Payraise

To my surprise, I found out the rural mail carriers received a payraise this past pay period. Our pay has gone up 47 cents an hour. I know that doesn't sound like much but, it can add up. This past pay period, I worked 40 hours plus both week. That 47 cent raise translated into almost $40 more in my paycheck. Overtime wise, the raise means we make nearly $27 an hour when we're in overtime. I'll gladly take the additional money.

Trips

I paid off the Globus France tour I'll be going on in September. It should be an awesome tour. Globus does a really nice job. The only bummer is the weak dollar. France is going to be more expensive than Scandanavia. Like the cruise, I've also paid off the additional things for the tour like the airplane tickets and airport shuttle. Annoyingly, Globus isn't showing a list of optional tours and prices for the tour. It would be nice to see what additional stuff I could do on the tour and what it would cost.

Concerning the cruise I'll be going on, that's only 30 days away. Sometimes it can be nice when time flies and this is one of those times. I'm very much looking forward to the cruise as I've never been on a cruise ship or seen the Southern Caribbean. It'll also be nice to get to go scuba diving and deep sea fishing. I also play to play the slots in the ship's casino. Hopefully, I'll have the same luck or better I had at Atlantic City. I won $120 there. Thanks to my friend Harvey, I kept it as I stopped while I was ahead and resisted the temptation to go back and try again. I found out from my travel agent Joel that Royal Caribbean Cruises sends out some kind of travel documents though nothing as fancy as Globus. I'm curious to see what those are like.

Retraction

Yesterday, I posted a blog entry about Starbucks not supporting our troops. As a retired member of the Air Force, I was very incensed about them not supporting those who are putting their lives on the line for us. My source for the blog was an email from a trusted friend. It turns out my friend was wrong. Jim at Serotoninrain sent me a website (http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/starbucks.asp) that proves that the story is totally false. Many thanks to Jim. Also, my apologies to Starbucks. I trusted that my friend would be accurate on this and she wasn't. Due to the seriousness of the rumor, I've deleted the original blog entry. For the record, numerous Starbucks employees have sent their free weekly coffee allotment to our troops serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many kudos to them as well.

Casino Royal Game

I decided to try the Casino Royal Game at Dave & Busters. The last time I was there, a guy told me you could win more tickets on it vice Spin & Win. After playing it for 20 minutes, I found I ended up with as many tickets as I would've won on Spin & Win on one of my bad days on it i.e. I only managed to hit the 1,000 tickets light twice. I found I did get more play action on the Casino Royal game vice the Spin & Win as I got 10 coins to put in the game everytime vice getting to pull the spin lever and hit the stop button. Also, I received more winning action i.e. I had more times when I'd win tickets. In terms of what it cost to play the game, it was the same if you had a regular play card (10 tickets vice 9.9 tickets). If you had a Gold card, you could play the Spin & Win game more overall as it costs 8.9 tickets to play that each time vice the 10 tickets it cost to play Casino Royal every time. Timing wise, it was easier to play the Casino Royal game vice trying to get it right when the light comes around the Spin & Win wheel. However, if you had a Gold card and tried to hit the 80 ticket window on the Spin & Win vice the 1,000, you'd could easily get as many tickets on that game.

Overall, the Casino Royal game is a lot easier to play. If you're timing isn't the greatest, you'll want to play that game vice Spin & Win. If you want the greatest chance to win big, you'll want to play Spin & Win as the Casino Royal game can't match the 1,000 windows on the Spin & Win game. In terms of excitement, I think the Spin & Win game is more exciting to play. Every time you pull the lever on that game, you could win 1,000 tickets. As to which game you should play, I'll leave that up to you. You know what arcarde games you like to play. If you're into sports arcade games, a lady playing next to me at the Casino Royal games told me the basketball shooting game pays out well. You might want to try that.

FYI, the gift shop got some new prizes in. One notable one is a Toshiba 15-inch dual tv system (digital and analog)/monitor with DVD player. This is going for 90,000 tickets! They also some new prize that cost 120,000 but I forget what it was. Someone claimed the Sony entertainment system they had for 48,000 tickets.

