you couldn't pay me to shop on a tax holiday

• Tax Free Holiday - C-C
  • I live in a state with Tax-Free shopping. No Sales Tax ever. nm - Jewels
  • Tax free shopping - LinK
  • you couldn't pay me to shop on a tax holiday - not keen on fighting crowds
    • My daughter and I bought our laptops during the tax-free, sm - justme2
      • sweet!!! - i wonder if The Gap and Old Navy do that
    • I'll second that! - ginny

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I know for some here they've said it's Walmart.

There's a chain of stores here in NJ, not sure if they're anywhere else though. It's calles SixthAvenue Electronics. We had a bad experience with them many years ago (they sold us a reconditioned piece of electronics without telling us it wasn't new) and to this day I won't even look at their flyers. I just throw them away.

Where won't you shop?

I am one of those st**pid women with little dogs and they are better company than someone like you, I am sure. They go where we go including nice hotels where they are welcome.  No one has ever complained.  They are clean and groomed, don't bark, and are gentle and loving.  Stores cater to me because I spend money there.  Are you?  Or, are you just walking around looking?  Maybe they don't cater to you because of your not so nice comments to their good customers.

Edited by Moderator for content. 

Mare stare has a whole boatload of farms that offer live cams in easy to navigate list format.  Usually in the spring these cams are trained in on mares who are about to give birth--which is incredibly cool (and sometimes scary!) to watch. 

http://www.marestare.com/Cams.htm

Against the Wal
A class-action lawsuit in Dakota County could strike a costly blow to the world’s largest private employer
by MARGARET NELSON BRINKHAUS

In July 2001, Nancy Braun was watching television with a friend when a commercial caught her attention. The ad was soliciting litigants for a potential lawsuit against Wal-Mart, the Arkansas-based retailing giant, for allegedly cheating employees out of wages they were rightfully owed.

A single mother of two—and grandmother of four—Braun had started working for Wal-Mart in 1997. At the time, she lived in Slidell, Louisiana, where she had previously worked for a grocery store. She considered Wal-Mart a step-up. “I liked shopping there,” she says. “I thought I’d like working there too.”

And she did enjoy it, at least for a while. She liked the people, the work, the sense of solidarity among employees. But in 2000, homesick for her family, she moved back to Minnesota and transferred to the Wal-Mart in Apple Valley, where she was assigned to run the Radio Grill, the outlet’s now-defunct in-store restaurant. There, Braun quickly became disenchanted with the company, especially after a supervisor repeatedly prohibited her from taking breaks—even after she had surgery that required frequent trips to the bathroom. She soon quit.

Braun’s friend encouraged her to call the number mentioned in the advertisement to see if she qualified for the suit, but Braun was hesitant. She didn’t relish the prospect of reliving that period in her life. Yet she remembered how her mother, a longtime switchboard operator at Carleton College, had always encouraged her to speak up, to do the right thing when confronted with an injustice, big or small. “You can’t allow yourself to be treated like an animal,” she says. “I’m sure Mr. Walton would agree with me on that.”

One morning this past October, six years after she first saw that television ad, Braun sat inside a Dakota County courtroom in Hastings, her striped shirt and beige pants—bought from Wal-Mart—in marked contrast to dark suits, leather briefcases, BlackBerrys, and laptops sported by the army of attorneys in the room. “I’m a Plain Jane kind of gal, nothing fancy,” she said. “But I know what’s right. What Wal-Mart did to me wasn’t right.”

That sense of determination is one of the reasons why Braun found herself in Hastings, taking on the country’s largest corporation. She’s one of four lead plaintiffs in a massive, class-action lawsuit filed against Wal-Mart, a case that could affect 56,000 people who worked at Wal-Mart in Minnesota between 1998 and 2004. The suit alleges that over that period, the discount retailer systematically avoided paying wages earned by employees for overtime work and missed or shortened meal and break periods. And though the case is not the first of its kind—workers have won victories in similar cases in California and Pennsylvania—it may end up being one of the most significant. If Judge Robert King Jr. rules against Wal-Mart in this phase of the trial, the company would likely have to pay up to $500 for each employee, which could mean a payout in the tens of millions. More significantly, a ruling against Wal-Mart in this first part of the trial would also mean that the case would move to a jury to assess whether punitive damages are in order. If that happens, Wal-Mart could be on the hook for not only millions, but billions.

