More Yakima Thoughts...

Okay,



I am a lazy writer, so some bullet points first...



-I really love when a city has an actual main street and most major businesses are on this street. There is also a major east-west street (Nob Hill Blvd) in Yakima so between the north-south Main and this other street, its almost impossible to get lost.



-There's a bonafied Arctic Circle still operating in Yakima. The one in Olympia closed 15+ years ago and I haven't seen any outside of California since then. If you are unaware, Arctic Circle has crinkle cut fries as their default fries.. The only chain style fast food place that has them that I know of.



-It's really dirty here, but thats to be expected with the warmer drier climate. Its really odd to look around and see blue sky and very few trees. There's also a bare group of rolling hills surrounding the town (the Yakima valley) which is a stark contrast to the normal group of buildings, trees, and Mt. Rainier that makes up the Tacoma skyline.



I'd also like to mention actual work for a bit. I find it kind of interesting how people react to our booth. I've been using the same line "Hi folks, do you need any windows or doors for your home?" on almost everyone. I feel this gets right to the point, we do have our Skittles window to talk about, but the more hardcore window enthusiasts don't really care as much about that.



People either need vinyl replacement windows or they don't. A lot of people will say "no thanks" or " I rent" which are both perfectly acceptable reasons as to why one wouldn't need new vinyl windows. A lot of people, and I mean a lot have said "I just had them replaced". This one to me can be a little more dubious... I doubt that the number of people who say this matches the actual number of window replacements. Some of these people may have replaced a window or 2 with something from Home Depot, but its iffy that so many people have replaced all of their windows.



The two responses that I like are people that do need windows, so they say "Yes" and then sign up in some way, or people who say "No, but we already have your windows and we like them" which means that our base of existing clients is happy with our company.



People that ignore me, put up a hand, or walk away faster... hopefully will be more polite in the future. We are in the commercial area full of vendors, if you dont want to be pitched by vendors, then don't come into the Sundome and instead stay near the rides, animals, and overpriced food and beverage. I won't ask you about windows if I am walking around outside, so just avoid our area.



Finally, stupid responses to the Skittles window. It isn't really that funny or novel, so don't fake laugh at it. People have been doing "guess the amount of these small things in this larger container" for quite a while, its not even funny enough to be the basis for a Rob Schneider movie, so don't fake laugh. Also, don't ask if you can have any... I've never heard a "guess the jelly beans in the jar and if you guess, you get one" contest. This is because that would be a completely moronic idea... Obviously if we gave out Skittles, the contest would be completely invalid.

One last note, Skittles are not like M&Ms... because there are purple Skittles and blue/brown M&Ms. Skittles are also not shaped in any way like jelly beans. So people, unless you are legally blind, please identify the candy before you make an intelligent remark like "that's a lot of M&Ms." Its really not that hard. The one candy I'd think would be mistaken would be Reeses Pieces, but no one has ever thought we had Reeses in there (probably because I think its a misdemeanor to waste the volume of Reeses we have in the window. That, and Reese might come by and want his pieces back).

Anyhow, enough ranting for now... Tomorrow, dissertation about foodstuffs and more random thoughts.

That's all I have to say about that.

Patrick