A tragedy occurred in a quiet suburb of Littleton, Colorado. Another nut case decided to get his jollies by shooting at innocent middle school kids. 

First it was Columbine High School, then Platte Canyon High School and now Deer Creek Middle School. All of these schools are located in either small suburban or mountain communities. Kids who attend these schools are from middle class parents. These aren’t urban schools where crime is happening all around them.

The whacko who did the shooting was a 32-year-old man named Bruco Strong Eagle Eastwood. He has had prior arrests back to 1996 for threatening someone with a weapon, assault charges and domestic violence charges. He is currently being held on a $1million bond. Why wasn’t he previously in jail for all of those charges he racked up?

The girl student was shot in the shoulder and has been released from the hospital but the boy student is in serious condition with a gun shot to his chest. Pray for him.

When did it become the “in” thing to shoot kids while they are in school?  School should be the one place that our kids can go to all day long, to feel safe and secure. But these perverts have taken this away from them.

When did it become the “just” thing to do to release a criminal from jail on bond so he can go out and commit crimes?

Something has to change. We have to keep our kids safe and get dirt-bag criminals off the streets.

Until later,

Linda

Last night’s Undercover Boss was with the Joe DePinto, CEO and President of 7-11. 7-Eleven is a convenience retail store. Its headquarters are based in Dallas, Texas. The company operates franchises and licenses more than 6,970 stores in the U.S. and Canada. Of the more than 5,900 stores the company operates and franchises in the United States, some 4,550 are franchised.

As a result, Mr. DePinto decided to go out among his franchised stores to see how the employees are doing, what motivates them and how he can make working condition better for 7-Eleven employees. In this episode, we saw some nice people working for his company. His first visit was with a store that sold more coffee than any other store. The reason wasn’t the coffee, it was the employee in charge of making the coffee. This lovely lady was friendly and knew all of her customers by name. Now that is great service! Most of the employees at the stores really did enjoy their jobs and working for the company. Igor who is the delivery person, was the bright spot of this episode. As an immigrant to the U.S. he told Mr. DePinto that he has a great job and living the American Dream. He chose to do this work and is very happy.

This episode seemed to me too rosy. With all the jokes made of 7-Eleven workers, this episode showed normal average working people. All of their stores seemed to work like a well-oiled machine and at the end everyone was happy, happy, happy. This seemed to be staged to me, but it did leave me feeling good about Mr. DePinto. He seemed to care about what was going on and willing to take care of problems, whenever he found one, right away. I guess with over 6,000 stores, he’s making good money. Did you see his house at the beginning of the episode? It’s a multi-million dollar house. I guess I would be happy, happy, happy too.

Next week the owner of White Castle will be featured.

Until later,

Linda

The other night “Undercover Boss” highlighted the President and CEO, Coby Brooks, of the Hooters Restaurant chain.  He went to several restaurant locations and tried his hand at entry-level jobs. He seemed to understand that working in a restaurant is very fast paced but he didn’t realize how demanding the jobs were. A manager of one of the restaurant wasn’t going to hire him because he was too slow – that’s too funny!

The most memorable moment happened when he was an Assistant Manager working with the manager Jimbo. Jimbo is your typical misogynist. He is a disgrace as a manager working with women. He didn’t fire Jimbo. He gave him one more chance to straighten up and be respectful of his employees. I wouldn’t have done that – he would have been gone in a New York minute!

He then worked as part of a marketing team to find out what us regular folks thought about Hooters. He was surprised that most women felt that being a Hooters’ girl was demeaning. He said that he would allow his two daughters to work for Hooters and couldn’t understand this. As a result, he promoted the two girls he worked with to do a positive marketing of the restaurant chain. We’ll see how far this goes.

The bright spot was the lady Manager. All the employees in her restaurant loved working with her. She was encouraging and understanding. Mr. Brooks learned a lot from her and gave her long vacation to anywhere she wanted to go with her family. He also put her in charge of policy making for managers in the company.

Mr. Brooks visited the plant where all the sauces where made. He was boo-hooing about how much his father was loved by all the workers there. However, when his father died and he became President and CEO, the morale of the workers in the plant was low. They didn’t know who he was and what type of boss he would be. Mr. Brooks said that he would make a better effort to frequently visit the plant and talk with the employees there. This part of the program seemed unbelievable to me.

You see I knew beforehand that the Hooter’s chain is reportedly up for sale. The chain is desperate for cash, as business has fizzled. Sales have dropped because of the economy. Hooters tied itself to the business-travel market in some ways, placing some of its 450 restaurants near convention centers and other business meeting sites. Businesses have curtailed business trips and Hooters took a hit.

No matter how much Mr. Brooks showed how concerned he was with employees and plant workers of Hooters, it seems as though he was just enjoying the privileges of being a CEO and President of Hooters. I don’t know why he was surprised about the perception of his Hooters’ girls, it has been there for a long time.

Maybe he will turn the company around or maybe he’ll just sell if off and walk away richer than before.

Until later,

Linda

Recently, in Boston an eleven year old was charged with three bullying incidents at an elementary school. School officials were stunned by the level of intimidation from this child.

