Long Day

I had a long work day yesterday. I was scheduled to work at the Post Office on rural route 7. I was looking forward to route 7 as it is one of my favorite routes. I always seem to do well on it. Shortly after I arrived at the Post Office, the Postmaster walked up to me and asked if I could help with the city routes after I was finished doing route 7. I wasn't keen on helping but I knew they were probably in a big bind. I offered to do 1 hour on city routes as I was pretty certain I could finish route 7 by 5 p.m. The Postmaster accepted my offer and left. I was now in a bind. I had to finish route 7 by 5 p.m., help deliver mail on the city side for 1 hour, do a mystery shop at a local Weis supermarket and work a show at Medieval Times. It was going to be a long day.

Route 7 went as expected. I had no problems and made few mistakes to my relief. When I returned to the Post Office, they had the mail ready for me to deliver on the city side. They had me walk a short loop called Snowden Loop in Laurel. All totalled, I delivered mail to maybe 20 homes. I found it kinda neat.

After finishing with that, I drove back to the Post Office to wrap everything up. Once I was clear at the Post Office, I had to rush to a nearby Weis supermarket where I had to do a mystery shop. I was hoping the store wouldn't be that busy. I wasn't so lucky. I guess a bunch of people were doing their last minute shopping. I picked up the store's weekly ads at the entrance so I could find out what was on special. One thing I have to do during my mystery shops at Weis is buy at least one item that is on sale. The point of that is to see if the cashier tells me how much I saved with my Weis discount card. They're supposed to but I've seen in a number of cases where they haven't.

The store was nice and the people working there were enthusiastic. There were only two things I could ding them on: a number of sale items were missing on the shelves and there was some water on the floor in one of the aisles that should've been mopped up. The store also ended up providing me something to eat prior to the show I had to work at Medieval Times. I bought a pound of bologna and munched on that when I arrived at Arundel Mills Mall.

After finishing the bologna I bought, I walked into the mall and decided to treat myself to a Dairy Queen blizzard. These are ice cream treats where they mix in various things like Heath toffee bar or Butterfinger bits with vanilla ice cream. They're really good and I enjoyed the one I bought. Unfortunately, I also got in slight trouble with the castle over it. I walked into the arena and continued to eat the thing. Employees aren't supposed to eat anything in the arena. I forgot this and got caught by the Operations Manager who in turn got on my supervisor's case about it. Mike, my supervisor at the castle, was having another tough day. Batteries for the radios the departments use to communicate were running out of charge making extremely hard for everyone to communicate. Also, the castle was doing three shows and after the third show, one group was going to have an awards ceremony. The last thing Mike needed was the Ops Manager getting on his case about something I did. Damn!

The show itself went fine. It has become seriously old hat to work the spotlight at the shows. I know the cues by heart now. The only thing I work on now is promptly opening and closing the shutter on the spotlight during the cue. It looks more professional if you open and close the shutter crisply vice having it linger. Ideally, you want all four people to open and close their spotlights at the same time but there is always going to be slight variances between the operators. In my case, at times I was smack on and other times I was little slow. It didn't help things that I was tired.

My work day wasn't over when I finished the show at Medieval Times. When you do a mystery shop for ICCDS, you have 12 hours to fill out the survey you have to do after the shop. The survey asks all kinds of questions on customer service, sale items being available and store cleanliness. Once you finish the survey, the website software will prepare an invoice so you can be paid for your shop. You can mail, fax or email the the invoice and receipt (from your shop) to ICCDS. ICCDS's website will tell you when they've received your paperwork (which is pretty nice). The survey took me approximately 10 minutes to finish. I printed the invoice and planned on sending it in the next day.

My work day was finally over and I blissfully crashed. Today, I get to work at the castle again. I look forward to it as I enjoy playing one of the castle guards. Tomorrow, I'll get to do rural route 10 which I hate. The only good thing is I'm scheduled to work 4 days this week and should get my 40 hours in so I'll get paid for all the hours I'll work at the Post Office. I'm supposed to have Tuesday completely off i.e. I won't be working at the Post Office or the castle. I hope to do my quarterly recycling trip to the Anne Arundel County recycling depot. I also hope to visit the Baltimore Aquarium. If I get to do the trip to the Aquarium, I plan to post a blog on here about it. Stay tuned. Cheers!

Show Review - "Annie"

I got to see the musical "Annie" last night at the Baltimore Hippodrome Theater. The show is based on the depression era comic strip Orphan Annie. It tells of the 7 or 8 days leading up to Christmas in 1933 and shows how she meets her future step-father billionaire Oliver Warbucks.

I found the show to be absolutely delightful. The young girls in the show who play Annie's fellow orphans were outstanding. At times, they were very funny. At other times, they were very touching. All did a great job with the songs they sang. Marissa O'Donnell who plays Annie did a fantastic job as she sang and acted into people's hearts. The interaction between her and Conrad John Schuck who plays Oliver Warbucks was particularly touching and amusing. Warbucks doesn't know what to do with this precocious youngster and it makes for some great laughs. Elizabeth Broadhurst who plays Warbuck's kind hearted personal secretary Miss Farrell was equally outstanding. She exuded great amounts of warmth in the show that were very touching.

Overall, the show was fantastic from beginning to end. It had great song numbers and superb acting. I was surprised by a number of great comic lines they had in the show. You'll get plenty of laughs during the show. Kids will particularly like this show as they'll be greatly amused by the antics of Annie and her fellow orphans. The show was superbly supported by an excellent orchestra conducted by Kelly Ann Lambert. This is one show those with kids or who are kids at heart won't want to miss. I believe it plays for another 13 days at the Hippodrome. If you live in the area, this is one show you'll want to see.

On a slightly separate note, the Hippodrome offers reserved Grand parking. They have an 11-story parking lot which is attached to the theater. I found using this parking lot to be an invaluable convenience. I was able to park my car and and take one of the parking lot elevators right to the theater. The cost is $10 if you reserve in advance and $7 of the show though you risk them selling out if you try to use it the day off the show. I would definitely recommend using this lot as it makes things enormously easier in seeing any show you decide to see at the Hippodrome. For further information on up coming productions at the Hippodrome, check out their website at: http://www.france-merrickpac.com/home.html.

Restaurant Review - Potbelly

I've been wanting to visit the Potbelly restaurant next to Arundel Mills Mall for a while. It's a sandwich restaurant specializing in 11 different sandwiches. You can get turkey breast, pizza, roast beef, chicken salad, vegetarian, tuna salad, meatball, Italian, A Wreck (salami, roast beef, turkey, ham and swiss cheese) and peanut butter and jelly. All sandwiches are a flat $3.99 plus tax. You have a choice of white or wheat bread. They have bottled sodas or a soda machine. They also sell milk shakes, malts, yogurt smoothies, sundaes, and hand scooped ice cream cones.

I tried the chicken salad and roast beef sandwiches. To drink, I had a vanilla milk shake. I found the sandwiches to be good. They were made right in front of me. They toasted the bread and offered mayonnaise, mustard, italian seasoning, lettuce, onions, pickles, hot peppers, tomato and oil on your sandwich. My only complaint with their sandwiches is that one would not fill you up. Also, there is no way I'm going to pay $4 for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich though I suspect it's popular with the kids. Shake wise, I was very pleased with the vanilla shake I ordered. It was excellent and a lot better than the one you can buy at McDonald's. My only complaint would be its size. It didn't seem very big though it did only cost $1.59 (I think).

Decor wise, the restaurant had an old time feel to it. They had a potbelly stove in the restaurant and stored various sandwich fixings on old time store shelves. It's a pleasant enough place to enjoy a sandwich and drink. Hours were also convenient with the Arundel Mills restaurant open Monday to Thursday to 9 p.m. and till 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

Overall, I thought the Arundel Mills Potbelly was a nice restaurant. It's a pleasant place to eat. I don't think it's great value. Value wise, I think you'd do better at Chipotle's or Golden Corral. Still, if you're hunkering for a sandwich, it might be the place to satisfy your sandwich craving. Bon Appetit!

Disclaimer: All opinions stated here are my own. I didn't receive any kind of reimbursement from Potbelly nor do they know of my review of their Arundel Mills restaurant. Each person has different tastes so you may like Potbelly better, the same or worse than I did. If you try them, I make no guarantees whether you'll like them or not. For further information on Potbelly, you can check out their website at http://www.potbelly.com.

Maryland Weather

This past week was a showcase of how Maryland is weather wise. Earlier this week, we had sunshine and the temperatures hit the low 70's. Yesterday, the temperatures dropped, it rained all day gradually turning into a freezing rain which made a mess of things. This morning, I got to try to pry my car door open without breaking the handle thanks to the ice freezing it shut. Later, as I was delivering mail, I had to watch out constantly for black ice. It was all very annoying. I suspect the problem weather wise is that Maryland is on the borderline between the North and the South so it gets both kinds of weather. We'll get warm Southern periods of weather then the cold Northern weather will move in. One thing that is particularly hard about Maryland weather is it makes it easy to catch a cold. The constant change in temperature is hard on the body. So far, I've been lucky cold wise (knock on wood). I'm going to keep my fingers crossed and hope it warms up soon. We'll see.

