Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Publix Bakery
Just this past weekend, my mom and I were in our local Publix shopping. We had gathered most of our items and decided to check out the fresh baked goods. While my mom was looking around at what they had to offer, I was staying with the cart. All of a sudden this bakery worker dumped a box full of pound cakes on the floor. Luckly only 2 of the packages opened when they were dropped. One of which had the entire pound cake falling out. I watched as the guy picked the pound cake up with his bare hand and put it back in it's container. He then placed this cake back in the bottom of the box, under all the others. To my dismay he then brought the box with all the cakes out onto the floor and started stacking them on the shelves. As he neared the bottom of the box, I decided I could not take it any longer. I turned to him and said "didn't you just drop those all over the floor." He promply turned around and flat out lied about putting the one that fell on the floor behind the counter. Me being me called him on his lie and stated that in fact I had seen him put it in the bottom of the box. Now all of a sudden he's like oh yes I have it right here, it's the one that hasn't been closed yet. He then proceeds to take this cake back to the back. I told my mom that we didn't want anything from this section of the store today. I'm sure that once we left he probably took the cake back out onto the floor. I just had to share this disturbing story.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
New Stimulus Plan = Crap
How is this Stimulus plan going to be any different.
No one bothered to oversee the last stimulus/bail out bill and make sure the money was spent where it should be. Why should we believe this will be any different.
In addition to the fact that we do not know if the money will be spent wisely, there are news items in this plan that are not being talked about. Like changes to Health Care that no one has discussed publicly yet. Why??? Is it maybe because the ideas written down about how Health Care should proceed are insane! This states that we should just give up on trying to keep people healthy for as long as possible and just let "nature" take it's course.... Sounds to me like the person who suggested this did not have a happy home life or a good relationship with their parents/grandparents. Now he/she is in a position to take revenge on them (and all others who represent their generation) through their Health Care. I am willing to bet that when the person who suggested this comes to an age where he/she needs medical attention that their little program deems unnecessary (or too expensive given the number of years that they will benefit from it) that somehow they will arrange to receive it.
I agree there are problems with our Health Care system, but I think it is caused more by the people who abuse the Federal aid than the elderly. More time should be spent on getting the care to those who actually need it, instead of people out there who finds holes in the system and continue to get Federal aid when they can afford to buy their own insurance. I have know people who know people who are perfectly capable of buying their own health insurance yet they still get checks for Medicaid/Medicare (I'm not sure exactly which program it is). Their kids wear expensive clothes yet all their doctors bills are paid for by us, the tax payers. Not to mention all the illegals that receive our tax money every day. You constantly hear stories about mothers with 4 and 5 children going into labor with their 5th or 6th child and yet they have no insurance. They have no insurance b/c they are not legally supposed to be in the USA, but now that their baby/babies have been born here they are citizens. By that account now we have a legal responsibility to keep these kids healthy. AAAAHHHH
No one bothered to oversee the last stimulus/bail out bill and make sure the money was spent where it should be. Why should we believe this will be any different.
In addition to the fact that we do not know if the money will be spent wisely, there are news items in this plan that are not being talked about. Like changes to Health Care that no one has discussed publicly yet. Why??? Is it maybe because the ideas written down about how Health Care should proceed are insane! This states that we should just give up on trying to keep people healthy for as long as possible and just let "nature" take it's course.... Sounds to me like the person who suggested this did not have a happy home life or a good relationship with their parents/grandparents. Now he/she is in a position to take revenge on them (and all others who represent their generation) through their Health Care. I am willing to bet that when the person who suggested this comes to an age where he/she needs medical attention that their little program deems unnecessary (or too expensive given the number of years that they will benefit from it) that somehow they will arrange to receive it.
