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The wonderful excesses of acquisition disorders...and wet shaving

I am somewhat conflicted when it comes to the widespread public fireworks displays On one hand I enjoy the audio and visual aspect, like a little boy I like the big booms and bright lights. On the other hand the fact that the noise send my large dog into a panick that inevtiable ends up causing unwanted damage to my wood fence or my smaller dogs sent to a dark corner out of fear make me very angry. If it were kept within a predictable and reasonable time frame I could prepare but the displays seem to be so random and last weeks (or months). We live in an area where winds are always high and conditions very dry so fires are always an issue. We have very few professional displays and citizen use of fireworks is always illegal. There was a time when some surrounding communities allowed "safe and sane" stuff that was mostly ground oriented but since those were outlawed too people just go to Mexico or perhaps Nevada/Arizona (all just a 3-4 hour drive away) to aquire what seem to be professional grade stuff. The fine if caught is the same so I guess they are willing to take the risk. Unfortunately our police/fire resources are spread so thin on a daily basis there is NO effort to enforce the fireworks laws because it takes time and resources from areas of greater concern. Fortunately for my dog's sake, this year has been unusually quiet.
 
Our dogs (2x German Shepherds) were initially not phased by it, but last NYE and this past 4th of July, they were both anxious wrecks regarding all the noise. Our husky/malamute (in my profile picture), had a horrible time with it; refusing to go outdoors to relieve himself, so would utilize whichever floorspace he was currently occupying to do so. (he passed this year unfortunately after 12 great years with him) I'm not sure how voluminous the fireworks displays will be here due to economic conditions restricting a lot of people's disposable income, but I would imagine it's not going to affect the displays all that much in totality.

The only other issue I have, outside of my dogs, is others like myself who have difficulty with these types of sounds due to experiences overseas. I am typically pretty good with displays like this since I know they are going to be going on. Forewarned is forearmed, for the most part as far as I'm concerned. But other veterans don't have the capability to compartmentalize and mentally prepare themselves, and sometimes those partaking in the festivities go a little overboard and will ignore people who politely ask to refrain in the immediate vicinity of those who have these issues. I feel for them, as I still occasionally have issues with unexpected loud noises.
 
Spider said:
Wait, what? I don't think about you lathering without thinking about a spray bottle. It was like your trademark. What happened to the one you were using?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, that spray bottle was left in my CHU back over in Kabul. I've since re-acquired a spray bottle recently and will be continuing the practice of measuring out the sprays to gauge water tolerance. This morning I just added way too much of the bloom water and almost had to go back to the puck to gather more soap.
 
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.

Alas, it's 2026, we've all survived another year of contemporary life. First of all, I would like to wish all the Cadre members reading this a very Happy New Year. I can say that 2025, for me, was incredibly challenging from both a personal and professional point of view. I'm sure I'm not the only one who experienced this, so to everyone who made it out the other side, I salute you!

And, with that in mind, is there any better way to start the year off than with a great shave? I say NOT, dear Sirs! (or Madames as applicable, @NurseDave)

laughing.gif

This morning started off late for the household, after the New Years Eve revelries here in the San Antonio 'burbs lasted well past 1am. So, as I was getting going in the moring, 2 hours later than normal, SWMBO rushes out of the bedroom and has me purchase last minute tickets to a movie for her and the elder sub-adult to go see the new Anaconda movie with Jack Black. I knew this was the death knell of my day, as it was going to 'force' me to take the younger sub-adult to see Five Night's At Freddy's 2 later today. I've been procrastinating for the past week on taking her. Not because I don't want to spend time with her, but because I'm not too enthusiastic about seeing the movie. But here we are. And with that in mind, I had to get cleaned up.

