Eggs Recall Or Not!

August 18, 2010-Yesterday as I was viewing the latest news stories in my computer, I noticed a mention of eggs being recall because of Salmonella. The article mentioned "Lucerne" a brand of eggs from 'Safeway,' which I happened to purchase a dozen the day before at the 15 Marina Blvd store. The article listed dozen and 18 count egg cartons with Plant ID# 1026, 1413 & 1946 with the Julian dates 136 to 225. I went to my refrigerator to check and just my luck I finally in my lifetime got an item that was involved in a Nationwide recall.

Today I visited the same store customer service window to return the recalled eggs, the clerk checked the date with his list and confirm it was one of the recalled eggs. He placed my carton of eggs with the other 8 stack of recalled eggs carton on the back counter.  He asked if I wanted to get an replacement dozen and return back to the window in exchange. I went to the eggs section and all the eggs were the same batch I brought two days ago---Sell by 09/05/10 P1026 219. I was not going to replace a recalled eggs with another carton of recalled eggs, therefore I asked another clerk why this store still have recalled eggs in the shelves, he claims that's a good question. He offer to go to the back storeroom and get me a dozen without the P1026 219 code on the carton. He returned with a carton labeled---SEP 15 229 36 P1776. 

I brought the carton of eggs to the customer service clerk and asked him why there is still P1026 219 eggs in the shelves. He replied that those eggs was cleared by FDA today as a different shipment from the recalled eggs. He looked at my carton of eggs and said mine was from P1776. 

The answer seems a bit strange. I got home checked the FDA---U.S. Food And Drug Administration website at www.fda.gov and they just mentioned causally about potential Salmonella in shell eggs with the brand names but no listings of the recalled products code. The site did listed other sites for further information. I checked www.eggsafety.org and got a better understanding why foods safety in America is not a big concern until at least 2 or more people dies!

This site stated that on August 13, 2010 Wright County Eggs of Galt, Iowa issued a press release...voluntary recall of their shell eggs that have the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella. They listed Plant ID# 1026, 1413 & 1946 with the Julian dates 136 through 225. Remember the press release wording of "potential to be contaminated" nobody died yet, but over 250 people have gotten sick from eating their eggs! The FDA are in the process of investigating Salmonella in eggs---no death so far, therefore just inform the consumers to cook the eggs correctly and refrain from eating raw eggs.

August 18, 2010 Wright County Eggs of Galt, Iowa issued an updated press release...expanding voluntary recall of their shell eggs that have the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella. They listed Plant ID# 1720 & 1942 with the Julian dates 136 through 229. 

The Wizard surmised that maybe someone in this Safeway store misread the latest press release without reading the word "expanding," thinking only the last two Plant ID# was being recalled and the others are now safe...or is this just wishful thinking.

I checked all the latest or updated listings of product codes for "Lucerne" eggs still listed Plant ID 1026 with Julian dates 136 through 225 as recalled eggs, there were no mention that some or any were exempted. It could be just a case of 'rotten' employer, 'scramble' employee and 'over easy' regulator!

Driving Antics #2

August 5, 2010-I forgot to add one more category of drivers:

#4-Professional Stupid Drivers-These are the drivers that must know the rules of road, because their livelihood depends upon it...Muni drivers, taxi drivers, limousine drivers, airport shuttle drivers, tour bus drivers, grocery delivery drivers, parcels drivers, construction vehicle drivers and truck drivers. 

I place almost 75% are bad drivers, while my chatting buddies claims only 50% are bad. When we broke it down into the different types of drivers we all came to some agreement...taxi drivers 75% bad---I can recall a taxi driver once told me that the police overlook some of their illegal driving maneuvers because they know they must make a living. I doubt that very seriously, since I have seen California Highway Patrol pull speeding taxi heading to and from the airport. Try telling the family of a vacationing Ohio couple, that the taxi driver taking them from the airport to the City claims smells something burning in the car but instead of pulling over in the freeway to investigate, he continue on and ended up hitting an off ramp pillar and killing the two passengers because he had no brake. The driver survived!

Muni drivers we are almost in agreement, they claims 90% but I placed it at 97% are bad drivers. Why? They had no accountability...get into an accident, the driver most likely not going to get fired and the City ends up paying thousands in litigation fees. Some blame it on the powerful Union and I too concurred, since the Muni drivers just got a 5.75 percent pay raise. All other City employees had agreed to wage cuts to help balance the City budget deficit, but the Muni employees refused concessions. The City Charter guaranteed the driver wages to be the Nation's second highest paid transit operators. One of the Muni operator told in a TV interview that the pay raise was necessary to help cover the increase in their health premiums. How come other City workers or workers in general cannot claims that same perks? I forgot we are not listed in the City Charter---cannot wait until the upcoming November election, when the mad public citizens revoke that provision of the City Charter.

