Burger-a-week – Lacey

“Has this place been on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives? I think the only feasible answers are “Yes” or “Not Yet”. It almost seems like you tripped an fell into a megamerican fantasy of Steven Colbert’s. The man who is Norma makes nearly everyone look like a terrorist in comparison to how American he is. Even the cranky billboard man on I-5 south of Olympia (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, start driving) cries tears of red, white, and blue at the doormat of this restaurant.”

Norma’s Burger via Burger-a-week – Lacey.

Swivel Straight Christmas Tree Stand with Reservoir

The single greatest Christmas tree stand ever made.

First off, I didn’t pay $79.95 for mine, you can find the model w/o the reservoir for about $40 if you look around. But, if I could only find the $80 version, I would still buy it!

Every Christmas used to start off with me under the stupid tree trying to get it straight while Adrienne gave me directions (and I am pretty sure she was always very very high while she did it, there is no other explanation). Then when I had it close to straight I would end up rigging bizarre shims and such to try to jam the tree in place because the little screw-in holders would dig into the tree or slip or who knows what. One year the tree stand had a soup can and some twine in it to get it just right. I accept that I may have been spectacularly bad at setting up the tree, but comparing notes with other people has led me to believe this was not that uncommon of an experience.

Last year I bought the Swivel Straight Stand and I will never go back. It has a “cup” base that you stick on the bottom of the tree—I always do it while the tree is still strapped to the car. You just slip the base into the stand where it clicks in. You push down a little foot pedal and then you can easily swivel the tree around until it looks right. When you have it right you just take your foot off the pedal and kick it into the lock position.

It would be easier to just show you:

Swivelstraighttree-1

Done.

I even made it sound about twenty times harder than it is. The tree goes up straight and no more Christmas swearing. The only down side at all is that you usually have to trim some of the bottom branches off so that the cup base can fit up the trunk high enough. I apologize for telling you about this so late, but we just got our tree tonight and it was so easy to put it up I sat right down and wrote this.

These were hard to find recently, but I’m glad to see them back on Amazon