9 minute blog of randomness

I have 9 minutes before a meeting so I'm going to see what I can get down on "paper" here.

- Yesterday was our first anniversary. YAY!
- To celebrate, we spent a night downtown Saturday night. We had a FANTASTIC dinner (easily top 5 ever) on Saturday night at Lucy's Table. So tasty.
I had:
Small plate: Goat Cheese Ravioli Brown Butter Sauce, Pecorino Romano, Crispy Shallots & Pancetta
Large plate: Catch of the day – Swordfish in a corn and prawn bisque. So it was on top of a little bit of the bisque, with chunks of corn, prawn, zucchini, red onion, and crispy potatoes.
Dessert: Boca Negra - Moist Warm Flourless Chocolate Cake, Whipped Cream & Nut Florentine
Geoff had:
Small plate: Pomegranate Glazed Baby Back Pork Ribs Manchego Cheese
Large plate: Black Pepper Crusted “Cascade Natural” Beef Rib-Eye – it had some fries and some other stuff with it, I don’t remember exactly what.
Dessert: Also can't remember the name, but it was like a custard with berries type thing. Delicious.
It was pricey, BUT they have a "social hour" Monday - Friday from 5 - 6:30 where everything (drinks and food) are 1/2 price. So we will be back!
- We have this Japanese Maple tree/bush/thing in our front yard that has been there since I moved in 3+ years ago. Apparently the previous owner loved it and pruned it and took care of it and babied it daily. I, on the other hand, have not touched it in 3 years. It's looking a little out of control (little = LOT), so this morning I googled "japanese maple prune" and came across a message board where someone was saying they purchased a house with a Japanese Maple and they had no idea what to do with it. Someone suggested that since they retail for around $1000 that they sell it back to a nursery. I thought NO WAY, you can't just sell a tree back to a nursery. So I googled "japanese maple sell to a nursery" and came up with a bunch of junk. Then I remembered the greatness that is Craigslist, so I looked up in the for sale section there and came up with a several - this is one of the first things I came up with. I figure I can sell it on Craigslist for several hundred dollars, have someone else come haul it away, and then I won't have to worry about pruning it and I can just find something else to put where it was. MUCH easier than actually doing the work to prune it. ;-) Genius.
- Geoff has been shopping for surround sound the last several months, so I've been tagging along with him to various electronic store type places. The other day at Best Buy, there was a floor model marked down to $550. Geoff asked what the best price the guy could give on it was, and he said "$550! Are you kidding? That's a $900 system!". My response was of course laughter - perhaps a brand new system in the current model year that hadn't been sitting on the floor of Best Buy for over a year being touched and fiddled with and handled and scratched may have originally RETAILED for $900 - but that doesn't make it "worth" $900 - it's only worth what someone will pay for it. SO entertaining. So after some more research, Geoff was finally ready to make his purchase. Yesterday we went to Fry's and he bought what he wanted. There were two salesmen - we'll call them Boris and Doris. Boris says "do you want the warranty on this? It's only $10 for an extra 5 years". Geoff says no, and Doris says "do you know the subwoofer is only warrantied for 90 days". I of course laughed again - wow, that's really standing behind your product to warranty it for a whole 3 months. Costco will stand behind their electronic products for 2 years. (you may ask why we didn't purchase from Costco then - Geoff wanted something very specific and we've been stalking Costco for it for months and they haven't had it) Anyway, then Boris logs off the computer and Doris says "hey, log back on" - which Boris does. HELLO, you have a personal log-on ID/password for a reason - so other people don't use your account. Then, we're checking out and Boris said "you are getting such a killer deal, a $X system for only $Y". Which just CRACKED ME UP AGAIN!!! AHHHHHHH!!!! You're selling it for $Y. It's worth $Y. So then I just started walking through Fry's saying (rather loudly) "LOOK!!! A $20,000 TV for $800!!! What a deal!" Customers were turning their heads, and Geoff was pretending to be embarassed that his psycho wife was yelling in Fry's, but he was laughing too. Hehehehe. I just love how these salesmen try to convince me of when I'm getting a "deal". Trust me, buddy, I know if it's a deal or not a deal and don't need you to tell me. I know they're only doing their job and I can appreciate that and certainly understand that these are effective techniques, but they're just hilarious to me. :)