New Shoes in the Rain

Good morning, friends.....hope it's not raining where you are. I've just returned from a major event for my company that was held in the Dallas area over the past few days, ending yesterday.  If you've visited here for a long time, you know that I often will recount my travel experiences in this space, and, since I'll again be traveling a bit in my work, I'll resume that practice with some observations today. First and foremost, my current company is not based in Dallas, but chose to hold this major event there because of its central location and the abundance of flight options into the area.  Since our event included over 1,400 attendees, it made sense to do this. But I used to work for Dallas-based organizations and have watched the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport evolve over the years.  It looked to me that the evolution is completed for now, and that was a nice change.  My last instance of traveling there was in the fall of 2015, and the concourses...

It's raining here in central Kentucky, friends.  I'm not quite sure if this is related to Hurricane Florence, which is stalled somewhere in the Carolinas, or a separate weather system, but it's raining here.  Again. As reported here on our last visit, my wife and I had the task of determining how we would use our now-vacant front room.  I sold my old, bulky office furniture recently and that set into motion a chain reaction that leads us to today. Our planned first step was to move our current kitchen table into the front room (which was designed to be a dining room) and give that a look to see what we thought of it.  So Friday I did just that.  This involved removing the legs from the long table, then scooting it into the other room, protecting it and the floors with towels underneath.  Then I reinstalled the table legs and put it upright.  I initially liked how it looked, both from the standpoint of size and of color.  But as the day wore on...

Good Friday to all.  And to those in the path of Hurricane Florence, I wish you the best as you work to avoid or endure this powerful storm. Another standard potpourri of thoughts and comments, so here goes.... Did you know that the Department of Homeland Security has apparently diverted almost $170 million from other programs it oversees to ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency?  I didn't, either, until yesterday.  There were mentions about $10 million being directly diverted the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is governed by the Department, and with Florence making landfall today, one would hope that FEMA has appropriate resources to assist residents with recovery efforts. Reports indicate the remainder of that money was also diverted away from the Transportation Safety Administration (the TSA, the folks who oversee airport security), the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office and the U.S. Coast Guard.  Has the additional ICE fundin...

Today's title with apologies to Jimmy Buffett.... It's not raining right now, but our summer of rain resumed late last week and we're due to get rain off and on all of this week, too.  I was talking with someone last week and we agreed that usually, by this time, those of us without irrigation systems had long stopped mowing our lawns regularly.  Not this year, as I'm still mowing every five days or so. There are far worse problems to have.  It would be wonderful if we could transfer this rain to the areas in the western U.S. that are being besieged by yet more wildfires. A couple of sports items to mention--the Kentucky football team managed to snap a 31 year losing streak to Florida on Saturday night, and in Gainesville, Florida, no less!  I won't bore you with what a gallon of gas cost and such the last time Kentucky managed that feat.  Here's hoping it's not 31 years before the NEXT Kentucky win over the Gators! I don't follow tennis at all b...

Happy day-after-Labor-Day, friends.  I hope that your work schedule allowed you to have a day off to reflect on the value of the labor movement in this country yesterday. I started my weekend a little early, as I also took last Friday off work.  Good thing, too, as I was in the worst stage of an upper respiratory disorder that was, well, inconvenient on that particular day.  Feeling quite a bit better now, although I'm not quite 100%. So this is the "unofficial" end of summer, you know.  The kids are back in school, so family vacations are over for now (unless families seize the relatively new phenomenon of "fall break" for some time away).  We actually have about three weeks of summer left per the calendar before fall arrives officially. I enjoy time time of year, and I'll gladly share why: First, it marks the return of college football season.  I watch the pros, too, but since I worked with the University of Kentucky Sports Network's broadcast ...