I allowed the younger one to pick out the software set-up for the day, giving her a choice between Noble Otter's King, B&M's Le Grand Chypre and Fougere Angelique, and Wholly Kaw's Chaos. Surprisingly, she chose Noble Otter. Fougere Angelique was tossed immediately with the stink face, LGC smelled too much like Root Beer to her nose, and she wasn't too keen on Chaos. It's been a while since I broke out the straight razor, since the majority of my shaves have been prior to work with a condensed timeline. So out came the trusty C.V. Heljestrand Mk*31. I randomly chose the Shavemac 26mm fan to accompany. Just before hopping in the shower, I picked the album of the shave as well. Today, we went with Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

By the time the shower was finished, Funeral for a friend had just finished and the upbeat tones and guitar riffs of Love Lies Bleeding were picking up. After a quick application of some Niacinamide and Hyaluronic Acid to the face, I went about stropping (50 firehose, 100 leather), loading soap into the brush and building my lather. The wonderful scent wafting up from the lather bowl was a nice addition to the now playing Candle In the Wind. By the time the hot towel was complete and the face was lathered up and ready for the first pass, Bennie and the Jet's was blasting out, providing an upbeat rhythm to the 1st pass of the shave.

By the time the 3rd pass rolled around, Bennie and the Jet's was finished and I was into the more somber and slow album namesake, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, which finished off as my 4th pass came to a close. A quick clean up on the cheek left me feeling a very comfortable BBS, with very little feedback from the alum. By the time I was ready for the aftershave, I had gone from bouncing around to "This Song Has No Title", "Grey Seal" and "Jamaica Jerk Off", and was finishing up with the more dulcet and bluesy "I've Seen That Movie Too". All in all, a very nice experience complete with a surprise visit from the fur babies in the middle of my 2nd pass.

Now, in regards to last night, I hope everyone enjoyed the festivities. Here in San Antonio, it's become part of the culture for the 'burbs to throw the most widespread display of fireworks I've ever seen, anywhere. Here is a small window to it from my back porch. Note, this is looking over maybe 3-4 neighborhoods out of hundreds that experience this same thing, and it's a 360 degree experience. This time, sans colorful language last year's contained.


Have a great 2026 everyone!

For auld lang syne, my dear... we'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet, for auld lang syne!
 
I love that Elton album. I’m going to have to break it out and give it a listen soon. Happy New Year! 👍
 
Well this was slightly unexpected. Another shave so early into the year, having only shaved 3 days ago. Our primary television (an Amazon special smart tv picked up ~3 years ago) started to go on the fritz, causing my wife and eldest child no end of anguish. So SWMBO decided this morning was the perfect opportunity to run to BestBuy and take advantage of some of their New Year's deals and purchase a new television. This of course presented me the perfect chance to get a nice quick shave in. I was especially motivated due to a couple of inbound mail-calls bringing in some much desired software.

Since I was out of the loop for so long, I've been scouring the TSC and some of the FB and shaving subreddits looking for what people considered to be the best new soap bases out on the market now. Universally it has come back that Wholly Kaw's Siero, Declaration's Milksteak, Barrister & Mann's Omnibus, and A&E's Kaizen 2e and Ultima formulations were the best new soap bases on the market today. Now, I'm not including Ethos or CBL, each for differing reasons. I do plan on making purchases from both of these soap makers; but at this time Ethos is a tad higher in price than I can stomach right now. In regards to CBL, he makes a truly elite soap, and I will be making a purchase here soon, but there were other scents I wanted to try or replenish prior. With Declaration shuttering soon, I didn't really look to make a purchase of one of theirs. One, I've only had a couple of their scents that I truly enjoyed and (2) I have already tried their Milksteak formulation. (it is a wonderful soap base)

So, the first of the mail-calls came in from Arkansas. A nice order from Stirling, primarily for the eldest daughter, with a little bit for me and SWMBO and the younger child. Elder child got a perfume along with a matching body butter. SWMBO and the younger child received some of their lip balm. (SWMBO loves their lip-balm) As for me, I got a nice fresh tub of my personal favorite holiday soap, Christmas Eve. Now, I haven't smelled Tis the Season from Noble Otter, so I can't make a comparison between the two. But what I will say is that when I smell this soap, it just smells like Christmas to me. It has the Christmas tree pine scent, but along with that it evokes memories of my mother using a clove stuffed orange, along with cranberries mulling over the wood stove in some potpourri. It's very close to what my house smelled like during the Christmas season. I would imagine Noble Otter's is fairly close.