Picture from Norway

Today, I was going through my pictures of my trip to Denmark, Sweden and Norway. I decided to post one from the trip. This picture is of a town that was on the Sognefjord in Norway. It was taken while the group I was with did a 2 hour cruise on a passenger ferry. The fjord itself was stunning. There were numerous waterfalls and breathtaking mountains. Norway has to rank as one of the most beautiful countries I've ever had the pleasure of visiting.

January 2008 Baltimore, Maryland Hard Rock Cafe Visit

I finally made it to the Baltimore Hard Rock Cafe today. I drove down to the Glen Burnie Cromwell Station and caught the light rail train into Camden Yards. Parking is free at Cromwell Station so it makes sense to take the train in from there. Round trip train fare is only $3.20. One place I passed on my way back from the Inner Harbor was charging $7 an hour for parking. The light rail train is an easy way to get to either the Raven's football stadium or Orioles baseball park. It stops at both.

Once you get off the train at Camden Yards, you cross the street to the Baltimore Convention Center and keep walking that way passing the Sherator Inner Harbor Hotel and the Hyatt Inner Harbor Hotel. When you reach the Inner Harbor, to your right is the Science Center and to your left the U.S.S. Constellation which is the last wooden warship ever built for the U.S. Navy. You'll walk toward the Constellation and keep walking around the harbor. The Baltimore World Trade Center building is about 40 or 50 feet from the Constellation. It goes up 24 stories (I think). At the top, it has nice views of the harbor.

Once you pass the trade center, the Aquarium and a World War II submarine are on your left. I don't know what the admission for the Aquarium or the submarine is. When I arrived, they had a good size line for the Aquarium. The Hard Rock Cafe is part of a building that was a former electrical plant for the city. You can still see the former smoke stacks coming out of the Barnes and Noble bookstore. To the left of Barnes and Noble, they have an ESPNzone place (I don't know what ESPNzones are). Some day, I'll have to check out the ESPNzone thingy and find out what it is.

The Hard Rock Cafe itself has a nice collection of rock memorabilia. I saw a guitar played by Mark Slaughter of the group called Slaughter. Also, they had a guitar autographed by the group Poison. There was a bust of old rubber lips Mick Jagger. They had stain glass windows that showed various rock instruments. The centerpiece of the cafe was a 1960 teal Cadillac which presides over the bar. Price wise, the cafe is expensive. Starters ranged from $9.80 to $11. I tried their nachos. I got a good size plate of chips covered with 2 cheeses beans and jalapenos. If you wanted beef, chicken or guacamole, it cost extra. Entrees ran from $7 (I think) to over $22. The ribs I tried were $22.50. I got a good plate of bar-b-que ribs with a good size order of fries and small cups of beans and cole slaw. Drink wise, I ordered a very berry smoothie in a Pilsner glass you get to keep. That cost $8.99. Also, I found out they came out with a new city t-shirt. This one shows a raven and a crab. The raven I believe has to do with the football team though it could have connections to Edgar Allen Poe who I think wrote stories here. The crab is definitely a connection to the Chesapeake Bay. Eating steamed crabs is a tradition here. When they're in season, you can get all you can eat crabs (not at the Hard Rock Cafe). They're pretty good though you will work to get the meat out.

Overall, I had a nice meal at the cafe. My waitress Chrissy did a great job and was kind enough to get me a closeable tray so I could take home the half rib slab I couldn't finish. I earned $68 total my next $20 reward with the All Access club. The All Access Club gives you priority seating at all Hard Rock Cafes as well as earning $20 credit when you spend $200. You can use the $20 credits for merchandise or food. I've earned $80 in credit with them so far.

I took some pictures with my Canon Rebel XTi digital camera. I'll try to get them posted within the next couple days.

Small side note: I just discovered that the Sydney and Melbourne Hard Rock Cafes apparently closed (they're not listed on the Hard Rock Cafe list anymore). I remember visiting both during my 2004 Globus tour of Australia. I wear proudly my t-shirts from both of them. It's a bummer they closed.

Update June 28, 2014: First, the All Access club/membership is no more. They came out with a different program called Hard Rock Rewards which I don't think is as good. Second, the ESPN Zone thing closed and was replaced with a Philips Harborplace restaurant. Third, the Cadillac is gone. It was replaced during a remodeling with a light fixture.

