There's Big Money in Toilet Paper

Ask anyone at Walmart , Sam's Club or Costco's and they will tell you that their big money maker is paper goods (i.e., toilet paper and paper towels). Stacks and stacks of the stuff in the "big box" stores does not look like it takes up a lot of floor space. And, if you know anything about retail or wholesale, the ruling king inside four walls is square footage of space. Land is valuable but shelf space is even more valuable. In order to use that much space in a 75 to 125,000 sq. ft. building it must produce big sales dollars right down to every square inch.

Walmart has always promoted their price comparison scam. Bring in your receipt. They don't have to price check that way. You are doing it for them. And, you can bet that the info gets noted somewhere in the marketing department and/or General Manager's office for that daily conference call.

 What caught my eye the other day was the big comparison going on with Kroger's in the commercials aired. In that battle, Walmart has declared war on Kroger's. Why, because Walmart is loosing market shares in the grocery business. Walmart does not like to admit anything and will sometimes go to great lengths to try to turn the potentially damaging  situation in public relations into something less threatening or even try to make it a "golden goose" if it can.

Four years ago, I walked out of Walmart as a customer and began to really "shop" for bargains and savings. It took thirty days to break the Walmart habit. In the past two months, I have gone to Walmart twice. From my observations, I still made the best choice of not shopping at Walmart.

My brother and his wife had given me a gift card to Walmart as an e-gift. That is the reason why I ventured back into the store. I had purchased a pair of house shoes. The story behind that was that I had found the most wonderful and comfortable house shoes  at Kroger's three years ago. Every Christmas, I bought a new pair and tossed the old ones to the garbage. This past Christmas, I had missed out on getting a pair for a couple of reasons. One, the pair did not show the wear in one year as the other two pairs had done. Second, the supply didn't last as long as others had discovered that when they go one sale, you had better buy them right then. I failed to do that for reason one and I lost out. So, along came the gift card and to use it up, I went to  Walmart.  I bought a pair of slippers/house shoes at Walmart. Less than 90-days later, I took them back. They looked like they had come out of a dumpster. They had big clumps of fleece coming out and the plastic supports under the heal were cutting into my heal. When I took them back, the customer service person was so insulting and basically said that I could not have bought this pair in the last 90-days even with my receipt.

The customer service person then gave me a gift card for the amount of the receipt . I went to the paper isle and purchased toilet paper and paper towels. Now that opened up a whole new can of worms. When I was still shopping at Walmart. I regularly bought their 4-pack of tissue and a 3-pack of paper towels that were the cheapest price in the market. I don't put good money into paper goods. You flush one and you toss the other after use. Keeping the price down is a point of logic, not a point of personal comfort.

I started buying my paper products at Kroger's because Walmart ended stocking the sizes with the competitive price such as 4-rolls of tissue for 88-cents and a three pack of towels for $1.67 was the going price in the market before they packed it in a 6-pack.

So, when home, after putting the items into storage I continued to use my Kroger items until it was used up. But before tossing the wrappers, they got placed on a shelf. When the wrapper finally came off the Walmart tissue, it too, was placed on the shelf. Yesterday, I sat down to run the numbers as a comparison. There were several differences. Kroger was 1-ply at 198 sheets while the Walmart was 2-ply but only 150 sheets. The sheets sizes were Kroger's at 4.0 x 4.0 inches while the Walmart was 4.27 x 3.75 inches. The net was Kroger at 8.1 meters squared while the Walmart was  6.1 meters squared.

The bottom line is that Kroger was still the better price with 26.5748031 feet per roll while the Walmart tissue was 20.0131234 feet per roll. Some will argue that the Walmart was 2-ply. Come on!
with the Kroger difference of 6 feet extra per roll, use an extra sheet or two and fold it over.

Every thing that I have compared at Kroger's is still a better saving than Walmart. The paper towel thing is much the same as the toilet tissue issue. Kroger wins there, also.

I will take pictures of the wrappers later. I'm waiting for a sunny day. I want the sun to shine of this paper issue!


Edited for more detail.
Edited 04/28/14 to add pictures & edited to correct the price at per 4-pack.

Kroger wins with 6 feet more tissue per roll.

Walmart came in second
.Both products sell for $0.88 per 4-pack 

The Dallas High Five

Doing a little research on the High Five after-the-fact turned up some interesting facts.
1. There are 5-high interchange stacks in Houston
2. There are 5-high interchange stacks in Los Angeles

Dallas is the third major city in the US with 5-high stacks. What was discovered is that the Dallas High-5 is 10 feet taller than the 5-high stack in California. California's is 110 feet above grade and the Dallas High 5 is 120 feet above grade.