Today at 9:20 AM on my walk back home at my favor corner---Green/Columbus/Stockton:

  

The bus was completely over the crosswalk and pedestrians are walking beyond the crosswalk to pass the bus. The driver excuse---none---just plain stupid. There are no police officer nearby and the Muni inspector stationed down the block in his car cannot see behind him either!

City pedestrians and tourist...welcome to my world!

Driving Antics

August 5, 2010-Learning to drive and having a car is one of the Top Five Dream Items for most youths in America, the others being---true love, endless allowances, no homework, and college scholarship. The problem is too many people treat driving as a right, when in fact it is really a privilege. Over half a century of being either a driver or pedestrian I came to the conclusion there are three categories of drivers in the City of San Francisco:

#1-Scare Drivers-60% of the City drivers...following the rules of the road and hoping not to get into an accident or get a traffic/parking citation---because it would incur loses in monetary (fines) or time (court appearance, traffic school or doctor visits).
#2-Stupid Drivers-30% of the City drivers...majority of these drivers knows the rules of the road but would rather break the rules for self-convenience. These are usually the arrogant drivers who think they are the best drivers while the rest are bad drivers. These are the drivers that double park on busy street to get a latte or runs errand. The last minute lane changer or cut-in driver while impeding the flow of traffic on others drivers. The blocking of driveway driver because he/she knows a police response can take up to 2 hours to arrive. The opportunistic driver since there is no way a police officer would be station at every corner.

#3-Affluent Drivers-10% of the City drivers...during commuter time with out-of-towners the percentage can reach as high as 20%. These are the drivers of expensive luxury cars-people with wealth or political influences. These drivers can run red light, speed or get a ticket...because they can talk themselves out of a ticket,  afford to pay the ticket or hire a good lawyer to white-wash any incident. They are the King/Queen of the road, while the rest of the populous are just peasant drivers.

There are also two types of pedestrian:

#1-Normal Pedestrians-The ones that stand on the sidewalk until the green signal light flashes, and then looks both ways before crossing the crosswalk. In a uncontrolled crosswalk being very wary of inattentive drivers and never assume the driver would stop in time.

#2-Stupid Pedestrians-The ones that think he/she have the right of way as long as he/she is within the crosswalk---jaywalking, crossing on red light, or not paying attention to the surrounding.

This bring me to this morning at 8:15 AM,  as I was walking up the 500 block of Columbus Avenue and approached the corner of Green Street or better known for just that block as Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd. I had the green "walk" sign to cross the street and I can hear a car engine revving---speeding toward me by the crosswalk. It was a gentleman in a white Audi, he stopped at the crosswalk and I knew he was in a hurry to cross the intersection. Usually in the morning commute time the 500 block of Columbus is a big bottleneck due to three sets of signal lights and buses making turns into Stockton Street, a short-cut would be to take Green Street and back onto Columbus Street. I turned and watch as he allowed another lady behind me crossed the street and then he tried to bolt into Columbus Street while he was on the red light, forcing other pedestrians to go around his car.

I listed this driver as one of my #3-Affluent Drivers, since he must be in a hurry to get to his job at the Financial District...too busy looking to his left to get into traffic and not paying attention to the light:

No right turn on red and the arrow was clearly red, but paying a fine is much better than being late for work. I almost forgot what the chance of a motorcycle cop on that corner---nil!

Latest Corn Shucks Update

August 2, 2010-Yesterday morning I visited my local Safeway store at Bay Street, since the Sunday August 1st ad had "Platinum Sweet Brentwood Corn Exclusively at Safeway" at Club Price of---6 for $1. I wanted to see what new gimmick this store 'produce section' had come up with this time. 

The surcharge for $1.19 for shucking the corn have disappeared, someone must have turned them in on such an illegal practice. They still have the sign for "please no shucking" but they came out with a new one  too:

The new posted  sign is "Limit 6 Corn!" I didn't see that in the Safeway ad. The reason could be two-fold, number one corns sale is very popular selling points in this store, number two produce clerks cannot keep replenishing the corns stock since its too much work.

I have shopped at many Safeway stores in the City and this store have the worst produce in-stocks and clerks I ever encounter. Either the produce manager have no concept on what or how many to order and the clerks are very terrible to certain type of customers. Many of my buddies are constantly asking me why I am so obsessive with this produce section...because I worked almost half a century in jobs dealing with the public. If you cannot deal with customers, why take a job that makes you miserable; plus the customers is the ones that help paid your salary!

