New Shoes in the Rain

Greetings from New Orleans, where I've been on a business trip since lunchtime Tuesday. If you've never been, it's really a whole different environment than what you're probably used to seeing in your daily activities. The big thing here is that it's all about entertainment.  That means different things to different people, of course.  Food and dining out is huge here, and there's something for nearly every appetite, even if you don't care for the local cuisine.  But if you do happen to like it there are many, MANY options in the heart of the city and elsewhere.  And instead of a clump of chain restaurants as you see in so many homogenous cities, there are restaurant groups operated by dynastic food families like the Brennans and so many others.  Frankly, I've never had a bad meal in a locally owned/operated place that serves fine cuisine.  A business associate even tuned into a local radio program that airs DAILY that is hosted by a restaurant criti...

No, not "ketchup," although I admit a fondness for that.... No, just catching up on some things.  Busy weekend, busy week last week.  Lots going on.  And things have now slowed down. But it's a funny thing, I find that the busier I am, the better a lot of things appear to go, at least in my experience.  And when things are moving kind of slowly, well, that's a recipe for disaster sometimes. Hectic began a week ago last Sunday, when I sought treatment for what turned out to be contact dermatitis in my eyes.  The swelling, itching and pain started on Saturday, and I finally relented and went to an urgent care clinic.  Was prescribed steroid/antibiotic drops, which I finished Saturday.  Never affected my vision, but I looked like I was either very hung over or a vampire, your choice, until the redness relented mid-week last week.  And had the height of the seasonal allergy throat/sinus crud in the midst of all of this.  Nice! I spent mos...

Happy Monday, all....hope you had a good weekend, doing what you like to do when you're not at work. Something my wife and I like to do is to shake things up a little bit here at the ranch.  That might mean some new placemats for the kitchen table, or something equally minor.  We've been talking a bit recently about a new kitchen table, owing to the confined space that our kitchen dining area allows.  We replaced an older one a few years ago, but, that one, too, was a little too wide for the space.  So we've been talking about that. A few months ago, we decided to modernize our bedroom.  Out went the old box-style television ("but it still has a good picture," I argued) and the stand upon which it lived, and in its place a sleek 32" ultra-thin LED model.  Nice, right?  Only problem was that I simply couldn't justify spending the additional $15 per month for an HDTV cable box, so we were watching an analog signal on this new TV.  And what's ...

I'm home, and thank God for that.  Between business travel and a week of vacation in late March, I've been on the road every week for, oh, I don't even know how long. I'm scheduled for a week at home next week.  For now, but that could change. And I will try very hard here and now NOT to fill this space with rants about how awful it is to travel, etc.  You get that.  From me, often here. Let's just say that some people that I encounter in my extensive travels don't play well with others.  Rude, inconsiderate, ignorant of the rules and generally making the act of traveling much harder for all. But I don't want to discuss that. I'd like to discuss the nicer folks I've encountered over the past few weeks.  Like the desk clerk at the Marriott in Columbia, SC this week....she absolutely could not have been more helpful, and she clearly sensed that I was pretty wiped out by the time I got to her hotel.  Thanks. Or the ticket counter agent at De...

Finally broke down yesterday and bought a new lawn mower.  I've resisted this "investment" for some time, choosing instead (and perhaps unwisely) to keep our old one going with every-two-years visits to the hardware store for the fabled spring tuneup.  These procedures allegedly changed the engine oil, sharpened the blades and did a general cleanup of our old mower. We bought the old item at Sears when we bought our house sixteen years ago this month.  Paid way more than I ever thought sane at the time...for a lawn mower, of all things.  But it served us well, until this and that stopped working as intended, and the bagger has a couple of little holes, and the cable attached to the safety catch on the handle was stretched, causing the mower to kind of lurch up and down the power spectrum. So my wife and I visited Sears a couple of evenings ago, and looked at their mowers.  Three-fourths of the push mowers are now self-propelled, don't you know, but I have a ...

Greetings, friends, long time, no write.  Been a little busy.  Oh, not with work, at least not THAT busy. No, my wife and I returned to Kentucky (home of the 2012 NATIONAL CHAMPION KENTUCKY WILDCATS) last Sunday from our travel-by-car vacation to Colorado to visit our daughter's family for a week and to spend some quality time with our older granddaughter on her spring break week! Quite a trip, I must say.  It had been almost seven years since we had driven out to Colorado (the year our granddaughter was born actually), and a few things changes along the way and in our daughter's adopted home area: There are now more gas stations along I-70 in Kansas, but there are still significant stretches without services, which is enough to cause most anyone sweaty palms if they didn't fill up sooner. We never paid $4 per gallon for gas.  But we DID pay $3.99 9/10 per gallon twice, which is just as bad. Some enterprising soul (or two or six or fifteen) in Kansas has de...

My wife and I are heading out to Colorado on vacation, leaving later today.  We're driving, so that's always quite an adventure.  And I've had another hectic week leading up to our departure. I was out of town Monday through Wednesday for business, but that was a successful trip, punctuated only by a flight delay on my last flight Wednesday and then a luggage claim delay (so much for Sky PRIORITY, Delta).  Since then we've been doing what anyone does before leaving for vacation, but, along with that, we aerated, seeded and fertilized our backyard, which I had done to the front yard before leaving for my business trip. Our days in Colorado will be spent with our six-year-old granddaughter, who'll be on spring break next week.  We'll be taking her out to do some fun things with Gram and Poppy, and she'll decide a lot of it.  But that hasn't stopped us from asking for input from her mom about where she likes to go, eat, stuff to do, etc. Also asked a ...