It was early on that I was sure that while on the 5th level, I was able to look eye level at the 10th floor  of one building. Well, I forgot to figure the angle difference into the equation and that accounts for two more floors.  That, is absolutely somewhat insane, but the more you drive it, the more you adjust and it doesn't seem that it is really that bad. Then, on the other hand, the Ambassador Bridge that carries traffic from the US at Detroit into Windsor, Ontario, Canada is a beautiful suspension bridge. The height from the crown of the bridge deck to the water line below on the Detroit River is---yep--120 feet. That ads a whole different perspective to the equation.

I do remember when the fist column was being poured at the old cloverleaf at 75 and 635. I drove it every day then. But that one column, that is the tallest of them all (200 plus columns) , was like looking at a towering red wood. I just could not wrap my brain around a roadway on top of that column.

It is easy to see unsuspecting travelers using either 635 or US 75 being in a stage of fear or fright. I'm just amazed that more have not  frozen up.

The Heart of the Dallas High 5 Interchange

 

Spring Blue Bonnets

Spring is here--maybe.  It's still nice to see the blue bonnets bloom.

The Texas State Flower

The  field grows each year.

Blue Bonnets are peaking already

Where Did The Water Go?

The local media has been all over the depressing levels of area lakes from a weather angle. They aren't even excited about the Zebra muscle threat by running stories a couple of times and then not being well educated in the problem at hand. Zebra muscles arrived in the ballast tanks of international ships that bring goods to this country, particularly in the Great Lakes. While ships are tied to the docks and  cargo is being unloaded, the ballast tanks are blown out into the fresh water of any of the five Great Lakes where they are docked. Zebra muscles are non-native species and thrive in  the conditions  of the lakes.

Spreading quickly, zebras soon were clogging Great Lakes water-intakes  and spread by boaters that do not wash off their boats completely before putting their boats back into another lake. Well, zebras have made their way to North Texas and just in a few years have spread from Lake Texoma  to neighboring lakes. While Zebras are no laughing matter, combined with the drought and dropping levels in the water supply, The concern should be more of a concern for the media than it has been the past couple of years.

 I've lived through the infestation of Zebras in a metropolis that got their drinking water from the Great Lakes. It isn't a pretty sight. Yesterday, I went in search of visible low lake levels and I found them. I didn't see a single boater washing down their boats after pulling them from the lake. Check out these pictures.


The Marinas have actually trapped boats  in their slips where the boats cannot get out.

The boat ramp is so low, the boats are being loaded and discharged a full truck-length farther down the ramp.

On the Rockwall side of Lake Ray Hubbard, the water marks on the wall measures a full 7-feet down to the current water levels.

I'm 35 cents East and 50 cents West

Humor is one of life's equalizers. It equalizes good. It equalizes bad. It smooths out the bumps in life. It comes from many places as the late night shows hosts will be the first to tell you. Look what Toronto Mayor, Rob Ford has done for Jimmy Kimmel. Listen to the guys that play the Comedy Central Circuit. They get their material from every day life.

It seems to me that when one laughs at yourself there is more good that comes from that than we know at the time. When the morning routine of checking email, balancing the checkbook and checking  on the website over morning coffee usually, I take the dawg out for a walk. For those of you that don't know, The Dawg is my cat.  Today, it was overcast and growing darker as a dry line and cold front lingered north and west of here. Knowing full well that I had better get to the grocery store and run my errands before the afternoon, I headed out into a pouring down rain.

New Express and Toll Lane Signs that change in amount as the traffic becomes heavier.

After getting an error corrected at one of the stores that I had shopped earlier in the week, I was coming down LBJ at Preston when I realized that I had a coupon for a free donut when you purchased a medium coffee at Dunkin Donuts. So, I drove the extra three blocks, got a donut and coffee and returned back to LBJ.  It came to me as I passed the new EXPRESS Lane sign with the toll rates for East bound and West bound traffic. The next time someone ask me how I'm doing, I'm gonna say " I'm 35-cents East and 50-cents West. Thanks so much for asking!".

 

The Santa Fe Trail -- Bike Trail

A three-mile walk on a beautiful Spring day did my soul good as much as it aided my heart.  Although, by the end of the walk, I was sweating like a leaky garden hose and my hat rim was soaked. The liter bottle of water was all that kept me going. It was an increasing humidity as the afternoon warmed. The sky stayed that deep blue and the pictures popped!

