While Zaira and I were out driving around this evening I mentioned to her that in addition to Mervyn’s imminent demise, the local Circuit City is also closing.  Proving once again that she is, indeed, my daughter her reply centered on the addition of more empty store fronts to our cozy little town.  It seems like every strip mall and shopping center, no matter how small, has at least one empty space available.  She wondered if we’d be able to spend any money at all here in Morgan Hill next year.  I assured her that new businesses would eventually fill those holes and when pressed on how anyone could afford a new business in this economic climate, the answer came to me in a flash: franchises.

The primary benefit of a franchise is that you have someone looking over your shoulder as you start out whose personal success rides on yuor success as well.  Curious where she could find such an opportunity I told her about MatchPoint franchise consulting website I recently discovered. MatchPoint is a member of the International Franchise Association and helps with such issues as selecting the business that’s right for you, how to buy a franchise, growing your business and even offers leadership and guidance. While they certainly won’t do the work for you they can certainly offer a friendly push in the right direction to get you giong and a helping hand when things look a little rough.

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Zaira and I were discussing the Train Show at San Martin Country Park and she brought up an excellent question: what if it rains - or is just really cold?  I believe the show is essentially being held in an open ended barn, so it’s might keep the water off our heads, but is unlikely to keep the chill from our bones.  And if we don’t go our entire Saturday is withoutplan (not a happy situation in the Aahz household).

Luckily, we found an answer…

Saturday afternoon at 1pm Terri Thayer will be reading from her latest Stamping Sisters Mystery, Stamped Out. Now, I’d never heard of craft cozies before, but did come across a wonderfully explanatory blog post about them over at The Crafty Writer.  Essentially, they’re Murder She Wrote style mysteries based around various crafting activities.  While Z and I never really got into stamping we did explore its possibilities for a while and are both fascinated by it.

So, if you’re crafty, a mystery fan, or just looking for an interesting experience this Saturday, swing by BookSmart (80 E. 2nd St) in Morgan Hill at 1:00 and say hello to Ms. Thayer.

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If there’s one thing Morgan Hill has plenty of it’s veterinarians.  It seems to me like there’s one on every corner.  But just because they’re plentiful doesn’t mean their cheap and, just like for us humans, sometimes we’d rather get an idea of the extent of the problem before paying for a professional diagnosis.  Luckily, I just learned of a pet health information website called Pet Wave.  It’s got hundreds of articles on health, behavior, breeds, even nutrition.  Unfortunately it’s only for cats and dogs leaving us adoptees of more exotic pets to fend for ourselves.  But if your Siamese or Chihuahua is acting a little “different” and you’re not sure you’re ready to spring for a professional just yet, swing by and see what you can learn from PetWave.

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This Saturday, between 10am and 4pm, the San Martin Country Park (13865 Monterey Rd.)  will once again be hosting a model train show. The show is being sponsored by the All Aboard Train Store in Gilroy which will be closing its doors come the firts of the year, so this is likely to be the last train show in South County for quite some time.  Z and I had hoped to attend the Garlic City RailRoad Spring Show in Gilroy in April, but didn’t make it, so we’re really hoping to visit this weekend’s show.

Although parking is free, as always, at the San Martin Country Park admission to the train show is $5.00 general, $3.oo seniors, and free for children under 12.  There’s also n $8.00 for ‘families’ price listed in the information I’ve received, though no definition of ‘families’ is included.  There will also be train rides available for $3.00 per person.

Food & beverages will, of course, be available to consume while checking out the wonderful model train layouts and browsing through bunches of train related merchandise (both miniature and full scale). Contact Pat DeLeon at 408-206-9933, All Aboard Train Store at 408-846-8841 or garliccitytrains@aol.com

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I’m not much of a holiday shopper. Instead, I’m the kind of guy that prefers to present personal gifts for people whenever or wherever I come across them, rather than waiting for the calendar to recommend that I do so. This year, however, I’m giving in to the holiday shopping spirit as one of my roommates has made serious progress on keeping his room clean.  So I decided to buy him a vacuum.

I checked the local spots and just wasn’t happy with the prices I was seeing.  After all, he’s just a roommate.  So I headed online and came across Blair, which is a department store of sorts.  Well, not only did they have a great price on the vacuum I was looking for, but a quick stop by my favorite site for online coupons, Savings.com, where I found a plethora of Blair coupons for everything from free shipping to discounts of up to 80%.

As if that’s not motivation enough, Blair is currently running a contest where you get to pick your own prizes:

• Grand Prize: Buick LaCrosse CX or $25,000 (I went for the cash)
• First Prize:  Washer & Dryer or $2,000 (cash again)
• Second Prize32″ LCD TV or $1,000 (this time I went for the television)

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I’ve written previously about the benefits of the Morgan Hill Coinstar machine (located in the Nob Hill grocery store in Vinyeard Town Center.  So, if you’re not familiar with, or not a fan of, these machines please click over to that article to see just how great they really are.

