lonecity.com

Over the past dozen or so years I’ve grown to become what I would call a patient buyer.  If something looks too expensive I wait it out for the right opportunity before nabbing it.  More often than not this strategy has ended in dissapointment as I’ve gone months (sometimes years) without getting the latest video games while my friends have all played them.  I’ve put off home improvements due to the cost and I find that I live below the everyday persons standards.  Ok put simply I’m a stingy bastard.

As the location I’ve been working to liquidate grows ever closer to its demise I’ve watched the prices on things and made my list of what I’d buy if it were the right price.  You may or may not be able to guess, but its not a very long list.  Perhaps a half dozen things even caught my eye and less than half of them are something I’d actually ever buy. 

I wrote a while back about how I’m starting to work on remodeling the kitchen.  One of the items I had on my wish list was a stainless steel wall oven unit.  Sadly and somewhat happily it sold before it ever got to a reasonable price.  Sadly because it puts finishing my kitchen further off, but happily because that cash hasn’t yet escaped me.

The other Item I’ve been eyeballing for a while now is some lodgestone castlewall pavers.  I made up my mind years ago (litterally) that I wanted to do a feature in my yard using them.  I’ve never done it because I simply wasn’t willing to pay full price or even a moderate discount for the brick.  This time it got the better of me though.  I told myself if enough of the brick was still there when it reached 60% off that I’d take it.  Well I ended up paying about 34% of its original retail for four pallets of pavers.  Then I got over a hundred more for ten bucks.  In a liquidation sale the stores not only sell off merchandise, but also fixtures.  There was a decorative feature in the store that used these lodgestone pavers and I bought it priced as a fixture.  The trick there is that the liquidator has to get rid of various things so he can turn over the building to the landlord.  By offering to tear down the display he got some free labor and I only paid less than ten cents per brick.  A deal I was quite happy with.

Anyhow, I’m planning on using the stone pavers to build a waist height raised bed garden in the back yard come spring.  (Another month or so)  I’m not one for gardening or doing anything oudoors really, but I know my mother loves it.  She’s getting on in years so making it the kind of thing she can do without getting down on her knees is important to me.  So far it cost me about $350.  $310 for the retail discounted brick, $10 for the fixture brick, and another $30 in gasoline and a meal for my helper.  It took four truckloads plus a day and a half to haul all that brick home.  By truck loads I do mean loads too…  I loaded my Dodge Ram 1500 down to the point where the bed was almost setting on the back tires and the tires were bulging out at the sides at each run.  I was trying despirately to avoid having to make a fifth run to get the last of it.

At least it hasn’t broken me though.  I’ve been working nonstop for quite some time now, clocking in at least twenty hours of overtime each week.  The day I took to haul home the brick was the first sunny day I’ve seen in months, and it happened to be my only day off.  Yes I’m feeling a bit overworked and yes thats why I’m writing my weekly blog update on a monday night instead of on the weekend.  The last few paychecks have squared away some unexpected expenses that had arisen before and I expect the next upcoming one to have enough extra left over to cover the full $350 I invested in the pavers. 

Now its just down to finding enough time off work to install them, and to figuring where to get dirt to backfill the new garden.  I’m sure I see free dirt from time to time, so it shouldn’t be too hard.  I just need to find some during the right time so I can get it done before its time to start the spring planting.  I guess I’ll watch cragslist for stuff I can get for free and I’m concidering the city landfill.  They’re bound to have compost I can pick up for a song and a dance. 

Well thats enough for this week.

As the economy continues to grind further and futher into recession and despirate measures from the government to boost spending and credit abound my current place of business also draws nearer to closing.  This isn’t the first time I’ve been tasked with shutting down a retail store, though it is the first time doing one this large.  As I had expected the number of people in our employ who “stick it out” has dwindled. I expected we would shed most of our management team.  Normally I wouldn’t care who stays or goes, and really I don’t.  But I lost one last week that I’m not sure I can let go without caring.  Its not that she chose to leave that bothers me.  (it wasn’t really a choice)  What bothers me is that I didn’t see it coming.  There were maybe two people whom I expected to be there until the end and she was one of them. 

