I spent a couple of hours last night carving pumpkins to give to my customers today. It was so much fun to see their faces when I gave them their own custom carved jack-o-lanterns! I’ve always enjoyed carving pumpkins; that’s something I used to do with my father when I was a little kid. My mother used to always roast the pumpkin seeds, too, which I’ve always enjoyed eating later!
I’m really glad that I don’t live in China! I was just thinking that over the past several months they have had some pretty bad things happening – some major earthquakes, and the many product recalls due to unsafe toxins in the paint on the toys for kids, and now the melamine scandal. The melamine scandal started quite a while ago with pet food, and now it’s in their milk and spreading throughout their food chain. I have to wonder if there is ANYTHING safe that comes out of China?
It seems to me that there has been a very long, drawn out controversy about whether to allow any casinos in Maine. This is such a loaded question, on the one hand people are afraid that it will attract more crime; on the other hand people want the extra income. There are a lot of “NIMBY”s “out there” and to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure that I’d be very happy if a casino were to open up in the town that I live in! I would like to see any casino that is opened to be totally state run and all profits go to the government to pay for improvements to the schools, the infrastructure, and to improve social services.
Well it has been a very busy week doing fall cleanups for my customers this week. Foliage is peak, and there are a lot of leaves already on the ground. It is a beautiful time of year, and the air is crisp and clean. I love the weather like this – this is one of the reasons I love having an outdoor job – being outside to enjoy the fresh air. I’m lucky to be living in this part of the country where the air is still so clean and where you can still see the stars at night.
It’s going to be a busy week ahead of me, getting my fall contracts in order – a lot of customers are going to be unhappy with price increases due to fuel increases, but there’s nothing I can do about that. When your job is driving around going from place to place to plow and sand, a big part of the cost of doing business is the price of gasoline, and the cost has to be passed on to the customer. I’m not a big enough operation to be able to absorb that cost, I barely make enough money to pay the bills and make payroll! I hope the price of gasoline goes down dramatically and stays down!
I was reading an article on TheStreet.com about how retrofitting a company to be more “green” is a good business move; it generates positive publicity and may attract more customers. I agree that it is a good idea. But I also seem to remember reading an article (I don’t recall where) about how some unscrupulous companies are making “green” claims that they don’t deserve. So that brings me to pondering how a company can go “greener” and be transparent about it in such a way that it doesn’t cost the company too much money. Going green is great, and much needed, but we also need to make sure that the company can still make a profit!