Databasing

I finally started databasing my CD and DVD collections. By doing this, I'll know what I have and stop myself from buying the same CD or movie twice. To my embarrassment, I've done that four or five times. I found out a month ago that I bought the CD The Beach Boys Live in Concert twice. I also discovered I have the Best of the Rippingtons. What's embarrassing about the Rippingtons CD is that I've had it for over a year, didn't know I had it and haven't listened to it yet. I'll have to put that in my stack of music I plan to listen to. I have 5 or 6 CDs in that stack already. You can expect to see some new Music Reviews in the future on this blog.

Daylight Savings Time

Don't forget to move your clocks forward 1 hour. Daylight savings time ended this morning.

Mystery Shopper

I did another mystery shopper shop this evening. It was at another supermarket. Prior to the shop, I checked out the store's weekly ad to figure out what items on special I was going to buy. I also tried to figure out what questions I could ask various departments. Once I had my shopping list and possible questions ready, I drove out to the store. The visit itself went fine though I can't say I would've given the store I checked out the highest marks. Salespeople were no where to be seen in a number of departments and items on sale were missing in some areas. It didn't seem like a number of employees were making any great effort. Overall, I wasn't super impressed with the store. I won't name the store as I don't want to take the chance they might get tipped off that I was doing a mystery shopper visit on them.

Concerning ICCDS, I still haven't gotten paid for any of my mystery shops yet. However, they do have 10 more days to pay me for the first one. We'll see what happens on this score. If worst comes to worst, I'm out around $17 so far which is nothing to me. Stay tuned to see how things work out with ICCDS.

Mystery Shopper Update

I finally decided to see if ICC Decision Services (ICCDS) is a legitimate company. They're the company I've been doing mystery shopper visits for. I contacted the supermarket chain I've visited twice to see if they use them. To my relief, they confirmed they did. It's nice to know I don't have to worry about getting taken in by a scam. Because of that, I definitely plan to do more mystery shops for them. They do offer some nice assignments though they also have some stinkers. I've turned down a number of assignments with them because they haven't offered enough compensation. I'm also limiting my travel range to 30 minutes each way. That way, I don't spend all the money I made doing the shop on gas. We'll see how it goes.

Music Review

I finally got around to listening to one of the CDs I bought a while back. The CD is "Borrowed Heaven" by The Corrs. I've liked some of the stuff the Corrs have done. I think their songs "Breathless" and "So Young" are particularly good. They also did a great instrumental version of "Paddy McCarthy." Sadly, I found their "Borrowed Heaven" to be lacklustre. None of the songs were particularly good. It seemed on some of the songs that the lyrics didn't seem to fit the music. The Corrs did include one instrumental called "Silver Strand" which I thought was nice but not enough make the CD worth buying. In my opinion, this is one CD you can pass on. It isn't a stinker but it isn't worth spending your money on either. I found out from the Corrs website (http://www.corrs.net) that they've come out with a greatest hits. I plan to buy that and see how it is. I'll let you know what I think of it once I've bought it and listened to it. Cheers all!

Agent Ditto

I completed another mystery shopper mission today. It was another supermarket of a major chain. The mission was the same as before. I had to visit all six departments (produce, grocery, meat/seafood, pharmacy, bakery and customer service). I had to ask an associate from each one of the departments some kind of question and grade them on how well they answered if they answered at all. Another duty was rating how well or not the cashier did his/her job when I checked out with my mandatory purchase(s). Supermarket cleanliness both inside and out was another area I had to rate the store on. Lastly, I had to spend a minimum of 35 minutes at the store. I don't know why they mandate you stay that long. I guess to make sure you give the store a good lookover. In my case, the extra time caused to notice that the store's stocking staff wasn't doing their job. I found a number of sale items that weren't on the shelves and they should've been considering the store had only been open an hour when I did my mission. Overall, I found it easier to do the evaluation and play the part of a normal shopper.

I still not sure about the company I'm doing the mystery shopper missions for. I will say again that if they are a scam, they are the most thorough one I've seen. It took a lot of work to come up with the list of questions I have to answer when I do a mystery shopper mission. They also have a very sophisticated website. Plus, I can't see where they could take you for some serious money. I imagine they could apply for a refund from the supermarket chain for the purchases I've made for them but that money is minuscule. Lastly, they are very consistent in what they have you do. I'm waiting to see what happens with my first invoice I submitted for payment. That will give me some idea how legit they are. We'll see what happens.

Pictures of SHARE

My apologies if these aren't the best pictures of SHARE. Hopefully, they'll give you a little idea what the organization is like.

This is a picture of the SHARE warehouse in Bladensburg, Maryland. The warehouse is quite big with 5 loading bays, a drive-in freezer and a drive-in chiller (to keep fruits and vegetables fresh during the hot summer months). The parking lot here offers a good bit of parking except during Distribution Fridays and Saturdays when it can become very congested due to people from various organizations picking up their orders. Other times, you'll see truckers delivering food orders. Also, this is where volunteers help bag various food items.

This is a picture of one of the volunteers working at SHARE and one of the tables they use to bag various food items. Volunteers play a crucial part in helping SHARE keep the price of the food packages down. They supply the labor to bag potatoes, rice, pasta, 16 bean soup mix and other items. By them bagging these various items, SHARE doesn't have to farm out the work and can pass the savings on to those buying the food packages. This is one of the ways SHARE is able to keep the cost of their food packages so low.

This is a picture that shows a small amount of the food SHARE handles. SHARE will distribute during its two distribution days over 700 cases of chicken alone!

This last picture shows you some of the banners of the various organizations that support SHARE. While the primary organization that funds SHARE is Catholic Charities of the Roman Catholic Church, numerous organizations of different faiths and non-religious organizations such as United Airlines and the Midshipman's Association of the U.S. Naval Academy support SHARE as well. SHARE isn't about one particular faith. It is about helping people in need be able to buy the food they need so they can eat. As far as I know, any organization that becomes a sponsor of SHARE can have their banner put on the wall of honor (if you will) where all can see that they support SHARE. The items you see stacked against the wall are food items that will be distributed on Distribution Friday and Saturday. This picture was taken three days before Distribution Friday and the people at SHARE were already getting ready for their two busiest days of the month.

Work permitting, I hope to get down to SHARE again sometime so I can get some pictures of the SHARE staff. They are the people who make SHARE happen. There's Ollie who is the food guru. He is the one searches for the best buys on various items, arranges delivery and keeps track of all the invoices. There is Ninotchka who manages the various volunteer groups who help out at SHARE. There is Chris who works community outreach, briefs organizations about SHARE and how they can become a sponsor. There is Jingle who also works with volunteers and is always a source of encouragement and welcome. She isn't called Jingle for nothing. There is also Henry the money man, Debbie (I'm not sure what she does), another lady whose name I can't remember and a new guy who helps run the warehouse. Lastly, there is Sam who used to run the warehouse but has moved on to bigger and better things. Sam still helps out at SHARE and was responsible for getting me to volunteer last week. Few people know the management of the warehouse like Sam does.

If you're interested in SHARE or would like more information about the organization, their website is: http://www.sharedc.org. If you might be interested in ordering one of their excellent food packages, SHARE has a link on their webpage where you can find one of their sponsors that you can order a package from. You can also drive to the warehouse on distribution days and pick one up directly. If you have any questions about SHARE, please leave a comment and I'll do my best to answer the question. If I don't know the answer, I'll contact the folks at SHARE and get you the answer.

Just a reminder, I'm not directly affiliated with SHARE. I'm only an occasional volunteer at SHARE as well as someone who has bought some of their food packages. As you can tell by my posts on SHARE, I am supportive of the organization. I feel they provide an invaluable service to communities throughout Northern Virginia, Maryland and Washington D.C. Cheers!

Stories from The Tower

Yesterday, I got to work as the Dungeon Master at Medieval Times. What the Dungeon Master does is answer questions about the dungeon (museum of torture) and make sure people pay to get in to see the dungeon i.e. collect their dungeon passes which cost $2 each. One unique thing I bring to the job as Dungeon Master is I have some knowledge about the various tortures in the dungeon (no, I've never actually used anything like them, I'm not into it that much!). I can also tell folks stories I learned from the Yeoman Warders at the infamous Tower of London.

The Tower of London has serviced as a royal fortress, observatory, treasury and most infamously as a prison for high ranking prisoners. It is as a prison that it is most famous though it also houses the crown jewels.

