Saturday, September 8, 2012

No Reply Bloggers & Car Adventure

No Reply Bloggers make me sad because I can’t respond back.
“What is No Reply you ask? Well, if someone leaves a comment on any blog that comment goes to the email inbox of the recipient. When the blogger tries to respond back to the comment, the return email address says "No Reply" which equals "no email address, which equals "no reply back"  :(“  I stole this quote from Karen @ Sew Many Ways   Check out her blog. She has an awesome tab with Blogging tips and much much more. For instance besides blogging she loves to sew, quilt, decorate and shop in consignment stores. She has a craft/sewing room that I would love to have. But right now I guess I'll be content with sharing a tip on how to open the communication doors between commenter and blogger. ;o)

So if you click here  and it will take you to Karen's link that tells you how to fix  your “no reply” status.  Only I will see your email  address, it does not show up on the blog for everyone to see. For instance when I receive my notice that someone has left a comment and you happen to be a No Reply Blogger this is what I see…. Your Name noreply-comment@blogger.com which means I can’t respond back to you which makes me sad and you probably think I don’t care that you commented but I do I do! Honest.
Comments make me happy.

So go on check out. It won’t hurt and it takes  less than a minute to fix so go on do it now. I dare you. LOL

On to other news in the country life.
So David decided it was time to replace our 98 Ford Explorer.
He began searching for that new vehicle…. Well not New New but New to us. The Explorer was originally mine that I drove until Pamela turned 16. Then she drove it until she graduated from Texas A&M in 2010 when she got a new car and the Explorer was then passed  to her Dad. It’s been a great car and always dependable thanks to David being a stickler on a maintenance routine. He changed the oil every 5000 miles, checked the belts, and changed the tires when the time rolled around.
A few weeks ago David found a black Toyota 4Runner on Auto Trader, but it was in Beaumont. Couldn’t he find what wanted a little closer to home? Well I guess not so one Saturday morning after breakfast he says “I think I’m gonna go look at the car in Beaumont. Wanna go?” Of course I do and off we go. We hit a major wall of rain near Greenspoint.. hmm not a good sign but we continue on. The rain eased up as we rolled down the road.
We arrive. The car looks clean with minor dings and scratches but WHOA! When the salesman opened the car doors we almost pass out. Whoever owned this car was a MAJOR MAJOR smoker. Well we went ahead and took a quick test drive and by the time we got back to the dealership I had a headache from the smell and so did David. Did I tell you how bad it smelled? Other than that it was nice vehicle but the smell was killing the possible deal. So the saleman said they would try the OZONE machine to take out the smell and would give us a call in 3-4 days. 
Instead of heading back on I-10 and the Beltway David decides to take 105 back to our neck of the woods. It was actually a pleasant drive until we got just outside Conroe where three 18 wheelers were all over the road and spread out some distance apart. Not sure what happened but it had about a 1 mile section of 105 closed. Now what and where do we go? We sat there for a while but no movement so we made an executive decision to turn around and follow a line of cars that turned off on a side road. Surprise we did good and made a big loop around the accident and trucked on down the road. Well it was getting late and our tummies were growling but where and what to eat…. Hmmmm.
 We crossed under I-45 and continued into Montgomery we  decided to try out RANSOM SteakHouse and Saloon. Not only do you get to eat but you get to listen to Live music for free every Friday nite and some Saturdays. And that Saturday we got to listen to some good music. You could sit and just listen or you could get up and do a little 2 step.

I read other Ransom reviews on-line just before I posted this and was surprise that the few posted were basically bad in regards to food and service but music and atmosphere was great. The décor was rustic and country.. Our take on this restaurant was really good in fact David let the Manager know exactly that. Our waiter was very attentive and our food came out in a reasonable amount of time. We ordered Hot Wings as an appetitizer and oh boy they were Hot. I had ran out of water before the waiter got back to the table
but one of the managers popped up at the
table with
pitcher full of water. She saw the flames.  LOL.

I was only able to eat 3. But David was able to get a few more down and we still had a pile left to eat. Needless to say we took the rest home f.  
They didn’t scrimp on the serving portion at all. David had chicken fried steak and I had pork chops. I was able to eat one chop and brought the other chop home. We couldn’t complain at all. Nice portions, cooked just right and tasted really good. We even splurged and got dessert and that’s a rarity for us. We got Apple cobbler with ice cream. Aaaah Heaven.
Since I didn’t post right after we went I forgot the name of the band that was there that night but they were pretty good.
We’ll go back and try Ransom again..
So 4 days later the Beaumont dealership does call to say they got almost all of the smell out and did we want to come back to check it out. During that time David came across another vehicle. It was another Black Toyota 4Runner, a year older but with almost 18,000 less miles. Mmm sounds promising but guess where it is. Not the Houston area, again, it’s in Austin! Apparently  Toyota 4Runner’ V8’s are few and far in between.
Now what to do
·       Do we go back to Beaumont to check out the 2007 or do we go to Austin on Saturday to check out the 2006?
·       Or go to Beaumont Saturday and wait to go to Austin On Thursday when we’ll be there to celebrate our 34th wedding anniversary.
·       OR do go both places Saturday.
Oh woes is me the decisions. 
You’ll have to wait for my next post to see what we decided  and I’ll share news about my First Quilt Guild Quilt Retreat. Yep I was a Quilt Retreat Virgin. LOL
Until next post…………Count your blessings, stitch them one by one.
Y'all come back now Ya hear.


8 comments:

Kathryn said...

Carla, we had the exact same problem when we bought our "new" 2008 Expedition. Major smoker had it which was probably why the price was so low. We found some stuff at Amazon that you activate inside the car and leave it closed up 12 hours. It worked and our car no longer smells like an ashtray!

Linda said...

What a great post!!! I agree with you about the No Reply problem. I often wondered if they even KNEW they were no reply! And word verification - UGH!!!

Can't wait to hear your next blog!!!!

Kathryn said...

We had the exact same problem when we bought our 2008 Expedition. We got some stuff from Amazon that you activate inside the closed car and leave it to work overnight. Voila! No more ashtray smell.

Betty said...

Thanks Carla. Went and checked that little box. See if my email is there now!!!

Betty

PS - We have a 2006 Eddie Bauer Explorer, 60k miles with pretty much new everything we are selling pretty soon.

Anonymous said...

I've been browsing online more than 3 hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. It is pretty worth enough for me. In my opinion, if all web owners and bloggers made good content as you did, the web will be a lot more useful than ever before.
Visit my homepage - selling your car

Deb said...

it is a shock isn't it when you run into that horrible odor...now that smoking has been banned in so many places...good luck on your car find...It makes me sad too on the No reply...I would like to answer so many but never get the chance...

Anonymous said...

Do you people have a facebook fan page? I searched for one on facebook or twitter but could not discover one, I'd really like to become a fan!

Anonymous said...

It took me time to learn all the comments, but I honestly loved the blog. It proved to be very advantageous to me and I'm positive to all of the followers here!