Saturday, March 29, 2008

The Lime Green Drama Queen is alive and Well! Or Justa check this out.

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Justakrusenville has once again been invaded by a foreign entity! That's right a female preteen has invaded the house. No Other than The lime Green Drama Queen. Aka,Courtney has taken time from her busy social schedule to visit again. It had even gotten so bad that I called her dad and asked him if she was mad at me? You never know. Can you believe that some people actually get mad at me? :)  Well Miss Courtney has done another great guest post. If I'm not careful pretty soon I'll be the one guest posting!

If your a Preteen girl, or I suppose a preteen boy too.(Some inside info guys)wants some information about that special time in a young girls life check out Courtney's post on the Justakrusen.wordpress.com site. She is old beyond her years. Now Pete if you should happen to read this, don't take any offense(because none is meant) Courtney has, like my daughter and many kids before her have done, "Grown up in spite of her parenting" Miracles do happen. My Daughter Adrianne has grown up to be a beautiful, seemingly intelligent young woman. She is an RN at a hospital in Rochester, Ny. And believe me her parenting was definitely lacking,both from my side and her Mothers. I can talk about My first wife Dianne here. I mean what is she going to do? Divorce me again!

Speaking of saving money! Momma and I with the expert assistance of The Lime Green Drama Queen went shopping for Groceries at Save A Lot in Fulton last night. (And people say I don't know how to have a good time) In the interest of space and because Momma ordered me to, I'm not going to list each item from now on. Unless there is a public out cry of course. I am going to instead just give the total Items (25) and the total spent $33.30. That brings our total grocery expenditures for the week up to $36.30 . Not bad at all since we were spending $80.00 a week remember.

On the buying gas front I was over near Cicero Ny the other day and needed gas. The Stations over there were having a little mini gas war and the price for Regular Unleaded was $3.26.9 a gal. I was really low and would have liked to make it 9 miles over to Bj's on my way home. But I was chicken! Bawk, Bawk, Bawk! So I got it at a Hess gas station and headed home. I couldn't leave well enough alone. I had to drive by the Bj's to check out the price. Yep! $3.21.9 per gallon. Yes it would have only saved me $0.70 per gal but do you realize that multiplied by 52 weeks in a year, times 20 more years,which is my life expectancy,  that would equal a savings in that period of time of $23.64 (if I did my math right) Heck, that would be almost a weeks worth of groceries! I'm justa saying!

Friday, March 28, 2008

We're justa paying thru the nose, aren't we?

Another picture byDiane&Craig

 

I know everyone is aware of the gas prices. It'd be hard not to be wouldn't it? Today  I thought I'd bring to your attention the price of Diesel fuel. In the Syracuse, Ny area it's running anywhere from $4.19 up to $4.31 a gallon. As many of you know I had my own Tractor Trailer for 10 years. If I still had it, I would have had to park the truck(and ultimately) lose it. The Owner Operator is a dying breed. The little guy with 1 to 5 or even 10 trucks in his fleet,Just can't compete with the big 10,000 truck fleets like Swift and J.B. Hunt.

While the little guy has to go the Trucks stop and pay full price for the fuel, The big fleets buy in bulk at a very large discounts. The Trucks I drove for Swift when I was there had a fuel tank on each side of the truck. Each tank would hold 150 gallons of fuel. Do the math 300 gals X $4.19 =$1,257 dollars to fill up the truck from empty. I would average usually 2500 miles in a week. My truck would get 6 miles to the gallon. That would be about 416 gallons. So stay with me here just for a minute. There is a point to this. 416 gals X $4.19 = $1,749 would be the amount I would spend on fuel for the week. Every week the little guy is spending that, and believe me the fuel surcharges when they can even get them aren't covering the fuel expenses. Let alone allowing the driver to set aside money for other expenses related to the truck. FORGET taking a paycheck home.

