Best of Dodge

This is the third in an ongoing series of posts I’m doing as we approach the Christmas holiday.  I am highlighting businesses in the Fort Dodge area that I have visited and that I feel deserve wider recognition for outstanding service and merchandizing.  Parts one and two are already posted, but to be sure, don’t miss out of this merchant either, if you’re looking for good service and aren’t mad at your money!  Today’s episode highlights another Crossroads Mall store, The Other Store, specializing in Iowa team fan merchandize.  The manager (Tiffinie) made sure to remind me that they carry nearly every high school mascot for the entire state of Iowa!  Drive carefully from wherever you are located in Iowa, but get down to the Crossroads Mall as soon as you can and check out the vast assortment of fan merchadise as well as all manner of trinkets and what’s its.  Something for everyone!

The Other Store

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Best of Dodge

Today’s Heaping Helping of Fort Dodge Retailers – Double Dose of Delight!

An ongoing series. Part one here.

Today’s focus is on Bath and Body Works followed by a chowing down on a delicious lunch at the JA-MAR Restaurant located in the mall parking lot across the street from Ridgewood Lanes Bowling Center.

Continuing to explore the best of the Crossroads Mall

There are more than than a few businesses in and around the area of the Crossroads Mall that are running the kind of tight ship any business would be keen to emulate.  No offense to any of the other fine cities in Iowa, but these are the businesses in the local area that folks from as far away as Mason City ought to consider visiting this Christmas season.  I have personally visited these businesses and can attest that they offer the highest degree of service and satisfaction.  If any of you take issue with any of my selections or wish to add other personal favorites, please feel free to share in the comments section of this or any subsequent post.  Today’s Best of Dodge after the jump.

Best of Dodge

Today’s Top Retailer – Homespun Collection

The Past

It’s been almost forty years since I graduated FDSH (Class of ’76).  In between then and now, I have had an exciting and prosperous life.  The last five years I’ve been in Germany running a business teaching English to eager Germans with my loving and lovely wife Rita.

Sadly, Rita passed away in September of this year after a losing bout with cancer and I found myself a widower in a foreign land.  To be honest, I’m more than a little homesick and a lot heartbroken, so I’ve returned to the land of my youth (and family) to reclaim my spot in the land of milk and honey.  I stepped away from our business and returned to the US with little more than a few suitcases and my faithful dog Bandit to begin life anew once again.

I’m optimistic that my enthusiasm for life, my education, and my broad life experiences will see me thru to another successful chapter in my life.  Many of my former high school classmates have already departed this Earthly plane just as my lovely wife recently did so I’m also keenly aware that it’s likely to be my final chapter.  As tragic a consequence as it is to lose my best friend and business partner of twenty five years, I cannot roll over and give into the grief that would consume me if I stopped moving forward and mired myself in the pain of her loss.  I would not honor her wishes or my future by doing so.

The Present

Fort Dodge seems to be in a state of flux, having lost a huge number of jobs on the closure of the packing industry back in the 80’s. As I view my old stomping grounds with aging, yet fresh eyes, it seems to me that it’s long past time for Fort Dodge to regain the economic viability I remember from my youth. As long as I am part of this community,  I shall attempt to promote those businesses that mirror the high standards of customer service that I have always brought to my clients/customers over the decades.  Even as Sears goes the way of the dinosaurs, I am proud to see that there are still quite a few remaining successful businesses here that hold to those standards.  Each day over the course of the next several days I shall highlight local businesses in my BEST OF DODGE series that showed me the same level of commitment to customer service and merchandising that we brought to our business.  A rising tide raises all ships and as long as I’m anchored here I will do my best to see the tide rise one again.  Today’s endorsement after the jump.

Christmas Tech

The recent snow and creeping intrusion of holiday ornamentation heralds the annual War on Christmas, so I thought I’d toss in my two cents on where folks interested in stockpiling personal electronics for the upcoming apocalypse ought to be heading.  This all assumes you have at least a bit of money left from all the necessary weapons upgrades.

Under the Tree

First off, if you don’t yet own a tablet device, the Apple iPad or iPad mini is the big winner in this year’s Christmas kerfuffle.  I predict the iPad Mini will be the hottest gift of the season.  I have a call in to Santa for an iPad Mini.  It will be an upgrade from my iPad Micro (Iphone 4)  Avoid the Microsoft Surface at any price.  The Microsoft device is so underdeveloped there aren’t even apps for Facebook and Twitter, and the O/S is so fumbled I have actually seen screen shots of their tablet O/S giving those insane error messages Windows is famous for.

The new Apple iMac is the perfect desktop machine.  The Apple TV is an inexpensive gift for a tech oriented family and might qualify as a stocking stuffer in some realms.  Any iPhone is a treat, but the newest model is always the most cherished.  That said, my iPhone4 is fantastic, so even if you can’t swing for the latest greatest iPhone5, there are cheaper options that don’t involve tremendous sacrifice in features or usability.

A Christmas Story (Ghosts of Christmas Past)

And to the many children of the cheapskate parents, I give my condolences in advance for the $99 Android monstrosity of a tablet your folks grabbed at the check-out line in Walmart the day before Xmas. Don’t swear about it in front of your folks or you might end up like Ralphie above. Lots of us didn’t get what we wanted because some knock-off product conned our parents into buying it instead of the real deal.  I used to be THAT kid.  When the Red Ryder BB gun was “the shizzle”, you could count on my parents getting me the cheap plastic version that shot soft rubber pellets.  One of the best early gifts I remember as a little kid was getting a battery operated tow truck (with motorized lift and flashing red light!!)  It was called the Big Bruiser.  I saw one for sale on Ebay the other day.  New in the box.  Priced to sell at $1175!  I was never one of those kids who treated his toys with the dignity of display quality handling.  I could have sold my old Tonka truck for a small fortune, but it got pretty well ground down using it as a wagon to race down the sidewalks (and streets) in it’s day.  Kids of my generation used the toys they got and then left ’em out in the rain.  I guess that is why the small amount that remain command such high prices on Ebay.

Stocking Stuffers

Spotify Pro account.  About ten bucks a month.

Apple gift cards.  Available in various amounts starting at about $10.

Bluetooth headphones.  From about $80 to $400.  I own a pair similar to this that work well for me.

Bluetooth Speakers. From about $50 to $350, with sound quality generally increasing with price.  Brands of note.  Jawbone Jambox  and Logitech.