Starbucks Via Reviewed

Starbucks has gotten into the instant coffee business with a new product they're calling "Via". You buy Via at Starbucks stores. I'm not sure if it's available at grocery stores. It comes in cardboard sleeves of three Via 8 ounce via servings. The cost was $2.95, or about a buck cup.

I had read that Via tasted exactly like fresh brewed Starbucks, so I put it to the test. I boiled water in a tea kettle and poured exactly eight ounces over the contents of a sleeve of Via in a coffee mug. It did smell and look like fresh brewed Starbucks, but the taste wasn't exactly right. Not bad, mind you, just not the same as fresh brewed.

I suppose Via is a reasonable instant coffee option, but at a buck a cup, it's still out-of-this-world expensive compared to other available instant coffee, which only costs pennies a cup.

Payout For Realz!

Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Clause. And yes, Robert did really send Mullins the two dollars for winning the change-estimation challenge, as evidenced by this photo:

Tech Decks FSU!

In Tallahassee...finally! First win ever for the Jackets down there.



Virginia Tech will surely throw a much better defense at Tech next week...



Go Jackets!

Clouds Coming Back

I actually spied these clouds at sunrise early one morning back in late August. One of my better snaps I thought.

Häagen-Daz Five

Dad talks about the declining quality of Ben & Jerry's, and I have observed many questionable ingredients in dairy desert products on the market that can't even legally be called "ice cream". It seems Häagan-Daz has made a similar observation, and has presented an answer to the problem in the form of Häagen-Daz Five. It's an all natural ice cream that only has five ingredients. We tried the brown sugar flavor and found it to be excellent. Sometimes, simpler is better. Other flavors I saw, but have not tried, include chocolate, vanilla, coffee, and ginger.

New York Yankee's Pizza

Erin is very excited that the baseball playoffs are here. As you may know, she's a huge New York Yankees fan. She's fired up to cheer the Yanks on against the Twins, and hopefully beyond. Since she was so excited for game one tonight, I decided to make her a special New York pizza.

The pie features a big NY made out of Erin's favorite pizza topping, cream cheese. I also copied Pizza Hut's latest trick and put a "ring of cheese" just in front of the edge of the crust. Below you can see the special New York pizza pre-bake, and post-bake.

Spider Man Scooter

Jack received a hand me down scooter from his friend Brandon and really enjoys taking it for a spin. It is actually pretty hard to ride - that 2nd wheel in the back doesn't really allow for any tipping.


Must concentrate! The chicken helmet certainly helps though.


A scooter today...a Honda 50 tomorrow!

Depot Baby

Jack started his Saturday with his friend Brandon at McDonalds. After sampling the Deluxe Big Breakfast and playing on the play structure we head to Home Depot for the monthly Kids Workshop for kids.

Turns out this is a pretty neat program Home Depot runs. Think back to the days of Cub Day camp to the handicraft class. Anyway, we stopped in and Jack received his apron and firehouse bank kit and we were off.

Twenty minutes later we had finished his bank, Jack had gotten to try and hammer a few nails and there was only one minor accident - when he sticked his fingers between a nail and the hammer I was swinging. Jack and Brandon were proud of their work.


Afterwards, we went and met a police officer (Octber is kids safety monthy) and the kids got to play in a police car. Unfortunately, they seemed to prefer the back seat to the front!

Bud Light Wheat Reviewed

A month or so ago, I saw new Bud Light Wheat advertised in a magazine. I've been anxious to try it, and finally saw it in the grocery store.


I let my pal Mullins do a Tangeman Family Blog guest video review of the product:

Fighter jets fly over Husker game.

I was at the Husker vs. Louisiana Lafayette football game last week and caught these supersonic jets flying over with my cell phone video cam.

Good Bridge Hand

I have been playing bridge for 55 years and this is the best hand I ever had. Dealer sat to my right and passed. My partner was a little weak at slam bidding, so I just opened 6 diamonds. That passed out, and it made seven.