Well Justa, what does that have to do with me. Well over 90% of the freight in the country is  being carried by a truck at one time or another in it's journey to the stores. As many of you have felt at the cash register, food has gone up 35%, gas has gone up the same. In fact even going out to eat has gotten more expensive. Every one is passing down the cost of the increased fuel expenditures  to you and me the consumers.

We need to seek out alternative fuels. We can send a group of Men and Women into space. Your telling me we don't have the technology to burn a more fuel efficient,cleaner fuel. Or do we? Check this out I talked to an older Gentleman in the Jacuzzi at Golds gym the other day and he claims to be getting 55 mpg. The thing he was telling me about putting on his car was $500.00 for the parts and $100.00 to get someone to put it in that knew what they were doing. As I've looked around the Internet some you can get this for less than that. I want to pull the trigger to try it. I'm just not so sure yet. What do you guys think? Could this be possible? I'm justa asking!

In a closing note. If you believe in the power of prayer like I do! Please join me in praying for this lady she has breast cancer and is expected to die. She is fighting it and needs all the prayers she can get.Check out my account at 43 things also. It's under Justakrusen. I wonder where I came up with that name? :)

Thursday, March 27, 2008

I'm Justa amazed!

According to my Bravenet hit counter(Bottom right of page). There were 38 total hits on this blog yesterday. Wowza! That is the most ever in one day. I'm amazed that 38 people would hit on here. How did I get the amazing growth in one day? It's rather simple. Not easy mind you,just simple! What I did was, go to sites that I enjoy that are popular on the Internet and left a comment. I didn't do this just to raise up my hit count on this site, although it became a pretty good by product.

I went on sites like Josh Spauldings site on how to be an ethical Internet Marketing Guru. In my opinion he is one of the least intrusive of the "make money with your blog" niches out there. That's why I'm subscribed to his email subscription service. Every day in my email is his newest post. I don't want to miss any thing from him, so this is for sure an email that I open. I don't know why Josh's link goes to the page it does. However, I've check the ones below and they are live links.

Another one I'm subscribed to is Caroline Middlebrooks site. Although I don't agree with "everything" she does. She has risen quite fast in the same genre. I think her post today tells how she made $2,000 since Sept,2007. Not to shabby huh. Lol. You might be saying ok Mark, that's two sites about making money you greedy so and so. I go to these to learn how to build up traffic and to in the Long run make money yes. That being said I am truly not motivated by Money. Never have been, Never will be. But we do have to make a living don't we? So if I can unobtrusively make money on what I have found I love to do. Heck, I think that would mean that maybe I'm growing up! Oh no! "Momma, I thinks me be growing up!"

Just to prove to you that I'm not a money grubbing Internet Marketing wanna be, Tom Stine's site is one of my favorites. Click on over there,you'll find that he is far from all about making money. Check out his comments on his post. I think they're were about 14 the last I checked. The Mark that commented on his post was me, myself and I. It was quite a conversation that the 3 of us had don't you think? Tom and Evan are a couple of very intelligent individuals and I had to dig deep into my feeble brain,to keep up with them. :)

I have a few more that I go on and comment on. The Internet is a mosh posh of all kinds of interest as I'm sure most of you have found out. I'll show you one more site that I go on almost every day. I don't comment every day on it. But when you click on Craing & Diane's site you get a special treat in pictures taken by Diane on their travels. If you were even thinking way back in the recesses of your mind (Don't hurt yourself Jackofall58) about going on the road trucking (with or without Momma) this is the site to follow. They tell you exactly what it is like every day.

