3-12-11 Saturday (Retail Pimps)

Several days ago Jim redeemed our Discover points for $150 in Sears gift cards… those arrived late this week. 

Above: Aren’t they pretty?

I hopped online to Sears to order the camera I want.  I hadn’t realized this prior (until I was placing the order) but the camera isn’t actually sold by Sears but rather an affiliate company.  I had no idea that Sears was a retail website pimp that probably gets a piece of the action from various companies.  I was still able to use my gift cards though.

I only found that out because I entered a free shipping code and it was rejected because the item wasn’t being shipped by Sears.  I called Sears… well I had them call me via that cool feature I used when I needed tires.  I asked customer service if any of the stores carried the item.  Nope.  Oh well, I’ll have it in 952 days.  OK, just 10.

We started our day with breakfast at Friendly’s in Huntersville.  We haven’t been to a Friendly’s in years.  We had one in Fort Myers, FL years ago but it closed down.  Our breakfast was good but I was surprised at the lack of creativity in their breakfast menu.  It was just one page.  The other page had things like:

This page featured dessert-type dishes like chocolate chip pancakes and Caramel Cinnamon Swirl French Toast.  So it’s cinnamon rolls made into French Toast but then they add ice cream.  We don’t want ice cream for breakfast.  Friendly’s has missed the mark on this dish.  We ordered “normal” breakfast dishes from their fantastically boring breakfast menu.  Our server was fantastic.  I need to remember to fill out a survey.

For most of the day we tended to the RV batteries and tires.  Last week we got them charged but the auto parts store didn’t really know how to properly test them so we went to a Batteries Plus.  The coach (house) batteries (takes 2) were dead and the engine battery was OK.  We had to buy 2 batteries X $99.

While Jim installed the new batteries, this broke, then that broke.  We went to the parts store and Walmart several times.

 

Jim suggested dinner in Charlotte’s South End neighborhood at The Liberty.  Previously in the week, Jim bought a couple of Groupons, $20 for $40 of food.  I liked the ambiance of this place.  The website distorts the main photo and the picture lighting doesn’t related to the light level in the restaurant.  We have another Groupon so we will be returning.  I had a pork chop dish and Jim had a steak dish.  Jim said the steak, which the cut of meat was not disclosed on the menu, was tough.  My pork chop was good but sometimes I got a bite with too much char on it.

We drove over to Dilworth to stroll the art walk.  Jim had the times wrong so we actually missed it.  That’s OK, we still enjoyed the walk.

I’ve been wanting to post all the “funny and strange” photos we’ve taken along the RVing trip, but I’d always forget or put it off.  I finally did it.  I uploaded 409 of them to Facebook albums and then tediously looked up the dates and created captions if I thought it needed one.  It took me many hours but here’s the finished result if you’d like to see.  Facebook automatically split them into two albums.  You do NOT need to have a Facebook account to see the photos.  Here’s Album #1 and album #2.

I leave you with this picture.  Any time I go into the bedroom before I shower, Dasher assumes he might get a bath and hauls ass.  In this case, he went downstairs and cuddled with Clea.  Oh, and by the way, he did get a bath today.