It's OUR Responsibility to Create USA Jobs

If I hear another person demand 'what is the government doing to create jobs?' I am going to be sick. Look in the mirror and ask YOURSELF what YOU are doing to help create and support jobs in your country.

There are 2 things that anyone can do:

1. Start your own company. This takes some thought and is somewhat of a commitment.
2. Buy American-made products. This is a lot less commitment and a lot less thought.

Number (2) sounds easy, but not many people are doing it. We've become this culture of buying cheap, crappy, throw-away stuff with the idea that 'we can buy another' when it breaks.

Creating USA jobs takes an attitude shift and sacrifice on multiple levels.

Big Wheel Hot Cycle, baby! Remember those?

For consumers, instead of just walking out to buy the cheap imported item, you save your money and do some research to buy the good, domestic item. This isn't always easy, and it does involve some sacrifice. Personally, I've been struggling with a big wheel bike for my 3-year old son. Do I buy the cheap China-made Diego/Dora knockoff for $50? Or do I buy a real Made in the USA original Big Wheel for $150? Boy, I WANT one of those original big wheels for my son. So, I'm going for it. We'll just tighten our belts in other ways to pay for it.

The owners of the big companies need an attitude shift, too. There needs to be a sacrifice of short-term profit for the long-term goal of getting the American economy moving again. This is the hard one. Between Wall Street's pressure to have high profits, and the allure of a $1million bonus check if you do a good job, only certain C-level folks are willing and able to make the long-term investment.

What can we do as consumers to 'encourage' companies to make this investment?

Hurrah for New Balance!

First, support the companies that are already keeping their manufacturing in the USA. They NEED our support. Take the example of New Balance shoes. New Balance is the last major athletic shoe brand to manufacture footwear in the United States. They are struggling with foreign competition and free trade agreements that give the advantage to manufacturers from the outside. If you want to help support jobs, support companies like these!

Second, contact the companies that aren't manufacturing in the USA and complain. Especially the ones that used to do it. E-mails or letters are best because they are written correspondence. Express your frustration that more of their products aren't still made here. Tell them that you'll be taking your business elsewhere if they don't come back to the US.

Imagine what would happen if even one quarter of us here in the USA did this; I bet a lot of companies would come back in a hurry. Why don't we try and find out?

Stores are loud enough without this

blah, blah, blah

I was walking through the Giant grocery store the other day, and I realized that in addition to the background music coming over the main speakers, there was something else playing, too. I looked around and finally figured out it was a little screen advertising Nice 'n Easy hair products.

Gad.

In an age where everyone is supposedly asking "How can we save electricity?" the idea that we are putting energy into manufacturing and powering tiny advertising screens like this is frightening. And combined with the noise of the other shoppers and carts and kids and music, it was just annoying.

If marketing folks want to be able to put more information in front of shoppers, I think that the way of the future is the smart-phone-scannable Quick Response (QR) code. Everyone is switching to smart phones. (And even if you don't want to, you're going to need to because your old phone will wear out and you won't be able to get a new battery for it.) Using a QR scan, you can find out more info, get instructions for using the product, get special offers, etc. This is a much better technology to invest in, retail folks. Please don't start investing in your own little in-store TVs.

Hurrah for Norad! Bah-Humbug to Crate&Barrel

As I sit here on Christmas Eve and reflect on the final countdown to the Big Day, I want to mention something fun that has warmed my heart and something that has not.

The Coal in the Stocking Award goes to ...

Crate & Barrel, who refused to host any charitable evening events this year, for reasons that are completely non-obvious.

For the last 3 years, I had attended the Doorways Holiday Gift-buying Event at Crate & Barrel in Arlington, Virginia. The event was always PACKED. The registers were running non-stop. The event was always held a weekday evening. It is inconceivable that C&B would have made anywhere close to this amount of money on a 'normal' evening, so it is very unclear why they discontinued this support.

But as several of us were discussing tonight, we made no purchases at Crate&Barrel this year. The only reason we purchased anything the past years was because of the charity event. We are all hopeful that they will restart the practice next year.


The Stocking full of Toys goes to ...

NORAD's Santa Tracker! What a great way to entertain and teach a little geography, too. Watching the site, and its incredibly cool tie-in to Google Earth absolutely entertained an entire household of kids and adults alike at my friend Joanna's house tonight.

