New Shoes in the Rain

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...

I bring greetings on this Wednesday afternoon, having just returned from sunny, humid and HOT south Florida last night.   I was there for an interview trip, and by all accounts, things went well.   So we shall see what comes of that. I often share travel stories in this space, but not to this particular location.   My last visit to Miami, Florida was when I was on the verge of graduating from college, back in 1982!   At that time I felt that a career in supermarket management might be a good fit, as I had spent nearly six years working in a small grocery and had had exposure to nearly every aspect of operations of the store.   I also had an urge to move to Florida in those days, which is a little hard to fathom since it’s not a high priority destination for me now, and I can’t even imagine relocating there at this stage of life. In any case, my objectives seemed clear, and some time at the library provided me some information about Florida-based grocery...

Good morning, all.   It’s steamy here in central Kentucky right now.   We’ve had some rain, and that just makes it worse! As regular visitors to this space know, I’ve been without a job for the past four months.   Though I spend an extensive amount of my time researching companies, applying for advertised positions and interviewing (primarily by phone), and will continue to do so until I have the right position, I have also used a good bit of my time somewhat wisely and tackled a few projects both here and elsewhere. For instance, about two weeks ago our over-the-range microwave oven began emitting an odor of burning plastic, which is not a good thing at all.   My quick research indicated that the circuit board was probably giving out, which meant it wasn’t really a viable option to fix it. So we selected a replacement oven, which was on sale, and ordered it from a local appliance and electronics dealer.   It came in just as our son and his wife wer...