There are many more sites I go on every day. I'll share some of them with you as we take this journey in Blogsville together. Thanks again each and everyone of you for clicking that button and joining me here. Again I'm going to point out for those of you that don't want to miss a day in the life and times of Justakrusen. Just sign up on the top right hand side of this page and each post I update will automatically come into your email box each and every day. Isn't that a scary thought? I'm justa saying

image Here's just an example of one of the Pictures that Diane took in this trip to Canada. Go to their website to see a whole bunch more.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Not Justa nother Bagel shop

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If you'll allow me just one more joke from my friends at Arca Max. It is topical right now with the politics in the country the way it is. I believe, in my mind anyway, that it is a joke about Democrats:

Not the brightest bulbs in the lamp
..They told me to meet them at the corner of "WALK" and "ONE WAY."
..at the bottom of the application where it says "sign here", they put "Sagittarius."
..They asked for a price check at the Dollar Store.
..They studied for a blood test.
..They thought they needed a token to get on "Soul Train."
..They sold the car for gas money!
..when they missed the 44 bus, they took the 22 bus twice instead.
..when they went to the airport and saw a sign that said "Airport Left," they turned around and went home.
..when they heard that 90% of all crimes occur around the home, they moved.
..They think Taco Bell is the Mexican phone company.
..if they spoke her mind, they'd be speechless.
..They thought that they could not use their AM radio in the evening.
..They had a shirt that said "TGIF," which they thought stood for: This Goes In Front.

This is a picture of the front counter at Bagelious in Bayberry Plaza in Liverpool, Ny.Here is Rich's website. It is well worth visiting. If you ever stop in you'll see why it's so popular. Heck he even has a map on his web page and driving directions on how to get there.

Did anybody see the reports that February sales of home had picked up 2.9%. If your a buyer between now and about August would be the time to buy. Actually you have to follow the interest rates very carefully to see where bottom is going to be. Once it hits bottom then starts to creep back up would be the time to buy.

 

2% milk 1gal $2.55
canned cat food $0.23 a can (3cans) $0.69
2 items  
taxable items (2) $0.06
Total $3.30
43 Things Tags: ,

This was our grocery bill for Tues March 25th 2008. I went to Aldi's this week just to see what it was like and I was in the neighborhood anyway. No we're not eating cat food. This is all we needed staple wise until we need to go Saturday. If you remember this trip to Save A Lot last week enabled us to add to our food inventory on some items. Saturday will again be our big purchase day, but we shouldn't go much over last weeks total of $38.82. If any of you  would like to sign up to have any of my new post emailed to you automatically . Just leave your email address in the top right of this page where it says "your email here". I'm justa saying!

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

All this and Heaven too! Justa think about it!

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Diane has done it again.look at this picture!

Not only do I marvel at the beauty of a picture like this,but I wonder how ANYBODY could go through life looking at scenes like this and not believe in a higher power. It boggles the mind.

I know I've mentioned this before,and I get to mention it again here. If anyone out there can observe the "sale day" of the gas stations near them and le us know I'll share them on this blog. Over time will try to set up a  link on the sidebar that would take us all to the locations with just a click of a mouse.That way unless they change the days. We would all know what day to buy gas where.

I have started to connect up with some interesting and successful bloggers. It's pretty exciting to know that "this really does work". That,anybody can do this. It's not easy by any means. If you stick to it and go by trial and error you will succeed. The Probloggers that I have interacted with have been more than friendly and willing to help. You have to approach them with respect that they deserve. After all a lot of them have been working really hard for years. Although Darren has the name Problogger sewn up, It is the attitude and willingness to help others that in my opinion makes someone a "Problogger". One such person that I have come across and corresponded with by way of comment has been Josh Spaulding. He is more than willing to share what he knows. Just read his post and find out.

Justa side note I was out running around today and noticed that gas prices are all about $.05 a gal one way or another from $3.35. I don't think we'll see much of a movement one way or another until Thursday. That seems to be when The Byrne Dairy stations have their sale day.Time to boogie. Thanks for your support.

43 Things Tags: ,,

Monday, March 24, 2008

Justakrusen Headquarters

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I'm going to start using my own pictures where ever possible.Or I'll continue to use some of Diane's over at Heads Carolina/Tails California as she has given me permission to use them on my blogs. Thanks again Diane. This picture you see here is one Momma took of the office. This is my little corner of the world.It's not always this neat. Cindy caught it at a good time.

