Saturday, June 12, 2004

Dave's Big Score!

Recently we had another supermall open in the area. Gilroy is just 40,153 people according to the Jan 2000 census, but it has a massive outlet shopping area, a Costco, a Walmart, a Home Depot etc. Just about every large warehouse type shopping experience can be had in Gilroy, except an Ikea. For some reason there is only one Ikea in the entire bay area, which seems weird. Getting back on subject, the new supermall is a little more upclass than some of the previous shopping areas that have recently opened in Gilroy. It includes some nice restaurants, a Best Buy, a SportMart, a Target (pronounced Tarjet by the discriminating shopper), and a Barnes & Noble. I'm actually excited about the Barnes & Noble, as until now, the nearest decent bookstore has been in San Jose, and shopping for books online, while convenient, just isn't quite as much fun as perusing the shelves to see if any of your favorite authors finally came out with a new book. George...I'm STILL waiting! It also has a Maui Taco stand, which in my book is one of the finer burritos to be had around, and it's right beside the Jamba Juice and the ColdStone Creamery which means Jen is happy to head down there as well.

The other thing that opened today is Morgan Hill's new aquatic center. It had a free open house day today and we went down to check it out. It's a beautiful center. We were quite impressed. This means I won't have to be getting up at 5:00 am for my swim training, and that Jen can come join me in the evenings. It's also got a 50m pool, which is much nicer to work in than the 25m pool that I've been using up until now.

Anyways, today was the grand opening of SportMart. They were advertising huge sales, and Jen was looking for some shorts and some running socks, and after seeing the new swim center she decided she needed a new swimsuit as well. When we got down there we found that they had swimming suits 40% off, so I got one too. Unfortunately the lines were huge. We alternated sitting in line while the other wandered around perusing the store. On one of these perusals, I happened to notice that they were selling Clif Bars, which happen to be my favorite type of "energy bar". PowerBars tend to taste like dog food, and they melt in the heat, and turn into bricks in the cold. The one thing about all energy bars is that they tend to be a bit expensive, which is why I mix and match the Clif Bars with Dr. Stein's Energy Bars which you can buy in bulk. So far the cheapest prices I''ve found regularly on Clif Bars are 99 cents each at Trader Joe's. When REI is having a sale, they will often sell them for 99 cents, but they usually have them for about a $1.10 a piece. You can pay up to $2.00 at a gas station for a Clif Bar. As I was poking through their energy bar selection, I noticed that they were selling them for $1.29. Ouch thought I, and then I noticed that the chocolate chip Clif Bars had a price tag of .29 cents on them. I took them over to the manager and asked him how much they were. He looked at me sadly, and relunctantly answered ".29 I guess...". I promptly grabbed the last two cases of Chocolate Chip Clif Bars, and managed to get 22 Clif Bars for $6.38.

SCORE!

Unfortunately it was only the Chocolate Chip bars that had been mispriced or I would have been buying a lot more. Luckily I like the chocolate chip ones, but if anybody has any mint chocolate that they want to get rid of, I'll happily trade :).

2 comments:

Jenn said...

The cake batter ice cream is to die for!!!!

Noelle said...

Yo - Nice score. And there's 2 Ikeas in the Bay Area - Oakland and the new, shiny,
foreigner-packed east Palo Alto store, which I would not recommend actually going to
during business hours due to frequent stampeeds, ear drum damage from small screming humans,
and the possibility of being knocked out by some small person from across the Pacific
taking you out with some large object that they cannot see over.

Just thought I'd clear that up. :-)