Braun’s troubles began after she returned to Minnesota. At the Apple Valley Wal-Mart, she worked in several different departments before running the Radio Grill. At first, she enjoyed the work. “I treated that place like my own kitchen,” she says. “I did it all willingly. I’m not afraid of work…never have been.” Not long after she started in Apple Valley, Braun had learned she needed to have gallbladder surgery. After the procedure, Braun suffered some relatively common side effects that required her to take frequent bathroom breaks. Braun’s supervisors initially said they would accommodate her needs, but that’s not what happened. “I’d get in a pinch, be there all alone, and soil myself, ruin my clothes,” Braun recalled. “I’d feel so degraded. Sometimes I wouldn’t have clothes with me, and the manager would say ‘We have clothes here for sale. Get your purse and go buy yourself some.’ They didn’t care.”

Putting up with an insufferable boss is, of course, an unavoidable part of a job for many people. Yet Braun’s treatment, argue the plaintiffs’ attorneys, wasn’t unique among Wal-Mart employees. Another lead plaintiff, Debbie Simonson, 59, started working as a cashier at the Wal-Mart in Brooklyn Park in April 2000. As a single mother of two children, she needed the money. And, like Braun, Simonson was often told by her supervisor not to take bathroom breaks. “He’d say ‘Skip the bathroom and get your butt out here,’ and I’d do it,” she explained in court. “It was an order. Your boss tells you to do something, you do it.” She quit after 13 months.

According to Justin Perl, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney, the denial of breaks was standard operating procedure at Wal-Mart. As part of the case, he and his colleagues combed through Wal-Mart’s own records to find workplace violations. They identified millions of missed bathroom and rest breaks, as well as millions of shortened rest breaks, along with thousands of missed meal breaks. “It’s the Wal-Mart way,” says Perl. “They nickel-and-dime the lowest- paid workers so they can improve their own bottom line.”

Wal-Mart sees it differently. A spokesman, John Simley, says the company doesn’t comment on pending litigation, but in other cases the company has denied it encourages employees to miss breaks or work off the clock. Wal-Mart, company officials maintain, tries to ensure compliance with company policies and state laws, but has no control over individual choices workers make.

Yet those individual choices are often informed by pressure from the company, argues Perl. According to testimony in other wage cases, Wal-Mart compensates its managers largely via bonuses that are tied to profits—and the easiest way to increase profits is by cutting expenses. “They do it by erasing everyone else’s salary,” says Perl. “It’s not a hard job. They cut staffing. They shave breaks. They make their profit goals. It’s the only basis for how they compensate their managers.”

Pamela Reinert, 54, saw for herself how that pressure was brought to bear. A petite, soft-spoken mother of seven from Maplewood who has a PhD in psychology, she joined Sam’s Club—a Wal-Mart subsidiary—in 1997, after she was laid off from another job. Like Braun and Simonson, Reinert liked the work, and was good at it. She made it into the management-training program shortly after joining the company. As a manager, she would sometimes try to intercede on behalf of workers who weren’t getting their breaks. Eventually, though, she was told to stop making trouble. She eventually quit after a supervisor threatened to write her up for insubordination—for trying to take her complaints up the chain of command.

A ruling on the case is expected sometime this month. But no matter how it turns out, Nancy Braun says she will always miss Wal-Mart. “I wish I could have stayed working there,” she says. She enjoyed the other employees, the customers, and the idea “that there was always something to do, always a way to keep busy. I worked my way up—that was a big deal for me. When I quit, I felt defeated.”

Now living in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, and selling insurance at a cell phone company, she tries to attend the trial whenever possible. When she’s in Hastings, she occasionally makes a stop across the street from the courthouse to do some shopping—at Wal-Mart.

Margaret Nelson Brinkhaus is a Minnesota-based writer.

Against the Wal
A class-action lawsuit in Dakota County could strike a costly blow to the world’s largest private employer
by MARGARET NELSON BRINKHAUS

In July 2001, Nancy Braun was watching television with a friend when a commercial caught her attention. The ad was soliciting litigants for a potential lawsuit against Wal-Mart, the Arkansas-based retailing giant, for allegedly cheating employees out of wages they were rightfully owed.

A single mother of two—and grandmother of four—Braun had started working for Wal-Mart in 1997. At the time, she lived in Slidell, Louisiana, where she had previously worked for a grocery store. She considered Wal-Mart a step-up. “I liked shopping there,” she says. “I thought I’d like working there too.”

And she did enjoy it, at least for a while. She liked the people, the work, the sense of solidarity among employees. But in 2000, homesick for her family, she moved back to Minnesota and transferred to the Wal-Mart in Apple Valley, where she was assigned to run the Radio Grill, the outlet’s now-defunct in-store restaurant. There, Braun quickly became disenchanted with the company, especially after a supervisor repeatedly prohibited her from taking breaks—even after she had surgery that required frequent trips to the bathroom. She soon quit.