Merry Christmas, and may God Bless Us, Everyone.

Target: Left Hand, meet Right Hand

My friend Maria wanted to buy some new pants from Target (a.k.a. Le Target Boutique)
so she checked for what she wanted on their website, first.

When you look at products on their website, the page will say whether the product is available just online or "Item is available online and in stores." If available in stores a BIG RED BUTTON appears that says "Find it at a Target Store." You type your zip code and within seconds ... Presto! A beautiful list of locations, distance from the provided zip code, and - most importantly - whether the item is available or not at that location. It's great!

So, Maria found what she wanted and the website said there were lots of them in stock at the Target store north of Alexandria, VA. So, off she went.

When she arrived at the store, she showed a staff person a printout of what she wanted. She was immediately told, "We don't carry those here. That's a webpage you are holding. Those are only on the website." She explained -- twice -- that the website had indicated inventory in their store. The staff person was not getting it.

So she went to a manager. Explained the situation. And SAME RESPONSE.
"I'm sorry Ma'am. You're confused. This is a store, and that is the website. We have different inventories". She tried to explain that the site said it was checking store inventories, but the manager persisted in insisted that she was confused. She finally left, absolutely furious at Target.

Hey Target Folks: Maria and I program web databases for a LIVING. It's what we DO. It's what we've done for A DECADE. We are not confused ... YOU ARE.

To summarize, there are two issues here:

1) The "Find it" function on the website clearly doesn't work. Whatever inventory system it is pointed to does not in fact reflect the real inventory at the stores

2) The staff at the stores are not only unaware of this function, it appears to be INCONCEIVABLE to them that the function could even exist. I think that some serious training is needed here, folks. Start small and simple, with an easy concept like "The Customer is always Right." Then you can build up from there.

Victoria's Secret: Still Not 'Very Sexy'

Just about a year ago, Victoria's Secret's CEO proclaimed that the company would start making their clothes sexier and less juvenile.

I just received my spring catalog in the mail and opened it with great anticipation.

Here is what I saw: the amazingly UNsexy "Side-Bow Cheeky Panty." Really? This is new and sexy, huh? My husband would beg to differ. Or how about this: the "sheer halter babydoll" in polka-dots. Totally sexy ... if are a big fan of Dr. Seuss.

I'm of course pointing out the worst ones. Some items in the catalog are moderately attractive. But nothing jumps out and says "Wow! Sexy!" to me. Try again, Victoria.

My Kingdom for a Mozart Magic Cube

As mentioned previously, my 1-year-old's favorite toy is Mozart's Magic Cube, by Munchkin. He plays with it for 15-20 minutes to put himself to sleep at night, and he plays with it for 20-30 minutes to entertain himself upon first waking up in the morning. This Cube is a very important part of our lives.

On Wednesday of this week, at approximately 8:05 A.M., he broke his Cube. He has taken to flinging it out of his crib after playing with it, and this time it cracked. The plastic strip holding in the batteries broke. Shrieks followed (mostly from me).

While my husband fixed breakfast for the little one, I carefully pulled the strip off the Cube and super-glued it. Then we headed out to work/daycare. When we returned that night, the strip seemed solid. I reassembled it, gave it back to my son ... and it was broken again within 90 seconds. More shrieks. I had to rock my son to bed for an hour because he couldn't play with his cube to go to sleep.

At 9:29 A.M. the next morning, I was standing in the pouring rain in front of our local Buy Buy Baby. At 9:31 A.M., I was racing through the store behind a clerk who was leading me to the magical Cubes. By 10:00 A.M., I was home, handing my son his Cube for his morning nap.

Whilst he was napping, I wrote to the Munchkin company. I asked if I could buy a replacement battery strip from them, so that my original Cube can be made functional again without buying yet another Cube if he breaks it again.

I just heard back today from Amanda Maria at Munchkin:

Thank you for contacting us, we recognize that customers like you have made Munchkin Inc. the company it is today, and we truly appreciate hearing from you.

I’m sorry to hear that the cover of your Mozart Magic Cube broke. Currently we do not sell the covers yet I do have some here for replacement and would be happy to send you one.

If you could please confirm your mailing address I will be sure to get a replacement out to you.

Wow. I can't buy a replacement, but they'll send me one for free. That is just awesome. I love you, Munchkin Company.

