You should have seen my face when I read the headline on CBS13.com, “Famous Crystal Company Goes Bust.” Don’t worry, it’s just about the Waterford company, based in London. I’m not accustomed to getting my U.K. financial news from the home page of my local news website.
Crystal milk products are of course now produced by Foster Farms, and you may continue to enjoy their delicious and affordable milk products at your local greengrocer.
Please to allow me to continue the rant I started before Christmas.
So the results of a survey about the employment outlook for 2009 in Sacramento were released on Wednesday. Check out the headlines from the Google News feed:
Super…Great…Grand. Did I mention that we get it? No one is saying that these are the days, but come on. Report different.
I don’t know why this story of folks getting lost trying to get to the new Red Hawk casino using their GPS devices makes me chuckle. Perhaps it’s the fact that I’ve been in the same situation before trying to decide if I should use my common sense or hand my faith over to a talking box when driving to a new destination.
I have such a love/hate relationship with my Garmin Nuvi. On one hand, it’s been a life saver when I’m forced to take side roads or alternate routes due to a traffic accident or construction. On the other hand it, it’s caused many delays especially when I approach forks in the road or subtle turns. Hard right or soft right? Veer right or stay to the right which is actually straight with no turn at all?
Back to the Bee story…
News10.net reports that an all-women facility of the California Family Fitness chain of gymnasiums will be forced to open its doors to men due to threat of litigation.
California Family Fitness operates 14 other gyms for both men and women, but kept its Howe Avenue location single-sex because it grew out of a nearby women’s health club known as Living Well Lady purchased by the company in 1997.
The company said it has also modified seven other locations that had separate workout areas for men and women.
I tell you what, these are wacky times we live in. Curves anyone?
The obligatory weekend trip for groceries means for me to hit the Costco. As an Elk Groover, the closest location to me is the South Sacramento store. Yep yep y’all, we’re going to South Sac.
Unfortunately, the only thing this store has going for it is that it’s a Costco that’s closest to those of us in the south side of the county but north of the cattle.
The staff are very friendly, but the store itself is wrought with overcrowding, rude customers and people who line up for free samples of orange juice and bacon, and then loiter in the middle of the aisles like they’re partaking of a United Nations relief mission. When you’ve finally navigated through the Dixie Cup buffet, you get stuck in a horrible feeder line system at the check out that also falls smack in a major thoroughfare in the store, so people with arms full of Christmas ornaments are running crosscurrent through the lines to get through.
The indoor food court is just as overcrowded as it is unsanitary. The time it takes to wait in line for the $1.50 hot dog and soda while you study the story told by the tattoo on the back of the neck in front of you, is worth more than the $1.50 you’ll spend. And, because people have had too much of a good thing back in the store, people also loiter around the soda vending machines refilling their cups of soda after every sip and making the rest of us wait for sweet flavourless bubbly. You also do not want your food to touch the picnic tables (complete with umbrellas) in the indoor sitting area, lest you disturb the flies. Besides, good luck pulling your food off the table once it’s been placed there and permanently affixed by old ketchup.
To top it off, last weekend, as I was browsing in an aisle, someone jacked my half full shopping cart and disappeared into the crowds. My bad. I forgot to padlock my cart to the shelf when I turned to browse.
My recommendation: go to another location. It might take longer to drive but you’ll save that time in the store, with a more pleasant experience.
Costco South Sacramento
7981 East Stockton Boulevard
Sacramento, California 95823
Rating: *
At the risk of being out of touch with the what’s *really* happening in Sacramento, I mention this sacbee.com article about a new outdoor ice skating rink scheduled to open Friday in Folsom. The details can be found at visitfolsom.com.
This article makes me wonder, however, if it is a smart idea to spend money on “extras” like this in an effort to boost local business.
I get that the intent with this project is encourage folks to shop and eat locally, but could the $248,000 be better spent helping local businesses lower their prices? Decrease their lease payments? Or is just full steam ahead and let’s see what happens?
Especially with the news that so many of the region’s cities are scrambling to save money and cut corners.
Your thoughts?
Today the Host Airport Hotel is being demolished to make room for the new airport terminal. And I never got a chance to see the interior of this strange little building. Has anybody out there ever been inside?
I was enjoying the ehow.com recently when I came across this article on “How to Spend the Perfect Weekend in Sacramento” and it got me thinking. What is your perfect weekend in Sacramento? This article does a good job of hitting the mainstream spots. But, what is it missing? I know we like to provide information on specific events here at the Sac Rag, but I’m looking for some every week type things to do that I may not find on the Chamber of Commerce site.
Any suggestions?
Apparently the economy is like, bad or whatever. But you wouldn’t know it if you examine the booming casino market, as evidenced by the long lines to fill out applications at the new Red Hawk casino going up in El Dorado Hills. I suppose you could see this as a good sign–even in these volatile times there is enough walkin around money walkin around to create 1,700 jobs in our area. But one would hope that we Californians might have learned a thing or two about money and risk over the last few weeks!
CoolDMZ wouldn’t be earning CoolDMZ’s pay if CoolDMZ wasn’t a contrarian on the Corti Brothers situation. I’m having trouble mustering a lot of sympathy for the Cortis after reading the Bee’s follow-up story today. I suppose I liked Corti Bros as much as the next guy, though my patronage of things that can be described as “upscale” is seldom to never. (Unless Nordstrom Rack counts as upscale?)
I’m not shocked that Heather Fargo called Darrell Corti and offered the city’s help in finding a new location. Would that help entail explaining how a month to month lease works? All I keep reading is that Corti fans will go wherever he decides to move, even if it is out of town. I hope there are some patrons who are be pissed that a 60 year old company allowed themselves to operate on a wing and a prayer for 20 years despite knowing how loyal their fans were. What if you live down the street, have been shopping there since 1970, and can’t drive?
The Sac Rag 