Warga Pampangan Kecamatan Lubuk Begalung di gemparkan dengan penemuan ular piton berukuran raksasa. Ular dengan panjang 4 meter ini ditemukan salah seorang warga disungai sekitar perumahan. Keberadaan ular piton itu sangat meresahkan warga, sehingga warga memanggil seorang pawang untuk menangkap ular tersebut.
Sabtu, 24 Desember 2011
Михаил Прохоров на митинге 24 декабря в Москве
Миллиардер Михаил Прохоров без охраны пришел на митинг в Москве на проспекте Академика Сахарова. Он пообещал разогнать Госдуму, если его выберут президентом страны.
даже не смешно, кстати Навальный это смена Жириновского - тоже вроде начитанный, но такие перлы выстреливает!
куча дебилов как в 1991...тогда угрохали великую страну несмотря что 80% граждан СССР были за сохранение союза, теперь толпа быдла и даунов, баранов и пингвинов подняла свои шейки.
верю ему.по крайней мере он единственный, кто говорит о положении в стране так, как есть. не держит нас за идиотов, как остальные. вряд ли его пустят в президентское кресло и дадут возможность что-то сделать, но все же я за него.
верю ему.по крайней мере он единственный, кто говорит о положении в стране так, как есть. не держит нас за идиотов, как остальные. вряд ли его пустят в президентское кресло и дадут возможность что-то сделать, но все же я за него.
VIDEO PRAMUGARI DANSA DI PESAWAT
Untuk menghilangkan kejenuhan, maskapai Cebu Pacific Filipina merancang koreografi dansa bagi para pramugarinya ketika memperagakan penggunaan sabuk keselamatan dan pelampung.
Untuk menghilangkan kejenuhan, maskapai Cebu Pacific Filipina merancang koreografi dansa bagi para pramugarinya ketika memperagakan penggunaan sabuk keselamatan dan pelampung.
Untuk menghilangkan kejenuhan, maskapai Cebu Pacific Filipina merancang koreografi dansa bagi para pramugarinya ketika memperagakan penggunaan sabuk keselamatan dan pelampung.
Untuk menghilangkan kejenuhan, maskapai Cebu Pacific Filipina merancang koreografi dansa bagi para pramugarinya ketika memperagakan penggunaan sabuk keselamatan dan pelampung.
Homeless N.J. man beaten in YouTube video, out of hospital
Ivins, 50, has been provided with money, food, clothes and a hotel room for the holidays since news broke Monday about his attack, which police said was recorded by his assailants in a wooded section of Wall, N.J. Police said they received reports about the beating on Sunday.
Ivins was taken to the Jersey Shore University Medical Center after he suffered a seizure at the Belmar Police Department when he stopped by to pick up a bicycle that was donated to him Wednesday night, said Mayor Matt Doherty.
Information on his physical condition was not available, although Ivins did indicate Wednesday in an interview that he was going to quit drinking.
News of Ivins' beating prompted offers of help from around the country, and a proposal for legislation providing for more severe punishment for videotaping and distributing the recording of an assault.
Ivins was attacked on two occasions in the woods in Wall, on Dec. 11 and 12, Wall police have said. Police have charged two people in connection with the attacks, Taylor C. Giresi, 20, and a 17-year-old who has not been identified because of his age. Police said the suspects videotaped and then posted the attacks on YouTube.
Giresi was is being held in the Monmouth County jail inFreehold Township in lieu of $135,000 full-cash bail while the juvenile has been released to a parent, police said.
"They came running from out of nowhere," Ivins said of his assailants. "I've seen them before. They've thrown rocks and bottles at me before on the train tracks."
Ivins said the two eventually left his bicycle that was seen being stolen in the YouTube video, and it is back in his possession.
"I was, as many people in Belmar were, disgusted and sickened that one of our residents would attack a defenseless person like that," Doherty said.
Ivins is not sure he will go after Jan. 3. He said he has family -- his mother lives in Jamesburg, N.J., and he has two brothers and a sister -- but was not certain that they would take him in. His father passed away in Gainesville, Fla.
