05August2005
Mushrooms, Prices and other oddities
(the picture is from Goodwin Park looking at the 2nd hole of the Goodwin Park golf course)

Well my daily routine so far is to get up at 7:00, take the dogs for a walk to Goodwin Park (across the street and north about a block), return to the house, take Rayne to work, make coffee and sit out on the back deck with the dogs for a few minutes.

Oddly almost every morning I have to walk the back yard with the dogs and pick between 5-10, 2-5 inch mushrooms and dispose of them. I say oddly because we're in the yard every day and it amazes me that a mushroom can grow so large overnight. No sign of them the day before but the next day "poof" and they're everywhere....

Prices
Gas here is supposedly expensive. The price is 2.35 for a US gallon, equivalent to 61c a liter US (or 71c/liter Canadian) that's cheap compared to Vancouver where we were getting close to 1.00/liter.

There are a number of grocery stores here that compete with each other. Each week we receive a bundle of flyers (Thursday) from the local newspaper (we don't get the paper just the flyers) with all of the grocery store flyers. Here's a list of some of the sale prices:

• Eggs 18 large - .99
• Rib Steak - 4.99/lb
• King Crab Legs - 7.99/lb (this is way cheaper than home and they have to bring them from Alaska!), must buy a 2lb bag, oh darn!
• Red Seedless Grapes - .99/lb
• Boneless/Skinless Chicken Breast - 1.99/lb (super cheap here)
• Fresh Peaches - .99/lb (from Georgia I expect)
  
  
• 30 pack of Beer - 11.99 (at 40c a piece it's good thing I can't drink it anymore)
• 12 good beer - 8.99 (Molson Golden)
• 12 fancy beer - 11.99 (Heineken)
  The preceding beer section was for my boys at home that think it might be expensive to fly here (think of all the money you'll save on beer!)

Now not all things are that inexpensive here. Rayne has yet to find a produce store anywhere near as cheap as the one she went to on Broadway. Things like peppers can be expensive. As well a phone call from a payphone will cost you 50c.

I stopped at the local gas station on my bike to put some air in the tires. I went to grab the hose and imagine my surprise when the air compressor had a coin slot for 75c in it! There was a guy there that saw my surprise and said he was from New York and it was only 25c there. I told him I was from Canada and it was free there adding "it's just air for Gods sake". He laughed and went on his way. Luckily there is a repair shop down the street that let me use their air for free.....

BTW, happy birthday to my sis Vonny and buddy John (happy 40th Johnny!)

ciao for now

Kevin