Clubs............ A
Diamonds..... A K Q x x x
Hearts.......... A
Spades.......... A K Q 10 x

"How Much Cash??? Trivia Contest - Winner Announced

And the winner of the $2 Bill...

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AARON MULLINS WINS!!! though he was still ~$150 too low

Mullins - send me your address and expect a crisp $2 bill in the mail.

Jack - A School Glimpse

Here are a few pictures of Jack that his teachers took at school. He isn't the greatest of sleepers there they say because he wants to make sure he isn't left out of any action. They try to wrap him like a burrito in his blanket and think that helps him sleep.






Here's a snap of him enjoying a muffin top - look closely and you can see the other kids in the background sleeping.


We recently had a playdate for Jack with one of his best friends from school - Jacob. They had a blast together.

Warm and Humid in Arkansas

Summer Spin

It's been a while since we got a new video up...so here you go... I'm trying some new editing software by Corel so expect things to be a little basic while I learn it.



As a teaser for the next video - expect a preview of Jack's Halloween costume!

And don't forget the trivia contest below...2 responses is pathetic!!!

How Much Cash??? Trivia Contest - Expires 09/30/09

I recently took the coin jar under the sink to the Coinstar coin counter. They offered commission free counting so long as you took your cash in the form of an Amazon gift card - which is nearly as good as cash for an online shopper.

Anyway here's the jar... Guess how much was in it?



Post your guess in the comments section...winner will receive a fresh $2 mailed to them.

Go Blue Baby!

Jack's spent football Saturday rooting for Michigan.... and it worked. Night Night Irish!

KFC - Continues Setting New Lows in Fast Food

This blog enjoys blasting poor fast food and KFC somehow manages to get more than its fair share.

We recently went to sit near some simulated chicken at KFC (recalling a previous post)

As I was sitting near the "chicken" I thought I'd enjoy a biscuit or two. I must admit I've always enjoyed the KFC biscuit. I went up and asked for some honey and received "Honey Sauce"

Obviously - when you see honey sauce the first, most obvious, realization is that this isn't honey. In fact it is 11% honey as you can see.

What makes up the rest of this "sauce"? Basically High Fructose Corn Syrup and Sugar along with some coloring. Pretty sad all in all. I recommend getting the biscuits to go and just missing the opportunity to sit near the chicken altogether.

Burger Review Time

There's a host of new burgers out there now. One cool commercial advertises the Big Carl - from Carl's Jr.



I tried one of these today and agree that it rates well above the Big Mac. I'll rate it 4 / 5 on the fast food burger scoring chart.



This isn't quite the best of the new burger available however. McDonald's gets revenge with the new Angus Burger. This is an impressive burger for McDonald's and in my opinion is the best new burger out there. Rates up there with Jack In The Box's $6 Burgers.

I had the Bacon and Cheese version of the burger in the Chicago airport earlier this summer.



P.S. The observant blog readers will note that this post was published exactly at 09/09/09 at 09:09

Is that Yuki?

I friend of mine emailed the following picture to me under the assumption that my dog Yuki was featured.

No, it's not Yuki, but I see why my friend thought it might be. You see so few Border Collie / Blue Heeler mixes (Border Heelers) that they really stand out when you do. The picture does give me some ideas for Yuki's Halloween costume though.

Jack's First Haircut

Now that he's a bit over two Jack was overdue for his first haircuit. We took him to the nearby Great Clips, handed over our $11 and crossed our fingers. How would the little Flapjack do sitting in the chair? We talked to him about it so he knew what was going to happen. He scowled a bit and turned to watch me get a haircut quite a bit but did great all in all.

Here's a nice mirror shot Steph took.

Oreo Brownie

Oreo Brownie is an odd product. Lift the package and feel the weight. It's heavier than you would expect. It's dense, more like a homemade brownie than most packaged brownies. It has more of a dark chocolate flavor than I would have expected, and a lot fewer Oreo pieces than I thought it would. It's a good brownie, especially at the 99¢ introductory promotion price. Any higher and you'd probably be better off baking your own from a mix.