Today I just wanted to let y’all know about an email I recently received from Coinstar.  At first I was a bit shocked that they even had my email address, but then I realized that I had included it when redeeming a free $10.00 Amazon.com gift certificate from them about six months ago.  Which leads directly to the point of this post…

Now through December 7th, 2008 when you cash in $40.00 or more in coins at any Coinstar machine and redeem your coins for a gift certificate you will receive a small form to complete and mail in.  Then, within a month or so, Coinstar will send you a bonus gift certificate for the same company valued at $10.00.  No strings attached (except, of course selling your personal info to Coinstar).

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If you’re like me, then you hate answering the phone. Of course, I know that most people aren’t like me, but I do believe most of us hate those annoying telemarketers who just won’t take no for an answer, ignore the do not call list, and call at the most inconvenient times. Well, now there’s a convenient way to file a Harassing Caller Report. Just visit the link and fill out a report. It’s no guarantee, but perhaps it can help us all turn the tables on these rats.

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I just paid $1.89 per gallon for gas! Thanx to the revamped Power Pump Rewards program from Safeway.

If you ever shop at Safeway it would have been hard to miss that they’ve changed the way that Safeway Club members earn gas discounts.  After all, they issued all of their employees new red t-shirts advertising the program, spent weeks handing out brochures about the new program both in the stores and at the gas station here in Morgan Hill, and posted huge banners and flags at all of their locations as well.  However, awareness does not always equal understanding, so I figured I’d share with y’all just how great this new program is.

Old Safeway Club Card Gas Program

Up until September 30, 2008 Safeway offered a $0.03 per gallon discount to all holders of their loyalty card.  Additionally, when shoppers purchased $50 or more of “qualifying products” in a single transaction they would receive an additional $0.07 per gallon discount bringing their total discount to $0.10/gallon.  “Qualifying products” included everything except liquid dairy products (ie. milk), CRV (California Redemption Value aka recycling fee), tobacco, alcohol, gift cards, postage stamps, gasoline, lottery tickets, commuter passes, money orders, event tickets, and most prescription medications.  The bulk of these exemptions (and I may have missed a few as I’m working from memory here) are actually a matter of state law and not Safeway’s choice.

When a shopper had earned one or more discounts and visited the Safeway gas station they would receive the $0.10/gallon discount instead of the $0.03/gallon discount.  Regardless of how many $0.10 discounts earned, the maximum discount that could be applied to a single purchase was $0.10 per gallon.

New Safeway Club Card Gas Program

As of October 1, 2008 Safeway still offers a $0.03 per gallon discount to all holders of their loyalty card.  Additionally, every time a shopper spends $100 on “qualifying products” they will receive a single $0.10 per gallon discount.  This discount supercedes the standard $0.03/gallon discount. The amount spent is recorded with each, individual purchase and stored.  Thus, although the amount of spending required to earn the discount has been doubled the removal of the single transaction requirement makes the goal much more easy to reach.

Even better, when the shopper visits the Safeway gas station they will have the choice to use their current Power Pump Rewards discount or to continue to let it grow.  There is now no limit on the number of $0.10 discounts that can be applied to a single transaction.  Well, other than the actual price of a gallon of gas.

What This Means For You

In the past if you didn’t regularly spend more than $50 in a single transaction you might be tempted to buy a few extra things (and spend extra money) just to earn the higher gas discount. Of course, as nice as $0.10 per gallon sounds it doesn’t really add up to much - $2.00 on a 20 gallon fill up. But with the new program allowing spending to “roll over” from one transaction to another there’s no need to buy additional items. Additionally, since the savings rewards are also cumulative you can earn a much greater disount on your gas as well!

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A few months ago I lost my eyeglasses in the ocean (don’t ask (or check my other blog for the whole story)) and having roughly 20/200 vision (just this side of legally blind) I was absolutely useless until I went up to Lenscrafters to have a new pair of glasses made. I couldn’t even drive and had to take the bus all the way to San Jose. Why San Jose? Because we don’t have an optometristhere inMorgan Hill who grinds their own lenses.

Which meansif you want new glasses you’re either going to have to visit a national chain in another city or order online.  Frankly, I much prefer the latter for two reasons: 1) great selection then my local stores without a longer wait, and 2) extremely discounted prices.  I don’t mean saving a few bucks, I mean extreme savings.  I paid nearly $300 for my glasses at Lenscrafters, but just got a backup pair from Zenni Optical for $8.00!  You can’t just blink at savings like that (pun intended), especially with the struggling economy we’re suffering through at the moment.  But don’t just take my word for it, check your local library or bookstore for Living Rich by Spending Smart: How to Get More of What You Really Want by prize-winning columnist Gregory Karp.  He recommends Zenni Optical specifically on page 119 of that book!

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Yeah, yeah I normally try to keep this blog tightly focused on Morgan Hill and the South County area, but this is pretty darn big.

Next fall (October 29 thru November 1st, to be exact) the World Fantasy Convention will be coming to San Jose!  Woohoo!  I’ve never been to a “World XXXXX Convention” before, but I have been tempted, and I don’t see what would keep me away from this one.  Especially with the theme being a celebration of Edgar Allen Poe’s 200th birthday (which will actually be on January 19th of 2009).

The discounted $100 membership offer has been extended trhu November 30th, so if you’re planning on going, now is the time to buy your membership.  Price goes up to $125 on December 1st.

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