A Non-Reader's Unbelievable Kindle Story

How I went from NOT reading to reading a book a week!

    Kindle: An eReader sold by Amazon
    eReader: An electronic thing that looks like a small tablet that can contain books to read
    Librarian Sister: Someone who tricks you into buying a Kindle and then downloads interesting books into it and then gets you hooked!

    That being said, my sister is an avid reader. In fact, her personalized license plate on her car advertises that she is a reader. She even has 4 or 5 books going at the same time! For years, she has given me paperback and hard cover books to read and occasionally she would give me a complete series of books to read like the Left Behind series.
    She has been raving about her Kindles for years. Yes, she has multiple Kindles, a Nook and seems to buy a new Kindle each time Amazon brings out a new one. When she buys a new one, she either gives away her last Kindle to her family members or sells it. Finally, after a lot of prodding, she talked me into buying my first Kindle. It was the Kindle with the paper white background and you could read it anywhere, even on the beach with no glare. It also held a charge for a LONG time. The drawback was that it didn't have a touch screen.
    I read quite a few books on it and then she called me one day and said that the Kindle Fire was on sale at Amazon and once again talked me into buying it. I gave my old Kindle to my mother-in-law who kept it for a month and returned it to me. She likes real books. I ended up giving it to my wife.
    I had the Fire for about a year and then on Facebook, I saw someone had a Kindle Fire HD for sale at a good price. I contacted them and bought it.

     Now my Kindle Fire (shown above) is on sale on eBay. The listing is here in case you are fortunate enough to read this before it sells and you want one. It's a good deal and comes with the original box along with a nice leather case with the original box.
    I guess the main point of this little story is that I have a ton of hobbies and was "too busy to read". Well, that got blown right out of the water. I now read during lunch at work and sometimes find myself sneaking off and reading more of the book I'm currently reading after I get home. I am HOOKED! I'm averaging a book a week and that's reading about an hour a day. I just love how I get so engrossed into these Action Thrillers or Mysteries that I read.
    You can see many of the books I have read by returning to my blog and looking on the right hand side for the "Books I've Recently Read" section. Once in a while I get one that starts off slow and I think it's a dud but then all of a sudden, it gets downright interesting and I finish it.
    One that I particularly enjoyed was called The Ghost in the Polka Dot Bikini. It was quite entertaining to say the least.

     Many authors write multiple books and I follow quite a few of them. Characters and authors include Jack Noble books by L. T. Ryan, Jack Reacher books by Lee Child, Joe Pike novels by Robert Crais, all books by David Baldacci, books by A. American including Going Home, Surviving Home and Escaping Home. Another book I really enjoyed was called Hiking Through by Paul Stutzman. It's a true story about a middle aged man who lost his wife to cancer and decided to quit his job and hike the entire Appalachian Trail. It was a very moving book and so interesting, I could hardly put the book down. If you have ever hiked or thought about hiking, this book is a must read.

    I hope I have talked you into getting your own Kindle and that you will begin reading. I feel like a whole new world has opened up to me since I began reading all these books. One tip I can give you is this: When you begin reading a book, on the first page, place a note that says you began reading the book on such and such a date. Then when you finish, Edit the note and put the date that you finished. You will be surprised over time how fast you can read a book. Also, if you use GMail, go to Google Drive and create a new spreadsheet to keep track of the books you read along with the start and end dates.
    Have fun and Happy Reading!
John

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Killing Germs Legally with Germ Fighter Essential Oils and Thieves Oil

     Germs Germs Go Away!!!

     I feel like something is trying to make me sick so I had to bring out the big guns tonight...Essential Oil Aromatherapy!

     When I was in Alaska, my daughter-in-law always had her aromatherapy machines going to "ward off" the evil germs and spirits. "Essential Oils are the bomb" she would keep saying. "You have to get some." I came down with the cough from hell when I was there the first time and she made me sleep with her Aromatherapy machine going with her own blend of Essential Oils.

     I did some research and discovered that Thieves Oil or its equivalent was what I wanted to buy. After doing some research, Thieves Oil has an interesting past. As legend tells, essential oils were used by robbers and thieves during medieval times to protect themselves from the plague and other diseases of their victims. Ebola...hello!

     A 1997 study at Weber State University showed the oils in this Germ Fighter blend to be 99.96% effective against airborne bacteria.

     I recently bought an essential oil called Germ Fighter, Essential Oil Synergy and it's available from Amazon. Click on the link above to see it and buy it if you like. It is a blend of Lemon, Clove, Eucalyptus, Cinnamon, and Rosemary essential oils.

     I also bought a small aromatherapy machine called ZAQ also on Amazon. The link is to another machine made by the same company. Here is a link to the one that I have shown below.

