New Shoes in the Rain

Good morning, and happy day-before-Christmas-Eve. It”s.a balmy -5 degrees here in Lexington as I write this, if you can believe it.  The weather forecasters got this exactly right, as we’ve been hearing about what we would experience Thursday into today.  I have not gone out, and since I am off work until January 3, I don’t have to! This is my customary post for this time of year.  I simply want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year as well!  And for anyone who’s celebrating Hanukkah or will celebrate Kwanzaa, I hope that you have a blessed celebration as well. As you know, I write this blog for selfish reasons, namely to keep the part of my brain that produces this relatively sharp.  Another of those muscles that atrophies if we don’t use it, I suppose.  And I appreciate it when people find it and read it and maybe smile upon reading it or think a little bit. So thank you for another good year in the life of this space, which I’ve ...

Friends, I hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and had the opportunity to spend some time with those you love.  I did and had a great day and evening.  I so feel for those who either don't have anyone with whom they can spend days like Thanksgiving or choose not to due to memories of difficult visits in the past or the fear of more of them in the future. And my heart goes out to those affected, directly and indirectly, by the shootings in Colorado Springs, Colorado and Chesapeake. Virginia.  President Biden says he plans to make another attempt to ban assault weapons, and I know he means it, but I'm not sure how many willing partners there will be, even in a lame duck session of Congress. Speaking of Congress, we now know with more certainty that Republicans will control the House and Democrats will continue to control the Senate, although there are a handful of races still yet to be decided. Alaska finalized results of its two races, one for Senate and one...

Greetings from rainy (finally) Lexington, Kentucky!  We went a long time without much rain, but now, thanks to the remains of Hurricane Nicole, we're in for two solid days of rain.  I'm not fond of rain but our lawn and plants are. But that's not what I stopped by to discuss.  I believe that some time ago I discussed my own social media habits here, and they really haven't changed.  But what HAS changed is how the various services that exist have evolved since then.  So let's get into this. I'll start with Twitter, which is now owned entirely by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk (also known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, StarLink and the Boring Company, among others).  Since Musk assumed control he fired virtually all senior leadership, laid off a huge percentage of staff overall, asked a certain number of those laid-off employees to return, has flirted with charging for the privilege of being "verified" and creating a cottage industry of celebrity imp...

Really simple messaging today, everyone. VOTE tomorrow, because our country depends on it.  As it always does! VOTE tomorrow, because you need for your voice to be represented! VOTE tomorrow, because your right to do so is under assault! VOTE tomorrow, because we need conscientious elected officials, and not posers who will only serve a small percentage of the country! VOTE tomorrow for the candidates of your choice, because that's your right, just as it is mine and everyone else's! VOTE tomorrow, because, as my father used to say, if you don't vote, you don't have any right to complain! Just VOTE!!!!!!!!

It's go time, folks.  The midterm elections occur in just one week.  Are you ready?  Is the country ready? The appalling home invasion and assault of Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has brought the disturbing rhetoric of the political right into sharp focus, and it's an unpleasant sight.  But that's really nothing new, is it? I am not about to predict anything here....after the national polls were so completely wrong in the presidential race of 2016, I don't know that there are any polls that are complete enough to be reliable.  But I know what I see, and here are some of the things I've seen this summer and fall. Tim Ryan, a longtime Democratic House member from northeast Ohio who's now running against the carpetbagger J.D. Vance (who once detested Donald Trump but now loves him?!?).  The man is running without very much support from the national party leadership but says that he likes it that way.  If you recall, he ran for Preside...

Hello, friends. Hope the weather is decent where you live.  We're in one of those in-between periods where the mornings are REALLY cold and it warms up, but not as much as you think or hope.  And it's gonna be back into the 70s this weekend! We've had the pleasure of family visitors this week, the traveling party arrived last Saturday afternoon and will depart on Saturday morning.  It's our daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren, whom we had not seen in person in well over a year. And it's been wonderful to have them here, although our house does become a little crowded with four extra people and a dog added to our usual!  But as per usual, we make it work! So far we've had a big pizza party here at the ranch upon their arrival last weekend, a very nice family dinner at an historic site outside of Lexington on Sunday, a burger bash here at the house on Tuesday and we're planning to go out for Mexican food tomorrow night! In between we've had breakfas...

