Do Not Stay At Super 8 Eau Claire 6260 Texaco Dr., Eau Claire WI 54703

I travel a lot on business and as such have become a Diamond Member of Wyndham. That being said, as I have always said, Super 8 hotels lack consistency. That is to be said about the quality of the room as well as the quality of customer service and other factors. Traveling as much as I do I do take note of the hotel rooms to stay in, and ones to avoid.

The Super 8 at 6260 Texaco Dr. Eau Claire, WI 54703 is one to avoid.

It's just not a good hotel. The area is seedy, the room is mediocre, and the entire hotel seems like something from the past. It's not a great place to stay for anyone.

What made it worse is that there was an outage for the cable. I went to the front desk and said I understood that the outage was not their fault, but that I was a diamond member and I wanted a discount for my room due to the fact that I could not watch TV. I do not want anything for free, rarely ask for discounts, and always pay my way.

The woman at the front desk did not care about my issue. She said there would be no discount because it was "not her fault." And when I mentioned that I was a diamond member she actually seemed to be angered by this.

"You get PERKS," she said.

"Not tonight," I told her.

I told her I would never stay at her hotel again and she told me, a diamond member who spends over $6000 a year in Wyndham hotels that she "was sorry to hear that but there is nothing I can do for you."

That is not customer service. For someone at the highest level of rewards that was not customer service. I was not treated like a diamond member. I was treated like any other one night stay that happened to rent a night at their hotel.

I have been treated MUCH better at other Wyndham hotels. But this one? Nope. I will never stay here again based on the condition of the hotel AND the lack of customer service, especially the lack of customer service for a member who has reached the highest level and who spends over $6000 a year on their hotels.

Never again.

More Blame From Crooked Hilary?

It never ceased to amaze me throughout Barack Obama's eight years in office his narcissistic ways. And yet, Hilary Clinton appears to suffer a similar syndrome which is made ever more evident with what is being reported to be the contents of her new book coming out in mid-September which is to bring forth her version of why she thinks she lost the election. The thing I marvel at is how much everything about the book seems to suggest that the devastating loss in the 2016 election was due to everyone else around her and had nothing to do with her. 

In the aftermath we have heard it all. It was uneducated deplorables. It was Bernie soaking up too much of what should have been her air in the room. It was James Comey. It was her team. It was bad advice from even Barack Obama which she said made her feel like she was in a straitjacket. It was the Russians.

Everyone but Hilary Clinton herself was the root cause of her epic failed presidential run.

It seems to me that people will still buy the book. Not because it is going to be informative or enlightening in any way, because we know all too well that is not going to be the case. People are going to buy the book for the same reason they might tune into Jerry Springer. You simply want to know what she is going to say even if you go into the whole thing with a clear head knowing it will be nothing but passing the buck and probably all-out lies to boot.

Some have suggested that Hilary's daughter may even be getting pegged for a possible future democratic run for president. Look, the one thing that is clear to me here is that a large part of the reason Hilary Clinton did not win has everything to do with who Hilary Clinton is. Yes, she is crooked as President Trump stated over and over again during his campaign. She's as crooked as they come. She was arrogant as was demonstrated time and time again from accounts from secret service agents when she was First Lady, to her time in office as Secretary of State using private servers and potentially compromising national security—because she felt she was above the law. The fact is that the Clinton's are done politically. So her daughter was stand no discernible chance at any time in the future for the highest office in the land.

The book is not one I will buy. I simply have no desire to read a bunch of worn out whining and complaining, deflection, woe-is-me, and whatever other bullshit she wants to spin with it. She's a piece of work. The people saw it. Voters responded. Trump won. Enough said.

As I said before, what is sad to me is that she doesn't get it. But luckily, apparently neither does the entire democrat party. That will help us in the mid-terms and help Trump to win handily again when he comes up for reelection.

Pete's Place Plug: 09/06/2017

Okay, so this blog is mostly about politics and money and business. But it is primarily supposed to be a simple hodgepodge of all of those things, and the occasional random thought. And that's exactly where this sort of post fits in.

