John Carter

Today (September 13, 2012) a horrific traffic crash, I will not call it an accident because it was not an accident, occurred a block away from my store. A drunk driver driving well over double the speed limit lost control of his car and crashed into a crowded bus stop with people headed to work or school. The drunk was actually headed to a liquor store to buy more booze, as based on a comment he asked the paramedics that were cutting apart the car to get to him, about if he had made ”it to the liquor store”.

As of 6 PM, the crash was at 6:20AM, there was at least 4 dead and 8 in the hospital with several in life threatening condition. One of those that is missing and yet unidentified as dead or critically injured is a customer of mine. I watched in tears myself as her daughter, to whom I know, was interviewed and cried constantly about the fact that they have not yet been able to tell her if her mom is dead or alive.

My customer, the mom, is also a grandma that I know of two preschool granddaughters that she routinely brought with her to the store to pick up her mail and packages. Two precious little girls who are too young to understand what is going on, but who will be impacted for life by this. Regardless of if they will every see and play with their grandmother again, they will not be doing it anytime soon because if she did survive, she was critically injured.

Multiple families have been greatly impacted by this preventable incident. Not to minimize their loses, but there where also witnesses at nearby businesses that will be seeing this event replay time and time again in their minds. The responding police, paramedics, firefighters, coroners office and other first responders who will have to deal with this matter will also be affected – many for life – by this.

It was reported that there were occupants in the car at the same time, maybe as many as 3 passengers. It can only be assumed that they were as equally impaired as they permitted the driver to operate the car. While they, should they survive, also have to live with the thoughts of what happened, at this time my anger wants them to face the same charges of Vehicle Manslaughter as the driver – since they were also obviously guilty for letting him drive.

I am asking all to join me in praying for ALL the victims of this event – from those at the bus stop, to the witnesses, to the first responders who are cleaning up the mess and especially for the families of those killed and injured.

More and more Nevada State Bank is fee happy. I am certain that the new management recently worked for Bank of America.

Over the past the several months I have been moving my business accounts from Nevada State to a credit union because of all the fees that NSB now charges. Notary is no longer free. If you dump change in their coin machine you pay nearly 10% ‘convenience’ fee. Business accounts have slowly increased in fees over the past several years. I have no credit lines, but I am willing to be that those are also going up in nickel and dime fees all to pay for executive pay packages.

The fee for a simple business account recently climbed form $15 to $18. Seems little enough until you figure they have 100,000 small business accounts and this little $3 fee adds upwards of $300,000 a month to their bottom line. And I am low guessing their small business account numbers.

In the process of closing my LAST account I will ever have with Nevada State Bank, I was charged $18 to close the account. Yes, $18 service fee to close the account!!!!!

Ok with me, you got a free $18.00 from me and I will make it a point to trash you with everyone I talk to. Everyone. That may seem like a unimportant point until you consider that I manage a postal/mailbox center with 100s of box customers and I set up new Nevada based corporations and LLCs for out of state clients. Yes, lots of new business clients ask me about banks. I send them exclusively to any of the Las Vegas based credit unions. The CUs are not perfect, but their fees are a lot lower and if you use online statements, you can get most accounts for free. Even business accounts.

And here is a funny point: I saw a sign where they were voted a Best In Las Vegas in the LVRJ readers poll. I really assume that the only votes they got was their employees because the management ORDERED the employees to vote for the bank. I can not really think anyone would willing vote for this joke of a “neighborhood” bank.

This post will be cross posted on other blogs I control. Just more trashing them.

I am so excited!!!!

I have received welcome news regarding my future.

Last night, I dined at a local’s Chinese Place. By local’s I mean it was built for the people of Las Vegas, not the tourists. It is several miles from the strip and downtown. It is good food at a reasonable price and yes, I will do a little advertising for them. It is called: Krazy Buffet, 3131 N Rainbow Blvd. Las Vegas, NV 89108.

Anyway, my fortune cookie advised me that I was next in line for a promotion at my organization. I originally saved it so I could scan it and prove it, however, I miss placed it.

The one dig against the place that I will state – their fortune cookies taste like ()*)*&%*$.

Anyway, after I left it dawned on to me that, I am the only one that works in my organization!

Yep. I am the only employee of my corporate services business and the only employee (currently unpaid since it does not make enough to actually pay me) of my online business.

So, I guess I can speak honestly that yes, I am the next one to be promoted if only because I am the ONLY ONE to be promoted.

You can not argue with fate.

Peace, Love, Happiness. Money can not buy any of them, but if you know where to shop, it can get you a little bit closer.

This is one of the stories that I write that I hope some current or future restaurant or bar employee reads.

I entered one of my favorite subways to get a sub to take to work. I waited as the employee started, finished, wrapped and collected the money for the customer in front of me. He then turned his attention to me. By then another customer entered the store and took her place at the end of the counter. I placed my order (foot long chicken breast on white, swiss cheese – toasted). After my request was in the oven, he returned to the next customer to get her order, by the time he had her order ready to go into the toaster, mine was ready to come out, he dutifully swapped them, and started the final assemble my lunch. After he finished adding all the extras on my and wrapped it up, he walked away to finish her sandwich. My sandwich simply laid there, wrapped and waiting to be given to me. When he finished her order, then and only then did he return to ring up my order.

Why I have to ask, did he gain making me wait while he finished another customer’s order? It was not any faster for her as she still had to wait the same amount of time for my order to be finished and for my order to rung up in the cash register. The only time factor was my being forced to wait for her order.

And then, when he processed my payment, the order was just under $10. I entered the store with two $20s in my pocket. He returned to me a $10 bill and about 35 cents in change. I normally tip a minimum of $1 or even more if I order multiple sandwiches. I was not impressed with being forced to wait for the customer —behind— me and I was not about to tip him $10.

He lost out on the deal. The most important point to this story: When you give change make sure you give back some singles!!!!!

Today I noticed a sign nailed to a power pole advertising Psychic services. Someone had taken black spray paint and painted over part of the sign. This caused me to pause and wonder, ‘If the Psychic was any good, they would have know that their own sign was going to be messed up and could have put it somewhere else.’ Right?

People can be booksmart; streetsmart; ignorant or plain stupid. Booksmart people are good with theories that may/may not work. Streetsmarts know what works but maybe not why. The Ignorant have no idea whats works because they have neither book or street experience. Stupid people Don’t Want to know what works: especially if they have to work to figure it out. You may be all of them, but it is your average that counts.

It is appears that it is illegal to run an ad in the paper that says “Free Stupid Test. Send $20″ and when people send you the $20 that you send them a certificate says – “You Passed!” RATS!! ((If I have to explain it, if you are stupid enough to send $20 to find out if you are stupid, then you are stupid. Right??)) 

Sometimes I see obstacles in my path as reasons to not go forward. Or I have looked on the obstructions as merely opportunities to grow my abilities by over coming them. The largest/hardest deterrents I have had to over come is generally my own lack of faith in me, or a lack of faith by those around me. Your own success can sometimes signal to others their own failures. Consider THAT when they tell YOU not to do it.

It is just as easy to learn a good habit as it is to learn a bad habit. The hard part is changing the habits you have. So if you learn the good habits first it will be much harder to change to bad ones.