Category: 2012_Posts

Daily is difficult for me, and weekly can be too slow. “Whenever” seems to be the way I post.

This IS the News…

~ JodiLea ~ 1 Comment

This weekend I was scanning our local paper trying to come up with a topic for “This Could Be News…” and suddenly, there it was. Not my topic, but a real story. I just have to read it to you… You can’t make this kind of $%it up!

Thieves rolling Tide detergent out of stores  Tide logo
by Ben Nuckols
Associated Press

WASHINGTON – When police in suburban Washington raided the home of a suspected drug dealer last fall, they found the cocaine they expected, as well as something unusual on the man’s shelves: nearly 20 large bottles of Tide laundry detergent.

It turns out his customers were paying for the drugs not with cash but with stolen Tide.

Tide has become a hot commodity among thieves at supermarkets and drugstores in some parts of the country. For a variety of reasons, the detergent in the familiar flame-orange bottle is well-suited for resale on the black market: Everybody needs laundry detergent, and Tide is the nation’s most popular brand. It’s expensive, selling for up to $20 for a large bottle at stores. And it doesn’t spoil.

One Safeway supermarket in Prince George’s County, MD, was losing thousands of dollar’s worth of  Tide a week before police made more than two dozen arrests. In West St. Paul, MN, a man pleaded guilty to stealing more than $6,000 worth of the stuff from a Wal-Mart and was sentenced to 90 days in jail. Police in Newport News, VA, and other cities around the country have reported a spike in thefts.

In the Washington area, some CVS pharmacies have attached electronic anti-theft tags to bottles of Tide. One CVS in a well-to-do Dupont Circle neighborhood keeps Tide locked up behind glass.

Charlene Holton, a clerk at a CVS in northwest Washington, has seen too many Tide thefts to count.

“It’s a hot item! It’s gotten out of hand,” Holton said. “They usually take maybe four, whatever they can carry out the door. We have to fight for that. It’s rough.”

The store has put electronic tags on its Tide, but that doesn’t stop thieves, Holton said. They run out of the store with the detergent and remove the tags later.

It’s not clear how new the Tide theft phenomenon is, but organized theft has been a problem for U.S. retailers, costing them $3.53 billion in 2010, according to the National Retail Foundation.

Now that’s alota  laundry 😉

The Hopeful (Lazy?) Gardener

~ JodiLea

I come from a long line of Kansas farmers, who are no doubt laughing beyond the grave as they shake their heads at my flower garden.

Hey! I planted the daffodil bulbs in December and they are popping up on schedule. AND I have spent 2 weekends hacking weeds out of the California soil, which really isn’t soil at all, just dirty gravel broken up with rocks.

I was tired and achy and succumbed to temptation from a mail-order catalog that promised “quick and easy” beautiful flower gardens. I ordered these organic roll out strips filled with seeds and followed the instructions (except for the part that told me to remove all the rocks from the flower bed – which could never happen).

Flower Strips

Wah-Lah! This is the before photo of my beautiful flower garden.  (Note the timely daffodil’s growing in the center) I just need to keep it damp for 2 weeks and the seeds will germinate.  Unfortunately, it  looks ridiculous now.

It was forecast to rain yesterday, so I did not water the precious strips. Dang! By the time I get home they may have dried out. Luckily I get home around 2:30pm, so maybe not all is lost.

I’ll know in a couple of weeks if I blew 20 bucks or not  😉

Misadventures With Technology

~ JodiLea ~ 4 Comments

Well, I’ve crossed over.

Mother Board

I bought an iPhone. It is so awesome!

I downloaded my first app yesterday – a diabetic management software.  What?  Well, maybe I will download something fun next time, but I would feel too guilty playing games on my phone while I need to do other things. I’m hoping that “Glucose Buddy” will  rescue me from handwritten forms and complex Excel spreadsheets. That would free up a lot of my time so I could have some fun.

The second app I downloaded was “WordPress”. (Only second because I had trouble finding it.) I still don’t have it set up right because I published a short post from my phone before this one and it must have floated off into a wireless black-hole, because it is not here among my other posts. Maybe it will turn up later. I am not knowing.

I’m terrified that I will damage the thing. I did not buy the insurance, which will probably bite me in the ass later, but the phone cost enough by itself, ya know? You probably do, because unlike me you have had your smartphone for years and have mastered it. I have a feeling that my phone will be smarter than me for a long time.

Please don’t be upset if I don’t call you for a while – I still need to figure out the contacts list thingy.

🙂
photo credit: willc2 via photopin cc