I wonder how can the most popular coffee shops in the world be having money problems? I mean, they are charging primo bucks for a cup of coffee and there are always lines of cars waiting to go through the drive through and buy their high dollar caffeine fix. The crew in San Fran call it “Five Bucks Coffee” instead of “Star Bucks.” I know several people who drink 4-5 cups of Starbucks every day. So how can they be having money trouble?

On the cover of the Yahoo news is an article about how Starbucks is going to close up to 600 stores this year and lay off a lot of people - over 12,000 jobs will be lost. What are all those highly trained baristas going to do for work now? I mean, what is up with that?

Boating Education is a very hot topic these days, and I believe that it is something that is important for people to learn. I don’t see much difference between getting behind the wheel of a car and getting behind the wheel of a water craft, and we all need to learn certain things in order to obtain an automobile’s driver license, so there is a need for the same type of information to be passed on in order to have the privilege to drive a boat. There are more and boats being bought these days, which means more and more people operating them and the water ways are filling up with all kinds of idiots operating them, some with absolutely no prior experience or knowledge of the sport.

I have spent a good portion of my life on the many waters around this world and have seen too many close calls and accidents that happened, and the majority of the operators could plainly been seen drinking some type of alcoholic beverage, beer being the number one choice. Drinking and then driving anything can and have causes serious incidents and accidents and the number of people doing this is growing larger every year it seems.

It wouldn’t surprise me to see in that in the not to near future that some type of permit may be necessary to operate all of the different types of boats. And as much as I have some strong opinions about Big Brother and all, I am starting to think that licensing for this serious issue might be a good idea. Of course I’d have to see all that it could require and all that.

I don’t know what the wife puts into her beef stew that makes it such a delicious meal, but what ever it is I’m sure glad that she knows what she is doing. In all of the years that we have been together I can only remember one time that I wasn’t happy with what she cooked and that was probably over 20 years ago by now. My wife is one helluva good cook and for that reason I have put on some pounds over the years, but I put them on with her good cooking and not from drinking beer like most of my buds have done.

She has been cooking this batch since 1:00 this afternoon and the aroma is driving the entire house hold mad in anticipation of being able to actually taste it. She is being very protective of this batch, she will not even let anyone in the kitchen to stir it for heaven’s sake. I can only hope that it will taste as good as it smells, we should know within the hour.

The wife just me in a nice piece of Lemon 3-Layer cake by Pepperidge Farms, they are our favorite cakes to get at the grocery store. The favorite flavor is the Cocconut 3-Layered one, it disapears quickly in our house. I always like mine ala mode with a nice glass of cold milk!

The wife has been a bit under the weather since yesterday noon, she tossed and turned all night long which made for a fitful sleep for me. Not really complaining, I feel terrible when she whimpers and moans and nothing that I do seems to help, but I keep trying anyway.

The worst thing about the wife being sick is that I end up having to fix the kids dinner, most of the time it is too big of a deal. I do know my way around the kitchen, but I am pretty beat myself and have decided that tonight is a “call the Pizza delivery man” and everyone will be happy.