New Shoes in the Rain

‘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...

I don't know about you, but it's always so difficult when one takes even a couple of days off work and then comes back to a full week.  Last week felt like it lasted about eleven days. Did you happen to travel over the holiday weekend?  I was very glad that I didn't, with weather and flight delays and all of that! Along with that, work wasn't all that much fun. I work in a portion of the healthcare industry that's affected by seasonal changes, sometimes more than others.  Last week was one of those "others" that created an "all hands on deck" scenario all week last week.  We're still in that state, and it really isn't much fun. Enough complaining.  We'll have plenty to complain about in a little more than a month. I have to say that I wonder about some of the people the President-Elect has chosen for certain cabinet and staff roles.  It's the Senate's job to do the worrying, of course, but I worry about THEM as well! I'm l...

Good Sunday to all of you looking in today. Have had an interesting and enjoyable weekend thus far.  Not long ago my son and I looked at our grandson’s hockey team schedule and saw that his team was due to play two games in Cincinnati (a family favorite destination) yesterday.  So we agreed that the best move would be to get rooms for last night here in the area, as the second game did not end until around 10:30 PM.  Back to that soon. Correspondingly, my wife was caught up in the media blitz surrounding the opening of the new movie version of Wicked, about the witches from the Wizard of Oz.  She knew that our two Lexington granddaughters would want to see it at soon as possible, so we bought the tickets for a showing in the Lexington area for yesterday at 12:30.  They loved the movie but were a little disappointed to know that this new release is only part one with a second film forthcoming.  Typical Hollywood to stretch it into two tentpole flicks! I digr...

I think it’s been long enough since the election results were finalized that the shock has subsided and the immediate future is a bit clearer.  Regular visitors to this space noticed, I’m sure, that I last posted about something totally unrelated to the state of our country, and that was intentional. So here we are.  The President-Elect is still fighting to prevent being sentenced for his 34 convictions in New York State court.  He is thoroughly dominating the news cycle every day, as he did the last time he was elected to the Presidency.  He is doing so mostly by toying with the mass media and those on the left who would oppose him, naming one unqualified person after another to head government agencies.  He is all over the place, appearing at conferences, UFC matches, space launches and more. Honestly, I don’t think we’ll forget about him between now and January 20, when he officially becomes President.  Again. The Democrats have lost the Senate AND the H...

Happy weekend, everyone.  I don’t know about you, but this couple of days off could not have come at a better time! Took advantage of clear conditions earlier this afternoon and mowed our yard for hopefully the last time of the season.  Let the mower run so that I emptied the fuel tank and it took way longer than I would have guessed! Anyway, have picked up a couple of new things that may be of interest to you, since I often mention new items here. First up is some new tech.  I watched the Apple keynote two or three weeks ago with interest, as I always do, and a couple of things got my attention.  First of these was the Apple Watch Series 10, because my wife’s Series 6 was beginning to show its age.  We went to the local Apple Store, mistakenly, on the date of the release of iPhone 16, so really were only able to look at the watches, store was just too crowded. We returned the following day and got my wife what she wanted, and I began to think about how light an...

Good morning, all.  Promise that this will NOT be a rehash of all that has been said, written and posted since the Presidential election results were confirmed early yesterday. And I won’t get into attempting to analyze what our country is facing next.  The President-Elect has already served one term, so there’s not much mystery there. But what I will say is that this country reveals itself to us in many strange ways, sometimes wonderful and other times less so.  We now see some hard truths that we had thought, or at least hoped, were in some ways behind us. And make no mistake….just as in 2016, this is what a large swath of our population wanted.  Even if you and I did not.  But in the United States of America, we are taught to accept the will of the people.  At least we’re supposed to do that. So what now? I have a lot before me, as I turned 64 a few months ago and had been looking ahead to retirement in just a few years.  Will I still retire?  ...