This morning I visited the Bay Street Safeway store and I observed an incident between the tall Causcian produce clerk and a elderly Oriental lady by the corns bin. The clerk was working at the other end of the produce section and he suddenly headed to the corns bin to tell the lady to stop picking corns from the middle of the display pile but from the top, because he said they are all the same and it might cause the pile to tip over. The clerk was incorrect in the statement that all corns are the same, since corns come in different shape and size. Majority of the customers would try to pick ones that are plumb, since there was no sign stating "picking is illegal." The lady was about 5' tall and the corns were stacked almost 6' high---why? I overheard that same clerk telling another clerk several weeks ago that he put out all the corns so he don't have to deal with it the rest of his shift. I watched as the lady can barely reach the top of the corn pile but she was afraid of that clerk as I watched her looking back at him. My buddies asked me why I didn't say anything to that foolish clerk...because I wanted to stay incognito to watch this clown.

I have observed this clown on many occasion treating Oriental customers very different than treating other ethnic customers. A Oriental man was sorting through plastic bags of grapes to make a larger bag, he told the man he cannot do that...these bags were not seal and some had bunch of rotten grapes in them. A Oriental lady was going through the boxes of cantaloupes to find whatever and he told her to stop making a mess of his display. Then one day I noticed a Caucasian lady was opening the plastic container holding strawberries and taking larger strawberries from other plastic containers to replace the smaller strawberries in her container---he saw it but said nothing. This is a lesson I learn from watching a local TV produce guy who said to always weigh a pint of strawberries to make sure it's really a pint, because sometime people do sample or take item from the container. I thought maybe he was a "ladies man" but then one day I noticed a African American man sorting through bags of cherries just as he scold the Oriental man for doing the same with  grapes; this time the clerk was helping the man opening the bags. This clerk is a piece of work. I have only one dealing with him when I asked him if he had any yellow corns and his reply was a stern---white corns only. One of the other store clerk told me that store employers took all the yellow corns in the back because they were sweeter. In another store I asked if they had any yellow corns and the clerk would reply if they had any in the back he/she would bring some out or the shipment of yellow corns are usually limited.

I just love watching the customers buying 6 corns at one checkout clerk and then going back and buy another 6 corns at another checkout clerk. It meant the customers had to make numerous trip and the supply of corns would still be diminishing. Then the no shucking policy is another big joke...just look at the several corner City public trash cans---full of shucks and silks. As I left the store I watched a lady standing by the City trash shucking the husks, all because the Safeway clerks are too lazy to clean their own mess!

DPT Noncompliance

August 2, 2010-The City Department of Parking & Traffic (DPT) is motorists Public Enemy #1, because these are the old "meter maids" now refer to 'Parking Control Officer' or 'Parking Management Specialist' that hands out parking citations. The past few months the Department got some very bad press and videos of DPT officers breaking rules that they were sworn to enforce. The Head of the Department claims he would restate the Department policy of no "double standards in enforcement." Maybe the policy have a Statue of Limitations of 2 months, because today at 8:43 AM I noticed a DPT officer driving northbound along the 1300 block of Stockton Street deciding at the middle of the block to make a U-turn across a double solid yellow lines and parked his vehicle southbound in the red zone. The officer took off his baseball cap and process down Broadway to a restaurant for breakfast. I can imagine what would happened to your car if you did the same actual situation:

                         Illegal U-turn                     $154

                         Parked at a Red Zone          $90

                         Towed & Storage                $385.75

                         Priceless                           Look on your face!

ICE Invades Chinatown

August 2, 2010-

This was taken today at 8:33 AM by 1418 Stockton Street:

6 ICE officers are surrounding two petite Oriental young ladies. The one in white is handcuffed from behind and another officer is interviewing the lady in pink who’s crying.  Passersby are wondering what’s the deal and a local shopkeeper asked me if I knew what happened. I noticed the ICE tagged and told her that it must be illegal immigration issues.

This was taken from ICE official website:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the largest investigative agency in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Formed in 2003 as part of the federal government's response to the 9/11 attacks, ICE's primary mission is to protect national security, public safety and the integrity of the U.S. borders through the criminal and civil enforcement of federal laws governing border control, customs, trade and immigration.

ICE boasts approximately 19,000 employees in over 400 offices worldwide and an annual budget of more than $5 billion. The agency's law enforcement authorities encompass more than 400 U.S. federal statutes that ICE is responsible for enforcing in its commitment to ensuring national security and public safety.

The website claims 19,000 employees and today six of them are at San Francisco arresting 2 Oriental ladies while at this very moments thousands of illegal are entering the borders of United States by land, air and sea! I forgot a job duty in the City is much better than working in the hot desert, isolated cold mountain ranges or breezy seashores!