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Monday, July 28, 2008

It Doesn’t Seem Like……………

That’s right, it doesn’t seem like 8 years!!
8 years ago today found sweet hubby and I becoming husband and wife.  Funny how fast these years have flown, with nary a dull moment to be had.  We have proved to each other that we can be counted on during sickness and health and richer and poorer, in good times and bad and we do alright with happy, funny and sad.

Ok, enough of the bad poetry.  Today I received a real sweet card that sweet hubby made for me on the computer.  It contained one of his poems. He also managed to get me a cookbook, two movies and the first season of one of our favorite shows.  The girls gave us a nice card with a gift certificate to a favorite restaurant and one for two movie tickets so that we can enjoy a night out. The little one even baked us a batch of brownies while we were at the doctors’ today. We received a few gifts of money from other family members which we are using toward the purchase of a Wii.  (We figure a Wii will give us some exercise that won’t outright kill us from the beginning! Ya know being mainly couch potatoes and all)

And now we are working on our 9th year!!

Happy Anniversary Baby!!

Friday, July 25, 2008

Farewell to a Good Man

Today we mourn the passing of Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor who has been battling pancreatic cancer since being diagnosed in September of 2006.

I received an email earlier this year about him, after he appeared on Oprah, and the last lecture that he had given at the university.  You can find that very moving lecture at Randy Pausch as well as a link to his own blog page.  I listened to all 76 minutes of that lecture and it gave me much to think about as I am sure it will you.

To his family, wife Jai, sons Dylan and Logan and daughter, Chloe; my deepest sympathies.  To Randy, may you rest in peace knowing that you have left an awesome legacy for your children and that you touched so many with your last lecture.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

And the answer was……….

After thinking about our horrible dining experience at Johnny Rockets that I blogged about previously we decided to sit down and write them to let them know, since it was our first visit, and see how they handled it.
Here is the reply that we received:

From:  Add to Addresses Block Sender
To: charter.net Add to Addresses
Subject: JOHNNY ROCKETS Information
Size: 2 KB

July 12, 2008

Our Address

Dear ,

Thank you for taking the time to share your concerns from your recent
dining experience at Johnny Rockets.  The restaurant that you referred to
in your comments is under the ownership of a franchisee of our brand.

We take very seriously any report of customer dissatisfaction and
appreciate you contacting us regarding your visit to this restaurant.
Like any business, we welcome an opportunity to see our error and satisfy
our customers.

Please accept our profound apologies.

We do have strict regulations and training programs that help us to ensure
our standards are being followed not only for the preparation of our
products, but for the way they are served to our customers nationwide.

Again, I thank you for taking the time to let us know about your
experience and appreciate the opportunity to make needed corrections. It
is through the thoughtful feedback of our Guests that we continue to
improve.

I hope you will give us another opportunity to serve you soon.

Sincerely,

Brett Babick
Vice President, Operations
The Johnny Rockets Group, Inc.

That’s all?????  Oh please.  Last time I got a bucket of chicken that was less than appetizing from KFC they sent me a $10 coupon.  Does Johnny Rockets think that with just that crappy letter they can entice me to return?  No personal phone call??  (We got one from KFC) No coupon toward a future visit for us to give them a second chance??  (Remember this was our very FIRST visit) HAHAHAHA
Not on their LIFE!!!

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Two Different Dining Experiences

Yesterday we decided to go eat at the new Sonic drive-in which has opened up not far from here. Oh, what a BAD idea that turned out to be. 
We have been to Sonic once before down in Alabama and believe me that was a horrible food experience.  In AL we ordered our burgers and slushes and received burgers where the buns were so soaked with grease they were mushy and the slushes had so much extra sugar in them that, that was all you tasted no flavor, just sugar.
We always give a restaurant chain at least two chances.  This one has been open for a little over a month so we figured that they would have most of the kinks worked out. (yeah, right)

First you pull into a parking space and have to order off of one of those speaker/menu things reminiscent of the ones of the 50’s.  Three times I told our order to the lady, and all three times she would screw up one if not two of the items ordered. Honestly, how hard is it to leave off onion and add pickles?  Finally she had the majority of it straight so I went ahead and paid for it.  The ‘car hop’ came out on her roller skates with our food in a bag, and drinks in to go cups.  I let the youngest pass out the food, while I sorted out the drink cups.

Now this food was vastly different than what we had eaten in AL.  The buns weren’t soaked in grease - naw, they were just about a full inch bigger around than the burger which wasn’t even body heat warm. Yech, nothing I detest more than eating food that should be hot at a temp cooler than body heat.  Sweet hubby was shorted his mustard for his corn dog, which he said really needed it; and the youngest was missing the pickles on her bacon cheese burger.

On the plus side - the slushes and the shake were pretty good and very cold.

Tonight we decided to check out the new Johnny Rockets that has opened in our town.  Another mistake.......
This one hasn’t been open as long as the Sonic has been, so maybe a long with the dance routines they are still learning how to cook their items.
Onion rings - way too salty, coating fell off when they were picked up and the onions were mushy.
Burger - over cooked and even charred, bacon was fatty and stringy - but at least it was HOT.
Sweet hubby ordered a chicken salad which came with your choice of grilled or coated chicken pieces and was given no choice.  The chicken was not hot, it was cold and overcooked.
His hot dog was split open and over-cooked - as in charred, but at least it was a Nathan’s hot dog, his favorite kind.

I don’t think that we will be giving this restaurant another try.  We listened to 2 ear splitting renditions of “Staying Alive” complete with dance moves in less than 20 minutes - one while we were trying to order (our waitress put our order in AFTER she joined in the dancing) and the other one at the same time our food was being served.

So, for tomorrow night we will be dining in and our cook (sweet hubby) will be making us cube steak sandwiches with caramelized onions served on onion buns.  Oh Yummy!! I can hardly wait!!!

Saturday, July 05, 2008

Where did I leave off?

Oh yeah, the glasses, the NEW glasses.  The new glasses that I have to slide almost to the end of my nose if I want to read anything in my hands. The new glasses that I have to shove up to the top of my nose if I wish to watch TV or look at someone in the same room.  Now this makes reading the paper and watching TV extremely difficult - I now have to do one thing or the other.

Oh, the glasses are pretty.  A real light lavender color. Smallish frames - a tad smaller than the ones that I had before that is.

But these are NOT good glasses!!  I know after having dealt with them for a week that I have to go on Monday and see if some can be made that work for me. The eye doctor I saw only prescribed a single vision lens which is not what I need.  I even said that with my old glasses I had to sometimes put them on my head to read, depending on the size of the print.  I seriously don’t think that he listened to me at all.  This will prove to be an interesting Monday. (Sigh)

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