December 2007

Omaha’s Westroads Mall reopened today with extra security. Westroads mall is the mall in Omaha, Nebraska where Robert Hawkins killed eight people earlier in the week before turning his gun on himself. The Von Maur store, where the killings took place, still has not reopened.
There is a makeshift memorial of flowers, notes and poems that cover around two thirds of the bottom steps of the entrance that gunman Robert Hawkins used when he entered the store.
There may have been some other issues that led to the shootings. According to CNN:

Apparently Harrington told Bellevue Police a month ago that one of Hawkins’ friends had offered to sell Valium to his 13 year old son and that Hawkins had once shot at a car during a bad drug deal.

Hawkins had been in a state-mandated psychiatric care in the summer of 2006 after four years of treatment and counseling, and walked away not because he was prepared to face society on his own but because they felt that there was nothing left to offer him that he was going to respond to.
During the time in which he was a ward of the state, Hawkins was diagnosed with depression, attention deficit disorder, impulsiveness, hyperactivity and a disorder characterized by negativity and hostility toward authority figures. He was convicted of third-degree assault as well as for offering to sell drugs at school.
Omaha police released two suicide notes yesterday as well as a will that were written before going on his shooting rampage. One of the notes is insulting to the people that he killed.

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My grandmother used to have an old grandfather clock that she gave my mom and dad several years ago. Actually it was more like 30 years ago. Time flies when you’re having fun I guess. I love that old clock but I am not even sure if it works anymore. Although clocks have pretty much stayed the same over the centuries, technology has made them much more accurate and I would love to have one of the Howard Miller Clocks like the one in the picture. We have a couple of clocks around the house but there is nothing as majestic as a beautiful grandfather clock.

The one in the picture is the Howard Miller Taylor Grandfather clock and lists for around nine grand but they currently have it online for $6300, which is a pretty steep discount. It sets around seven feet tall and is fairly heavy, around 135 pounds. It would look great right next to my entertainment center. A couple of years back when we picked up new living room furniture I made sure that the TV/entertainment center was more of a cabinet. It’s pretty large and heavy and the doors on the front close so that you can’t see the TV at all, which was the whole point of it. The coloring on this clock fits right in with the rest of the furniture in the living room.

One thing that I wasn’t aware of when I started pricing clocks is the fact that you can pick different chimes for the clocks. You aren’t necessarily stuck with a certain chime just because you like the look of a certain clock. The clocks blog has a bit more information on different chimes in this post about them and provides links where you can even listen to the chimes on the web site.

In addition to grandfather clocks they also sell mantel clocks,  wall clocks and all sorts of other things to spruce of your home decor. I wouldn’t mind having a nice mantel clock to put over my fireplace. Right now it’s full of Christmas decorations but they will be coming down next month and something other than the mirror that usually sits there would be nice.

An Aruban judge ordered the release of Joran van der Sloot earlier today. This could possibly end any hopes for prosecutions in the disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway in 2005.

It has finally rolled around to where I actually get a weekend off, which is going to be very nice. My schedule for the month of December is so messed up it’s not even funny. I’m off this weekend of course and between then and the end of the month I think I am taking three days off including the 21st and 29th. I know those are the only two I managed to schedule myself off for but don’t really remember when I am off prior to that.

Either way I will get to enjoy the weekend with the kids, which will be very cool.

I also managed to get out of my weekly meeting last night. The high school local to my stores asked me if I would participate in their advisory board for stuff like DECA and FBLA. Basically the advisory board helps them out and lets the school know where to focus some of the attention on what kids need to do to join the workforce. Teaching them to add and subtract and count back change are pretty damned high on my list since 90% of the young people I hire don’t seem to have any of the skills. Of course times have changed. When I started working for my company the waiters and waitresses were not allowed to use calculators. If it was a particularly large order they could use the one in the manager’s office, otherwise if you didn’t know how to add you needed to go to work for someone else. Sounds harsh but it was effective. Now I am required to have several calculators in each of my restaurants. You can always tell if someone has been doing it for a while because they, as well as myself, can usually add up a guest check on paper faster than most people do it with the calculator and with less mistakes.

Why less mistakes? Because people that know how to add properly know how to do it and people that can’t use basic simple math that they are teaching my girls trust the calculator and don’t double check their math to make sure they have pushed the right buttons. The same thing goes for counting back change. I have more cash register shortages because people trust what the cash register says. The problem comes when they put in too much cash tendered. Knowing how to count back change solves that problem.

I spoke for a few minutes with one gentleman that knows a friend of mine that used to work with us. We talked about our mutual friend for a while. He isn’t working with us anymore, he actually went into real estate a few years back and is doing pretty well for himself.

Shortly after making it home last night one of the cooks cut his hand open and while the manager went in to the store to get him taken care of and sent to the hospital I picked up one of my other cooks and took him on into work. I had planned on writing a bit last night but since I made it home after 7pm last night I just didn’t feel like it.

The Omaha Police released this statement yesterday evening on the mall shooting which killed nine people including the shooter and injured five others. The shootings took place inside the Von Maur department store at Westroads Mall in Omaha.

Police Chief Thomas Warren called the shootings premeditated but did say that they appeared to be randomly selected and unprovoked.

Rather than his mother, it was Hawkins’ landlord, Debora Kovac that found the suicide note at 1pm, just a few minutes prior to the shootings.

The shootings began at 1:42pm and police responded within six minutes.

I don’t know where to get one but I came across this picture a little while ago and got a good laugh out of it.