Eating Out

There Is Never A Dull Moment…

Watching Baseball…when the FRS are playing baseball. The Sox had a 6 run lead through almost the entire game, somehow the Braves managed to get the tying run to the plate in the top of the 9th (must not have got the memo about Jonathan Papelbon being the most feared closer in the American League.) But he got Andruw Jones to strike out swinging (for the fifth time in the game) to end it. Season series so far: Boston 2 – Atlanta 1. There are three more games to be played in Atlanta in June to settle it for this season.

We started the morning with a nice tandem ride. I had finally measured the wheel circumference and set both cyclecomputers to the same figure, so Donna wouldn’t be riding further than me on these trips. Worked out pretty good, as mine read 14.0 miles at the end of the ride and hers said 13.98.

Lunch out with friends at Zaxby’s where we split a large Wings ‘n’ Things and an order of Carrots & Celery Sticks. One large Coke and one water to drink.

Meal Cost: $11.72
Tip: None
Spent Today: $11.72
Year to Date: $1147.30
Meals out 62 of a possible 420.

I uploaded five new photos to the Enchanted Ceiling site, something I hadn’t done in a while. It started yesterday when I thought I might sort out my sky photos. I had 14 posted EC and I had 34 posted in a gallery here. I have 37 in the directory on my hard drive and about more 40 in a staging directory. I uploaded the 14 to my other Flickr! account and then to make matters somewhat worse I picked the 5 from the staging directory and added them to the Enchanted Ceiling site ( 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 ), then the Flickr account, but not the gallery here. So did I help the organization or hurt it? Who knows.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 168

58,000 Years Old

or They Made Me An Offer I Couldn’t Refuse

Gnorm Visits His MumToday was the MMC’s bi-annual Driving Miss Daisys Event at the Elmcroft Assisted Living Center. We had 7 Miatas and a Sebring show up for caravan duty and we had 9 female residents go for a ride up and around Strom Thurmond Dam at Clarks Hill. Their combined ages were nowhere near 58,000, but that is the mile mark the Emperor passed on the trip. We could not have asked for a better day, it was around 70 degrees and not a cloud in the sky.

Afterwards all us Miata types went out for lunch. Some one suggested a semi-new Mediterranean restaurant up the road a piece in Evans, GA called Khalid’s Cafe. The service was leisurely (partly because the eleven of us overloaded their Saturday lunch staff), but definitely worth the wait. A return visit is in the offing for a Club meeting at a later date.Donna ordered up a bowl of Lentil Soup, a Greek Salad and Sprite to drink. I went for a Kufta Burger with Iced Tea to drink. We each had a piece of Baklawa for dessert. My mouth is watering just typing this.

Meal Cost: $23.86
Tip: $3.14
Spent Today: $27.00
Year to Date: $1135.58
Meals out, 61 of a possible 417.

Because of my affection for Rudy and Patti’s gnome Gnorm, they asked me to be his Godfather. I readily accepted and my first act was to volunteer to take him with Donna and I on our trip to the northwest starting next week. I sure hope Gnorm’s blue coat is waterproof…

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 167

Two Fer

We went down to Hilton Head with a couple that knew Jerry when Donna and I were still in grade school. Russ Schwalbert and his wife Jean lived on the same street as him in Mansfield, Ohio. Jerry’s kids baby sat Russ and Jean’s kids and they both worked for Thermo-Disc which moved to Aiken in the building that now houses ASCO in the late 70s. Jean just got a new Lexus ES350 and they offered to drive us down, so Donna and I got to ride in a very strange place, a back seat.

Before going to Jerry’s service, which was to start at 1:00PM, we stopped in Bluffton for a little lunch. To be somewhat fair to Russ and Jean because they supplied the ride, we picked up the tab for lunch. It would have been easy to split because I got what Russ did and Jean ordered the same thing as Donna did. One slice of the special pizza for the guys, soup and salad for the ladies. Russ and I had iced tea, while Donna had a Sprite and Jean went for a water. Total bill$36.00, $31.48 with a tip of $4.52. Divide by two:

Meal Cost: $15.74
Tip: $2.26
Spent So Far Today: $18.00

We got back home at about the same time we would have had we gone to work. Donna had conveniently forgotten to take anything out of the freezer for dinner. We thought we were going to be much later and figured on a meal out anyway, so we headed out to try a new place in town, Jim’s Taste of New England. Lobstah Roll for her and Fish & Chips for me and we split a Garden Salad. We both washed the meal down with water.

Meal Cost: $28.16
Tip: $5.00
Spent This Meal: $33.16
Spent Today: $51.16
Year to Date: $1108.58
Meals out, 60 of a possible 411.

The Lobster Roll was good, but expensive and not nearly as stuffed as you would get in the northeast. The Fish & Chips consisted of one, albeit large, piece of fish and a bunch French Fries. The fries looked like they came from real potatoes, but didn’t really taste that way. Have they figured out a way to extrude an incredible simulation of a real potato? The cole slaw was delicious though and is probably the driving reason for a return visit, but we’ll probably try something different.

Started down, went up, back down, up again, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 166

Bountiful Biscuit Breakfast

Breakfast for two at Hardee’s. Biscuit & Gravy for her, a Sausage & Egg Biscuit for me. Water to drink for her and an OJ for me. We split an order of Hash Rounds. I have a local middle school discount card that let’s me get 2 Sausage & Egg Biscuits for $1.89, so to save money and get some use out of the ten bucks we paid for the card, I’ve bought two the last two times. The first time I was going to take the second biscuit to work and give it away, but as we sat and read the paper the biscuit started calling our names, so Donna and I split it. It was too much food, so we vowed to not eat the second biscuit this time. HA! Couldn’t do it. Today the second biscuit was devoured before we left the place. Next time we will resist.

