I went tonight to the Literacy Volunteers annual Coffee & Chocolate fundraiser. I brought my daughter and her best friend to work serving food/appetizers so they could earn some community service credit for school, and just because it’s good for them in general to do that kind of thing. They did a great job and actually said they had a good time and enjoyed being part of the event - imagine!

Anyway, the evening had a few things going on like a theme basket raffle, silent auction, big basket of booze raffle, and a Willie Wonka-style raffle to win a diamond ring. They were having a “special deal” at the door that got you your admission and some tickets for all of the raffles. The package was $10 less than if you purchased all of the tickets separately. So, I went for the deal, and got the bunch of tickets for all the crap basically because it is for a good cause and even if you don’t win it’s fun to try (knowing of course that I NEVER win anything at these things).

Well, the ring they were raffling was really pretty with chocolate and white diamonds in either a platinum or white gold (not sure which) setting. The jewelers who donated the ring to the event were there and said the ring was valued at $1,000 and that they were only selling off 100 candy bars (ala a 1 in 100 chance of winning-not bad odds). Well, if you bought the package when you came in, it included 3 chances at the ring - cool, chances just increased. After walking around for a little while, I went back to the ring table to see if people could buy extra chances (I’m still not sure what possessed me to do this). They said yes, but only until the 100 bars were all sold out. For some unknown reason, I decided to buy more tickets. The cost was $10 for one or $20 for 3. I only had a $20 on me and figured what the hell. I bought the 3 chances.

At 7:15 pm, everyone was told to open their candy bars to find out who the winner was - see pix below - they don’t do justice to my new ring, but they give you a little bit of an idea anyway. I can’t wait to show it off tomorrow at work!




Oh yeah, the coffee and chocolate were really good too.

...Coffee, Chocolate, friends...

Just a reminder in case anyone is interested, tomorrow is Literacy Volunteers' annual Coffee & Chocolate fundraiser - 5:30 - 8:00 p.m. at the Shea's Smith Theatre & Intermission Lounge. A $20 donation gets you an evening of goodies from Fowler's Chocolates, coffee from Starbucks and appetizers from some local dining establishments. There's also entertainment, basket raffel & silent auction.

Ummm - I love coffee and chocolate.. almost as good as... whatever! hahaha

While I hated the negativity of this long, arduous campaign, and the campaign b.s. and rhetoric definitely made me lose some respect for both of the candidates, I must, nonetheless, say that they were both very gracious in their speeches this evening. During his speech, McCain once again seemed the man I might have considered voting for 8 years ago had he, rather than Bush, been on the ticket. But who knows, maybe a hard run at the White House back then would have changed him into whomever it was that came out in this campaign. Anyway, I thought Obama’s speech was great too. Nice to see both of them speaking of working together and healing the nation...

YEA! It’s over - tonight - I can finally sleep!

Happy Election to All, and to All a Good Night.

I find with the closer tomorrow gets, the more apprehensive I become. I know that Obama is ahead in the polls but, 8 years ago, so was Gore (I believe it was by 8 points pre-election day) - we all know how that turned out. Part of my concern is that frequently the polls make teetering, would-be voters stay home if their candidate of choice is the one who is ahead; or makes voters come out if their candidate is behind. A combination of these two things causes really bad things to happen, ala 8 years ago. Thank god I’m off work tomorrow because I just don’t think I’ll be getting much sleep tonight.

On the brighter side, after tomorrow, come what may, it will all be over. No more phone calls, no more flyers, no more dreadful negative TV ads, and on and on and on... that in itself deserves some celebrating.

Does anyone have one of these infrared heaters, or has anyone heard anything about them? I was speaking to someone recently who heard good things about them, but I would appreciate some additional opinions. They’re supposed to help save money and be safer than regular space heaters. I keep my heat pretty low and the back of my house tends to be colder than the front- it’s pretty chilly. Also, heating costs are supposed to go up this winter and frankly, I prefer not to have to pay outrageous gas bills. Of course, I don’t want to pay outrageous electric bills either.

Science is not necessarily my strongest knowledge area so maybe if someone can even tell me if the whole premise of the infrared heater as an energy saver makes sense?

Thanks.

http://greenisbetter.org/