New Shoes in the Rain

Friends, what goes around comes around.  Or everything old is new again.  Or the more things change, the more they stay the same. Here in Lexington, KY, a city of about a quarter-million folks, things change, but not at a breakneck pace.  But recently, a LOT is changing, and I suppose we'll have to see how much of it is for the better. For instance, it was announced not long ago that the local Sears department store, which has existed in the Fayette Mall (original name, right?) since it was built in the early 70's, will close at year's end.  Now, I don't know about you, but Sears has been a retail presence in my life for as long as I can recall.  Growing up in Paris, a town about twenty miles from Lexington, I recall having a Sears catalog store that also sold appliances, tires and some lawn equipment.  Bought clothes from them via their catalog for some time, until I found better alternatives.  My parents always bought Kenmore appliances from Sears, and my wife'

Just about back to normal after our wonderful week at Walt Disney World.  At some point I'll stop rubbing it in.... This morning I have a hodgepodge of this and that, so bear with me....if you don't like one item, hopefully you will like the next one a little more. I'm shocked, SHOCKED that McDonald's has elected to stop serving Heinz ketchup, since a former Burger King executive is now running Heinz.  I mean, really, if they're worried about corporate espionage, there are scores of hourly workers who have worked for one and then went to the other.  Seriously, though, this is one more thing against Mickey D's fries....first, they changed the formula of oil they're fried in (used to be a mix of vegetable oil and BEEF FAT), now they're going to let us slather them with an inferior brand of ketchup (or catsup, even). Speaking of Burger King, I'm surprised they haven't changed the name of this establishment....have you walked into one of these

Greetings, friends.....my wife and I are just back from a week at Walt Disney World in Florida.  We spent the week with our kids and their families, ten of us in all. In the interests of full disclosure, let me say that we took our kids there about 25 years ago for three days and didn't stay in a Disney resort property.  Also, I was there for a corporate event two years ago, and spent about two hours in the EPCOT park, but it was very controlled and was part of a group activity. And I won't make this post the blog equivalent of showing you slides of our vacation, either.  So with all of that out of the way, here are some quick impressions: 1.  Staying in a Disney resort is the way to go.  Your considerable investment to do so includes transportation anywhere on the property, among other perks. To be fair, the buses and monorails and boats are often crowded and may many stops, but it sure beats loading, driving and parking your car or a rental. 2.  You don't even need a car

Greetings from vacation paradise! Well, not quite yet, but I am off work this morning.  How did you engineer this, you may ask, since you just started a new job recently?   Simply put, it was a commitment from my new employer that I would be able to take this time period when I accepted my new position.   Now that we have that out of the way.... As is so often the case before a vacation, I just returned from a business trip yesterday afternoon.  Almost didn't return when planned, either.  This trip was out of the ordinary, not for its purpose (a customer meeting) but the travel itself. My new company requires travelers to use the "lowest available fare" to travel, and, in my case, I also have to consider not only my local airport, but also those in Louisville and Cincinnati.  So this trip required me to get myself to Louisville in time for a 6:00 AM flight to Newark, NJ, then wait two hours for an Amtrak train to Philadelphia.  Then a cab to the meeting location at a conf

That's it.   End of the line.  Kaput.  And so on. The Cincinnati Reds met their season's end last night in much the same way that the past dozen or so games had gone....listlessly.  Whatever happened to these guys apparently is pretty long-lasting, as they finished the 2013 season on a six game losing streak. Wait until next year.  But that phrase went out with the Brooklyn Dodgers (affectionately called "Dem Bums" by the locals way back when). OK, enough of that.  I could go on, but that won't accomplish anything. So, I read today an interesting article about how BlackBerry reached the low point where the company now exists.  It was a fascinating read that detailed a lot of indecision and conflict among their leadership, once the Apple iPhone entered the cellphone market.  I dare say that they aren't the only maker of cellphones whose fate was altered considerably by that invention. I'm finding it hard to believe that the folks in Wa