Braun’s friend encouraged her to call the number mentioned in the advertisement to see if she qualified for the suit, but Braun was hesitant. She didn’t relish the prospect of reliving that period in her life. Yet she remembered how her mother, a longtime switchboard operator at Carleton College, had always encouraged her to speak up, to do the right thing when confronted with an injustice, big or small. “You can’t allow yourself to be treated like an animal,” she says. “I’m sure Mr. Walton would agree with me on that.”

One morning this past October, six years after she first saw that television ad, Braun sat inside a Dakota County courtroom in Hastings, her striped shirt and beige pants—bought from Wal-Mart—in marked contrast to dark suits, leather briefcases, BlackBerrys, and laptops sported by the army of attorneys in the room. “I’m a Plain Jane kind of gal, nothing fancy,” she said. “But I know what’s right. What Wal-Mart did to me wasn’t right.”

That sense of determination is one of the reasons why Braun found herself in Hastings, taking on the country’s largest corporation. She’s one of four lead plaintiffs in a massive, class-action lawsuit filed against Wal-Mart, a case that could affect 56,000 people who worked at Wal-Mart in Minnesota between 1998 and 2004. The suit alleges that over that period, the discount retailer systematically avoided paying wages earned by employees for overtime work and missed or shortened meal and break periods. And though the case is not the first of its kind—workers have won victories in similar cases in California and Pennsylvania—it may end up being one of the most significant. If Judge Robert King Jr. rules against Wal-Mart in this phase of the trial, the company would likely have to pay up to $500 for each employee, which could mean a payout in the tens of millions. More significantly, a ruling against Wal-Mart in this first part of the trial would also mean that the case would move to a jury to assess whether punitive damages are in order. If that happens, Wal-Mart could be on the hook for not only millions, but billions.

Braun’s troubles began after she returned to Minnesota. At the Apple Valley Wal-Mart, she worked in several different departments before running the Radio Grill. At first, she enjoyed the work. “I treated that place like my own kitchen,” she says. “I did it all willingly. I’m not afraid of work…never have been.” Not long after she started in Apple Valley, Braun had learned she needed to have gallbladder surgery. After the procedure, Braun suffered some relatively common side effects that required her to take frequent bathroom breaks. Braun’s supervisors initially said they would accommodate her needs, but that’s not what happened. “I’d get in a pinch, be there all alone, and soil myself, ruin my clothes,” Braun recalled. “I’d feel so degraded. Sometimes I wouldn’t have clothes with me, and the manager would say ‘We have clothes here for sale. Get your purse and go buy yourself some.’ They didn’t care.”

Putting up with an insufferable boss is, of course, an unavoidable part of a job for many people. Yet Braun’s treatment, argue the plaintiffs’ attorneys, wasn’t unique among Wal-Mart employees. Another lead plaintiff, Debbie Simonson, 59, started working as a cashier at the Wal-Mart in Brooklyn Park in April 2000. As a single mother of two children, she needed the money. And, like Braun, Simonson was often told by her supervisor not to take bathroom breaks. “He’d say ‘Skip the bathroom and get your butt out here,’ and I’d do it,” she explained in court. “It was an order. Your boss tells you to do something, you do it.” She quit after 13 months.

According to Justin Perl, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney, the denial of breaks was standard operating procedure at Wal-Mart. As part of the case, he and his colleagues combed through Wal-Mart’s own records to find workplace violations. They identified millions of missed bathroom and rest breaks, as well as millions of shortened rest breaks, along with thousands of missed meal breaks. “It’s the Wal-Mart way,” says Perl. “They nickel-and-dime the lowest- paid workers so they can improve their own bottom line.”

Wal-Mart sees it differently. A spokesman, John Simley, says the company doesn’t comment on pending litigation, but in other cases the company has denied it encourages employees to miss breaks or work off the clock. Wal-Mart, company officials maintain, tries to ensure compliance with company policies and state laws, but has no control over individual choices workers make.

Yet those individual choices are often informed by pressure from the company, argues Perl. According to testimony in other wage cases, Wal-Mart compensates its managers largely via bonuses that are tied to profits—and the easiest way to increase profits is by cutting expenses. “They do it by erasing everyone else’s salary,” says Perl. “It’s not a hard job. They cut staffing. They shave breaks. They make their profit goals. It’s the only basis for how they compensate their managers.”

