School Christmas Play

My son's class sang songs at a 4th grade Christmas show at school last night. His class sang a few songs that was part of a 12 days of Christmas Songs performance. The shirt, vest, tie and pants was a matching set at Wal Mart costing $20. The scarf and gloves costed more. Go figure.

This recording was done using my wife's SONY 5.0 MP4 Webbie HD Self Recording Video Camera. The one were the lens can swivel back and forth. Hence the terrible recording. But if my wife ask, you didn't hear it from me.

Grocery Store of Today

I have worked in a lot of grocery stores, department stores, restaurants and gas stations. All very similar that can be described similar to cars and trucks. Some big, small, plenty or not enough space. This store in question from the slide show you have seen is a wonderful store for the small community it services. Management and staff who works there are great and friendly. The people who shop at this store are the type you would see on The Andy Griffith Show. This grocery store really helped the community who would have otherwise had to drive over 10 miles to the next nearest grocery store. But this entire store has one major problem that becomes very obvious as soon as one enters the store.

It is way to small to shop in and for vendors to service the store properly. At times there could be a traffic jam of people trying to enter and leave the store. Let alone going up and down the isles that are just wide enough for a shopping cart to get pass a floor display. Where long lines at the register consist of a customer standing near by the cashier while the next customer in line is still in the grocery isle. A really small store. A lot of people shop here and the store is really a big bust to the towns economy as a few more specialty stores like a Chinese and pizzeria have opened up next door.

With so much business being conducted in this store, Vendors have to keep plenty of products in the store to make sure the shelves can be restocked quickly if needed. But the backroom is only less than a quarter the size of the whole store so finding space is one small problem when keeping back stock, the major difficulty is trying to get to it when you need it the most. The back room receiving area has only enough space for unloading a trucks delivery. But only hallway space to store everything else. When the store receives their grocery truck, they have to carry many of the pallets they receive to the sales floor so as to being able to fully unload the truck. Shopping carts are the preferred use of the Vendors who service this store due to a hand cart is almost but impossible to get into the back room. Not the managers’ fault or the employees but greatly to the size of the store in effort to save money and cut corners at the cost of their reputation.

Shinkenger Women Theme Music

I had some free time and made a video of my kids favorite TV show. My wife loves the last part of the video.

Windy Day

Yesterday after the rain had stopped and the sky cleared up, the wind increased with a feel to that of 'The Wizard of Oz'. A lot of accidents were reported on the news and a few of our Christmas decorations were exchanged with the neighbors next door. When I went outside that evening to put some more light decorations up is when I saw that a few trees either broke off or were severely damaged by the winds. Part of one of those trees missed the swing set by inches.

Guess where I've been

Starting on Thursday a Wal Mart near Raleigh lowered the price of ALL Pepsi 2 liters to 59 cents. Great business for us. Although it would be nice to have a little more notice say a day before the price changes. I was in a morning meeting when a sales rep called in during the meeting to say his Wal Mart lowered there prices. A few Wal Marts, not all, did this but the one I was working at really made a big push for this to be a huge sale for the store. Pallet displays were placed by both entrances as was a huge end cap loaded down with 2 liters.

The Wal Mart I was at is a new one located just where Highway 40 crosses Highway 42. Leaving Raleigh, NC heading towards Wilmington, NC exit 312 (HWY 42). At the light turn left. You will pass the Cracker Barrel and Lowes Hardware and the Super Wal Mart will be located on the right at the next light. It is built totally different from all the older Super Wal Marts plus a deli center where you can get a lunch or dinner plate that taste a lot better than the fast food places. But you still have a time limit to get to the bathroom after you eat the stuff. Last look their gas station had gas at $2.37 a gallon.

Normally a few Wal Mart’s will let you use a pallet jack until 8 AM but many will not let you use them at all. The store manager here insisted that we use them. After all, every display and shelf area was selling out within 30 minutes. I would carry out a whole pallet of 2 litter Pepsi (320 bottles) and the pallet would be empty by the time I made it to the last display. For at least 12 hours a day with 2 full tractor trailer load delivered to the store every day I stayed constantly busy. When I left the store another Pepsi merchandiser would come in and work until 2 or 3 AM. When he would leave the store there would be only 2 to 3 pallets of back stock left and by 5 AM a truck would pull up and unload 26 more pallets to be worked down until the next full truck load arrived by 1 or 2 PM.

Needless to say, I purchased a few cases myself before going home although it will take a while to catch up on some sleep and other activities but in all it was a good experience to being able to work out in the country area away from the city where a lot of different store personnel and a few selected customers types can be a little too rounded up a bit. If not more.

Christmas Banner

Here is the blog site of a nude version of the Christmas banner.
http://ryunosukenc.blogspot.com/