I like the prepackaged individual servings of Minute Maid Orange Juice.  I take them to work with me and drink them in the morning for breakfast.

But, when I went to Meijer (regional grocery chain) to buy more, they were out.  They had lots of Minute Maid juice boxes but no orange juice.  No problem, I will just go to another store and buy it.

Unfortunately, when I got to the other store, it was the same thing.  There were lots of Minute Maid juice boxes but no orange juice.

A quick check on the internet explained why.  Apparently Minute Maid had some concerns about traces of pesticides in the orange juice so they are investigating the issue.

Since it may be a while before the juice is back on the shelf, I will need to find another source for my morning orange juice.

Our Meijer’s Store (regional grocery chain) has some self serve checkout machines. After you have scanned yours items on the machine, the machine takes your money and gives you your change.  Once it spits out your receipt, the screen will instruct you to remove your items from the machine and then thank you once you do.

What I find interesting is that if you choose the Spanish language option, it will verbally ask you to remove your items and leave.  And if you haven’t removed your items after 12 seconds, it will ask you once again. And it will continue to ask you to remove your items every 12 seconds until you have removed your items from the machine.

Does Meijer’s thinks that any one who speaks Spanish can’t read?  And, given the fact that the machine keeps asking them to leave makes me wonder if they really don’t want Hispanics hanging around the store.

I am sure that corporate has an answer.

My Grandma Swift was a wonderful woman.  Bless her heart, her only fault was that she was a kleptomaniac.

When ever she visited either my parents house or my uncles house, she would scan our cupboards and closets for obscure and seldom used items.  And, once she found one she would take it.  She would then use these items as Christmas gifts for the other family.  Items that she took from our house were given as Christmas gifts to my uncle.  And items from my uncles house were given to us as Christmas gifts.

I will never forget the first time that we finally figured what she was doing.  We were at my uncles house when my mother commented that she had a candy dish just like that.   When my uncle commented that it was a Christmas gift from grandma, the whole table went silent.  When  my mother got home, everyone suspicion was confirmed; our candy dish was missing.

Once we understood what grandma was doing, it became quite simple.  Gifts received on Christmas were returned to their rightful owners at the next get together.

Unfortunately, grandma Swift liked to travel and visit distant relatives.  So, it was only a matter of time before there were unrecognized gifts at Christmas.  And while we suspected that these gifts were purloined from other relatives, we had no way of knowing for sure.

I guess we should be grateful that she was never picked up for shop lifting.

My iPhone has a calender on it.  When I connect my iPhone to my work PC, it downloads all of my appoints into my iPhone.  Then, my iPhone notifies me in advance of my meetings.  That way I know where I am suppose to be at what time.  I find this feature to be very useful.

The other day, I received a sympathy card in the mail.  It was signed by about a dozen people.

I was at a loss.  I had no idea why I  would be getting a sympathy card and I didn’t recognize any of the names on the card.  Then I realized that it was from the Vet.

The previous weekend, the Vet put one of my cats to sleep.  And, I guess they send out sympathy cards afterwards.

I was relieved.  For a moment, I thought that a relative had died and I didn’t know about it.

A local church was celebrating Ash Wednesday by offering a drive through version.  If you pulled up in your car, the cleric would bless you and put ashes on your forehead.  Then, you could just drive off without ever having to leave your car.

Maybe next year, they will have an iPhone app. instead.

Yesterday was a holiday.  So, I marked it as such on my work calendar so that no one would schedule any meetings on that day.

Well, since my iPhone down loads that information from my calendar, it also has it recorded.

Well, yesterday morning at 7:30 am, my iPhone alerted me of the holiday.  So, I  didn’t get to sleep in very late.

In the future, I will have to remember to remove those holidays from my iPhone.  Live and learn.

My iPhone is linked to my personal email account.  And, when ever I get a new email, my iPhone alerts me to that fact.  Then, with a couple of pushes of the buttons, I can access my email with out having to put in my email address and password.  Very handy.

My iPhone has a weather feature on it.  With a press of the button, I can get the temperature and weather forecast for Cupertino.  Now, I have no idea where Cupertino is located but I suspect it is either in Italy or California.  Either way, I am not really interested in the temperature there.  Fortunately, I can add Grand Rapids to the weather button, so this makes the feature rather useful.

I am beginning to like my iPhone.

Since I purchased my iPhone on an impulse and didn’t have my old phone with me,  I couldn’t transfer my contact list from my old phone to my new phone.  But, the store said that they would do it for me at any time.

At first, I thought that I could just manually load my contact list by my self.  But, I ended up accidentally call too many people instead.  So, I took my old phone to the store and had them do it.  Great!!

But then, I made the mistake of connecting my iPhone to my work PC.  My work PC proceeded to erase all of my personal contacts and replace them with my work contacts.  No problem.  I just added my personal contacts to my work contacts and let my PC update my iPhone.  Besides, it is good to have my personal contacts stored someplace else besides my iPhone.

So, I have most of my contact information loaded on my iPhone.  And, as I need to make updates, I will add them to my PC and let the PC update my phone.

So far, so good.