I too was stunned after reading this article. This child is being charged with two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon on two other children. This bully used a foot, a locker door as well as scissors to assault these children. In addition, there were punches, kicking and scratching during some of the assaults.

What was totally shocking was that the bully was an eleven year old GIRL! This girl faces long-term suspension from school. I hope that her parents and authorities will get her mental health counseling that will help her to control herself and not be a future inmate in our prison system.

 Until later,

Linda

This was the shocking headlines  from every local stations’ web sites in Colorado.

A young widow of an Air Force Airman, Bradley R. Smith, came to Colorado Springs, Colorado for a memorial service for her husband.  He died last month in Afghanistan.

While taking some time to have a meal at a local restaurant, a thief or thieves broke into her car and stole this brave Airman’s belongings. They stole a red Garmin wristwatch with a black band along with his dog tags. In addition, two laptops, a digital camera and cell phone were also stolen. The car window was broken as well as the heart of this brave Airman’s wife.

Please, if you know anything about this incident, contact the Sheriff’s office at 719-520-7246 or Crime Stoppers at 719-634-7867. You can remain anonymous. If you are the low-life drugged out criminal who stole these items, the Sheriff’s office is asking you to bring these items to any of its police stations and drop off the items – no questions asked.

As for me, I think good old Western justice would be the order of the day.

Until later,

Linda

For those of you who have watched “Deadliest Catch” throughout the past five years, you know who Captain Phil is. He was the salty crab-fishing captain of the Cornelia Marie. He and his two sons Jake and Josh trolled the Bering Sea off the Alaskan coast catching opilio crab.

Captain Phil started working on fishing boats at age 7. He started work 10 years later on a crab boat. When he turned 21, he ran a fishing vessel out of Seattle, making him one of the youngest to captain a vessel in the Bering Sea.

A year ago, he suffered with a blood clot in his lungs and missed the rest of the crab season fishing. This year it seemed he was healthy enough to go back to sea. However, on January 29^th he suffered a massive stroke while in port at St. Paul Island, Alaska. He was flown to Anchorage for surgery.

Unfortunately, today he passed away. The Discovery channel has paid tribute to Captain Phil by saying, “We will miss his straightforward honesty, wicked sense of humor and enormous heart. We share our tremendous sadness over this loss with the millions of viewers who followed Phil’s every move.”  We too will miss him, the series “Deadliest Catch” won’t be the same without him.

He was only 53 years old.

Until later,

Linda

Did you see the episode of “Undercover Boss” on Sunday night right after the Super Bowl? At first, I thought it would be a lame show – BUT it wasn’t! It was very interesting and inspirational.

Waste Management is a huge company throughout North America. The company serves nearly 20 million municipal, commercial, industrial, and residential customers through a network of 367 collection operations, 355 transfer stations, 273 active landfill disposal sites, 16 waste-to-energy plants, 134 recycling plants, and 111 beneficial-use landfill gas projects

The President and COO of Waste Management went undercover to see what it was like out in the “trenches”. He visited several plants throughout the U.S. working as a port-a-potty- cleaner, picking up garbage, sorting garbage and working in a very busy office. What he found was that the people who work for the company are hard working people. He also found that some of the company’s policies and procedures were stifling his people.

Take for example, the administrative assistant who was overworked and underpaid. She spent hours multi-tasking and not seeing any benefits from the company. He changed that around by promoting her to a supervisory position and hiring two more people to do the same job she was doing. Now that’s creating jobs!

He also found that women in the company driving garbage trucks have to use a “pee” can because they are monitored during their routes. Now for a man that’s no problem, but for women – a different story. As a result, he put the woman he rode with in charge of finding solutions to women working with Waste Management.

Finally, and I like this one, he had an operations manager at one of his plants that docked employees two minutes for every minute they punched in late. There wasn’t a company policy on this one so the operations manager was “gently” reprimanded and his policy was abandoned.

The next episode on February 14^th will feature the CEO of Hooters. This should be interesting. Wonder if they will cover the guy who wants to be a Hooters girl?

 Until later,

Linda

Have you seen this app yet?

 According to Canada Free Press, you can now see live video streaming of Obama’s public events at the White House, take part in frequent web chats with “Administration officials”, and get in on other events like key speeches and press briefings in real time.

 This app is free and available for Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. According to the article, now you can get all the propaganda that the White House wants you see with only a touch on your phone.

 The article makes a good point when it says, “Tuning in on da Prez through their phones is something the poor, for whom he claims Patron Saint status, will likely never be able to do. The White House’s latest technology bells and whistles were launched at a time when Americans are hurting through loss of jobs and homes.”

If you have an iPhone it costs roughly $150 a month. Many Americans can use that kind of money for other things such as feeding their kids or buying them warm winter boots.

Statistically, thirty-one percent of iPhone users are 35-49 years old, while only 12 percent of iPod touch users fall in this age segment.

But if you must have an iPhone now you can “connect” with the White House and Obama any time you want to.

 Until later,

Linda