Cookies

Sweet delicious chunky chocolate chip cookies. Yum. Better yet, sweet delicious, moist, Costco chunky chocolate chip cookies. Great for the taste buds and terrible for the waistline. But I couldn't help myself. Costco has a current rebate on their glorious cookies at $1.50 off retail pricing.

And I loved them. Every single one of them: with milk, without milk, as the heat of the mid-day Sun melted the chocolate chunks and the cool counter-top air kept them solid. Costco bakery cookies are some of the best manufactured cookies in these United States and I have to force myself not to buy them every time I go into the store.

Yeah, self-discipline is a bitch.

However, with the discount, even at only $1.50 off their normal price, I caved in and bought a package of 24 large chocolaty bliss -- and had a couple on the drive home. Then another with dinner, and another for an after dinner snack. Then the next morning with milk, for breakfast. And a mid-morning snack.

And then I left the house, half a package of glorious chocolate chunk cookies sitting on the counter awaiting my return.

Fast forward about 6 hours. I'd gone to the Irish Festival (see previous blog post) and come home close to 9PM, fed the dogs and took them for a walk. An hour or so later I was in the mood for a snack and something sweet sounded like the perfect sneak. I pulled a glass from the cabinet, filled it with milk and turned to the last place I saw the cookies.

Nothing.

Nothing?!?

I searched: this counter, that counter, in the fridge, on top of the fridge. Wondering, where, if anywhere, my roommate might have moved the package.

Nothing.

Eegads! Where were my cookies?

And then it hit me -- understanding -- like lighting striking a flag pole: the ground. Look at the ground! I saw it, then. The see-through plastic cookie package pushed into the corner under the overhang created by the lower cabinets. Empty.

One of the dogs had climbed on top of the counter and dragged the cookies onto the floor. I already knew my usual suspects: Rufus, 65lbs, barely taller than my knee at the shoulder, or Charlie, also 65lbs (or so) but taller, leaner, able to get his paws near my shoulders when on his hind legs.

The Devil

Charlie.

Charlie was the only creature in the house capable of reaching the cookies, knocking them down and gobbling them up. Certainly not the cats and certainly not Rufus, dear sweet innocent Rufus.

Don't get me wrong, I have no doubt Rufus partook in the spoils of Charlie's criminal actions, but Rufus can barely get his nose at counter level when in the kitchen, especially on the Pergo floors where he can't get a grip with his feet.

Charlie, on the other hand, has proven time and again that he can not only reach the counter, but the back of the counter-tops, able to scoop off sticks of butter, bread, cookies and more.

Charlie ate my cookies -- my delicious Costco chunky chocolate chip cookies and now the closest I will ever get to those cookies is when I pick up after him in the park.

Charlie is not my favorite person today. Nor tomorrow. Nor possibly for at least a week.

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I went to an Irish Festival

No, I'm not Irish -- I'm American.

At the festival I met an honest-to-goodness Irish lady, straight off the boat from the Emerald Isle. When I told her I wasn't Irish, she immediately asked where I was from. "Florida," I replied. No, where's you're family from? "Illinois." At some point, I said I was just a plain ol' American Mutt.

She sighed, "What's your last name?"

"[Insert Real Last Name Here]"

 "Oh, so you're not Irish." Nope. Not even a little. But that doesn't mean I don't like cultural events, especially when they're free.  Yes, I said, Free. A friend of mine volunteered at the festival and they gave her a couple of free tickets for friends and family which she gave to me.

The Colorado Irish Festival is a small local event focused more around Irish-style music than anything else. There were bands and booze, some food but mostly burgers, dogs and cheesesteaks. Killians Irish Red was one of the festival's sponsors and was obviously served, as well as a handful of other Colorado-based beers.There were a handful of spirits as well, but since I wasn't in the mood to drink, I didn't pay any attention to the options at all.

There were tons of vendors there as well, selling their Irish, Scottish and otherwise Celtic wares from sterling silver jewelry to kilts and swords. At least there were no pirates or Teutonic vendors there like the Renaissance Festival which seems to be nothing more than an excuse to dress in pre-industrial or steampunk costumes.

We arrived at the fest and had to park as far away as humanly possible then take the shuttle from the parking lot to the fest's entrance. We walked around, checking out stalls, comparing one vendor's widgets to the next vendor's identical widgets for a lower/higher price. My friend actually bought some jewelry and I bought a little US Army hanging thing that catches the lights and scatters it across the walls.

My friend and I ate fried potato ribbons, I had a soda while my friend had a couple of beers and enjoyed the music. The festival is small and there wasn't much to do if you weren't spending $6 per drink or an Irish-style music fanatic.

To be honest, I haven't been to this particular festival in a couple of years since I'm usually bored in the first couple of hours. However, I was able to curb the normal $15 entrance fee, so leaving wasn't making me feel guilty about not getting my money's worth.

The good part about going to the festival, any festival, on Sunday is the vendors usually drop their prices or are more willing to negotiate with you since they don't want to carry inventory home with them.

The good news was, I did get to see the hipster Howard Wolowitz:

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The Women of the Otherworld

I read. All the time. Way back in the long ago I picked up my first comic book. After a few months of reading 20-something pages and having to wait another month for the next 20 pages of the story, I decided to try reading a book. Simply stated, I wanted something longer, something that would occupy my time and fuel my imagination.

So I headed to the nearest bookstore and bought my first novel which is well documented here: Magician Apprentice.

