Daily Archives: February 6, 2008

Photo-A-Day

Dreaming of Dinner… PAD #1034

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Dreaming of Dinner... PAD #1034

Allison and I have been fans of dream dinners for about 4 months now. She started going about 6 days before Eva was born. She has been twice and I have been twice. Tonight was an open house and tasting session fund raiser for the American Heart Association. We went over to try out some items and so I could take some photos.

Dream Dinners is an excellent store where you can go and create meals for your family, bring them home and freeze them. When you want a fast, easy and healthy home cooked meal for your family just take one out, defrost and follow the cooking instructions. Each month there are about 20 or so meals to choose from. You can place your order in the store or on the Internet. If you place the order in the store, say after you have just made your meals, you get a discount or other incentive.

Tonight we tried five different meals and a dessert. All were excellent.

Dream Dinners Aprons Dream Dinner accessories Dream Dinner delights

In all we have had excellent luck with the store. It is fun to go and assemble meals and when you are a guy doing it you get all sorts of special treatment. Probably because everyone is afraid you are gonna totally screw up. Thanks television and the ‘idiotic’ and ‘incompetent’ but lovable dad. I don’t get too offended by that sort of treatment, I like to see the looks on people’s faces when they see a competent and attentive husband and father for a change. I like to let my actions make my statements.

This is not to say that the women running the place look at me that way they are all very cool and so welcoming. I have a very good time going and making our monthly meals. We generally get 36-39 servings a month. That is about all we can hold in the freezer. Plus you have to order a minimum of 36 servings each month that you place orders (you don’t have to place them every month.)

Today also marks my inaugural guest blogger post on the IZEA blog. Please go take a look and leave a comment. The post is all about digital images and engaging your audience. Let me know what you think of the post. It is my first paid guest posting gig and I am very excited for the opportunity to show my stuff to another audience.

And I am still guest blogging over at FuelMyBlog. We aren’t going to be doing Tech Tuesdays anymore but rather, “Ask BenSpark”. It will start up on Monday. And if you are a member of Fuel you might want to head over there and get a free listing for one month on USA Today.

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Technology

Getting a new computer

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Allison and I are getting a new computer. We ordered it last night. I’m not giving out the details as of yet but this machine should rocket us along for a couple of years. And we got a pretty good deal on it too. I vowed twelve years ago that I would never again spend over $1000 for a computer.

Back in 1996 I bought myself a Gateway laptop and ended up having to take out some personal loans to pay it off. I won’t even tell you how much I paid for that laptop but I can tell you if you added up the cost for this new computer plus the two prior to this one… well they still wouldn’t add up to be as much as that laptop.

Having spent many years in debt I can tell you that taking out a personal loan can be scary but it can also be helpful, if you pay it back quickly. Being in debt sucks, you still have to buy stuff but you continue to get deeper and deeper in the hole. Luckily it was bonus time at work and this little baby isn’t going to put us further into hock. And by baby I mean the computer, our baby is going to put us into hock but we knew that already. When the bill comes in for this computer I will pay it in full and be glad I did because overextending my credit is no fun either.

That laptop back in 1996, I bought that using a loan through the computer company. The interest rates were insane but I was young and stupid. I was also without many expenses so I had some mad money to play with. If I was a little smarter about the whole thing I would not have gotten into financial trouble and would be much further ahead today than ever. But going through that experience taught me some lessons about credit and finances. But that is a story for another time.