Presto! Longer Onesies

As silly as I thought the baby legwarmers were, the garment extenders are awesome. My 13-month old has a very, very long torso and he has been outgrowing his onesies very quickly. I want to use onesies, because they keep his 'shirt' tucked in (and thus his tummy and back warm), but they just weren't fitting long enough. These extenders really helped.

My only complaint is the one I've seen on all the sites with feedback areas: the pack is a 'variety pack' but there is really one size that works with everything. So you end up using two all the time, and the others sit in a drawer. I wish you could buy each size separately once you know which one you need.

Do it Yourself Baby Legwarmers

I laughed at the $11.95 price tag on these "Baby Legwarmers."

Really? Are you kidding me?

Try this on for size:
Find an old pair of knee socks -- one with heels that are almost worn through -- and cut the feet off. PRESTO! Instant baby legwarmers ... probably much better looking than the wacky, fashion-victim patterns that are on sale in stores.

Everyone needs a new TV by Feb 2009, huh?

Years ago, when I first heard about the government mandated shift to high definition, my first thought was "Yeah, right. This is going to be an exercise in permanent postponement" Shockingly, I have been correct in this assessment. Yet again, the mandatory transition from analog to digital television broadcasting has been postponed, from February 17 to June 12, 2009.

The part of this whole ordeal that is surprising is how little Media attention this has garnered over the past months.

• Why haven't there been complaints regarding the vast government sponsorship of the electronics industry? In particular the companies manufacturing these converter boxes?
• Where is the social commentary? The poor and the elderly are clearly impacted by this transition. Heck, I imagine that some people don't even know it is going to happen, honestly, and they'll just be very surprised one day when their TV stops working
• Have I somehow missed the environmental uproar? Given that most affluent consumers are simply going to trash their old TVs -- for no other reason than this mandated change -- and get new ones? And thousands of perfectly good TVs are going to end up in our dumps?
• Is there not one investigative journalist who thought it would be interesting to compare the lobbying effort that helped to pass this mandate with the combined forces that made marijuana illegal (thus boosting the tobacco, cotton, and wood pulp industries in the process) and the Great American Streetcar scandal (where established urban streetcar systems were dismantled by the american automotive industry, in order to sell more automobiles. )

Not one journalist thinks any of these topics are worth investigating? I guess not. I suppose this is because they've all been too busy covering the more important stories, like the ever-growing family size of Brad and Angelina.

But now that the Campaign is over, and Obamessiah is in office, and the Pitts aren't quite ready to have another baby, we are finally starting to see a few stories on this topic. Will the transition ever happen? Maybe. Personally, I've got my coupons in hand and I'll be going to get my boxes, soon. Do I need the coupons? No. Can I pay for the boxes myself? Of course I can, just like most folks who have requested these coupons. But I guess this topic isn't interesting to reporters, either. Oh look ... is that Britney over there? Quick! There's news to be told!

Chronicles of the New Giant: New Giant = New Stop and Shop

As I pointed out in my first post about 'New Giant,' both Giant and Stop & Shop are owned by Royal Ahold, and both were rebranded with the funky fruit basket logo. Interestingly enough, they have continued to print the names "Giant" or "Stop & Shop" on the various items like bags, receipts, etc. However, it is pretty obvious that at some point they are going to merge into one name as the clearly share the same system.

Case in point: I got several point-of-sale coupons for baby food while I was in Connecticut, visiting a Stop & Shop. When I returned to DC, I redeemed them at Giant. No muss or fuss. The computer read them properly with no complaints. (Whoo-hoo!)

I wonder what they will call the new combined store? "Stop Giant" doesn't sound so great. I'm sure they'll come up with something.

Toys, Toys, Toys

Christmas was a whirlwind for us. But now we are catching our breath and taking in the cornucopia of gifts that 'santa' brought. (Please note that we, his parents, bought him absolutely nothing. Everything came from his grandparents and our friends.)

There are 3 in particular worth mentioning.

Busy Gears

Nanna picked up this toy for us, and I thought 'Oh no, not another toy,' BUT I must say that Hasbro Playskool Busy Gears holds the interest of our 11-month-old longer than any other toy we have, with the exception of Mozart's Magic Cube which is the best toy EVER. Yes, I do realize that the recommended age for Busy Gears is 12 months to 3 years, but I believe that is scaled way too high. As other reviews have noted, a bunch of spinning gears isn't very exciting for a 2+ year old.

