How To Save Money On Groceries

One of the things that all of us have in common is the need to constantly spend money on food. With the gift buying season upon us, and the entire country in the worst recession of our lifetimes- thank you very much- saving money is a vital necessity. Here’s a list of four major steps that can help you keep more of your cash when buying food:

1. Take an afternoon to compare-shop: Make a list or an excel document with your 3 or 4 favorite grocery stores along the top. Down the left-hand side write each of the grocery products that you often buy. Then visit those stores and write the prices for each item in the correct blank. Don’t buy anything that day! Just pencil in the prices and use this as a guide for how to keep the most money in your wallet. This advice is given in an article called “How to Shop for The Cheapest Groceries”  by “snproductions”.
2. Keep a list: Post a current list of the groceries you need on your fridge. As author “nickel” writes on www.fivecentnickel.com, remember to bring your list along when you go shopping. But feel free to snap up useful super bargain items that are not on your list.
3. Don’t tempt yourself: Only walk down the aisles that have the groceries you know you need. And NEVER shop while you’re hungry. As Michelle Jones, Founder of  “Living a Better Life: The Free-Money Saving Tips Ezine!”  says, not only can shopping while hungry waste your money, it can also balloon up your waist.
4. Join a money-saving grocery savings and coupon club. One of the best is called “The Grocery Game”  This club can save you tons of money every month by giving you weekly color-coded lists, based on the amount of discounts, of advertised and unadvertised specials based on your favorite supermarkets. They combine these valuable tips with a list of coupons, many of which can be doubled, often making the price of items FREE of charge- whoohoo!- with only the tax payable.

There are a myriad of tips available in print and on the web to protect your bank account when grocery shopping, but following the ones above will make you an instant millionaire- or at least give you an excellent running start.

Two 6-Word Life Posts:

Memoir #1: “WooHoo!!! This sucks. WooHoo!! Pretty good.”

I chose these words because at first life was unbelievably amazing to me as a young child.

Then as I grew into an older child and young adulthood my family life became one of almost unbearbable disfunction. After that I broke away from my family and tossed my previous connections and obligations to the wind. This freed me to enjoy a wild but irresponsible existence.

Now I have basically settled into a great enjoyment of life while still maintaining the “treadmill of responsibilities.”

Photo Victor Cantu

Photo of Victor Cantu (3rd from left) with cast of Rocky Horror Show on Halloween night, Chico, CA. 2009

Memoir #2: “Amazing dedication. Loving but often harsh.”

This refers to my mother Elena Cantu. She always showed unconditional love to her family, friends and even acquaintences. This was true even through several major life tragedies such as her brother dying at the age of 27 and the death of her first infant child.

Why I quit The Orion: “The journalistic death penalty”

In April of 2009 I had just finished reading a story I had written for the Chico State newspaper, The Orion, and boy was I angry.

The story was about the latest women’s lacrosse match, which we had lost that week in a close contest to nationally ranked Stanford. I read it from the comfort of my living room couch and was proud to see another of my articles had made the front page of the sports section. It was an action-packed account that included an exciting color photograph, a graphic retelling of a horrific leg-snapping injury and glowing compliments about Chico’s team by the Stanford coach.

But looking at the paper again I was shocked to see my name was no where in the article.

How could they do this? I was looking forward to adding this to my resume that I would use to land a career job after graduating next year. Instead of crediting me for the many hours spent writing, interviewing and researching the piece, the article simply substituted the phrase, “Orion staff.”

This article, as was often the case, was difficult and time consuming to put together. It took lots of research regarding both teams plus three hours of carefully watching the game while taking meticulous notes. Ater the game I was still enthusiastic while conducting the required interviews of three players along with the coaches from both teams.

I was shocked and called my sports editor to ask why this happened. I was told that the article I had submitted was perfectly fine and accurate. The reason my name was deleted had only to do with a minor error I had made in the much shorter online version I had written. In it, one of the players had an unusual last name that contained three letter “e”s. I had substituted an “a” for the second “e”. At the time I submitted it I was told that my name would be deleted from that Web version, which I had expected. I then corrected it before handing in the final print version.

My indignation only grew when my editor told me that she had stricken my name from the much more widely-read print edition so that in the future I would not make errors in my online submissions.

On top of the unfairness of this ruling, I felt that printing a complete article by someone without giving them credit was a violation of plagiarism rules. But this is a standard practice at The Orion. I call it “the journalistic death penalty.”

