Greg's General Store

Friday, I sent off an email to the South Carolina Insurance Commission. I really expected to get a form email back saying thanks for your intrest but we can't do anything about it. Kind of like the form letter I got back from Sears after writing them a letter complaining about several serious issues. The letter I got back from Sears said "That's the kind of customer service you can expect from Sears" (It was a customer service complaint.) Oh well. Anyway, I got a really nice letter back from "a person" and she gave me a lot of information and even gave me her phone number to call if I needed even more information. What about that. You know what they say: "... many wearing rapiers are afraid of goosequills." So who knows what the modern translation of that is? That is your lesson for the day. Have a great one. Greg

I don’t know which is more difficult, living with my dark secret or coming clean and admitting it to the world. They say the first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem but in this case, it won’t change things. I will only open myself up to criticism and scrutiny from others. Before I confess and come out of the closet, let me say a few things. You may have heard this all before but I feel it bears repeating, Life isn’t always fair. Sometimes you get dealt certain cards and you have to just play the hand you were given. It isn’t always pretty either and wanting to be like everyone else won’t change things. Being different, only means that I am different. It doesn’t mean I am any better or worse just different. Well I am beating around the bush. I might as well just come out and say it. Up to this point most of you have probably considered me a computer genus. Perhaps someone that knows his way around the internet and computer world. You probably thought I had some Mega ...

Ok maybe I am being to picky here but let me get someone else's opinion. There is a big meeting today for our Administrative Professionals (AKA Secretaries) so the front office was left empty. The phone rings constantly at the front office so someone needed to answer the phones. There are about 80 people that work here and anyone of us could have answered the phone for a day but the manager asked another woman to fill in for the two girls that were gone. This other woman fills a technical position here so it is not like she is used to answering the phone. It just looks to me like we are saying that answering the phone is a womans job. What do you think? A very long time ago (while I was in my teans), I worked for a county down in Florida. One of the Secretaries (it was ok to use that term back then) took a few days off so they asked me to answer the phones and do the dispatch while she was gone. So were they saying that I was the closest person to a female that worked there? I may ...

Ok I have tried to maintain a positive attitude here but I do have to vent for just a moment. We received a "Dear Valued Customer" letter yesterday from out insurance company of 24 years. I think we have paid them over 20 thousand dollars and never once put in a claim even though we did have little things go wrong. We fixed them ourselves. Anyway they have decided that we live too close to the coast (10 miles) and we are too much of a risk for the company to handle so they are dropping us. Now I could see it if we were right on the front beach or had been a pain in the butt to them but come one. I guess the 26 million plus salary that the CEO got last year wasn't enough so they are dropping all the risky people. Better get ready people on tornado ally and those in California and what about snow areas etc etc. It is rediculous that they only want to cover people that don't need insurance. Now I didn't mention any names here but you figure out who it is. Ok it finis...

As I said on my garden blog, we spent Sunday on an island near Edisto Island. That is also close(as the crow flys) to Beaufort air station which was the site of Saturdays Blue Angel plane crash. As we sat there enjoying the day on the beach, we looked up and saw the jets in the missing man formation flying over us. We were awe struck and watched and then after they passed. I thought: I should have taken a picture of it but then I think it is something that you needed to be there to see. Have a wonderful day, Greg

Folks I am on vacation but still reading and trying to finish my tag post, thanks a lot girls, Actually I do appreciate it but it is making me think and my brain is supposed to be on vacation too, :) It should be done later today, Take care, Greg

I can't believe it. I was hit from two sides and I think that is illegal or something. Thanks queenie and chels . Actually I am not sure of the rules but I will do my best to do my duty to God and Country, wait that was boy scouts, let me get my thoughts together. Ok I haven't been blogging for very long. I got started because I used to have a website and I had heard that one of the best ways to promote your web site was to Blog. Ok now I deleted my personal website but I am still blogging so how smart is that? I actually found out after I got started that it is a great way to relieve stress and say what is on your mind in kind of a free speech area. The nice thing about this blogging is that if you get comments you don't like, you can just delete them. Not that have done or would do that. Ok let me think of who has influenced me on these blog pages. First of all do I now need to pick 10 people or can I still do 5 but do them twice? I really don't know the rules. I hav...

I can’t change the sun, the moon or the stars. They will always be there. I can’t change the wind or the tides. The wind will always blow; the tides will always rise and fall. I can’t Influence great leaders or CEO’s of large corporations. They will always do as they please with or without me. If I don’t show up to work or if I get fired, someone will take my place and soon I will be forgotten. When I die, there will be no big fanfare or day of morning. My life will end quietly and only the ones close to me will even know. When I graduated from High School, I had big ambitions. I wanted to be an architect. I had dreams of building great things that people would associate with me and my name. I wanted to design something really beautiful or so magnificent that people seeing it would say “Wow the person that designed that was a genius” I started going to college right after high school. I took Chemistry, Calculus, Physics, English and Creative Writing. At that time I loved to write and t...

