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Contradictions

Happy Thursday, everyone…the work week is almost over! When I was a kid, I recall vividly coming to the realization that, in order to survive in this world, I was going to have know how to fight!  And I don’t mean gathering one’s inner strength and persevering, I mean actual physical fights! Suppose that was a byproduct of most of what we watched on TV in our household, lots of Western shows and movies, detective and police shows and movies and generally a lot of action.  Seemed to me that I was going to have to fight it out with people, and frequently, in order to get anywhere in this world!  Not only that, but quicksand seemed to be an imminent threat as well! Of course, none of that was true then or now.  “Fighting” in real life is more about sticking to one’s principles, standing up for one’s self and one’s family, too. Thank goodness! But let’s face it, life is full of contradictions, and it seems now that we are in the second term of President Trump, contradict...
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Amid the chaos

Happy Friday, friends….we’re almost there! As things stand now, massive numbers of federal government employees are being laid off…or not.  Our President is going to force Ukraine to surrender to Russia…or not.  The U.S. gold reserve is still at Fort Knox…or not. Who knows about any of these things?  The chaos and confusion that seems to reign in Washington right now is pretty well beyond our individual control, and the circumstances keep changing to fit the latest stories that are circulating.  And the American people are seldom getting the full story or straight answers to questions asked of President Trump and other high-ranking officials. So we work on the things where we have some control and ownership.   For example, I have migrated from Twitter (now called “X” by its owner) over a year ago.  Over time many of the accounts I followed to keep up on things of interest migrated to Threads, which is connected to Instagram.  I enjoyed Threads for the ...
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The frozen north

Greetings from Cleveland, Ohio, where my grandson and his team are competing in a regional hockey tournament!  So far they’ve won a game and lost one.  They’ll play again later and that will decide if they play in the upper or lower level of the playoffs.  Good luck to them! Cleveland is between five and six hours’ car travel time from our home in Lexington, but I am always struck by the differences between our home area and a large established city like this.  For instance, when we came into the main part of the city, we looked over to the right and in a low area could see a really old working factory.  I don’t know what they make there, but it reminded me so much of photos I’ve seen of Henry Ford’s original manufacturing plant in Detroit.  Smokestacks and that ancient look to it, like the same product had been made there for a hundred years. Looking out my hotel room window at the grounds of what I imagine is the headquarters of the Eaton corporation. ...
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Items of interest

Happy Thursday, friends.  Almost to the weekend! I don’t have a theme for today’s post, as it’s really a collection of things I’ve seen, read, heard and experienced.  In no particular order…. I saw that Netflix is soon to raise prices for all of their various tiers of service.  Guess one could conclude that they have “won” the streaming wars, as they still stand head and shoulders above the competition.  We’ve had Netflix in the past, and after my wife and I concluded that we really didn’t have a lot of interest in what they offer on their service, we dropped it over a year ago.  We resumed our service for a few weeks to watch the Great British Baking Show (I know, but we both enjoy it) and then dropped it again after that show wrapped up. For comparison, I’ve been enjoying another free trial of Apple TV+ since the holidays, as that trial came with a generous Apple gift card that was given to me by my son and his family.  First thing we did was watch the fu...
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I’ve seen this movie before (and so have you)

Good morning, all!  I write from Indianapolis, Indiana, where the current temperature is -1 degrees!  With the wind chill it feels like -13! At least this area, where I’m working today and tomorrow, did not receive the multiple inches of snow that fell throughout the states along the Gulf of Mexico (that’s the name of that body of water, in case recent events caused any confusion)! So no question the story of the week is the inauguration of Donald Trump as President.  Because it was going to be a little cold in Washington, he ordered that the ceremony be moved indoors to the Capitol rotunda.  Or was it because a relatively small number of people were planning to attend it when it was going to be outdoors?  One wonders. Unfortunately, I watched his “official” speech after being sworn in, and never once did he address an actual issue or problem that regular Americans have faced or are facing right now.  It’s still all about grievance and whataboutism and how ...
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A quick postscript to my last post

Happy new year, friends!  Enjoyed some wonderful time off with family and now back at work.....just as a major winter storm struck the middle of the country, including central Kentucky! But never fear, I'm planning to be back out there among them tomorrow, weather permitting! But I digress.  I wanted to provide two updates to my screed about customer service that I posted not too long ago.   Let me write of our experiences with the United States Postal Service, as mentioned on 12/23/24.  On that date I detailed that my wife had taken a parcel to our local post office to ship to our daughter's family in another time zone.  The box was shipped via a somewhat new service called Ground Advantage.  Simply put, there was no advantage.  My wife visited the post office twice, was told both times how understaffed they were this holiday season and that everything was going to take time to get to its destination. Christmas came and went, no evidence that the parc...
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You call this customer service?

‘Tis this season, friends. Hope it’s wonderful for you and yours!   And as far as I’m concerned, it’s a great time to talk about customer service, the good, the bad, the indifferent, the avoidable, and so forth.  We’re all cornered by it, whether we like it or not!   Here’s my first and worst bad example.  Some of our family lives out of state, so we conscientiously shop for them early, so that we can ship their gifts out well in advance of Christmas.  We did exactly that this year, and my wife shipped the box on December 9.  Since that time we have not received any tracking updates from the United States Postal Service, the tracking site only states that the parcel is “in the possession of the USPS.”   Since then my wife visited the post office from which she shipped it, and the employee there complained that they hired no seasonal help, they don’t have enough people to handle mail and parcels and that she wasn’t about to ship anyt...
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