The beating caught the attention of New Jersey legislators, who legislation to increase penalties and mandate jail time for videotaping and distributing the recording of an assault.
"It is absolutely appalling that two young men found it amusing to stalk and attack a homeless man," said one of the bill's co-sponsors Mary Pat Angelini in a prepared release. "The fact that the young men posted the attack on the Internet as if it was entertainment is frightening and we must send a clear message that this behavior will not be tolerated in our state."
Under their proposed legislation, videotaping and distributing the recording of an assault will result in an automatic second-degree aggravated assault charge. A person convicted of second-degree aggravated assault is subject to five to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $150,000.
Arizona sheriff faces new setback over immigration
The ruling issued Friday sets the stage for a possible trial in a lawsuit that alleges racial profiling in the patrols in Arizona's Maricopa County, and would further limitSheriff Joe Arpaio's immigration authority after Washington yanked his federal powers earlier this month.
Lawyers pushing the lawsuit on behalf of five Latino clients also won class-action status that lets other Hispanics join the case if they have been detained and questioned by Arpaio's deputies as either a driver or passenger in a vehicle since January 2007.
U.S. District Judge Murray Snow hasn't yet ruled on the ultimate question of racial profiling, but notes the case's evidence could lead a judge or jury to conclude that Arpaio's office racially profiles Latinos.
"Sheriff Arpaio has made public statements that a fact-finder could interpret as endorsing racial profiling," Snow said.
The judge noted that the sheriff has said that even without authority to enforce federal immigration laws, his officers can detain people based upon their speech or they appear to be from another country.
The 40-page ruling marked a qualified victory for the lawyers who pushed the lawsuit. They didn't get the case decided without going to trial, as they had hoped, but it came closer to the result they were looking for.
"We are encouraged by the Court's recognition of the strong evidence showing the (Maricopa County Sheriff's Office's) pattern and practice of racial profiling and its conducting of operations for reasons that are racially biased," Stan Young, lead attorney for those who filed the lawsuit, said in a written statement.
Arpaio won a small victory when the judge dismissed part of a claim by a Hispanic couple who are among the five people who filed the lawsuit.
Snow ruled that one of Arpaio's deputies had probable cause to pull over the couple on a closed roadway. The couple's illegal search claim was thrown out, but the judge didn't dismiss their racial profiling claim.
Messages left for Arpaio's lawyers weren't immediately returned late Friday.
The lawsuit alleges that Maricopa County officers made some traffic stops solely because Hispanics were driving. The plaintiffs say authorities had no probable cause to pull them over and made the stops only to question their immigration status.
Arpaio has denied the racial profiling allegations, saying people pulled over in the patrols were approached because deputies had probable cause to believe they had committed crimes and that it was only afterward that deputies found many were illegal immigrants.
During the patrols known as "sweeps," deputies flood an area of a city — in some cases, heavily Latino areas — over several days to seek out traffic violators and arrest other offenders. Illegal immigrants accounted for 57 percent of the roughly 1,500 people arrested in the 20 sweeps conducted by his office in earnest since January 2008.
Separate from the lawsuit, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a Dec. 15 report that accused Arpaio's office of having a pattern of racially profiling Latinos, basing immigration enforcement on racially-charged citizen complaints and punishing Hispanic jail inmates for speaking Spanish.
Arpaio faces a Jan. 4 deadline for saying whether he wants to work out an agreement to settle the civil rights allegations. The Justice Department has said it's prepared to sue Arpaio and let a judge decide the matter if no agreement can be worked out.
The Justice Department report prompted U.S. Department of Homeland Security to strip Arpaio's office of its federal powers to verify the immigration status of jail inmates. The severing of those ties came after an October 2009 decision by Homeland Security to take away the federal immigration arrest powers from 100 of Arpaio's deputies.
Arpaio is left with only state immigration laws to carry out his patrols — and those powers were limited by the judge Friday.
