09:33 – Costco run and dinner with Mary and Paul yesterday. That was the first time we’d hit Costco on Saturday; usually we go late on a Sunday afternoon. It was noticeably busier. There were relatively few carts available when we arrived, maybe 100 or so. As usual, Barbara grabbed one cart for the general shopping, and I grabbed a second to fill up with Coke. I checked out separately, and headed for the truck to transfer the Coke. When I got back to the entrance, there were people milling around because there were zero shopping carts available.
And, speaking of real inflation, the Cokes that cost $4.19 per four-pack of 2-liter bottles the last time I bought them a month or so ago, were now $4.99, a nearly 20% bump in a month.
We had dinner at the same restaurant we’d been to the last two or three Costco runs. I was surprised to see that my standard order there was no longer on the menu. I always order the same thing at any particular restaurant, which is why I don’t like going to new restaurants; I have to order something new. When I was working for the Libertarian National Committee during the 1980 presidential campaign, there was an Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips restaurant on the same block as the headquarters building. I had the same order there every day for eight months.
There was an interesting article in the paper this morning about a massive cheating scandal in the Atlanta public schools. Not students cheating. Teachers and administrators cheating. They were literally erasing wrong answers on test papers submitted by poor students and substituting the correct answers. There was also an organized effort by the teachers and administrators to arrange seating during tests to intersperse good students with poor students to allow the poor students to copy the answers from the good students. The upshot was that they ended up with students in middle school who were able to read at only a first-grade level. No surprises here. The teachers’ and administrators’ jobs depend on these poor students passing tests. NCLB strikes again.
“And, speaking of real inflation, the Cokes that cost $4.19 per four-pack of 2-liter bottles the last time I bought them a month or so ago, were now $4.99, a nearly 20% bump in a month.”
Pepsi Max (nice tasting diet Pepsi) is $1.99 per 2 litre bottle when it’s on special here, regular price is higher, of course. Coke Zero/Coke is a fair bit higher again, so you’re lucky. We pay over twice what you do.
I prefer 1.25 litre bottles, they’re easier to manipulate and they vary in price between 99c and 109c on special, and about 160c per 1.25 litre bottle regular price. I stock up when they’re on special, usually I get 40 or more bottles at a time.
Geez, that’s even worse since 1 AUD buys something like 1.06 USD. I just wish real Coca-Cola, with sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup, was still available. Actually, you can buy it at bodegas, but at a very high price in tiny little bottles. IIRC, it’s made in Mexico and imported.
The problem is that we have high import duties on sugar to protect US sugar producers, whereas corn production is heavily subsidized. Sugar should be cheaper than HFCS, but instead it’s much more expensive.
Actually the restaurant still had your favorite on the menu, but it was in italics.
A few months back my Costco had Mexican Coke in glass. Expensive, of course.
Yes, the Mexican shops carry real Coke. We have several larger ones here in Vegas, more of a Mexi supermarket. They carry tons of the real stuff. My wife is from Laredo and loads up on it when we go in for the Sunday barbacoa. Yum, cow face. I’m hooked on Coke Zero.
Mexican bottlers use cane sugar while he US bottlers use beet sugar.
Regarding our hosts comments regarding NCLB this AM and previously regarding the salaries of CA public school teachers, I offer this:
http://www.ocregister.com/news/gap-307560-hispanic-parents.html
Now, the significance here is that my daughter, as a 6th grade teacher of 100% Hispanic class, has to promote all (leave none behind) to the 7th grade. This is regardless of their average ability to Read and ‘Rithmetic at the 3rd grade level. Do you realize the creativity, competency and capability that she must possess in order to accomplish this facet of the NCLB mandate from WDC? She should be paid double of those such as Arne Duncan, the current US secretary of Education.
I just wish real Coca-Cola, with sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup, was still available.
It’s available every year in the March/April timeframe, but probably not in North Carolina (plenty to eb had though up here in NYC).
http://offthebroiler.wordpress.com/2009/03/27/kosher-for-passover-coke-its-the-real-thing-baby/
Be aware that there are reports that Costco will stop carrying Coca Cola products. See http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/792359
When we lived in Florida, many stores carried what we called “Passover Coke” leading up to the holiday in March/April. I’m not exactly sure about the details behind the restriction, but corn syrup is off limits during Passover. Keep an eye out in the stores for yellow caps with Hebrew inscriptions next Spring.
Coca Cola and Costco have been fighting about price for a few years. Here in the Portland Metro area, Coke products are $4.18 for a four-pack of 2-liters at Costco right now, but the chain has dropped cans for bottles and vice-versa twice since Summer began.
I am a Moxie guy. This is a longtime New England beverage so I don’t suppose it is sold in the Carolinas, sort of a kicked-up root beer.
Well, we had maybe three days of actual summer July weather here and now we are back to dark skies, rain, t-storms and more mud. There was enough sun, however, after the deluge of the last three or four months, to turn our yard and fields into a frigging rainforest, with sunflowers over my head now and blooming, and we have beacoups foot-long zucchinis. Corn down the road at several riverfront farms is coming up nicely on the elevated fields, but still only ankle-high where it flooded. Better half was in Texas last week and New Mexico this week and it is hotter than Hell there, well above 100 every day and continued drought. No thank you; I’ll take our forty days and forty nights of rain and snow and fog and ice and wind. Actually, starting last November, about 200 days and nights…