This seemed to fly in the face of a rule given in every Chico State class I have taken that involves any writing. I have always been told on the first day of class that including even a single sentence, let alone a paragraph or especially an entire article that is taken from any source without giving credit is considered plagiarism and a breach of academic integrity, with disasterous consequences. Virtually every teacher also gives a written admonition about this similar to that found in Chico State journalism professor Susan Brockus’ syllabus from her journalism 325 class, https://www.csuchico.edu/~sbrockus/325/syllabus.html#HonorCode

“If you violate the policies of this class or the student conduct codes for this university, particularly those relating to academic integrity, you will face consequences ranging from an “F” on the offending assignment, an “F” in the course, an appointment with Student Judicial Affairs, and/or expulsion from the university.

Yes, it’s that important.”

Yet I was upset knowing that The Orion does this to its writers publicly on a regular basis. Unfortunately I had two more of my entire articles printed that semester without crediting me as the author. I complained professionally in writing and in person several times to the higher-ups, with little satisfaction. As a result, I refused to write for the Orion the following semester.

In the end I was relieved that the head Orion advisor, Dave Waddell basically agreed in principle with my opinion. He praised my writing and asked that I return the next spring, which I may.

Slums of New York? Not

“Suburbia: Where they tear down the trees and name the streets after ‘em.”

That saying from an old bumper sticker certainly does not apply to the stretch of street I just adopted. It’s a gorgeous part of Manzanita Avenue on the outskirts of Chico which is filled with trees and features Hooker Oak Park on one side. The addresses along this 2-lane road stretch from 1875, which borders the Lindo Channel, to 2090, which is at the intersection of Manzanita and Vallembrosa Avenue. A roundabout intersection is near each end. My visit took place at 2 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2009. The air smelled very fresh as Chico was recovering from its first rain of the season, which was a major storm just two days prior, following a long, scorching hot summer.

All the houses looked luxurious and completely different from each other on this partly cloudy, yet warm fall afternoon. They stood on fairly large lots, many buried behind trees and foliage 50 yards or more from the street. There were only 10 of them and they lined the west side of the street. The east side is mostly Hooker Oak Park, with its manicured lawns, baseball field and parking lots. I imagine the homes are all owned by fairly wealthy, highly educated professionals, or lucky lottery winners

The trees are the most attractive part of the street. They are everywhere. Large, 30 to 40-foot-tall oaks lined the Hooker Oak side. Thus the name. The Oaks do a good job of camouflaging the telephone poles through which they weave. The residential side of the street featured a splendid variety of large and small trees. Manzanitas, oaks, white birches, pines, walnuts and 50-foot-tall redwoods gave the homes a majestic setting.

To give you an idea of how expensive these houses were, one had flyers in a front yard box advertising its sale price at a cool $690,000. This during the worst recession of our lifetimes.

Sidewalks were inconsistent throughout the street. Some would suddenly start and end randomly. One 40-foot stretch was obviously freshly poured cement. Many homes had no sidewalks at all in front of them. Cheap bastards.

A bird’s eye view of my adopted street, Manzanita Avenue in Chico, Calif.:

View Larger Map

Eavesdropping On The Bus:

1st Conversation Aboard the Butte Regional Transit bus.

This was a 3-person conversation; two women and a man. The bus went from the main downtown Chico transit station down Mangrove Ave. “Nancy” kept up a long, loud, cackle-like laugh throughout. All three adults talked and acted very childlike, which gave me the impression they may have been learning-disabled. Nancy sat in front of me. The man was across from me, one row up, and Alisha was one row in front of him.

This took place on Tuesday, Sept. 29 at 6:45pm.

• Man (name unknown): Heavyset, about 30 years old wearing a matching black Oakland Raiders baseball cap and jersey. He also wore blue jeans and tennis shoes.
• Alisha: Fairly heavyset with short, black hair, approximately 40 years old. She wore a white, long-sleeve shirt. She also wore black-rimmed glasses and flip-flop sandals. She had several bracelets on: a braided hemp one, a pink plastic one and a white, paper one. The last two appeared to be medical bracelets.
• Nancy: About 30 years old. Also fairly heavyset with short, matted brown hair. Wore a fancy watch with a tiny metal guitar charm dangling from it.

Man:  Do you know when the buses will run tomorrow?

Alisha:  No I don’t know when the buses are running tomorrow.

Alisha (to Nancy): I have to give your pen and your other thing back when I come by at 8:30.