Candy Minas Tirith

Today, I read about this initially on the Council of Elrond webpage. It seems some very creative people with time on their hands (7 days worth) created a candy Minas Tirith. I checked the pictures of it and it is very impressive. Take a look at it yourself at this link Candy Minas Tirith.

Frustration

As I've mentioned in a couple previous blog entries, I like to get together with a fellow rural mail carrier sub called Bernadette. However, things can get pretty frustrating because of her other job at the Wheaton J.C. Penneys. Today is a prime example. I found out that she doesn't have to work today at Penneys. Since its Sunday, she doesn't have to work at the Post Office either. Great day to take her to the Hard Rock Cafe in Baltimore. I've been wanting to do that for a while. It turned out Penneys struck again. It seems that Penneys wants her to work at 5 a.m. tomorrow. The only way she could do that was get a ride down to a friends house either Saturday evening or Sunday at stay there overnight which she did. If I want to take her to the Hard Rock Cafe today, I have to drive an hour down to Wheaton to pick her up, drive another 90 minutes to the Inner Harbor so we can have lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe, drive another 90 minutes to take her back to Wheaton so she can work at Penneys tomorrow and drive another hour so I can get home. We're talking 4 and 1/2 hours of driving just so I could have lunch and see a little of the Inner Harbor with her. Aaargh! Sadly, I had to scrub the idea. It just wasn't worth all the hassle. So, I'll have to go to the Inner Harbor by myself which will suck. :-( Very frustrating.

Spin and Win

This past Sunday, I drove out to Dave & Busters so I could add to my ticket total. I played the Spin and Win game again. I made a couple surprise discoveries this time. First, I found out the game will start even if you don't pull the lever to start the light going around. I don't know how long the game will wait but it will eventually start on its own. Second, I found out that you have a limited time to hit the stop button. I was waiting to try to get a good idea when to hit the stop button so I could hopefully hit the 1,000 ticket marker. I guess I exceeded the wait time on the game because to my total astonishment, it stopped and gave me 10 tickets. For those of you who don't know, 10 tickets is worse than any marker on the game (the lowest markers are 20 tickets). I don't know how long you have before the game will stop on its own and I don't care to research that considering what it costs to play it. I'm just giving you my readers a heads-up that you have a limited amount of time to hit the stop button.

Luck wasn't really with me this last trip to Dave & Busters. I only hit the 1,000 marker 3 times. I managed to increase my ticket total over 4,000 tickets. I now have 45,869 tickets. The irony of the situation is that Dave & Busters doesn't have anything in the prize shop that I really want. Oh well. I plan to keep playing and I hope they'll get some nice new prizes in. We'll see.

Laurel Tavern Update

I managed to finish Montpelier Rural Route 2 before 5 p.m. When I drove up Fetty's Alley, I passed the Laurel Tavern. I saw they were still open. After I turned in all my accountables, the outgoing mail I collected, my scanner, cleaned my mail case and clocked out, I decided to see if the tavern will still open. To my surprise, they've changed their hours. They are now open Monday to Saturday till 7 p.m. I suspect someone there figured out that they weren't going to sell a lot of burgers if they closed at 5 p.m. Anyway, I bought their sack of 9 burgers this time. This is the best deal they offer on their mini-burgers. You get 9 of them for $7.99. That breaks out to almost 89 cents (88.7 cents if you want to get technical about it) a burger. That isn't a great deal considering you can get a double cheeseburger at McDonald's for just 11 cents more. Still, the place is convenient for me as it's just down the alley from the Post Office. Plus, they do have nice people. I suspect they're feeling their way as far as business. I hope things work out for them. Cheers all!

Correction

In my review of the Laurel Tavern, I stated that it opened from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Saturday. It turned out I was wrong about their Saturday hours. On Saturdays, they open 1 hour later i.e. 6 a.m. Sorry about the wrong information.

Trader Joe's Almond Bark Review

Recently, I decided to try Trader Joe's Almond Bark. Almond bark is almonds covered in dark chocolate and cut into slabs. Trader Joe's cuts their slabs into 5" by 9 and 3/4" blocks. They sell the bark in 1 pound boxes (2 slabs) for $9.99. I found their almond bark really good. The dark chocolate is slightly bitter but then, all dark chocolate normally is. Their bark is packed with almonds. Each almond bark slab is sealed in a clear plastic wrapper and then packaged in a nice box.

