Dr Saxe

Pawn Shopping Down Texas Way

A good old family friend moved to Dallas, TX a few years back and is enjoying his life down that a way. He has always been into antiques and collectibles and is doing well with that there as well. It was hard at first not knowing any one and not having any connections but he has stuck it out and seems to be doing just fine.

It seems that he goes to some Dallas Pawn Shops and finds some good treasures that people have had to pawn in these economically challenged times. It sucks to profit off of another’s loss, but you gotta do what you gotta do to get by and he is doing just that.  A lot of dealers like him get their merchandise from Thrift Stores, yard sales or Estate Sales, but not too many frequent the Pawn Shops.

Now Texas is one big state and he is doing some traveling during his down time. He plans on hitting some of the Austin Pawn Shops as well as the Houston Pawn Shops that he runs across during his travels. Sounds like fun. I wish him well and one day I’ll be able to go down and visit him.

Communication Issues

Anyone who has the opportunity to learn another language would be smart to take advantage of this education. We are becoming a population that is so diverse that communication is becoming a big issue and not one to take lightly. To be able to understand and to be able to translate is a wonderful power these days. Businesses are looking for people that are multi lingual, being able to converse with your customer is a big deal and rightfully so.

There are cuts being made in our schools. Foreign language teachers are being laid off, along with the art and music teachers, which should be of concern to all of us. We need our students to learn languages to use in the future in the business world. A translator can earn big bucks these days and are becoming in high demand as the years go by.

There are translation services popping up everywhere, online and off, and they are doing very well. They are always looking for people to hire that can speak other languages and not just Spanish, although we have a huge amount of Spanish speaking people in our country these days. German, Japanese, Chinese, French, Vietnamese and countless other languages are in demand as well.

Some Good Old Fashioned Camping Is In Order

With such great weather for the next few days it has brought on a craving to be spending time Outdoors. Some Camping and Hiking sounds like a great idea, but I’m sure that the ground is still a bit frozen from the harsh coldness and all the snow that has been so abundant for the past several months. But the real Spring season should be rolling around pretty soon and I’d like to get out the Sleeping Bags and Tents out and take a weekend to do some good old fashioned camping with some good friends.

If I need to pick up any item that might be needed that I can’t seem to find I can always go online and pick up some sweet deals on the Internet. There are plenty of good deals to be found these days. Companies are hurting for business, big time, so prices are dropping in order to make any type of sale.

I do believe that when the weather breaks and we get out of this dark cold winter, people’s spirits will start rising. It’s been a rough winter and with the economy not showing any signs of improving there are a tremendous amount of very unhappy folks out there. I can only hope that spring will help us all out. Travel and Outdoor Fun can do wonders for a body.

Dinner & a Movie

Since we knew more snow was on the way today, last night I took a gal to dinner and then to the movies. She wanted to see Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief that just came out in the theaters on Friday. We went to the Olive Garden and had a good meal and a few glasses of some good wine before heading to the movies. I had no idea that the movies were going to be so crowded, we ended up having a hard time finding two seats together and ended up having to sit in the second row, which is hard on my eyes and my neck. But it was a good movie, my date was happy and for the most part the evening was a success.

Neighbors

I grew up in a wonderful house in a wonderful neighborhood, my parents still live at the house that all of us kids all grew up in and one day (when my parents have left this world) I’ll most likely be living there myself. My father has put a lot of blood sweat and tears into the place and I’d be proud to take over where he leaves off. The backyard is spectacular, my parents and their friends and neighbors still enjoy spending time back there all year round.

My father and the neighbor next door took a lot of time looking into garden arbors back in the 90’s and both decided that they could build bigger and better wood gazebos then what was available for sale at that time back then. My dad’s gazebo is still standing strong, while the neighbor’s has been long gone, a vegetable garden taking up the room that once held one of the nicer gazebos in the whole neighborhood. Both of the beautiful arbors are still in place though. Oh well nothing good lasts forever as they say.

Our long time neighbor has just placed a “For Sale” sign on his house. They are heading south to the Carolina’s, looking for better weather to live their golden years out in. People are heading more and more to the Carolina’s to retire in, I guess Florida has reached it’s limit of seniors, so it is either out west to New Mexico and/or Arizona or down south to North or South Carolina.

We will miss our long time friends and neighbors and we can only hope that our new neighbors are friendly folks that we can get to know. It makes such a big difference if you can get along with your neighbors, we have always been lucky in that way at the old homestead.