Today I am starting a new drive toward better physical and mental health. There is no significance to today. I simply made up my mind it is time to make some changes on my life, refocus on what is important and weed out things that have no meaning. In a sense this is a New Years resolution and I am just a little late getting started but then today is the start of a new year in itself. This morning as I began my day, my thoughts were consumed by the terrible tragedy of yesterday. As one of the changes I plan on making in my life is to remain positive at all cost, I have tried to analyze this situation and look for some ray of hope or sunshine. After being bombarded all the way to work by radio discussions on the subject and seeing the headlines in the paper when I arrived here, I was unable to find that bright spot. I then decided to see if there was a common thread in everyone’s feelings on the situation and found out that in fact there was. In this situation as in the happenings of 9/...

I tried to get closer this time but they stay just out of camera range. I still need to get that 2X lense for my camera.

I always loved the saying "red sky at morning, sailors take warning, red sky at night, sailors delight" There is some truth to it but it all depends on your current weather pattern. What it means is if a storm has passed then expect calm seas if it is coming then expect rough weather. All that being said, I think Shakespeare said it best in his play, Venus and Adonis. “Like a red morn that ever yet betokened, Wreck to the seaman, tempest to the field, Sorrow to the shepherds, woe unto the birds, Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds" It may not always be true but it sounds great. Hope you liked my red morning. Greg

I finally got "Tiger" to sit long enough to let me take his picture. At first he gave me that "Are you looking at me?" attitude followed by the "Ain't I cute" look and then finally the "Go away you are starting to bother me" look. He is a sweet kitty though so I tollerate him.

My momma never said life is like a box of chocolates but I guess in some ways that statement is true. I think it is more true to say that life is like a candy store and each of us has our own little box of chocolates. I don't know what you got but I got the generic box. There is nothing fancy on the outside. It didn't have a road map like the expensive ones do so I have to try each piece to see if I like it or not. I find these days that I don't like most of the candy in my box as it seems to be filled with lots of hard and tastless candy or those yucky chocolate covered grape jelly candies. I want my soft centers back. I want my coconut, pecan, caramel and cherry centers covered with rich chocolate. I'm think I am worth it. I have earned it. I am ready to reap the rewards of a good life.........I'm waiting........... Oh well it was worth a try.......... Back to work I guess.

This is all really crazy but last summer while we were doing the flea market thing, there came a time when there was a shortage of plants we had available. We decided to sell some of our pond plants just to give us a bigger selection and to fill up the table. My son had this idea that he could sell tadpoles. I thought he was wasting his time but decided to let him try since it would keep him occupied when the sales were slow. So we took a net and caught a few and brought them along. We had some old jars and we brought them to put the tadpoles in. When we got to the flea market, I set up the plants in a nice display and my son caught a few tadpoles out of the bucket and tossed them into a jar with a small piece of sea lettuce. The first people to walk by our table had small children and they were immediatly drawn to the movement in the jar. They stopped and looked and before I knew it had purchased not only one but two. This continued throughout the day and soon we were out of tadpoles ...

Saturday’s flea market sales were much less than anticipated. We started the week with high hopes of big plant sales due to the Easter holiday but as the week progressed, Mother Nature brought her wrath down on us in the form of bad weather. It was 45 degrees with a 25 mph wind. We sat in the truck most of the day freezing. For those that don’t know, my son and I sell plants at the flea market on weekends. This all started a few years ago when he had a lemonade stand in front of our house. He was doing ok selling lemonade but asked if he could try to sell a few flowers along with the lemonade. Since we had some extra day lilies, we said ok. Well to make a long story short, he sold them all and then sold more the next day. Soon he was asking us to set up a table at a nearby grocery store parking lot but that didn’t pan out so we ended up going to the local flea market. Our plants sold like hotcakes and people started searching for us to get plants. At first I just wanted to let him make...

I love pets and two of the most interesting pets I have are my chickens, Lucy and Ivory. They are my gardening companions and will be right by my side when I am working with my plants. They are of course hoping that I will uncover a nice bug just for them so they stick close by. They live in a movable chicken pen that I made. It is a pen on wheels that I move every day or so around my back yard. I got the idea from watching P Allen Smith on the garden show that is on the Weather Channel. It is a great idea for those that have large back yards like I do. By moving the pen every few days, the chickens don't kill the grass. If fact it stays nice and green for some strange reason. I lock the chickens up at night and let them out in the morning. They return to the pen once during the day to lay nice brown eggs and then return in the evening just at dark. It is a great idea and from them I get nice eggs, free fertilizer and a nice green lawn. I save the chicken poo and add it to rain wat...

This is our cat. His name is Mr. T but I am not sure now why we named him that. He is really lazy but that is good because he leaves the birds alone. He really doesn't do much but lay right where you need to walk and then swat you when you walk by. If we leave him in the house at night, he rattles the blinds to let us know he wants to go out.