As I left one evening she was there and we were discussing what we would be doing tomorrow.  The next day she was gone.  As is the case with corporate firings there was no official discussion about what had happened.  Its all under wraps and for a few days I was left to wonder why.  Finally I got a little piece of mind as someone not held by the stigma of a corporate veil knew what had happened and let it slip.  Apparently our corporate loss prevention has accused her of embezzlement and they attempted to have her arrested that night after I left.  When stopped by LP she handed over her keys and left before the police arrived.  They say they have proof that she got into the computer and adjusted pay rates using someone else’s password (including her own).

I sincerely hope that she didn’t get arrested and booked.  I can vouch for her  character and I am positive that this is not something she did as an attempted crime.  But then again you never really can know a person.  Still I know the way the management world works.  Its not my job to ship pallets of fixturing between stores but when it needs to be done I know how to do it.  Since I’m familiar with the process and my boss doesn’t have time to do it, the task somehow magically gets done.  You can read that as “I take care of it.”  Since she used to be a Human Resources Manager prior to her most recent position it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me that this was one of those tasks that just magically gets done.   One day the evaluations and pay adjustments need to be entered in, and someone has to take care of it before the deadline.  She has the experience and knowhow and the person who “should” be doing it doesn’t have the time.  Of course there might have been a “slip” in judgement and perhaps her evaluation was a little better than it should have been.  I really don’t know.

The facts that I do know are that her character seemed to me to be strong.  She easily made enough money that taking from the coffer wouldn’t have been needed.  Coupled with the fact that her husband has a masters degree and a very good engineering job that supports both of them even without her income I don’t see why this could have happened.  We had a discussion at one point where I told her I had cashed out my entire retirement fund and payed the full sum down when I bought my home.  BTW, thats a good move in my oppinion despite all the financial planners negative remarks, I’m a lot better off than folks who are freaking out about the economy right now.  I have a nice low house payment that I can make even working a part time job and only minimal fear of forclosure.  As we were discussing retirement she showed me a statement of her retirement investments and boasted about how she was on target to retire a millionare before she’s turns 40.  (again thats without her husbands income)  Knowing that I really don’t see how a few thousand dollars netted by fudging the numbers would have been enough to tempt her.  She’s also been very adamant about immediate firing of associates for time theft.  She’s probably let go of a dozen people in the last year for clocking in and then doing something other than work for a few hours.

Its too bad that I’ll never know.  I’ll probably never see her again regardless of whether she is prosecuted and whether or not she’s found guilty.  Even if I did happen across her once I wouldn’t ask her what happened.  I wouldn’t feel right pushing up bad memories to someone who I concider a friend.  I’ll miss her and belive it or not I’m kind of sad she’s married.  I would never concider dating or even approaching a married woman but had she not been married when I met her she’s exactly the type of gal I’d be chasing after.  Intelligent, well shaped, strong personality, willful and definately high maintenance.  I give off an air of hating the whole high maintenance idea, but secretly thats exactly the kind of girl I see myself ending up with.  I really did like her and regardless this doesn’t change my oppinion of her.  If she were my wife I’d have forgiven her for something like this in a heartbeat and done everything in my power to make it go away.  Fancy Lawyers couldn’t cost enough.  I wonder if the guy she’s married to feels that way too.  Probably he does.  I’d hate to think that they’re having a rocky time now because he’s making her feel worse about what proably amounts to two seconds worth of bad judgement.