Nancy:  Yeah, that’s alright. That can wait.

Man gets on Cell Phone: Hey where you going? You need to talk to me? Uh, I’m going on Mangrove….She rode her bike…I’m riding a bus. I rode my bike to the transfer center. Yeah I’m going home. What am I gonna do, sleep on the street? You think I’m gonna go for the ‘night-night night’?

Alisha & Nancy start laughing.

Alisha: The cops are looking for him, because he owes the cab driver who gave him a ride after he got out of jail!

Man still on phone: No I’m going to sleep now.

Nancy laughs.

Man:  Gramma says ‘hi’ Nancy. Yeah, Nancy’s on the bus. You don’t want to believe that Nancy’s on the bus?

Alisha: Yeah she is, she’s with me! She’s going to Walgreens’ to help me get my medications! Duh!

Man: OK Nancy, talk to her, she isn’t going for it.

Nancy: Hey Grandma, I am on the bus! So give me the phone…Hey Granma!

Story Ideas:

1. What type of transportation do learning-disabled adults use? What are the challenges? Since the buses don’t run on Sundays, how do they get around then?
2. Do learning-disabled people in Butte County crimes at higher percentages than others? Whether they do or don’t, why would this be?
3. Are people who wear Oakland Raiders’ clothes and accessories are more likely to be criminals? Maybe ask law enforcement officials and officers if those arrested tend to wear Raider gear more than any other brands?

1-WAY CEL PH. BUS STOP CONVERSATION. This took place at the downtown transit station on 2^nd St.

It was a 40-something year old man. He had black hair in a short ponytail with goatee. He wore a dark tee shirt with casual green pants & black shoes. He kept pacing around.

“Yeah you don’t have to tell me that. For me I understand, it’s pretty basic.”

“You know of all the times that I’ve booked our band, I’ve only booked a few times.”

“But if we have a conversation…”

“Oh I believe in you. Honestly.”

“I’ve got people who have an appetite for it.”

“ There were people just standing outside.”

“I had people outside the bar saying ‘Are you sure you’re not playing here? Because your brother is.’”

“I know we’d make a lot of changes in there.”

Story Ideas:

1. How many ‘live’ bands played in downtown Chico last weekend?
2. How much money do ‘live band’ venues like LaSalles and Lost On Main pay to bands in downtown Chico? Both for the ‘main act’ and the ‘opening act’. How about the national venues like Chico State’s BMU, The Senator Theater and The El Rey Theater?
3. Do any Chico bands actually live off of just their concert earnings? If so, which ones. If not, which ones make the most money and why?

BUS STOP CONVERSATION:

Two men had this talk Sept. 24, 6p.m., at the downtown transit station on 2^nd St. One was approximately 35 years old, with black hair. He carried a thick, overflowing manila folder. The second man was about 25. They both had very similar outward appearances, but did not look related. Each kept sipping from a black plastic coffee mug. Both had casual, long-sleeved shirts and faded blue jeans. The older one had a high school ring on his right hand. Both had a day’s growth of beard stubble.

Older guy: “I know Greg. Greg would probably be mad. Because I remember him saying, ‘Over near fifth there’s another one.’ And this is always a very hard fact.”

Younger guy: “Yeah. You know I heard about this a lot. But frankly, it’s like we weren’t there, so our conclusions could just be all wrong.”’

Older guy: “Alright. You know, I’m just trying to get by. There might be some documents related to it right now.”

Younger guy: “We can estimate the information, but…”

Older guy: “Well, what we’re doing right now is estimating the notes for his family. Then we can bring them back for him to see.”

Younger guy: “If they don’t tell us to do that directly then we’re not going to see him.”

Older guy: “That makes a lot of sense.”

Younger guy: “But yeah, I was going to give them to him tomorrow, or maybe in a couple of days to give him time to respond to it.”

Younger: “That’s going to help. I mean, I don’t care how long it takes.”

Older: “Well, is that it?”

Younger: “No, but it’ll have to do. We can go home and work on it.”

Story Ideas:

1. When a family member dies, who usually takes on the most responsibilities for the funeral? If the deceased is a child? An adult? Elderly?
2. Do Chico businesses last longer if they are solely owned or partnerships? What might be the reasons?
3. Has the recession affecting Chico businesses leveled off? How many businesses closed this quarter compared to last quarter? Compared to last year at this time?

My Team’s Magazine Project

Our magazine team is “Team 1″ and consists of: Meghan Brown, Amanda Hasaka, Gillian Roberts, Kyle Yamamoto and myself.

