Redbox for free?

I saw a pin on Pinterest that said you could get free movies at Redbox so I thought I'd re-post it here.  These are the codes that always work at any kiosk, you can use them once for each credit or debit card you have:

DVDONME
BREAKROOM
REDBOX

And then these ones work at specific kiosks:

DVDATWAG (at walgreens)
DVDATKROG (at any kroger's store, which in Colorado would be King Soopers)
DVDATSONI (at Sonic drive in)

And once you've used all of those, log on to this page: redbox codes and go down a screen and a half or so and you'll see a list of the current free movie codes.  Some of the ones listed there will be the ones above, but there will also be some newer ones, ones that are time sensitive.  At any rate, they're worth a try.  All of the codes are good for one movie, one night.  If you forget to return a movie, you have to pay for the second night, of course.  There's also a place to sign up for a newsletter if you want to, but you don't have to in order to be able to use the codes.  (And if you have a better phone than I have, you can always check for those recent codes right from the kiosk.)

Anyway, hope this helps someone.  :)

Sometimes you can't tell...

Sometimes you can't tell when you get a whim and when it's a prompting.  At my job I do a LOT of event planning.  It involves making sure there's a nice room available for various programs and meals, audio visual equipment set up, making sure lecturers have all their handouts available, having spares of everything, and most of all, making sure all the catering is perfect.  I have my choice of caterers, and I have my favorites.  For lots of events I use the hospital caterer, they do a great job and they're reasonably priced.  But for special events I use Katharine's French Bakery.  They have a way of combining some really simple ingredients into delectable (but still simple) meals.  But it's not just the food, it's the really exceptional service.  Most of the time they send a man named Luis who bends over backwads to make sure everything is EXACTLY the way I want it.  And although I know I am not a difficult customer, I am no pushover.  The nice thing is, when Luis is there I know that he will be as fussy as I am when it comes to presentation, freshness, quality, and timliness; I don't have to worry because he does an outstanding job.  And on the occasions that I've gone to a location and found that someone has removed the tables that were set up, if Luis has shown up I find that he has scoured the area and found replacement tables.  Not bad considering he's not even a University employee.  But he knows what I like and he knows what good service is.

Anyway, all of this is just to say that the man has really impressed me and I've enjoyed working with him.  Well, last week I found out that he and his wife are expecting their first baby, and I had a fairly strong feeling that it would be a good thing to make them a small baby afghan. Like my title says, sometimes you can't tell if a strong feeling is just a whim or if it's a prompting, but what the heck.  I'd like to give it to him as a token of my gratitude for his hard work (and thankfully I am authorized to tip pretty generously with my company card when I pay the invoice, too.)  But we've also had a chance to chat quite a bit over the last seven or eight months as he's been the caterer that I've worked with for all of the fancier events I've planned, and I know he doesn't have a lot of extended family nearby.  I think every baby should have at least a couple of hand-made items to snuggle with, so since I had some leftover yarn this afghan was pretty quick to stitch up.  I hope they enjoy it.  My next event where I'll see him is at the end of the month, about a week and a half before their baby boy is born.

New afghan and an unrelated stupid question...

I used to take pictures of all the afghans I made and email them to myself, where I would save them in a folder in my email.  Then along came some stupid hacker who decided that it wasn't enough to just LOOK at my folder, he or she ERASED all of my personal folders.  Now I don't have any, I figured that creating anything personal was an invitation to whomever it was to come back and look for something to make a quick buck.  I had one folder named "accounts" which I'm sure the hacker thought would get him or her all kinds of riches, but it was actually just links to my favorite soap opera and Disney blogs, with my log in names.  Big whoop, I hope they've enjoyed catching up on All My Children.

Anyway, one thing that I regret is having the folder erased that had the photos of all of my afghans in it.  (Thankfully all of the photos of my grandkids had already been transferred to my little slide show here, and all of the recipes had been moved to my cookbook blog.)   So I figured that when I finished an afghan meant as a gift, meaning that it isn't likely I'll ever see it again, I'll try to remember to post a picture of it here so that I can remember what it looked like.  Especially if it's something I kind of made up or made some pretty drastic adaptations to from the original pattern.  That way when I find something that works I won't forget all about it.

This afghan is one I finished today for a woman at work who just returned from maternity leave.  It's actually the third I've made for work ladies, but one of the others was identical to the ones I've made for Jack and Isaac, except it was pink and white (theirs were blue and white and peach and white, respectively) so not having a picture of it isn't a great loss.  Unfortunately, the other was very pretty and difficult enough that it's not likely I'll do it again, so it would have been nice if I'd taken a snapshot of it.  Oh well, live and learn.

This afghan is made by creating a mesh of double crochet/chain stitch, and then weaving a doubled-over length of contrasting yarn through the mesh when you're finished.  There were actually two versions that I found patterns for, in one the yarn was single crocheted through the net but I found it was puckering the afghan way too much.  the other was just weaving the yarn through "basket weave" style, but I found it was too loose and fragile, a baby would pull that out with no effort and destroy the afghan.  I ended up doing a stitch of my own creation, sort of "sewing" the contrasting threads into place.  I was pretty satisfied with the results.

Anyway, the original also had fringe, which I think would be just irritating to a baby, so I did a border with a little texture but no frou-frou (boy baby.)  It's not a huge afghan, only about a square yard, so that it can easily be used in a car seat or stroller without getting in the way.

And now for the unrelated stupid question.  While I am crocheting I usually wear my "cheaters."  (store-bought glasses, not prescription.  My eyes aren't bad enough to need a prescription, but for close work I need a little magnification.)  Why is it that these stupid things get dirty?  Do my eyeballs sweat, for pete's sake?  I mean, the smudges aren't finger-shaped.  But every now and again I think, "Man, I must be going blind, I can hardly see a thing."  Then I'll have a brainstorm and take off my cheaters, look at the light through them, and they're COMPLETELY covered with foggy greasiness.  Where does that come from?  Are my eyes steaming out oil?  I mean, HOLY COW!  The glasses get FILTHY!  How does this happen?  You folks who wear glasses all the time, you must have theories.  Where does the glop on glasses come from?  I swear, I always through that eyes were fairly clean and that disgusting things only came from noses.  But now I think maybe eyes have their own brand of boogers.

And that's all I have to say about that.