Overall, I was very pleased with their almond bark and I'd definitely recommend it. It would also make a nice inexpensive present for a chocolate lover. Cheers all!

Laurel Tavern

I visited the Laurel Tavern today. It's name is a bit of a misnomer as it's actually a very small shop that sells primarily donuts and other breakfast pastries. The tavern closed over 6 months ago and underwent a slow refurbishment. Finally, it reopened on January 2nd. I visited it today to see how it was. I found out that they've changed the focus of the restaurant/shop. Before, it was more small burgers and coffee. Now, it's primarily donuts and pastries though they still offer their mini-burgers.

I decided to try their mini-burgers. I bought six of them for $5.49. The tavern does give you a slight discount if you buy more than one. A single burger would cost you $1.29. Taste wise, the burgers were good but not very filling. I ate all six that I bought and I still wasn't filled up. Compared to McDonald's, I think they're a little expensive.

As far as pastries go, they had an all right selection. It isn't as impressive as Dunkin Donuts. One note I must make. I arrived at the tavern at 4:00 p.m. and what I saw as far as pastry wise may have been the dregs. They may offer a better selection when they open. I haven't seen what they offer when they open at 5 a.m.

Hours wise, they are open Monday to Saturday, 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. Those hours are definitely handy if you want to buy something for breakfast but not if you want a burger later in the day.

Parking is the same as it was: limited. This is a place where you run in, order what you want, get it and eat it some where else. There aren't any seats in the tavern and there is a limited area where you can stand.

Overall, the tavern is better than what it was before but, it still isn't very impressive. As it is down the street from the Post Office, it would be a handy place to grab a donut on my way in to work in the morning. But, it isn't a place I would go out of my way for. If you happen to be on Maryland Route 1 in Laurel around breakfast time and you're hunkering for a donut, you might give them a try but, I wouldn't recommend you go out of your way to find the Laurel Tavern. Bon Appetit!

Dave & Busters

Yesterday, I took my Post Office friend Bernadette to Dave & Busters at Arundel Mills Mall. Both of us enjoy playing their games. Bernadette has her sights on a Sony entertainment system they have though she'll have to play a lot of games and win a lot of tickets to get it. It costs 48,000 tickets. For me, I played Spin and Win again. No other game there offers the payout it does. To my delight, I hit the 1,000 ticket reward 5 times! That said, I missed it by one or two lights something like 25 times. It can be a very frustrating game in that way. People saw how many tickets I was winning and asked me to play for them but, I declined. I didn't want them to pay out their tickets only to have me miss the 1,000 ticket marker.

I managed to get my ticket total up to 41,669 tickets. I still don't know what I want to get there prize wise. For now, I just want to run my ticket score up. In time, I'll figure out what I want. The fun right now is just winning tickets and managing to hit the 1,000 marker. Cheers all!

Hobbit Update

This is a bit late but, I figured I'd post it any way. If you haven't heard, Peter Jackson settled his lawsuite with New Line Films out of court. He also signed a deal with New Line and MGM to produce "The Hobbit" and a film linking it to the Lord of the Rings films. Folks from New Line have stated that it is Jackson's project. One big question a number of people are asking is who is going to direct "The Hobbit." Jackson's schedule is very full right now. He finished shooting the movie "Lovely Bones" and he committed to making the first Tintin movie. MGM announced a release date for "The Hobbit" of Christmas 2010 with the follow-up movie coming out a year later. Jackson reportedly plans to shoot both movies in sequence one after another.

One potential big problem for "The Hobbit" is the screenwriter's strike. This needs to be resolved so that they can come up with a script for "The Hobbit." Another question is where are they going to shoot it. Supposedly, this is up in the air too though I can't imagine them shooting it any where else but New Zealand. One advantage they'll have if they shoot it in New Zealand is they'll be able to re-use the area outside Mata Mata where they shot the Hobbiton scenes. While they removed a lot the sets from this location, the Hobbit holes are still there. It shouldn't take them that long to make them usable again. Also, they could re-use the sets they had for Bilbo's home at Bag End.