Greetings and happy October, now that the month is in full swing! Lots to be excited about, right?  We're in the thick of the college football season now, Major League Baseball has moved into its win-or-go-home postseason games (although I don't watch much when my team, the underfunded Cincinnati Reds, are not competing), leaves are turning, it's safe to order a pumpkin spice latte without being questioned (that's for a friend of mine who's a fan), and Halloween candy is abundant! I don't have a Halloween costume for this year, as has been the case for the last several years.  I was booed by my local grandchildren for saying I was dressed as a Kentucky football coach when I sported a UK cap and jacket on the big night.  Then I tried to claim I was dressed as "Bruce Wayne, eccentric billionaire," but they weren't having that, either.  I have a little time to think of something else. I spent parts of four days in the state of Tennessee last week and ...

Greetings and happy Monday!  I hope you had a fine weekend, and if you're into sports, hope your teams all won over the weekend! Have you ever heard the term "Q score?"  It's something that's used in the advertising and entertainment industries to note which celebrities are held in high esteem by the general public for whatever reason.  Advertisers don't want someone with a low Q score hawking their products any more than the producer of a blockbuster movie (if there is such a thing anymore) wants a low scorer on the Q scale to star in that picture.  The host of a network morning news show might have been chosen based on his/her Q score. For instance, in 2020, Oprah Winfrey had a Q score of 23 Positive.  Lester Holt, the anchor of NBC Nightly News, has an 18 Positive score.  So with that in mind I reference Qanon, which is a pretty out-there political/social group.  I say "out there" because of their origins.  They originated in 2017 or thereabout...

Good morning, again, from the road. All of the windshield time I’ve racked up of late gives me lots of time to think about….nothing in particular! Oh, I am an avid podcast listener, depending on the subject (mostly tech, politics and baseball), as well as audiobooks (nonfiction and biographies are my preferences).  But sometimes I just play music I like and let my mind wander where it will. So one of the many subjects my little brain landed on recently is the process companies go through when they rebrand certain products or even the entire company.  First example I happened upon was that of the Aunt Jemima brand of pancake mix, syrup and other similar products. No question, that but if rebranding was way overdue, as the name is offensive to many and always was.  But the company decided to pull a name out of obscurity, Pearl Milling Company, to replace their problematic former name.  Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it? Worth noting that baseball’s Cleveland...

It's Monday.  Need I say more? I love these short work weeks, as I'm taking Friday off to make a four day deal out of the Labor Day weekend.  I remain messed up pretty much all week, and will be so next week, too.  The cost of taking time off... I often express my frustrations about customer service issues in this space, and am about to do so again.  But let me first mention some instances of really good service! I can't really think of any, so here are some negative experiences I've had recently. My wife was involved in a fender-bender not long ago while I was on a business trip.  She and the occupants of the other car were all unhurt and she reported the claim (our first) to a very nice representative at the insurance carrier we currently use.  Did not hear anything for nearly a week, so I went online to their portal, where I had set up an account, and found the electronic version of a letter that the claims rep had apparently put into the mail.  You...

Good Monday morning to all.  Hope the weather is agreeable where you are, and not causing problems for you and yours. It seems that a number of things are moving rapidly toward a conclusion or some sort of inflection point where conditions will change dramatically.  And since I mentioned the weather, let's start there. I live in central Kentucky, but earlier in the month, about eighty miles to the southeast of where I live, the residents of what's colloquially referred to as eastern Kentucky experienced rainfall totaling nearly three and a half inches in about seven hours.  This raised the level of the Kentucky River by about twelve feet in some locations, and massive amounts of flooding occurred throughout the region. Thousands of residents either fled their homes or had to be rescued once they were cut off by the rising waters.  For those who have never visited this part of Kentucky, many parts are very hilly, bordering on mountainous, meaning that level ground exi...

Good Wednesday morning, everyone.  I write this morning from Chattanooga, Tennessee, where my business travels have brought me. And one thing that is an enduring feature of traveling for work is that your travels may go smoothly overall, but the trips are always populated by an almost equal number of good and bad things that happen along the way. For instance, our part of the world has had too much rain lately, as news reports from eastern Kentucky have shown.  So I am reluctant to complain too much about weather, but it is a factor in car travel and when you’re in sales, you nearly always have your hands full when you enter an account’s premises. So I am not a fan of umbrellas for that reason, but that preference does have its drawbacks, namely having to wait out heavy rain before returning to the car.  That did not happen yesterday but after my last call I decided to stop somewhere for an early dinner, but stayed in the car to let an absolutely torrential rain pass. ...

