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WillFull
23 July 2008 @ 11:06 am
"Wal Mart is Evil so I took off my clothes"  
[ not my story, but copied verbatim from the original post on bikeforums.net ]


So I generally choose not to patronize walmart for several moral reasons...but today I was in desperate need of some CD-Rs so I could mail a file to my university and the only place anywhere near me that sells them is Wally world. So I grudgingly got on my bike and made the 4 mile ride on some pretty dangerous roads only to find that they have no form of bike rack whatsoever. That's typical for this area so I've become used to just taking my bike into stores...in fact I usually use the basket on the back as a shopping cart.

So I walk into the walmart and the most evil grandmother I've ever met grabs my arm with her claws and says I can't bring it into the store. I explained to here there was nowhere outside to lock it up and that I had brought it into that particular store with no problem. She insisted that I had to leave it in the foyer and I calmly said that I wasn't going to leave a 600 dollar bike just sitting in the foyer and that I'd like to speak to her manager.Wal*Mart Supercenter

So the manager comes out and says I can't bring the bike into the store, so I explain to her that there are safe places for people who drive to lock their cars but there is no safe place for me to lock my mode of transportation. She says that I should have driven there I told her that I didn't own a car and that my bike was my only form of transportation and I couldn't risk having it stolen. She said I couldn't bring it in because they sell bikes in the store. So I said but those bikes don't look anything like this and this is clearly not a brand new bike, so why is that a problem. She insisted that for the safety of the other customers I couldn't bring it inside, so I asked her why she thought a bike controlled by an adult was more dangerous than a shopping cart being pushed around by someone's bratty kids. So she switched back to the excuse that they sell bikes in the store so I couldn't bring another bicycle in. I was starting to get really frustrated since I had ridden all the way there seemingly for no reason, so I asked her if they also sold shirts in the store. She said yes so I took off my jersey and said well then I'd better not bring this in either. She got kind of flustered and said that it was a different situation but couldn't explain why. So I said that if they also sold shorts in the store that I'd better not wear those in either and I took off my shorts. Same goes for the shoes and sunglasses. Now I'm standing there in my spandex and a sports bra and I ask here if I can leave my things behind the customer service counter where they will be safe until I finish making my purchases and she said that I couldn't come into the store without shoes on, to which i responded "but I certainly can't wear shoes into the store because you sell those here and someone might think I've stolen them." She threatened to call security if I didn't leave so I told her that I would never be coming back to that store again and that I was glad I hadn't driven there since the gas to go four miles was probably more expensive than what her underpaid employees make in an hour.

Her expression when the shirt came off was absolutely priceless...I was pretty tempted to take off the spandex too but I wasn't sure what constitutes indecent exposure in Virginia so I figured I'd err on the side of caution. Still I had a decent sized crowd gathered before the end of the discussion. Anybody else have issues with Satan's superstore?


 
 
WillFull
09 July 2008 @ 10:11 am
Community Emergency Response Team (CERT)  
Community Emergency Response Team (CERT)Morrisville's Fire Department is offering CERT training later this month. I'm signing up for it, but I wanted to see if there was anyone who has any experience with it, whether they took the training themselves or know someone who did. Judging by the schedule, it seems to be pretty involved and a bit more time-consuming than your average three hour civics course on home fire prevention and CPR training. According to FEMA's Citizen Corps website, the CERT training is supposed to touch on interesting points such as light Search & Rescue operations and reacting to terrorist incidents as well as improved staple emergency procedures, which would include intermediate-level first aid and fire-fighting techniques.

(Ya know, I'm hoping for a brief block of instructions on community defense against zombie uprisings, but that's probably just me pushing the envelope of reality a little bit.)


 
 
WillFull
01 July 2008 @ 10:53 am
travel advice?  

tap 2 colorless + 1 green mana to castOkay, the story thus far:

checkpassport acquired
checkvacation time approved
checkflights booked / tickets received
checkstarting to plan the travel itinerary


The gf and I are excited about the trip to Europe that we have planned for mid-September. This will be my first foray overseas, so I was wondering what advice that you experienced travellers out there could suggest for the two of us. We are flying into Budapest, staying for a few days, and then making our way up the Danube River by hydrofoil to Vienna, spending several more days in Austria. After that, we're a little unsure right now about our next destination. Originally, I was interested in seeing Munich in Bavarian Germany, but as we began to scan maps and confer with travel guides and websites, neighboring Old World cities such as Salzburg and Prague are beginning to look just as inviting.

We will be travelling light and mostly by public transport (rail, of course). I'm trying to find a balance between planning ahead and seat-of-the-pants spontaneity, so we may forgo advance reservations at hotels or B&Bs in favor of finding quarters for us to stay in once we've arrived in whatever city we're exploring at that moment. I'm thinking that this would allow us to be more flexible with our agenda and not "locked down" to any particular schedule. Is this a safe/wise assumption to make? Of course it bothers us both about the decline of the dollar's value in comparison to the Euro or other local currency, but I feel like if we are smart about our budgeting then we can make do.

All comments and anecdotes are welcome. tia!