New Shoes in the Rain

Friends, I hope that you had a good weekend, and are looking forward to the Labor Day weekend coming up.   Unofficial end of summer, you know. Today marks six months that I have been in the job market.   And I remain positive about my prospects, though I work diligently to cultivate additional possibilities on a continual basis. If you’re a regular visitor here you know that I have a good outlook about most everything, and I don’t have any outward self-esteem issues (at least not that I’m aware).   So this isn’t going to be a woe-is-me hand-wringing rant.   Rather, I thought I’d share what I’ve experienced, not with my former employer who put me into this predicament, but with those potential employers whom I’ve contacted and met with over these months. When I first launched my search I was pretty straightforward with myself and prospected employers in what I wanted and expected in terms of responsibilities, duties and most particularly compensation. ...

Happy “hump day” to everyone.   And no camels were harmed in the production of this blog entry. Over the past several months my grandchildren, particularly the ones local to my wife and me whom we see more frequently, have developed an affinity for video games.   This began on the iPad (and let me say as an aside here that if ever there was a device more suited to use by kids, I’ve not seen it) with a few simple game and accelerated last summer when their Colorado cousins were here and were playing a game called Subway Surf, a straightforward chase game with jumping, bonus coins and such.   I’m sure there are many variations on it, as it may well be a variation on something else.   They also took to a golf game called Super Stickman Golf, tic-tac-toe, a bubble game and some other stuff. This morphed into my son buying some games for his Xbox and now my grandson is hooked, wants nothing more than to play video games.   He even says he wants to bring thos...

Greetings, friends.   It’s Tuesday morning.   Do you know where your household’s registered voters are? I ask because we’re now in the home stretch of the presidential election.   No more primaries, no more conventions, now it’s all campaigning.   And polls.   Lots and lots and lots of polls. My point is that there appear to be too many polls, all of which tout the overall accuracy of their data and sampling.   As one would expect, most are associated with a news organization or two --“The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll,” for example.   Lately some, like NBC News, have engaged more modern methods by partnering with organizations like SurveyMonkey. I’m certainly aware of the need to find out what the public thinks at such an important time, but would question whether polling techniques mirror modern habits.   For example, it’s my understanding that the majority of these polls rely on calls to homes with land-line phones.   Sinc...

Happy Friday to all.   Weekend is almost here! In the midst of my months-long job search and attack of multiple home-based projects that I’ve detailed here previously, I’ve also used some of my time to address a number of one-off needs for assistance from the makers of various items.   Looks like I’ve gotten resolution on many of them.   Here’s a sampling. Right after I was displaced, I was cleaning my grill and discovered that my wet-dry vacuum motor was giving out.   So I bought another one, a good brand from a national retailer.    Six gallon capacity tank, attachments, pretty much everything you’d need. The only problem was that most every time I picked this thing up to move it, the tank would come loose from the main motor assembly. The two were held together by clips and for whatever reason they simply would not stay clipped when the additional stress of picking up the unit occurred. I e-mailed the manufacturer, and, unbelievably, was...

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me…. Oh, good morning!   Caught me in a little self-celebration, as I turn 56 years old today!   And lest we forget, on this date in 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to have walked on the moon! I have been showered with birthday greetings from friends today and that always feels good.   My wife is going all out to celebrate my birthday (and it’s not even what I would consider a “milestone’) and it should be a good day! With all of that in mind, I thought I’d never live long enough to see the chaos and hysteria that is coming from the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this week.   I know partisan politics is exactly that—partisan.   But all of the comments about how the opposition candidate should treated for her various sins are very much over the top! So are the appearances of all of the Republican candidate’s family members.   I won’t spend time or space dissecting...