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...