The Yeoman Warders are a special unit of retired British military personnel who guard the Tower and the crown jewels. They also take part in special ceremonies involving their sovereign from time to time. They are also known as "Beefeaters." They received that title possibly because at time, one of the things they received for doing the job was a large ration of beef (source: wikipedia). One of the things the Yeoman Warders also do at the Tower is give free tours every half hour. The Yeoman Warders give the visitors a choice of a dull boring tour or of the terribly bloody gruesome tour. Visitors invariably take the terribly bloody gruesome tour. The Tower has plenty of such stories. Here are few stories I remember hearing from the Warders. However, not all of them are terribly bloody and gruesome.

Duke of Monmouth

The Duke of Monmouth was an illegitimate son of Charles the II who felt he should be king vice Charles brother James I. He raised an uprising in Scotland which was quickly crushed. He was summarily brought down to London, stayed one day in the infamous Tower and then was beheaded. It was only after they beheaded him that they made a terrible discovery. They didn't have a portrait of the Duke. They decided they had to rectify this even though the Duke was dead. What they did (and this is gruesome) is sewed his head back on, put a frilly thing around his neck to hide the stitches and painted his picture. It is hardly surprising that the Duke looks very grim in his portrait.

Ravens of the Tower

It is said that if the ravens of the Tower of London ever leave that the Tower and the monarchy will crumble and fall. The British, not wishing to take any chances, had the wings of the ravens who live at the Tower clipped so they can't fly away. Because of this and the excellent care the ravens receive (they have a special Yeoman Warder who serves as Ravenmaster and who feeds them beef daily), they live far longer than wild ravens. The normal lifespan of a raven is only 7 or 8 years. One raven at the tower lived to 52 years of age. Now, there is a tradeoff the ravens pay for this posh life. All of you of virgin eyes please don't read this next part. Do you know how ravens have nookie i.e. sex? They do it while in flight. Don't ask me how they do it in flight but they supposedly do. One problem with having their wings clipped is that the poor though well compensated ravens at the Tower of London can get any nookie. It is the sad but necessary (if the Tower and Monarchy are to remain standing) price they pay for the good of the country. However, the birds are well compensated as you can see.

Murdered Princes

The Tower has seen a number of foul or tragic deeds. One of the worst was the murder of two young princes. They were the sons of Edward IV (I think that's the right number, there have been a number of Edwards.). One of them was in fact the king but being king when you're only 9 or 10 years old was very dangerous thing back in those days. Unfortunately for the young princes, Edward's brother decided to take the throne for himself. The princes were placed in the Tower and after a while, no one ever saw them again. No one knew what happened to them though when their uncle had himself crowned as King, they were certainly dead i.e. murdered. Years later, the princes' bodies were found in the Tower. They remain some of the more tragic figures from the history of the Tower.

Queen of Hearts

Wanting to end this blog entry on a nice note, I will know tell you the story of the Queen of Hearts you see in your deck of playing cards. The story goes that Edward IV had only one surviving child who was Elizabeth York. Henry Tudor of the Lancastrian line defeated her uncle who had become Shakespeare's infamous Richard III in the battle of Bosworth Hills. Her uncle was also slain there. Henry subsequently claimed the throne and became Henry VII. In a desire to unite the two royal houses, he married Elizabeth York. In an unusual case, the two actually fell in love after their marriage and were supposedly devoted to one another. Later, Elizabeth died though not before having at least two children Arthur and Henry (of Henry VIII fame or infamy depending on what your thoughts are on what he did with his various wives). In mourning for his beloved wife, Henry ordered that the face of his dead Queen be used as the face of the Queen of Hearts in all decks of playing cards. A memoriam of sorts if you will. So, if the story is true, the person's face you see on the Queen of Hearts is that of a tragic girl who's brothers were murdered but became Queen and found love before she died. A happy ending to a harrowing young life.

And, there'll I end my stories I learned from the famous Yeoman Warders. If you ever visit London, make sure you see the infamous Tower of London and catch their free tours. The Warders are really great and they do tell some fascinating stories about the Tower. Cheers!

Mystery Shopper

I got to do my first mystery shopper assignment yesterday. I found the whole experience nerve wracking. If you surf the web, you'll see advertisements showing how you can make big bucks being a mystery shopper. The truth of the matter is if you find a legitimate company to work for, you won't get rich doing it and you probably won't be able to make a career out of it either. Money wise, I earned $20 plus $5 for the item I had to purchase. The $20 was double what I would normally receive for an assignment. For that $20, I had an extensive checklist I had to mark off on (over 35 questions). I also had to make up bogus questions for six different departments so I could see how well they treated customers. I found that part hard as I had to be something I wasn't. I was trying to play the regular customer when I was actually checking up on these folks. To add to my discomfort, I don't know if the company I was doing all this for is legitimate. There are a lot of mystery shopper scams out there. My co-worker Jaime at Medieval Times had one group try to scam her for something like $2,000. While I was never in that kind of potential danger, at worst I would've been out $7 plus gas, I still had visions of someone breaking into my apartment while I at the business I was checking on. After all, if the company was bogus and was a bunch of crooks, they would know when I'd be gone and how long I'd likely be gone. I had to spend a minimum of 35 minutes at the store I had to check on and it was a 30 minute drive each way. An hour and a half would be plenty of time to rob me of any valuables I'd left out in the apartment. Before I left, I secured the passwords to my various accounts and hid my laptop and digital camera.

The assignment itself went all right considering it was my first one. I managed to come up with some kind of question for each of the departments. I think I managed to not look too nervous. I was afraid if I looked the nervous type, the security folks might think I was a crook. If I had to explain to security person at the store what was up, I wouldn't be able to swear what I was doing was legit. I didn't want to even think of that mess. I made sure I spent the mandatory 35 minutes at the store and then took my items to the sales person who rang me up.

When I left the store, I filled out a copy of the survey I had to do so I'd be able to remember all the things I needed to answer while they were fresh in my mind. Then, I drove home and to my relief, no one had tried to break into my apartment. My work wasn't done though as once you've done an assignment, you have 12-hours to report back to your boss and do the on-line survey which presumably will be forwarded to the company paying for the mystery shopper service. That took another 20 minutes. Also, I had to do an invoice for my services which I'll have to mail out today with the receipt from the store I shopped at. If all goes well, I'll get paid $25 in about 30 days. If it turns out to be a scam which I think is unlikely (if it is a scam, it is the most elaborate one I've ever seen), I'll be out $7 of which I'll have bought some items I wanted anyway.

Before I knew exactly what I was getting into, I signed up for four more assignments. As I try to keep my word, I plan to do them though they promise to be challenging for me. I'll get to play a spy of sorts. I've always felt I would never be good a good spy. I just don't have the nerves for it. I also don't like being something I'm not. I like the thought that with me, what you see is what is actually there. There isn't anything hidden and there isn't anything devious. I consider myself something of a naive person. Time and again, I've been surprised by some of the underhanded things I've learned some people do. In regards to being naive, I don't consider that to be the best thing. It's better to be wise though if it comes to being either naive or duplicitous, I'll take naive any day. As it is, you my blog readers may get to hear of further misadventures of Agent Ditto as he continues his secret missions to uncover poor customer service, unclean stores and disastrous parking lots. Stay tuned.

SHARE

I helped out at the Washington D.C. SHARE (Self Help and Resource Exchange) yesterday. It was the first time I'd been there in probably three months. Due to work at the Post Office and Medieval Times, I haven't been able to get down there to help out. I did the job I first did when I arrived at SHARE (3 or 4 years ago?). I bagged potatoes. What you do is break down 50-pound sacks of potatoes into 3-pound bags of potatoes. The 3-pound bags are part of the monthly food package SHARE sells. Potatoes seem to be a staple of the package. I suspect it's because they can be used in so many different ways. You can boil, bake, fry and mash potatoes. You can also include them in soups. They're a very versatile vegetable. The amount of potatoes SHARE handles is impressive. I would guess it's at least 5,000 pounds.

Volunteer wise, the largest group was from Prince Georges County Department of Correction. I was impressed with the group as they kept at it and did a good job. The table I was at had two elderly church going ladies. I enjoyed chatting with them. It helped make the time go by Groups of volunteers come from all over Washington D.C. and Baltimore. They come from churches, schools (a lot of high school students do their community service at SHARE) and organizations. I first got involved when I was on active duty with the Air Force. The volunteers are vital to SHARE as it would be impossible to run the program without them. The SHARE staff has only 9 people who have to keep track of all the volunteers, keep the books, do community outreach, seek funding (SHARE is a non-profit that relies on donations as much as the money they make through the food packages they sell), decide what items to include in the package and then organize delivery (Ollie does this) and keep the five warehouses as well as the freezer and chiller clean. It's a massive undertaking.