Greetings from RAINY Lexington!  You read that correctly, it's RAINING here!  So happy to finally get rain, and I mean that for the farmers in the region and the homeowners who like to have a lawn surrounding their homes! Speaking of homes, the title of this post could be used to infer the logical way that one would build a home--brick by brick.  But I have something else in mind for that phrase. Regardless of your political leanings, it's fair to say that most people who've paid some attention to the House Select Committee investigating the events of and leading up to January 6, 2021 have constructed a compelling narrative about those events and various people's involvement in them.  But it's also crystal clear that the intent of this well-structured series of presentations was to fully illustrate that former President Trump was at the center of all of these activities. Full disclosure--I was never a supporter of the former President, but recognized his and his cam...

Good afternoon to you....hope it's not too hot where you are. I'm kidding, of course.  Most of modern civilization is suffering from a major heat wave (or heat DOME, as weather people on television have christened this).  Our power is on and the A/C is working, so we're OK for now. For all of you keeping score, and I bet there are a few, yesterday was my 62nd birthday.  Which means I need to change my profile, among other things.  And I took the day off work, which I don't always do. Last year I saw my cardiologist on my birthday, which was quite a source of amusement when he noticed on my chart that it was my birthday.  This year I was scheduled for a haircut but was contacted by my barbershop last week with news that my barber is on three months (!) of jury duty.  So the haircut happened on Monday. So I suggested an early morning round of golf to a friend and we played yesterday morning.  Unfortunately, it began to get warmer early into the back nine...

Happy Monday, everyone.  I'm glad to report that central Kentucky finally is receiving some meaningful rainfall yesterday and today.  My lawn is especially happy about this. I've been collecting some thoughts over the past week or so about people whom I genuinely admire.  I may have positive thoughts about certain people (most of them famous in politics, business, entertainment, sports or other walks of life) but there are not as many for whom I have real admiration.  So allow me to share some of them, and why they have earned my admiration. Let's start with superstar chef and founder of World Central Kitchen Jose Andres.  I've mentioned him before, but I continue to be absolutely floored with the magnitude of this undertaking and how they always seem to be at every location of overwhelming need.  That includes natural disasters, such as the 2010 earthquake in Haiti (which was the first time I had heard of him or WCK), the humanitarian crisis caused by Hurr...

Happy weekend-after-a-Monday-holiday, everyone!  I don't know about you, but this week has felt like it was WEEKs long. It's been a hectic and interesting week here in central Kentucky.  I believe I mentioned in this space some time ago that we were trying to do some long-overdue projects to our house, as we weighed out the prospect of selling and then moving to another home, but ultimately opted to improve our current home here. We like the location and what's nearby and have lived in this house since 1996, so the prospect of packing up and moving was not that appealing! Anyway, we started down this path last year, armed with a good tax refund and some stimulus money that we socked away.  Last summer we had a fence replaced and also had our gutters and downspouts replaced.  And we planned to have our driveway and front walk torn out and redone, and even agreed to have it done by a contractor who never responded after we sent him the signed quote.  So we opted i...

Good Sunday morning to all.  Hope you're having a good weekend. It's a gross understatement that last week was a very full week indeed, with events of all types influencing how things will go from here.  So let's touch on some of the more important events worth mentioning. The Select Subcommittee on January 6 continued their public hearings last week, this time showcasing some powerful witnesses who spoke to the Trump Campaign's concerted efforts to disrupt and invalidate the electoral processes in multiple states in 2020.  The most powerful witness, in my view, was a state representative from Arizona named Rusty Bowers.  He is a Republican, and serves as the Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, and was and is a supporter for former President Donald Trump. Bowers spoke at length from a prepared statement and then answered questions from committee members, primarily Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger.  Bowers outlined events in Arizona that occurred ...

Greetings from the road, as I write this from the Nashville, Tennessee area, where I'm working for the next two days...  Lots going on in the world and in my part of it, too, so here's a smattering of what I've noted and have thoughts about. I'm still not ready to celebrate, but the "working group" of Senators may have come up with something they can agree upon in the area of revised gun regulations.  As the spearhead of this group, Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy said, it's not nearly everything that many wanted, but it's more than nothing, and the Senator was careful to say over and over that he would not reject good in search of perfect.  The group is supposedly now drafting the bill that the Senate will debate and potentially pass. The House has been busy doing many of the same things, so there will be a reconciliation of the bills each house develops. And the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurrection has now conducted two pu...