Our team presentation will be made on October 5, 2009.

3 Anecdotal Leads On 911

1. Interrupted Journey:

Hal Race awoke on the morning of September 11, 2001 in a Medford, Oregon hotel room. The 49-year-old banker was going to pick up his friend Randy, who would be landing at the local airport later that day for the start of a leisurely vacation.

Upon turning on the TV Race saw a freak accident: a jumbo jet in New York had somehow smashed into one of the World Trade Center Towers. “That’s terrible”, he thought, as he remembered he had another friend who worked in one of the two towers, just 10 floors below the top. He hoped didn’t work in the one that was hit.

Then his world came crashing down as he saw a second airliner plow through the second of the Twin Towers. A white-hot fear gripped Race as he realized the weird mass murder that was taking place. Then the third and forth jets also did their deadly jobs.

Suddenly virtually every public airport in the nation was shut down. This of course brought Race’s vacation plans to a screeching halt.

Source: Hal Race, age 57.

2. A High School Bubble Bursts

Nathan Ford was 13 in 1999 when his grandpa and uncle took him sightseeing in their truck to New York. That’s when he saw the World Trade Center Towers. They looked magnificent against the skyline, jutting majestically into the afternoon air.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Ford had been placidly sitting in his Chico High School classroom before attacks commenced. “Just another boring day at school,” he said to himself.

The next thing he knew the school principal’s voice was urgently blaring out of the class loudspeaker. Something about an attack by planes on the United States. His teacher turned on the classroom’s TV as the principal had directed, and the nightmare began.

The scenes were a dizzying whirlwind of sights and sounds. Could there really be major airliners plowing into the Twin Towers he’d seen just two years before? The Pentagon torpedoed by another plane?

“Students were freaking out,” Ford said. “Especially when people talked about the attacks possibly making their way to the West Coast.”

Ford was extremely angry and kept thinking to himself, “This can’t be happening in the United States.”

Two years later, in 2003, Ford again visited the same spot in New York he’d seen in 1999. This time he was shocked by the hole in the panorama. He said that it was a very strange and tragic feeling to see what he had previously thought was a massive, permanent part of the earth now completely gone.

Source: Nathan Ford, age 23.

3. Stars And Stripes Disneyland

It seemed as if everywhere 14-year-old Danielle Merkins looked people were bursting with patriotic pride and showing it in a myriad of ways.

U.S. flags decorated the fronts of cars, homes, businesses and even clothes like they never had. Not for just some special day, but the whole year round. The country had turned itself into a kind of stars-and-stripes Disneyland.

People all around town and in the media were talking about how the United States was the greatest country on earth. Anyone who had a bad word for the country was shot down as unpatriotic, or even worse, a traitor.

Merkins loved this new-found togetherness. To her, the whole nation had become like a close-knit family.

Eight years later Merkins would lament, “What a shame that it took a massive tragedy like the 911 terrorist attacks to make that all happen.”

Source: Danielle Merkins, CSUC senior, age 22.

BLOG #1: Isolating Voice In A Lead

Lead #1. Driving and Drugging:

This story is told by the author in the first person as an objective observer.

The audience is envisioned as a passive observer that will be entertained and amused at the drug-induced antics of the narrator.

The only time or historical constraints of the lead are hinted at by the fact that the lead takes place in an automobile in the Barstow desert. No other setting details are given.

The tone starts out placidly on a desert drive. The narrator, however, develops a spontaneous, shocked tone of voice as the drugs take effect on him or her while driving. The narrator has a great sense of urgency, and ends up sounding comical due to viewing the hallucinations. It is amplified when the narrator screams “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”.

The author is able to look back on the wild experience and arrange it in an organized and entertaining manner.

But the author and the narrator sound like very similar voices to me.

Lead #2: Celebration in New York Harbor:

This is a third person lead told from the viewpoint of an omniscient observer.

The envisioned audience is one which is expected to be awed by “the greatest pyrotechnic extravaganza ever mounted” (as the author puts it). It’s clear that it takes place on the bicentennial, approximately 1976, on the 200^th Anniversary of America in New York Harbor.

The tone is one of built up excitement and festivity.

I hear a great amount of fascination and wonder in the author’s voice, as he/ she describes vividly the visual scenes of fifty-five nations bringing a myriad of sailors and ships to such a world-renowned extravaganza.