I wasn't expecting my second order until Tuesday, but was pleasantly surprised when my wife threw the package from Maggards on my lap yesterday afternoon. Now, for this order, I already own two of the scents. Of course, what I have is buried in the garage and won't be coming out any time soon. I currently have Wholly Kaw's King of Oud aftershave splash out and available, however, without the soap. So, I had to remedy this. So enter the King of Oud. I also was missing one of my top 5 soap scents in A&E's SoCal Hipster. So, it was ordered in the Kaizen 2e base. However this will not be used until March/April, for reasons I'll outline in a bit. Lastly, A&E's Lavender Noir in their Ultima base just sounded too good. I love a good lavender scent, and with this being in their Ultima base, I had to give it a shot.

So, it was a pretty easy choice for software today when it was revealed I would have time to squeeze in a shave. I set out the Lavender Noir and began with the Newcastle United v. Crystal Palace (English Premier League; Newcastle won 2-0) match playing live. The soap loaded fairly easy (I did bloom it, though it was soft enough that it wasn't really necessary), and after the tsp or so of bloom water, took about 6-8 sprays from the spray bottle to develop a silky, shiny lather that applied evenly and very smoothly. Hardware was going to be the Razorock GameChanger .85mm with a 2nd use PermaSharp blade.

From a scent perspective, this soap was everything I wanted in a primarily lavender soap scent. There was some fleeting bright notes up top, quickly followed by some earthy tones which were soon drowned out by the darker, heavier base notes. I'm purposefully being vague about the character of each of these nuances. Why? Because they were truly background noise to the main event, which is the lavender. It's not your typical, Original MdC, bright vibrant lavender. No. This lives up to it's name. It's the serious older sibling who isn't going to take guff from their younger counterparts. The accompanying notes to the lavender give it depth and gravity; even the top notes oddly enough don't brighten it, but give it some highlights and deceptive sweetness before the heart and base notes take over. This is a scent that lives in the middle spaces. It's not strictly a cold weather scent, nor hot. It's obvious that it can live in both worlds without becoming that obnoxious Susan or Harry in the elevator who decided that half a bottle of Honeysuckle extrait was enough for the day.

I very much enjoyed this, if you can't tell. The soap base lived up to its reputation. Excellent slickness, cushion, nice wide water band (I obviously could have pushed it a bit more), and the post shave was very nice. Four passes was the call of the day, without any clean-up. I apparently need to work on my DE technique around my neck. I ended up with a pretty decent amount of feedback from the alum. Pretty sure that was all on me, however, and not the equipment or software. Some witch hazel and the matching aftershave rounded out the shave nicely.

There were some intermissions throughout the shave as the wife was contemplating getting (and ended up purchasing) a television which was entirely too big for the space we had. But we made it work by rearranging the entire living room and front foyer (along with the requisite cleaning). One of the girl children made the comment that my wife comes up with projects every Sunday. I told them that was her disability. SWMBO didn't disagree; and then pointed out that she wanted to modify the re-arrangement we had done today, next Sunday. *facepalm*

So regarding not using the SoCal Hipster until March/April. I've decided that in order to preserve what shelf space I have, and not expand outward, I'm going to have a batch of soaps that I will keep stored in my closet which are not seasonally appropriate. So those overly bright, sweet, citrus based scents (think your colonia's, Tangerine Creeper, etc...), will be tucked away. Likewise, come April, those dark cooler weather based scents (King of Oud, Christmas Eve, A&E's Signature) will get put away until the heat dies down in October. I will have some scents that remain out year round, however. B&M's Le Grand Chypre, A&E's Lavender Noir, WK's Chaos, NO's King...those all straddle that line between seasons. That way I'll always have a full shelf in front of me during personal hygiene time, and it will always have seasonally appropriate soaps.

