The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • B7

Orlando Sentinel TUESDAY, B7 Business Dear Debra: Was there a chain saw attached to the arm? This sounds like a grade-B horror flick! I blame you for hitting the roof. Refreshingly, Safeguard spokeswoman Jill Kesses offered no excuses and did not try to shift the blame to Freddy Krueger. The delay in getting you a check for the repair our fault an oversight on the part of our Kesses said. Safeguard is sending you a check for $1,945 and throwing in two free months of monitoring a happy ending to your little horror movie. Dear Greg: I paid Orlandoscape $4,600 to do quite a bit of work resodding my lawn, adding some landscaping to the back and front yards, and also had them put in a lawn sprinkler system.

A few days later Ibegan having trouble with my toilets not flushing. Orlandoscape told me to call a plumber, and if it was something they did, they would reimburse all costs. The plumber found that when Orlandoscape put in the sprinkler system they ran the pipe right through my sewer line. I paid the plumber $693 to fix the line and faxed the bill and pictures of the damage to Orlandos- cape. It has been six weeks, and I have been told numerous stories as to why I have not been reimbursed.

AYALA, ORLANDO Dear Ms. Ayala: walk away, Renee a check for $693 is on the way. It seems a new bookkeeper at Orlandoscape is to blame for the inordinate delay. Count yourself lucky. At least the bookkeeper did not come crashing through the ceiling into your living room.

Turning over an old Last week, I reported on the chronically dysfunctional Mark Greenleaf, owner of Knives of America, a Winter Park-based mail order company. The column was the culmination of many months of broken promises by Greenleaf to refund two customers who paid him for knives they never received. Here is part of e-mailed response to the column, exactly as he wrote it: IM THINKING ABOUT BECOMING A NEWS JOURNALIST IM SO PROUD OF THEM HOW THEY TWIST THINGS TO MAKE IT LIKE YOUR A THIEF AND NEVER PRINT ABOUT THE REAL TRUTH WHY THIS WAS NOT INTENTIONALLY JUST A BAD STREAK OF LUCK MAYBE YOU WOULD BE INTERESTED IN REPORTING MY CASE OF $13,000.00 AS A SELLER THAT I WAS STIFFED. I DO NOT THINK YOU WILL DUE THAT DUE TO IM THE BAD GUY RIGHT NOW WHY WOULD YOU HELP ME TO SHOW THAT I WAS THE GOOD GUY AFTER ALL THAT WOULD NOT BE A GOOD STORY OLD SAYING BAD NEWS TRAVEL MUCH BETTER THEN GOOD NEWS YOU NEW WHY I WAS HAVING THIS PROBLEM HAVE A GREAT DAY CAN YOU FEED YOUR FAMILY I HOPE SO. ORLANDO SENTINEL FILE A very rocky horror repair show Dear Greg: My 70-year-old mother has an ongoing problem with Safeguard America.

We recently changed her phone service, which caused problems with the alarm system, and we called Safeguard to come take a look. On June 4, a tech went up in the attic to find out what the problem was. While in the attic he fell and came through the living room ceiling. I was sitting directly underneath on a couch working on my computer. His body did not fall all the way through, but his arm came through.

It was scary! A supervisor at his office said to get an estimate for repair and to fax it in. Within a few days I had an estimate and faxed it, but we are still waiting for acheck from Safeguard so we can get the work done. SACK, ORANGE CITY Getting the runaround? E-mail Greg at orlandosentinel.com; or call 407-420-5618; or write to Greg Dawson, Orlando Sentinel, 633 N. Orange MP-218, Orlando FL 32801. Greg Dawson The Last Resort Coupons and more: A study by Scarborough Research paints a quite revealing portrait of working moms in America.

OrlandoSentinel.com/momsatwork Disney television exec to lead Disney Studios, B9 What do working moms like? Disney does not break out how much restaurant sales contribute to the revenue of individual theme parks. But experts say it is substantial. food-and-beverage operations are very significant in the overall bottom said Mary Jo Ross, a former multi-unit restaurant manager at Universal Orlando and an assistant professor at the University of Central Rosen College of Hospitality Management. Disney says the restaurant changes are part of an internal initiative called in which employees have been urged to re-emphasize customer service. Busy, in-park restaurants are an obvious target for improvements; around noon on a busy day, they can rival the longest ride queues in terms of crowds, noise and stress levels.

really a good way to decompress or relax. So been really focusing on how we can enhance the whole dining Clark said. Under the controlled-access and -seating program, guests in certain Magic Kingdom counter-service restaurants are steered through a single entrance so workers can keep tabs on how many people are inside. Agreeter hands menus and steers the entire group to cash registers to place their orders. After they get their food, they are guided by another employee to an empty table.