I'm always on the lookout for new authors, writers who are interesting, great story tellers and who can fashion believable three-dimensional characters. While perusing the bookshelves at the local library, I ran across an author who's been writing more than a decade, but whom I hadn't heard of before now. I can't remember which of her books caught my attention, but after some quick research I requested her first novel from the library's, well um, library: Bitten.

Cover of the paperback version

I was pleasantly surprised. Really pleasantly surprised. Her writing is clear, her characters have depth and her female protagonist, Elena Michaels, wasn't just a female James Bond. And more importantly, she wasn't writing about vampires. For some reason vampires had become the pop-culture rage and if you weren't writing blood-sucking novels you weren't writing novels publishers wanted. Kelley Armstrong decided to write about my favorite supernatural creature: werewolves.

In Armstrong's Otherworld series, Elena Michaels is the only female werewolf and while this gives her a certain social standing, it also causes her pain, suffering and grief.

Armstrong's Bitten was great (even if the sex was a bit gratuitous) and I quickly read her follow-up: Stolen. This book, again with Elena Michaels as the protagonist, introduces the readers to a whole host of other supernatural beings: sorcerers, witches, witch doctors, half-demons and the obligatory vampires. We learn about the politics of the supernatural world (of which the werewolves have abdicated themselves from being involved).

Her next couple of books are a spin-off of sorts. They follow Paige Winterbourne, introduced in Stolen, and her coming to terms with being a 22 year old adoptive mother of a 13 year old also introduced in Stolen. She is home in Massachusetts, being outcast by her Coven while claiming to be their leader, running headlong into conflict and traps without thinking ahead -- trusting instead to righteous indignation.

She was not my favorite character. Where Elena Michaels was confident and secure, although fighting her self, Paige Winterbourne seemed like a child acting like an adult trying to be a child.

However the writing was still good and introduced even more supernatural politics to the readers. The next book takes place just a few months further on, following the life of Paige's boyfriend through Paige's eyes and being dragged ever deeper into the realm of sorcerer Cabals, infighting, murder and betrayal.

With more than 27 books, short stories and novellas on the market, I think I'll be reading Kelley Armstrong for a while.And I'm okay with that. Had I read the Paige Winterbourne books first, I might not have kept reading her novels as I didn't care much for the character, but I did start with Elena and consequently know Armstrong can develop good strong female leads.

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The Tale of Two Auto Parts Stores

Checking the Price Online

 A few days ago the front wheel (driver's side) of my truck started making a hideous grinding noise. Since I never actually heard the squeak of the brake pad indicator being low, I assumed a rock or a twig or something somehow became caught in between the brake pad and rotor.

A quick visual inspection showed nothing out of the ordinary on the brake, caliper or rotor.

When it didn't go away after a couple of days I finally headed over to a friend's house to pull the tire and check since my Home Owner's Association does not allow auto-maintenance on the property. By this time I was terrified the caliper was hanging off or the brake pads had ground themselves off, even though I still never heard the squeal of the low pad indicator.

Luckily, that particular morning, Google Offers came out with an offer for Advanced Auto Parts. The offer was for $10 off a purchase of $50 or more. Great, I thought! I jumped online and checked prices. Brake pads, their store brand, Wearever, came in a number of options and I chose the more expensive Platinum offering, Part No. PNAD369, at $50.99. I then checked rotor prices in case I needed to replace the rotors as well (which I wouldn't know until I had the tire off --  see above image). The rotors ranged from $21.99 to $59.00. With the $21.99/ea rotors having better reviews I decided to save my money and purchase the less expensive ones if I had to replace them.

Fast forward a couple of hours -- I'm at my friend's house and we've pulled my noisy wheel. Sure enough, the rear brake pad, without a audible indicator, was ground down and had eaten into the rotor. As far as I know, the rotor was the original on the truck making it nearly 16 years old. So, I decided to replace it. For a measly $21, why not?

My friend drives me to Advanced Auto Parts and I give the guy (Darnell) the parts numbers for the pads and rotors I was looking to purchase. He told me to hold on and then asked me for the make/model of my vehicle, year, engine size, etc. He then tabs through a bunch of windows faster than I can follow and tells me the cost will be more than $180.

Huh? What?

How in the Hell does $50 + $21 + 21 = $180+? By my math we're looking at about $90 plus tax, minus my Google Offer of $10.

So I asked Darnell how he came to that price to which he explained he chose the $60 rotor over the $21 rotor making the price higher. Sixty plus 60 plus $50 for the pads equals $170 plus taxes (a little over $180).

My Google Offer

At this point I told him I wanted the part number I brought with me, not what he chose for me and he tried to give me some explanation of why I needed the more expensive ones over the less expensive. I told him I wanted the less expensive ones. He then tried another tactic stating the more expensive ones didn't need to have the bearings greased while the cheaper ones did.

My friend, more mechanically inclined than I am, told me the guy was full of shit and we left. According to my friend, he paid about $20/ea when he replaced the pads and rotors on his Yukon XL 2500.

We drove down the street to O'Reilly's Auto which I'd never been to before yesterday. O'Reilly bought out Checkers Auto and since my experiences with Checkers Auto were less than satisfactory, I stayed away from O'Reilly.

I must say, my experience with O'Reilly was great. Not only was the staff knowledgeable and friendly, but when I told the guy this was the first time I'd ever been to an O'Reilly (and why) he gave me a free hat. Nope, two free hats: one for me and the other for my friend.

And my final price was less than $80 for two sets of brake pads and two rotors. Yay!

Another hour, or so, and I have new brake pads and rotors on my truck. No grinding no minding.

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