Volunteering at SHARE can be fun. You meet nice people and you help the community. I very much enjoyed chatting with the two elderly ladies I met. The program itself helps considerably the poor stretch their food dollars so they can have enough to eat. It also covers a wide area. The program reaches Northern Virginia, all of Washington D.C. and Baltimore. If you have some free time and would like to help a worthwhiled organization, you might want to give SHARE a try. Their website is http://www.sharedc.org. If you want to see what SHARE looks like, stay tuned to this blog as I took a few pictures which I plan to post later. Cheers!

Arundel Mills Chipotle

Yesterday, I had to stop by my credit union in Arundel Mills to get some cash. Between the movie "The Queen" and playing arcade games at Dave and Busters, I'd just about cleaned out my wallet. Right next to my credit union is a Chipotle's restaurant. I decided to get a couple of their burritos to go.

The restaurant itself was tastefully decorated and offered a decent number of tables. The restaurant doesn't offer any table service. Everyone has to go up to the counter to place their order and have their food prepared. Chipotle's menu is very standardized. They offer regular burritos, fajita burritos (where they replace the fried beans with grilled peppers and onions), either of their two burritos in a bowl vice a wrap, tacos and salads. You get to choose between chicken, steak, pork, shredded beef and vegetarian for the meat or meatless portion of your food. They offer three levels of salsa: mild, medium and hot. Lastly, you can order chips and salsa or chips and guacamole, bottled water, a soda, a beer or a margarita.

Price wise, Chipotle's aims for around $5 for their burritos which I found very reasonable for what you get. I ordered two steak fajita burritos. They cost me $5.85 a piece. Unlike Taco Bell, each one of the burritos was virtually a meal in itself. With a side order of chips and something to drink, you had a full filling meal. I was also very impressed with the ingredients. All of them seemed to be of the finest quality and both of the burritos I had were very tasty.

Due to the standardized menu, wait time for the food was minimal. There were two people ahead of me in line and yet I had my food within 10 minutes. Service at the counter was courteous and prompt.

Overall, I was very impressed with Chipotle's. The food was very good, reasonably priced and was served very quickly. They are a nice place if you want to dine in or if you want to grab something on the go. If you want some very good quality Mexican food, you should definitely give them a try.

Disclaimer: As with previous restaurant reviews, I didn't receive any kind of remuneration for this blog. All opinions expressed are my own. I'm not any kind of dining expert or gourmet for what that's worth. I just know when I've had a nice dining experience and when I haven't. Hopefully, you the reader will find this blog useful. Cheers!

Dave and Busters

After I saw the movie "The Queen," I drove out to Arundel Mills Mall to play some arcade games at Dave and Busters. Dave and Busters are a chain on arcade/restaurants where you can play various arcade games and have something to eat or drink. They also offer large screen tvs where you can watch various sports events.

In regards to the arcade games, They have a large variety of them so there is something for everyone. If you want to play skeeball, shoot basketball hoops, shoot at targets or drive a simulated race car, they can accomodate you. In my case, I heard they had a trivia game where you can compete against as many as 5 other people. The higher number of people that compete, the higher the number of bonus tickets you can win. The disadvantage of competing against 5 other people is that only the top 3 win tickets. The bottom 3 get zip! I found it fun competing against others and trying to win the maximum number of tickets. The tickets enable you to win various prizes. Some of the prizes are very nice and some are very cheap. I suspect it would be cheaper to buy one of the prizes vice what it would cost you in playing the various arcade games and trying to win enough tickets. Yet, I think buying the item wouldn't be as much fun as winning it.

Overall, I found the arcades to be a lot of fun at Dave and Busters though it is very easy to spend some serious money playing the games. I would definitely watch what you spend there if you take kids there. Anyone under 18 must be accompanied by an adult. They do check IDs as I found out personally to my surprise. In regards to the food and drink they offer there, I haven't eaten or drank anything there since the place was known as "Jillians." I can't make any kind of recommendation as far as their food and drink. I have no idea if they offer good value in regards to their food or beverages. Perhaps in time, I'll try them out in that regard and then post something on this blog about that.

Movie Review - "The Queen"

I finally got out and saw the movie "The Queen" today. I've been meaning to get out and see it ever since I read about it in one of the royalty magazines I read. The movie is about Queen Elizabeth II and the week of Princess Diana's death. It tells the story of a lot of things that happened behind the scenes and out of the public eye. It's a fascinating movie in that we get to see a lot of maneuvering behind closed doors and the difference of values between generations as well as the enormous hype the press did on Diana's death. The British public took some of their grief and frustration over Diana's death out on the Queen. The public blamed the royals for the ostracism of Diana not realizing that Diana didn't want to play by the rules and so caused some of the ostracism herself. We see how the royals were frustrated by the two personas of Diana. The public persona was one of a princess who was very caring and supported a number of worthwhiled causes. The behind the scenes persona was of a princess that didn't want to play by established protocol and upstaged her husband Charles who was the whole reason she became the celebrity she became. If Diana had never married Charles, she never would've become the figure she became. There is no question Charles did Diana wrong in not giving up his relationship with Camilla Parker-Bowles but, in royal circles it would've been expected that Diana would've turned a blind eye to it and carried on. She refused and took the relationship to the public doing damage to the royal institution. Public opinion ignored Diana's lack of loyalty to the royal institution and instead saw her as something of a saint and victim. To make matters worse, the press were quick to seize on the lack of a response from Buckingham Palace as this helped sell more papers. It didn't matter to them that their stirring things up could've harmed the monarchy. Fortunately, we see how the Queen managed to calm things down in a speech. Time helped things further. Two months after the crisis week, the issue was no longer an issue. The Queen survived the crisis and moved on though undoubtedly stunned by what had happened.

Overall, I thought the movie "The Queen" very well done. It was fascinating to see all the moves that went on behind the scenes. The movie is definitely one for adults. I think kids would find it boring and wouldn't understand what all the fuss was about concerning Diana's death. Another reason the movie appealed to me is because I'm a bit of an anglophile. I love England and find it a beautiful and fascinating country. London still remains my favorite city. If you're a fellow anglophile, I think you'd find the movie fascinating in that regard. If you want to see the movie, you may have to hunt for it as the number of theaters showing the film is dropping. I guess the newness has worn off and other new movies are coming out. Still, the movie is one that might be worth looking for. If you're an anglophile or are simply fascinated with the British Monarchy then you'll want to see "The Queen."

Medieval Times

I got to be the executioner today at the Medieval Times castle I work at. It was only the third or fourth time I'd played the executioner. The person who normally plays it (Solomon) is in Florida on vacation. I found it fun and a challenge. It's fun in that you get to play a character that is somewhat sinister. It's a challenge in a number of ways. The executioner is only able to communicate through grunts and mime as he had his tongue cut out (rumor has it for talking too much). The executioner must also be scary but not too scary. You want to give the kids a small fright but not scare them away from the castle. Also, the executioner helps make money for the castle by selling spoof pictures of people having their head chopped off. Today, the photo girl and I sold 8 pictures which was pretty good considering the crowd we had.

I also got to use my first four free tickets to the castle. One of the rewards of working at Medieval Times is getting four free tickets on your birthday and four free tickets on Christmas. I used my birthday tickets and treated a friend who works at the Post Office, her daughter and two of her friends to Medieval Times. I enjoyed getting to treat them to the show and hope they had a fun time. I'll find out when I work at the Post Office Wednesday.

Lastly, I got to battle it out with a Medieval Times co-worker in a trivia competition. We had a competition series of the best out of five. The one who won would become the acknowledged trivia champion between us. Things didn't go well for me initially as I lost the first two matches. The second one was particularly crushing as I lost the match on the second to last question. To my surprise, I came back and won the last three matches. The deciding match was a nerve-wracking affair. I took the lead on points BUT I only had 2 life forces left (you get 5 to start with). The thing that cost me the second match was life forces. I lost my last life force on the second to last question so I was very anxious at only having two. I didn't want a repeat of the second match. Thankfully, two was enough and I won. Someone once said "Victory is sweet." and they weren't kidding. I'm savoring my triumph and plan to have some more fun by reminding my co-worker who the trivia champion is. Considering how cocky she was about her trivia skill, it'll be fun to remind her who won the competition.

Patuxent Research Refuge

The Patuxent Research Refuge is a little known gem to be found between Laurel and Bowie, Maryland. It is composed of over 12,750 acres of land dedicated to wildlife research. The refuge has a visitors center where visitors can find out about the work the refuge is performing. The refuge also has trails where visitors can take peaceful country walks. Lastly, Cash Lake is open during certain hours for fishermen. Fishermen must hold a current Maryland fishing license and obtain a permit from the refuge if they wish to fish there. Below are some pictures I took of the refuge.

This is the entrance to the Visitors Center.

This is a statue of a timber wolf family. The statue can be found in front of the visitors entrance.

This is Cash Lake.

These are two pictures of Lake Redington.

