Sunday

Following up on my comment yesterday about the cost of the local Illinois paper, the weekend edition has also increased in price from $1.25 to $1.75.  I'm pretty sure that the value proposition here has gone to the Dark Side for me.  For the Sunday paper in particular, don't they make their money from the ad-inserts anyway?  Whatever.  I'm sure that they have an algorithm that makes this the right move.  I can find the obituaries on-line.

That little birthday party for my pal Roy last night was a hit.  Just the right number of people...maybe 40 total...and a perfect combination of casual surroundings, good food and drink and great friendship.  It was held in a large party room at the office building of one of Roy's business associates...where they actually have a separate car-collector club in the lower level with room for 12-15 exotic/racing/classic cars on display.  Very cool.  I've been there for a number of functions in the last couple of years...always a good time.

A special thanks to 2 for making the trip over for the evening. 

1.01 got an upgrade on her bike this weekend.  She needed more size...that's what happens when kids grow at those rates.  Its hard to raise the seat to the right level.  Lookin' good, Kiddo!

In other news...

I recently purchased a package of on-line continuing education programs from the Illinois CPA society to help meet my on-going CPE requirements by September 30th.   I thought I could do at least one of these one-hour videos each evening at home to increase my personal productivity.  Of course, I made the fatal assumption that I could just pull these programs down on my iPad easy as pie.  Uh. not so fast there, Kemosahbee.

The CPA society's site first required me to go through the OS update that I had, of course, ignored forever.  So I had 30 minutes or so of Apple examining my habits, contacts and financial records, I'm sure.  Next it was an alert that I needed an update to my Adobe software.  First the free one didn't work.  Not surprising.  Then I look for, find and purchase the Flash Player for iPad (at $4.99 from the App Store).  Should I have been surprised when the spool-up of the Flash Player then came with the notice on Step One that Flash Player was not supported on the iPad?  How many $4.99 purchases have been made for zippo results?  Not a bad business model.

So I now need to reactivate Verizon on the laptop to access the CPE courses.  And I'll probably need to then buy the updated Flash Player for that computer before I can view the CPE courses.  Technology is great, but really, can it be any more flummoxing than this little exercise?

Finally, another note of inflation in my world, my all-you-can-eat luncheon salad bar at the Eastern Avenue Hy Vee increased by $1 to $7.99 last week.  Maybe not a bad price in today's market, but no longer a bargain.  That's a 14% increase overnight.  I'm wondering which items on the salad bar really drove the increase?  Salaries or foodstuffs?  Again, the pricing algorithm that they employed probably supported the increase, but the new cost will keep me from making as regular visits as in the past.  Kind of interesting how we notice things in our daily lives that don't even register on the radar of other folks on different glide paths.

Hope it is a good week in your neighborhood.

BCOT