BTW, for those that are curious, I looked up the scent notes of A&E's Lavender Noir:

Top: Bergamot, Mandarin, Pink Pepper
Heart: Lavender (two types: Lavender Absolute and Lavender Grosso), Geranium, Sambac Jasmine
Base: Oud (Agarwood), Patchouli, Amber, Vanilla, Coffee, Benzoin (Siam Benzoin)

I hope everyone's new year is off to a good start! Be safe out there.

ariana-evans-socal-hipster-xl.jpgchristmas-eve-shave-soap-stirling.webpLavender Noir.webptrying-a-new-soap-and-had-a-question-or-two-about-it-wholly-v0-a7eiv1qgt7he1.webp
 
One thing I'm noticing now that I'm looking at the new label (new to me at least) is that the "king" on the label has a full beard. On a shaving soap label. Interesting...the fact that he's a ginger is also not lost on me.
 
Spider said:
That fireworks display was impressive!
Click to expand...
Yeah, it is something that makes living here in San Antonio definitely unique. My wife hates the fireworks. I personally love it and how OTT it is relative to everywhere else in the country. Out here on the far west side of SA, it's a 360 degree experience if you have a vantage point. This just shows ~3 neighborhoods out of hundreds on the west side. I shudder to think how much $$ is spent on the fireworks every season (4th of July and NYE).
 
I've been meaning to shave for the past 3 days and finally got the chance to today. It was probably a good thing it was saved for this morning as well since the day got off to a pretty rough start. At least I had a nice 30 minutes to Zen out while I took off the solid 5-6 days of growth.

Software today was Stirling's Christmas Eve. It's extraordinary how similar this scent is to what I remember my house smelling like growing up. If I close my eyes, I can see the fruit basket with pomanders and potpourri pot simmering with a seasonal blend, both the center piece to our dining room table. It also brings in vivid memories of going out into the woods to find the Christmas Tree with my Dad, cutting it down, and the pure, spruce smell permeating every crevice of the house. Especially with the wood burning stove going in the living room.

As good as it was to capture a small moment of Zen doing some personal hygiene, it was in reality a quick, serviceable shave. DFS+ to BBS- in result. Sterling was its ol' reliable self, no surprises. It just provides great lather, just below the elite level soaps. The Brass General paired well with the Feather A/C Professional (6th shave); mild in feel, nice and efficient in ability. A little bit of clean-up after the four passes, and that was all she wrote. No music today, as I was attempting to keep a low profile in the house and blasting whichever album struck my fancy likely wouldn't have triggered smiles for the other occupants.

I'm looking forward to the Zoom call today with the rest of the Cadre members who are signed up. Those are always a good time. After the acrimony of this morning, I've stayed sequestered in the office, working on an overdue project for work that I got way too ambitious in the way I was attempting to execute. I should have remembered the KISS mantra: Keep It Simple, Stupid. So, I'm stuck addressing each one of my previous failures, and am getting there slowly but surely.

Thanks for reading; and for those of you who are joining in on the call this afternoon, I look forward to seeing y'all. For those of you who have the ability to but are hesitant, don't be. It's about the most un-judgmental group of individuals you could ever hope to socialize with. When the next one rolls around, sign right up and enjoy the company.

Cheers, and stay safe everyone!
 
It's been a while....

A Friday morning shave with one of my favorite scents, Wholly Kaw's King of Oud...a good start to the day. I couldn't really ask for a better set of software to start the day. Unfortunately, I didn't have the luxury of time to really enjoy it as much as I would have liked, but c'est la vie. I hastily grabbed the necessary implements to conduct the trimming of the facial growth, including trimming my ever growing goatee with the clippers back to a 3 guard. The Shavemac 26mm fan was sitting up front, so it was grabbed, and the trusty Bronze General with a 7 shave old Feather A/C Pro was the go-to razor du jour.