ZAQ Lite Mist Aromatherapy Machine

     It is quite small and comes with a power cord, instructions and a measuring cup for the water. You can only put a maximum of 80 ml in it at a time but this lasts a LONG time.You add 3 to 5 drops of essential oil to the water and then turn it on. Steam instantly comes out of the top.

     What does the machine do? It breaks up the mixture of water and essential oil into millions of micro-particles, a stream of air diffuses activated ingredients of the blended essential oil, which can be easily absorbed by the body and the aroma helps to freshen the room.

     Aromatherapy not only helps to keep you healthy, it also relaxes your body and at the same time, your skin becomes moisturized.

See the steam?

     The aromatherapy machine has a power on / off button on the front. The first press turns on the unit and you get misting and the color of the top cone slowly changes through all colors of the rainbow. Gee, I feel like I'm reliving the 60's with peace, love and pot!

     If you press the power button again, the color stays fixed with the misting still on. Press it again and the colored light turns off but the misting continues. Press it again to power off the unit.

     The instruction manual is very good and the English is good so I'm thinking it may be made in America! But...as unbelievable as this sounds, the box says Made in China!

     So what do I think? I think I have nothing to lose and everything to gain. It is so cool watching the lights slowly change into another color. It really is relaxing. Also, this oil really makes the room smell nice.

     Aha! I just found out that if it runs out of water, it automatically shuts off. Now that's a plus!

     This particular unit says not to use it with corrosive oils such as Citris, Citronella and Lemon because they cause permanent damage to the unit. Well Thieves Oil does have a bit of Lemon in it so I am making sure I rinse the unit out well when I stop using it.

     The verdict is still out on this but this combined with everything else I do will hopefully ward off any serious bacteria born illnesses.

I'm now the official Women's Rest Room Sniffer!

     I get called upon by the office manager to do all sorts of odd jobs. A month or so ago, there apparently was a mouse eating things out of my neighbor's drawer in his cube.
     The office manager bought mouse traps and then tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I could bait the traps for her and put them in the drawer. I did. I used one of the guy's raisins and shoved that puppy up the bait arm on the trap.

     The next day the office manager opened the drawer and yelled for me to come over there.  Sure enough, there was a mouse in the trap. I took it into our bathroom and through it away in the waste basket.  Problem solved...no more mice.
     Now the other day, I was tapped for a duty I did not want to do. She asked me to go into the women's rest room and take a sniff. Hmmmm, I thought. I really don't want to sniff their rest room but what the heck. I get to be a fly on the wall!
     In I went...

     And holy moly! What a bad smell! I told the manager it must be sewer gas because the men's rest room next door had no odor (as odd as that might seem...White Castles anyone?). I told her to get a pail and pour some water down the floor drain.

     A while later she came by and told me that I solved the problem...no more smell in the rest room.
     On Monday she left a pound of Dunkin' Donuts coffee for me with a thank you note.

     It smells a lot better than that bathroom!

Turkey Sub Anyone? What does a Turkey Sub mean to you?

     The other day, 15 minutes until 11, my manager invited me to a 2 hour meeting that was to run from 11 AM until 1 PM. I don't know about you but my lunch hour is sacred to me. I get up early, exercise, eat a small bowl of cereal around 7 AM and do not eat anything else until noon. So when I got the invitation to this meeting I was a little upset. That meant I would not eat my lunch until 1 PM. I'm hungry by noon!
     I accepted the meeting and grumbled. I hate eating during a "working lunch" because I like to read my Kindle during lunch to relax from the stress of pulling data out of databases all day long.
     About 5 minutes later, I got another Email from my manager saying he was going to order lunch from Jimmy John's.

      "Oh Boy!" I thought...Gourmet Sandwiches! I replied back saying I'd like a Turkey sub picturing in my mind the sub featured below with turkey inside.

     Here is their description of the Turkey sub...

     We went into the meeting room and got into our discussions. After about 20 minutes, the subs were delivered "freaky fast"...Instead of getting up to grab their subs, my peers continued with their meeting. This drives me crazy! When food is delivered, I'm like Homer Simpson and beer..."Food, Food. Food...!". I continued sitting there staring at the food and tuning out the discussion. 

     Finally our manager said to go ahead and grab our food. I was last to get over there and someone handed me my sub marked John on the wrapper. As I walked back I noticed everyone chowing down on subs that looked like the one above. I couldn't wait..BUT WAIT!!!!

     I opened my sub and discovered that my manager had ordered my sub as a Plain white bread sub with just two slices of turkey on it. There was no lettuce, tomato, banana peppers, mayo, salt or pepper. It was PLAIN and DRY!  I could not believe it. I didn't order a drink so there I sat trying to eat my DRY sub with nothing to drink. Unbelievable!

