Greg's General Store

Yesterday was the 2008 Grape Stomp at Irvin House Vineyards. As I mentioned before, yours truly was the master hotdog chef for the event. Well the festival was a huge success. Last year we had about 700 people attend and this year we estimated that there were around 1200 people there. I got up early to get everything ready. I headed into town and got ice and then topped off my tank with gas. The place where I stopped had fresh Duncan Doughnuts and you guessed it, Great Coffee. I was in heaven. I spent most of the morning setting up and got everything ready around 11am which was when the bottom fell out and we had a heavy thunder shower. It only lasted about an hour though and I arrived around 12:00 in time to light the grill and dry everything off. No harm done. The festival was supposed to start at 2:00 but people started arriving early and we started selling hotdogs right away. By 1:00 the sun was out and it was starting to heat up. They had sack races for the kids, face painting, ba...

What this country really needs is a great cup of coffee. I don’t know what has happened to Americans but it seems almost impossible to get a real cup of coffee anymore. This week alone I had numerous failed attempts to get a good cup of coffee and I am about fed up. I am contemplating moving to Columbia just to get some real coffee. Meet my new roomies: Monday, my coffee was old and burnt. It had obviously been brewed many hours before I got it and it tasted nasty. Tuesday I took the day off and used those little bags to make my coffee. Little did I know that it would be the best coffee I would have all week. Wednesday, I got my coffee and it looked fresh enough. When I took the first sip though I realized that it wasn’t the house blend, it was French Roast and it was strong enough to wake the dead. I went back in and exchanged it for another cup and this time I smelled it to make sure it was the house blend. It smelled good so I headed down the road. About a mile into my drive, I took...

Last night I took a few more photo's with my new camera. I really like it a lot. What I got was a Sony Cyber-shot DCS-H3. It is really easy to use and I like all the features it has. It is 8.1 Mega Pixels, with a 10X optical zoom. It has a stabilization feature which is nice for those of us with not so steady hands. I got it from a website called Dealcatcher.com which is where I got my laptop computer. I shopped around and they had the best deal. So here are some photo's that I took last night in mixed light. Here is a not so cooperative Tufted Titmouse. I guess he was shy and didn't want his picture taken. The chickadee was a much better subject although he looked a little annoyed. This is one of my caster bean plants. It is about 6 ft tall but it should be around 10 ft by now. All this rain that we have had has brought out the mushrooms. I sure wish they were edible. Who knows they might be but I doubt it. I still have my little fish fountain and it is almost completely ...

And the answer is .....My computer is toast. :( I gave it my best shot and was unable to get rid of this nasty virus. After about 10 hours of work, I finally gave up and decided to consult a professional. I called my computer manufacturer and they said they knew what it was and could fix it but I would have to pay for their maintenance plan since my warranty had run out. I agreed thinking that it would be cheaper than buying a new computer. So I paid for the service and then called a technician who was going to help me out. After 3 hours on the phone, he gave up and said he couldn't fix it either. He said my only option was to reload my computer using the reboot disc and guess what? I can't find it. Plan B: I am going to have a person at work try to fix it. If he gets it fixed I will keep the maintenance plan but if he doesn't get it fixed, I will have to buy a new computer and I won't be buying the same brand so I won't need the maintenance plan. If that happens, ...

I hate to tell you all but I am not myself today. I am not the happy go lucky person I usually am. Today I am mad. No make that angry. No make that really really angry. Let me tell you why. Last night my son was trying to get on the computer. When he tried to log onto the internet, he got an error message. After a few tries we felt that something was seriously wrong so we decided to quit trying and try again today. I began trying to fix my computer early this morning and I spent almost 8 hours with no luck. I did find out that I have a virus and after many hours I discovered what it was. It is called the CNN virus and if you haven't heard of it you might want to look it up to be on the lookout for it. It is a trojan virus that attaches itself to a CNN message and once you get it, it is hard to get rid of. There is a remedy for it but whenever I try to go get it, the virus leads me to some other site and I end up getting frustrated. I think I am going to have to get professional hel...

Ok you probably think that it just boils down to jealousy but I do have other reasons for not watching the Olympics. I could go into the usual reasons like politics, boycotts, steroid use, waste, or child competition but I won’t. In my opinion those are reasons enough but I feel that they only mask the true reason I don’t like the Olympics. Although I have many reasons I also have many solutions. Like I tell people that work for me. Don’t come to me with a problem unless you also have a solution. Let me cover the problems first. They are way too competitive. I mean what happened to the “games” part? Aren’t they supposed to be Olympic “Games”? Games are supposed to be fun. Look it up, you will see that fun is in the definition. Here it is. Game: An activity that people participate in, together or on their own, for fun. I see that they have added some other definitions that left out the word “fun”. I am not surprised. The Olympics are no more fun that T-ball is to a little kid. It is all...

Jim Cantori is not on his way to South Carolina. For those of you who are Weather Channel fans like myself, you know that as Jim goes so goes the hurricanes. It looks like Fay will stay in Florida. Great news for us but not so good news for people in Florida. They are already soaked and this may cause some flooding. Hey speaking of the Weather Channel does anyone else remember that they predicted the driest year in history this year. Wrong again. And as far as Hurricane Fay they are saying that she is unpredictable. I have news for you guys (and girls) they are all unpredictable. Well unless you are God. So in other news I purchased a new digital camera. It should arrive in about 5 days. I will tell you more about it when it arrives. I hate to brag before I get it just in case it turns out to be a piece of junk. I think it will be a good one though. I will tell you it is a Sony. But for now I just got some pictures back so let me share them with you. I took these with my trusty Penta...