Crossing the Boulevard

I went to Walgreen's yesterday getting back after work. I needed toilet paper and paper towels. I was also out of shaving cream. Lately, I've been using soap, but I received some shaving cream and I was using that most recently. I actually don't remember how I came by the shaving cream, but I had just run out of it and although I think using soap is quite doable I have to admit that shaving cream is easier, and I decided I would get some. I was almost at the counter when I realized I had forgotten to get some. As I was carrying a not small package of TP, 2 rolls of paper towels, a Delish! brand frozen pizza (which didn't fit in the basket), and a 12 pack of becks (bottles) I wasn't happy about going for the shaving cream, but I did. I had regular type shaving cream a la Barbasol or the like, but this time I got Edge with Aloe. I had to walk home from here, about a five minute walk.

They still don't have Excedrin, which I prefer. What is going on with that? I know there was a recall many months ago, but I've yet to see signs of it since then. I got the Walgreen's brand, extra strength, 100 tablets, which I guess is fine. I wonder if the ratio of Aspirin to Acetaminophen is the same as with Excedrin? By itself, Acetaminophen does nothing for my headaches.

The walk across the boulevard is long and I feel a bit foolish carrying the 12 pack, which was not in a bag. I got the Nice! brand TP, which is rather thick and therefore will go relatively fast, but that's OK. I think it was a 6 pack. That was the smallest size they had, of any brand, except for the single rolls. The 12-pack was only $14 plus tax, it was on special. I don't think many people realize, but Duane Reade is owned by Walgreen's.

I brought my umbrella yesterday. I left it in the car. I think I have 2 sets of dirty gym clothes in there too, and a bottle of Apple syrup (which was a gift). I should bring those things in tomorrow, as I'd like to do laundry over the weekend.

I had 7 Beck's last night, but I didn't feel them much. I guess I ate a lot.

The Trip

The trip to Tennessee went without a hitch. The oil level remained constant, and I had no coolant alarms, or issues. I stopped off in western Virginia and had the third pound cheeseburger at Hardee's. It was just fine, but the distinctive charbroiled flavor of my youth is apparently lost to the sands of time. I also wish they just had the regular cheeseburgers they used to have back in the day. Why do they have to get bigger and fancier? You can always eat a lot of the smaller ones if you want more. I had also stopped off at a burger king further up I-81 a few hours earlier. I got 2 double cheeseburgers. They were fresh, and pretty delicious (such was not the case at a Burger King heading back. The double cheeseburger I had then had been sitting around a bit). The patty on top of one of them, the only one I looked at, seemed pretty small, but it was good anyway. Nothing to drink at that location. It was near a carnival.

I didn't make the trip down non-stop. I stopped overnight at an Econo Lodge. It was a little suspect, but turned out just fine. Came out to $62 and change.

Getting back to the Burger King experience I had heading back. It was in Stauton, Virginia. I had taken some coffee there too. I initially got off the highway there to get some coffee at Starbuck's, but I had a bit of trouble finding it and wound up at Burger King (again). Figured I'd get the coffee there, and have a double cheese while I was at it. The cashier said I'd have to wait for the coffee. A couple minutes later he came back with it (a little curious), and also gave me some things of half n' half. I went over to stir my 2 packets of sugar into my medium coffee while the double cheese was being 'prepared'. Initially, I couldn't find the stirrers at the soda bar, so I used a straw. After I started using it I saw a few stirrers in a tray there mixed in with some used sugar packets. I went over to the counter and stirred my coffee as I waited for the double cheese. The cashier asked me if there were many stirrers left, seeing that I was using a straw. I said, that there were, I just didn't see them. Then, I said that they were a little low, but there were some. Later, as I ate my double cheese (to stay), I think he may have gone over to the soda bar to check...

Coolant Concerns

I'm going to be driving to East Tennessee at the end of the week. Looks like it's about a 13 hour drive. My car is getting pretty old, but running fine, except the blinker doesn't blink at the moment. As, I suppose, with any older car the fluids often need topping off. At the moment I'm having the most concerns with the coolant. About a month ago I had to refill it a bit sooner than I expected. I topped off the power steering, and checked the oil as well. The oil was way high. I had just had it changed a couple weeks before that. I was thinking that it wasn't burning/losing oil. If I had checked it after 5000 mi like I usually do I might have thought it wasn't losing oil, as having checked it last week I can tell that the level is going down. Good thing I checked it after 2000 or so miles. I guess it's OK to overfill it. I wonder if they filled it high intentionally because they know she's got some miles on her. In which case that would be rather considerate.

I remember that when I topped off the coolant I wasn't sure that I had filled it too the max level, but I figured it is good enough for now. I also remember thinking that I might think it had gotten worse if it alarms again earlier than expected, but I brushed it off. Well, sure enough, it alarmed last week just before my long trip. I refilled it, but even given my recalling the earlier circumstances I remained a bit worried. I checked for puddles underneath the car and found a large one on Friday (but it may have been there before I parked there). I checked the level and it was down, but at a time when the engine was cold (I had filled it when it was warm). This morning I checked underneath where it had been parked and didn't see much. It had been raining but it had dried some and I think I could still tell. There might have been a small patch, but nothing for certain. I then checked the level just after I got to work, and it is lower than I had left it but nothing dramatic. So, I guess it hasn't sprung a major leak. I also was concerned that it might be getting into the engine, but the oil looks fine, not sludgy. I don't think it's to the point where I wanna put oatmeal into the coolant system to plug any small leaks, but I've started thinking about it. They must have some coolant additive for this kind of problem. I guess I should buy another bottle of coolant for the trip...