I agree there are problems with our Health Care system, but I think it is caused more by the people who abuse the Federal aid than the elderly. More time should be spent on getting the care to those who actually need it, instead of people out there who finds holes in the system and continue to get Federal aid when they can afford to buy their own insurance. I have know people who know people who are perfectly capable of buying their own health insurance yet they still get checks for Medicaid/Medicare (I'm not sure exactly which program it is). Their kids wear expensive clothes yet all their doctors bills are paid for by us, the tax payers. Not to mention all the illegals that receive our tax money every day. You constantly hear stories about mothers with 4 and 5 children going into labor with their 5th or 6th child and yet they have no insurance. They have no insurance b/c they are not legally supposed to be in the USA, but now that their baby/babies have been born here they are citizens. By that account now we have a legal responsibility to keep these kids healthy. AAAAHHHH
Monday, February 2, 2009
First Super Bowl Experience
I'm calling this my first Super Bowl experience even though it will probably be my only Super Bowl experience. We got the tickets through work and when they arrived in the mail, I was surprised by the ticket value printed on the actual ticket. These tickets were listed as $800 a seat. I could not even begin to imagine paying that much money for one seat to see one game. That being said the game was amazing. It was a close game and both teams were keeping everyone on their feet.
The day started by heading down to Tampa to take part in the "NFL Experience." I had no idea what all this was going to include. The gates opened at 11 and we were there for the opening. Once inside we started making our way around all the different set-ups. The first one we stopped at was sponsored by Bridgestone. This had you trying to throw footballs through tires for 30 seconds. My dad and I got to throw against each other and to my surprise I got 2 footballs through the tire, while my dad failed to get any. That got a big laugh out of both of us. Our next stop had us trying to kick a field goal. The goal posts were set to the same height as they are on the field but I have no idea how far back we were actually kicking. My first kick was pretty laughable. The second kick however just barely sailed over the bottom part of the goal. I was pretty stoaked about making the goal. Unfortunately for my dad, he didn't make any goals. Girls 2 - Boys 0 :)
Beyond those 2 games you could try doing some of the exercises that the players do to get in shape, they had the punching bag shaped things that you run through and a few areas where you could see how far you could throw a football and still get it into one of their nets. There was also a huge tent set up for memorabilia and another was the NFL Store. The NFL Store was like a sauna there were so many people in there. Another tent had a band playing; I have no clue who they were; I'm guessing they were probably locals. We had lunch outside by the Mega Screen where we watch the live performance of John Legend. He was actually performing there at the Super Bowl but it was in a closed off location for a private party, so I didn't get to see him in person. :(
We headed into the Stadium around 3:30 to look around and take more pictures. We also took this time to get some souvenirs (I got long and a short sleeve T's). Our seats were great! We were on the Cardinals end zone about 13 rows up from the field. I feel like I got some amazing pictures to really capture the experience of being at the Super Bowl. Our plan was to root for the Cardinals, seeing as how they were the underdogs going into the game. This plan was hard to execute since we were sitting in a sea of Steelers fans. If I had to take a guess I would say that the stadium was probably 85% Steelers fans and every single one of them had a Terrible Towel. Now before yesterday I had no clue what a Terrible Towel was but now I will always be able to picture the entire stadium twirling these things above their heads. I will say this for the Steelers fans, for the most part they were well behaved. We did have one over-zealous fan sitting just to our right who yelled most of the game.
Pre-show was pretty outstanding. Faith Hill came out and sang America the Beautiful and Jennifer Hudson sang the National Anthem. One surprise was when they announced that the entire crew of flight 1549 was there and they brought them out onto the field. The game of course started shortly after that. The Steelers came on strong and for a few minutes I was worried that this was going to be a shut out. Fortunately enough the Cardinals got their feet under them and got back into the game. During the course of the first quarter as I was looking around/watching the game when I noticed that the Steelers didn't have any cheer leaders. I asked one of the many Steelers fans sitting around us where their cheer leaders were and they informed me that their team didn't have cheer leaders. They seemed to think this was mainly due to the fact that many of their games are played in freezing cold weather. Makes sense to me. First and second quarters seem to fly by and before we knew it they were setting up for the half time show. Bruce and the E-Street Band were performing. Now I'm not a Bruce fan so this part of the Super Bowl was lost on me. It was also disappointing that they set up their stage where half of the stadium could not see the performance without looking at the tv screens.
Second half was very intense. I don't think we ever sat down except maybe during time outs. When the Cardinals scored and took over the lead, I thought the Steelers fans were going to come unglued. Unfortunately they redeemed themselves shortly after that to win the game. It was really quite exciting having the winning touch down scored right in front of our seats.