Implementing the change is trickier than it may sound. For example, the restaurants have multiple entrances, so Disney restaurant managers have had to work with the to work out new ways of guiding traffic through a single Walt Disney World is experimenting with new crowd-control methods in some of its busiest in-park restaurants, hoping to make the facilities more pleasant for guests and more profitable for the resort. Inside four quick-service restaurants in the Magic Kingdom, Disney has begun restricting access but guaranteeing seating during particularly busy lunch rushes. Managers say the approach helps smooth out traffic in part by eliminating the need for groups to split up and send someone to order food while another person holds an open table something that can clog up as much as one-third of a capacity at any given time. has been very helpful for us from an efficiency standpoint, because so said Liz Clark, general manager of food and beverage in the Magic Kingdom.

The tinkering illustrates one of the small ways theme parks have sought to squeeze more money out of existing operations beyond top-level cost cuts in the midst of arecession that has sapped attendance and guest spending. JOE SENTINEL Sonny Mattice assists guests for seating in the Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn and Cafe at the Magic Kingdom. Your table is waiting Magic Kingdom eateries take control of seating to boost efficiency and help diners relax By Jason Garcia SENTINEL STAFF WRITER PLEASE SEE Market watch NASDAQ 2,068.15 Oil $70.41 NYSE 6,795.13 1,040.46 Dow 9,599.75 Company news Dow Chemical gained $1.24 to $24.87. An analyst said the manufacturing electronics business has improved and the coatings business has stabilized. Mellanox Technologies rose 99cents to $17.14.

The chip designer raised its projections for sales, gross margin and expenses. PetSmart rose 79 cents to $21.63. An analyst upgraded the pet food and products retailer, saying the company will likely benefit when discretionary spending picks up. Financial and energy stocks led the gains after large banks got an upgrade and oil prices rose. The Blackstone long- rumored deal to buy SeaWorld Orlando-owner Busch Entertainment Corp.

from Anheuser- Busch InBev is expected to be announced as early as today, according to multiple people familiar with the talks. The price tag is thought to be between $2.5 billion and $3 billion, these people said. It is possible, though unlikely, that the deal could still fall apart. The deal would make Blackstone an even bigger player in the global tourism industry. The private-equity giant already owns a 50 percent stake in Universal Orlando and a controlling stake in Merlin Entertainments Group, the British amusement operator whose holdings include Legoland theme parks and Madame Tussauds wax museums.

Busch is the second-largest theme-park operator in the United States, with 10 theme parks across the country, including SeaWorld, Discovery Cove and Aquatica in Orlando and Busch Gardens Tampa Bay. The Walt Disney Co. is the largest. Blackstone is expected to operate Busch as a stand-alone investment rather than combine it with another holding, at least for the near future. The deal has drawn widespread attention in financial circles because it would be the largest private-equity buyout announced so far this year.

Belgium-based Anheuser- Busch InBev, the largest beer brewer, has been looking for a buyer for Busch Entertainment since InBev completed its $52 billion acquisition of St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch last year. Company executives have said they want to shed noncore assets and use the money to pay down debt incurred during the merger. Representatives for AB InBev and Blackstone would not comment Monday. Jason Garcia can be reached at or 407-420-5414.

Deal likely today for 10 parks By Jason Garcia SENTINEL STAFF WRITER Theme parks Frightened by the thought of Halloween without a lantern? Wet weather in parts of the Eastern U.S. has delayed the harvesting of some pumpkins this year, but any scarcity is temporary, and the orange orbs should roll into seasonal stands and produce aisles in the next week or two, a state official says. has been a temporary delay because of wet fields, and they need an extra week or two to orange said Terence McElroy, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. in some cases, they could not get into the fields, and have to wait for them to Because of the difficulty of growing pumpkins in subtropical climate, there are only about 150 acres of pumpkins statewide, he said. Most pumpkins sold in the state each October come from the Northeast.

Anna Sciarrino, sales director at Long and Scott Farms in Apopka, said that, rain or no, the business has had no problems obtaining pumpkins. Carving pumpkins range from $3 to those destined for pies cost $2 each. Linda Florea can be reached at or 407-420-6063. Any delay in pumpkins due to weather By Linda Florea SENTINEL STAFF WRITER Halloween icon Product: OSBS PubDate: 10-06-2009 Zone: FLA Edition: ROP Page: User: bernde Time: Color: CMY.