The entrepreneurial spirit is not dead! Yet!

I stopped, recently, at a booth located in from of the Country Mart in Forsyth and bought a cross from a young lady who had informed me that God had saved her from a life of drug addition!

It's good to see that the entrepreneurial spirit has not been completely destroyed by our government. At least not yet!

Charlie's egg, hash brown and toast breakfast!

A good, nutritional breakfast starts any day off on the right foot. Today, I stopped at a local eatery for just such a meal!

Charlie's Steak-Ribs and Ale is located in Forsyth Missouri on Highway 160 just across from City Hall. They serve up a full menu breakfast including their menu item #1 selection, aka eggs, hash browns and toast. At just $3.49 (effective price as of this post), I feel this is a real meal deal.

Service at this establishment is brisk and professional. I love the relaxed ambiance and how clean everything is. Charlie's also features a full service bar, takeouts as well as lunch and dinner service. You can reach them at (417) 546-2011.

One word of caution: If you order anything other than scrambled eggs, they will hit you with a fifty cent extra charge! That's a 14% increase in the cost of this meal!

Auto detailing available in Forsyth area!

There's a young man here in the Forsyth Missouri area, by the name of Matt Lynch, who is advertising auto detaining work that he can perform. The work includes such items as a car wash, interior vacuum and windows among other services. Matt can also perform oil changes,fluid inspections, power washing of boats, home siding or driveways.

Anyone interested in this form of service can reach him by calling 636-388-2477 during regular business hours!

Troubled bridge over Bull Shoals!

Just this morning (January the 28^th) on Hwy 76 as you cross the Bull Shoals bridge near Forsyth Missouri, there is a lit sign advertising a meeting at the local High School concerning the 'Bridge Project' to be held Tuesday, February the 4th at 5PM. Interestingly, no one at the local Bridge and Planning office seemed to know anything about it. I then contacted MoDot in Springfield at (417) 895-7600 and was told by the person who answered that they also had no idea of who erected the sign, but that they would get back to me.

Jann Clark of the Taney Country Times was the only person I contacted who seemed to know what

was going on. Yes, evidently a District Manager (Modot?) would be available to answer questions at the school cafeteria on that date presumably concerning some of the impacts that would result as part of the extensive renovation efforts that could see the bridge closed down for many months.

Fortunately, an article published, last Tuesday, in the Branson Tri-Lakes News on January the 21^st went into better detail as to some of the particulars concerning this effort. The bottom line seems to be that Mo-Dot is just beginning to look at the entire project, slated for 2017, and may even elect to push it back in time if needed.

Update: I'm not sure who I heard this from, but a person I know that went to the Bridge Project meeting held at the Forsyth High School on February the 11^th told me that one idea was to just leave the old bridge standing even after a new one is built. The old bridge could then be used exclusively for foot and bicycle traffic for pedestrians. I like that!

Empire Electric and a two hour plus outage!

At least the outage was in the wee hours of the morning!

I just have to give it up for Empire Electric. They win the outage race hands down! I've lived for decades in other locations and could count the power outages on one half of one hand. Living here, in Forsyth Missouri, it's like living in the Wild West! 'You just never know when that pesky old sub station will up and quite on you'! Dag nab-bit!

And so it was during the morning hours of October 31, 2013 that the power went out yet again... this time for over two hours! Was it a sub station problem? I don't know. Empire doesn't make it a point to let its customer base know what's going on, unless there is another rate hike in the offing, that is...

Well, perhaps this state of affairs won't last much longer. I'm sure that Obama and Hilliary are even now looking at a National Power Bureau that will allow for our government not only to be a single payer entity for healthcare, but which will also allow them to become your only source for power. What a wonderful world we are living in....

Empire Electric rates up 7% for 2013-14 winter season!

Along with rising food prices, you can now figure in a 7% rate increase to about 149K customers by Empire Electric partially due the fact that they did not bother to get full insurance for that twister that hit Branson in May of 2011, and courtesy of the EPA who raised the mercury standard for coal fired plants (more of these increases yet to come on the heels of Obama's pending carbon tax). But wait! there's more! Look for another rate increase in October of 2014.

Here's the nitty gritty of figuring your bill for the winter season (Nov thru Jun):

Old rate: 0.1070 cents for the first 600 kWh and then a rate of 0.0871 cents for anything above that. 

New Rate: 0.1149 and 0.0934 cents respectively.

They also levy a surcharge of $12.52 per month on top of that! Oh, and White Rive has also....

"White River Valley Electric Cooperative, which also provides service to Tri-Lakes Area customers, increased its rates effective March 1. That increase of approximately 9 percent totaled an average of $10 per month for residential customers. It last increased its rates 8 percent in April 2009, a year after a 17 percent hike." [Source: Branson TriLakes News]

 

Only a penny more tax at McDonald's? So, why am I gripping?

Click on this picture to enlarge

Just recently, I had occasion to stop at a local McDonald's for lunch where I ordered a cheeseburger and a medium fry. I'd stopped there and ordered the same thing back in mid September, but what to my surprise, the cost was a penny in tax more! Now, I know that in a world of trillion dollar deficits, where no one cares about a single penny, this might not mean much! But, maybe that's exactly the problem with those who rule over us – maybe it no longer cares about the pennies or the dollars or the billions of dollars of tax payer money that is unaccounted for each day! So, I wondered what gives? Was this a mistake? Was it a rounding error. Was a new tax being applied, and if so, by whom?

I contacted McDonald's Corporate to ask them for clarification, but have not heard back yet. If I do, I post their response, if I don't I'll post that too.

Update: A friend named Josh Smith informed me that the 1 cent tax was one the citizens approved in a ballot to help support the fire departments. Well, that actually good to hear. No maybe they won't have to stand around at street intersections begging for money....