information I need to go back and haggle with my mechanic to get the price down.

If you have any tips on shopping for a/c compressors and getting them fixed, give me a shout. For now, I’ve found a decent web site for parts pricing and that’s worth checking out if you are having the same problems that I’m having.

I hate to say it out loud and put a hex on the situation, but we have seen the price of gas drop from over $4.09 per gallon last month down in the “Land of Excess” where I work, to $3.19 per gallon at the little BP station down the road from my house. There is a price difference of over 12 cents per gallon between the stations at the highway exit by my house to the cheaper stations about 2 miles from the highway in the neighborhood shopping areas. It pays to check with Gas Buddy online before heading out for a fill up.

I would love to see the price get down below $3.00 again. That would make a huge difference in my household budget. Too late to resurrect the vacation plans we had to cancel, but at least we can get back and forth to work with a little less pain to the wallet again.

Most of the schools have an approved list of school supplies for each grade, and they provide these lists to the local Wal-Marts and Targets about 3 weeks before the first day of school so parents can take advantage of the tax-free weekend shop around the different stores for special prices and sales.

The school supplies lists are very specific, often including the only acceptable brand usually offering no explanation for things like “two folders, one red and one black” or “backpacks with one pocket and no wheels.”

On the list I’m working with, the kids are required to bring three boxes of 24 count Crayola brand crayons. We are not allowed to put our child’s name on them, as evidently all crayons are put into a community sharing box for all the children to share amongst themselves. What?!?! If everyone is “sharing” then why am I sending three boxes at the start of the school year? For the bussed in kids to “share” my kids stuff? If that’s what they plan, why hide behind this list and not just come out and say they want me to provide free crayons for two other kids in the class?

Evidently, not all the supplies are to be “shared” and these items are to be labeled with our child’s first and last name before sending them to the school. There were no further instructions as to what type of labeling is required. In my house, labeling means using a DYMO Labelmaker and printing out the name on the different color tapes that come with the machine. I worry that I’ll use the wrong color tape and meet with the teacher’s immediate disapproval, resulting in a bias against my child for the entire school year.

Perhaps if I donate one of the labelmakers to the class we will be forgiven? They are so handy to have for so many things around the house and office, I bet the teacher’s would appreciate having one in the classroom to label the items for children who’s parents neglected to put labels on their supplies, plus they can label items within the classroom to help stay organized. Well, that’s the plan then.

Jumped out and ran to the back to look at the bumper and see if there was any damage. Thankfully, I have a trailer hitch and heavy duty bumper on mine and there was not even a tiny dent on my vehicle. But the other guy’s entire front grill had collapsed and popped loose. Lucky his airbags didn’t go off. Even luckier, neither of us was hurt.

Now every seems to be getting blogs and personal web sites. Although the kids or interested in the social networking sites, the adults seem more interested in something a little more sophisticated and don’t seem to mind paying a small reasonable fee for hosting services. There are a lot of affordable hosting services, and each one has different features or advantages.

To find your way through the maze of web hosting services, I found a site that reviews and rates the different sites. They have a list of the top hosting sites, in a chart format that shows different rates and features. A nice added touch is that site reviews and that users can add their own ratings. I like the way the users themselves can write the web hosting rating, not a paid promotional item. This gives you a little better insight into the good and the bad.

The USA Today organization announced that they were eliminating 1,500 jobs. The Chicago Tribune let go 600 people, and The Tennessean laid off around 500 people.

Not only are they slashing payroll and passing other expenses on to their vendors and independent contractors, now they are raising the price of the daily newspapers, too. The daily Tennessean has cost 50 cents for years and it’s much cheaper if you subscribe. However, next month the single copy price will increase to 75 cents. I wonder if these changes will chase away more readers and actually contribute to their demise?