Casino Royale

I found out from the Rotten Tomatoes website (http://www.rottentomatoes.com) that the 2006 version of Casino Royale with Daniel Craig will be out on DVD on March 13th. This a movie worth adding to anyone's movie collection. Craig played an excellent Bond and the producers succeeded in making Craig's "Bond" a lot more realistic and grittier. Bond actually bleeds in this movie as well as show some feeling for the main lady character Vesper Lynd. Price wise, I've seen a price range of $15.91 (http://www.overstock.com) to $22.24 (Deep Discount DVD.com). List price for the DVD is $28.99. A number of places are already accepting advance orders for this DVD.

Payraise

To my surprise, I found out I received my first payraise from Medieval Times this last paycheck. I saw my latest paycheck was larger than what I expected and I wanted to know why. I found out that my boss Mike Verelli put me in for my first yearly payraise and it was approved. I knew I was approaching my first complete year at the castle and that Medieval Times allegedly awarded yearly payraises. I started working at the Baltimore/Washington castle the end of February of 2006. It's hard to believe I've worked there for almost a year now. Working at the castle was a total break from my previous life in the U.S. Air Force. It was an enormous change. It's a lot more relaxed working there. At the castle, you can grow your hair as long as you want. In the Air Force, if my hair was 1 inch longer than regs specified, I was told to get a haircut. In the castle, I can call the General Manager by his first name. In my last unit, I always called my commander Sir!

I've found it really interesting working at the castle. You're part of a huge team (over 200 people) that works to put on a very complicated show and dinner at least 5 times a week. It takes a lot of teamwork to pull it off. The kitchen staff must have all the necessary plates, bowls and mugs ready for the food servers to use. They must also prepare enough food to serve a 4-course meal to between 150 and 1,000 people. The food servers must put on their costumers and set the proper number of place settings in their assigned areas. Group reservations must tell the people who work the seating assignments how many groups are going to come to the show and how many are in each group. Security must coordinate with the people who hand out seating assignments when they need their equipment set up. Ticketing personnel must be ready to print tickets for customers, confirm reservations and sell tickets to those who decide to see the show on the spur of the moment. Sound and lighting must coordinate with security as to when they'll need castle guards at the main entrances to the castle. Gift shop personnel must make sure that all the shelves are full stocked and they're ready to deal with customers. Bar staff must make sure the bar is full stocked and the beer and soda taps are working. Back in the stables, squires are busy grooming and preparing the horses. Knights are busy practicing various routines and getting their costumes together. The actors and actress who play the King, Princess, Ambassador and Lord Chancellor must put on their costumes and go out to the castle entrance to meet customers. The Lord or Lady Falconer must bring the falcon to the castle, put on their costume and show the falcon to customers as they arrive. Heralds put on their costumes, prepare their instruments, practice the notes they're going to play and go to the front of the castle to help direct customers to either the King or Princess so they can get their picture taken with them. When it's time, the heralds must know when to go into the arena to play their part in the show. Squires must have the right horses ready for the knights to ride. Food servers must be ready to direct people to their tables. Sound & lighting personnel must know which spotlight to go to and what acts they're going to spotlight. The people in the sound & lighting booth must know when to play certain music, activate certain lights and turn on various special effects machines. The King, Princess, Lord Chancellor and Lord Marshall must know where they need to go so they're in their proper place for the show. There is so much that must be done and incredibly, it does get done. When the show is over, food servers will quickly clean up their assigned tables. Squires will put the horses back in their stalls and make sure they have plenty of hay and water. Sound & lighting personnel will turn off the spotlights, amplifiers and put away the microphones. Gift shop personnel will close out their cash registers and turn them into cash control. Security personnel will lock the main gates and turn off all the main lights to the castle. Wardrobe personnel will collect all the costumes and start washing them so they'll be ready for the next show. In effect, the castle will go to sleep for a little while till it's time for it to start ramping up for another show. It's a fascinating process and it's neat to be a part of it.

King Picture

Here is the promised picture of me wearing the King's costume at Medieval Times. As you can tell by the smile on my face, I got a big kick wearing the costume. It was a lot of fun having this picture taken.

U.S.S. Constellation

While visiting Baltimore's Inner Harbor earlier this week, I took a picture of the U.S.S. Constellation. The Constellation is one of a number of attractions they have at the Inner Harbor (I plan to tell of some of the others in future blogs). The ship is the only remaining U.S. Civil War ship afloat. It is also the last wooden warship the U.S. Navy built. Afterwards, the Navy built ships that were powered by steam. The ship is a sloop of war and carries 16 8-inch guns on its gun deck and various other guns on its main deck. The cost of admission is $8.75 for adults and $4.75 for children. For an additional fee, visitors can rent an electrical device that will tell you aspects of the ship at various points on the ship. During the summer months, reenactors tell of life onboard the ship and show how the guns were worked. The ship has been faithfully restored to how it would've looked during the Civil War. I've toured the ship and found it very interesting. It gives a nice glimpse of life on board a wooden warship (it was no bed of roses). For further information on the ship as well as other programs they offer see http://www.constellation.org.

Canon Rebel XTi Camera Outfit Review

In previous posts, I've mentioned that I was going to buy a Canon EOS 30-D digital camera. The camera had all the features I wanted with one significant drawback. It's very expensive. Because of the cost, I kept dithering about it. Then, this past weekend, I set up a meeting with a friend for lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. The Inner Harbor has some interesting sights and I wanted to show them to those of you who read my blog. I have a Minolta Maxxum 7000 35-mm camera which takes fine pictures but, I would've had to have to shot an entire 24-picture roll of film and I didn't think there was that much stuff there I wanted to take pictures of. Also, it would've taken 3 or 4 days to get the pictures developed unless I wanted to pay for some 24-hour service. I felt using my Minolta would've been too much hassle. I decided it was time to buy a new digital camera.

I belong to two discount shopping clubs in Maryland: Sam's Club and Costco. I'd seen the digital camera display at Costco a number of times when I'd walked in and decided to see what they had. It turned out they had a nice Canon Rebel XTi camera outfit for $799. The outfit included camera body, battery, battery charger and an 18-55mm lens. The only thing I'd have to buy was a compact flash memory card. The camera had similar features to the 30-D with it being $400 cheaper and I could get my hands on it right now. I decided to buy it. This is the camera I used to take the picture of the Baltimore Hard Rock Cafe I posted yesterday. So far, it seems like a pretty decent camera. I look forward to using it so I can post some nice pictures of places around Maryland and where ever I travel to. I did learn after I took the Baltimore pictures that I needed to drop the resolution for photos I'll post here. All my Inner Harbor pictures came in at around 4 megs a picture. Yikes! Still, those of you who read this blog can now expect to see pictures "oooo" of Maryland and where ever else I end up traveling to. Hopefully, you'll enjoy them and they'll make this blog a bit more interesting. All text makes for a very boring blog. Cheers all!

Advertising on Cell Phones

I received a poll from Harris Poll Online (http://www.harrispollonline.com) that asked questions about advertising on cell phones. My reaction to the poll was one of disbelief. The last place I want to receive advertising is on my cell phone. Especially, when I have a set number of any time minutes and presumably the advertising would cut into those. Another problem I would have with advertising on my cell phone is that my cell phone is for important business. I use it contact people when I really need to i.e. I've used it to notify my Dad when I missed my plane when I was flying home for Christmas, I've used it to let my friend Harvey know I was on my way to Richmond so he would be at the train station to pick me up and I've used it to let my boss at Medieval Times know I was running behind but I was on my way to the castle. My cell phone is NOT some place I want to receive frivolous advertising. Hopefully, advertisers will leave cell phones alone. If they start bugging me on mine, I'm going to be calling that number at the FCC (I think that's the right agency) real fast that stops such calling.

New Scanners

We received new digital scanners at the Post Office this past weekend. I don't know why the Post Office decided to go with the new scanners. The old ones seemed to work fine and they were pretty indestructible as I can testify as having accidentally dropped the things a few times. The new scanners are convenient in some ways and give a back-up to the form 3849's we have people sign when we have a package needing a signature confirmation or if its insured. Convenience wise, we no longer have to punch in the last four of our social security number when we log into the scanners. Instead, we have a bar code tag on our Post Office ID cards which we scan. Once we scan that bar code, the scanners will remember our name, social and route we worked that day in its system. In regards to a back up for the form 3849's, the new scanners scan in the signature of the person signing for the letter or package. This gives a digital image which can serve as an additional record to the form 3849. It's possible this image can be shown to the customer who requested the signature from whomever was receiving the mailed item.

