New Shoes in the Rain

Good morning, all.  Tuesday morning here in central Kentucky, the sun is shining and the weather is warming back up after a brief cold spell. I had not mentioned it here, but I recently became unemployed.  In keeping with my normal habit of NOT mentioning or describing work in this space, I won't elaborate, but suffice it to say that the change of status was not my idea. So I'm on the loose and in the market, so to speak.  And I have always found the process of job hunting, applying, interviewing and hiring to be a strange one.  I should add here that I spent about twelve years where this process was a primary part of my work, as I was in the temporary (and somewhat in the permanent) staffing industry for about ten years, then worked in a medical facility as a human resources manager for about two years. There was a time, not all that long ago, when anyone who'd had more than two jobs in ten years was loosely characterized as a job-hopper and therefore defectiv...

Top o' the mornin' to ye! Happy St. Patrick's Day to all, whether you're Irish or not (and, yes, I'm about 1/2 Irish, with Welsh and English as well).  No green beer for me today, but soon I'll make my customary Guinness Irish beef stew, which my wife and I will enjoy with some Irish soda bread from a local bakery! And today is also a day that some say should be a national holiday, given how it robs American business of so much productivity.  I'm speaking, of course, of the official start of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, also known as March Madness.  My Kentucky Wildcats play later tonight in Des Moines, Iowa, having been relegated to a #4 seed by the NCAA Selection Committee (who apparently had difficulty selecting their clothes for today as well). Recently been spending some of my spare time painting here at the ranch.  Regular visitors to this space will recall that we had engineered hardwood floors installed about a year ago in our main...

Greetings, friends.  I'm a little off schedule but wanted to stop by to share a few things from a variety of sources. I honestly think that the 2016 Presidential campaign has crossed over into the absurd, for both parties.    The Republicans appear to be banding together in some bizarre way to try to stop Donald Trump from winning their nomination.  The only problem is that someone keeps forgetting to tell the voters in so many states where Trump wins, and often wins by a large margin.  I read yesterday that now-departed candidate and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has reached out to two of the remaining candidates in the Republican race in an effort to defeat Trump.  Frankly, I wish them luck. I also saw that former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has decided not to run for President as an independent, and his reasoning is that he would divert votes from the Democratic nominee and all but assure Donald Trump the Presidency.  Sounds a bit l...

Good morning, friends  It's the day after Super Tuesday, so named because a few years ago numerous states decided they wanted a say in who would be nominated by each political party for President.  It's also the Wednesday after the Oscars, if that matters. Let's address the political stuff first.  Hillary Clinton continues her march of inevitability toward the Democratic presidential nomination.  Bernie Sanders isn't going to go away, as he won two primaries and a caucus last night, but Clinton won the rest and opened up a pretty large lead on her challenger. The Republican side is far more entertaining at present, as Donald Trump is still steamrolling his competitors for the most part.  Ted Cruz, the Tea Party Senator from Texas, won three states last night, and word is that Florida Senator Marco Rubio finally won a state as well.  But what's more intriguing is how the Republican Party is attempting to line up against a candidate that their own members...

Good morning to all.  I'm still a bit off my regular schedule (did I even have a schedule?) of posting because of a lot of recent days of travel.  So allow me to share a few stray thoughts this morning. The political landscape continues to become stranger and stranger.  Jeb Bush, the presumed Republican presidential nominee about a year ago, dropped out of the race (they all appear to use the word "suspended" in order to continue to have access to campaign funds to settle accounts) after another dismal finish in South Carolina.  Donald Trump continues to build on his lead in the delegate count as well as in the polls with his win there.  And Ted Cruz yesterday fired a top campaign aide for what was characterized as a dirty trick against Marco Rubio, but from what I read, the aide actually apologized to Rubio for an error before being fired. I suppose that the Democratic race is less strange, only because there are only two candidates there and one is named C...

Greetings, friends.  Late afternoon post today, as I had some time and a couple of odd things on my mind... Presidential candidate and Senator Marco Rubio got himself into some hot water during a debate Saturday night by repeating a portion of his stump speech in response to a question....three separate times. This made him look as though he cannot think on his feet, which he may or may not be able to do. But what really got to me is the wording of his "rehearsed" comments, in which he said that it was time to "dispel with the notion that...." Why did that bother me?  Well, if you look up the word "dispel," it means to "make disappear."  So one would "dispel a notion," not "dispel with a notion."  Not a big deal to most, but if one aspires to be President and is no more erudite than that, who's to say what else is lacking?  And, to be fair, he may not have written the line, which makes it all the worse, as that would...

Greetings!  Reporting from inside (thank goodness) here in central Kentucky, where we're receiving an unusual mixture of rain, sleet, hail and snow today.  This is predicted to last until sometime tomorrow, which should make things interesting tomorrow, to say the least. We joined with most of America and watched Super Bowl 50 yesterday (no, I don't usually use the "number" of the game, but this one is a nice round figure).  We had too many snacks of varying types, prepared a very loosely structured taco bar, and had a good time.  And that was made better by a win by the Denver Broncos, who just two years ago had a terrible time of it against the Seattle Seahawks. This time the Broncos were the dominant team, smothering Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers and containing their very potent offense.  The Denver defense was so dominant, in fact, that the game's Most Valuable Player was a defensive player, havoc-creating linebacker Von Miller.  Peyton Manni...