Tank's tour started off with a bang in Lexington this week on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  While not the volume we've done in the past on weekends, a good outing.  Oddly, our funnel cake sales were down but lemonade went thru the roof.  Since he's squeezing to order, I think his hands got worn out. I packed him up Wednesday night and moved the operation to Altavista on Thursday morning for a four day booking there.  After setting him up, I headed for Richmond and the auction. Thursday was a bit slow for Tank, but then, on Friday morning, he was informed by management that there had been a change in Walmart's community envolvement program and we had to shut down. I have a bit of a problem with that.  Not that they are changing their policy.  That is certainly their right.  But the way it was handled just wasn't fair and goes into that same area of poor handling of contract vendors by promotors/event organizers.  The Altavista Walmart folks didn't consider that I had a crew (Tank) scheduled to work for the four days.  Nor did they consider that I had gone to the expense of stocking our operation and traveling to set up. The right way to handle it whould have been to tell us of the change, let us complete the booking and then, in the future, comply with the new policy on any future bookings. So, we had a down weekend, something I hate during the prime summer months.  Tank loses three days of income, I loose three days of sales.  In the long run, it won't hurt.  There are hundreds of companies out there that support fund raisers for any number of charities.  It will just take a little more creative marketing on my part to develop new locations.  And I'm not at all sure if this is a Walmart policy or just an Altavista one.  We'd just finished three days at another Walmart, and have three days booked in Staunton starting tomorrow.  At least I'll be in Staunton to fight for the three days in case  we're told the same thing. On the good side of the ledger, Peggy and I had a great day at the auction on Friday, eventhough I had to haul my fat butt to Altavista to pick up my equipment Friday night. One bit of news:  On August 10, I'll be heading to Summerville, Alabama to pick up the new Big Red.  I'll spend a good bit of Monday working with the folks there and head back to Virginia with the new trailer in tow.  I'll probably use it at a couple of smaller events to work out all of the bugs and I'm hoping to unveil it officially at the Chesterfield County Fair August 22-30. Last week, I erroniously sent out an email to everyone stating that the new system  wasn't working properly.  In reality, the notification is sent out on a timed basis.  I didn't know that.  So, you were notified twice.  Once by me and then you should have received the post via the new system.  Sorry about the duplication.  I was just a bit too eager.  I also apologize to my computer guru (Jason) for thinking something he'd done hadn't worked right.  I should have known better.