New Sign on the GCP

The sign, located just west of the Queens-Nassau county border on the westbound side of the Grand Central Parkway is wrong. It indicates that the distance from there to the Queens Blvd exit is 4 miles, but it is more like 7 miles. It also indicates that the distance from there to the Laguardia Airport exit is 8 miles, but it is more like 11 miles. This is one of those new signs they are putting up that give readouts of how long it is taking to get to these exits, the readouts are not active last I checked. If they moved the sign 3 miles west it would be correct.

About these new signs. How do they measure this time? Do they use the easy pass transponder to track people? What if someone exits the road and then gets back on it? Is this taken into account?

Wednesday Evening's Fare

I had a tuna salad sandwich last night. The tuna salad was composed of Mayo, chopped onions, a chopped jalapeno that had turned mostly orange, a dash of Worcestershire sauce, and a good squirt of  of sirrach. I put it on toasted beefsteak soft rye from the refrigerator. As often happens with refrigerated bread, which can reduce the moisture content, the rye toast was borderline burnt. I put some baby arugula on top of the tuna salad. I cut the sandwich in half on a very slight bias with the shorter of the two Cutco knives I have. This was bumble bee chunky white albacore in oil I believe. The tuna salad wasn't bad. The jalapeno had somewhat of a kick to it, it was a little light on mayo, but the flavor of the tuna was good so I'm not sure if that's a bad thing. In hindsight, I should've put a little dijon mustard into the mix, perhaps. The toast was pretty burnt, but not so much as to rip the roof of my mouth up too much, so that's a plus. I do like nice color on my toast, but not so much that it falls to pieces when any sort of pressure is applied.

An hour or two previous to the sandwich I had some salsa made with the larger sized can of Del Monte Tomato sauce. I had the idea to make salsa from this tomato sauce over the weekend. I normally get the smaller can, and eat the contents out of the can with chiles mixed in, but this can is a bit large for that, so I was wondering what I could do with it. The purchase of the larger can was on the spur of the moment, it was a bit of a stretch. I was sitting on the couch when the idea came to me. A smooth salsa can be one of my favorite types, and this sauce is smooth. It's a plain, basic tomato sauce, kind of like thick tomato juice. Has quite a bit of salt. I had some jalapenos, a half of an onion in the fridge, some garlic (from Key Food, i.e. - not the greatest, but recently bought)...and I had some Doritos, which I'm a big fan of with salsa. Anyway, I regretted the lack of cilantro but I made the salsa anyway. I tried it with Doritos, it was ok, but not as good as Tostitos, a bit too thin, and still not very spicy. I figured I'd put it in the fridge for the flavors to meld as I wasn't very hungry. Instead of putting it in a plastic container, like the ones you get for a large hot and sour soup or 2 lbs. of potato salad, I just left it in the dish I made it in and put aluminum foil on it.

Last night, when I went to check it out, I took the foil off and I noticed it was partially frozen, which is fine, I have a microwave. I don't like salsa too cold anyway, so the microwave thing could really work out. So, I put it in the microwave and warmed it up. Funny thing is that after it was warmed up and stirred around it still stayed pretty thick. I also mixed a healthy portion (1/4 tablespoon?) of the African Bird Chile powder that I purchased at the Dual Specialty store a couple months ago into it. I had a good portion of it with Doritos, though there's still some left. It was better than it was over the weekend (last night was Wednesday), still don't understand exactly why it got so much thicker. Do onions and jalapenos have pectin?

My beer of choice last night was Magic Hat #9, the usual.

I had a haagen daz almond crunch coffee ice cream pop between the salsa and the sandwich, but after I had finished the six pack.

It's Hard to Eat a Sandwich that doesn't Exist

This 'morning' I had two pieces of stoneground 100% whole wheat buttered toast, 3 slices of oscar-meyer bacon (thin sliced), a sliced halapeno, and some V8 juice with horseradish and tabasco sauce, for breakfast. The butter was unsalted, and I don't think I salted it, which is unlike me. The sliced jalapeno I fried with the bacon, in the grease.

I wasn't sure how to eat it. I didn't use any utensils, and I found that I ate most of it with my left hand, reserving my right for the V-8. The sliced jalapeno was not spicy at all. I realized an hour or two later that what I had eaten was a deconstructed bacon sandwich, no wonder I was confused.

To Whom it Probably Doesn't Concern

Particularly on weekends, when I stay in, as I often do until I get coffee, I don't comb my hair. And especially in the winter, when the static electricity is worse, much of my hair stands out and it can look quite dishevelled. I generally don't brush it until I am about to go out, and it can be in this state for hours on end.

After all why should I comb it? I don't normally look in the mirror much, and when I don't I can't see, or otherwise perceive, the state of my hair. This is really the crux of the matter. As I live alone, the only other one I can think of who might care would be God, since He sees all things. But something deep inside me says that he will overlook this dereliction, though it seems to me inconsistent for God as I imagine He must be rather proper, given all the order in the universe.

I don't really think that I can tell without looking when my hair is in a state of disarray, and in any case it doesn't bother me or affect me in any way, I don't think. For example, I am writing this with my hair uncombed, or more accurately unbrushed, and I think that this condition will have very little effect on what I am writing, except perhaps this sentence, but not definitely this sentence, as I could be lying about the state of my hair.

I recently bought a new brush, as my old one fell in the toilet. It was more or less bound to happen due to the proximity of the sink to the toilet, and because I kept the brush on the side of the sink nearest the toilet. For a few weeks I was combing my hair with a little beard comb that came with my new beard trimming set. It worked OK except that it required more effort as it tended to get stuck, and although I could not notice on the finished product, I think I was ripping a lot of my hair.