I'm delighted that Jackson will be producing and hopefully directing "The Hobbit." It'll be awesome to return to Middle-Earth again. I still watch parts of the Lord of the Rings films and marvel at what Jackson did. They are film making at its best. Bring on Christmas of 2010. I definitely have a present to look forward to that year. Cheers all!

Sadists

I had to work yesterday at the Post Office. Mondays are always bad at the Post Office. You have to case, pack up and deliver two days of mail vice the normal one. To make things worse, we were going through the Christmas surge. We were getting a LOT more packages and a lot more letter type mail i.e. Christmas cards. Yesterday, I was willing to swear the clerks had turned into sadists. As I said, Mondays are always bad but yesterday, someone really seem to lay it into me. I was assigned to rural route 15 which is always terrible on Mondays. It has a large senior citizen development which gets a lot of mail as well as businesses which you have to hit before they close. Because of the businesses, you are under time constraints.

I walked into the Post Office and I heard Christmas music. Considering how things were going to be there, that was the last thing I wanted to listen to. Then, I got to the route case where I would case route 15's mail. I was floored. Someone had covered the table portion of the case with 400 plus fliers. They also dumped 12 tubs of mail. I was swamped and I hadn't even started. At this point, part of me wanted to turn around and walk out. But, I had a job to do so I gritted my teeth and got to it. It got worse. I'd managed to get through 8 tubs when they dumped the Direct to Point Service (DPS) mail on me. If you haven't read my blogs on this before, DPS mail is mail that is sorted for the carrier by machine. In theory, all the carrier has to do is put it in their case. In reality, you still have to go through because the machines make mistakes. Sometimes, they make a lot of them. The clerks dumped 8 trays of DPS mail on me. A tray will hold at least 200 pieces of letter mail so that means I had over 1,600 letters and advertisements dumped on me on top of the mail the clerks sorted themselves and the tubs they expected me to sort. I also had over 35 large packages, 50 small packages, 15 certified letters and 4 registered packages. It was going to be a VERY long day.

Ideally on route 15, you want to have your truck loaded and leave the Post Office by Noon. The reason for that is because it typically takes 5 hours to deliver all the mail on the route. Because of all the mail I got hit with, I didn't leave the Post Office till 3 p.m. Before I left, I told the Postmaster I would need help if he wanted me back before 6 p.m. Thankfully, I did get some help from fellow substitute carriers. Thanks to the help, I finished at 7:45 p.m. I drove back to the Post Office where I turned in the certified and registered mails I wasn't able to deliver. Also, I left the mail I wasn't able to deliver for the primary carrier on route 15. He'll have to try to deliver it tomorrow. I'm glad I have today off because I need it to recover from yesterday. I'm seriously tempted to tell my supervisor there I won't work any more Mondays. They're just not worth it. We'll see what I decide to do. Cheers all!

Thank You Globus

Over a month ago, I submitted a story on the Globus family exchange travel stories website. The story was about the bad hotel I'd stayed at in Bergen, Norway during the "Scandanavian" tour I did with Globus. The hotel was the Thon Rosencrantz Hotel. The single room they gave me was something of a disaster. There was a bad odor that was coming out of the bathroom which stunk up the whole room. The furniture was banged up. The curtains were put up in a haphazard manner. The breakfast buffet was poor and looked like it had been hurriedly assembled. Bacon and sausages were slapped together in the same pan. Fish portions were put out cold when they should've been heated. I found the people at the Reception desk rude and brusque. It short, this hotel really stunk. The only good things I could say about it was the free internet access at their one computer terminal and its location. It was a block from Bergen Harbor and 50 feet from the Hanseatic buildings.

When I saw that I could submit bad hotel experiences on the Globus family exchange travel stories website, I decided to tell of my experience there. I didn't expect anything to come of me submitting the story barring letting people know that sometimes, you do get a stinker of a hotel with Globus. To my surprise, my story was apparently forwarded to someone at Globus. They weren't thrilled to hear of my bad experience. They sent me an email letting me know that my case was being reviewed. I guess they found some merit to it because they sent me a voucher worth $100 which I can use toward another Globus tour. I'm delighted. I can definitely use it as I've signed up for their La France tour. I'm very much a fan of their tours and I can't wait to do another one. You meet great people and you see things you'll remember forever. I'll never forget the breathtaking fjords in Norway. Thanks Globus for the voucher and I look forward to making new precious memories on future tours with you.