Anyhow I guess I just needed to get some of these strange feelings off my chest.  Thats what a blogs for right?  For me to spew random prattle about whatever is bugging me…

I’m sure I have mentioned before on my blog that I’m just a bit of an anime fan.  (that first sentance should really be read as freakish otaku geek)  I’ve even managed to get my poor little brother hooked on my bad habit.  So the other day he called me up to tell me about a new website he discovered to watch anime online.  Theres plenty of sites that boast illegal uploads of pirated anime.  You practically can’t look for information online without stumbling across them.  This site is different though.  Its actually legit, paid for, licensed material.  It kind of shocks me that nobody managed to do it sooner.

I should mention here that I’m not bieng paid to promote this site.  Its just something that I’ve stumbled across and I felt it was worthwhile to give a reccomendation for on my blog.  The site is hulu.com Their business model appears to be very close to that of broadcast television.  They license a movie/tv series and then pay for it by streaming commercial interruptions.  The only difference between them and good old broadcast tv is that they are on demand over the internet.

I’ve always felt shafted by my cable tv providers (this includes all of them.)  The way I figure it if I pay to watch a show it shouldn’t have commercials.  Thats why I’m paying.  If they want to provide the show for free then Amen to the commercials.  I don’t mind supporting a good cause by concidering the things they are pitching if they spend a few bucks entertaining me.  In this respect hulu has gotten it right.  They dont charge you to watch their service, but you do have to watch the commercials.   I suppose thats why tivo went over so well though.  I’m probably not the only american who’s sick of paying $50 to $80 a month for the channels that aren’t broadcast, then getting screwed over by bieng forced to watch the commercials anyway.

Well thats all I really wanted to talk about this week.  As an anime fan, (not an anime pirate) I really believe in buying the dvd’s and supporting the artists.  Needless to say its pleasant to see a video on demand service showing anime that wasn’t blatently “stolen” from its copywright holders through the guise of letting the unscrupulous users do the theft.  I’m talking to you youtube and veoh.  Everyone knows that your services are filled with pirated material and thats where you are making your money.  Its one thing for a dishonest person to pirate a movie and if he or she gets caught they’ll get what they deserve.  Its a whole other thing for an entire business model to be built around helping your users pirate copywright materials.  So for anyone reading this give hulu a try.  They get a big thumbs up from me.  Oh and BTW, hulu is not just for anime, theres all kinds of commercial video goods there, and so far its all free to the viewer.

Its difficult to write about saving money when you simply don’t make enough to save.  I wanted to write todays entry in the blog about how I was planning to save up some cash for needed repairs and wanted upgrades to my kitchen.  I guess What I’m really going to write about is the fact that I don’t seem to be bringing enough money home to have any left at the end of the bills for saving. 

One thought that had crossed my mind was to leave the money in adsense that has collected over the past year or so.  (No this site doesn’t make any money… But I have managed over the last year to finally get to the first $100 payout from my other website)  It occured to me later on though that letting google hold on to the payment until I had enough to actually do something with it was a really bad idea.  The big G has a rep for taking peoples income if someone complains, even if the person who got a complaint didn’t actually do anything wrong.  Using google as a sort of temporary savings account would be kind of like leaving it on the dashboard of my car.  Who knows if it will be there when I come back for it.  Most people are honest but theres still a pretty good chance I’d come back to a broken window.

This leaves a dilemma though.  If I cash out the $100 I’ve finally built up, It will be spent long before I get up to enought to really feel like I got something for my money.  I want to retile the floor in the kitchen where its starting to come up, and as you can guess $100 isn’t going to buy the tools let alone the materials.  It might cover the grout if I go for the cheap stuff…

Anyhow, I know this weeks blog post is a bit late.  I’ve been working overtime so I haven’t been here to write a new post for a while.  My company only offers overtime about as often as haleys comet comes around.  If they’re offering it, I have to take it while I can because its a once in a lifetime deal.  (mix that with the fact that I had to choose between grocerys and car insurance this month and you’ll see why keeping up with this blog is just a tad less important.)  Btw, I chose the car insurance so I sit here typing while dreaming of what kind of foods I can scrape together from the assortment of old canned goods left in the pantry.

Well, until next week…  (perhaps I’ll lose some weight)