We didn't really stick around long after the game ended. We saw the confetti blasted into the air and some of the fireworks but that was it and we were booking it out of there. When we got out of the gates there were people actually standing around trying to buy ticket stubs. Why on earth would you want to buy a ticket stub to a game you didn't attend. I mean do you plan on lying and saying you were there? Are these considered collectors items? I have no idea, I didn't sell mine b/c it's going in MY scrap book. :) I was also surprised to see a couple of protesters sitting outside of the gates at the end of the game.
Overall this was an awesome experience and I feel very lucky that I was able to take part in it.
The day started by heading down to Tampa to take part in the "NFL Experience." I had no idea what all this was going to include. The gates opened at 11 and we were there for the opening. Once inside we started making our way around all the different set-ups. The first one we stopped at was sponsored by Bridgestone. This had you trying to throw footballs through tires for 30 seconds. My dad and I got to throw against each other and to my surprise I got 2 footballs through the tire, while my dad failed to get any. That got a big laugh out of both of us. Our next stop had us trying to kick a field goal. The goal posts were set to the same height as they are on the field but I have no idea how far back we were actually kicking. My first kick was pretty laughable. The second kick however just barely sailed over the bottom part of the goal. I was pretty stoaked about making the goal. Unfortunately for my dad, he didn't make any goals. Girls 2 - Boys 0 :)
Beyond those 2 games you could try doing some of the exercises that the players do to get in shape, they had the punching bag shaped things that you run through and a few areas where you could see how far you could throw a football and still get it into one of their nets. There was also a huge tent set up for memorabilia and another was the NFL Store. The NFL Store was like a sauna there were so many people in there. Another tent had a band playing; I have no clue who they were; I'm guessing they were probably locals. We had lunch outside by the Mega Screen where we watch the live performance of John Legend. He was actually performing there at the Super Bowl but it was in a closed off location for a private party, so I didn't get to see him in person. :(
We headed into the Stadium around 3:30 to look around and take more pictures. We also took this time to get some souvenirs (I got long and a short sleeve T's). Our seats were great! We were on the Cardinals end zone about 13 rows up from the field. I feel like I got some amazing pictures to really capture the experience of being at the Super Bowl. Our plan was to root for the Cardinals, seeing as how they were the underdogs going into the game. This plan was hard to execute since we were sitting in a sea of Steelers fans. If I had to take a guess I would say that the stadium was probably 85% Steelers fans and every single one of them had a Terrible Towel. Now before yesterday I had no clue what a Terrible Towel was but now I will always be able to picture the entire stadium twirling these things above their heads. I will say this for the Steelers fans, for the most part they were well behaved. We did have one over-zealous fan sitting just to our right who yelled most of the game.
Pre-show was pretty outstanding. Faith Hill came out and sang America the Beautiful and Jennifer Hudson sang the National Anthem. One surprise was when they announced that the entire crew of flight 1549 was there and they brought them out onto the field. The game of course started shortly after that. The Steelers came on strong and for a few minutes I was worried that this was going to be a shut out. Fortunately enough the Cardinals got their feet under them and got back into the game. During the course of the first quarter as I was looking around/watching the game when I noticed that the Steelers didn't have any cheer leaders. I asked one of the many Steelers fans sitting around us where their cheer leaders were and they informed me that their team didn't have cheer leaders. They seemed to think this was mainly due to the fact that many of their games are played in freezing cold weather. Makes sense to me. First and second quarters seem to fly by and before we knew it they were setting up for the half time show. Bruce and the E-Street Band were performing. Now I'm not a Bruce fan so this part of the Super Bowl was lost on me. It was also disappointing that they set up their stage where half of the stadium could not see the performance without looking at the tv screens.
Second half was very intense. I don't think we ever sat down except maybe during time outs. When the Cardinals scored and took over the lead, I thought the Steelers fans were going to come unglued. Unfortunately they redeemed themselves shortly after that to win the game. It was really quite exciting having the winning touch down scored right in front of our seats.
We didn't really stick around long after the game ended. We saw the confetti blasted into the air and some of the fireworks but that was it and we were booking it out of there. When we got out of the gates there were people actually standing around trying to buy ticket stubs. Why on earth would you want to buy a ticket stub to a game you didn't attend. I mean do you plan on lying and saying you were there? Are these considered collectors items? I have no idea, I didn't sell mine b/c it's going in MY scrap book. :) I was also surprised to see a couple of protesters sitting outside of the gates at the end of the game.
Overall this was an awesome experience and I feel very lucky that I was able to take part in it.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)