Happy Sunday, everyone.  Hope the weather is agreeable where you are.  We're experiencing a rare break from high heat and humidity here in Kentucky for at least a couple of days. As I mentioned recently prior to the actual date, I had cataract surgery last Thursday.  But I didn't really provide much of an explanation of the need and the hoped-for outcome.  That I am sitting before my computer typing and editing with ease should at least address the successful outcome, but there's a little more to tell. Several years ago, and I would be hard pressed to pinpoint the date, I began to have a lot of irritation in my left eye, much like we see in commercials for dry eye remedies.  Really had a bad bout on a visit to Colorado in the late spring of 2014.  My wife and I were there for a family occasion and the dry climate there, I thought, was the primary factor, as I kept complaining of how dry and irritated my eyes were.  Bought and used over the counter mois...

Wondering out loud if soon, FINALLY, we will see some action from members of Congress that could help, even if only a little, to curb the gun violence issues that plague our country. I will not enumerate the many, many instances where it seemed that we had finally reached that crossroads where Senators and Congressmen located their morals and decided to defy the gun lobby and the many voters who cherish their Second Amendment rights.  There have been too many such times and too few solutions arising from them. To add to the dismay of so many, especially those who lost loved ones in the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas just a week ago, we're now learning so much about the delay in confronting the attacker, who's responsible, and who actually made the first advance to putting a stop to this horrific attack.  As one would expect, lots of finger-pointing and even cries from the Governor of Texas, the head of the entire state government, that he was "misled," to use his wo...

I learned of our country’s latest mass shooting yesterday while traveling for business.  My post from Monday seems very silly and pointless now, so allow me to apologize. May the victims of this tragedy rest in peace and their families and friends find the grace and courage to go on.

Happy Monday, everyone....hope you had a good weekend with good weather. That's been quite a feat lately.  Here in central Kentucky, we had some unsettled weather last week and again over the weekend, with heavy thunderstorms, high winds and hail in some areas.  And here we are in the last full week of May and it's only gonna be 61 degrees today.  But climate change is a myth, they say.... Shout out to Kentucky native Justin Thomas, who scored an unlikely victory in the PGA Championship yesterday.  Thomas outlasted several other players yesterday, saving his best play for the final day, winning his second major championship (also a PGA) in a playoff with another young gun, Will Zalatoris (who also has some serious game despite some balky putting Saturday and yesterday).  Good on you, JT. The weekend wasn't so kind to rehabbing golf legend Tiger Woods, as he had such a difficult round on Saturday in cool and wet conditions that he wisely opted to withdraw from th...

The mass shootings of the last several days have really caused a lot of us to reflect on where we are as a society and what must surely be coming next. One thing is clear:  we don't have to wonder why these shootings happened. In Buffalo, the young assailant made it abundantly clear that he wanted to kill as many black people as possible when he killed ten at the Tops supermarket. In Southern California, a man of Chinese descent carried out his plan to shoot and kill as many Taiwanese church members as he could, because he hated them so much. In the Dallas area, a black man with delusions about Asian-Americans opened fire in a salon in Dallas' Koreatown and injured several employees.  The man was driving a van that fit the description of drive-by shootings at two other Asian-owned businesses in the area, but no injuries were reported in either of those drive-by incidents. The saddest part of all of this is that these people were all motivated by deeply held beliefs about non-w...

Happy weekend, everyone!  I returned yesterday from a four-day business trip, and it really is great to be home! Remember those T-shirts and bumper stickers that said "Question Everything?"  That's how I'm feeling this morning.  So here are some things I'd like to know more about.... Governmental officials and media experts are all over the map on where the conflict in Ukraine is heading.  Is it entering its final phase, will it last much longer or are those saying it could endure for several more months or even years right?  And can the U.S. and its NATO allies continue pouring resources into Ukraine to help it defend itself? What does Elon Musk plan to do with Twitter once it becomes his?  Does he plan to reinstate all who lost their privileges in the past, like a certain former President who's toying with running for office yet again?  Will he ensure discipline for those who break whatever rules exist under his leadership?  Will Twitter clients...

Good morning, wishing you and yours a very nice Easter or Passover, depending on what your household celebrates. I mowed our lawn yesterday in anticipation of hiding eggs for our grandchildren on Sunday. Hardly a day goes by without some amazing happenings or new reporting of things that already happened.   These are just a few such events. Since we last visited, the Honorable Katanji Brown Jackson was confirmed to be the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.  This despite being treated, in the words of a television commentator, like a little black girl who's being followed through a store because the manager is just sure she's about to steal something. Three Republican Senators actually voted FOR her confirmation, but the rest embarrassed themselves yet again by walking out of the chamber when the results of the confirmation vote were being announced.  Kentucky's own junior Senator, Rand Paul, embarrassed himself by literally sticking his hand out of the cloakroom...

