Thursday..........

..........already?!!
A slow day today at work in terms of deliveries. Only one place. I spent much of the day doing much-needed cleanup work around the warehouse and the yard. We have our bi-annual inventory in - 2 weeks I think - we're just getting everything ready. I do precounts on crates and pallets of stuff that are on high shelfs - and label them with a count so they don't have to pull it down. The CEO of our company is coming to town next month - don't know that he'll actually show up to our branch, but I would definitely like to meet him in person. I had an email exchange with him when my house burned down - he and his family are responsible for getting the company's Family Fund started. It's a fund that employees can apply for if they are in some serious financial distress. I can imagine right now they may be getting inundated with requests.

Anyway, that fund gave me 5k when my house burned down. It was a lifesaver. I had sent the CEO a thank you note - at that time, the fund had JUST started and I wanted him to know how much it was appreciated and how helpful it was in a serious moment of need.

DirectTV came through - they did send the new box and the newest tenant now has Satellite in his bedroom. Thank you, for once at least, Direct TV!!

Fry's - amazing. A vice-president of some department had called me - last week was it? I told him my concerns with the recurrent theme of not having enough of certain products, well, in fact, not having ANY of a certain - sale-priced product. We had a rather lengthy discussion. He asked me how he could make it right? I flat told the man I did NOT want freebies, because I have already received a freebie in the form of a $50 gift card from another gentleman from his company. That was the end of the conversation. I forgot about it - I'm not going to dwell on that stuff, I just like to let Fry's know about what's going on when it happens. This guy sent me a $25 gift card to Fry's, too! There isn't anyway I will quit shopping at Fry's and I have never threatened to do so, but - I have definitely been going to other stores that are giving Fry's some serious competition as well. Today, though, Fry's had lean ground beef - 2-pound chubs - for $1.99 per chub! That's an AWESOME price! I wondered if maybe they didn't have it mislabelled?

The City of Phoenix actually sent me a bill for having Mary served with the Order of Protection! The night I had her served, I wasn't even the one that made the initial call, I just used the visit already in-progress to have it served. I am going to contest this one. But - whatever - it's just another thing I can add to the lawsuit if it comes to that. I haven't heard of them charging for such a service, though, and certainly they didn't tell me about any such charge when they were serving it. Definitely going to make a phone call and look into that.

I was very tempted when I was looking through Craigslist and saw Sassoo trees being sold for $5 per tree. That is an AMAZING deal. Yet another nursery going out of business. Those trees grow to be HUGE. And they are nice-looking too. I'm going to resist, I think, but darn, that's a great price. Yeah, I still look. I look to see if perhaps another nursery is going out of business. Hey, it's my version of window-shopping.

I am going to go for a visit in the next couple of weeks - probably anyway - to meet this lady friend I have been talking with online for some time now. I decided to take Fin's advice and make the first visit a day-trip in some public setting. We are talking about hiking with her dogs versus spending money on a restaurant trip or whatever. She knows my financial situation, I thought I better just put that out there in case it turns her off. She's very well off herself, making excellent money - but some ladies are inclined to find a "rich" guy. That definitely would not be me. I wrote her yesterday about the possibility, she wrote back and said definitely.

Well, that's it for me. I have been avidly reading the news about N Korea; Iran's upcoming election; waiting to hear Israel's response to Obama's speech (which I didn't and won't bother to listen to); the pic of Obama's feet up on his desk while speaking to - was it the PM of Israel? and their offense taken; and much more keenly, the Air France Airbus jet that went down in the sea. I do hope they find the black boxes. This kind of thing fascinates me to no end. I'm sure the families of those that are lost probably don't see it that way - but - this kind of thing happens and I do feel badly for everyone. There are amazing stories about some of the things that occured, the latest is a woman that missed her flight - which would have ended up in her death, only to be killed in a head-on collision. I immediately thought of the movie: "Final Destination". If you have watched any of those movies, you know what I'm talking about. Not that there is any actual reality to such a thing (the premise of the movie, that is), but it's just what came to mind. Oh, and the now official mandate that the Swine flu has been classified as a pandemic. This world is definitely in turmoil.

Well, and then there's the "May ONLY lost 651,000 jobs". What? Is this supposed to be a SMALL number? The media, whatta crock. The numbers went down a little, so that's great news. Yeah, well be on the receiving end of one of those pink slips and you aren't going to care a diddle about that. That is a LOT of jobs to lose in one nation in one month's time.

I'm gonna shut up now.
Have a great evening!
ben