New Shoes in the Rain

My home city of Lexington, Kentucky has always struggled with finding an identity for its downtown area.  When I was a kid I remember the phrase "urban renewal" being thrown about pretty regularly, and gradually a few new office buildings, a couple of hotels and Rupp Arena, home of the Kentucky Wildcats basketball team, all were built.  A few other developments have taken place in the the thirty years since all of that development, but not all that much.  But things appear to be moving along now. The catalyst?  An upcoming event called the World Equestrian Games. Now, to be fair, I'm not a devotee of equestrian sports.   My understanding is that this series of events involves a great deal of training and dedication, and I do not wish to demean anyone who participates in this sport.  But the Lexington area is making significant investments in infrastructure in order to accommodate the large numbers of visitors (competitors and spectators, one would ass...

As I write this post, I'm sitting in a bakery in Montgomery, Alabama, in a behind-numbing chair that apparently has seen its better days.  I've just about concluded a three day road trip for my company and my fourth travel day of this week.  This trip involved sales calls and representing the organization in a charity golf event outside of the city here.  With all of that in mind, I have some open questions I'd like to pose to no one in particular.... Isn't it nice to hear everyone (or nearly everyone, anyway) speak with a lilting Southern drawl? This part of the country has endured some pretty serious rain over the past several weeks.  With that being the case, how can a golf course have such rock-hard ground all over it?  About the only thing that was soft were the greens.  Everything else was hard-pan with very short and spotty grass. Why do certain parts of the country NOT restrict smoking in certain places, like restaurants?  The information...

Just saw this news item reprinted from the Des Moines (IA) Register and paraphrased here: Iowa's world-famous “Field of Dreams” is for sale.  The field featured in the 1989 move is part of a 193-acre tract that the Lansing family have had in their family for more than 100 years.They're asking $5.4 million for the field and surrounding farmland plus the house used in the movie. The sale will be conduced without stipulations, meaning the new owner could potentially plow under the field, just as the fictitious Ray Kinsella was urged to do by his bankers in the movie. Now, if you're not a baseball fan, or a movie buff, or a Kevin Costner fan, perhaps you've not seen this gem from 21 years ago.  But if you are any of those things, then you know that this is almost sacred ground.  Because I've actually been there! One of those odd convergences of circumstances wherein our daughter was moving to Denver for a residency in her field, and so my one and only condition ...

Lots of fodder in the recent sports headlines to chew on.... First and perhaps most disappointing if true:  there are reports from anonymous sources (is there another kind in a situation like this?) on the Seattle Mariners that Hall-of-Famer-as-soon-as-he-retires Ken Griffey, Jr. was not inserted as a pinch-hitter in a recent game, ostensibly because he was ASLEEP in the clubhouse!  Frankly, Griffey always seemed to have enough respect for the game that I find this hard to believe, but you just never know.  And the players were supposedly younger players who like and respect Griff, so, again, it's hard to tell what's what.  Very telling, though, that both Griffey and the team's manager were very quick to refute the report.  What IS true and not in dispute is that Griffey's offensive production is so poor that he doesn't even serve as the designated hitter in every game.  He's batting around .200 (that's not very good, for any non-baseball fans reading thi...

This entry isn't about any one subject.... First, I find it repugnant that BP is acting as though it's not REALLY their responsibility to clean up the massive and ever-growing oil slick that threatens to contaminate the Gulf of Mexico's coastal areas for the next several years.  Simply put, you break it, you bought it, in my opinion, so in that context it IS BP's responsibility.  But this doesn't really strengthen anyone's argument that "drill, baby, drill" is going to be the answer to our domestic energy needs, at least not without destroying the environment in any part of the country where drilling will take place.   This, of course, does not in any way contemplate what happens to those who work the ocean for their livelihood, namely the commercial fishing and shrimping boats.  And I agree with those who wrote that they don't understand why this event has caused gasoline prices to spike 10 cents a gallon. Glad to get that off my chest. Sa...

As I write this, my wife is in Colorado for the weekend with our daughter and her kids, so I'm temporarily a solo act....and it feels a little strange. To be sure, I travel extensively for my work, and that's almost always alone, at least at night and while the travel itself occurs.  So I'm used to the alone time, but not at home.  That's what feels so odd. Quick itinerary...I took my wife to the Cincinnati airport early Friday morning for her outbound flight.  We kissed goodbye at around 7:30 or so and I went down the road to a coffee shop with Wi-Fi so that I could work while waiting to make sure her flight departed as planned (also to escape the excessive parking garage fees, as I paid $3.00 to be in the garage about forty minutes.  Clearly, many of us are in the wrong business!).  So I've been on my own since that time. Friday night my son and I spent and enjoyable if frustrating evening to, at and from Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati to see our...

Recently my wife and I came to agreement about a new form of exercise that we could both undertake and do together.  We both are walkers, but due to foot and shin problems I can't comfortably walk on sidewalks (too hard) and my wife prefers to walk outdoors, so we were stuck.  Then at some point we hit on the idea of getting bicycles.  So, at the ripe old age of 49, off I went, with my wife along, to a local bicycle dealer to learn the finer points of riding at a, well, mature stage of life. First thing the helpful salesperson said was, "You need a comfort bike."  Can't disagree with that.  We also talked about how and where we'd use the bikes, features, what's changed since my last ten-speed about thirty years ago, and construction (since I'm overweight I was concerned about the durability of a standard bike),.  He then showed us a line of bikes by a company called Trek, which he later explained is one of Lance Armstrong's sponsors (and apparently L...