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I forgot
to mention that last night on TV there was an hour long documentary about the
global supermarket chain called COSTCO of which we have been members for quite
some while. This company now has a 90 Billion turnover each year and with two
very important philosophies and they are. One to serve only the best products
with the lowest mark-up (15% only) of any supermarket, and to keep stock lines
reduced so as to avoid waste. The latter works on the basis that most of their
stores only sell about 4000 lines whilst their competitors have as many as
100000. The 15% mark-up means they have to have tight ship whilst most other
global supermarkets work on 25/30% and sometimes more in which they have to
allow for significant waste. A really fascinating programme and one important
fact is that Costco sell more wine in USA than any other organisation and are
pretty much responsible for the introduction of good foreign wines to the US.
Anyway,
today we had a very slow start and then departed down to Whole Foods for a
coffee and check our email, as mentioned the Hotel want $ 17.00 for wireless
internet, and whilst checking the usual Bank Accounts and other bits and pieces
I used my IMDB (International Movie Data Base) to see what movies were on
locally and it turned out to be the first day of the new 007 James Bond movie
called ‘Skyfall’ and it is being shown at an IMAX Cinema about 8 miles away and
so off we toddled listening to the strict instructions from the Sat Nav and we
arrived at this massive area, the size of Weybridge, where ‘The Parks at
Arlington’ Super size Mall was. It’s so large that you drive for at least mile
around the outside looking for the major store, Sears, JC Penney, Macy’s etc so
that you can park and enter the complex.
We found
the cinema and purchased our tickets and had a chat to the cashier who
recognising the foreign accents said where you guys from?, we replied London
and he said ‘Awesome’
In the
food hall there was the usual selection of food outlets and we chose the Sarku
Japanese style food and we had an excellent chicken and shrimp teriyaki with
fried rice and steamed vegetables and enough food that quite possibly one
serving could have been enough, but then, this is America.
The film
‘Skyfall’ was excellent and it had more of a story than previous films and
perhaps less action and travelled between Turkey, Shanghai, Macau and of course
London and finally a wet and damp Scotland which featured quite a bit and ended
with James taking on about 50 insurgents and killing the lot. It was then end
of M, played by our good friend Lin, and enjoyable afternoon. After the film we
then walked the Mall for about an hour or so and had a long chat with the
salesman in Radio Shack who tried to sell us mobile phones and was disappointed
to discover that we One , did not them and Two we come from the UK, Awesome he
said. So we talked to him for about ten
minutes about various living conditions and then moved on to a very nice ice
cream shop.
Back to
the Hotel at around 7.30 pm and we spent the rest of the evening watching a
Public Broadcasting Station which was showing UK productions and WITHOUT ADVERTISEMENTS wow this was great however the programmes were at least 15/20
years old and one programme was perhaps the first series of Helen Mirren in
Prime Suspect. However it is much better than watching advertisements which are
occasionally interrupted by programming.
Tomorrow
we move Hotels from Fort Worth over to Dallas and this time we have a room with
full kitchen so that we can properly cook.
Just
noticed in the local free rag that there is a Pink Floyd tribute band show on
in Dallas on Saturday night, so may try to get tickets if it’s not too late.
