Things

"Life is not measured by how much you own." ~ Luke 12:15

Folks in our society seem to equate possessions with success. They believe the more they own, the more successful they are.

Which I think is a direct cause of the disease of hoarding. Folks get and save stuff for no apparent reason, even if it is literally trash.

It's an easy trap to fall into. Even for folks like us who are constantly on the watch for it. One day you wake up and look around and say "where'd all this crap come from!?"

First things first

"A simple life is not seeing how little we can get by with — that’s poverty — but how efficiently we can put first things first ... When you’re clear about your purpose and your priorities, you can painlessly discard whatever does not support these, whether it’s clutter in your cabinets or commitments on your calendar."

~Victoria Moran

Neat finds in the garden

I've been working at expanding the garden some, and have found a couple neat items in the dirt.

The first is this odd jar.

It's odd because it has this little lip inside.

Luckily for us it had a patent number of the bottom, and through the magic of Google we found it is an old ink jar. Here is a link to the patent, first filed in 1927!

Also while digging I unearthed this old vacuum tube.

Frog Morton's Cellar Pipe Tobacco

I happened to be up at Cigar and Tabac a while back and saw this tin sitting on the shelf. I'd been seeing folks talking about this new blend on the internet and had been thinking about ordering one so I grabbed it up!

The tin's description says:

"A mellow, fragrant Latakia blend aged with stave cubes cut from barrels used to mature and flavor Frog Morton's Own special whiskeys."

I've come to really enjoy whiskey lately, and I like a little Latakia every once in a while as a change from Carter Hall. And I figured I would enjoy this blend, and I was right.

It is a very good blend of tobacco. I like it very much. Although I was surprised -- even though they say it right on the tin -- to find an actual cube of wood in with the tobacco!

To me it seems very similar to Shortcut to Mushrooms, only a little less sweet. Which suits me just great.

How to remove tree stumps

One of the problems felling trees with an axe is it leaves pretty tall stumps, and getting rid of a stump with an ax is a lot of work.

But there is an easier way (that does not include using a powered machine).

Get a metal barrel and remove the bottom. Put the barrel over the stump and fill in around it with charcoal.

Our local supermarket had a special on charcoal this weekend, 36 pounds of it for less than $6!

So I stocked up a bit and am in the process of getting rid of a couple stumps that've been around a bit too long!

Another Lark

At the smoke shop I found another Dr. Grabow straight Lark pipe. And since I really like my other one, I bought this one too.

Can't wait to smoke it tonight!

Internet on the go

My Beloved and I have been debating the last several months about what kind of role we want internet to have in our lives. We have enjoyed using the internet in the past, but it can (at least for me) become quite an addiction.

Since moving back here we have -- off and on -- had access to a full-fledged DSL connection. But the price has been going up and up. When I called to price the service this last time I was told that their least expensive option is now $50 per month plus taxes, four years ago that plan was about $20 per month.

The decision we came to was that we wanted to have a little bit of internet access without being tied into a contract, but how to get that?

At first we thought we would each get inexpensive smart phones. But there are some things we'd like to do online that aren't possible on smart phones, and to top it off most of those things give me major headaches anyway.

We thought we could just go in to town once a week and use the WIFI at the library, but that is just a pain all on its own.

I was looking at Virgin Mobile's MiFi service but they keep raising the price and lowering the data cap on that one (though if you're in a 4G market they're currently offering up to 10GBs high speed for $35 which is a good deal).

But recently I noticed a new service at Wal-Mart, Internet on the Go. You buy the MiFi device for about $80 and then choose between two different options, the Go Big and Go Bigger. The data included in the Go Big plans is not very much, but it doesn't expire for a year. The Go Bigger plans offer more data but expire in 30 days. It is a pre-paid service so there are no contracts. If we decide we don't want it one month, we just don't buy a card. Or we can easy switch between the different data options they offer simply by getting the appropriate card.

So we got one to try out.

And I have to say that I'm pretty impressed. The speeds we've been getting are decent enough for what we do, email and blogging mostly. It is even good enough to watch a YouTube video every now and then, though that will eat up your data.

To keep an eye on our data usage I found a free app called Networx which works very well. It stays down in the little drawer at the bottom of the screen on our Windows 7 netbook and when I hover over the icon it displays the amount of data we've used that day. It also has a neat little "quota" feature that will alert us if we exceed a certain amount in a given time period.

So if you are looking for a less expensive way to have a little bit of internet access and you live in an area with good Sprint cellular coverage this might very well be a good option for you to consider.