The truth is I started vaping after quitting smoking a few months back, and being new to that whole community and everything about vaping, it has been something of a fun thing to troll the Internet and find out as much as I can about what it is, and get some intel on whatever I can regarding all things vape.

Surprisingly, while ordinarily you might think that this whole subject matter would be dry as hell, there is a lot of what I have found to be quite entertaining commentary and video on the whole world of vaping.

One guy in particular who I have taken a liking to, very much enjoying his whit and humor, and because he is actually quite informative as well to boot, that would be Pete's Place. Or for you You Tuber's out there, Vaping At Pete's Place. If you type that into the search field I am sure you will find him.

He does some live stuff weekly which so far are a bit wonky, but as I told him when I used that word in the comments, in no way am I suggesting the word wonky in a pejorative way. It's just to say that they are a bit clunky, but still nonetheless interesting to watch.

At least I find that to be the case.

So to that end because I like his vaping commentary as much as I do, from time to time I thought it might be fun and a nice thing to do to plug a video of his. He's definitely worth watching and I think there is a lot that can be learned from him from his own vaping experiences. His channel is loaded with tons of interesting tidbits, reviews, commentary and the like.

In this particular video he is reviewing some e-juice flavors that were sent to him for exactly that purpose. To do a review. As I am beginning to contribute a few of my own videos to the vaping community maybe I will be lucky enough to eventually have a few free juices sent my way for reviewing.

Win win, right? Get paid a little for the videos and get free juice?

In any event, and without further ado, here's Pete's little contribution to the vaping world. Looks like he put this one out on the 5th.

MY OWN LITTLE CONTRIBUTION

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

Chipotle: Point of No Return

Let's face it. Bad things happen. When it comes to companies, sometimes they have the ability to clear their name, and sometimes it just ain't happenin'. I am reminded of Sizzler back in the day which all but collapsed after an e. coli outbreak in a restaurant. And there was Jack in the Box which had to change its name for a while to Monterey Jacks because of a similar incident. Sizzler really never recovered. Jack in the Box however, is still operating today and eventually did lose the Monterey Jack moniker.

BP suffered blows after a major oil rig disaster. United has had its fair share of incidents. Volkswagon got itself into some trouble, and back some time ago Toyota lost some faith of its customers due to its acceleration problem.

All of them have, or will recover.

Chipotle, however, I do not believe will not have this opportunity. For the first thing, Chipotle sold itself on fresh, organic and quality which was really its brand. It is exactly what was supposed to separate its brand of quick serve from the rest of the guys. When your brand is healthy and fresh, and people get sick, not once, but twice...

That is not going to leave customers feeling too great about entering your store anytime soon. When is the last time someone got sick after eating a grease laden burger at McDonald's? Although, while Taco Bell will not make you sick, it certainly could be advertised as a quick serve laxative to be sure.

But that is an entirely different thing.

You have two incidents whereas customers have gotten sick eating at Chipotle restaurants. You have admissions from the CEO after the first string of incidents that the company was lax in its quality standards and monitoring, and was going to revamp its business by retraining employees on quality standards and good manufacturing and sanitation practices.

But now that seems to be for naught because people got sick again. And now you have reports of rodents dropping from the ceilings which in and of itself will cause more than one potential Chipotle customer to squirm.

What exactly made me sick? Could it be rodents urinating and defecating into my food? What exactly is going on behind the scenes at my Chipotle restuarant? What are the employees missing?

Truth is, being a former pest control technician, rodents and other insects like roaches are actually commonplace in food establishments. But, that's what the pest control specialists are there for. To educate staff and to control the population of pests in the establishment.

More often than not, when pest control technicians had difficulty controlling rodent and insect populations in restaurants, it was primarily due to a lack of willingness on the part of management and other staff to do their due dilligence when it came to good manufacturing practices, and especially when it came to sanitation practices.

So if rodents are falling out of the ceilings or even running rampant in the store, something is seriously wrong with everything going on in the back while your food is being prepared, and God knows what is exactly going into your burrito.

For me there is only one outcome here. The company will be filing for bankruptcy sometime in the near future. The trouble is this is two and three incidents, and customers will be weary about entering their stores anytime soon.

The stock is dropping. Customer traffic will fall dramatically. The coupled effect of this will be a downward spiral too quick and too steep for the company to be able to effectively manage.