The shave was a bit of a blur, but I definitely remember enjoying being enveloped by the pleasing aroma of the soap. If you haven't tried King of Oud and enjoy slightly sweet, dark and resinous woody scents, this might be worth the look. It has enough bright character at the open to not become a muddy mess, but the tonka intertwines beautifully with the resinous Agarwood to create a warm, rich smelling pillow of scent. Each time I use the soap or the matching aftershave, it reminds me of why I enjoy this scent so much. After a 4 pass shave, the alum gave absolutely no feedback. Not even a tingle, and I was a solid BBS- with no clean up passes. A testament to the efficacy of the razor/blade combo. The matching splash is a great way to end this shave. It's much more potent than normal splashes, mainly because of the pure strength of scent in the EO/FOs used. That being said, it's just the right strength for the office.

I've added a new step to my post shave. Following the alum and cold water splash to rinse off said alum, I apply some niacinamide and Hyaluronic Acid (Neutrogena-type) over my entire face and let it sit while I clean up. Once that is soaked in, then it's an application of witch hazel, then the aftershave balm/splash. Why the new addition? I've developed some liver spots on my face, and this is supposed to assist with reducing their darkness so they aren't so noticeable via the niacinamide. The Hyaluronic Acid is skin food to help with the rehydration of the skin. Maybe it's a bit vain...I don't know. But when it's something I notice daily and there's something I can do to make it not so noticeable, why not?

It's been a busy few weeks for me here, so I haven't been on the forum much at all due to work. Hopefully it will calm down a bit here for a short while, then it's going to be all hands on deck as we're about to start a pilot. All good...that's what we're working towards.

Hope everyone is doing well, and have a great weekend. If you're in the area affected by the storm, stay safe, stay warm!
 
Dagwoodz said:
Well this was slightly unexpected. Another shave so early into the year, having only shaved 3 days ago. Our primary television (an Amazon special smart tv picked up ~3 years ago) started to go on the fritz, causing my wife and eldest child no end of anguish. So SWMBO decided this morning was the perfect opportunity to run to BestBuy and take advantage of some of their New Year's deals and purchase a new television. This of course presented me the perfect chance to get a nice quick shave in. I was especially motivated due to a couple of inbound mail-calls bringing in some much desired software.

Since I was out of the loop for so long, I've been scouring the TSC and some of the FB and shaving subreddits looking for what people considered to be the best new soap bases out on the market now. Universally it has come back that Wholly Kaw's Siero, Declaration's Milksteak, Barrister & Mann's Omnibus, and A&E's Kaizen 2e and Ultima formulations were the best new soap bases on the market today. Now, I'm not including Ethos or CBL, each for differing reasons. I do plan on making purchases from both of these soap makers; but at this time Ethos is a tad higher in price than I can stomach right now. In regards to CBL, he makes a truly elite soap, and I will be making a purchase here soon, but there were other scents I wanted to try or replenish prior. With Declaration shuttering soon, I didn't really look to make a purchase of one of theirs. One, I've only had a couple of their scents that I truly enjoyed and (2) I have already tried their Milksteak formulation. (it is a wonderful soap base)

So, the first of the mail-calls came in from Arkansas. A nice order from Stirling, primarily for the eldest daughter, with a little bit for me and SWMBO and the younger child. Elder child got a perfume along with a matching body butter. SWMBO and the younger child received some of their lip balm. (SWMBO loves their lip-balm) As for me, I got a nice fresh tub of my personal favorite holiday soap, Christmas Eve. Now, I haven't smelled Tis the Season from Noble Otter, so I can't make a comparison between the two. But what I will say is that when I smell this soap, it just smells like Christmas to me. It has the Christmas tree pine scent, but along with that it evokes memories of my mother using a clove stuffed orange, along with cranberries mulling over the wood stove in some potpourri. It's very close to what my house smelled like during the Christmas season. I would imagine Noble Otter's is fairly close.

