New Shoes in the Rain

Good Sunday morning, all....not going to complain about rain in late July.  Rare occurrence here in central Kentucky. I have a good friend in northern California who reminded me that the "water police" are out in force there, citing those who ignore regulations about watering lawns, washing cars and such during a severe drought there.  We don't have that here, and probably won't this year, so that's a blessing. I love quiet Sunday mornings.  My wife is still sleeping, I'm here at my computer with a cup of coffee, perusing the Internet and writing this.  Listening to some music on headphones to keep the house quiet.  We'll enjoy a leisurely breakfast in a while, watch a little television, then decide how to spend the day.  Nice. Was fortunate enough to play golf with two separate groups of friends the last two Saturdays.  Yesterday's game was an annual treat---a man who's old enough to be my dad annually joins me and a couple of other mutual a...

Good Friday to all....hope everyone has a great weekend planned. Thought I'd share some things I found funny and/or interesting this week.  Traveled a bit (just one night) and have been out and about quite a bit otherwise, so here goes! Boo!  and Hiss!  to American Airlines, who have apparently "redesigned" their full-size airline cabins to the extent that a "normal" coach seat affords a passenger about half of the forward-and-back space as before.  I was treated to a round trip earlier this week in a larger plane (couldn't tell you what make or model, I'm not THAT much of a geek) and found that I had about two to three handwidths between my chest and the seat in front of me.  Luckily, they're also featuring reduced size flip down trays, so that you can still have a place to put your drink....oh, wait, even that's too small for me now!  To compound matters, the gentleman (and I use that term loosely) who occupied the middle seat next to me on...

Happy Monday, if there is such a thing.  I hope everyone had a nice, restful, enjoyable weekend. Wanted to start with a handful of updates on items I've mentioned in this space in recent posts. First, in the post entitled "Musical chairs" I noted my renewed effort to capture more music that is traditionally of interest to me.  I appear to have now completed my latest mission, as I now have 2452 individual songs in my iTunes library (and that's after deleting a lot of duplicates of the same recording, from "greatest hits" or "essential" collections). I also neglected to mention one of my favorite streaming music services, Songza, which I mentioned in a direct communication to a good friend who read this particular post.  Songza was in the news recently because it was just announced that Google is acquiring the company.  It works on a context-oriented scenario.  The system will ask users what they're doing (relaxing, working, concentrating ...

Good morning, friends...hope you had the chance to enjoy some time off from your job and have a long weekend. Here's a little secret...my wife and I were married on July 4, 1986.  What a stroke of luck for me--a date I can easily remember, a day off from work each year to celebrate, and fireworks!  My wife and I enjoyed our anniversary this year, as we always do! Among our anniversary activities was a movie--my wife particularly enjoys Tom Cruise's movies, so we took in a showing of "Edge of Tomorrow."  Imagine "Groundhog Day" crossed with "Independence Day," and add some well-done action sequences.  Intriguing and entertaining; I like to think at least a little during a movie, and this one had me scratching my head here and there.  It's based on a graphic novel called "All You Need is Kill."  Rather glad they changed the title. I'm rolling a bit early today.  I have two conference calls to lead this morning, and because we ...