PROS: bright gears, seems durable (so far), colors, lights and music are diverting for a little one.

CONS: No extra gears, stacking the gears is a miraculous feat, and the carrying handle is a ridiculous feature given that as soon as the product is held upright all of the gears topple to the floor (as nothing but gravity holds them on to begin with). Made in China.

BOTTOMLINE: A good bet. I'd definitely buy it again

Busy Zoo

I guess anything with the word 'busy' in the title must be good, eh?

Grandma and Grandpa gave him the Busy Zoo activity center. At first he only paid attention to the beads on the top, which he tried and tried to pull off. Now he is looking at the various doors and spinners on the sides, too. He crawls right over to it when I put him down and he enjoys it a lot. His Ultrasaucer has been left in the dust by Busy Zoo.

PROS: Bright colors, well made, not HUGE like the saucers and other toys

CONS: Still large enough and heavy enough to not be terribly portable. Made in China.

BOTTOMLINE: It's awesome ... but shop around before you buy. It is listed as $250 on
Amazon, but it was $50 at Target.

Rescue Rider

A friend of ours has finished having her kids and gave us her used 'Rescue Rider' fire truck. All 3 of her kids loved it. It's a little beat up, and it's missing it's horn and radio, but he just loves it. He pushes it around like he does his tiny toy cars. But what he really likes is that the seat opens up to reveal a storage area, and I've put blocks in here. So he loves to 'open' and 'close' the seat to see the blocks.

PROS: Made in USA, very durable as it survived 3 kids and still works, bright red color

CONS: I don't think this is made anymore, so it's not available for purchase. In fact, I don't think that Tim Mee Toys exists anymore. I've searched and searched, but can't find any reference to them other than vintage toys at Ebay. There is one review online at ePinions from someone who had issues with her child continually flipping over in the Rescue Rider, but my friend never had that issue with any of her 3 children, and I'm going to keep it on the carpet with my son, so I'm not too worried about this.

BOTTOMLINE: Any toy can be dangerous, depending on the child and the situation. We're going to let him continue to enjoy it, and maybe we'll pass it along to a 5th child someday.

Chronicles of the New Giant: Scan It!

The Giant Food Store near me unveiled self-scanning this week ... a concept they are calling Scan It! When I say 'self-scanning', I don't mean self check-out. I mean you have a hand-held scanner and you scan items as you add them to your cart.

I've had a lot of people ask me about my experience with this new technology, including my peeps over at the Food Marketing Institute, so here is the full, objective scoop on how it works as well as my highly subjective opinion of it.

How it Works

1. Walk into Giant and right up to a huge wall of self-scanners, manufactured by Motorola. They are all locked into place in slots on this wall.
2. Scan your Giant Bonus Card, which unlocks one of the scanners. It flashes to let you know which one is yours.
3. Pick up your scanner and also some bags if you want to bag your groceries (or you can of course bring your own bags
4. Scan packaged goods by simply holding down on the scan button and scanning the UPC code. Place in bag in your cart.
   
5. Scan produce by inputting the PLU code into an electronic scale, weighing the item, printing a bar code, and then scanning the code. Place in bag in your cart.
6. If you make a mistake, click the Remove button and rescan the item to remove it and then place it back on the shelf.
7. When done, go to any aisle to check out
8. Scan a final UPC code to 'close' the electronic cart.
   
9. Scan your bonus card again, choose a payment method, pay and go.
   

My 2-Cents on this whole process

• Produce is a challenge. It takes a decent amount of concentration to work those scales, get the bar code, stick it to something, and scan it.
  
• Bagging as you go sounds easy, but it isn't. The stores aren't laid out from heaviest items to lightest items, so it is hard. If I was going to do this a lot, I might just bring boxes with me, as they won't flop over in the carts.
  
• It is very hard to juggle holding the scanner in one hand and pushing the cart with the other hand. If you happen to have a 10-month old baby in the cart who keeps dropping his pacifier, it all triples in difficulty. They need to add some type of 'holster' to the side of the carts to hold the scanner.
  
• Self-scanning ads more time in the store, so it is absolutely critical that there be a pay-off at checkout. i.e. All of us trying the scanners thought there would be a dedicated check-out aisle where we just would pay and go. NO, THERE WAS NOT. After spending all that extra time to scan and bag in the aisles, we had to wait in line behind people slowly scanning their own groceries and bagging at checkout.
  

