Now till Retirement

Equal parts: Midori, Malibu and Cream!

circle with pineapple juice

My buddy Kevin out of nowhere from the kindness of his heart decided to give me a copy of the Black Lagoon Soundtrack. This is currently one of my favorite animes and I think the music from the show is quite well done. It has 29 tracks and I like all of them.

Black Lagoon Soundtrack

Thank you Kevin for yet another awesome random gift!

After much internal debate I have finally decided that I hate the stock headlights on the Porsche 944. The old standard sealed beams just do not cut it as far as I am concerned and I have often wished that Porsche had used the H4’s found on the 928s. I was aware of various upgrade kits out there but never put too much effort in to researching the options until last night.

After looking at all the various options and what is included I think I am finally set on the kit put out by 944online.com. Their price seems to be towards the lower end of the spectrum while including everything needed including a new wiring harness to avoid overloading the original wiring… and on top of it they have a ten percent off coupon in effect at the moment so that is another added bonus.

Looking up people’s thoughts about the company on Rennlist tells me they are a pretty honest and decent outfit to deal with, so I will probably be ordering sometime withing the next day or so. I will try to take pictures and write a post on the procedures and difficulties in using their kit once received.

Flavor: Banana
Manufacturer: Laylina
Price Paid: $2.95 (50 gram box)
Amount of Tobacco Consumed: Eight grams in an Egyptian style small clay bowl.
Hookah Used: Our standard test hookah(Junior style, 72″ hose, filtered water)
Coal Used: Quick Lighting made in Holland
Covering: Foil with six tiny holes around outer ring of bowl and seven tiny holes in asterisk pattern at center of bowl.
Length of session: About fifty minutes.
Appearance of Tobacco: Very moist, plenty of sticky molasses, very few stems to separate.
Smoke Appearance: Larger thick clouds of white smoke.
Tasting Notes: Light and smooth banana with sugar. Flavor stayed sweet and consistent till the end of the session.
Ill Effects: None
Overall Impression: This is a very smooth and sweet tasting smoke. It goes down easy and seems that it would be perfect for those who can not handle a strong smoke. I could very easily smoke this flavor all day long without feeling the slightest bit ill or lightheaded. I highly recommend this flavor.

My daily driver is a 1985.5 Porsche 944 and it has a slight leak of brake fluid at the resivor base. Nothing too serious until a new one can be sourced at a non insane price, but does require topping off about every month. While on route I tend to pick up what I can from my customers to save the effort of having to go out later after work and today was no exception. Before picking up the Checker Auto I service deposit, I went to grab a bottle of synthetic DOT 4 brake fluid and I am met with what can only be described as awesome, the brand I use is on sale… and even better there is also a rebate for the sale price as well. FREE.

Not just brake fluid either, it is the time of the year apparently when Checker attempts to move out any remaining stock from the previous year to make room for the new shipments of the current year. Everything from starter fluid to engine oil is on sale with a limit of four per customer pf each item. If you do lots of your own car work as I do, prices of free minus tax cant be beat… as long as you don’t mind waiting for a rebate check. If ya have a free moment I suggest you go buy what you can before someone else does… I already cleared out the closest store.

Cigar Name: Cigar Review: Don Barreto - Toro Flaco
Purchase Price: $1.00(shipped)
Location of Purchase: Famous Smoke.
Beverage: Diet Coke.
Cigar Size: 6×46 .
Wrapper: Dark Cuban Seed Nicaraguan.
Binder: Nicaraguan.
Filler: Sun Grown Cuban Seed Nicaraguan.
Appearance: Medium brown and slightly oily.
Construction: Solid looking but soft in too man yareas.
Aged: How ever long they spent in the famous smoke humidor.
Pre-Light Aroma: Hay and grass.
Method of lighting: Pre cut method(10 inch match, flame tip just under cigar foot while rotating cigar, cut cigar after cigar is lit).
Method of Cutting: Large ring punch.
Burn: All over the place.
Problems: Ash fell on me within a centimeter, burn was inconsistent and tunneling, unraveled.
Ash Color: Dark Grey.
Ash Structure: Flaky would fall off at random.
Draw: Easy draw.
Strength: Smoking a Burrito.
Tasting Notes:

First Third: Grass clippings, a bit of newspaper, and a hint of garbage.