Meal Cost: $5.18
Tip: None
Spent Today: $5.18
Year to Date: $1,057.42
Meals out, 58 of a possible 408.

Big Toe Update: A doctor’s visit on Monday netted me a ten day prescription for an antibiotic and an admonition to soak my foot 3 times a day in hot ass water with some epson salts. So far so good, I’m about half fixed.

Duck Update: Its tame and follows Mark around. He and his son will be making a small pond out of a big ol’ old heating duct hood from our old die casting department this weekend.

As Seen On TV!
Clarks Hill Lake Sunset A local morning weather shows pictures sent in by viewers as long as they are remotely weather related. I sent in the image on Gnorm from Friday’s post. Figuring he probably wouldn’t show that, I also included this one. It made the cut and was shown yesterday morning at 5:15 & 6:15. I had about a half dozen folks at work tell me they saw the picture.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 162

Eating In

It started out as a suggestion from my wife, “Hey let’s keep track of how many times we eat out and how much we spend.” Ever the obedient husband I started posting what we ate when out and what we spent. It was fun in the beginning and then it became interesting. Now that our dining costs has topped the 4 digit mark, it not something we are real proud of. But why not?

Maybe we need a little perspective. We have eaten out a total of 57 times this year and have spent a grand total of $1,052.24. That works out to about $18.46 per meal or $9.23 per person per meal. Another way to look at it is that today is the 134th day of the year, multiply that by 3 squares a day and you get a total of 402 possible meals. That means we have eaten 57 meals out, but it also means we have eaten 345 meals “at home” or 86% of the time we Eat In. Not too bad. Wonder what the national average is?

One stat I found is from foodservice provider ARAMARK.

…2004… As a result, adults now consume on average more than 5.6 meals away from home each week, citing time, convenience and value as the top motivating factors.

If this is correct, 5.6 meals divided by 21 possible meals, is a little more than 27% meals eaten out compared to our 14%.

 

Another one is from the National Restaurant Association’s report Restaurant Spending — 2004.

Households consisting of only a husband and wife recorded the highest per-capita expenditures on food away from home in 2004 ($1,347)

Per-capita is a fancy way of saying per person, so take that $1,347 and multiply it by two, meaning that that husband and wife spent a total of $2,694 in 2004. At the current rate that Donna and I are spending, we will end up disbursing $2,866 on meals away from home in 2007. Factor in inflation and restaurant dining trends and it looks like we are about average.

So if we are near average in money spent, but eating out about half as many times as everyone else, we must be eating at pretty nice places or everyone else is just ordering off the dollar menus.

Still to make us feel better I will add another line to the “Eating Out” macro that will keep track of meals out in relation to possible meals.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 161

Word of the Day: Avulsion

Hilda Town HallAvulsion – a forcible tearing or surgical separation of one body part from another.

Or in this case a tearing of the time – space continuum, as 125 Broughton Ave in Hilda, SC, or at least the Post Office there, has vanished. Our second attempt to locate a postal facility in this micro town failed just as it did the first time. Maybe it is like Brigadoon and appears only one day every hundred years. I did take a picture of the next best thing though, the Town Hall. I won’t put it in the postal gallery with the other 10 we grabbed today though, just not kosher. Fittingly, there is a sign on the door saying the Town Hall is open the 2nd Saturday of the month from 8 AM to 12 noon.

Three quarters of the way through our Postal Safari today we stopped in St. George for lunch, Taco Bell. Two hard tacos for Donna and two soft tacos for Brian and we split a medium fruit punch.

Meal Cost: $5.15
Tip: None
Spent Today: $5.15
Year to Date: $1,052.24

Josh Becket of the FRS was pitching today. So far this year he has had 7 starts and has 7 wins, but something happened on the way to a record 8 straight. An avulsion on the right middle finger, leading to “irritation of the skin” lead to him being pulled from today’s game after the fourth inning. This is the team being cagey, Mr. Beckett missed several games last year because of a blister on his throwing hand. To me, no matter how you spin “avulsion on the right middle finger, leading to irritation of the skin”, it is a blister. Supposedly the early exit was a precaution to prevent an actual blister, we’ll see.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 159

That Hurts

OK, so I’ve had a sore big toe for about a week now, feels like an ingrown toenail, meaning it is just fine unles I hit on something. I can deal with it. But this morning I noticed it right off as it hurt to even walk. Just the act of pushing off with the toe made me wince.

Now the ingrown toenails I’ve dealt with before have all been at the very end of the toe. This pain is coming from the side of the nail about halfway down it’s length. If you wanted to make this grown man squeal in pain, all you have to do is squeeze the side of my toe. Today’s planned hike in the woods was called off and we stayed home while I tried to minimize my walking.

We did manage to get to out to the MMC Breakfast Meet. It was in downtown Aiken, so we didn’t have far to go. Veggie Omelet with Grits for Donna and Hot Cakes with Sausage for me. Donna had water and I had an OJ.

Meal Cost: $10.92
Tip: $2
Spent Today: $12.92
Year to Date: $1,047.09

I want to keep the Flickr! South Carolina Post Office Photos separate, mainly because the map is filling in and looking cool, so I created a second account for other pictures. First up were the ones from last night’s sunset trip. Here is my favorite shot: Gnorm & John

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 157