Apart from the lawsuit and civil rights report against the sheriff's office, a federal grand jury also has been investigating Arpaio's office on criminal abuse-of-power allegations since at least December 2009.
Justice Department rejects S.C. voter-identification law
Civil rights activist and Greenville native Jesse Jacksoncalled it a fitting Christmas present, while Gov. Nikki Haley said she is trying to improve things in South Carolina but "the president and his bullying administration are fighting us every step of the way."
The state's new voter ID law requires a state-issued driver's license or ID card, a U.S. military ID, or a U.S. passport.
The Justice Department in its ruling said the law makes it harder for minorities to cast ballots. Without the right ID, tens of thousands of minorities in the state might not be able to vote, the Justice Department said.
Haley said it's another example, along with the decision of a U.S. district judge Thursday blocking parts of the state's new immigration law, of President Barack Obamaviolating states rights.
"It is outrageous, and we plan to look at every possible option to get this terrible, clearly political decision overturned so we can protect the integrity of our electoral process and our 10th amendment rights," Haley said.
Jackson said he sees a different pattern, one in which states that once denied minorities the right to vote are trying to suppress that right by making it more difficult to vote.
The Justice Department weighed in on the South Carolina law because it must approve changes in states that failed in the past to protect the voting rights of blacks. The Justice Department also is examining the new voter ID law in Texas.
Jackson, founder and president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, said the South Carolina voter ID law makes it harder for senior citizens to vote and makes it more difficult for college students to register to vote, but he said it is mostly about racial discrimination.
"It's race-based, but it's not limited to that," Jackson told GreenvilleOnline.com.
Jackson said he was pleased with the Justice Department's decision and the decision Thursday of U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel that put on hold the part of South Carolina's new immigration law that would authorize law enforcement officers to check the immigration status of people they pull over if they suspect they are in the country illegally.
"In many ways these losses (for the state) represent a Christmas present in the best tradition of what Christmas is about, to liberate the poor," Jackson said.
Sen. Larry Martin of Pickens, who said Thursday the dispute over the immigration law will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, vowed Friday to fight the Justice Department's decision. The state will take the voter ID law to the high court, if necessary, he said.
Martin said officials made the voter ID requirements as "least burdensome as we could" by making the photo ID free and offering rides to the Department of Motor Vehicles.
"You can't do much of anything without providing identification with you," Martin told GreenvilleOnline.com. "You can't cash a check; you can't get on an airplane. There's a host of things you just can't do without some sort of identification."
Dick Harpootlian, chairman of the state Democratic Party, took some shots Friday at Haley and Republicans in the state Legislature over the decisions on the immigration and voter ID laws.
"The Justice Department has found that this bill was an effort, not based on even one documented case of voter fraud, but rather a transparent effort to deny disadvantaged and minority South Carolinians from voting," he said.
ingrich, Perry won't be on Va. ballot
WASHINGTON (AP) – Former House speaker Newt Gingrich has failed to qualify for Virginia's March 6 Republican primary, a development that adds to the challenges faced by the recent frontrunner in the GOP presidential race.
After verification, RPV has determined that Newt Gingrich did not submit required 10k signatures and has not qualified for the VA primary," the Republican Party of Virginia announced early Saturday on its Twitter website.
Perry also fell short of the 10,000 signatures of registered voters required for a candidate's name to be on the primary ballot, but former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Texas Rep. Ron Paul will be on the ballot.
INTERACTIVE: Candidate Match Game
INTERACTIVE: Presidential Poll Tracker
State GOP spokesman Garren Shipley said volunteers spent Friday validating petitions that the four candidates submitted by the Thursday 5 p.m. deadline to the State Board of Elections. Shipley was not available early Saturday to discuss the announcement posted on the website.
Failing to get on the ballot will be a major setback for Gingrich, who has tried to use his recent upsurge in popularity to make up for a late organizing start. Ironically, Gingrich had a slight lead over Romney, with others farther back in a Quinnipiac poll of Virginia Republicans released earlier in the week.
