Hey everyone!

We just started our trip to Quebec today, and so far it’s been a good trip! We left at about 4:30 AM from Estevan this morning, crossed the border into the USA and never looked back! Throughout the trip, I will be posting pictures to the gallery, and comments in the blog!

First up, we stopped at a Wal-Mart in Minot to pick up a few groceries, and check this place out! It’s GREEN?! Weird… And what’s with the Subway? I thought it was Wal-Mart/McDonald’s? I guess they are changing their ways! This particular Wal-Mart is a Supercenter, which means it has a grocery store glued to the side of a regular Wal-Mart, and they stay open 24 hours a day! We saw quite a few supercenters along the way (But only 2 green ones!). Maybe the green indicates that they are teamed up with Subway? *shrug*

We stopped our first night in Madison, Wisconsin. We enjoyed a great meal at the local Chili’s, and then tried to hunt down the local Wal-Mart to do some shopping. After trying to follow the hotel attendant’s directions, we finally gave up. I figure we’ll see another one along the way anyways!

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Ok, this might seem stupid to some people, but I’m actually kind of excited about this. See, I wear a size 17 shoe (yeah, that’s not a typo, SEVENTEEN. ONE SEVEN!) and it can be extremely hard to find shoes. Well, the other day, just for the hell of it, I typed in bigshoes.com into Firefox (Best browser ever, but this isn’t the time to get into that), and what do I find? A shoe store in Texas, that specialized in large sized footwear! And their prices aren’t bad either!

This pair of Columbia sandals was only $40 USD in a size 17. A great pair, and they fit good!

Next, this pair of Columbia hiking boots was on sale for only $100! So $140 USD, plus shipping, came out to about $190 after exchange. I then paid $37 in brokerage and gst, and the shoes were mine! The total bill was about $235, for two pair of shoes that would have cost me at least $300 here. To add to it, the shipping was great… 5 days by UPS, and I was able to track it’s progress. They also carry inline skates, and will have a line of Roces ice skates in the fall! I can’t wait!

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Last weekend, while doing some yard work, I decided to tackle the tree stump left by the previous owners. This stump was an eyesore in the midst of an otherwise very nice back yard. Who in their right mind would leave a stump sticking up 5 feet out of the ground? To add to it, the stump had a T-Bar driven between it’s roots, and a rope wrapped around it. The rope was dug in a good inch into the tree… Obviously not the smartest thing to do.

To get this thing out, I started by rolling back the sod around the base of the tree. I then dug a hole all the way around the trunk to expose the roots. Once the roots were exposed, I cut them with the large loppers. The roots that were too big for the loppers got hacked up with a hatchet. Finally, the tree began to move! As I pushed and pulled on the tree, I could feel it beginning to move. I dug a little deeper, and hacked a few more roots out. Finally, the tree was swaying! We continually pushed it back and forth, allowing me to hack/cut more and more of the roots. Finally, the last root was hacked, and the tree fell with a deafening thud! (No, not really…) The trunk weighed a good 100 lbs… The roots add a lot of weight to a tree!

To finish the job, I filled the hole back with all the clay I had dug out, and then topped it off with a good layer of black dirt. I watered the black dirt, and rolled the sod back over top of it. Because I had piled the clay on top of some of the sod, it was in pretty bad shape. I tried to rake out as much as I could. I then scattered seed all over the area, and poured on some fertilizer. One last watering, and the job was complete! We still haven’t seen much for grass coming up, but hopefully it will take root and fill out the bad spots!

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The Performancing blog Editor is a drop in editor for Firefox that lets you add entries to your blog from any page, right within Firefox!  Hitting F8 (or clicking the blog icon in the bottom right) causes half the screen (The bottom half) to be filled with a WYSIWYG editor window.  You can choose which blog to publish to on the right, and which category within that blog.  It can post to a variety of different blog packages, including Wordpress.

