I’ve been checking out local Flea Markets of late and have been surprised at the number of them around at the local level. While some are quite well known others appear to be a well kept secret of sorts. It seems that those considered, “inside” markets, meaning those held within the confines of a structure, (usually some warehouse type of building), are the most likely to be little known. There is one at the local fairgrounds that has been operating for over fourteen years now, that even many locals are oblivious of! While asking around I discovered that the biggest problem was advertisement! While many market owners simply won’t put out the money to advertise well, if at all, others simply cannot get the cooperation they’d need. I suggested that those markets located within driving distance of each other, which is usually just a few short miles in many cases, combine their efforts and post bulletins at each others site informing the public of the other markets., Simple enough, inexpensive, and would promote business by word of mouth while increasing visitation by new customers, who may otherwise not have even known about a particular market. But much to my surprise, while a few owners think the idea is worth the while, others are extremely against any interaction whatsoever! Fearing competition I presume. Congenial enough when one is speaking with them on a one on one level, but when it comes to mentioning other flea markets they become defensive and sometimes a bit hostile even!

Another thing I’ve learned is that the dealers that frequent said markets often complain on how the market management is constantly raising the space and/or table rent regardless of the fact that there are fewer customers for the dealers, which makes it difficult to sell merchandise when there are fewer and fewer customers due to the cost of gas and the floundering economy. So, while customers are becoming fewer and fewer and the dealers themselves are obviously making less but spending more, the only ones making a profit are the market owners who really don’t seem to care as long as they get theirs! Just thinking about it gives me a headache.

It seems our old cell phone company was not making the wife a happy camper, it caused her so much grief that she decided on switching companies and the whole family received a new cell phone to learn to use. Trying to get used new a new phone shouldn’t be that big of a deal, but it is so time consuming to have to input all of the numbers that I had on my old onto my new one. Other than thought the buttons are basically all the same, I only have to memorize everyone’s new phone numbers that they got with their new cell phones.

It would seem to me that the politics of the Democratic party are clearly becoming transparent through in house party bickering. If one studies the historical factors and the behind the scenes actions taken by democrats thruout the years it becomes clear that the only minorities they truly aid are the elitist democrats themselves. They have based their standing as the voice of minorities, the ruse of giving the black minority a voice in politics by pushing the race card repeatedly and making them believe that their plight is due to others holding them back. Now where this may have been true at one time, it has long since been shown that the major discrepancies lie with those who, instead of working their way up and using their own talents to get ahead, found it easier to blame others and collect handouts using some guilt scheme devised of course, by the democratic party itself. And this is not just in the black community. But among lower income whites as well.  The latest scheme is with Mexican immigrants. They have even proposed giving illegals amnesty, clearly a free ride for breaking our immigration laws, and all for the sake of expediency. Illegal immigrants, no matter from what nation they come, put a tremendous drain on our society, thru their use of our schools and public services, which in turn causes our bills to rise and is putting a strain on public utilities and the entire school system as well as our judiciary system, (as if that one isn’t screwy enough as it is). There is a time and place for tolerance and understanding, but it is about time we come to understand that we’ve been tolerant enough and that they will need to understand or just plain get the H-e-double hockey sticks out of our country.

Cutting back on my gardening a little this year. Decided to go with only eight tomato plants instead of the usual twelve. Cutting out the green peppers altogether and am going to give eggplants a try, maybe four to start. Will definitely go with pole beans and squash, seeing as how the little woman likes her squash so much. Am even giving corn another chance this year. Have had little success in past attempts so I won’t be allocating a lot of space to it being as the garden itself isn’t all that big to begin with. Will have a few rows of carrots and perhaps one or two rows of onion, vidalia sweet onion to be precise. Oh, and of course we’ll have to put in a few cantaloupe and honeydew melon. Given the space I’ve allotted to the garden this year that’ll probably be about all I can squeeze in. I am going to try and plant a couple more fruit trees this year. So far I’ve only had one golden delicious apple and one dark sweet cherry that have managed to survive the last two years now. I really want to have a peach tree or two.

We cut back the blackberries last year and hope it improves the harvest this time around. Last season was the first good crop of concord grapes  we got from our small yet bountiful grape arbor we’d set up behind the garage.

My eldest daughter who will be turning the legal age of twenty-one here real soon still is having a difficult time finding her nitch in this world, other than driving me right up the wall. She has worked plenty of retail and fast food positions but doesn’t seem to stay at any of them for more than a few weeks, a couple of months at the most.

She came home today announcing that she is going to go down town and sign up for the local Beautician School that she has been hearing so much about from some of her friends. She of course didn’t go into any details about the cost and how she plans on paying for this education, I guess she will fill me in on all of that sooner or later. I hope she is planning on me taking on the cost because she will be in for a big surprise!