Pamela Reinert, 54, saw for herself how that pressure was brought to bear. A petite, soft-spoken mother of seven from Maplewood who has a PhD in psychology, she joined Sam’s Club—a Wal-Mart subsidiary—in 1997, after she was laid off from another job. Like Braun and Simonson, Reinert liked the work, and was good at it. She made it into the management-training program shortly after joining the company. As a manager, she would sometimes try to intercede on behalf of workers who weren’t getting their breaks. Eventually, though, she was told to stop making trouble. She eventually quit after a supervisor threatened to write her up for insubordination—for trying to take her complaints up the chain of command.

A ruling on the case is expected sometime this month. But no matter how it turns out, Nancy Braun says she will always miss Wal-Mart. “I wish I could have stayed working there,” she says. She enjoyed the other employees, the customers, and the idea “that there was always something to do, always a way to keep busy. I worked my way up—that was a big deal for me. When I quit, I felt defeated.”

Now living in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, and selling insurance at a cell phone company, she tries to attend the trial whenever possible. When she’s in Hastings, she occasionally makes a stop across the street from the courthouse to do some shopping—at Wal-Mart.

Margaret Nelson Brinkhaus is a Minnesota-based writer.

I also like to watch my kids play ball or take them swimming.  Sometimes, I get with my friend and her kids and we take them to the movies.  We love to cook out on the weekends and invite friends over. 

I also like just cleaning my house, believe it or not, and rearranging the furniture, etc.  Last summer, I painted and stenciled a lot and I'm thinking about doing a few pieces this summer.  I also like to take care of my flower beds.  Lots to do.  Summer is my favorite time of year. 

and it's not because I'm judgemental of anyone. God will judge in the end. But, I have a right to shop at stores that do not sell such items.  And, for the poster who said homosexuals buy condoms...heterosexuals buy condoms, too!  For example, my brother and his wife use condoms because they don't want to have anymore children but also don't want to have surgery.  For the person who posted that the Bible was written by man, let me enlighten you.  The Bible was written by man through God. That means that, while man wrote the text, God was who gave man the words to write it.  This issue for me is not JUST about WalMart, it is about all businesses who sell homosexual material.

what works to keep you in budget if you have one?   My husband and teenager went WAY over budget last year for Christmas so this year I've told them that it's cash only for their purchases and no internet shopping (that got them in trouble last year buying too much stuff because they didn't bother to track how much they were spending).

We've got $1300 budgeted for this Christmas.  That includes $150 each kid for Santa gifts (2 kids), $100 each for my husband and myself to get each other something, each of us gets $100 total to get gifts for each other (i.e. kids get $100 to buy gifts for each other as well as we parents), $50 each allotted for our 3 parents, $25/each alotted for each of our siblings  (small gifts always given - agreed amongst siblings years ago) and $50 to get gifts for the kids teachers and bus drivers.  It sure adds up, doesn't it? 

The night after Thanksgiving, we order a large pizza for dinner, watch Christmas Vacation and Polar Express, and then drink hot chocolate while the kids decorate the Christmas tree and the cats act like kittens again.  What does everyone else do?

Of course, there are zillions of commercials now with Christmas coming up.  I just had to tell you my favorite and see if you have one. This would be fun.  This week, there have been tons of diamond commercials on TV, Zales, etc.  There is one where the family comes down the stairs and somebody is sneaking a look in a present (it should be one of the kids).  All they show is the mom and a close up of her face being caught! Then they say something about diamonds etc.  I usually don't pay attention to commercials but I love that! She looks like a real mom, and I felt like that was what I would do, getting caught at sneaking a look. (Of course it would not be diamonds, but I'd still get caught even if it was a blender LOL).

Saturday, we have a huge craft show to go to, followed by 3 baseball games of my boys', followed by some serious picnicking Saturday evening.

As for Sunday, fairly relaxing, a little work in the morning and evening, visiting family in the afternoon and picnicking some more.

Monday should be a fairly quiet day - a little work in the morning and evening, a late morning Memorial Day parade and early afternoon picnicking, maybe a movie with the kids!

Love this weekend -- gets me started on a great summer!

Just ONE day a year that we all are nice, friendly, nonjudgmental, noncritical, etc.

My dad saying (when I was age 4 to 6) that there was an elf that would hop on his shoulder every morning when he got in the car to go to work and ask if I had been good the day before. I can remember waiting for him to get home and then excitedly asking him if he talked to the elf...ok, now I'm misty eyed!

Waiting in the longest line to get Cabbage Patch Kids for my daughters when they first came out....lucky enough to get ones with decent enough names and birthdates close to my girls' birthdays.

Making the dreaded yam/sweet potato casserole at Thanksgving and ALWAYS  setting the marshmallow bag on the hot oven door, thus melting the plastic, nice touch.

Realizing that I don't care if I have to pay full price, I do not shop the day after Thanksgiving any more!