I could not believe it. I didn't order a drink so there I sat trying to eat my DRY sub with nothing to drink. It was SO hard to swallow! Unbelievable!

     My gourmet turkey sub went from this...

to this...

 

+

  


     Boring!
     Needless to say, next time my manager asked for my order, I will be very specific!!!

Calgary or Bust! Part 3

     There is not much to report today because all I do is sit in the office and work while I'm here but the view of the Rocky Mountains driving to the office is spectacular. It really does look like this.

Calgary and the Rocky Mountains

     In the morning, I go down to breakfast at the hotel at 7:10 AM and scarf down my food because the manager who is riding with me is already down there doing work and he's already eaten. Then about 7:25 AM I'm out the door with the manager heading to the office. Today I didn't leave the office until after 6:30 PM with the manager who is riding with me but that's because we went out to dinner with some other workers. Tonight I got back to the hotel around 8:30 PM after eating dinner at Earls Barlow Trail restaurant. I had the Bourbon mushroom steak with a Pale Ale. It was really good.

Earls

     Speaking of dinner, I had a strange experience while at dinner.

Sorry! Sorry!

     I went to the Lavatory and was standing at the urinal and heard a girls voice. I turned and here is a girl wearing a short black dress who works there picking up trash on the floor in the Lavatory within 4 feet of me! Then she proceeds to check the paper towel dispensers and said Sorry! Sorry! a couple times.
     I thought I was back in Antwerp Belgium again in the Lavatory!

     I'm tired so it's bedtime and then another long day tomorrow.

Calgary or Bust! Part 2

     Day 2 in Calgary...
     This will be a short update to my travels, er, non-travels in and around Calgary. The office I'm working in turns out to be about 3 miles from the hotel so around 7:30 AM I drove to it with one of the managers.
     Picture where you work and now picture where you park. Picture a normal office building near the airport with normal parking for cars. Now picture this...

Hourly Parking Receipt: $8 for 8 hours

     Yes, it costs a person $8 to park in a normal parking lot and that was good only until 4 PM. Of course I was there until 6 PM but I didn't get towed. We are miles from downtown and they told me it costs $45 a day to park downtown. Unreal!
     Here's an interesting fact. All the doors to the offices have a lego looking square on the door and then the tenants name and suite number is "lego'd " to the door like the example shown below. This is what the STAIRS door had on it.

Lego Office Door Signs

     I guess they save money this way.
     BTW, the view of the mountains this morning was spectacular but of course I was driving and could not take a picture.
     After I got to the office, my company laptop somehow picked up a malware virus. I have no idea how. I never use it off the company network. I spent hours today trying to get rid of it. I finally think I got it after scanning it about 50 times and rebooting it countless times. Damn you! You virus and malware creators! You know who you are!
     Now I will show you is how the plumbing sticks out of the floor in the hotel. It doesn't go into the wall. I think it's because it is so cold here that this prevents the pipes from freezing.

Hot and Cold Water Pipes and Drain in the Bathroom

Toilet Water Inlet

     My wife told me I need to be on the lookout for a Looney Loon coin. I did a search on the Internet and sure enough they have them here but so far, I have not received one. I guess they have several versions of them.

     I worked a lot of hours today. It looks like I won't get any sightseeing or any Looney Loon looking done while I'm here.
     Oh yes, one final thing. Tonight when I drove back to the hotel there were hundreds of geese flying in formation. They were going every which way and some formations had only two flying on one part of the V and maybe 35 on the other part of the V. It was a strange sight to behold. I thought geese flew south for the winter but these must be "Canadian Geese"...Gotcha! This is a true story though. Here's a link so you can learn about the geese.
     Until my next update, see ya!

Calgary or Bust!

     A few weeks ago I agreed to fly to Calgary, Alberta to help out the team there. This story is about the trip out and oh what a trip it was! But first...

     On February 22, 2014, the Michigan Brewers Guild held the annual Winter Beer Festival in wintery Grand Rapids, MI. Close to 4,000 beer enthusiasts endured cold temperatures and solid 20 mph winds to sample beers from Michigan brewers. It was great fun and this is me at the beer festival. The scarf came in handy Dee...

