Slackers are people too
While reading the summary of Oregon’s benefits from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, I was amused to see that “slackers” are now a Targetted Group that can be used by a business as a tax credit:
“Under current law, businesses are allowed to claim a work opportunity tax credit equal to 40 percent of the first $6,000 of wages paid to employees of one of nine targeted groups … The bill creates two new targeted groups of prospective employees: unemployed veterans and disconnected youth. … An individual qualifies as a disconnected youth if they are between the ages of 16 and 25 and have not been regularly employed or attended school in the past 6 months.”
Does that mean that we will now see signs outside businesses that say “Slackers Wanted”? 
Gnomes, belts and eye-sores
State of the Whirled…
I haven’t been updating this much. There are several reasons for that. First and foremost, the stuff that is going on in my life revolves around my current employment. That stuff is “confidential” and “sensitive”, which makes it difficult to talk about and remain employed.
Baseball has been eating up a bunch of my time. We have been going through registrations, try-outs, and late registrations for the last couple of months. Being the “Information Officer/Secretary” takes up my spare time.
I’ve also been ill. A multi-stage cold/flu thing has been making its way through our friends and family made its way to me as well. That took me out for the better part of a week.
The h44 construction is ongoing and just plain obnoxious, which makes me grumpy. The contractors park everywhere, the street is blocked most of the day, they use lots of noisy equipment, and the relatively unsecured port-a-potties attract a lot of weak bladdered individuals at all hours.
On the interesting front, and to my wife’s dismay, someone added a new gnome to our yard. I’m guessing it was a birthday present, and I have theories about where it came from. When I can find one of our digital cameras, I’ll take a picture of it and post it. Lisa isn’t terribly fond of yard art to begin with, and the notion that it is spontaneously appearing in our yard is less than appealing to her. I find it funny.
Gnome-nappers
Some of our convict gnomes disappeared from our yard in the last couple of days. This means that someone had to go into the yard to get them. They left two, the one holding the deer, and the guard. Pretty darn irritating, if you ask me. With all the other bad news we are getting inundated with on a daily basis, it is hard to keep a positive attitude.
Customer Service Experience at Hawthorne Fred Meyer
My wife and I have been frequenting the Hawthorne Fred Meyer, even though it is in a state of great disarray. They are doing a remodel of the entire facility, and it has been in various states of chaos for many months now.
One of the additions is a new deli. We went there thinking we could order some sandwiches for dinner since we were running later than usual. The person behind the counter suggested Lisa look at the paper menu that lets you order sandwiches. We picked out what we want, which took a couple of minutes and she went back up to order. She returned in short order with a look of disgust on her face. “They close at 7:00 and stop making sandwiches at 6:50 because they can’t stay late.” It was 6:51 on my watch. With this kind of lack of appreciation for the customer, this latest expansion is not likely to be a success, in my opinion.
We had a cart load of groceries, so we went to check out. Given the volume of groceries, and the line at the U-Scan, we opted for a line with a person. We waited, as things seemed to be going slowly. Three quarters of the way through groceries for the person at the front of the line, a manager stepped in and said to the checker that they had to switch her out because she was on overtime. This was an unfortunate decision because it took a couple of minutes to make the transition. No apology was given to the people waiting in line from the manager, nor any acknowledgement that we actually existed. Normally, I would have gone to a different line, but I had put about half of our stuff on the belt. Lisa took the kids to the car, and I waited, and waited.
It look a very long time, and I was pretty soured on the whole experience. I think the Fred Meyer employees at Hawthorne could really use some customer service education.
Obama pushes for stimulus legislation
Obama wrote this article in the Washington Post to make the case for his stimulus package. I’ve been watching the Senate debate on C-SPANduring the day. It is absolutely amazing to me how inefficient the Senate is. Hours and hours of yammering, with no real “progress”. Do the floor speeches really convince the Senators one way or another? Watching the presentations, it is obvious that McCain wouldn’t have made a good President. He can’t keep his facts straight, and seems to be intent on derailing the legislation. I think Obama’s lead comments in his article need to be said a bit more loudly:
“By now, it’s clear to everyone that we have inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression. Millions of jobs that Americans relied on just a year ago are gone; millions more of the nest eggs families worked so hard to build have vanished. People everywhere are worried about what tomorrow will bring.”
Knowing how the economy is impacting various members of my own family, something needs to happen now. Senator DeMint’s proposal is just another reguritation of the same trickle down economic policies that won’t help. This wrong headed thinking comes from the notion that the New Deal did not positively impact unemployment. It is simply not true.
A moment of mirth
Muppets and Kuberick, two great tastes that taste great together?
LaCrosse 2316 annoying behavior
I’ve noticed that the anemometer on the Lacrosse 2316 weather station has issues with the cold weather. The direction vein stopped moving as soon as it got below freezing. It indicates that the wind direction is always East. You can see how it corresponds to the temperature here. Around 7:00 am, the temperature drops to 32, and it stops moving.
This storm is really quite impressive from a personal history standpoint. I can’t remember having an entire week of sub 32 degree temperatures, but that is what the forecasts are saying. Maybe we will end up with a white Christmas after all.
Transition Website for President Elect Obama
A website “change.gov” has been set up by the transition team. It clearly outlines the plans of the administration, and has lots of other useful information. If you aren’t sure what their plans are, it is a great place to look.
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