Black Friday

Last Friday, was the first time I went to the stores for Black Friday. Black Friday is the day where most stores sell their merchandise for ridiculously low prices, and open earlier than their regular hours. I never believed in waking up at three in the morning in order to buy a huge, unbranded, 50” L.C.D. H.D.T.V.. I always laughed at the people who stood in line the previous Wednesday so they were guaranteed to get the $300 Sony Vaio Laptop. For me, it all seemed ridiculous to spend time in a line in thirty-degree weather in order to get low quality electronics. Yet, I went anyways with my friend, disregarding all my past prejudices about Black Friday shopping.

The first place my friend wanted to go was to the Gilroy Shopping Outlet. We went in the back of a line to get into the Coach handbag store. The line was literally half-a-mile long when we got there. We stood in line for about a hour, then she decide it was not worth standing for another five hours to get ten percent off a handbag. We went to every other store she wanted to go. We stood in lines that seemed to be never ending. She tried on every type of clothes there were. In the end, she got a tank top, and two sweaters. My friend only saved a couple of dollars. I took her home because she was tired. I felt irritated that we were there for five hours and all she got were three things.

I did not feel satisfied from my Black Friday adventure, so I made a goal for myself. That day I will finally get the Nintendo Wii. I knew there was a shipment of Wiis coming in at EB games, yet I decided to see if the big named stores had it first. I went to the other stores first, because they were opened at four a.m. while EB games would not be open till seven a.m. I fought the crowds at Wall Mart, trying to get my way into their electronics department. I had no luck at Wall Mart; their Wii shipment was gone for weeks. I stood in line at Target, also fighting the crowds to get to the electronics department. Target had no Wiis either.

I decided to make the trip to Valley Fair Shopping Mall to go to EB games. I was third in line in front of the EB games store. I waited, hopping that they would have the Wii. I saw a store employee putting up some displays across the floor. Then, I saw the employee put some boxes away. I was nervous and tense; I have not been in bed for the past twenty-four hours. If EB games did not have the Wii, I would have been crushed. Suddenly, I saw the same employee and another employee coming out of the storage room. I looked at what they were carrying, and what it was were Wiis. I felt rejoiced, yet I was anxious to get one. I took my credit card out and waited till the employees unlocked the door.

When the employees opened the doors, people rushed, the employees decided to control the crowd by making two lines. I was unfortunate to be in line with the most indecisive people. The first person in line did not know whether to get the extended warranty or not. He debated to himself for about two minutes. I looked at the line next to me and saw that the people knew what they wanted so their line kept on moving. The guy in the front also asked for more controllers and a couple of games, extending his spot in the line. Finally, the guy left with his Wii. The next person was a woman who did not even know the title of the games. The employee had to play a guessing game with her for minutes. I saw the Wii shipment dwindling down to only a couple, because the people in front of me did not know what they wanted. Soon, the woman left with her Wii. I got my turn, I was groggy and felt that I was going to pass out. I told the employee, I wanted one Wii and one other controller. The employee sold the system to me and I went home and slept knowing I accomplished what I set my self out to do.

Pyramid Scheme

Last week, I joined a company that will remain nameless in this blog. This company started setting distribution offices, about two years ago, in Northern California. Yet, the company has been around since 1992. The company sells high quality products that cost a lot of money. Yet, in order to make the most money in the company, people have to bring people in to help sell the product. This company feels like a pyramid scheme, since they practice multi-level marketing. The company also awards its higher-up employees with massages and platinum medals at their conventions. I usually do not like working for companies that deals with any type of multi-level-marketing, yet, I did.

Before I joined the company, my friend called me up to go with her to their meeting. I am usually a nice guy, so even though I did not want to join, I decided to humor her. Before I went, I invited one of my other friends to come along with me since I did not want to be alone when my other friend, the one who invited me, would be speaking and not sitting with me. I explained to her that they would probably try and recruit us, yet, I told her that if they do, we should just tell them to fuck off!

When my friend, the one who would sit with me, and I came, we were bombarded with many happy people who welcomed us. Yet my friend seemed to get all the attention. After we sat for the two-hour meeting, people came and tried to recruit us. I stayed with my position of telling them to fuck off, yet they kept on trying. I saw my friend saying no as much as I was but it was too late. I saw her recruiter welcoming her to the family. I took her to the side and asked her what happened? She replied that she felt weak and just fell into peer pressure. I felt bad that I brought her into it, so I joined also. Now I am constantly being bombarded with phone calls from company representatives. My friend is more into it than I am; yet she is also as annoyed with the phone calls as I am. I want to quit, but I promised my friend I help her all the way.

99 Notre dame

It has been about two months since I started working for The Justice Corps, which is an Americorps program that helps people who cannot afford a lawyer but wants legal help. In the past two months, I have learned a lot of things that involved family law issues when it came to divorces, child custody and child or spousal support. My family is still together, and most, if not all, my other cousins still live with their original parents. My friends, who are from single parent homes, went through their parent’s divorces when they were children, so they usually forgot how hard it was for their mom and dad to go through the process. I have never been in an environment where divorce was an issue.

Anyone who has ever been to 99 Notre dame Avenue in Downtown San Jose, would have sense the gloominess in the air. In 99 Notre dame, there is the Self Help Center that helps people fill out the proper paper work to get a divorce, child custody, visitations, and support. People line up as early as 5:00 a.m. to help get their paper work started. It is sad to see women as young as 21 who already have three children trying to force child support from their boyfriend who ran out on them. There are people who bring their children in and leave them in the playroom while they fill out the papers for divorce. Watching all of this makes me think about the lawyers who practice family law, and how they have to feel when they work with parents who would not agree on child support. I witnessed a case last Friday, where these people who have been divorce for 7 years, were still fighting about child support. The man in the case spends $30,000 each year on attorney fees because his ex-wife would not settle for $3,500 a month. One of the deputies that works in 99 Notre dame told me, before I get married, think about my experience here before I start thinking that she is the one.

Ohhh Halloween

What has happen to Halloween? It seems that no one celebrates it anymore in my neighborhood. When I was a kid growing up in my neighborhood, almost every neighbor had some kind of Halloween decoration up, or at least a carved pumpkin. Yet, the past six Halloweens the decorations started to go down and the trick-or-treaters have been disappearing. Halloween just became another day.

My neighborhood has lots of kids; most of them are in their elementary years. I feel sad for them whenever they go out and go trick-or-treating. A lot of the neighbors do not bother and go buy candy anymore. Last year, I took my niece and nephew out for trick-or-treating. Only a few houses had candy for my niece and nephew. I live in a gated community, and some houses have their own gates for their driveway. Some of the privately gated houses close and lock their gates, so no one would bother and knock on their door for Halloween. I always believed in respecting people’s privacy, but to not bother and leave a bowl of candy out for Halloween is just rude. I wish people would just get into the spirit of Halloween and celebrate it for the kids.

The new thing to do for Halloween is to go trick-or-treating in the mall. That is the most ludicrous idea ever. A reason why it is so ludicrous to trick-or-treat in the mall is that it does not bring a neighborhood together. Also, the mall stores give only a few amounts of candy to the kids and they close at 9:30 P.M. People say that trick-or-treating in the mall is safer because the candy is from a store, not a person. Yet, I believe that parents should always check the candy of their kids when they trick-or-treating anywhere. Trick-or-treating and Halloween should stay in the neighborhood, since this brings a community together to help make childhood a little more fun