Ad Hudler's Blog, page 37

Supermarket Sleuth, Post #248484T5

You know how all the docs say we're supposed to be eating whole-wheat pasta instead of the normal, much-more-palatable semolina variety? Well, I don't know about you, but I can't stand the texture of whole-wheat pasta. It feels like you're eating chewy licorice coated with fine-grade sandpaper.

But I have finally found an awesome alternative:


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Barilla Plus, which comes in all sizes and shapes. It looks like whole-wheat pasta, but it's largely made from lentils and flax seed and oats and chickpea...

Cat problems on Coconut Drive

Okay, so here's a problem we did not anticipate with our newly emptied nest: Cat From Hell.

The very-expressive Mitchell, who usually slept all night with our daughter, has taken to roaming the house in the early mornings, meowing loudly and waking us up. This starts anytime after 5 a.m.!

At first, we started waking up and letting him outside to shut him up. But then ... DUH! ... the cause-and-effect thing? He learned that by waking us up he could get exactly what he wanted, WHENEVER he wanted ...

Conspiracy Theory #557389343RD3

Methinks facebook was actually invented by Fidel Castro and Chavez to eat away at American productivity. Who's going to be making widgets and gadgets when they're spending all their time dreaming up clever status reports?

A word about those who text while driving ...

I don't know about you guys, but I'm afraid to drive places these days because of ALL THE CRAZY PEOPLE WHO ARE TEXTING WHILE DRIVING. I had a near miss the other day because a woman behind me was engaged with her keypad, and she didn't see me slow down to turn, and she had to slam on the brakes to keep from hitting me.

I find myself tapping my brake lights more often these days, in hopes of alerting drivers who might be texting. But now I have a better idea.

The horns in cars all point forward,...

Critters on Coconut Drive

As empty nesters, we've been out of town a lot lately, and instead of bothering my neighbor to feed our outdoor cat I decided to get one of those computerized multi-day feeders that dispenses a portion of food each day, keeping the cat from overeating and stopping the wild critters from devouring all the food that was intended to last for a weekend.

While out of town this past weekend, I received a text from my neighbor, who happened to stop by (Thank goodness.). It said: Space-age pet feeder ...

Report from the grocery store

If you like apples at all you need to try the honeycrisp. What used to be a boutique, lesser-distributed apple is now mass-produced, and it puts the others to shame. Crispy as a Fuji, with a taste that is both sweet and refreshingly lemon-like. I've never had anything like it. Put it this way: If we had been in Eve's shoes, and THIS was the apple, we probably might have said, "No way, snake ... I'm not touching that thing ... but, what did you say? HONEYCRISP? Well, then, hand it over."

For th...

Being Green on Coconut Drive

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In Florida, our ceiling fans are always on (this one is also running, but the stop-action of the camera makes it appear to be still). So ... when I needed to quickly dry my wife's bras... From washing machine to woman in less than 15 minutes!

Indecent exposure on Coconut Drive

When we had the house re-plumbed last week we also had an outdoor shower installed on our patio ... and we haven't showered inside ever since! We love it. I just wonder if our neighbors do, too.

Hey ... THEY were the ones who over-trimmed the hedge! Not me.

Ad's Rules of the Bathroom

Those who read my last blog know I've had water on the brain ... er ... mind.

Some Ad H20 History: I was raised on the desert-like high plains of Eastern Colorado, where water was very scarce, and even townspeople (as opposed to farmers) monitored rainfall. Whenever it rained -- and it wasn't very often, let me tell you -- the collective mood of townspeople was raised three or four notches.

Well, I've spent most of my adult life on the much-wetter east coast ... but even if you take the boy out...

Water, water everywhere!

When we moved into our humble ranch-style house on the end of Coconut Drive in the year 2000, the engineer who inspected the house for us warned that the pipes were all old (1951) and that water pressure wouldn't be great ... and it would get worse as the pipes filled with rust. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought. The water works fine.

But then, over the years, it became a problem. Recently, my wife and I realized we were always yelling at each other: "Did someone flush the toilet?!?! I'm trying to d...