In this lead I feel that the voices of the author and narrator are one and the same.

Lead #4: Satire on the Human Race:

This lead is told by the narrator from a third person’s point of view, with a mock serious tone. It is written in a manner similar to the telling of a fairytale.

The author envisioned an audience that was open to satire and cynicism about the human race. The author writes using an all-encompassing timeline with regard to human history. He/ she paints with a broad brush regarding the entire human experience.

The tone is almost like a children’s tale that humorously shows the immaturity of humanity.

I can “hear” the author trying hard to set a tone about people in general in a sarcastic frame of mind.

The author’s voice seems to be one of intense, confused contemplation on the human condition. The narrator on the other hand, comes across as very funny and natural in ridiculing people as a whole.

Lead #7: Wife Dies:

In this lead the narrator explains everything from a first person point of view, like a passive observer.

The audience is envisioned as one that would be emotionally moved by a strange twist to an ordinary, everyday lifestyle.

The historical setting of the lead is a hot summer day in August, 1994. The tone set is a bland one at first, with the husband relenting to his wife getting her own prescription because she wants to also buy groceries. But the tone suddenly turns horribly dramatic as the reader learns the wife has somehow died, and the husband must identify her body.

I hear the author’s voice lulling the readers into a mild complacency in order to jolt them into the shock of realizing that this is anything but a boring story.

The voice of the author is starkly different from that of the narrator. The narrator seems calm, almost to the point of total complacency. On the other hand, the author is very clever in assembling the story so that it packs a huge wallop on the readers when they find out the wife has died.

Print Will Never Die

No, print is not dead. It has definitely gone downhill fast. But there will always be a core audience, as long as we have the digital divide: those that have access to the Internet versus those who do not.

Those who do not can include the many, both young and old, who cannot use the Web due to lack of know-how or lack of money to buy a computer or pay the monthly access fees. But the have-nots are also made up of a sizeable part of society who can use the Internet, but simply CHOOSE NOT TO.

 A good analogy would be bike riders versus car drivers. There will always be a market for those who like peddling to get around. I’m in that group. Reasons to  ride a bike are; exercise, to save money, help keep the air clean or not to contribute to ‘Big Oil’.

Granted, many non-Web users are older folks, say 60 years old and older, who grew up without the Web, reading only printed newspapers, magazines and books. But there are also plenty of younger people who pretty much refuse to use the Web. They like the simplicity of print. It’s far more portable than a computer. Plus, to them, books, magazines and such are more ‘real’ in their hands.

 

            Then there’s the even bigger slice of society who are Web users, but who also occasionally enjoy the benefits of printed materials. Glossy, color, soft core men’s magazines like “Maxim” and “FHM” were born and became huge during the Web’s heyday. Celebrity and women’s magazines like “People” and “Cosmopolitan” still pack grocery stores and newsstands everywhere.

            Until the Web becomes really portable and easily viewable anywhere, more so than with a clunky laptop or a cell-phone with a 2-inch screen, print will have a demanding audience.

More Sci-Fi/ Web Connections

The Semantic Web is a futuristic vision for what the Web should become, as put forth by the inventor of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee in 1998. His concepts about the use of computers and his ability to put them into action had so much energy and staying power that I’ve nicknamed him, Tim “after-Berners”-Lee. (Sorry about the bad pun.)

 

The Semantic Web refers to the ability of computers to ‘talk’ to each other and understand the specific meanings and intuitive desires of all people using the Web. Very much like many science fiction stories where computers “know” the thoughts and desires of their human inventors. A classic example is the story, “2001: A Space Odyssey,” where “Hal” the computer goes out of control and attacks the story’s astronauts. (A hilarious parody of “2001:” and “Hal” is the movie “Airplane II, The Sequel.”)

 “After-Berners”-Lee wrote about the Semantic Web in 1998, and even mentioned a connection with the “2001:” story when he co-wrote an article in 2001 for “Scientific American”. This was when the Semantic Web was still in its infancy. Now, in 2008 it is still in its childhood, but growing by leaps and bounds.

Probably the most obvious example of the Semantic Web would be the search engine, Google (or as lame-duck President Bush calls it, “The Google”). Looking up something on Google searches virtually everything related to what you wanted on the Web. It even tells you if it thinks you misspelled your search words and recommends what it thinks you meant. This act of the computer correcting the human user is usually accurate and a perfect example of the Web becoming intuitive.

I can’t wait to see what other forms and powers the Semantic Web takes.