I wasn't expecting my second order until Tuesday, but was pleasantly surprised when my wife threw the package from Maggards on my lap yesterday afternoon. Now, for this order, I already own two of the scents. Of course, what I have is buried in the garage and won't be coming out any time soon. I currently have Wholly Kaw's King of Oud aftershave splash out and available, however, without the soap. So, I had to remedy this. So enter the King of Oud. I also was missing one of my top 5 soap scents in A&E's SoCal Hipster. So, it was ordered in the Kaizen 2e base. However this will not be used until March/April, for reasons I'll outline in a bit. Lastly, A&E's Lavender Noir in their Ultima base just sounded too good. I love a good lavender scent, and with this being in their Ultima base, I had to give it a shot.

So, it was a pretty easy choice for software today when it was revealed I would have time to squeeze in a shave. I set out the Lavender Noir and began with the Newcastle United v. Crystal Palace (English Premier League; Newcastle won 2-0) match playing live. The soap loaded fairly easy (I did bloom it, though it was soft enough that it wasn't really necessary), and after the tsp or so of bloom water, took about 6-8 sprays from the spray bottle to develop a silky, shiny lather that applied evenly and very smoothly. Hardware was going to be the Razorock GameChanger .85mm with a 2nd use PermaSharp blade.

From a scent perspective, this soap was everything I wanted in a primarily lavender soap scent. There was some fleeting bright notes up top, quickly followed by some earthy tones which were soon drowned out by the darker, heavier base notes. I'm purposefully being vague about the character of each of these nuances. Why? Because they were truly background noise to the main event, which is the lavender. It's not your typical, Original MdC, bright vibrant lavender. No. This lives up to it's name. It's the serious older sibling who isn't going to take guff from their younger counterparts. The accompanying notes to the lavender give it depth and gravity; even the top notes oddly enough don't brighten it, but give it some highlights and deceptive sweetness before the heart and base notes take over. This is a scent that lives in the middle spaces. It's not strictly a cold weather scent, nor hot. It's obvious that it can live in both worlds without becoming that obnoxious Susan or Harry in the elevator who decided that half a bottle of Honeysuckle extrait was enough for the day.

I very much enjoyed this, if you can't tell. The soap base lived up to its reputation. Excellent slickness, cushion, nice wide water band (I obviously could have pushed it a bit more), and the post shave was very nice. Four passes was the call of the day, without any clean-up. I apparently need to work on my DE technique around my neck. I ended up with a pretty decent amount of feedback from the alum. Pretty sure that was all on me, however, and not the equipment or software. Some witch hazel and the matching aftershave rounded out the shave nicely.

There were some intermissions throughout the shave as the wife was contemplating getting (and ended up purchasing) a television which was entirely too big for the space we had. But we made it work by rearranging the entire living room and front foyer (along with the requisite cleaning). One of the girl children made the comment that my wife comes up with projects every Sunday. I told them that was her disability. SWMBO didn't disagree; and then pointed out that she wanted to modify the re-arrangement we had done today, next Sunday. *facepalm*

So regarding not using the SoCal Hipster until March/April. I've decided that in order to preserve what shelf space I have, and not expand outward, I'm going to have a batch of soaps that I will keep stored in my closet which are not seasonally appropriate. So those overly bright, sweet, citrus based scents (think your colonia's, Tangerine Creeper, etc...), will be tucked away. Likewise, come April, those dark cooler weather based scents (King of Oud, Christmas Eve, A&E's Signature) will get put away until the heat dies down in October. I will have some scents that remain out year round, however. B&M's Le Grand Chypre, A&E's Lavender Noir, WK's Chaos, NO's King...those all straddle that line between seasons. That way I'll always have a full shelf in front of me during personal hygiene time, and it will always have seasonally appropriate soaps.

BTW, for those that are curious, I looked up the scent notes of A&E's Lavender Noir:

Top: Bergamot, Mandarin, Pink Pepper
Heart: Lavender (two types: Lavender Absolute and Lavender Grosso), Geranium, Sambac Jasmine
Base: Oud (Agarwood), Patchouli, Amber, Vanilla, Coffee, Benzoin (Siam Benzoin)

I hope everyone's new year is off to a good start! Be safe out there.