This last bullet is the key for me. Without dedicated checkout lanes, there is absolutely no motivation for me to self-scan. None. It will always be faster to toss a few things in a basket and go to a self-checkout line than go through the process of unlocking a scanner, scanning each item, then waiting in line, again. I asked one of the cashiers when they'd be creating dedicated Scan-It lanes for those using the hand-held scanners and the answer was NEVER. So when will I 'Scan-It' again? NEVER.

The All-American Jean

I haven't worn jeans in nearly 10 years. [Yes, I am in fact American.] I found sweats and knit pants to just be more comfy.

But in walking through the mall the other day, I saw a 50% off sale at Lucky Brand Jeans and I decided to take a peek. Within 15 minutes, I was walking out with a pair of pretty trendy boot-cut jeans.

What made me buy them?

1. I just got a new sweater that would look sweet with jeans
2. The price was very appealing at 50% off
3. Lucky Jeans are all Made in the USA!
   
4. The salesgal was SUPER in helping me to figure out what waist size and length I needed

So, I've done my part for the week to support the economy ... have you?

Chronicles of the New Giant: Grand Re-opening

So, for several weeks, I've been following the rebranding of Giant. This weekend, Rolling Giant in Springfield held a 'grand reopening' as their store refurbishment is now complete.

The new logo is everywhere, including on the outside facade of the store. The carts are new, the floors are new, the fixtures are new. It's all new. Well, except for the staff. But they in fact do seem a little different, too.

Back in September, when Giant first unveiled their new logo, I had commented that Giant needed to change more than their branding. And now, 2 months later, I think that they have.

As I walked through the store yesterday, I was able to find the following items which have always been problematic for me:

• Kitchen Basics cooking stock: Beef, Chicken AND Vegetable all on the shelf. This has never happened. Normally they have 50 of one or the other, or none at all.
• Leeks AND Scallions AND Kale in produce. Amazing. Unheard of in the past.
  

So, maybe they have done something to try to get their inventory management under control. Hurrah!

Also, starting in a week or so, this store is going to make the self-scanners available. I am very curious to try this. It's a neat idea.

Nothing like a puzzle game ...

Anyone at all involved in the gaming industry knows that Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 came out last week.

Here's the issue: there were a lot of problems with the install. My husband is one of many who got a defective serial key that was 19 digits rather than 20. Many sites, including the official C&C help site, had this "helpful" advice:

There is currently a work around that may allow you to bypass this issue. Since you have the first 19 characters of the code already, you can basically try "guessing" the last character. To do this, simply enter your existing code, and then for the last character, try the letters A-Z, and then the numbers 0-9. You should eventually get the right combination, and be able to play the game.

Wow, that sounds both fun and easy, doesn't it? Just the way I want to spend my time after spending $49 for a game.

The issue, however, was that the game was coded to abort install if you failed to enter the correct serial number after 3 tries. After spending 30 mins of aborts and re-installs, my hubby was pretty angry.

So, my husband tried to follow the second set of advice,

In order to get a replacement code, please click the "Contact Us" link on the left side of the page, and attach an image of your code to the incident.

If you do not have access to a digital camera or scanner, you can fax us a copy of the back of your instruction booklet, along with a copy of your receipt, to (512)-949-4994. Please include with your fax your First and Last name as well as your incident number.

If you would like, once you have created your incident, you can also contact us by phone using the number found on page 28 of your manual.

Note: If you decide to contact us by phone, please include the incident number that you created for this issue.

But, that didn't actually work, either. When he called EA, they insisted that you did everything online and they wouldn't talk to him about the serial number. So, he ended up spending 3 hours starting the install over and over, again and again, until he guessed the correct number. What an AWESOME opening puzzle for the game!

We'd be holding a pretty serious grudge against them at this point if it weren't for the stellar performance of Tim Curry as the Russian Commander, Premier Cherdenko. Hail, Comrade! [If you're a Tim Curry fan, you can see him in this re-mix Red Alert 3 video, along with George Takei.]

The Battle of the Boxers

Back in February, I posted that I was on a mission to replace my husband's threadbare 15-year old boxers.

I bought 3 different brands, and he's been wearing/washing them for a few months now. Here are the results ....


City Boxers ($16-$20)
Custom Made in U.S.A

Overview: This is the ultimate boxer site; you pick fabrics, styles, colors, options. Then you order. Then you get e-mail updates as your boxers are being made and shipped.


