The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
At the Refuge – Maxine
Wednesday night, I was in her room pulling water dishes to go into the dishwasher. Maxine jumped right out of her cage with no preamble and no invitation. But she was just sitting on her door and – it looked to me – flirting with Leo, the Goffin’s in the cage across from her. While she was out, I pulled out her dirty paper and put in a fresh sheet. She was still flirting with Leo. So I went to the other room to get her fresh food and water.
When I came back down, she was on top of the cage of Henwen, a new Umbrella Cockatoo. I was nervous for a moment because:
1. Maxine doesn’t always play nice with others.
2. Henwen is three times her size.
But Henwen was the one afraid! Henwen jumped to the bottom of her cage in a panic. It looked to me that Maxine was only curious about the new bird in the room, but she refused to step up so that I could move her away.
Lucky for me, Maxine is a bird that doesn’t mind being in a towel.
Maxine is available for adoption and you can read more about her here.
Consumer Report – Costco
The Costco near my house has put in a gasoline station. I went there for the first time today.
My Observations:
- The cost was $4.23 per gallon, which was two cents less than the BP up the block. The BP had about the lowest price around this weekend, but it is not reliably so.
- It was 10:40 a.m. on Monday and I snuck into the last open spot for a gas pump. Not a good sign.
- Remember that Costco is members-only and accepts American Express or debit cards. Not a problem for me, but not easy for everyone.
- To get to the Costco, you have to go into the Costco parking lot. Not exactly swinging through at a stop light.
Conclusion:
Two cents per gallon is not worth going out of my way, and certainly not worth having to wait to get to the gas pump. But I’ll use it if I happen to be over there. During the week.
Have You Heard This Plan Yet?
http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/1632654798
Have you heard of The Pickens Plan? I saw a television commercial for it a few days ago and finally went to the web site this morning. The scariest thing is a widget with the current cost of crude oil. I had been looking for one to replace the puppy thing to the right, but I can’t look at that every day.
Anyway, Pickens is a (former?) Texas Oilman pushing a new energy program. This was from a Press Release:
Step #1: Using the United States’ wind corridor, private industry will fund the installation of thousands of wind turbines in the wind belt, generating enough power to provide 20 percent or more of our electricity supply
Step #2: Again funded by the private sector, electric power transmission lines will be built, connecting these wind power generating sites with power plants providing energy to the population centers in the Midwest, South, and Western regions of the country.
Step #3: With the energy from wind now available to operate power plants serving the large population centers in key areas of the country, the natural gas that was historically utilized to fuel these power plants can be redirected and used to replace imported gasoline and diesel as a fuel for thousands of vehicles in our transportation system.
I don’t know if this is going to work. Natural gas isn’t exactly a renewable fuel, and it isn’t getting any less expensive to heat my house. But points to Pickens for trying something. You can find the TV ad here.
At the End of the Day
After I woke up, fed the birds, went to the Library Sale, took the packages to the Post Office, went to the doctor, had lunch, spent another hour at the Library Sale, did the grocery shopping, closed up the Refuge and picked up McDonald’s for dinner:
I sat in the family room, talking to my mother and eating my dinner. Kiwi the Grey came over wanting a French Fry. I gave her one and sent her back to her perch. She finished it. Knowing she wanted another, I looked her in the eye and said, “No more. You stay there.”
Not 30 seconds went by before she dive-bombed me and took a french fry out of my hands and flew with it to her perch.
She went into time-out.
So I took Manu into the shower. Kiwi likes to be in the room with the shower on because she likes the steam and starts grooming. Manu got right into the water. When I thought he was perfectly drenched, he lifted his wings and turned around as if to say, “Excuse me, you missed one right here!”
This terrible picture is Manu perched by my window trying to dry off before bed.
At the Library – Sale Weekend
I spent the better part of the day helping to set up for our Anniversary Sale. All books are half priced, except those listed on our Amazon web site. Basically, we hauled out all of the donated books that had been sitting on closets waiting for space to open up. My friend Carole and I listed books online while the other volunteers tried to bring the rest of the room to order. Carole and I had the easy job.
I just checked the website, and four of the books we listed today have already sold. Four! Plus two that I listed last night. I can’t tell you how exciting that is. Last Spring, for my Marketing class, I wrote a Marketing Plan for UBS. I set a hypothetical goal of 10% sales increase from 2007. My plan for getting there started with maintaining the 2007 level of in-store sales and doubling the online sales. If my math is correct, we are way ahead of schedule. And I am even happier to say that I am not the one buying all the books!
Last December, at our holiday sale. I bought twelve. Today, I am pleased to say, I walked out with only five.
So if you are around Glenview this weekend, stop by the Library (9-5 Saturday and 1-5 Sunday) . There are plenty of great books at bargain prices!
At the Refuge – Pepito
I Can’t Be the First Person to Notice This
More about Starbucks
Back in the dark depths of winter, in my Marketing class, we did a case study on Starbucks. The case took the position that Starbucks had created a “luxury product” that anyone could afford and was selling “prestige”. I trashed it. I expressed utter despair with the riff raff that now frequent the place and the revolving staff of child labor. I said that Starbucks corporate, in trying to be “prestige”, had positively lost its soul. I explained that, while not a coffee drinker, I was once an extremely regular patron that now prefers to read a book over a diet Coke at McDonald’s.
I earned some negative comments from our class “facilitator”. He seemed to think that I missed the point about Marketing.
The Tribune had a great article that suggests that I was not alone.
PAWS Report
I am very sorry to be cramming another “Save the Dogs” report down your throat, but my brother went to school with the reporter on this story so I feel like posting it. Yes, he is the son of meteorologist Steve Baskerville.
If you do happen to feel that you could stand to read more about it, here is the scoop directly from PAWS Chicago:
http://www.youtube.com/get_player
More Rampant Consumerism
Since we are getting ready to make our now-annual call to 1-800-GOT-JUNK to clean out some more stuff, I took another look at it. It comes in three colors – white, mahogany and bamboo wood. The first two cost $129. The third, the one that matches the rest of my life, is normally priced at $199. Now on sale for $179 and advertised as all “green”.
Does one spend an extra $50 for something cool from the already over-priced Crate & Barrel? I checked the Internet. Target had it in black for $98. Someone is selling them on Ebay. Leaning desk plus the two matching Leaning Bookcases were $200 after shipping. In the wrong color.
Yes. I bought it. In bamboo. And it is lovely. But for that extra $50…it should have come assembled.
P.S. Isn’t buying bamboo stealing food from the endangered pandas?
The Next Dark Age 
