The other day, I went to my local Meijers’ (regional grocery store) to buy some frozen breaded clams.  They  didn’t have any.  No problem.

Since our Meijers’ store is not as big as others, I decided to check out the large Cascade Meijers’ store to see if they had frozen breaded clams.  After all, it is the Meijers’ flagship store.  But, they didn’t have any either.  Rats!

I was about to give up and declare frozen breaded clams to be only a figment of my imagination, when John, my son-in-law, suggested going to Gordon Foods which was just down the road.

Now, Gordon foods is a commercial food supplier that has a few stores for retail.  And, because It is geared towards restaurants or non-profits, it sells everything in large quantities.  So, you can buy a gallon of ketchup or 2 gallons of pickles.  But, they also have a large selection of frozen foods.  So, I check them for breaded frozen clam strips.

Sure enough, they had them.  YES!  But wait, they are sold in 6 pound boxes.  I looked through the case to see if they were sold in smaller packages but they weren’t.  So, it was 6 pounds or nothing.  So, I bought a box.  Fortunately, the box contained 24 4oz packages so that makes it a little easier to manage.

I hope that I like them.

Here in Michigan, one of the food suppliers is recalling their frozen breaded okra. It seems that they forgot to list milk as one of the ingredients.

Now, for some reason, I can’t picture frozen breaded okra as a hot moving item.  In fact, I don’t know why anyone would want frozen breaded okra.

Do you serve them as a side with chicken gizzards?  Are they replacing poppers as the next Super Bowl treat?

I don’t know but I suspect that they should be fairly easy to recall.

Taco Bell is being sued over it’s beef.  It seems that what Taco Bell calls beef is only 30% meat.  The rest is filler like soy and oats.

Now, when a grocery store sells hamburg and ground beef there are certain standards that it must maintain.  But, I don’t know if that applies to restaurants.

It does, however, make me wonder what other fast food restaurants are serving for ground beef?  Of course, the same stuff that Taco Bell is putting in their ground beef is probably the same stuff that goes into most hot dogs, so I guess it can’t be all that bad.  Besides, it tastes fine to me.

I guess I don’t really care what they put in their ground beef as long as it doesn’t crunch when I try to chew it.

One of the restriction with carrying a concealed pistol is that you may not take it into a bar.  Now, a bar is defined as any establishment that makes more that 50% of its income from alcohol.  The problem is that sometimes, you can’t tell the difference.

For example, I frequent an establishment at lunch time.  Of my fellow lunch time consumers, 100 of them eat only lunch while about 10 drink theirs.  So, at lunch time, this is clearly a restaurant that serves drinks.  But, after 5, who knows what happens?

So, short of examining their books, you can’t really tell if it is a bar that serves food or a restaurant that serves alcohol.

While I understand the intent of the law, it needs some refinement.

The other day, I was reading that clams were high in B12.  And, that B12 was good for people with diabetes.  And, that you body stores excess B12.  So, if I ate some clams, my body would store the B12 for several days.

Well, I happen to like fried clams, so I headed to the store to buy some frozen, breaded clam strips.  I figured that they would make a good Sunday evening snack.

Well,  they had everything but clams.  They had regular shrimp, they had popcorn shrimp, they had coconut shrimp, they had scampi shrimp, they had butterfly shrimp, they had calamari, they had mussels, they even had escargot.  But no clams.  Rats!

Maybe everyone read the same article on B12 and made a run on the clams.  Well, I guess I can live without the clams for a little while but I will keep looking.

Michigan used to be a “may issue” state.  “May issue” refers to concealed pistols.  Under the old law, if you wanted to carry a concealed pistol, you had to apply to your county gun board.  The county gun board could then decide whether you had a justifiable need to carry a concealed pistol.  The process was very biased and political.   Most applications were rejected.

That law was changed a few years ago to “shall issue”.  Under the “shall issue” law, anyone who applies for a concealed pistol permitted will be grant the permit unless there is a valid reason not to grant the permit.

Under the old law, you had to make a case for why you needed a concealed pistol permit.  Under the new law, the gun control board has to come up with a reason to not grant you a concealed pistol permit.  Thus, if you can pass the NRA CPL (conceal pistol license) class and are not a convicted felon, you will be granted a CPL.

Well, my internet service is still down.  I called Comcast on Friday and they agreed that it was down.  They wanted me to push the button on the back of the modem.  I told them that I was not home but that I had powered down the modem and powered it back up with no change.  They said that I still needed to push the button on the back of the modem.  I told them that I would give it a try when I got home.

When I got home, I pushed the button on the back of the modem.  And as expected, nothing changed.  So, I called Comcast again.

Comcast had me check the cable connections.  I did but every thing was fine.  Next, they had me power down the modem and then power it back up.  I did but I didn’t expect anything to change.  And, I was correct.  So, Comcast is coming out on Sunday afternoon.

In the mean time, Micky Ds has WiFi and food.  So, for 3 dollars, I can have breakfast and free access to WiFi.

If Comcast isn’t careful, I may decide that I can live just fine without them.

My Internet service at home has been down for the past few days.  So, I have to use other locations for email.  Every now and then, they have problems that run on for several days.  Maybe it will be up and running by this weekend.

My grandmother had an apple tree in her back yard.  It was a big tree and always had a bumper crop of apples.

Now, my grand mother was elderly and not able to maintain her yard.  So, my father did the yard work for her.  This meant that in the fall, he had to pickup and dispose of all of the apples on the ground before he could mow the lawn.

Over the years,  my father came to hate that apple tree.  He complained bitterly with each and every bushel of apples that he picked up and dumped.  And, that tree always had a bumper crop of fruit.  But, my grandmother loved that tree.  So, it stayed.

Finally, one fall, the house became his.  And the first thing on the list of things to do was to get rid of that tree.  And, since I had a chain saw, I was given the honors of cutting down the tree.

Now, because of the proximity of the tree to the surrounding buildings, I thought it best to take the tree down one limb at a time.  So, with the help of an extension ladder, I made my way up into the tree and began cutting off limbs.

Now, these limbs had apples on them which were dropping to the ground every time that I moved.  And I, of course, was wearing my hard hat and visor so I was protected from the falling apples.  But no so my father, who was standing under the tree to supervise my activity.

I came through the ordeal unscathed.  But my poor father, well, he looked like he had fallen head first into a bushel of rotten apples.  I don’t know why he didn’t move.

Back in the old days  when automobiles were first being made, the wheels had large diameters.  While most were 21 inch wheels, some were over thirty inches.  This was necessary because the roads were very uneven.  But, as the roads got better, cars started moving towards smaller wheels.

By the 50s, the standard wheel diameter for most passenger cars was 14 inches with 15 and 16 inch being the norm for trucks.  And smaller cars had 13 inch or even 12 inch wheels.

But lately, many passengers cars are now equipped with 17 inch wheels with some as high as 20 inches.  While I realize that the larger diameter wheels ride better, as the roads continue to deteriorate, they may be needed.