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Leave Thanksgiving alone

Posted on by Emilie Buckman

You’re either a person who likes Black Friday or you’re not. I am not. Shopping in crowds of people fighting for deals sounds like an uncertain amount of torture. So when some retailers announced their Black Friday sales would start on actual Thanksgiving, I can’t express how terrible that sounds.

Some people love it and get some sick enjoyment from being pushed around just so they can get a ridiculously good deal on a flat screen TV. While it would never be worth it to me, I get some people derive satisfaction from telling people they fought a middle-aged women for a Wii. (Sorry I couldn’t think of a more recent must have Christmas item.) I just don’t.

Unfortunately those crazy individuals we keep Black Friday going strong But can we keep it to Friday, please? It’s bad enough the trick-or-treaters were not even ringing doorbells and stores had Christmas displays up, but can we leave Thanksgiving alone? Let’ take some time to truly be thankful for Thanksgiving and let people enjoy it with their family and loved ones.

At least there are few stores that have kept the employees and customers’ holiday cheer in mind. Nordstrom’s proudly proclaimed they refused to partake in the Thursday sales to celebrate one holiday at time. I have to say, I like their style.

Either way, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Good apology by Yahoo! Fantasy Football

Posted on by Brian Lee

Just after 11 a.m. CT Sunday, Nov. 11, I went to the Yahoo! Fantasy Football page to double-check my line-up for any injuries, as I and many others always do. To my surprise, the page didn’t load, and wouldn’t load after many retries. I even tried my mobile app, but that didn’t work either, so I gave up in frustration.

Ken Fuchs, head of Yahoo! Sports, apologized the next day in an email sent to all users. I thought it was well-written: he owned up to the mistake, identified correctly the victims (fantasy football players, NOT Yahoo), didn’t say anything contradictory (e.g. “our servers never fail”) and aligned himself with the victims (“as a Yahoo! Sports fantasy player myself …”).

Two days later, Ken sent another email detailing the problem (new configuration of hardware failed) and offering some compensation (free access to the “Scouting Report” and 20 percent discount to Yahoo! Sports Store).

I was fortunate that the outage didn’t affect me, though I can see how angry some people would be if they didn’t get to set their line-ups prior to the outage. The compensation can’t make up for a lost game, but it can move Yahoo! slowly back in the public’s trust.

My only disappointment was that Yahoo! waited until Monday to say anything. Even some kind of note on Sunday acknowledging that the site was down and was being worked on would have been helpful.

Still, kudos to Yahoo! for how it handled a very tough situation.

FEED Kitchens Selects Northgate for New Location

Posted on by Brian Lee

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 5, 2012

Contact: Ellen Barnard
(608) 576-3734

FEED Kitchens Selects Northgate for New Location

(MADISON, Wis.) – Citing higher visibility and a decrease in fundraising needs, Food Enterprise and Economic Development (FEED) Kitchens selected the Northgate Shopping Center for the new location of its food business incubator, the organization announced today.

“The Northgate location has a lot of advantages, such as easy access by bus and the support of local businesses such as Food Fight Restaurant Group,” FEED Kitchens Chair Ellen Barnard said. “We are excited to begin supporting local food entrepreneurs in the upcoming year.”

Groundbreaking for the new location, which will take just under a half-acre of space in the shopping center’s parking lot, is slated for March 1, 2013, and the anticipated opening of the facility is August 2013, just in time to process next season’s harvest. Pankratz Road near the airport was the original site.

As previously announced, the FEED facility will include five commercial kitchens, with specialized equipment for baking; produce preparation and processing; and deli prep and meat processing. The space will be available for non-profit and for-profit use, with Madison College, REAP Food Group, local caterers and food cart vendors among the first groups to sign up to use FEED Kitchens.

The Food Enterprise and Economic Development (FEED) Kitchens will provide tools to help youth and adults who are disadvantaged, unemployed or underemployed develop skills that move them toward self-sufficiency. FEED will reduce hunger and increase the availability of healthy local food by providing organizations serving the hungry, gardeners and farmers a place to process excess produce that would otherwise end up in a landfill or compost pile. For more information, please visit www.feedkitchens.org.

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