Castle Social Event

This past Tuesday night, I went to a social event the Baltimore Medieval Times castle had for its employees. The castle management holds various social events during the year. This gives a chance for employees to socialize and is a way for the castle to pay its employees back for their hard work. Some of these events are very casual while others are more formal. The Tuesday event was more formal in that it was a dress up occasion. Men were expected to wear suits and ties or tuxedos and women were expected to wear gowns. The event was held at the Fountaine Bleu in Glen Burnie, Maryland. The Fountaine Blue is part of a chain of halls that cater for special events such as ours. They provided a full buffet, bar and DJ.

The event started at 7 p.m. Castle employees had to have an invitation which they presented to Jessica (retail manager) who made sure they were on the list of castle employees. After that, the employees were welcome to find a table, set their coats down, get a drink at the bar and make themselves a salad or have a bowl of Maryland crab soup. At 8 p.m., the main course buffet was opened. It featured ham, chicken breast in some kind of white sauce and beef stroganoff with potatoes and green beans. I found the chicken breast to be particularly good.

Around 9:30 p.m., the DJ started warming up the dance floor. This was a particularly amusing aspect of the night as the castle has some real dance animals among its members. A person who works in gift shop by the name of Alvarado particularly distinguished himself by giving John Travolta a run for his money. Also, our own operations manager was hilarious as he did some slick moves on the dance floor. For yours truly, I was content to watch the action but, our HR and promotions ladies weren't going to let me get away without dancing. They summarily got me out on the dance floor and kept me there for at least 10 minutes. It was the first time I'd danced in over 10 years. To say the least, I was very nervous. I managed not to embarrass myself too badly with my two left feet. Later, I did a nice slow dance with a girl who works in Sound & Lighting occasionally.

Overall, I thought the event was really nice. Castle management picked a nice place to hold it and the Fountaine Bleu folks did their best so castle employees really enjoyed themselves. The food was excellent as was the service. The DJ played a good mix of music and helped people loosen up. I think everyone had a nice time. I'm not sure what the next social event will be though whatever it is, I definitely plan to attend it. It was fun mingling with my fellow employees a the castle.

Employee of the Month

It's official. I won employee of the month at the Baltimore/Washington D.C. Medieval Times. I was surprised and delighted. It is really neat winning the award. It isn't some token award as I believe the winner gets a $100 bonus for the month they win it which is pretty cool. I also get to do something of a gag photo they put up on the employee awards bulletin board. In my case, today I had my photo taken wearing the King's costume. By all accounts, I looked pretty good in it. Hopefully, I can get a copy of the photo so I can scan it and post it on this blog. We'll see on that. As it is, I'm pretty chuffed about winning the award and I'm grateful to my supervisor Mike for putting me in for it. He's a fantastic boss and it was really nice of him to do that. Now, I know why he was asking all kinds of strange questions about three weeks ago. It was for the award write-up. One last comment about the award: to my embarrassment, the first time I put on the King's shirt, I put it on backwards. It reminded me of the first time I dressed for castle guard. The first time I put on the castle guard cloak/over tunic, I put it on backwards too. It was kind of funny and I'm sure the lady from wardrobe had a good laugh about it. It was also pretty neat wearing the costume. As they say, it is good to be the King (or in this case fun).

Journal of visit to Middle Earth Sites

I found out from the Council of Elrond website (http://www.councilofelrond.com) that Durham University doctoral student Danielle Smith wrote a journal of her visit to a number of the sites Peter Jackson used for the Lord of the Rings movies. Being a huge Lord of the Rings fan, I promptly visited her website to read her journal. I found it interesting. I also enjoyed some of the pictures she included with her journal. I would recommend it to any Lord of the Rings fan though I will warn you, it'll likely make you very envious of this lady. I sorely wish I could visit the film sites as it would be seriously cool to see some of the places where they shot the film. Anyway, Miss Smith's journal can be located at http://www.dur.ac.uk/d.e.smith/journal.htm. Enjoy!

Restaurant Review

I decided to try another new restaurant that I haven't dined at before. Today, I tried Gunning's Seafood Restaurant in Hanover, Maryland. The restaurant is located just off MD-100 (going toward Ellicott City) at exit 8. When you come to the stop light, you take a left on Coca-Cola Drive and another left on Dorsey Road (Parkway Drive). The restaurant will be on your right in a small strip mall.

Parking wise, the restaurant doesn't offer loads of parking. When I arrived for lunch, I found out that I'd arrived at one of its busier times. I ended up parking in one of its side parking spaces. I got to practice my parallel parking skills which frankly stink.

After I managed to park my car, I walked into Gunnings. I found out they have two areas to eat a bar area with some tables and a dining room. I ate in the bar area though not at the bar. It was obvious that the bar area is where sports fans liked to hang out. There were at least 4 tv sets with at least one broadcasting some sports channel I'd never seen before.

I waited for someone to seat me but after 3 or 4 minutes, I picked a table myself. The table had a couple menus so I scanned them to decide what I wanted. I ended up settling on the cream of crab soup and shrimp salad platter. To drink, I settled on Sprite as they didn't have Root Beer. I then looked around for a waitress and finally had to ask one of the people working there for one.

After about 5 or 10 minutes, my soup arrived. I think someone let the soup cook too long because the soup had the texture of pudding. I would scoop up a spoonful of it and it would jiggle just like pudding. Taste wise, the soup was excellent but, it just didn't seem like soup.

After I finished my soup/pudding, my shrimp salad platter arrived. I tried the house dressing and thought it decent. The shrimp salad was loaded with big chunks of shrimp. I was surprised by this as I'm use to shrimp salads that have smaller pieces. Still, overall I thought the salad was good.

I didn't try any of Gunnings desserts as they didn't have anything that really impressed. Price wise, my lunch ended up costing just under $21 before tip. I thought it was a decent price for what I had. Service wise, once my waitress showed up, the service was excellent and I had no qualms tipping her the standard 15%.

Overall, I thought Gunnings wasn't anything fancy and definitely isn't fine dining. I also wasn't impressed with its choice of seafood dishes. For a seafood restaurant, I would've thought their seafood menu would've been bigger. I would've also liked to have seen their prices for cooked crabs. They stated on the menu they offered them but they never gave a price. Still, they are a decent restaurant with good service. On a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the highest, I'd rate them a 3. If you want a nice decent restaurant to eat at, they're worth considering BUT, I wouldn't go out of my way to eat there. Bon appetit!

Restaurant Review

Every month, I receive an email from the Rewards Network telling me of new restaurants in the program. One such restaurant was Strapazza's. They're five restaurant chain located in Maryland. I chose to visit the Columbia, Maryland restaurant as it was closest to me. The Columbia restaurant is located a short distance from exit 2 on MD-100. The restaurant is one of a number of restaurants and shops in a small strip mall complex. I found parking somewhat limited compared to the parking at Remomo's in Arundel Mills Mall. The restaurant itself had a decent enough decor. Service was prompt but the choice of menu items was more limited than what was offered at Remomo's. I decided to try their fried calimari and shrimp cardinale.

The serving for their fried calimari seemed larger than what was offered at Remomo's. They also gave you more marinara sauce which was nice. Price wise, I believe their calimari cost $1 more than Remomo's. Like Remomo's, they were careful to offer small cut pieces of calimari. I've found that eating a large piece of calimari can be like trying to eat a piece of rubber so I appreciate restaurants that are careful about how they serve their calimari.

The shrimp cardinale was tastefully presented and had an excellent serving of pasta with it. It had plenty of button mushrooms and 6 jumbo size shrimp. Taste wise it was all right though I didn't like the pink sauce that came with the dish. I will chalk this up to my personal tastes. I don't think it was bad tasting, I just didn't like it. You, the reader might have different tastes so don't discard fine dish just because it didn't agree with me.

Overall, I found Strapazza's to be a nice restaurant comparably priced with Remomo's. Due to it more limited appetizer selection (6 items), lack of parking, and distance to get there, I'd recommend Remomo's over Strapazza. Still, if you're heading out on Maryland 100 and get a hankering for Italian food, you might want to give them a try. They're a decent restaurant though not one worth making a special effort to get to. Their website is located at http://www.strapazza.com.

New Year's at the Castle

Normally, I don't stay up to celebrate the new year. It has never been anything worth celebrating to me. However, yesterday I got to celebrate New Year's at the Medieval Times I work because I was scheduled to work there. The preparations for the New Year's bash had begun well in advance. The castle ordered feathery things with New Year's 2007 on them for the bar and serving wenches. They looked like something you might see on a Vegas showgirl. They also ordered cases of some kind of champagne and party favors. The day before the big bash, they had one of my co-workers come in and help fill up something like 150 ballons for the ballon drop. The kitchen staff was kept busy preparing all the carrot and celery sticks, orange and pineapple pieces, broccoli and cauliflower chunks, pieces of cantalope and watermelon, and cucumber and bell pepper slices for the appetizer tables. The day of the bash, I helped them prepare the tables for those items. We also put out small plates, forks and knapkins.