Time Out!

Jack's gotten to the point where his behavior sometimes warrants a "time-out". The problem we are now facing is he actually seems to relish the time-out as an opportunity to settle down. Not sure if this is good or bad to be honest??? Sometimes when he feels he's done something bad he says "I need time out"

Here he is in time-out.




A few minutes later, with a visitor!

The Moscow Mule

I had a Moscow Mule earlier this Summer, and found it to be a fantastic warm weather drink. That's because the copper mug makes holding and sipping the drink an icy cold experience. I liked the Mule so much that I sought out its unusual ingredients so that I could make the drink at home. The Moscow Mule contains a jigger of good vodka, the juice of one half of a lime, six ounces of ginger beer (not ginger ale), and ice. It must be prepared and served in a copper mug.

Delicious, refreshing, and lip-numbing cold!

College Football Kicks Off!

Go Jackets and Go Blue!


The flags above Jack's swing set!

The 2009 California State Fair - with the bear!

We took Jack to the state fair this morning... The theme of the fair this year is Weird, Wild & Wacky - though this special flag puts wonderful in the mix as well.

One of the feature performers at this year's fair is MC Hammer. Sadly for MC - more folks seemed to be turning up looking to name the baby mule than to hear him perform.



Our highlights included the animal exhibits including the petting zoo which featured a Kangaroo! (or at least a marsupial of sorts). Jack also had got into an arguement with a llama!


And here's a snap of his new kangaroo friend.

The food at the fair is probably worthy of a whole different blog post but the summary would go something like this: expensive and fried. We had one of the famous cinnamon rolls and a big pickle!

All in all it was a fun morning at the fair with the bear...

Hurry up Fall!

We've had our typical hot stretches this summer though all in all it hasn't been horrible. I happened to have the camera in the car and snapped a couple of snaps on a scorcher. I'm posting the 107 (may need to click to see). The 109 degree picture taken the same afternoon didn't come out quite as well. Happy that Fall is nearly upon us!

Rocket Fizz

A new soda shop opened up in our neighborhood called Rocket Fizz. They carry almost 500 kinds of bottled sodas and more than 50 kinds of root beer.

I had a nice discussion with the owner about the important differences between ginger ale, ginger beer, and ginger brew.

I walked away with three interesting sodas to try. Filbert's Banana Soda, Leninade, described as a surprisingly satisfying simple Soviet style soda, and Judge Wapner Root Beer.

The tag line on the Judge Wapner's Root Beer is, "I sentence you to drink my root beer." The Leninade bottle has a number of interesting slogans, including: "Get hammered & sickled!", "A taste worth standing in line for!", "Drink Comrade! Drink! It's this or the gulag!", "Beware the repressed Communist party animal who is really a proletarian in denial masquerading as a bourgeois cold war monger!", "A party in every bottle!", "Misha, chill down this bottle & chill out!", and "Our 5-year plan: Drink a bottle a day for five years and become a Hero of Socialist Flavor."

Three Ts and a Lolly

Jack with Uncle Bill and Dad on Bill and Erin's recent trip.



He also enjoyed his first lollipop ever the same evening and seemed to enjoy it.

When a Dollar is Worth More Than a Dollar

Jack and I had a pretty cool thing happen to us this morning. We took one of our monthly trips to Home Depot and as we were holding hands walking towards the entrance we saw a big truck in the loading area. Jack was somewhat excited about the truck. An older man in the driver's seat of the truck was clearly amused with Jack and as we approached he mentioned several times how cute Jack looked.

He then asked if he could give Jack a golden dollar for his savings. I was a bit confused at first as he jumped out of the truck, dug out a presidential dollar and presented it to Jack.

Jack carried the dollar around all morning and seemed to be quite proud of it. We'll put it in his piggy bank tomorrow.

Pretty neat experience all around.

Good Taste in Tractors

On a recent trip to Home Depot Jack wanted to sit on the "green" tractor. He could do much worse!