Living in GB
Slow start to the week, lots of video work Sunday, ramped up into a much bigger week and weekend before I went to Denver.
Sunday 21st relaxed at Tom and Kathy’s. Monday 22nd Chuck E’s. Tuesday 23rd Kelly went out for the morning and then we took the boys to Bay Park. Wednesday 24th YMCA, Library, Cards and Antiques, Copps, Atrium.
We’ve spent so much time just organising ourselves this week. Kelly with the boys and me with the website/YouTube. It doesn’t leave alot of time in the day for anything else. We were out doing errands today though and a few things caught my eye.
Today was our last day of term at the YMCA. Since moving it’s a little further away than we would have liked but Ben really does enjoy it and it’s practically next door to the Library so we’ll keep it up. We went to the library after the Y and I had an interesting parking experience. I guess this’d mean more to those in Sydney but I’ll mention it anyway because it shows how different our lives have become so quickly.
Here is the parking meter outside of the library. First of all, in such a little downtown area like Green Bay, I was surprised there were even parking meters at all but it was no big deal. It cost 55c an hour so really, it wasn’t worth worrying about. The funny thing though? If you stayed overtime, see the picture, the fine was a whopping $8. That’s right, $8.
What’s it like in Sydney I hear you ask? If you’re in the right part of town it’ll cost you $8 an hour. The fine for overstaying your welcome? $132. Oh, and if the parking inspector doesn’t want to be confronted by an angry motorist as he’s writing the ticket don’t worry, he’ll take a photo of your car, the meter and you’ll get a fine in the mail. I was so shocked by the $8 fine that I was tempted not to pay 55c just so I could get the fine and use it as a souvenir. Then I thought, “why pay $8 for something that should only cost me 55c?” I put that idea into the stupid pile, with alot of others I’ve had and we got on with our day.
We went to do some shopping seeing as things were getting pretty low. Exciting huh? The reason I mention it though, is that the shop we go to, Copps, has this campaign their pushing. It’s “We’ve cut back over 5000 of our prices” and it really gets me every time we go there. Sure it’s great to have low prices but these guys have only cut them back. They didn’t start with them. For how long were they ripping everybody off before deciding they’d do the right thing and cut back some of the prices?
It smacks of big city corporate thinking. I can see them in their boardroom right now. “Let’s raise the prices for so long that once we’ve lined our pockets with gold and our customers are used to paying too much, we’ll drop some of them and make it seem as though we are doing THEM a favour. Bwaaaahahahaha (That’s them doing an evil laugh while they rub their hands together. It helps if you picture their eye balls turning cat like, flames appearing from behind them and horns rising from their bald little heads).
No seriously, I do like that shop. It’s big and well lit with wide aisles and everything is really easy to find. It’s just that slogan that gets me. Even thinking about it now, “We’ve been charging you so much for these 5,000 items we’ve decided we can now afford to drop them for you. You’re still paying too much for the other 100,000 items we sell but you’ll never know that will you?” Gee thanks.
No funny story to finish the day but we happened to find a card and memorabilia store on the way home. This is possibly the best store I have stumbled across since arriving. Sure there are a ton of sports and memorabilia stores around but this one was more than just fancy frames and glossy photos. It has absolutely everything from Superbowl earrings to Bart Starr bags and Packers die cast trucks to Hall of Fame helmets. You can spend $1 or $1000 in the same place and I love that. Too many store these days, where sports are involved at least, take advantage of the fan and price things to the extreme. I picked up a Superbowl XXXI program (last one the Packers won) for $5. How cool is that?