The bash began 8 p.m. when the castle opened for those coming for the event. People began arriving before the gates opened. We ended up having over 600 people celebrate New Year's at the castle. The people tore into the appetizers while they waited for the regular show. It was a bit weird to think that we working the last show of 2006. The show and dinner went fine. At the end of the show, the serving staff gave out noise makers and party crackers. Afterwards, the customers walked back out into the gift show and Hall of Arms (where all the suits of armor are) and sipped champagne while they watched the last 30 minutes of 2006 slip by.

At midnight, the cast of the show fired confetti into the crowd and caused the balloon filled nets to open. People popped the balloons and continued to drink champagne. For myself, I enjoyed some apple juice since I had to drive home and I never drink and drive. I also ate a few donuts they put out for the customers. I thought the castle did a nice job for the bash though like previous years, the event itself didn't excite me. Big whoop! 2007 has begun. Ho hum. I hope 2007 is better than 2006. We'll see. For all of you who read this blog, may your 2007 be better than 2006 and help you fulfill all your dreams. Cheers!

Congratulations!

I just got word that my sister Eloise got promoted at the Trader Joe's supermarket she works at. Ellie has worked there for at least a couple years now. Last year, they accepted her into their management training program because of her right attitude, hard work and dedication. You must go through this training in order to become an assistant manager and full time employee at Trader Joes. Once you complete the training, your name is put on a list. As new stores open or assistant managers quit, they offer the new or open positions to those on the list. Ellie's name finally came up and she got her well deserved promotion. Many congratulations to her on her promotion. I know she worked very hard for it and I'm delighted she got it. Way to go girl!

Job Probation

One of the roughest things employers do in Maryland when they initially hire you is have a period where you're on probation. During this probation, they can fire you for any reason at all. In theory, if they didn't like the color of your hair one day, they could fire you for it and wouldn't even have to tell you why they fired you. With the Post Office, I heard they were different. Their probation was supposedly 90 WORK days vice 90 regular days. This made sense since a substitute carrier might only work for them one day a week. They wouldn't get to observe them very much in that case during a normal probation period. Yesterday, I found out I was wrong on that. It turns out the Post Office does the probation period like anyone else. For me, it was good news as it means I'm in the clear with them. I've been working for the Post Office for over 5 months. I also found out that they have a rule where I can't become a regular i.e. full time carrier until I've worked for them 1 year. Realistically, a substitute carrier can expect to wait a lot longer than that. Also, a sub has to wait until they are number 1 on the list for the next route that opens up. All the other substitute carriers that hired on before you will be ahead of you on that list. Right now, I'm the last one on the list as I'm the last sub they hired and who has stuck with it (there were six of us initially).

Concerning being a substitute carrier, I've found out that there are some plusses and minuses to it. Minuses, a sub gets no benefits and no guarantee of hours barring that they will work one day a week. A sub is also considered a temporary hire though in their case, they can work temporarily for the Post Office for 7 YEARS. A sub also doesn't get paid unless they work. Next week, the Post Office will be closed Tuesday in honor of former President Gerald Ford's passing. Full time carriers will get paid but subs won't. We only get paid for the hours we work. A sub also doesn't accrue any vacation time. Plusses, unlike regular carriers, a substitute carrier can get as much overtime as the Post Office will give them. Regular carriers can only get overtime if they're willing work six days a week instead of taking their weekly day off. Substitute carriers also get to work a number of routes which keeps the job from getting boring. A regular carrier can only work their assigned route. Lastly, substitute carriers get paid for all the hours they work as long as they go over 40 hours a week (see note). Regular carriers get paid a flat salary. If they have to work extra long hours in order to complete they route, they have to suck it up. They don't get paid more for working any extra hours. Note: if a sub is assigned to work a route that is assessed at 9 hours and they take 12 to do it, the sub will have to suck it up for the extra 3 hours unless they work 40 or more hours for that week. The Post Office pays the sub the number of hours of what the route is assessed however, if the sub works 40 or more hours then, they will pay them the total number of hours worked. This is where it can pay off for the sub to work a number of routes as in my case where I sub on three routes every week. Subbing on a number of routes makes it more likely you'll get paid for the actual number of hours you work vice the number of hours the routes were assessed. If the sub is going to be short a few hours of the 40 hour point, they might want to see if they can do express mail deliveries for their Post Office. This could help them hit the all important 40.

News at My End of the Woods

My friend Harvey pointed out to me that I needed to update my blog. I spoke with him on the 26th and he pointed out that on my blog, I had a marquee saying "two weeks till Christmas." Oops! I confess I've been very busy the last couple weeks. Here's why:

Post Office

I've been working 40 hours plus a week at the Post Office. We've been loaded down with packages (presumably Christmas presents) and catalogs. People sometimes slam the Post Office but they really do try to serve their customers. I worked this past Sunday delivering gifts that had arrived at the last minute. We also had a sub come in on Christmas day and deliver express mail. Things should slow down now that the Christmas rush is over. I continue to slog away at the job and feel I continue to improve. I still don't know if I'll stay long enough to get my own route. The pay, benefits and job security are very appealing but, I'll have to wait a long time to get them. We'll see what happens here.

Medieval Times

I've continued to enjoy my job in sound & lighting. I really like playing the role of castle guard and I continue to find operating the spotlight a challenge. I've earned kudos from various folks because I strive to go beyond the minimum. I'm always willing to have my picture taken with customers or their kids. I try to answer any of the customers questions and I strive to ensure they have an enjoyable experience at Medieval Times. It seems some of the bosses have noticed. I know my supervisor is very pleased with me. This week promises to be hectic at the castle as we have two shows every day till New Year's Eve. We also have a New Year's Eve show at 9:30 p.m. I'll get to work the castle that night and will bring in the new year there. It'll be my first time to do that and it should be interesting. For any squire wannabes, I've heard a rumor that the castle is short squires so now might be a good time to apply. The job is demanding and you must be in good physical shape. You do a lot of running and you constantly hustling during the show. Still, you get to be in the show and if you show you have the right stuff, it could be your ticket to becoming a knight in the show. If you're interested, see the folks at the ticket counter for an application.

French

Since I received the Rosetta Stone software I ordered, I've made it a point to study some French every day. I feel I'm making progress though I am getting kicked a bit with the written part. It can be very difficult to catch everything when they speak the various phrases. You really have to listen to catch everything so you can figure out exactly what the speaker is saying. I continue to be really pleased with Rosetta Stone's software. It really does a nice job of teaching whatever language you want to learn.

Airmiles

When I've had some free time, I've dined out and played the airmile game. By my calculations, I'm short about 7,000 airmiles so I can get a free ticket from Baltimore Washington International (BWI) Airport to Newark Liberty Airport. I should be able to earn the airmiles and get my free ticket. I've also made a down payment on the Scandanavia tour. So far, every thing looks good for me getting to go. Hopefully, it'll happen.

Conclusion

That's all at my end. I'm doing all right and have found the faith to leave my worries in God's hands. I don't know what the future will bring but feel confident that God will ensure things work out. Hopefully, 2007 will be a better year than 2006. We'll see. Cheers all!

Packages

With the Christmas season, a new headache has emerged at the Post Office: the deluge of packages. Mind you, it is a good thing business wise for the Post Office but, for the mail carrier, packages can be a royal pain. The Christmas season sees their package load double to quadruple in volume. This creates problems as the packages take up lots of space in their mail trucks which aren't super big to begin with. They also slow down the carrier as they have to organize the packages, stop their truck at the delivery address, may have to scan the package if someone paid for delivery confirmation and, collect a signature of the package is insured. If the carrier can't get the required signature, the carrier has to take the package back to the Post Office and drop it off in a section for packages going over to the regular Post Office. Later, someone will load up all the those packages and take them over to the regular Post Office so their owners can pick them up.

One thing the Post Office will do to make things easier on their carriers is have one or two substitute carriers (subs) do package delivery. The subs will take almost all the carrier's packages and make a package only run. Yesterday, I did such a run. I ended delivering over 50 packages during the morning. It's a huge help for the regular carriers. It also has a side benefit for the Post Office in that it can help teach the subs new areas of their city. There are parts of Laurel I've never had need to visit. However, I need to know all parts of Laurel so if necessary, I can deliver mail in any part of it. Thanks to doing package runs, I've learned a number of areas in the western part of Laurel. Learning these new areas will help me when I do express mail runs. With express mail, you must deliver all your mail by noon. You need to know exactly where you're going as you don't have any time for mistakes. Conversely, with package runs, you're not under the time gun so you can make mistakes though you try not to. Thanks to doing package runs, I'll now be able to deliver express mail on time to parts of Western Laurel. The package runs have been a win-win as I've gotten some invaluable training and helped make things easier for the regular carriers.