New signs were up for the Santa Fe Bike Trail. I picked it up at the White Rock Lake Trail at the spillway parking lot. Last fall, I did it on my bike when it was still fairly new. Walking it was a new experience as a new opening in the trail opened up to a dog park and a restaurant and bar named, The Dog. I found that interesting that there was an opening to a private business, but it did give access to residents in the area. From the old fish hatchery it was pretty much chain linked along the walk way over two foot bridges that cross streets before it opens up again.

The old Katy Rail Road line that continues from the Katy Trail Extension and the White Rock Lake Trail north of the boat house winds its way around to the Santa Fe Trail south of Gaston where the trail tied into the Kansas City Southern tracks, which is actually, the continuation of the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe's original tracks in Dallas. Those tracks can be traced from Denton down through Plano crossing Greenville Avenue at  Arapaho near the Dart Red Line's Arapaho Center Station. It continues to  wind south west of Plano Road down to Northwest Highway and crosses Loop 12 (Buckner Blvd) going toward the trestle seen here at the north end of Tennyson Golf Courses.

The Santa Fe Trail from where I stopped to shoot the trestle and the old switch line, the trail bends south by southwest going into Fair Park and Deep Ellum. Total miles from White Rock Lake Trail Head to Deep Ellum is 4.5 miles. It has come a long way since last fall. There is a previous post about the new Trinity Sky View Trail that is just opened.  It can be an all day bike ride now, using 7-Eleven and other like stores to pick up lunch and snacks along the way.  No need to pack a picnic. I learned years ago to take long bike rides and eat as you go. Pick up something and the find a spot on the trail or near the trail to stop for meals and snacks. It works great. And, you have no gear to carry other than water.



New Santa Fe Tail Sign



American History and Beauty






This is hard to believe that something so beautiful can be found in the heart of a Urban center of 5 million people.

Deep Ellum: From Painting the Tunnel Walls to This!

The 20th Annual Deep Ellum Arts Festival kicked off on Friday for it's three-day run. With so much going on in Dallas this weekend, it wasn't that hard to decide which event would be more fun. Before arriving at the Deep Ellum Arts Festival, I went by the "Party in the Park at Reunion Park". Sure, there was some big name entertainment names (Springsteen will close the event on Sunday).

The Anatole was loaded with tour buses for the final four teams. People were forming long lines to park and go inside just to slap the hands of the four teams players as they came out to board the buses to take them to Jerry's World aka AT & T Stadium in Arlington.  There was just to much basketball for me. I remember my college days and the NCAA hype. I guess that been there, done that, while exciting at the time,  moves a rung up or a  rung down the ladder depending which way you stack the events over time.

I have always liked Deep Ellum. It has undergone change, both good and bad, over the years. The days of the old school bus painting of  "California or Bust" as the film festival grew, are just memories now. So are the annual painting of the tunnels on Good Latimer. The tunnels are filled in  now, covered in Dart tracks for the Green Line and two Deep Ellum stations on it's way toward Fair Park and Mt. Pleasant. Some of the businesses that were there when Bonnie and Clyde hung out in Deep Ellum are still there today.  Rudolph's Meats and Sons of Herman come to mind for an example. Bars have come and gone and made comebacks even. So have some restaurants. But, artist, musicians, and film companies have been the glue that have held the canvas of Deep Ellum together.

So, I guess before I knew it, I already did know it that I would end up at the Deep Ellum Arts Festival. And that I did, going directly to my favorite little parking spot where it cost me fifty cents to park for 5-hours. The one thing about parking in Deep Ellum is that you most likely will end up with a parking ticket if you don't park in "controlled" parking  lots. And with the major capital improvements going on with street and water projects not due to be done until fall of 2014, meter parking is all but out on Elm or  Commerce Street or Canton. Main being out by default as the festival was on Main Street from Hall Street west to Good Latimer. One of the things that I like about the Deep Ellum Festival is that largely, it is an adult event except for being totally pet friendly. Sunday was on my agenda to attend but the 90% coverage of rain forecast will cut that out this year. As I was leaving on Saturday, vendors were already putting out their Rain Sale signs. Still, it was enjoyable to be absorbed in eclectic people, talent from the four live stages, street performers, chalk art and the like. Not to mention running into old friends that one sees but once a year at the Deep Ellum Arts Festival. Here are some images from Saturday.

My favorite Hat Vendor! I love the color. Some lady needs one of these for the up-coming Kentucky Derby! Really.

My thanks to these wonderful people (both here and below) who were all about what Deep Ellum really is--good people!

This is my favorite. When I ask if I could have a picture of her or the corn dogs, her laugh was like hearing my mom's laugh when she was truly happy.