Christmas Cheer

It is always a good time to reflect on the uncountable ways each of us is incredibly fortunate. And it is also important to realize that not everyone is so lucky.

This holiday season, LTA will be working to help out some local families that are going through tougher times. If you have any strong interest in being a part of this, let Sabrina, Shelby or me know. 

This is not a mandatory volunteer situation at all. We just have a list of people who we will be buying gifts for. If you like buying things for other people, and having someone else pick up the tab, then check in with one of us some time before Thanksgiving.

I am guilty also...

I just wanted to drop a fast note to say that the 3rd quarter IRA infusions have gone out. They should hit your account this week. The money that went in was based off of normal hourly wages from July to August, as well as the midyear profit sharing that LTA started this year.

And speaking of profits and the sharing of, the transition to the new odds has been a large worry of mine for quite awhile. We've been doing something the same way for over 10 years. It may take a little while to retrain the muscle memory of paying 10:1 for a full house. It could be an expensive transition for us.

But things are mostly better than I feared. Interestingly enough, the first day for many dealers went better than the second. On the first day everyone seemed to wear a nagging sheen of anxiety that focused them. People were taking their time and double checking payouts to make sure everything was right.

Having made it through the first day though, some people assumed they already had it down flawlessly, forever, and snapped back to autopilot.

I only bring this up because I was one of those people who assumed everything was instantly perfect after the first day and stopped worrying. Then the texts of mistakes started coming in and I realized we still had work to do.

We are trying to get a better handle on what areas are possible profit vulnerabilities. Are people still paying with the old odds? Are the new bonus bets not being collected when they lose?

So if you see something, say something. Send a text when you catch a mistake so that we can better understand which mistakes people are making and plug those holes.

Our end of the year numbers thank you in advance!

I Would Like to Thank the Jumpers...

We have GIF!

As you can see from the image above, we have our very first LTA GIF.

We now have both a website and a GIF. Armed with such impressive early 2000s technology I can only imagine the heights this company can climb.

I am putting up a few of the shots from our highly successful Rapids outing. But if anyone wants to see the entire gallery let me know in the comments and I will send you a link to the site where you can download all the shots Lawza took and/or order prints.

It looked like everyone had a ball and I would like to take a moment to thank the noble souls who stayed behind to mind the store while everyone else was frolicking in the wave pool. Your sacrifice is noted and appreciated.

Likewise I want to thank everyone who contributed to our exciting GIF, with a special shout out to the jumpers. And I don’t mean just the enthusiastic front rowers, like Misty and Lauren, or just the back rowers, like Becky or Sam, who got air even if you couldn't really tell without checking out their feet.

Thank you also to everyone who didn't actually jump but nonetheless made the effort to try to make it look like you were jumping. You may not have gotten giant air, but you at least raised an arm as though you had just landed from a particularly impressive leap. If we hadn’t used exciting GIF technology to give the shot motion your clever subterfuge definitely would have worked.

And I will go on the record as saying that the excitement of this LTA photo is in no way marred by anyone who didn't see fit to at least pretend jump. And I would never want to single out such people by naming them or even saying that their names might rhyme with “at” or “icky”.

I’m just very happy that everyone got to spend a few hours together off campus in sunny, chlorine drenched fellowship.

Good times!

PS. If anyone has any photos or videos they want to share (with or without jumpers) you could post them in the comments below.