These are the 'specs' of what we ordered, to give an idea of how many options you have;

1 pair of 'Black Sateen' Boxers
Style Number: 9143
Size: 35-L
Inseam: Short Short, 3-Inch
Waistband: Fabric-Covered
Fastener: No Fastener
Pocket: No Pocket

Verdict: These were BY FAR the highest quality of the 3. Well worth the price. These boxers will last forever. No joke. They will outlast us. The issue my husband had with them was that he found them to be too hot to wear under jeans. We are contacting City Boxers to see if they might recommend a thinner fabric. [Gary has written back as of today, and made some suggestions to try Egyptian White, Stripe 55 and 56.]

Made in USA Forever, Wickers Men's Boxers ($17)
Made in U.S.A.

Overview: The MadeinUSAforever.com website is a good place to find a variety of Made in the U.S.A. products in one store. They carry several "Wickers" brand items in the store.

Verdict: Although they call these "boxers" they are really more of a boxer-brief hybrid. My husband doesn't care for them for work-day wear under jeans, but LOVES them to jog/exercise in. In looking at the Wickers site, it appears that they are definitely targeting the exercise-market.



Stafford 100% Cotton Boxers at JCPenney.com ($20 for a 3-pack)
Made in Mexico (Hecho en Mexico)

Overview: By far the cheapest of the three, we ordered these from Jacques Penney's online Boutique.

Verdict: As sad as I am to admit it, these were my husband's favorites in terms of comfort during the day under his work clothes. However, these were definitely the lowest quality. I have no doubt the waist elastic will disintegrate within two years.

Where do I find Made in USA products?

Now that the whole country is starting to grasp the seriousness of shipping all of our work and money overseas, many of us are renewing our efforts to try to buy 'Made in the USA' products. The issue is that they are rather hard to find. I went into Nordstroms a few months ago and asked if any of the gloves or belts were Made in USA and they actually laughed out loud at me. It was sad.

Nonetheless, I have been working hard to buy Made in USA. It is hard. Here is what I've found, in no particular order.

Where and how to find merchandise online:

• MadeinUSAforever.com.
  I've had good luck with this site; I've ordered several baby items and been pleased with them. The Founder, Todd Lipscomb, is quite dedicated to supporting Made in USA products and he's doing a lot to bring new products to the site every month.
• Still Made in the USA. I've had good luck with this site, too. I've found several companies that I've actually ordered from, from this site.
  
• MadeinUSA.org and MadeinUSA.com. I haven't had much luck with either of these sites, but they do exist, and I'm sure that someone will find them useful.

A bunch of retailers carry some Made in USA items; you just need to look for them. Here are some recent ones that I've stumbled across and bought from:

• Whole Foods actually has a small section of clothes and baby items, many of which are Made in USA. They also try to buy a lot of local produce, which is of course great.
  
• Crate & Barrel actually has a decent amount of Made in USA items; you can do a site search for "USA" and find them
• I was at Babies-R-Us today and was actually able to find several Made in USA items. Some bubbles, some socks (Miniwear brand, made by Gerber for Babies-R-Us, $4.99 for a 6-pack), and some bibs (Bumkins brand, $5.99 for a single bib).
  

Some of my favorite USA vendors:

• Smith's Rosebud Salve. Family-owned company (my family, actually). Made in USA for over a hundred years. One tin lasts forever.
  
• GreatBags and Maple Leather. Amazing Custom-made bags. AMAZING. They are so well-made, and have so many pockets. I LOVE my fabric GreatBags backpack.
• Bumkins baby bibs. Nice bibs. And sold many places.
• Green Babies: Organic baby clothes made in USA
• North States baby gates made in USA
  

My next big dilemma will be buying a new car.

My 1994 Nissan Sentra won't last forever. I have been very happy with it, but I'd like to buy a car from a United States manufacturer. But when I track down all the features I want, it always seems to be a foreign car. Also, I keep hearing things like "It's better to buy a Honda. They are made in US plants, now." and "Saturns are actually using Honda engines, now." I am hoping that by the time my car dies, I will have had sufficient time to research what exactly is going on in this industry, and that a US car will up to spec.

Chronicles of the New Giant: My Kingdom for a Bag

My friend Sue had me rolling on the floor with the tale of her quest for one of the new lime-green Giant reusable bags...