The organizing work and a lack of advertising money to counter an onslaught of negative ads from his rivals have been major disadvantages.
Gingrich had to leave New Hampshire on Wednesday and race to Virginia, where he needs 10,000 valid voters' signatures by Thursday to secure a spot on the March 6 ballot.
He said Wednesday he had enough ballot signatures, but he wanted to come to Virginia to deliver them personally. Taking no chances, his volunteers asked everyone to sign petitions before entering Gingrich's rally Wednesday night in Arlington, just across thePotomac River from Washington.
Gingrich's early-December rise in several polls gave him renewed hopes of carrying his campaign deep into the primary season. Failure to compete in Virginia, which is among the "Super Tuesday" primaries, would deal a huge blow to any contender who had not locked up the nomination by then.
The state party's Shipley said the party was validating petitions the candidates submitted by the Thursday 5 p.m. deadline to the state elections board. It began validating signatures Friday morning.
The 10,000 registered voters also must include 400 signatures from each of Virginia's 11 congressional districts.
It was unclear if Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum or former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman submitted petitions to the state board.
Meanwhile, Virginia's Democrats said President Obama's re-election campaign gathered enough signatures to get him on the state's primary ballot though he was the only candidate who qualified.
Student leaves $172,000 violin on Philly-bound bus
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A student at a Boston conservatory left a rare violin worth $172,000 on a bus after arriving in Philadelphia, and police are asking for the public's help in getting it back.
The New England Conservatory student got on a Megabus in Boston with the 176-year-old violin but got off without it late Tuesday, police said.
Muchen Hsieh told investigators that she left the instrument in an overhead bin and only realized she had forgotten it after she had been picked up. The violin was lent to her by the Chi Mei Culture Foundation in her native Taiwan while she studies in the U.S.
"I'm a violin major, so I really hope that the person that took it can give it back to me so I can continue my studies because right now, I can't do anything," she told KYW-TV.
Hsieh said she called the bus company to see if the instrument had been found, but she was told it wasn't on board. Megabus offers low-cost express bus service to more than 70 cities in the U.S. and Canada.
The violin, made in 1835 by Vincenzo Jorio in Naples, was in a reddish case with two straps on the back, police Lt. John Walker said.
"We believe that somebody may have grabbed the item without realizing its value," he said.
Walker described the violin as maple with a golden-brown varnish and a serial number of V310. It still bears its original label.
The instrument can be dropped off to Philadelphia police, no questions asked, Walker said.
Texas A&M lineman killed in car crash
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP)—Texas A&M senior offensive lineman Joseph Villavisencio has been killed in a car accident, according to the university.
Joseph Villavisencio
(AP)
(AP)
Witness reports say that Villavisencio swerved to avoid a buzzard and veered head-on into the path of an 18-wheeler near the town of Normangee about 40 miles from College Station, on Thursday.
Villavisencio spent part of Thursday with the team delivering gifts to families at a local shelter after the Aggies finished their last workout on campus in preparation for the Meineke Car Care Bowl. Villavisencio was heading to his home in Jacksonville, Texas, at the time of the crash.
Villavisencio saw very limited action in his career with the Aggies, but touched many involved in the program. Former coach Mike Sherman says everyone will remember him as a person “who would do anything for anybody.”
The 22-year-old was a three-year letterman whom athletic director Bill Byrne says “epitomized selfless service” to helping the Aggies improve as a team.
Verizon Galaxy Nexus vs. iPhone 4S
The "Galaxy Nexus by Samsung," Google and Samsung's flagship smartphone running the Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android, is finally available on Verizon's network. It uses Verizon's 4G LTEnetwork, in places where that exists, and has the NFC chip needed for apps like Google Wallet. And as a Nexus series smartphone, it's guaranteed software updates (and their new features) for much longer than other Android devices.