Cold

As I mentioned in my last blog entry, I came down with a cold thanks to the weather we've had recently. The weather was very changeable in Maryland which made it easy to catch one. My job as a substitute mail carrier didn't help either as I was out in it a LOT. Then, the weather got consistently cold which made things potentially worse for me. The reason I say that is because once you catch a cold, you are supposed to avoid going outside into the cold and making your cold worse. That's impossible to do as a mail carrier. Due to the Christmas surge, it was impossible for me to take the week off to fight the cold off. I did manage to get my hours reduced which should help me rest and stay indoors. It also makes it possible for me to drink lots of fluids so I can flush the crud out of my system. Right now, I'm coughing up a fair amount of mucus. I've noticed that when I start to dehydrate, the coughing tends to stop which is sort of nice but, that means that I'm keeping that crud in which I don't want. The mucus looks nasty. I want that stuff out of me. One annoying thing about the cold is what has happened to my voice. Because of all the coughing, my throat has gotten torn up a bit so I sound very froggy (gribbit gribbit). Hopefully, I'll kick the cold this week. It would suck to be sick on Christmas. We'll see what happens.

Upgrade

I found out recently that Sprint upgraded their data network EV-DO revision A making it even faster. However, in order for customers to take advantage of the increased speed, they have to get new PCS Connection cards. So, I had to upgrade my Merlin 620 data card to the Merlin S720 data card. For those who don't know what these cards are, they are cards you plug into the PCM1A slot in a laptop computer. When you activate the included software, they connect to the Sprint cell phone network. The cards enable a person to hook-up to the Internet any where in the U.S. at broadband like speeds. For a person like myself who is something of an Internet junkie and who likes to travel, it is really handy. The only down side to using the service is it isn't cheap. I have unlimited download with them and it costs $60 a month. That's 4 times what a dial-up connection would cost. The flip side of the service is that it can save you money as well as hassle. When I stayed at the Grand Hyatt in New York City, they charged guests 50 cents a minute to access the Internet in their business center. I was extremely glad I had my PCS connection card. It can also offer greater security as the person can also use the card to make phone calls if they have to though you must have a headset with microphone for your laptop in order to use that.

Overall, I find the cards really handy and their data speeds impressive. With the new system Sprint has installed, a customer can have average downlink speeds of between 600 kilobytes per second and 1.4 megabytes per second and average uplink speeds of between 300 and 500 kilobytes per second. Downlink speeds can reach as high as 3 megabytes per second. The new EV-DO Revision A system isn't available every where and the cards make allowances for that. The cards will hook-up to the older EV-DO Revision 0 and Vision 1xRTT networks. If you like fast Internet connections, want mobility and don't want the hassles of trying to find a WiFi site, Sprint PCS connection cards are the way to go. See you on the Net.

Herring Fillets

Trader Joe's carries 2 brands of herring fillets. As I like herring, I decided to try both of them and see what the difference was between them. Here is what I found out.

Both are smoked though the more expensive fillets are "Naturally Hardwood Smoked." Price wise, while you get more fish in the hardwood smoked fillets (.85 of an ounce), they were also more expensive per ounce vice the cheaper kipper herring fillets (43 cents vice 40 cents). The cheaper kipper fillets were the better deal price wise. Taste wise, I didn't notice any noticeable taste difference between the two. I thought both tasted very good. I liked that both were deboned. The hardwood smoked fillets are canned in their natural juices while the kipper fillets were canned in canola oil. As far as I know, this didn't add greatly to the calorie count with the kipper fillets. The hardwood smoked fillets are caught and processed in Canada while the kipper fillets are processed in Germany. I would've thought the Canada fillets would be cheaper considering the shorter distance between the countries but that wasn't the case.

Overall, both of the herring products Trader Joe's offers were very good. They were both very tasty and have long shelf life. Neither need refridgeration. They are something you could easily pack for a hike or a camping trip. If I had to choose between the two, I'd go with the kipper fillets because they are cheaper. If you like herring, you won't be disappointed with either product. Bon appetit!