Second Third: See above.

Finish: Same as before with spice!

Overall Impression: When I saw this deal on famous for these Don Barettos, I thought how bad can they be? Well the answer is very! Lord Baretto should have been named Don Burrito, because this is probably what smoking a burrito would taste like. Our friend Don Burrito must make his profit by giving us newspaper clippings whiel saving the crop of tobacco for his own personal use. Stay away from the King of the Burritos.

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My cigar buddy Bret thought he would help me on this review. I mean, how often do you get to a review a Cuban cigar with a good friend. Enjoy everyone!

Cigar Name: Cohiba (Cuban) - Esplendido (Churchill)
Purchase Price: $11.00 (Box price was $275)
Location of Purchase: Cozumel, Mexico
Beverage: Llano Estacado: Sweetest Red (Bret switched in a Shiner’s Light for the finish)
Cigar Size: 7.0 × 47
Wrapper: Natural
Binder: Connecticut Shade
Filler: Cuban Leaf
Appearance: Leathery, well constructed, tightly rolled (DW) / Light brown, very well rolled (BH).
Construction: Few veins and tightly rolled (BH).
Aged: 3 years in a well kept humidor.
Pre-Light Aroma: Earthy, semi-sweet, very natural like.
Method of lighting: Non-torch flame from Colibri lighter, while heating the tip for approx. 10-15 seconds before allowing to contact cigar
Method of Cutting: V-cut (as if we use anything else lately)
Burn: Smooth and even (BH) / “I concur” (DW)
Problems: (BH) “Went out when I went to get Damon some ice for his wine…yes he put ice in a fine wine)” / (DW) “Mine went out 3 times for no particular reason at all. The ice was to tame the wine, which didn’t appear as sweet as it was pumped up to be….BRET!”
Ash Color: Light gray with streaks of black.
Ash Structure: (DW) 2 1/2″, very tight / (BH) 2″
Draw: Extremely smooth with no problems at all.
Strength: Medium/Full Bodied
Tasting Notes:

First Third: (DW) - Spicy yet smooth with earthy flavors and hints of nut / (BH) - “Ditto”

Second Third: Not quite as spicy, hints of sweet and coffee; creamy

Finish: (DW) Extremely smooth with a creamy finish / (BH) “Great finish, not spicy & smoke didn’t burn my eyes”

Overall Impression: (DW) I highly recommend you try this cigar. If you don’t, you’ll be missing a large part of life itself. It’s an honor to be able to smoke a Genuine (not counterfeit) Cuban cigar (especially a Cohiba) and is also a joy to share it with a friend. These will leave you extremely satisfied and they are well worth the price. I would say, if you don’t think you can afford it then sell a kidney and buy a box anyway. Life is too short not to enjoy satisfactions such as these. This was probably the second best cigar behind the one I will be reviewing next…so stay tuned!!
(BH) - GREAT cigar! Smooth and easy to smoke. It was a great way to start the year!

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Tequila

Triple Sec

Lime Juice

Sweet and Sour

Presbyterian (Press):

• hiball glass
• 1 oz liquor (house blend, vodka or bourbon)
• fill with 0.5 oz 7up and 0.5 oz club soda
• lemon twist

Do you have an emergency fund set up? What the hell do I mean by emergency fund you ask? I am talking about money set aside for the unexpected(hopefully in an high interest bearing savings account). Most people sadly will answer no to this question when it most definitely needs to be a resounding yes. Without at least a couple months worth of expenses put away, you are tempting fate to lash out at you and bring in some sort of high cost mandatory bill. You never know what may happen… your car might call it quits, you might be injured, you may be laid off, etc. What are you going to do when you need money in these instances without an emergency fund?

