Monday - 10-19-09, What a wet weekend.

With the weather we had this past weekend the business wasn't too good. On Friday Hershey actually decided to not open HersheyPark in the Dark. This decision was made around noon. They decided to close me around 1:45, which was ok with me. I already had everything cleaned up, and was ready to go. All I had to do was just lock up the money and lock the door.
Saturday's weather wasn't any better. They did have HersheyPark in the Dark, but there weren't a lot of people there. I was scheduled to work from 9am until 7pm, but I left at about 4:30. We were totally dead. I did see that they got a little business after I left, but not enough to need me to stay.
Sunday morning started out cold and wet, but it got better. We had decided weeks ago that we were going to go to HersheyPark in the Dark that day. So we were hoping the weather would clear up, and it did. There really weren't too many people there either. We were able to ride all the roller coasters without having to wait in any lines. We got on everything we wanted to. We walked through the zoo several times, and saw the stuff they had set up just for HersheyPark in the Dark. We watched their one skunk paint, and also one of the snakes paint. That was kind of interesting. Overall it was a fun day.
Today I came in to the normal mess I find after I'm off. The stand wasn't properly cleaned last night. We were totally out of hot chocolate mix, and things were rearranged again. So I spent my first hour putting things back to where they should be. Then I spent a few minutes doing up the orders I needed for the week.
Once all that was done then I went to studying my amateur radio test again. I am still holding steady at about a 55% over all. Although I get some sections where I do really good, I then get ones where I do really badly, and it just balances out again.
There was one school group in the zoo around 11:00. They looked like 1st or 2nd graders, so I'm almost positive they won't eat here. There were also some other women with children walking around already at that point, but like usual no one buying anything yet.
Around 12:45 I got my first customer. Although it wasn't a huge sale it was enough for me to have to stay open all day. By 1:00 I had finished going through my General Class test study book. I got an overall score of only 55%. So that means I need to do some more studying. I really wish I knew which test I would get. Then I would know what questions to focus on. But that's why they do it randomly. They don't want people just memorizing a few questions and taking the test.
I've been spending most of the day watching maintenance putting up new signs in the zoo. They added poles in the summer that said "ZooAmerica" on a flag a t the top. Now they are putting directional signs up. The first ones they put up on the pole outside Timber Treats were ones pointing people to the various sections of the zoo like "Northlands", "Big Sky Country", and "The Great Southwest". Now I see the7y are back with new signs. I saw one that said "restrooms" and one that said, "Timber Treats". They spent about 20 minutes discussing how to put them up, and in what direction to point them.
After this long discussion they decided to only put up the one restroom sign. They put it up pointing up the hill toward the new staff house, and new restrooms. They took the Timber Treats sign with to another location in the zoo. I also noticed when they left that they had a sign for the exit with them as well. Since most of the maintenance people only work until 2:30, and this was around 2:00, I figured they weren't going to actually put the other signs up, but just slowly walk out to their truck and then slowly head back over to the office. That would get them there by 2:15 or 2:20, and they could get ready to leave.
A little after 2:00 Harry called over to see what kind of business I had done so far. I told him I only had one sale, and the amount. He said, "Well, enjoy the rest of your day," and hung up. I wasn't sure if that mean close down and go home to enjoy the rest of my day, or to stand here bored and enjoy the rest of my day. So I decided to just stand here bored.
I don't know if I was right or not, but maintenance never came back before I left. After I got home we decided to run up to the pet store to look for a tank heater for the two fish we got. According to the guide for that type of fish the water should be between 72-78 degrees, and without a heater it’s staying at about 70-72 degrees.
Since they didn't have the heater we wanted we decided to get the next size up, and to get the 5 gallon tank out of the attic. This will give the fish a bigger swimming area.
After the pet store we decided to stop at Red Robin in Harrisburg, since its right next to the pet store. Well that took a lot longer than we thought it would. I don't know what it was, but it seemed like our waitress was disappearing for long periods of time, and it took forever for our food to be made.
Since we ended up getting home so late we decided to wait until tomorrow to set up the other fish tank. I called Dish Network to see about upgrading out receiver and getting DVR. They said that if we signed a two year agreement they would send us a free receiver, with free installation, and then the DVR service would be $5.98 a month. So we ordered it. They will be upgrading us on Sunday between 8 and noon....