But Apple's flagship phone, the iPhone 4S, is already on Verizon. Which one are smartphone buyers going to pick this holiday season? Here's what they have to choose between:
Speed and performance
Android "superphones" tend to have top of the line specs, and the Galaxy Nexus is no exception. It's packing a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, 1 GB of RAM, and 32 GB of flash memory, plus the ability to record 1080p HD video. And its 4G LTE connectivity will make streaming video through Hulu and Netflix faster than on an iPhone, in areas which have 4G networks.
Apple doesn't publish much info on the iPhone 4S' internals, but the $299 model (which costs the same as a Galaxy Nexus from Verizon's store) has the same 32 GB of flash memory, while a $199 model with 16 GB is also available. It can also record 1080p video, and while the Galaxy Nexus wasn't around to be compared to at the time it beat every Android phone in a series of benchmarks. The only category it loses in is connection speed, because it lacks LTE.
Size and battery life
The iPhone 4S' screen is 3.5 inches across, which -- according to "superhero" Dustin Curtis -- is just the right size to reach nearly all of it with your thumb. It's also a Retina Display, which is Apple's trademarked name for its high-resolution screen, with pixels so fine that they can't be discerned by the unaided eye.
The Galaxy Nexus has an enormous 4.65 inch screen, with a greater resolution than the iPhone's (it can play 720p HD video) but not a Retina Display. Part of the reason it's so large, though, is because of the huge batteries needed to power its 4G radio. Even with those, superphones often have poor battery life, but reviews like CNet's show that the Galaxy Nexus' battery life is at least comparable to the iPhone 4S'.
Apps and overall experience
The iPhone still leads the way with its App Store, beating all Android phones in quantity as well as quality. As Flurry's analytics show, one major reason is because iOS app developers tend to make more money.
Google's apps tend to have newer versions on Android, though. And reviewers like Joshua Topolsky of The Verge overwhelmingly agree that the Ice Cream Sandwich experience is in many ways comparable to iOS', which has historically been seen as more refined than Android's.
How to extend your smartphone’s battery life
Tips and tricks to make sure your most necessary gadget keeps going as long as you do
No matter what type of smartphone you have, the device can serve as your MP3 player, digital camera, gaming system, and even your TV while you're out and about — as long as you have battery power. If it seems like smarter phones are getting less life out of their batteries... you're absolutely right. Smartphones can help you get a lot done while traveling, but if you're doing a lot on one in a day, you're apt to see your screen go dark long before the sun goes down.
Watching out for a few small things during your day, however, can help extend battery life on your trusty device and make sure you've got enough juice to make it all day and well into the night.
Mixed signals
It takes extra juice for your smartphone to search for a data connection. If you're somewhere where you won't get a signal, like an airplane or subway, putting your phone in airplane mode or turning it off altogether will prevent it from draining your battery. Turning your phone on does require a bit of extra power, so it's best to save shutting it off for times when you plan to leave it off for a while, rather than something like a 20-minute subway ride to work in the morning. Thinking of it as car mode or subway mode instead of airplane mode might just be the mental trick you need!
It takes extra juice for your smartphone to search for a data connection. If you're somewhere where you won't get a signal, like an airplane or subway, putting your phone in airplane mode or turning it off altogether will prevent it from draining your battery. Turning your phone on does require a bit of extra power, so it's best to save shutting it off for times when you plan to leave it off for a while, rather than something like a 20-minute subway ride to work in the morning. Thinking of it as car mode or subway mode instead of airplane mode might just be the mental trick you need!
Likewise, turn off wifi when you don't need it. When it's active, your phone scans for available wifi connections constantly, which kills battery life. If you're using the wifi in a coffee shop or bookstore, remember to disable that connection when you're done to avoid draining your battery while you're on the road.
Your battery bleeds faster when you're inattentive
Sure, you can have your email open, search for directions to a local restaurant, watch a video on YouTube, and play Angry Birds at the same time — but chances are you're really only focused on one of those tasks. Everything you have open on your phone is using some amount of battery power. Try to focus on doing just one thing at a time on your phone, and close unnecessary applications to keep them from draining your battery.
Things like your GPS and the bluetooth connection you use to connect to your hands-free device in the car gobble up a ton of battery power and are of no use to you unless you're doing a few specific tasks.
