Monica Kochelee

My brother loves to collect gadgets.  He is always spending his disposable income on the latest and greatest gadget he can find.  He came over today to show off his new 5.11 Tactical Flashlight that he just bought over the Internet.  This new flashlight that he bought is a LED flashlight that is rechargeable, requires no batteries, and runs for an hour on just one charge.

I was reading an article on Businessweek’s website that was talking about how a lot of the big “snob” companies like Sak’s Fifth avenue is opening more outlet stores, in the hopes that they will attract more customers to the outlet store’s lower prices.  The article confused me a little bit because I had read many years ago that “outlet stores” were not necessarily a “discount store” and that when people shop at outlet stores looking for a “bargain” they usually are not really getting a “bargain.”  What they are often getting are closeouts, over-runs, or factory seconds.

After I had learned that “outlet stores” were really not “discount” stores I pretty much avoided them.  So now I’m wondering if “outlet” stores are changing their strategy and really ARE offering bargains now!

I was reading on the Businessweek website that there is a maple syrup shortage from Canada that is effecting the price of food.  I did not realize that Canada makes 80% of the world’s maple syrup!  Many consumers have been switching to maple syrup as a sweetener in their baking products so the demand for maple syrup has been increasing.  Canada had a mild spring this year, which lowered their maple syrup production.  New England, however, had a banner year and had lots of maple syrup.

As I was reading this story I found myself wondering why it took so long for this story about Canada having a mild spring (effecting the maple syrup supply) to enter the news media - their spring was six months ago for crying out loud!

And I was surprised to learn that so much syrup came from Canada because when I buy maple syrup at the store it always says it was from a New England state!

I was reading in a recent issue of Business Week that there is a bill before congress called the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) that would make it a lot easier for employees of large corporations to unionize.  I did not get the impression from the article that very many large corporations were too concerned about this; I guess maybe they have faith that their lobbiests will line the pockets of the regulators and that the bill will not pass. 

If big corporations treated their employees a little bit better, then they would not be in danger of their employees unionizing!  The problem as I see it right now, however, is that in this global economy when a company feels too threatened that their domestic workforce will unionize that they will just shut down domestic operations and take the business overseas where they can pollute all they want and treat their employees as badly as they want.

Modern Bedroom Furniture is what my niece says she wants for her new apartment.  She is moving out of her parents’ house for the first time in a few months, and she is looking for modern furniture for her new place.  She came over yesterday to rummage around my basement and see if I had any “hand me down” furniture items she could have.  She says her biggest hope for her Modern Bedroom Furniture is to have a really great Modern Platform Bed.

She says she has been looking at furniture from the eroomservice.com website and has found several different platform beds that she likes a lot.  She hasn’t yet made up her mind which one she wants, but has narrowed it down to four favorites.  She said that the website sells some really nice bedroom sets and that she is trying to decide whether to buy the complete set, or just the bed and then try to do some mix and match with the rest of the bedroom furniture. 

She found a couple of modern lamps in my basement that she liked that I wasn’t using - my house isn’t decorated in the modern style, and these lamps were given to me by a friend.  I told her she was welcome to take them, and she was thrilled.