So far, I’m very impressed with it.  If you are a blogger, and you use Firefox, this is an invaluable tool.  If you aren’t using Firefox… well…  What’s stopping you?  It’s free, and it’s better than Internet Explorer!

http://www.getfirefox.com
http://www.performancing.com
http://www.wordpress.org

Categories: Random Ramblings
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I picked up a tool rack at Canadian Tire… This rack holds garden tools or just about anything else with a long handle. When you put the tool in the hook, the weight of the tool holds it in place. I bought a separate hook just to hold the trimmer in place.

Categories: Photo Comment, Tools
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We’ve been pretty busy this week, however I am posting a few stories today, so be sure to scroll and read them all! Especially the one about the mustard!

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What’s so special about mustard you ask? This isn’t JUST mustard… this is Martha’s Hot Mustard! There’s a bit of a story behind this. A little while ago (Ok, a month ago, seriously) we at Accutrak received a piece of advertisement in the mail… Forgive me for not knowing what it was advertising… That just wasn’t important to me. What was important, was the small bottle of mustard attached to the advertising! In the mail! Mail Mustard! I love mustard, so being the daring kinda person I am, I had to try some. So what if some American was trying to poison me with a fake bottle of mustard/poison… I HAD to have some!

So I put a little bit on my finger, and tasted it. Seemed tasty, and I wasn’t coughing up blood after two minutes… Initial tests seemed to verify that nobody was trying to poison us through the mail. Laurie had some sliced deli meat, so I tried the mustard with a piece of that… WOW! It was GREAT! I had to have more of that mustard.

I checked out the small form attached to the mustard, and found out it was called “Martha’s Hot Mustard”. It was produced by a small operation in Wisconsin, and can be ordered from http://www.allmustard.com. So, of course, I went to allmustard.com, and I ordered some. By some, I mean three large bottles! Each bottle is a little over 12 oz. of tasty spicy (but sweet) mustard! I then proceeded to wait…

And wait…

And wait.

At one point, Martha from Martha’s Hot Mustard emailed me and asked if I had received her mustard. Sadly, I replied that I had not received it, but would continue to wait patiently for it to arrive. After all, this was very soon after we moved, so I figured that maybe it didn’t get forwarded properly. I even checked back at Boardwalk Apartments to see if they had received it.

On July 5th, Martha emailed again asking if I had received it. I replied that I had not, but I would check with Boardwalk to see if they had it.

THEY HAD IT!

Right then and there, I loaded up myself and Chantale into the car, and went STRAIGHT there! I had to have my mustard!

We celebrated with a feast of hot dogs and hot mustard, which was enjoyed all around!

It turns out the postal code was incorrent on the shipping form, however I don’t think that would cause it to be THIS late! I don’t think I would have entered it wrong, considering that isn’t even a postal code I’ve ever used…At least not that I remember. Maybe my mind was a little slow that day (Just that day? Riiiight…)

Here’s a shot of the shipping stamp from Lancaster, Wisconsin… This confirms that it was in fact shipped on June 12th. How sad that it takes this long for something so simple to cross the border and get to Regina. I did notice that the customs stamp was for Toronto, so it made quite the trip before finally arriving on my table!

Want some of this mustard for yourself? Stay away from mine! But you can visit Martha’s Hot Mustard to order some for yourself. You will not be disappointed!

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Categories: Sideblog
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Canadian Tire had this Shop Vac on sale for $89, regular $109. It’s a 10 gallon vacuum with a 3.5 hp motor. It held up very well for it’s first test, sucking up all the sawdust from my patio furniture construction project. It did falter a bit at the bigger slivers, causing the hose to clog up a few times. I could sure use a bigger hose… I’ll be keeping an eye out for one of those!

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Here’s the box I built for storing firewood on the patio… It has caster wheels and a hinged lid. It’s very sturdy, and should stand up to just about anything. The frame of the box is built from 2×3, 2×4, and 2×6 lumber, and then faced on all four sides by 1×6 cedar facing.

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