Most people turn to credit cards, and treat them as their emergency fund. This is also bad… very very bad. Credit cards have their uses, but never if you can not afford to pay them off. The reason credit card companies make as much as they do is because people get themselves trapped be it stupidity in use or sheer desperation when crisis(what we are discussing here). If you take out high interest debt when in a bad situation, it is probably only going to make things worse, so rather then do that… we are going to plan ahead to make sure that isn’t ever necessary.

How much do you need to spend a month? Mandatory expenses only(shelter, food, utilities, transportation) anything that can be cut without a second thought(cable tv, going out, coffee shops) in a crisis doesn’t really matter. Once you figure out that number you want to have that amount times four to eight months… wherever you feel comfortable. This number may be high, but it will be much much higher to use credit to deal with problems so we are going to work towards reaching this number as a goal.

Figure out how you can fund your account(anything will do cut back expenses, do online surveys, work overtime, part time job, whatever) and begin adding as much as you can a month until you reach your goal, there may be setbacks(those crisis’s we were talking about), but with money in the fund you will be able to handle them better and bounce back much quicker then if you had used debt.

About three weeks ago I decided I wanted to try out another peer to peer lending service. This time Lending Club would be the target of my investment dollars due to two factors. First off the minimum investment is the not to taxing sum of twenty five dollars and secondly you will receive a twenty five dollar sign up bounty with even just the minimum funding.

So as you can see we are getting a one hundred percent rate of return instantly upon successful funding! How could I refuse? How can anybody refuse? I decided to sign up under another member, rather then just go to the website myself because they also receive a twenty five dollar bounty for their referral of me. So not only am I getting free money, I get to help someone else get a little bit as well without any extra effort!

The applications to become a lender and create an account are short and simple. Creating the ability to lend to others is the easy part, funding it is also easy(link a bank account) but takes quite a while. After you have linked one of your bank accounts It must be verified, which takes some time. Once verified then the request for a money transfer may take place, which takes even more time. After about a week(10 days for me) you should have your twenty five dollar minimum in your new Lending Club account.

You will notice that it pretty much jumps up to fifty dollars instantly. At this point I withdrew my original twenty five dollars to be used for the next investment opportunity and left the “free” money in the account to play around with on a low credit risk loan. If you do as I did, you basically get a free twenty five dollars earnings interest you can forget about and then reinvest the principal you added in the first place to the next deal such as this.

If you are thinking of trying this, feel free to sign up under me…. any bounties I get due to referrals will be used to fund more low risk loans rather than cashed out.

Cigar Name: Helix X550 - Maduro
Purchase Price: $2.00(shipped)
Location of Purchase: JRCigars.
Beverage: Diet Coke.
Cigar Size: 5×50 .
Wrapper: Connecticut Broadleaf.
Binder: Honduran(Talanga Valley).
Filler: Brizilian Mata Fina, Dominican Piloto Cubano, and Mexican tobaccos.
Appearance: Dark brown with a shine from the oils.
Construction: Very firm, veins are hardly noticeable.
Aged: A year in well kept humidor.
Pre-Light Aroma: Wheatgrass.
Method of lighting: Pre cut method(10 inch match, flame tip just under cigar foot while rotating cigar, cut cigar after cigar is lit).
Method of Cutting: Large ring punch.
Burn: Even.
Problems: Cap was a little to thin and brittle, cracked a tad when punching..
Ash Color: Light gray.
Ash Structure: Smooth and solid.
Draw: Super easy drawn, large white clouds.
Strength: Medium.
Tasting Notes:

First Third: Sweet with chocolate and hints of nuts.

Second Third: Chocolate and sugar, with some wood mixed in… Awesome.

Finish: Sweet chocolate never ends, all the way to the nub even through the spices.

Overall Impression: Other have said it before but I will say it again… this is a quality cigar. Delicious every time. They are very consistent in their blends and they never stray too far away. The flavors are massive but not overpowering and the price point is excellent. It will probably run you four or five bucks locally, but wit hall the good input on this cigar all over the net you may as well just dive in a purchase a box. You will not regret it and your sticks will be seriously cheaper.

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