     On with the story...
     It all started at the gate in Detroit. The plane was supposed to leave for Denver at 7:50 AM but at 8:00 AM we were informed that the Outhouse, er, Lavatory in the rear was busted! They called the $h_t kickers anonymous, er, the Lavatory Man to add more "Bleach" as the pilot called it. We finally saw a truck labeled Lavatory pull up and heard sucking sounds, etc. At this point, the plane door had been closed and sealed for some time.
     All of a sudden, the plane door opened and a woman from the gate area came on the plane, proceeded  down the isle and grabbed a man 2 rows behind me and told him police officers were waiting outside the door. She said the pilot didn't want him on the plane. Why you might ask? It turns out he tried to pee while they were working on the lavatory and when the flight attendant told him to sit down, he said he had to pee. He'll be driving to Denver after the nice police officers get done with him.
     They finally closed the door again and we began to taxi after a one hour delay. Then the pilot ordered the plane to be deiced. There was no frost or snow on the plane. That delayed us another 20 minutes. Then we taxied to the hold line and the pilot revved the engines up much higher than normal idle and continued to do so for another 10 minutes. What the heck? Did they get too much antifreeze inside the engines? We finally took off over 1.5 hours late. 

     Oh, the plane was kind of small and the seats were really narrow. A rather large girl sat down in the isle seat of the row in front of me. She ended up having to sit sideways the entire flight. More on her below.

     We were just about to Denver when I happened to look up and between the seats I noticed the girl mentioned above with a finger coming out of her nose with...a booger!!!! OMG!!! Where it went I don't know because I needed to look out the window at that point.
     We ended up being over 1.5 hours late and as I was walking to my next gate, I heard an announcement that they were looking for someone to give up their seat and would give them a $400 transferable voucher, lunch and dinner and get them on a non-stop flight to their destination at 8 PM that night. It wasn't my flight or my hand would have gone up. Luckily I had a 2.5 hour connection but most other people missed their connecting flights.
     I boarded my flight to Calgary and the plane was an Airbus 320. It was a nice plane and looked pretty new. I sat down in my window seat and there was a young Asian man sitting in the middle seat. The plane was almost full when a large man came up to our isle and began to sit down. My eyes started watering from the odor he was giving off. Holy Cow!!! What was with flying today? I opened the air vent above my head full blast and directed it so it would cut off the odor before it got to me. Could I make it 3 more flight hours?

Alberta scenery from 36,000 feet

     Well, the views today were spectacular!

A mountain peak in Alberta

     It is amazing that the cities of Denver and Calgary are in the shadows of the US and Canadian Rocky Mountains. This is a view of the Canadian Rockies near Calgary.

Canadian Rockies in the distance

     After landing in Calgary, we taxied to the gate BUT there was no one at the gate. The pilot came on and said they told him a truck broke. We sat in the plane for another 20 minutes and finally the plane finished taxiing to the gate and we got off.
     After all the excitement I needed a break. Before landing they gave everyone a Customs paper for declaring what you were bringing in. It said "DO NOT BEND" at the bottom. I put it in my passport all flat.
     I went through Customs and my face got beat red when the girl asked me why I was coming to Canada. I got tongue tied. All I could think of was "This is my first time to Canada in a long time" and "My company sent me here". Gee whiz! She stamped my paper, gave it back to me and let me pass. I folded the paper up and shoved it in my passport.
     Then I found out that after picking up my baggage, I had to go through Customs again and I said to myself, "I'm in big trouble". I noticed that everyone was turning in their flat Customs paper that had been stamped. I pulled my folded Customs paper out and gave it to the girl and said "I'm sorry. It's my first time here in a long time and I thought we were done with that paper. She glared at me, unfolded it, pointed to the words "DO NOT BEND", bent it lengthwise and told me to leave. I left!
     On to the car rental place. It turns out they were really low on cars and I had to wait another 15 minutes for a car to be ready. They never offered a map to me and my GPS was buried in my suitcase, which is a pain to open because it has a zipper around 3 sides so I went out to the car (NOT WASHED) and proceeded to leave the airport and drive around for 20 minutes to find a place to eat. I finally found a little shopping center and found a bank there where I was able to change some money over.
     Upon coming back to my car, I found a really nice Mercedes 450 parked a foot from my door. He parked 2 feet from the other side so he could get out but left me a foot. Thank you very much! In other parking lots I noticed that everyone parks really close to each other. I don't know why.

The Mercedes out my car window

     After that, I opened the darn suitcase and dug out that GPS. I love you GPS! I found the hotel in no time flat. I got settled in and decided to find a restaurant to eat supper. I drove out of the parking lot...and remembered that my GPS was still in the hotel room. This was some day! After driving around for another 30 minutes trying to find a restaurant (there doesn't seem to be too many in this area), I found a Chilis and had a small steak dinner. It was really good!

Sirloin Dinner

     So now I'm in the hotel typing and it is 11:22 PM EST but 9:22 PM Alberta time. Thanks for reading!