View attachment 153585View attachment 153586View attachment 153587View attachment 153588
Click to expand...
Man, I just adore SoCal Hipster's scent! The packaging is really not my vibe...but the performance and smell are top notch to me!
 
Well, I'll start off by apologizing for being MIA for the past month or so. Things at work have been hectic, as we're starting our pilot at HEB here shortly. As a result, a lot of my spare time has been spent developing insight dashboards to track progress. I did get a few shaves in, using the same set up every time, however.

Being as busy as I have been, shaving has been relegated to the weekends. For software, I chose something that was enjoyable, easy, and relaxing; Ariana & Evans Lavender Noir in their Ultima base. This is quickly becoming one of my go-to scents. It's got a very strong lavender soul. Like a person, that soul is very much multi-faceted. The lavender isn't just the bright, uplifting lavender of say a Martin de Candre, or the earthy complexity of a lavender infused fougere. This is a bright lavender complemented by the dark lavender. There are other notes that come into play complementing both the dark and the light, but it is unmistakably a lavender scent. It's not muddy and confused, but a great balance of light and heavier lavender notes. And I love it.

The two shaves were uneventful and relaxing. As is the case periodically, one was rather rushed as it did take place on a Monday morning. But, I went with my ol' reliable Brass General with the same Feather A/C Pro blade, now on shave 10 or 11. Each time, I was left at least BBS-, and walked out of the bathroom in a wonderful lavender cloud.

I hope everyone is doing well. Hopefully I'll be able to join in some of the discussions here shortly after this pilot starts on the 9th. Until then, I'm going to be busy running around and making sure that we have everything we need in place to track the progress of the service we are providing to the customer, HEB.

BTW, if none of you have ever been to an HEB, I would recommend it if you are ever in the east Texas region. It's a great store and company. I'm not saying that because I'm working in their corporate HQ space, and honestly, the stores themselves while nice, aren't ground breakingly special. However, they are one of the largest privately owned corporations in the country, (ranked #5 I believe), owned by the Butt family. The Butt family has actually given away ~10-15% of the company back to the employees in the form of profit sharing. They give 5% of their pre-tax revenue to charity every year. And they run their own disaster relief/ Emergency response team. When disasters strike Texas or the immediate region just outside (i.e. Hurricane Katrina), HEB mobilizes convoys of vehicles to provide meals, water, shelter, phone charging stations, pharmacies, medical care, and other miscellaneous assistance such as clothing and other supplies. They have their own meteorological team which tracks severe weather events and provides insights and recommendations to customers. All of this from a company operating in the grocery retail space where it's routine to only have a 1.5-4% total profit margin. And they only operate in one state, Texas.

Someone who doesn't live in Texas might think that this is blind loyalty to a brand because it's owned and operated out of Texas. But it goes beyond that. They're part of the culture, having operated here since 1902. They care about making money, but more importantly they actually care about the people they're making money from. I'm sure the other Texans that live in areas populated by HEB stores will chime in with positivity if asked their opinion.

Again, hope everyone is well, be safe, and I'll see y'all on here more often soon!
 
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I don't think I have seen an HEB store anywhere near me or anywhere I have been. I did recently find a store i LOVE very much while exploring the area near where I will be building my new house. It's called C.A.L. Ranch ...it's like an outdoorsman/ranchers costco, they have everything. Granted they aren't a grocery store so it's not the same as finding an HEB, but they do have some nice beef jerky as a pretty solid price.
 
Yeah, you would need to be east of the Abilene/San Angelo line to find an HEB. West of that they really don't have much of a presence. But that's mainly down to supply chain issues. The way they operate makes it difficult to get fresh product to stores if they are far away from the distribution/production facility. If you ever make it out to any of the big 5 Texas cities (Austin, Dallas, Ft. Worth, Houston, San Antonio), it's funny to say about a grocery store, but it's worth checking out. Along with Buc-ee's, who also have very good jerky.
 
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