• Three weeks ago, she went to her local Giant, in Maryland, and wanted to buy some of the new bags. She really likes the new lime green. But they didn't have any in stock. They only had the old blue ones, for .99-cents each.
• She went back a week later -- 2 weeks ago -- and they still didn't have any of the new bags. But they had twice as many blue bags, and now they were only .79-cents. She asked one of the managers about the new bags, and he said that the bags should be in, soon
• She went back last week and STILL no green bags. And there were triple the number of the old blue bags, now for only .49-cents each. She talked to a manager, again, who this time told her that they had to sell all the old bags before they were allowed to have any new ones.
• She then drove a few miles down the road to a different Giant. This Giant had both the old blue and the new green bags. All for .99-cents each. She bought some of the green bags.
• She is now planning to visit her local Giant each week. Her theory is that if they keep dropping the old blue bags by .20-.30 cents each week, they'll be free in approx 2-3 weeks.

This story got me all fired up; I just couldn't wait to go to a Giant in Virginia to check out their bags. So I went to the Alexandria, VA, Giant at my lunch hour.

Bags EVERYWHERE. Endcaps, registers, anywhere they could fit them. Old blue bags, new green bags, AND the cool April 2008 'earth day' bags that I hadn't seen anywhere else since Earth day. I immediately grabbed one of the earth day bags (one of my favorites) as I took note that they were all still .99-cents.

I don't know what is going on in that store up in Maryland. It's like that manager drew the short, blue straw at a regional meeting, or something.

Chronicles of the New Giant: G.A.B.

What's this? Que es Esto?
In the Customer Service section of the new website: Something called the Grocery Advisory Board (G.A.B.) Panel.

From the site ...
As a G.A.B. member, you will periodically receive short, easy-to-complete surveys that will allow you to share your ideas and comments about your shopping experiences. You will also be able to give feedback on various programs and ideas and influence whether these ideas should be implemented in the Giant stores where you shop.

Sign me up.

In fact, I am already signed up. I signed up the instant I read this, a few weeks ago. It was a pretty damned long survey to sign up, but I made it through.

Now, let's see what happens. [So far, weeks later, nothing]

Chronicles of the New Giant: Produce and Bags

So, I have visited Rolling Giant in Springfield about 3 times in the past week.

They rearranged the whole store; I guess they wanted to wait till the proverbial smoke cleared from the logo rollout. When I went two days ago, all the signs were down. So no one had any idea at all where anything was. The store wasn't too busy, so it was easy enough to just wander down the aisles. Speaking of the aisles, they are shorter, both in height and length. Although they are tighter at the front of the store. None of this makes sense to me. It seems like there is less product because of this, and horrible jams are being caused up at the checkout lines when it is 'rush hour.' But they are still working on it, so let's see what happens.

The produce section has also been totally rearranged, with new fixtures and new lighting. Most of the produce is in baskets. The floor is half done; they are putting in wood-colored linoleum. It does soften the appearance of the store; less harsh. There are new lights, too. It makes for a better experience, but they don't look like fluorescents, so I think that all this new brightness is coming at an energy cost. Of course, if Giant is planning to jump on the solar bandwagon and put panels on their roof, they'd help to offset that. (I have no idea if they are planning to do this; I just know that companies are out there, like Recurrent Energy, that broker deals to do such things with large retailers)

Most important ... the produce looked good, which is a change. I sat there and thought for a good 5 minutes about whether or not the produce was actually better or just looked better due to the lights/fixtures, and I decided it WAS better. There were fewer rotten spots on the onions, the peaches weren't hard as frozen bricks, and they had some produce they rarely carry (like red cabbage). Some things seem odd to me, like limes being at the totally opposite end from lemons, but in general the change seems good.

I talked to my favorite cashier, whom I call "Mr. Smiley," and not surprisingly he loves the new uniforms. I talked to two others, and they weren't as enthusiastic.

I also want to mention that every time I've gone to Giant since the change, I haven't gotten any of the push-back or bad-attitude I used to get at bringing my own bags. So clearly, there was some training on the re-use of bags being a priority for them.

So, things are looking pretty good at that Giant. I haven't been to the other Springfield Giant (International Giant, as I call it) for over a week and I haven't been to the Alexandria Giant at all since the change. I'll need to do that soon, and report.