As if you needed a reminder of what day it is.... Do you handle Mondays pretty well?  Or are you among the legions of folks who spend a good part of Sunday (evening, anyway) dreading the coming week and more specifically the first day of that week? I'd say in my case it depends. My job requires a team meeting every other Monday, although it's been every Monday at times, and was formerly every Friday.  I don't dread that meeting, but don't always find it that useful or enjoyable.  In past roles I was in charge of a team of people, and I, too, held Monday meetings, but tried my best to keep them relatively short and useful, mostly for the reasons I mentioned.  And I liked having them mid-morning, so that we could get them over with and get into our day. OK, was just wondering. My wife and I did something over the weekend that we had not done in over two years.  We had a day trip to Cincinnati for a little shopping and dining.  Things we don't have here in Lex...

Greetings from the road, my friends.  Woke up way too early for my current Central time location so thought I would post some thoughts. First, I am in total awe of the leaders and people of Ukraine for their grit and determination and understanding that preserving their country is entirely up to them.  President Zelenskyy has far surpassed most all “expert” expectations about his ability to lead and rally his people in this horrible situation. And more reports continue to surface indicating that between 5,000 and 10,000 Russian soldiers and other military personnel have been killed in the fighting in Ukraine, although Moscow is not about to provide a number or confirm these.  Another report says that five Russian generals have lost their lives in the conflict.  And apparently, the incompetence of some elements of the Russian military have led to bombs being dropped on Russian military encampments and widespread frostbite among its fighting force, as they were not pro...

Happy Friday, friends.  I hope it’s been a good week. Last week I was away on a business trip that involved two full days of travel, bookending a day of meetings at my employer’s location in northwest Indiana, not all that far from Chicago (and no, I didn’t have occasion to travel into the city).   This week was a little more typical for me, with three days of day travel, home every night.  But prior to that, I spent a little better than two hours at my dentist’s office getting a broken tooth crowned.  Fascinating process, whereby the dental office has a machine that make a crown in about an hour, based on a high quality scan of the area to be crowned.  I was pretty impressed, and happy not to go through the traditional process of temporary crowns, impressions and at least one return trip for installation of the permanent crown.  So that was good. It’s the second week of Lent, my wife’s least favorite six weeks of the year.  She is a devout Catholic an...

Good morning, everyone.  Hope you're ready for a good weekend and will have good weather.  The forecast for central Kentucky looks pretty good, especially for tomorrow. Still hoping for the best for the people of Ukraine.  Unfortunately, the Russian military appears to be asserting itself, and the flow of civilians out of Ukraine is now estimated to be around a million people.  With more to come. I'm just back from an overnight business trip this week.  In brief, here are some of the highlights of the trip: My company requires traveling employees to reserve a compact car, but because I have a membership with their preferred vendor, I almost always get an upgrade.  Monday night I went to pick up the car and my compact car turned into a Nissan Armada, a truck-based SUV that is, well, pretty big. The most expensive gas I saw during my trip was $3.89 per gallon for regular unleaded. We have a corporate deal with a hotel in the area where my employer's facility ...

I'm sure that you're now aware that Russian military assets, which have been amassing on various parts of the Russian and Belarussian borders of Ukraine for some weeks, have now begun their military operation in that country.  Russian President Vladimir Putin started this process by recognizing the independence of two areas of Ukraine that have for some time been known as controlled by Russian-sympathetic separatists earlier in the week, and the military action began sometime overnight in this country. It's somewhat difficult to know what's actually happening, as both Russian and Ukrainian media sources are portraying vastly different outcomes, each side indicating victory or achievement by their own side.  American journalists on the ground are reporting activity that appears to be Russian-initiated actions, which have included targeted strikes on military installations, airports and other key assets of the Ukrainian homeland. The most likely scenario that will come of...

Happy Thursday, friends.  For those of us who work conventional schedules, the work week is nearly over! And I have to say that I'm excited to see the Cincinnati Bengals, the NFL team from my hometown and the one closest to where I live, play the Los Angeles Rams, a childhood favorite, in Sunday's Super Bowl! I use Apple News as a news aggregator on my mobile devices, and sometimes I marvel at the headlines I'll see in a five minute or so period.  For instance: From Slate: "What happens to middle school kids when you teach them about slavery?  Here's a vivid example." From CNN Business: "Couple arrested for largest financial seizure by US government" From the Los Angeles Times: "Many Republicans think the NFL does too much for Black players and are losing interest in the league, poll shows" From NBC News: "Oregon man said he shot brother instead of bear, turns gun on himself" From Vulture: "Why your favorite film got snubbed ...