We're in a drought.  Everyone around here knows it.

Some restaurants have chosen to take good steps towards reducing their water usage.  For example, using plastic silverware, plastic cups, paper or styrofoam plates, etc.  Cut down on things that need to be washed and you cut down on water usage.  Not great for the landfills, but in a drought, it's far more important to reduce water usage.

But Charlie's Neighborhood and Grill took water conservancy one step too far.

They're refusing to server tap water, and instead are selling bottled water.   They're only charging a buck for a bottle of water, so it's not a huge profit but it's still profit over serving a glass of tap water for free.

But the fact is, they're still serving soda, tea, and coffee - all of which are made with tap water.  The water used for the soda is of course run through a filtering system but it's still water coming from a city water connection.

So why can I buy sweet tea but not a glass of water?

I know why.  Because if they started carrying bottled soda and bottled tea, their profits would decrease dramatically.  The markup on fountain drinks and things like iced tea and coffee is pretty high.

Don't give me water conservation as the reason, because if that's true, it's just plain stupid.

So our house is about 10 years old.  Builder grade carpeting has a life expectancy of about 5 years, and our carpet - especially the stuff in the living room downstairs - is dead dead dead.

My sister had her house recarpeted by Dalton Carpets a few years ago and said they did a pretty good job, so we gave them a call.  They have no showroom and no significant warehouse.  All the carpet is ordered from the factory, and they offer excellent prices for installed carpet.  We had been looking at Home Depot, but even given their relatively low $199 "whole house" installation, we're getting a MUCH nicer carpet and pad at a lower price.

Here's a sample of the Shangrila Palomino we're having put in.  It's a high density Frieze style carpet that should be very suitable for our high traffic living room.  And it won't show the dirt we track in either!

We're also carpeting Emily's room - even let her pick the color - she went with a Westn Hill "Electric Blue" carpet.  The clash with her 'disney princess pink" walls will be blinding so we're gonna get her room repainted pretty quickly!

We're also having Home Depot come out to measure on Thursday for doing hardwood on the stairway and second floor landing - that way we won't have carpet clash between Emily's room and the landing =)

• At Duke it takes two - One to change the light bulb, and one to write a study showing how they did it every bit as well as those Ivy League schools.
• At Carolina it takes three - one to change the bulb, and two to throw the old bulb at the Duke students.
• At Wake Forest it only takes one. The other 5 students are all busy doing other stuff.
• At North Carolina State it takes nine - three to demand that the bulb be fired even though it's still working, five to track incoming flights containing possible replacement bulbs, and one to change the bulb,
• At Maryland, they don't change bulbs because they think that's something Duke does.
• At Boston College, it takes one to change the bulb, and three to complain about how nobody in Boston cares.
• At Florida State, nobody really knows, but everyone praises Bobby Bowden for getting it done.
• At Miami, the students don't change light bulbs - the cubans do it while the students are down at south beach.
• At Georgia Tech, it only takes one, and he’ll not only change the light bulb but will figure out how to power most of metro Atlanta in the process.
• At Clemson, no one can confirm that they even have electricity.
• At Virginia, it takes 3 - one to change the light bulb, one to fashion the old light bulb into a bong and the third to score some really good shit.
• At Virginia Tech, it takes one - but only after football season is over.

It's pretty awesome.  Of course it's not in the CD databases yet so if you rip your copy you'll probably have to type in the track names and such.

I've scanned the covert art and such... if you'd like to borrow it for your own purposes, have at it!

Front Cover - my mom says he looks good with short hair!

More artwork after the click....