Will Chipotle be a name that gets tossed into the garbage can? In this particular instance I think so. I think Chipotle is dead as a company.

Ruler Foods: Two Complaints

Don't get me wrong at the outset of this commentary. I am a huge fan of the Kroger brand of grocery stores known as Ruler's. For one thing they have stellar prices. And when I say stellar, I mean (if you have been following me) their prices far surpass, in many instances, my threshold prices on myriad regular items I generally buy.

For example, here are some current prices as of this writing that I think are out of this world:

• 1 dozen eggs, 28 cents
• 5 pound roll of 73/27 ground beef, $9.95 (or $1.99 per pound)
• Boneless, skinless chicken breasts $1.88 per pound
• Whole chicken, 95 cents per pound
• Green peppers, 49 cents each
• Cream soups, 49 cents each
• Taco seasoning packets, 39 cents each
• 16 ounce salad dressing, $1.29
• 3 pound bag of yellow onions, $1.49
• Box of two envelopes of onion soup mix, 69 cents
• 1 pound of ham lunch meat, $2.99
• 1 1/2 pound brick of cheese, $4.89

In addition, so far as I can tell, Ruler Foods has the best price in town on 75 feet of Reynold's Freezer Paper. A must for anyone like me who buys meats in bulk and freezes it in manageable portions. They also have the best price in town on gelatin which is a good thing since my wife does like her Jell-O. A simple 15 ounce can of pork and beans runs only 49 cents, and they are as good as some of the Bush's Best variety I like. My wife and I also generally will buy coffee creamer there, as well as cottage cheese, sour cream, margarine, soda, and laundry detergent as their prices stack up better against everyone else I shop.

Ruler Foods operates similar to the way that Aldi does. You pay a refundable 25 cents for your cart, and you bring your own bags or use boxes that the store may provide from it's stocking efforts to take out your groceries.

Here is my first complaint, and a bit of an observation.

I used to shop Aldi frequently before Ruler Foods came into town where I live. Honestly, Ruler Foods beats Aldi's prices, and that's why I rarely shop Aldi anymore. But whenever I plopped a quarter into my cart at Aldi, I always got it back when I returned my cart. Every single time. This process went without a hitch every single time, and there was never a time I did not easily retrieve my quarter.

Not so with Ruler Foods.

The Ruler Foood store in my area has been around for roughly two years, and their carts are already showing massive signs of wear when it comes to their "quarter" mechanisms. In the last 6 months I have gotten my quarter back roughly 75% of the time. Now, while that's not terrible, that means in another six months I may get my quarter back 50% of the time, and eventually, 25% of the time, and if the trend continues, may never see my quarter returned at all.

Ruler Foods needs to maintain their carts. It's only a quarter. But it's my quarter, and if Aldi can keep my quarters coming back so can Ruler Foods. It's a minor thing, but if you add a quarter to my bottom line, I do consider the offset. While it may not impact the cost of my food by that much, it is still a factor for me.

And I am a stickler for saving my money. All of it. Every single red cent of it.

My second complaint? For roughly three months Ruler Foods has had two advertised prices for a 30-pack of Busch Beer. $17.49 and $14.97. In that time $14.97 was the correct price and was honored. Today when I went to the store the cooler price was advertised as $17.49 and HUGE display in the middle of the store with stacks of 30 packs of Busch Beer and Busch Light advertised $14.97. But when I got to the register I was charged the $17.49 price.

You cannot and should not, for three consecutive months, not have the ability to know what your correct price is and make sure that you are advertising to the customer what the correct price is. What they have done, in my opinion, is condition the customer to trust the big middle aisle display as the correct price, and since many customers customarily do not check their receipts, they can sell beer at a great price that is not a great price once checkout is complete.

Between your carts and confusing pricing displays Ruler Foods, I suggest you get it together, because if I have to scan my receipts (and do anyway) and continue to find discrepancies, the likelihood that I continue to shop your store becomes less and less. If I cannot trust you, what is the point of trying to save money?

The Ruler Food store I shop is located at 1703 N. Belt West, Belleville, Illinois 62226.

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