Ed Icionsub

Although I had to miss the SXSW festival and conference in Austin this year, I had the chance to go to Houston for a short business trip. It was on the condition that I drive my own car, to deliver a special laser machine to one of the owners in Houston, and then I drove over to Austin to catch a show. It was a whirlwind trip, but a ton of fun.

Before I could leave I had to get an oil change for my Tahoe and when I found out from my boss that I could put that expense on my expense report, I decided to go ahead and get a tune up, too. The only reason they are being so generous to me is that they really need to get this laser delivered right away, and they cannot ship it on an airplane without a lot of trouble and extra expense for crating and insuring it. So paying me to drive it and covering my vehicle expenses are still a bargain for them.

Last time I was in Houston was right after Hurricane Katrina had wiped out New Orleans. I had car trouble while I was in Houston – helping the same business owner, as a matter of fact. I was staying in a nice hotel out near the Woodlands and needed to find a Houston auto repair shop without the benefit of a yellow pages or the internet. Thankfully, the desk clerk at the hotel was able to give me good directions and I got it taken care of.

My Tahoe has been giving me trouble, so I thought I’d put an ad on the internet and see if I could find anyone to buy it, “as is.” I was hoping to get enough cash from selling it to have a nice down payment on a newer car. But after running an ad for the past 3 weeks, I only had a couple of calls and haven’t had anyone seriously interested.

So now I’ve decided to spend a little money on fixing it up and I’ll just keep the Tahoe for another year or two. One of the first things I want to do is upgrade the car’s sound system. The speakers and receiver are just factory issued, and I’d like to get something nicer.

Shopping online for the right audio gear to trick my ride, I am going to count on ShopWiki to have both a buyers guide and the most stores to check for the brand names and best prices. I’ll start with new car speakers and then look at the different receivers to see what kind of budget I’ll need. I’m pretty sure that shopping online first will make me a more educated consumer and I’ll probably save a lot of money over going to a local shop and just selecting my new audio gear from what they have on the shelves.

We took the grandson to a free Easter egg hunt this afternoon at the Buchanan House landmark.

There were a couple of hundred kids there, and the hunt organizers had broken them down into three age ranges to make the hunt more fair. Our grandson is 7, so he was in the second grouping. He had so much fun running through the side yard looking for the eggs.

Well folks, for the first time ever, the University of Tennessee has a basketball team that has made it to the Elite 8 round of March Madness.

It is very exciting to see these young men come together as a team and have a strong leadership in the senior teammates. I hope they go all the way to the finals.

A lot of people in Tennessee will be watching CBS to cheer on our team.

My step daughter was on her way to work when a deer ran out of the woods and hit the front end of her car. Thankfully, she was not hurt. The deer apparently was able to get up and run off, so it looks like the car got the short end of the deal.

At the Academy Awards, Jeff Bridges won an Oscar for his starring role in the movie, Crazy Heart. So I have been very interested in seeing that movie and tonight we went to the multiplex at Opry Mills to watch it.

I have to say that Jeff Bridges was perfect for that role and it was a really good movie along with a great sound track. I want to buy the book and compare it to the screenplay. When it comes out on DVD, I’m going to definitely buy this movie to watch it again.

Depending on where you live in the U.S., the kids have spring break any time between the middle of March and the first week of April. We are in the middle of our Spring Break, but the school system in the next county over is not having their Spring Break for another 2 weeks, to correlate closer to Easter.

My grandson’s best friend, Cole, is lucky to be spending his Spring Break with his family in a Myrtle Beach resort. His family left here last Friday and drove straight across I-40 to Greensboro, North Carolina, then headed south on Route 220. It’s a long drive, but very pretty. We’ve gone to several Myrtle Beach resorts and know the fastest route and the best route, depending upon the time of year and whether I-40 is closed due to landslides or other bad road conditions.

Cole’s parents told me that the Avistar Resort is one of the best Oceanfront Myrtle Beach resorts, where you can stay right on the ocean and be close to a dozen great golf courses. To be honest, I’m not sure which is the best feature – being on the ocean or being close to the golf courses. I love both the ocean and playing golf, so I am thinking that the Oceanfront Myrtle Beach resort is the place for our next vacation.

Back in the day, junior high was our first exposure to using hall lockers as some place to store our books and coats while in class. On the first day of school, we had to schlepp our things around, from class to class. But our homeroom teachers assigned us a locker and a special secret combination, and after that we were good to go for the rest of the school year.

Now we can buys lockers for use at home in bedrooms and family rooms, in the garage, or even in the laundry room. They can be very useful for storage of sports equipment, books, and even cleaning supplies or household chemicals and pesticides that need to be secured away from toddlers.

On one of the cable TV shows about decorating, my wife saw an episode where they fixed up a dorm room for two college kids and they used school lockers as part of the overall design. I was surprised to see that something so utilitarian can be painted a bright color and decorated with stickers or hand drawn designs as an integral part of a bedroom’s decor. We both thought that was a clever idea and something that can be used for just about any teenager’s room.

The term underwater homes does not refer to the city of Atlantis. It means that the amount of the unpaid mortgage is higher than the current market value of the house and property. Falling real estate prices have resulted in some homes being underwater. When the owner tries to sell their house, they end up having to pay additional money to the mortgage company to be able to satisfy the loan and transfer title.

The Top 5 worst cities in the U. S. for underwater homes, according to a recent article by U.S. News, are:

1. Las Vegas, NV (81%)
2. Merced, CA (64%)
3. Phoenix, AZ (62%)
4. Orlando, FL (58%)
5. Greely, CO (45%)