Bright future
Bright screens look great but are a huge drain on your phone's battery. To stretch your phone's life, go into the controls or settings and dim the backlight or brightness of your screen. While the dimmest setting might be difficult to read (especially if you're somewhere brightly lit), something toward the middle will extend your battery life without putting too much strain on your eyes. If your phone has an auto-brightness option, using that can be a one-step solution to balancing battery life and ease of reading.
Bright future
Bright screens look great but are a huge drain on your phone's battery. To stretch your phone's life, go into the controls or settings and dim the backlight or brightness of your screen. While the dimmest setting might be difficult to read (especially if you're somewhere brightly lit), something toward the middle will extend your battery life without putting too much strain on your eyes. If your phone has an auto-brightness option, using that can be a one-step solution to balancing battery life and ease of reading.
Along those same lines, try to avoid using animated backgrounds on your phone. Remember, the less you ask of your phone, the less it draws on your battery.
Bad vibrations
It takes more battery power for your phone to vibrate than it does to ring. While you absolutely want to have your phone on vibrate (or turned off) when you're at a movie or in a meeting, keeping your ringer on at other times can help extend battery life.
It takes more battery power for your phone to vibrate than it does to ring. While you absolutely want to have your phone on vibrate (or turned off) when you're at a movie or in a meeting, keeping your ringer on at other times can help extend battery life.
Mandatory nap time
Just as you would with a toddler, the easiest way to make sure your smartphone's battery lasts all night is to give it a nap at some point during the day. If you're headed into a meeting for a few hours, turn off your phone and leave it in your desk. Likewise, if you're out to dinner with close friends or on a date, turn off your phone and focus on your companions. Not only will you look like a better employee and friend for focusing on the people around you in real life, you'll also save that much more juice for later.
Just as you would with a toddler, the easiest way to make sure your smartphone's battery lasts all night is to give it a nap at some point during the day. If you're headed into a meeting for a few hours, turn off your phone and leave it in your desk. Likewise, if you're out to dinner with close friends or on a date, turn off your phone and focus on your companions. Not only will you look like a better employee and friend for focusing on the people around you in real life, you'll also save that much more juice for later.
Still having trouble?
If you still find yourself running out of battery life before the end of the day, plug into a charging bagor use an external battery pack such as Morphie's JuicePack to strap on some extra power for the road.
If you still find yourself running out of battery life before the end of the day, plug into a charging bagor use an external battery pack such as Morphie's JuicePack to strap on some extra power for the road.
Welcome to Amazon Town
FERNLEY, Nev.—Behind the piles of smiley-faced Amazon.com Inc. boxes arriving on doorsteps this holiday season are workers like Ray and Sarann Williams.
The retired couple are part of the swarm of seasonal employees taking up temporary residence in this small desert city—home to one of Amazon's warehouses—to help the online-retail giant fulfill its influx of holiday orders.
The Williamses migrated from their home in Hurricane, Utah, to take the two-month warehouse gig. "The money always helps" and the physical labor "always makes me feel better," Mr. Williams said as he walked his miniature schnauzer, Maya, around the Desert Rose RV park, where the couple is currently residing. The 75-year-old said this was his second stint as a seasonal Amazon worker, after spending last autumn at Amazon's Campbellsville, Ky., location.
Amazon, the world's biggest e-commerce purveyor, sees a sales spike every fourth quarter, when it makes nearly 40% of its more than $34 billion in annual revenue. To meet that surge, the Seattle-based company hires hundreds of temporary workers at each of its 34 U.S. warehouses.
[More from WSJ.com: How the iPhone Zapped Carriers]
A spokeswoman for Amazon, which has 51,000 staffers excluding seasonal workers world-wide, said it hires "thousands" of temporary workers for the holidays, but declined to disclose specific numbers. It said it quadrupled its staff at its warehouse in Phoenix to 1,200 to handle the end-of-year rush.