As I mentioned in a recent post. Mr. Google was extremely upset with me for something I said or did. I don't really know what it was and I can only guess. So my two guesses are. 1.) I used a picture off of Google Images.(Which I will never ever ever ever again do under penalty of death) or I dared confront Mr. William O'rielly on My blog and or in an Email. This here is the post I did. I don't know if it annoyed Billy and he waa'ed waa'ed to Google. Or if Google just didn't like me using his picture and the few others I've been using lately. I'm going to choose the first choice. Why do you ask? Well I would like to think that Mr. O'rielly read my email and talked to someone, who talked to someone, who knew someone,who than disabled my blog, making it almost impossible to access my blogger account. This is much more fun to contemplate than the alternative, which is Google didn't like me using the pictures and spanked my hand for 5 days. Which choice would you choose? Exactly! Hi, Mr O. I so wanted to make the Pinhead section on his Fox Tv show. After all I haven't had my 15 minutes of fame yet.

Now back to the picture of the office. Does this look like the office of an Internet Mogul or what? :)Hey, I'm having fun. That's all that count's right? I'm going to close this by Justa saying, that everything that is happening with this blog as it refers to the increased readership is because of you folks. I'm grateful for that. I know quite a few of you have stopped back in from time to time as your life schedule would allow and I appreciate it. This was my first blog and it's going to be hard to let go. But let go I must. In coming weeks I'm going to be ramping up my efforts to continue to put worth while content on justakrusen.wordpress.com and I'm going to attempt to continue to shape and build on justakrusen.com I hope it's not to confusing. Thanks again for sticking with me. Stop on over to the wordpress blog and leave a comment if you like. I'm justa saying!

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Justa saving that grocery money!

2% milk 1/2 gal $1.78
Ultra fabric Softner 32oz $1.99
Tortita nacho chips 16oz $0.99
Grissom Wheat bread 1lb $1.19
Birdeye Pepper Stir Fry 16oz $1.79
Honey Puff Ceral 18oz $1.89
Save a lot brand Chicken Noodle soup 18.6 oz $1.49
Chunk Beef soup 18.8oz $1.49 each (2) $2.98
Diced Tomato's Garlic seasoned 14.5 oz $0.49 ea(3) $1.47
Chili with beans Save a lot brand 15 oz $0.79
Chili with out beans Save A lot brand 15 oz $0.99
Bones Chicken Breast 21/2 lbs $2.34per lb $5.86
Fresh packaged Ground beef 2.25 lbs purchased  
after 8:00pm additional $2.00 off $2.48
14 disposable ladies razors $0.99
Cat food 5.5 oz special blend turkey can (3)$0.25 $0.75
Kidney beans canned 15oz $.044ea(3) $1.32
Gala apples in a bag 3lb $1.99
Banana's $0.44 a lb 1.88lbs $0.83
3 bags lettuce 1lb each $0.89 $2.67
2 bags Sugar free candy $.0.99 per $1.98
2 bags Peanut butter cups candy $0.99 per $1.98
32 Items  
Total $38.20
Plus 8% tax on $7.69 value $0.62
Total bill $38.82

This was our grocery bill for Friday night March 21 2008 We actually got some food for us this time. No we're not starving the pets.:) We had plenty of food left for them. The cat food should just make it to Tuesday's trip to the store. Hey look we didn't give any money to Wally World this week. We were able to do all our shopping at Save A Lot. Heck Momma and I even went over to Dunkin Donut's in Fulton for coffee. Are we justa splurging or what. We went to our traditional (every Saturday) breakfast again yesterday. This week the Mayor and his wife(Shawn & Pat) were our victims. They had to sit there and listen to "the world according to Mark". Could you imagine having to sit somewhere with me for an hour or so at a table with no way to escape? :) Hey that will teach you Mr Mayor. You need to get more than one friend.