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Last night our friend Enoch introduced us to Hazel's Drive-In in Antioch. It was one of the most enjoyable dining experiences I've had in a while. It's a tiny hamburger place (six tables) in an ugly part of Antioch that I would have never found on my own. It was founded in 1947 and the popular thing to do is to try to eat their Willy Burger which is as big as a plate (the record for eating one is about 30 minutes). A group of construction workers all ordered Willy Burgers and when the food arrived they were amazed and had their pictures taken holding the burgers while people at other tables looked on in astonishment.

I had a Hazel Burger which has two patties and is still probably less than half the size of the Willy Burger. The Hazel Burger looks exactly like a Big Mac but tastes a lot better. I actually wonder who came out with that burger first. Even though McDonald's was founded in 1940 they didn't come out with the Big Mac until 1968. I'll have to do some follow-up reporting...

Another great thing about the place is they have awesome milkshakes. There are about 12 flavors to choose from and you can mix them however you want.

Jace was there with us and enjoying the food. He ate the last half of Samantha's burger and then ate the last third of mine. He also drank most of Samantha's milkshake (his favorite food item). Then he saw a gum ball machine and started pointing at it. He probably thought they were rubber balls because we always give him a quarter to get a rubber ball if we encounter one of those machines. I knew the gum ball was too big for him to eat so I had to say "no". Then he said "can I have money?" He had never said that before and I didn't know he knew what money was. I guess I will be hearing that phrase for the next 18-28 years... The waitress overheard and she gave him a lollipop (his second favorite food item) which made him happy. Needless to say he stayed up until 10 PM last night.

Since Christmas is coming up and there are a lot of gifts to get others (and myself) I decided to get rid of all the extra junk in the house to make some extra money.

The first category of junk are the items that aren't worth the effort to sell but since I hate throwing things away I have to give them away. I put the following items up on Craigslist for free and they were all claimed within 24 hours!

• 3 ancient laptops (probably couldn't even run Windows 95)
• slightly rusted Weber charcoal grill
• 2 barely working hand held carpet cleaners
• a papasan chair with a broken frame
• cordless phone with digital answering machine (missing power cord)
• ancient ironing board from the '70s

They were all claimed without incident except for the answering machine. A lady emailed me that she wanted to pick it up but that her husband died (she described the circumstances of his death in three long paragraphs) and she had to wait for a friend to drive her. Then she proceeded to forward me several random emails from her friends that had jokes and random pictures on them. I think she didn't know how to reply to my email or create a new email so she thought she had to forward an email to me in order to communicate with me. I told her she can pick up the phone on my porch. I don't want to get trapped in a conversation with her.

The other category of items I wanted to get rid of were worth something so I sold them on eBay. The first few transactions went OK but then when I sold Samantha's old cell phone the buyer said the box arrived but that there was no cell phone or power supply in the box. At first I thought he was trying to scam me which made me mad but then I saw that he had a 100% feedback rating with over 350 purchases/sales. So then I called the UPS Store and the owner said she wasn't surprised and that it's common for UPS employees to take things from boxes. She said that since I shipped the cell phone in its original cell phone box that made it a tempting target for an employee. The good thing is that even though I only sold the phone for $35 or so on eBay UPS will pay me what it is worth new up to $100! So, I ended up making a decent amount of money on the deal. It's good to know that UPS has free insurance up to $100.

So, I've earned some spending money and I can now see the floor of my office so I'd say it all turned out OK.

For some reason this year I'm really interested in all the Black Friday ads. This one seems to be the best so far. Get a pretty decent laptop for $100 (after rebates and signing up for Vonage). The rebates seem like they are instant and as for Vonage, I've had it for a while and I love it and it should save you money on your phone bill.