Many of these employees belong to the community of "workampers," a sort of modern-day migrant worker. Many of them are retirees who spend all or part of the year living in RVs and taking odd seasonal jobs around the country. While some workers really need the money, others said they take the gigs to help fund their adventures or just for fun.
Many current and former seasonal workers said Amazon pays decent wages—about $12 an hour plus overtime in Fernley, which is about 50% better than minimum wage here. But that is in exchange for long hours and tedious labor.
"It's like the best place to work and the worst place to work," said Kelly Andrus, a 50-year-old Fernley resident who served as an Amazon holiday employee seven years ago. "It's good pay, and they're safety oriented," but she said the managers were strict and the labor was physically demanding.
[More from WSJ.com: Best Photos of the Year]
Workers can be on their feet for hours fetching items from shelves, packing boxes and preparing incoming items for storage. Many said they lose five pounds or more in a few weeks. Earlier this year, Amazon was on the defensive after an Allentown, Pa., newspaper reported that more than a dozen workers collapsed inside the local warehouse there because of the summer heat. The company said employee safety was its top concern and that it had urgently installed air conditioning.
Holiday hiring surges are common in online retailing. At online electronics retailer Newegg Inc., a spokeswoman said the company boosts warehouse and customer-service headcount by about 130, or roughly 20%, during the holidays.
Amazon finds its workers via recruiting events, such as the one it held at an RV show in Quartzsite, Ariz., earlier this year. Many also come by word of mouth.
Clare Moxley, who came to Fernley from Kimberley, British Columbia, said she heard about the Amazon gig from a workamper website. The 54-year-old went into early retirement five years ago, after working as a bank information-technology manager, and said she recently took up the RV lifestyle to battle complacency.
Though she sometimes gets together with several coworkers at a local Mexican restaurant on Saturdays, Ms. Moxley said most nights she is too tired to do anything but stay in her 16-foot trailer, which has room only for a small desk and a twin-sized bed. Off days are used to catch up on sleep and to do laundry.
Still, she said she was glad to make new friends in Fernley and to prove that she could still handle tough labor.
[More from WSJ.com: On the Menu: Crowd-Pleasers]
"I definitely would do it again," Ms. Moxley said.
Amazon said it hires RV residents for the autumn in three locations, Fernley, Campbellsville and Coffeyville, Kan., as part of a program called CamperForce, which started last year.
Current and former seasonal workers said Amazon lets them choose from several RV camps where the retailer will pay the parking fee for the seasonal workers.
Each location is distinct. The Desert Rose RV Park in Fernley sits off a highway in the arid desert. Occupants of the 90 campers hang out in the communal laundry and recreation room, where they threw a small, informal holiday party Wednesday. Cherie Ve Ard and Chris Dunphy said they stayed at scenic Elk City State Park when they worked at the Coffeyville location in 2009.
The influx of Amazon's holiday help can perk up places such as Fernley, a city of 19,000 about 45 miles east of the California border, where the online retailer opened its warehouse in 1999. Restaurants and casinos get crowded. There are traffic jams.
"There's probably more people working in Fernley at this time of year than any other," said Eric Stanger, president of the local Chamber of Commerce.
Amazon's Fernley warehouse, which is about the size of 13 football fields, sits between the stores of two competitors, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Lowe's Cos. Employees say they often park in the lots of those big-box retailers when the Amazon lot fills up. The area gets congested around 6 p.m., when the shifts change.
The RV parks are perhaps Amazon's biggest beneficiaries this time of year. Debbie Skinner, the owner of Desert Rose RV Park, said about a fifth of her annual revenue—she wouldn't give underlying numbers—comes from Amazon. The monthly parking rate at Desert Rose is $375, though Ms. Skinner would not disclose Amazon's special rate.
The effects of temporary help also trickle down to local businesses and the city government. Troy Sibson, manager of Pioneer Crossing Casino, said his establishment gets noticeably busier during these months.
Mr. Sibson couldn't provide specific figures on the boost from seasonal workers. But he noted one change: "They befriend the bartenders."
Langganan:
Postingan (Atom)