Postal Job

I set a new record hour wise for myself Monday. I worked nearly 16 hours in one day. What happened was first, the primary carrier for route 7 called in sick. As I've previously mentioned, we are short as far as substitute carriers. All of them were already assigned to various routes so we had to stretch them that much further so we could cover the additional route. I was assigned to route 10. I really pushed hard to get it done and managed to finish at 6 p.m. Then, I picked up outgoing mail from two other carriers who were busy delivering mail. All outgoing mail must be turned in by 7 p.m. on weekdays for it to catch the truck going to the mail processing center in Capitol Heights, Maryland. Neither carrier would've made it back in time so it really helped me picking up their outgoing mail.

After that, I helped out one of the other substitute carriers on route 5 for 45 minutes. Once I finished there, I drove back to the Post Office expecting to be finished for the day but it was not to be. To the horror of my boss, Clinton discovered a mistake the made it necessary for me, Clinton and our boss to go back out and deliver some more mail. It ended up taking us over an hour to deliver it. I ended up clocking out at the Post Office at 10:21 p.m.

Tier 1

I received word Sunday that I'd made the necessary number of dining outs to keep my tier 1 status with Northwest Airline's reward dining program. It's been fun working toward that. I've tried just about everything on the menu at Remomo's. From eating there so often, I would recommend you not get their pizza as it is overpriced. Also, you can get better pizza at Papa John's or Pizza Hut. I would recommend you get their chicken parmiagiana as they give you a huge serving of parmiagiana and pasta. I would recommend the plate of mussels as you get quite a few mussels. That said, do plan on getting something to eat if you order the plate of mussels as they won't fill you up. I would absolutely recommend you have their prime rib as this cut of meat has been consistently outstanding. I've had this twice and it is something to savor. The soup of the day has been consistently excellent though I think the bowls are a bit small. For $5, I feel you should get more soup. Their soft drink deal is a nice deal with unlimited refills. I've taken full advantage of that. The smoothies are average priced and good but at $4.50 a pop, I have to cool my smoothie addiction when I'm at Remomo's. I can't say anything about their desserts as I haven't tried any of them in ages. The deal with the tier 1 was I had to spend $20 to get the airmiles. With an appetizer, entree and drink, I had no problem spending over $20. Plus, sometimes, I was so filled up from the meal, I didn't feel like having any dessert.

Airmile wise, the dining has paid off nicely. I have almost 14,000 airmiles with Northwest and may get myself up to the 25,000 I need. 25,000 airmiles will get me a free round-trip ticket from Baltimore Washington International Airport to Newark Liberty Airport so I can catch my flight to Copenhagen for the Globus tour. I could buy the airmiles through Northwest but they would cost more than the flight. I still think it sucks that it costs so many airmiles for such a short flight (163 miles). Oh well. At least the signs remain favorable for me going on the tour. We'll see if it happens.

Rosetta Stone Language Software

Before I begin, I have to put in a disclaimer stating that I haven't received any gift or remuneration for my recommendation of Rosetta Stone's language software. Also, if you should buy the software and you have problems (though you shouldn't), I won't be responsible for those problems. Nuff said on that.

The reason I'm mentioning Rosetta Stone is because right now, they are offering what is probably their best deal of the year on their software. You can get $46 off their level 1 or level 2 software and $80 off their combined level 1 and 2 package. You can get $100 off their level 1, 2 and 3 combined package BUT that is only offered for English and Spanish. Shipping wise, you get free 2-day shipping. Also, if you order by December 18th, you can get a free headset and microphone. In order to get these discounts, make sure you enter in promotion code EMC126. When I placed my order today, I nearly mucked that up and almost missed getting my discount.

Concerning the software itself, I've tried a number of language learning programs and the one I've liked the best is Rosetta Stone. It's easy to use. It helps you pick up the language quickly and it's presented in a nice format. Also, it helps you practice on different aspects of the language. You get practice speaking, writing, and hearing the language. You start out with very basic sentences like "the man runs" and work up to more difficult ones. You also get lots of lessons for your money. Level 1 in French gives you 92 lessons alone. One other plus about Rosetta Stone is they let you try out their software for free. They have demo software that you can download off their website or you can order the demo CD and install it on your computer. The demo software gives you a chance to try out the product and see if you like it.

Lastly, Rosetta Stone participates in Northwest Airlines' Worldperks Mall. What that means is that you can also earn airmiles buying the software. In the case of Northwest, they're offering 9 airmiles per dollar spent. In my case, for the combined level 1 and 2 package I ordered, I'll receive over 1,800 airmiles. If you belong to a different airline frequent flier program, if they have a shopper mall program, you might want to see if Rosetta Stone is a member of their program. Not only could you get a nice deal on the software, you could earn some airmiles that might help you travel to a country where you'll be able to use the language you're working on learning.

Medieval Times

I recently found out about another benefit a person gets working at Medieval Times. Once they pass their probation period, when Christmas comes, Medieval Times awards them a gift certificate they can use in the gift shop. This year, we were given $75 gift certificates. I thought it was really nice of them. I used mine to buy a fleece lined sweatshirt type jacket, a hat and three decks of playing cards (I like to fiddle with cards when I'm bored). I was very pleased with the stuff I bought thanks to the certificate.

Work wise, the my job in sound & lighting continues to be fun. I still enjoy playing the part of a castle guard or dungeon master. Working one of the spotlight continues to be a challenge as you have to work to maintain concentration during the show. After you've seen the show as many times as I have, it's easy to let your mind wander. I also strive to help out where ever I can. Yesterday, I saw they needed help taking chairs down from the tables and setting up the candles and condiments. I jumped in and did what I could until it was time for me to take one of the posts as a castle guard.

People wise, I continue to marvel at the high turnover we have in people. Part of it is that a number of the employees are kids (17 or 18 year olds). They get bored and decide to move on to something new. Part of it too is some of the jobs aren't everything the folks think they're going to be. One kid I know who was working as a squire decided to quit. I suspect he found out that the squire job is demanding and not all fun. As a squire, you groom and tack the horses, during the show you're constanting running to get weapons for your knight or setting up various contests (small ring spear, large ring spear and jousting lanes) and lastly, you get to scoop up all the horse poop (Yuck!). It isn't all glamor being a squire.

Broadway Show - "Mary Poppins"

The finale to our trip to New York City was to see the new Broadway musical "Mary Poppins." It's the same story as in the movie with some new songs thrown in. From the very beginning, the show was a delight. All the actors and actresses did a fantastic job. Ashley Brown played a particularly good Mary Poppins. She was able to deliver some great lines beautifully while embodying the wondrous magical nanny who changes the lives of the Banks family forever. The show offers great laughs, wonderful songs and fantastic dance routines. The sets and costumes were perfect for the show. The show is an excellent example of what is great about live theater. The audience was able to interact with the cast and let them know by their applause or lack of whether they got it right. The show was also perfect for all ages though I think kids will like it in particular.

Overall, I was delighted with the production. It made a great ending to a fantastic trip to New York City. If you're going to make a trip to the Big Apple anything soon, this is one show you'll want to see, particularly if you have kids or are a kid at heart. It will warm your soul and delight your heart.

Tavern on the Green

During our second day in New York City, Harvey and I scouted out where the Tavern on the Green was. From the outside, it didn't look terribly impressive. My friend May Jackson swore that it was an outstanding place to eat. We were to find out that she was big time right!

We had to make reservations in advance to eat at Tavern on the Green. Our reservations were for 1 p.m. We showed up a little early and checked our coats. I was immediately struck by the professionalism of the people working there. All the employees were very well dressed and gave an impression of competence. We made our way to our dining room which was impressive. Nine chandeliers hung from the ceiling and various stucco drawings adorn the ceiling. All waiters work green suit coats and bow ties with the captains wearing black suit coats and bow ties.

The menu was a set menu that we'd prepaid for. We had a choice of appetizer, entree, dessert and cup of coffee or tea. Harvey chose a wild mushroom fricasee which he loved. I tried the Tuscany white bean soup which I found very good. For our entrees, Harvey had broiled salmon with thai purple rice. I had range raised turkey, green peas with pearl onions, sweet potatoe and cranberries. We found both of our entrees to be excellent. For dessert, Harvey tried the chocolate cake while I tried their cheesecake. Again, the food was outstanding.

Our only complaints were our waiter got our orders mixed up TWICE and they charged us $5 for a glass of ice tea and $3.75 for a glass of 7-up with no refills. I thought the charge for drinks was steep.

Overall, the food was outstanding both in taste and presentation. The seating and serving staff seemed competent. The restaurant is expensive. It cost us $48 each for lunch but both of us felt that the food was well worth the price. Dress is upper casual i.e. a nice pair of slacks and shirt for men and a nice dress for women. I wouldn't recommend wearing blue jeans here. If you want an excellent dining experience in New York City, you should definitely try out Tavern on the Green. For further information on them, you can check out their website at http://67.59.176.121/tg1003/newsite/index.asp?headinfo=home. Bon appetit!