2. At any sign of accumulation, cancel ALL schools and government employee schedules for the day.

3. If you work in the news industry, run misleading headlines and stories alluding to the notion that it’s far worse outside than it actually is.

4. By no means and under no circumstance should you attempt to clear the sidewalk in front of your home. Especially if you’re a renter or Section 8 Recipient.

5. Do not expect to Harrisburg City to deploy resources to clear the streets. Canceling everything is cheaper. (Submitted by Rusty)

6. If you are still one of the unlucky ones whose job did not cancel work for the day, today is your day to make a lame excuse to your boss about why you were late/have to leave early.

7. Go to the nearest Giant/Weis/Wegmans and purchase more milk, eggs and butter than you can ever possibly eat or need in a three or four day period.

8. Regardless of how beautiful the snowfall looks, feel free to whine, bitch and complain to anyone who will listen about how much you can’t stand the snow.

9. If someone is complaining to you about how much they don’t like the snow (as in #7) you have a full 24 hour pass to tell that person how much you don’t like them. If they get offended, go outside, make a snowball and throw it at them.

10. By no means should you attempt to help the elderly or disabled.

11. Take those plastic chairs from your porch/patio/backyard and place them in the parking spot in front of your house- letting the world know: “These are MY chairs and this is MY spot, dammit!” Even though you probably only get a spot right in front of your house either once a week or you’re unemployed and never leave the house anyway. (Suggested by reader Spyder)

And final Rule for When It Snows in Central PA-

12. Everybody, FREAK OUT!

Please do a bluegrass version of any Hold Steady song next time you play ABC.

Like ‘dis guy-

And unless I saw this with my own two eyes I would have NEVER believed it.

John Lavenda announced that- in an effort to raise thirty five thousand dollars- that he and the Sports Scam of Shame Fame Hall will be selling…get this….you ready?

Mayor Reed Bobble Head Dolls.

For seventy five bucks a pop.

(I shit you not)

The comment section is below. I’ll let you guys have the fun with this one..

(UPDATE: There’s now VIDEO on PennLive)

Love it, in fact.

And occasionally (and I do mean not that often) there will be a nugget of goodness hidden within the snake-pit and battleground known as the Rants and Rave’s section. (Think of the Craigslist Rants and Raves section as the ugly, much worse and horribly unmoderated, red-headed step-child of the PennLive Harrisburg Forums)

ANYWAY- here’s what I found today-

To All My Valued Employees,

There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn’t pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country. However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interests.

First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a back story. This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You’ve seen my big home at last years Christmas party. I’m sure; all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life.

However, what you don’t see is the back story.

I started this company 28 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living apartment was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you.

My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn’t have time to date. Often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business — hard work, discipline, and sacrifice.

Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead of hitting the Nordstrom’s for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the Goodwill store extracting any clothing item that didn’t look like it was birthed in the 70’s. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had.

So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don’t. There is no “off” button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like a 1 year old special-needs child. You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden — the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations… you never realize the back story and the sacrifices I’ve made.

Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all the people who didn’t. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for.

Yes, business ownership has is benefits but the price I’ve paid is steep and not without wounds.

Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why:

I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don’t pay enough. I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and use taxes. Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my “stimulus” check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch.

The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check? Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country.

The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your paycheck , you’d quit and you wouldn’t work here. I mean, why should you? That’s nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree , which is why your job is in jeopardy.

Here is what many of you don’t understand … to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government mandated to me that I didn’t need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now.

When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don’t defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you? Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington believe the poor of America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change you can keep.

So where am I going with all this?

It’s quite simple.

If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child’s future. Frankly, it isn’t my problem any more.

Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire. You see, I’m done. I’m done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship.

If you lose your job, it won’t be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about….

Signed,
Your boss

1. I commend the founders of “The Burg- Greater Harrisburg’s Community Newspaper“ for embarking on such a risky venture as starting a new print publication in January of 2009. Because, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that print media and publications are a quickly dying breed; a genus of media which is watching it’s collective readership migrate to Internet based news and opinion gathering points.

And 2. I also applaud the efforts of accredited principal Peter Durantine for taking his twenty five years of experience writing for the Associated Press, Philadelphia Daily News, Harrisburg Magazine and Central PA Magazine and putting his energy and resources into launching this new periodical.

And that, unfortunately, is where the praise will end.

I’m skeptical of “The Burg- Harrisburg’s Community Newspaper” for several reasons. First and foremost- the one-sided editorial by Mayor Steven Reed which appears on page ten of the inaugural edition.

In his column, Reed touts the same-old, same-old number fluffing and progression advances the city has made and implies that anyone who is a recent transplant to the city is ill-informed and unable to form his own opinion by stating the following “Very few of our more recent arrivals have any idea what this city was like…”

And personally, I’m tired of that argument. It makes no difference to me what this city was like twenty years ago. I moved here in 2001 and have had plenty of time to establish an opinion on the state of our city and find that argument moot and insulting.

Second: “The Burg” isn’t written in “The Burg”. The business address is listed as a PO Box eleven miles outside the city in Hummelstown. (Sure, that may seem minor- but one would assume more authenticity would come from, I don’t know… having a Harrisburg PO Box?)

The third reason I’m skeptical of “The Burg” is that this is, of course, an election year and, skimming through the launch-issue, one will find plenty of pro-Reed and pro-City articles.

Sure, let’s be optimistic- but realistic at the same time. On page seven- the ‘City Hall’ page of “The Burg”- we find yet another Patriot News-esque report on the hotly-debated Parking Garage Deal which died on the vine in November. Where “The Burg” and The Patriot News meet is in this simple statement: “Mayor Stephen Reed is disappointed in the council’s decision, noting the money can significantly reduce the city’s debt.”

Maybe so- but opponents of the Parking Deal argue that the majority of the city’s debt has been incurred due to mismanagement of city funds and poor decisions made in part or wholly by The Mayor.

Continuing, I was hugely disappointed to see yet another offering of shlep about the Whitaker Center’s cold-bath-water entertainment calendar. Nearly one-third of page twenty four is dedicated to another bland calendar in a bland theater given carte blanche in Harrisburg’s entertainment community by the city and it’s administrators.

Obviously, it wouldn’t be fair for me to completely write-off this new publication after one single issue and I hope that once “The Burg” gets it’s legs and plays with the layout and college-paper font choices, it may be an asset to information distribution for city residents.

But if the staff at “The Burg” continue on what appears to be a very conservative and very status-quo publication, it can rest assured that I’ll be adding them to my list of questionable news organizations disseminating information with an agenda- the agenda of re-electing Stephen R Reed.

We need less of that, please. So spare us the righteous propoganda.

We’re smarter than that.