floor9.com

January’s Central PA Tweetup is scheduled, as always, for the third Wednesday of the month.  That means we’ll be getting together on 1/20/10 around 7pm to hang out, drink beer, and — if you’ve never been to one before — meet your fellow area Tweeps face-to-face.
We’ve been doing these things for a while now.  What’s [...]

Apologies for the lack of updates this weekend.  I’ve had my hands full with personal matters.  Among other problems, my house almost burned down Thursday afternoon:

I’ve spent the better part of the past two weeks searching for a replacement bank.  I went into branches, called customer service numbers, asked the same questions of different employees, and asked friends & coworkers for advice.  I’m pretty sure I compared all the locals (Mid Penn, Members 1st, Centric, etc), regionals (PNC, Citizens), and [...]

Note:  This is part of a series of posts detailing the 2009 Pennsylvania budget impasse.  To see all posts in this series, click here.
An anonymous source just forwarded me a very interesting email concerning Pennsylvania’s threat to require its employees to work with delayed pay.  While it’s already been fairly well established that federal labor [...]

UPDATE 3: If you’re having trouble with Metro Bank, I’ve added another post detailing how to file a formal complaint and how to make sure your complaint is effective.
UPDATE 4: The Consumerist has linked to my story.  Thanks, guys!  Since Metro Bank isn’t paying attention to individual consumers, maybe some nationwide bad publicity will help [...]

In case you’ve had your head under a rock for the past two months, Pennsylvania is about to violate federal labor law by demanding that its employees come to work without pay.  Governor Ed Rendell has stated that employees are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act, but the United States Supreme Court has a [...]

With an impending budget impasse, AFSCME — the union to which most Pennsylvania civil service employees pay dues, regardless of whether they’re a member or not — has come forward in full support of its members with guns a-blazin’.  Earlier this week, AFSCME finally updated their website to reference the impending stop-pay scenario with helpful [...]